Ideology, Censorship and Translation

Martin McLaughlin, Javier Muñoz-Basols, Martin McLaughlin, Javier Muñoz-Basols

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367609900
• eBook ISBN: 9781000356281
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This volume invites us to revisit ideology, censorship and translation by adopting a variety of perspectives. It presents case studies and theoretical analyses from different chronological periods and focuses on a variety of genres, themes and audiences. Focusing on issues that have thus far not been addressed in a sufficiently connected way and from a variety of disciplines, they analyse authentic translation work, procedures and strategies.

The book considers the ethical and ideological implications for the translator, re-examines the role of the ideologist or the censor—as a stand-alone individual, as representative of a group, or as part of a larger apparatus—and establishes the translator's scope of action. The chapters presented here contribute new ideas that help to elucidate both the role of the translator throughout history, as well as current practices. Collectively, in demonstrating the role that ideology and censorship play in the act of translation, the authors help to establish a connection between the past and the present across different genres, cultural traditions and audiences.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice.

Notes on Charles Darwin’s thoughts on translation and the publishing history of the European versions of [On] The Origin of Species

Carmen Acuña-Partal

The history of the European translations of Charles Darwin’s [On] The Origin of Species is discussed to demonstrate how ideological manipulation, censorship, and publishing strategies affected the reception of one of the most influential texts in the history of science. Darwin’s involvement in the translation process is herein traced in his autobiographical writings and in the letters he exchanged with his continental translators and publishers. Aware of the decisive influence of translation on the correct understanding of his work abroad, and, in spite of his wishes to control the dissemination of his theories, Darwin had to cope with instances of overt ideological manipulation in some of the first versions he authorized, which forced him to seek out other translators to undertake new non-biased translations. The worldwide publishing success of the book came after his death, although manipulated, fragmented, or illegal editions in English and other languages also seem to have proliferated thereafter, in an increasingly complex book market not either exempt from the havocs wreaked by censorship or spurious commercial interests. The resulting overall picture sheds some light on central issues pertaining to the reception of classical texts in science barely examined in the field of Translation Studies to date.

1. Introduction

The history of the European translations of Charles Darwin’s [On] The Origin of Species (OS) is outlined in this paper, with a focus on his involvement, as an author, in the translation process, and on his frustrated expectations with some of the versions he authorized, as well as the extent to which ideological manipulation, censorship, and publishing strategies affected the international reception of a book which, since its first edition in 1859, triggered an intellectual revolution that undermined the foundations of religion and morality on a worldwide scale. In order to respond to criticism by his fellow scientists, Darwin painstakingly combined the preparation of subsequent revised editions of OS in English in 1860, 1861, 1866, 1869, and 1872, which contain an endless number of textual changes, as summarized in Peckham (1959, p. 9), with his supervision of foreign versions, in close contact by mail with his continental translators and publishers.

The issue of the author’s concerned presence and intervention in the translation process – well documented in the cases of Vladmir Nabokov or Umberto Eco – is dealt with by Groff and Ivančić, who, as Zanotti (2011, p. 85) points out, address ‘the genetic aspects of translation, which have only recently started to attract scholarly attention’. While Groff (2011, p. 155) recounts his experience as a literary translator working closely together with Günter Grass as ‘an interpretative attempt, the arbitrariness of which is minimized if not eliminated thanks to the work carried out with the author’, Ivančić (2011, p. 163) describes Claudio Magris’ involvement in the translation of his texts through an epistolary exchange with his translators, in which the writer’s participation is regarded as dialogue rather than intervention or imposition. This fresh insight into an author’s correspondence, also considered to be key reference material for historians of science within new methodological approaches to reception (White, 2008, p. 54), well deserves, in our view, to be further investigated in Translation Studies, and could add to Chesterman’s (2009) idea of ‘Translator Studies’, as well as to Pym’s (2009) aim to ‘humanize’ Translation History.

Our brief account of the history of the European versions of OS draws mainly on Darwin’s own thoughts on authorship and translation in his correspondence and autobiographical writings, and on the work of a number of historians of science who allude to or value the role of translation when writing on the international reception of Darwinism.¹ In the first two sections of this paper we explore Darwin’s interest in actively promoting his work abroad, his disappointed expectations with some of the early European versions of OS – which were widely disseminated and also the source of further indirect translations – and his perseverance throughout the years in authorizing and negotiating new editions with his translators and publishers, while, in a third section, we examine the resilience and enduring success of OS after Darwin’s lifetime in a book market often affected by the havocs brought about by censorship and dubious commercial interests.

2. Darwin’s early disappointed expectations: the German (1860), Dutch (1860), and French (1862) editions

Aware of the decisive influence of translation on the correct understanding of his theories abroad, prior to the publication of OS on 24 November 1859, Darwin confessed to London-based publisher John Murray his desire to see the book published in other languages: ‘I am extremely anxious for the subject sake [sic] (& God knows not for mere fame) to have my Book translated; & indirectly its being known abroad will do good to English sale’ (entry-2531).² In the hope that some naturalist would request authorization to translate the text – as, at that time, the initiative to publish a work in a foreign language was usually within the scope of the translator, who would aspire to gain permission directly from the author and negotiate a contract with a specific publishing house (Browne, 2002, p. 140) – Darwin readily negotiated the preparation of new editions and translations with his publisher.

On 4 February 1860, an eager Darwin sent a letter to eminent zoologist and palaeontologist Heinrich Georg Bronn, thanking him for his offer ‘to superintend’, to a certain extent, a translation which Schweizerbart was willing to publish in Stuttgart: ‘I am most anxious that the great & intellectual German people should know something about my book’ (entry-2687). On 14 February, he stressed the importance of choosing good German terms for ‘Natural Selection’, which Bronn, in a previous review of OS, had translated as ‘choice of life-style’, leaving on Darwin’s mind the impression ‘of the Lamarckian doctrine (which I reject) of habits of life being all important’ (entry-2698).³

On 25 February, in the knowledge that it would be Bronn himself who would translate the work instead of merely supervizing it, Darwin wrote to clarify the meaning of several terms that the translator had queried and expressed his joy at the forthcoming publication of the first German version of OS (Darwin, 1860b), based on the second English edition (entry-2698). On 14 July, Darwin thanked Bronn for the third part of the translation he had received and, also, not without candour, for a final chapter of criticisms by the translator himself: ‘I shall of course carefully read the whole chapter […] I shall ever consider myself deeply indebted to you for the immense service & honour which you have conferred on me in making the excellent translation of my book’ (entry-2867).

Darwin had scarcely expected a translator, however eminent, to adjust OS’s argument to suit himself. Armed with some heavy German dictionaries, he struggled through Bronn’s pages to see what had been done, but it would be Miss Camilla Ludwig, the new German governess at Down House, who would finally translate the epilogue for him (Browne, 2002, p. 141). Darwin’s initial satisfaction turned to bewilderment when he understood that the translator had therein voiced his disagreement with the main thesis of OS, in an unfavourable review ‘sewn within its own binding’, as Montgomery (1988, pp. 91–92) puts it. In a letter to Bronn dated 5 October, Darwin cautiously, and with a remarkable pinch of humour, mentioned the chapter of criticisms: ‘The objections & difficulties, which may be urged against my view, are indeed heavy enough almost to break my back; but it is not yet broken!’ (entry-2940).

Furthermore, Bronn’s translation is, according to Rupp-Eisenreich (1996, pp. 834–835), somewhat cumbersome and unreliable. While the full English title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, in Bronn’s translation ‘struggle for life’ is rendered as ‘battle, or war for one’s being’,⁴ ‘suggesting a war to the death for every creature’, and ‘favoured races’ as ‘perfected races’,⁵ thus introducing ‘an element of racial hierarchy’. The implications fed into ‘“Social Darwinism” […] never part of Darwin’s own policy or vision’ (Shaffer & Glick, 2014, p. 4). Moreover, Bronn left out a number of sentences of which he did not approve, such as the conspicuously cryptic ‘Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history’ (Darwin, 1860a, p. 488).

On 28 July 1861, having received a parcel by post, Darwin expressed his surprise to British botanist J. D. Hooker: ‘There is a Dutch (!) Translation of “Origin” come out’ (entry-3221). The reception of the Dutch version (Darwin, 1860c), translated by renowned geologist and paleontologist T. C. Winkler, and published in Haarlem by A. C. Kruseman, was to be conditioned – like Bronn’s German version – by the fact that Jan Van der Hoeven, professor at the University of Leiden, added to the work his own translation of a review criticizing the book, signed by mathematician and geologist William Hopkins (Bulhof, 1988, p. 279).

Bronn later suggested to Darwin the possibility of publishing a second German edition, and, in a letter dated 11 March 1862 (entry-3470), Darwin expressed his wish to include in the text the corrections which he had introduced in the third English edition of 1861, wherein he responded to Bronn’s criticisms. Apologizing for the extra work heaped upon the translator, Darwin explained:

I […] have marked with a pencil line all the additions & corrections […]. I very much hope you will add to the load of kindness already conferred on me by looking through the English Sheets & correcting the new German Edition by them. (entry-3519)

On 11 July, he forwarded him a footnote (entry-3652), not knowing that his translator had died of a heart attack on 5 July. The German edition of OS, which Bronn completed before passing away, finally appeared in 1863.

On 10 September 1861, Darwin asked Murray to send off ‘a copy of last Edit. of Origin to Madelle. Clemence Auguste Royer’, a self-taught free-thinker and proto-feminist exiled in Switzerland, ‘as she has agreed with a Publisher for a French Translation’ (entry-3250). Her contacts with the publishing house Guillaumin of Paris must have had a decisive influence on Darwin’s acceptance of Royer’s proposal to translate OS, as probably did her reading of a review by Swiss naturalist Edouard Claparède play a part on her resolution to undertake the translation. Guillaumin established an alliance with Parisian publisher Masson to print the first French edition authorized by Darwin, which Royer translated from the third English edition (Harvey, 1997, p. 64, 2008, pp. 356–357).

In June 1862, on receiving the book, Darwin recounted to American botanist Asa Gray some of his early thoughts about her, with a certain stupefaction:

Royer […] must be one of the cleverest & oddest women in Europe: is ardent Deist & hates Christianity, & declares that natural selection & the struggle for life will explain all morality, nature of man, politicks [sic] & c & c!!! (entry-3595)

Royer’s 1862 translated text was yet another source of major disappointment for Darwin, since she wrote a controversial and long preface, wherein she presented the author’s ideas as an alternative to the revealed religious truths, as an anticlerical diatribe against Catholics and Protestants (Browne, 2002, p. 143;Harvey, 1997, p. 64), and as a naturalistic justification of the economic laws by which, in her opinion, society must be governed. As Prum (2014, p. 395) rightly points out, these views irritated Darwin, ‘whose work has hardly anything to do with what was later to be referred to as “Social Darwinism” […]. His rejection of both racism and eugenics (to use modern terms) has been repeatedly and convincingly demonstrated by Patrick Tort’. In the title, De l’origine des espèces ou des lois du progrès chez les êtres organisés, the reference to ‘the laws of progress’ announces the Lamarckian bias noticeable throughout the text, as in her translation of ‘natural selection’ (‘élection naturelle’), and of ‘struggle for life’ (‘concurrance de vie’). For her, as for Lamarck, evolution is progressive, as it was, according to Hull (1988, p. 390), for the bulk of the European intellectual community, the concept of progress being by then ‘pandemic’, whereas ‘Darwin’s scheme of evolutionary adaptation was based entirely on contingency. Organisms shifted randomly’ (Browne, 2002, p. 61).

On 11 July 1862, Darwin wrote to French naturalist J. L. A. Quatrefages de Breau: ‘I wish the translator had known more of Natural History; she must be a clever, but singular Lady; but I never heard of her, till she proposed to translate my Book’ (entry-3653). On 6 September, Darwin received a letter from Claparède, in which he bluntly called Royer’s work into question: ‘Her translation is heavy, indigestible, sometimes incorrect and the notes that accompany it will certainly not be to your taste’ (entry-3715).⁶ His words, as Harvey remarks (1997, p. 68), instilled in Darwin a certain fear that Royer’s version might prejudice the acceptance of his ideas in France and other countries within the French cultural zone of influence. A few da...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Ideology, censorship and translation across genres: past and present
• 1 Notes on Charles Darwin’s thoughts on translation and the publishing history of the European versions of [On] The Origin of Species
• 2 “¡No Pasaránǃ”: Translators under siege and ideological control in the Spanish Civil War
• 3 The censorship of theatre translations under Franco: the 1960s
• 4 Between ideology and literature: Translation in the USSR during the Brezhnev period
• 5 Censorship and the Catalan translations of Jean-Paul Sartre
• 6 What is an author, indeed: Michel Foucault in translation
• 7 Censoring Lolita’s sense of humor: when translation affects the audience’s perception
• 8 The crooked timber of self-reflexivity: translation and ideology in the end times
• Index