Translating Rimbaud's Illuminations' by Clive Scott

Abstract

MLR, 102.4, 2007 I159 such as Flaubert and Dostoyevsky (Chapter I), such techniques being more disturb ing in a lyricpoem than in a Flaubert novel. Corbiere challenges the assumption, taken to excess by Romanticism, that the lyricpoem can fully reflect the self, as he shakes up the traditional roles assumed by poet and reader.The author argues against theview thatCorbiere propagated theultimate impossibility of linguistic communi cation, however; on thecontrary, the lyricpoem's concern with subjectivity is reinvig orated. The study emphasizes thecolour, vivacity, andmateriality ofCorbiere's verse, and alludes toEliot's likening ofCorbiere's style to the conceits of the seventeenth centurymetaphysical poets. Chapter 4 deals with the 'thought-feeling' aspect of his love poems, where ideas are fused into emotion. The author also questions theoften held view that the realism of the earlyBrittany poems (Chapter 2) implies that they are purely biographical in genesis, fora keen ironic distancing isobservable at every step: 'Rather than speculating how farCorbiere might have taken a boat out to sea, it ismore fruitfulto focus on the stylistic combination of concrete realism and ironic distancing' (p. 54). Questioning thedichotomy set up between theBrittany and Paris poems, this study considers the interconnections as well as the differences between each. Irony is directed at the self in his Paris poems (Chapter 3), as the familiar nineteenth-century theme of art providing spiritual sanctuary in amaterialistic age is turned on itshead. Chapter 5 isdevoted to the most neglected part ofCorbiere's poetic production, theenigmatic Rondels pour apres. Described by Laforgue as 'laplus fine, laplus tenue, laplus pure partie comme art' ('Une etude surCorbiere', quoted p. I7 ), the six rondels are (rightly,considering the dearth of criticism on them) approached through a series of close readings, which elucidate their circular suggestivity. The author detects numerous, until now uncharted, allusions in the rondels,and discusses thePromethean yoking of poet and child therein.The songlike, sonorous rondel form, conveying simplicity and sophistication, matches the themewell. This lucidly and intricately argued book is essential reading for a deeper under standing of Symbolism, for the 'poet's poet' Corbiere was a significant precursor of the 'conversational-ironic' branch of themovement. His poetics of ironyneed to be grasped in order to gauge the pivotal role he played in liberating poetry from the constraints of verse. SWANSEA UNIVERSITY ANNA DAVIES TranslatingRimbaud's 'Illuminations'. By CLIVE SCOTT. Exeter: University ofExeter Press. 2oo6. 328 pp. j15.99. ISBN 978-o-85989-769-3. In thishighly stimulating and challenging work, Clive Scott proposes a range of new strategies for translating Rimbaud's Illuminations. Scott opens up new horizons in the field,going farbeyond the familiardebate about literaland liberal translation and traditional notions of fidelity to the source text.At the root of his approach is a con ceptualization of the original poem or source text as language in a state of perpetual devenir. It is the responsibility of the translator toemancipate thisoriginal text rather than enslave itor reduce it to any particular reading or interpretation. Translation should be multiple, not singular, and thisphilosophy is reflected throughout Scott's book in the renderings and reimaginings ofRimbaud's prose poems. While doffing his hat in thedirection of recent translators ofRimbaud such asTreharne and Sorrell, Scott veers off in a dramatically differentdirection from these practitioners. His is a much more experimental approach, leading his reader towardsmultitranslation, an engagement with the space of thewhole page, and parallels with visual arts such as painting, photography, and cinema. Quoting Robert Frost's dictum thatpoetry iswhat is lost in translation and inter pretation, Scott emphasizes translation as an act ofwriting and always a reflection ii6o Reviews upon language itself.He argues that interpretation is self-defeating inRimbaud's work, and indeed it would be hard tocontend thatenough interpretation of theRim baud canon does not exist already. The target textwill involve an expansion of the source text in termsof temporality, rhythm,and theacoustics and orality of thepoem. Chapter 4, 'The Voice inTranslation II', encourages the reader to think of textual spatialization and to consider poetry as cinema, where the ekphrastic is replaced by cinematic moving images. Scott makes many fascinating observations about typo graphical possibilities in translating the Illuminations, and this reviewerwas particu larlyattracted...