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Article Dans Une Revue Word and Image Année : 2014

Translating The Water-Babies into French and photography: the 1914 edition

Résumé

The Water-Babies by the Reverend Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) was published in 1863 and has never been out of print. Despite its being perceived — not unjustifiably — as a manifesto for ‘muscular Christianity’ in a dangerously Darwinian world, it is still generally considered to be a harmless children’s book, and as such has inspired scores of artists. The illustrations are often ‘watered down’, and the text frequently abridged, especially in translation. This study focuses on the only photographically illustrated French edition: the deluxe French edition of 1914, adapted by Henriette Mirabaud-Thorens, with photographs by Patrick Bataille and line drawings by Will. Herr. The adaptation is both linguistic and pictorial. Bataille situates the action in France, and Mirabaud-Thorens strips away everything too closely related to Britain and the original Victorian context. Whereas Kingsley, a fervent supporter of war, was writing at the very peak of the British Empire’s hegemony, Mirabaud-Thorens revises the work with very different ideas about patriotism during the lead-up to the First World War. Because of this historical configuration, the 1914 version is of special interest today, and the most revealing of all the French editions, being the one that best addresses the ideology of the original. The question that must be answered is the following: how do translator and photographer deal with the controversial tenets of the novel, namely that the moral development of the individual, and of a nation, is of the same nature as the evolution of the species?
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Dates et versions

hal-01504238 , version 1 (09-04-2017)

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Paul Edwards. Translating The Water-Babies into French and photography: the 1914 edition. Word and Image, 2014, 30 (3), pp.273-286. ⟨10.1080/02666286.2014.938538⟩. ⟨hal-01504238⟩
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