"A form to accommodate the mess": a genetic (self-)translation study of Samuel Beckett’s dramatic writing

Abstract

This thesis analyses the manuscripts of Samuel Beckett’s self-translated dramatic texts in order to better understand how an author recaptures the cadences, originality and political implications of his earlier versions in translation.

Samuel Beckett self-translated his writing between French and English and vice-versa. Beckett’s work in self-translation serves as a unique case study in how a text is rewritten into another language by a translator who is also the author of the original version of this text. Previous studies of Beckett’s work have focused on comparing his finished, published texts. By examining manuscripts of the translation, patterns of translation emerge. Richard Seaver claims that ‘Beckett’s work is close to poetry’. Beckett wants to ensure that his self-translation ‘performs in your head’ just as well as, if not better than, the original. I will demonstrate that Beckett effectively rewrites a text as he translates it. At the beginning, he strives to capture the literal meanings. He then refines the language and the rhythms of the translation as the text nears completion.

My project not only examines Beckett’s efforts to recapture the musicality of his ‘original’ texts in self-translation. It also explores the ways in which the political resonances of the ‘original’ texts are preserved, emphasised or indeed excised in the translations. My thesis strives to will demonstrate the way in which the self-translating author can, in the words of Pascale Casanova, ‘achieve literary freedom by retaining control over the form of their writing’, or in Beckett’s words, find a ‘form to accommodate the mess’.