Resisting Enunciative Homogenization: Isabelle de Montolieu’s La Famille Elliot: The Case of the first French

Abstract

Jane Austen’s Persuasion (1818) is characterized by a marked use of free indirect discourse. Some of the novel’s most important passages are in FID. These passages often function to represent the interior monologues of the heroine, Anne Elliot. The syntax of FID is quite distinctive in so far as there is a complete absence of introductory verbs, which would otherwise serve to present reported speech or thought in a subordinate clause. This feature allows for a seamless embedding within the narration of the heroine’s thought and speech. Indeed, it is difficult for the reader to discern where free indirect discourse begins and ends in some contexts. This article focuses on the translation of FID in Isabelle de Montolieu’s La Famille Elliot (1821), the first French translation of Persuasion. For the benefit of her readers, Montolieu prefaces her translation with very penetrating insights into the central place Austen’s novel accords to representations of the heroine’s consciousness. Inspired by narratology, this present study compares extracts from Persuasion and La Famille Elliot with the aim of showing how FID functions in both works. The author demonstrates that the enunciative heterogeneity of the passages of FID in English is maintained in the French translation through a frequent recourse to a subtle use of the indefinite pronoun on in association with the imperfect.