The Opening and Ending of Paul Valéry's "Fragments of 'Narcissus'": A Case Study for Translators

Abstract

Abstract: This paper will concentrate on what I recently called the formal content of the text for translators. Translation is an incomparable school of writing, and poetry in particular requires the development of specific linguistic skills in an essentially bicultural framework. A brief introduction to Valéry’s poetics will be followed by a study of the complex interactions between form and meaning in the opening and closing lines of his “Fragments of the “Narcissus’” with special reference to certain pages from his notebooks and other manuscripts. The objective here is to highlight some of his key aesthetic preoccupations before embarking on the final stage: an attempt at translating the many facets of sound and meaning in the lines we have chosen for this exercise. Last, but not least, this study is designed to increase an awareness of le restant / le residu – or what is left out or left over in translation.