Participants > Panelists > Blanchard Charlotte

Adrienne Rich is a major American poet of the 20th century. Over twenty collections of her poems have been published, which helped question and reshape the American WASP male canon. Her essays and her poetry were fundamental to the American feminist movement in the 1960s. In her work, Rich always reached beyond the status quo and her comfort zone, finding inspiration in many sources outside of the USA, translating poems by authors from different cultures throughout her career. Conversely, her poetry and essays inspired many in the West, including French feminists, and beyond. The symbolic capital of Rich's work is high and as such has crossed borders, being translated in Italian, Spanish, German and Dutch in the format of collections, which had thus recreated a situation of reception similar to that of the source culture. But this is not the case in France or the French-speaking world: only ten of her poems have been translated in French and published in various mediums (anthologies, literary magazines, blogs) by several different translators. Rich's work translated in French It is fragmented, uneasy to access, and virtually unavailable to the readership. In my presentation, I would like to reach beyond this stalemate and define a method of translation fit to welcome Rich's work in French. To do so, I will find prospective guidelines in the criticism of translation, which implies bringing together poetry translation and feminist translation, as well as examining the notion of retranslation. Ultimately, this project will take the form of a selection of poems taken from Rich's entire career.