Abstract
Based on Bolduc’s experience of translating an ‘absent’ preface—that is, the preface written by Chaïm Perelman to his Empire rhétorique (1977) but omitted from the English translation, Realm of Rhetoric (1982)—she explores here the play of absence and presence in relation to the genre of the preface and the practice of translation. Perelman’s preface, and its absence in the English translation, raises questions not only about the nature of the preface in philosophical works, but also about the nature of the translator preface in philosophical translation. Moreover, Perelman’s own definition of ‘presence’ as essentially rhetorical offers both an elucidation of why his preface was not initially translated, and a means of evaluating, and even constructing, the presence of the translator.
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Notes
- 1.
While Perelman composed a foreword in English for the English translation of the Traité, it is comprised chiefly of Perelman’s acknowledgments and expressions of gratitude for the introduction of his ideas to American audiences (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969: v–vi); it also omits his co-author Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca’s contributions.
- 2.
- 3.
If Perelman could be described as a logician, Olbrechts-Tyteca was not only a sociologist but also a widely read and erudite lover of European literature, and the numerous references to and quotations of literature throughout the Traité can be considered as one of her signature contributions. See her retrospective 1963 article (3), and Frank and Bolduc (2010).
- 4.
See Quintilian’s definition of the exordium (Quintilian 2014: IV.i.5); I would note that philosophers frequently revise their prefaces. Spivak sees the preface as an expository rather than literary exercise (Spivak 1997: x); McCormack , however, has recently proposed writing prefaces based on the Aristotelian sensus communis, thereby disrupting the standard academic prose of analytical philosophy (McCormack 2008: 848).
- 5.
The term preface derives from the Latin praefatio, a preliminary form of words, a formulaic announcement which Spivak terms a “saying before-hand” (Spivak 1997: x).
- 6.
Michael Hoffman has recently described the experience of translation as “pre- or antirational” (Hoffman 2016: n.p.), which places translators of philosophy in a strange bind.
- 7.
Perelman’s criticism of Barthes , Genette , and Ricoeur is also very personal: he writes in this preface “It is not enough to assert peremptorily that a study [i.e., his own Traité] conceived in such a way ‘is situated on the margins of most of the modern recovery of rhetoric’ in order to be able to disregard it” (Perelman 1977: 15), and thus refers pointedly to the special issue on rhetoric of the journal Communications (6, 1970) in which the essays of Barthes and Genette originally appeared, and in which Perelman’s Traité was treated in but the briefest terms. In a letter written to Philippe Minguet the following year (25 April 1978), Perelman reveals that he wrote this preface precisely to call attention to how these theorists made use of his work without proper attribution. Bruxelles, Université libre de Bruxelles Archives Perelman 89 PP 24.2.
- 8.
- 9.
As Arrojo’s argument that the Barthean ‘death of the author’ has generated a “recognition of the translator’s inescapable role to the translated text” (Arrojo 1997: 30) is paired with the limits of translator’s visibility , it points not only to how contemporary translators have ended up abandoning authorship (see Pym 2005), but also to a conception of the translation-author as “derivative, not self -originating” (Venuti 1998: 43).
- 10.
Spiessen does not emphasize Amossy’s insistence that all discourse is inherently persuasive, however, perhaps because it conflicts with the prescriptions of fidelity and invisibility traditionally placed upon the translator. Discourse analysis has long been a subject of interest in translation theory. See, for example, Blum-Kulka (1981), Hatim (2011: 89, 91) sees texts and discourse as rhetorical in discourse analysis.
- 11.
Although Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca acknowledge that presence is not a notion that is well-developed philosophically, they nevertheless differentiate their conception of presence from philosophical formulations in which presence serves as a cornerstone, such as ontology (Buber) or anthropology (Sartre) (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1958: 159–60; 1969: 119).
- 12.
Both the Traité and L’Empire rhétorique draw their illustrative examples from literary as well as philosophical works.
- 13.
- 14.
Conscience here does not mean a moral conscience as in English, but rather that faculty tied to knowing and, by extension, reason.
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Bolduc, M. (2018). Absence and Presence: Translators and Prefaces. In: Boase-Beier, J., Fisher, L., Furukawa, H. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Literary Translation. Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75753-7_18
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