17. Appearing Jane, in Russian

Abstract

How Russian is Russian Jane Eyre? To what extent does a new translation reimagine the protagonist? This essay considers translation variation through the example of Jane’s physical appearance in the six Russian translations of Jane Eyre. It argues that translation variation affects interpretation in crucial yet often undetected ways with a focus on special cases like Jane’s, of a narrator-protagonist whose looks are deliberately ambiguous in the original, from her irregular features to the colour of her eyes.