The Translator and the Myth of the Public: "Introductory Remarks" to the First French Translations of Swift, Young, and Shakespeare

Abstract

In this essay, I propose to examine how a reliable tool of history and criticism-the concept of the horizon of expectations mediating between particular works and their public reception-may prove to be a fictitious and mythical entity. I will show that the notion of is used, avant la lettre, paradoxically and at cross-purposes by the first French translators of Swift, Shakespeare, and Young. I will argue that Desfontaines, La Place, and Le Tourneur set out, not unlike the modern historian-interpreter of reception, to articulate the collective background of expectations (against which new works are subsequently silhouetted).1 They struggle both to structure the prevailing horizon and to prepare it for a potential transformation. Yet, their attempts remain suspended in a state of self-defeating tension. The discovery of a short-circuit in the process of establishing a reliable horizon for the reception of alien works implies, at the same time, a novel and highly selective approach to the study of translations. Contrary to suggestive current critical practices (inspired by both Russian Formalism and theories of reception), no attempt will be made here to assess either the historical function or the mode of insertion of 18th-century translations from the English into a prevalent French literary system.2 Nei-