Du βάθος au bathos : la traduction à l’épreuve de la théorie stylistique

Abstract

Based on a survey of various translations of the word βα ´ θο in the Longinian theory of the sublime issued since the seventeenth century, this paper shows the impact of the history of literature, and especially of stylistic theorisations, on the partly unconscious positioning of a new translator facing this difficult passage of the first-century treatise. The introduction of the transliterated word bathos in English with Pope’s Peri Bathous, and the entry of this notion into encyclopediae of poetics favor the injection, into Longinus’ phrase, of concepts which novelty is each time valued as being worthy of Longinus’ historical originality. This eventually leads to specify an autonomous stylistical meaning of the noun βα ´ θο , which, once included in Ancient Greek dictionaries, induces a lasting distortion in the understanding of this word.