Renascent Joyce

10. Joyce’s Hand in the First French Translation of Ulysses

10 Joyce’s Hand in the First French Translation of Ulysses Liliane Rodriguez Since it was published in 1929, seven years after the launch of the famous original, French readers of Ulysse have been familiar with credits on the cover of the first French translation: “Traduit de l’anglais par M. Auguste Morel, assisté par M. Stuart Gilbert. Traduction entièrement revue par M. Valery Larbaud avec la collaboration de l’auteur [Translated from the English by Auguste Morel, assisted by Stuart Gilbert. Translation entirely revised by Valery Larbaud with the collaboration of the author].”1 Yet several critics have questioned the extent of Joyce’s collaboration, since in the 1920s Joyce was already writing Finnegans Wake and was busy with Lucia’s illness and his eye problems. How could he possibly have spent any significant time on the French translation of his novel? Others have noticed that “Joyce himself was regularly approached on matters of detail and interpretation” (O’Neill 40). But his collaboration has never been clearly defined. To assess it, I collected a corpus of quotes, dispersed in a number of libraries, all referring to Joyce’s collaboration, articles and books, letters published and unpublished, correspondence crisscrossing between Joyce, Larbaud, Morel, Jean-Aubry, MarcelRay,Monnier,Weaver,Beach,Gide,Fargue,Gallimard,andsoforth, and other documents,such asthe early translatedexcerptsof Ulyssesandthe final two complete typescripts of the French Ulysse, annotated by Larbaud, Morel, Gilbert, and Monnier.2 While reading letters we seldom pay close attention to short comments like“Ihavesentyouthemanuscript”or“Haveyoureceivedmysuggestions?” But when one starts collecting such incidental remarks, a corpus builds up. Joyce’s Hand in the First French Translation of Ulysses 123 Although incomplete, it issubstantial enough, with over six hundred quotes, toinvestigateJoyce’sparticipationintheFrenchUlysse.The questionis,Was he casually involved or fully committed? And why would he care at all, when he had so many other pressing issues to deal with? He cared because Morel’s French too often slid into outdated naturalism and symbolism, tendencies that Joyce could not allow in the translation of his groundbreaking masterpiece . This article examines evidence of Joyce’s consistent role in the French translation of Ulysses. It demonstrates that his involvement and commitment were driven by his innovative aesthetic program. The 1929 French translation can be seen as the English original reborn. Its rebirth was a difficult one, spanning seven years of intense collective labor , quite similar to the double birth of Mortimer Edward Purefoy and of the English language in the “Oxen of the Sun” episode of the novel. Its “renascence ” is also related to the Renaissance in that Joyce, the translator and reviewer, perpetuates the great tradition of sixteenth-century humanists, like Estienne Dolet,3 who believed in the artistic and philosophical importance of translation, and who worked in earnest and anxiety, just like Joyce and his team did. Their steady collaboration during the 1922–29 adventure of the first French translation bears testimony to the survival of a Renaissance ideal: the resilient belief in the necessity of disseminating groundbreaking texts through translation and their view of translation as an art, a craft, and a vector of enlightenment in the face of censorship. The legal tornado whipped up by the original Ulysses in 1922 also draws Joyce closer to Dolet and the legal torments he endured all of his life (Alary). Four centuriesapart ,andthroughdifferentdegreesofadversity,bothhadtoconfront dogmatism,whether religious or artistic, and still,both contributed tremendously to European humanism. The following pages will demonstrate the author’s active participation in the first translation of Ulysses and will point out the five translation principles that Joyce and his translators shared with Dolet, who defines them in La manière de bien traduire d’une langue en aultre (1540).4 First we will look at the team of translators that Joyce assembled, and his interaction with them. A Chronology of Joyce’s Contact with His Translators Documents show that Joyce became involved in the translation from the start, in 1921. He participated in the first translation attempts of three 124 Liliane Rodriguez excerpts, from “Telemachus,” “Sirens,” and “Penelope,” intended for the December 7, 1921, Reading Event, held in Paris, at Adrienne Monnier’s Maison des amis des livres. Valery Larbaud gave a lecture on Joyce and read these excerpts in French. The latter had been “selected” by Larbaud, as related by Joyce (LIII 53). Monnier had asked Jacques Benoist-Méchin to translate the excerpts when Larbaud said...