Écrire l'histoire ou écrire pour l'histoire? Writing, Translation, and Gender in the Autobiography of Victorine de Chastenay

Abstract

Women have long played important roles as translators of literary texts, yet their literary activities in this field have not received the full critical attention they merit. This article examines Victorine de Chastenay's autobiographical depiction of her status as an author and translator in nineteenth-century France through the lens of gender and genre, paying particular attention to the activity of translation with regard to the division of 'masculine' and 'feminine' literary genres. What is the relation among translation, literary creation 'proper', women's creativity, and the domain of intellectual activity? This essay teases out the tensions present between translation, a permissible, imitative feminine literary practice, and literary creation, a practice fraught — for women — with transgressive connotations. It examines the ways such constraints affected Mme de Chastenay's literary reputation and exemplified the generic restrictions set for women writers in nineteenth-century France.