Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/6439
Title: Flaubert’s ‘Madame Bovary’ : analysis of various translations into English
Authors: Azzopardi, Jasamine
Keywords: Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880. Madame Bovary
French literature -- Translations into English
Discourse analysis, Literary
Issue Date: 2015
Abstract: In this thesis, I intend to analyse Gustave Flaubert’s most famous novel, namely Madame Bovary and its translation into English by various authors. To introduce the subject, Flaubert and his work will be presented briefly, and some information about the translators relevant to this analysis will also help the reader understand the background behind the translators’ work. This will be followed by several critics’ views on Madame Bovary, Flaubert himself and also on the three renditions which will be tackled in this thesis. These opinions will provide a general insight on what to expect in the three different English translations, and it will also serve as a framework to help determine any particular characteristics which may emerge from the analysis. Furthermore, a theoretical review on literary translation will follow, determining the tools which one can use to compare and contrast translations of a literary work. The main sections will be dedicated to the actual analysis. Although numerable English translations of Madame Bovary have surfaced over the years, only three translations have been chosen for this analysis, as a larger corpus would not enable the analysis to be carried out in detail. The three translations chosen as a corpus for this analysis are by Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Francis Steegmuller and Lydia Davis respectively, with Marx-Aveling’s work being the first known English translation of this famous French novel. The choice fell on these three particular renditions due primarily to their diversity, which made their analysis much more interesting. Apart from being written in a different language style, with Steegmuller’s and Davis’s translations featuring the use of American English, these translations also hail from different times. In fact, Marx-Aveling’s translation dates from the Victorian era, Steegmuller translated Madame Bovary in 1957 while Davis’s rendition, completed in 2010, is one of the most recent published English translations of the novel. Thanks to these three choices, this thesis will cover over a century of translations of Madame Bovary, as more than a hundred years separate Marx-Aveling’s work in 1886 from that of Davis. Moreover, the extracts from the novel which will be analysed are taken from Part II, Chapter XV of the novel and another one taken from Part I, Chapter VIII. Through detailed comparative analysis, differences and similarities between the three translations will emerge, and these will help draw conclusions on different ways to render a novel like Madame Bovary. As regards the analysis being carried out in this thesis, this will be divided in three main parts, depending on the elements being analysed in each case. The first part will be dedicated to linguistic analysis, taking into account syntax, choice of lexis and other factors related to language. The second part will focus more on culture in translation and the problems this poses to translators, while the third part of the analysis will deal with miscellaneous factors which may offer interesting insight into the world of the translator of Madame Bovary. The two extracts relevant to the analysis were chosen intentionally. The first extract taken from Part II, Chapter XV of the novel is highly descriptive and satisfies the criteria for linguistic analysis; while the second extract, taken from Part I, Chapter VIII of Madame Bovary, offers sufficient cultural connotations which the translator has to deliberate upon before making up his or her mind. The second extract also contains some dialogue, therefore these two texts offer the right mix necessary to assure impartial samples representing the whole novel.
Description: M.A.TRANSL.&INTERPRET.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar//handle/123456789/6439
Appears in Collections:Dissertations - FacArtTTI - 2015

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