The Translation and Reception of Tony Harrison’s Poetry in France

Abstract

Cécile Marshall, whose doctoral thesis analysed Harrison’s poems, films and plays (Université Michel de Montaigne, Bordeaux 3, Bordeaux, France), went on to translate some of these works into French. In this article, she concentrates on the more creative side of her engagement with Harrison’s poetry, her activity as Harrison’s French translator. Providing a few samples from her French translations, she describes the processes at work in translating rhymed verse into French, acknowledging difficulties, doubts and discoveries, and analyses the specificities of rhythm and meter in Harrison’s poetry that must flow, even if differently, from one language into another. She also traces the different French translations, from Quebec to Belgium and France from the late 1990s onwards which show the appeal of Harrison’s poems, as well as the difficulty of making this prolific poet accessible in translation. Cécile Marshall comments on her own contributions as a translator of Harrison into French for different occasions: poetry readings and screenings in Paris or Nantes; publications in monolingual or bilingual editions. She also underscores the vital help and encouragement she received from Harrison who was always attentive to the music of the French versions of his own poetry, a collaboration that owed the poet and his translator to be honoured with the Strasbourg European Prize for Literature in 2010.