The Rival Poet and the Literary Tradition: Translating Shakespeare’s Sonnets in French

Abstract

The first complete translation of the sonnets was published by François-Victor Hugo in 1857, but Amédée Pichot, Byron’s translator, was the first to translate a meagre choice of six sonnets in 1821. As is well-known, the reception of Shakespeare was delayed in France for cultural and political reasons, and his works ignored until Voltaire. But the first encounter with the sonnets came significantly later, even after the integration into the mainstream culture of Shakespeare’s drama, or translations of Milton. The contrast is astonishing, given the subsequent success of the sonnets in France. Over seventy translations, partial or complete, have appeared since Pichot’s. They manifest a variety of choices that reflect translators’ specific “horizons of translation” (Berman) and have different pragmatic functions and agendas. Many translators see their work as a confrontation with an iconic text often considered as the ultimate poetic touchstone. Shakespeare’s Sonnets have often worked as a magnet to French poets, as about half of the translators are themselves published poets. Focusing on several key moments of this long history, this chapter shows that translating Shakespeare’s Sonnets has often been a way of confronting a canonical “rival poet”, but also of challenging the French literary tradition itself.