Fitzgerald's Many Places: (Re)translation and Displacement

Abstract

Abstract This keynote address presented at the 15th International F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Conference in Toulouse, France, on 28 June 2019, examines several theoretical issues arising from French translations of various Fitzgerald works. Drawing from a range of translation theorists including Friedrich Schleiermacher, Clive Scott, Antoine Berman, and others, it explores in particular the “in-betweenness” of translation, noting how translators are akin to frontiersmen and women operating on textual borders by observing the “exchanges and shifts” inherent in linguistic choices and reception contexts. Focusing on the author's own translations of Tales of the Jazz Age, it discusses the challenges of navigating between literalism and figurative approximation by contrasting her search for French corrollaries to American colloquialisms with those of Suzanne Mayoux, an earlier translator of two key stories from that collection, “The Camel's Back” and “The Jelly-Bean.” It then turns its attention to four extant French translations of Tender Is the Night, noting how differently Marguerite Chevaley (1951), Jacques Tournier (1985), Phillippe Jaworski (2012), and Julie Wolkenstein (2015) address nuances in Fitzgerald's expatriate novel. Ultimately, the range in these translations suggests the liminal position Fitzgerald occupies in the French literary marketplace.