TRANSLATION     WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?
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MOLIERE'S  TARTUFFE (Page 1)

INTRODUCTION  Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, who took the stage name of   Moliere, was one of the most popular French playwrights of the seventeenth century. His plays  have endured through the centuries, frequently being translated into other languages and performed in theaters throughout the world. In the present day, an English-language reader, looking for a translation of one of Moliere's best-known plays, Tartuffe, will usually find at least five different versions available in bookstores and libraries. This raises inevitable questions: Why is there a need for so many translations? And which, if any, is the "best"?

Finding possible answers to these questions requires first considering that Tartuffe is a play -- a work created to be performed for an audience by actors in a theater. Translating a play is in some ways very different from translating stories or poems, works which are created primarily to be read.

As an example, let's look at the opening words of Tartuffe in both the original French and a literal (word-for-word) translation. 

Madame Pernelle's words -- the first words spoken in the play -- are meant to be said as Mme. Pernelle is walking quickly, calling to her servant to follow her while her daughter-in-law Elmire is struggling to keep up with her. Moliere thus begins the play with a sense of impending chaos;  the audience immediately knows that something is wrong and that the household is in an uproar. Translators have to use words that will convey this feeling of action, thinking always of how actors might actually speak these lines while moving rapidly across the stage. 

Now here are four examples of how modern translators have translated these lines:

Each of these translators has had to find a way of balancing two primary concerns: translating the words accurately while making the words performable for the actors who will actually speak these lines. You'll note that the translators have made different kinds of choices. Perhaps the most obvious difference is in the number of words used. In the original version, Elmire's speech consists of one sentence of eleven words with no internal punctuation. Richard Wilbur's version -- "I can't keep up, you walk at such a pace"-- consists of ten words with an internal comma. John Wood uses one sentence of nine words -- "You're walking so fast we can hardly keep up." Christopher Hampton creates two sentences of eleven words with a question mark after the first sentence -- "Why are you in such a rush? We can't keep up." And finally, Rajiv Bolt uses just one word -- "Wait!" Each translator arrived at a different solution, recognizing that the translation being created would be a compromise between accuracy and performability. 

As another example, you'll see in the following boxes  four translations -- by Richard Wilbur, Christopher Hampton, Maya Slater, and Morris Bishop -- of Madame Pernelle's third speech in Act I, sc. 1, of Tartuffe. After you've looked at them, the exercise below will help you to examine their differences.

EXERCISE A.  In the boxes immediately above, you've seen four translations -- by Richard Wilbur,  Christopher Hampton, Maya Slater, and Morris Bishop -- of Madame Pernelle's third speech in Act I, sc. 1, of Tartuffe. In the left-hand boxes below, I've written five groups of words from the Richard Wilbur translation. Next to them, you should write in the words used by Hampton, Slater, and Bishop to express the same ideas. I've done the first one for you  so you can see how it's done. NOTE:  The words may be on different lines; you should look at the ideas being expressed rather than where the words are positioned.  

CLICK ON THE LINKS AT THE TOP OF EACH BOX TO REVIEW EACH TRANSLATION.