Rendering personifications in the 19th century French translations of Mikhail Lermontov’s novel “A Hero of Our Time”

Abstract

Metaphor is often viewed as a controversial research problem and is, undoubtedly, one of the greatest challenges in translation. As a type of metaphor, personification is a common literary device and the way of understanding and representing reality. In this paper, the author tries to provide a descriptive study of the translators’ choices used for rendering the personifications in the translations of Mikhail Lermontov's novel “A Hero of Our Time”. The current scrutiny is based on five French translations made during the 19th century by A. A. Stolypin (1843), J. - M. Chopin (1853), E. Scheffter (1855), X. Marmier (1856), and A. de Villamarie (1884). Comparative semantic and functional approach constitutes the framework for the study and aims at describing and analyzing the translators’ choices. The typology of metaphor translation strategies suggested by R. Van den Broek completes the methodological basis. The back translation serves for a more explicit illustration of the acquired data. Our analysis shows that in most cases translators convey personification rather successfully. However, the translators’ choices and resulting interpretations are likely to vary markedly. Along with that, the rendering personifications by a non-metaphorical expression are another quite well marked mode of translation, whilst the rephrasing by similes is of infrequent occurrence and is the least exploited one. The analysis of translations which are made at the periods close in time to the creation of the original is of undoubtedly scientific interest, because it conduces to better understanding of individual translator’s decisions in relation to a historical and social context and offers interesting prospects for ulterior retrospective comparative study. The author intends to continue a more in-depth consideration of this problem in further researches.