« Il faut traduire le style, pas les mots »

Critique littéraire, écrivain, essayiste, photographe, Martin de Haan est aussi, et avant tout, ambas­sa­­deur de la traduction littéraire. Tout au long de sa carrière, il n’a cessé de souligner le rôle essentiel du traducteur qui, selon lui, a longtemps été négligé par la politique culturelle et éditoriale. Il a traduit une quarantaine d’ouvrages de littérature française en néerlandais. Figurent dans sa bibliographie, outre la traduction quasiment intégrale de l’œuvre de Michel Houellebecq et de Milan Kundera, les noms d’entre autres Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Benjamin Constant, Vivant Denon, Denis Diderot, Jean Échenoz, Marcel Proust et Joris-Karl Huysmans. C’est dire que les classiques français sont dans le collimateur de ce lauréat du prix Elly Jaffé 2018 (prix triennal de la meilleure traduction en néerlandais d’une œuvre franco­phone).

Forms Used to Convey Reported Speech in French Epistolary Novel

The article is focused on the study of forms used to convey reported speech in the French epistolary novel of the 18th–20th centuries. The study is based on the novels Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Mémoires de deux jeunes mariées by Honoré de Balzac, and Les jeunes filles by Henry de Montherlant, which are prominent examples of the epistolary novel of the respective epochs. Proceeding from duality of the epistolary novel, i.e., a combination of the form of a letter andthe genre of the novel, the French epistolary novel is defined by its special structure and composition, which determine perception of the information delivered in the novel. The form that conveys reported speech is aligned with writer’s intention. A descriptive variant of presenting dialogues prevails, while the use of direct speech in decisive moments of narration results from the pursuit of credibility. When the credibility is not more important, the reported speech is used to describe the characters and cover their characterisations. Indirect speech is used in an epistolary novel more often, but free indirect speech is virtually absent, which is explained by the absence of narrative speech that is usually interpreted via free indirect speech.