Les enjeux du vernaculaire noir-américain dans la traduction baudelairienne du « Scarabée d’or » : lorsque le dialecte porte l’empreinte du sens

Abstract

Can literary translation function as a decolonizing instrument without misrepresenting textual meanings? This translation study attempts to answer the question through an analytic approach to the Baudelairian translation of “The Gold-Bug.” Such an examination requires the meticulous study of the decisions made by Charles Baudelaire to represent African-American language and mindset, Edgard Allan Poe’s literary devices and subversive language, and more generally the real issue of this well-known short story, i.e., representing slavery in pre-Civil War South Carolina. Although select decisions made by the translator seem to extralinguistically depict the racist and racial system in place, this study reveals tensions, which are indisputably inherent to the translation process itself, as well as the unavoidable use of translation approaches such as domestication, which alter the impact of the text on the reader. In particular, the untranslatability of Black American Vernacular English (AAVE) remains a core issue, and further fuels the debate concerning the role of literary translators in their dealing with dialects, sociolects, idiolects, etc.

Keywords

• The Gold-Bug
• Le scarabée d’or
• Baudelaire
• Poe
• translation
• translation studies