Kaleidoscopic Ulysse(s): aspects of multiplicity in translation

Much akin to the trajectory of James Joyce’s book – as Ulysses has been translated into over 30 languages, into some of which multiple times – recent advances in translation studies theory have shifted the focus from unicity to plurality, through a reassessment of the relationship between original and (re)translation, of the notion of translatorship, and of the importance of translators’ archives.Indeed, in recent years, translation studies scholars have offered new ways of considering an activity previously mainly studied as “a channel between one language and another” and assessed according to its so-called faithfulness to the original. In 2019, by contrast Matthew Reynolds put forth the concept of “prismatic translation,” enhancing the “proliferative energies” of the (re)translation process and its potential to “[open] up the plural signifying potential of the source text and spreading it into multiple versions,” foregrounding the complementarity of (re)translations actualizing different readings and potentialities of the original. Such multiplicity may even be found within a single translated work, either in the case of collaborative translation, and/or in that of the many variants possibly available in the archive. In 2017, working on collaborative translation, Anthony Cordingley and Céline Frigau Manning highlighted the move from the consideration of the translator as a single “fixed intermediary between traditional binaries” to that of “an active node in an evolving and dynamic web,” which produces “multiple translatorship” (Anna Wegener & Hanne Jansen, 2013). Delineating the various actors’ roles entails a focus on the “archeological structure” of the translated text. It may be reconstructed through archival research and an analysis of the remnants and traces of negotiation processes, choices, or variants. Besides, the emergence of genetic translation studies over the last decade shifted the focus from the finished published text to “its innumerable dimensions, from the avant-texte to reception, passing through the stages of its making” in Anthony Cordingley and Patrick Hersant’s words, and therefore put forward another form of translational plurality by focusing on the layered transformations of a protean, unfinished text and translation project in-the-making.Drawing from these recent translation studies theoretical reassessments and the various aspects of multiplicity they highlight, this paper will address the French translations of Ulysses as a kaleidoscopic reflection of their original, as a prismatic, protean and multifaceted, collaborative oeuvre. Analysing examples from the published texts and their genetic dossiers, this paper will discuss how multiple interpretations shaped the French versions of the text, and how such a game of reflections and transformations may shed a different light on both collaborative translation processes and on James Joyce’s work