La mise en scène du créole martiniquais dans le Cahier d’un retour au pays natal d’Aimé Césaire

Abstract

Aimé Césaire’s Cahier d’un retour au pays natal reflects a polyglossic poetics. This hidden “dialogism” (M. Bakhtine) constitutes a “reterritorialization” of French language (A. Dyck). This reterritorialization is based on a diachronic relation with Latin language, and on a synchronic relation with Creole language. Moreover, an ironic rereading of Terence Afer expresses the humanist dimension of this multilingual aesthetics. Thus, following the thread of Derek Walcott’s intuition, the presence of Creole language is explored within the section where the narrator strikingly sets himself up as a spokesperson. Accordingly, this investigation determines dialogical and ecological options for the translation: the rejection of “optimal deviance” for the benefit of a humanist apprehension of Martiniquan’s varieties, the respect of the source’s grammar and the adoption of Gilbert Gratiant’s orthographic system.

Keywords

• Césaire (Aimé)
• Cahier d’un retour au pays natal
• Créole language
• translation studies
• poetry
• dialogism