“The Philosophy of Translation”: F. M. Dostoevsky and H. Balzac’s novel Eugénie Grandet

Abstract

This article examines F.M. Dostoevsky’s translation of H. Balzac’s novel Eugénie Grandet. In the beginning of the article the author reviews other researchers’ works concerning the same problem. The article clearly demonstrates the necessity of a complete analysis of the original and of the translation to see their main semantic lines, because only on the base of such analysis we will have an opportunity to interpret the details of the text adequately. A comparative examination of the fragments of the texts without a previous analysis of the whole plot is a methodological mistake often made by researchers. The article is concerned with the preface and the afterword to the novel Eugénie Grandet that weren’t included in the latest edition but were present in the earlier text translated by F.M. Dostoevsky. These fragments are important for the understanding of the plot of the whole novel and also for the understanding of the changes made by the translator. Thanks to a complete examination of the two works, many Dostoevsky’s attitudes that cannot be so clearly extracted from his early works becomes evident, for example, the metaphysical conception of the woman as a place where God’s presence is manifested in the most evident way, as a person who stands in the hierarchy of living beings one step higher than man, who must reach her by making unceasing efforts to transfigure himself.

Keywords

• f.m. dostoevsky
• h. balzac
• eugénie grandet
• translation
• woman
• connection to heavens