Modernités shakespeariennes : le cas de la traduction

Abstract

How is Shakespeare translated into French nowadays? And how do his translators contribute to making him modern? In this essay, we will examine and compare translations by Yves Bonnefoy, Jean-Michel Déprats, André Markowicz and Pascal Collin, raising the following questions: how is Shakespeare’s verse rendered? To what effect do translators choose free or syllabic verse? How can translators do justice to the polysemy of Shakespeare’s language? What becomes of notions which seem dated in 21st-century France? Through the use of a modern idiom, translators can adapt them to the present context, insuring that audiences understand what is at stake and laugh when the situation calls for it. However, modernizing the idiom does not necessarily involve conveying Shakespeare’s poetry or the theatrical dimension of his plays. In French translations, making Shakespeare modern is thus less a matter of updating his idiom than of working on the poetic dimension of the French language, pushing back the limits of what is deemed receivable.

Keywords

• rhythm
• verse
• gestus
• polysemy
• modernizing