Coordonator Lector dr.

Oana Macari
Dana-Nicoleta Liciu




The academic lectures

The actual reading of the novel

The level of complexity and V. Woolfs style



Modernism and Translation Difficulties in
Woolfs Fiction
Interior Monologue
Free Association

Indefinite One in Stream of Consciousness
Technique

Conclusions



Translationultimately serves the purpose
of expressing the central reciprocal
relationship between languages.
Walter Benjamin, The Task of the Translator
Etymologically: Lat. translation > bringing
across, carrying across
For the modern Roman, Germany and Slavic
European languages, the word "traducere" is
used for translation which implies "to bring
across" or "to lead across" in English.

The beginning of the 20
th
century psychology,
anthropology, and philosophy were challenging
old ways of conceiving human mind and religion
> break with tradition

In Europe:
the Spanish expatriate Pablo Picassos landmark cubism
painting of 1907, Les Demoiselles dAvignon;
the Italian poet F. T Marinettis futurist manifesto (French
journal Le Figaro)
Russian-born composer Igor Stravinskys ballet Le Sacre du
Printemps (The Rite of Spring)
Virginia Woolf, Modern Fiction
the task of the novelist: conveying the mind receiving
a myriad of impressions as representing the
luminous halo or semi-transparent envelope
surrounding from the beginning of consciousness to the
end
Aesthetic categories, norms and definitions
were not safe with feminists such as V. Woolf
Desire to experiment: I will invent a new
name for my books to supplant novel , she
wrote, a new by V. W., but what? Elegy?

Stream of consciousness techniques
Indirect monologue
Free association
Characteristics of the novel
The structure of external objective events
diminished in scope and scale, or almost
completely dissolved
Continual activity of characters
consciousness and shower of impressions
Series of scenes arranged according to the
sequence of selected moments on
consciousness.
Associative leaps in syntax and punctuation
that can make the prose difficult to follow,
tracing a characters fragmentary thoughts
and sensory feelings.




Also the sea tosses itself and breaks itself, and should any sleeper
fancying that he might find on the beach an answer to his doubts, a
sharer of his solitude, throw off his bedclothes and go down by himself
to walk on the sand, no image with semblance of serving and divine
promptitude comes readily to hand bringing the night to order and
making the world reflect the compass of the soul.
V. Woolf, To the Lighthouse Time Passes (p. 104)
it is an expression of the most intimate thought that lies
nearest the unconscious; in its form, it is produced in
direct phrases reduced to the minimum of syntax,
(Edouard Dujardin)
Direct interior monologue:
it proceeds in spite of the readers expectations of
conventional syntax and diction in order to represent
the actual texture of consciousness - in order to
represent it finally, however, to the reader. (1
st
person
point of view)
Indirect interior monologue:
the author intervenes between the characters psyche
and the reader (3
rd
and 2
nd
person point of view)


Let us record the atoms as they fall upon
the mind in the order in which they fall, let
us trace the pattern, however disconnected
and incoherent in appearance, which each
sight or incident score upon the
consciousness
V. Woolf, Modern Novels
Found nearly on every page
Use of parentheses is one aspect of how the
complexity of syntax in To The Lighthouse
mirrors the complexity of perspective and scene.

I respect you (she addressed him silently) in every
atom; you are not vain; you are entirely impersonal;
you are finer than Mr. Ramsay; you are the finest
human being that I know; you have neither wife nor
child (without any sexual feeling, she longed to
cherish that loneliness), you live for science
(involuntarily, sections of potatoes rose before her
eyes); praise would be an insult to you; generous,
pure-hearted, heroic man!

Breaks out the traditional narrative
structure

The objective time and the psychic
time intermingle

12
th
chapter in the last part of To the
Lighthouse (Lily Briscoes series of thoughts)






Replacing you in general statements
One cannot always be right, can one?
Emphasizing a particular fact, person, or
thing
Theres one thing you can be sure of you wont get
any help from the government.


Function
word
number
determiner
pronoun
pl. form:
ones
pos. form:
ones
Not bounded in any of the narrative forms

3
rd
pers.
narrative
Pers. Pron.
she
Pers. Pron.
he
1
st
pers.
narrative
Pers. Pron.
I
Pers. Pron.
we
Offers liberty to whom uses it > helps into
changing narrative forms

Whatsoever, it may put the translator into
difficulty:

1). the agreement that Romanian language has, between
the noun (pronoun) and the adjective
What does one send to the Lighthouse? opened doors in
ones mind that went banging and swinging to and fro
and made one keep asking, in a stupefied gape, What
does one send? What does one do? Why is one sitting
here after all?
Ce ar trebui trimis la Far? i deschidea n minte ui
care ncepeau s se izbeasc i s se blngne, fcndu-
te s te ntrebi, cu gura cscat de uimire: Ce trebuie
trimis? Ce trebuie s facem? De ce, la urma-urmei, ne
aflm aici?

2). the context

She had always found him [Mr. Ramsay] difficult. She
had never been able to praise him to his face, she
remembered.
ntotdeauna l gsise [pe domnul Ramsay] un om dificil.
Nu fusese niciodat n stare s l elogieze fi, i
amintea Lily

Present and past tenses > mixed form (both
direct and indirect speech)

But this morning everything seemed so extraordinarily queer
that a question like Nancys What does one send to the
Lighthouse? opened doors in ones mind that went banging and
swinging to and fro and made one keep asking, in a stupefied
gape, What does one send? What does one do? Why is one sitting
here after all?

Indirectness marked by opened, went,
made, but no reporting clause


In free indirect thought it is ambiguous
(either subjective or objective)

In direct thought clearly subjective
I dealt with Woolfs complexity on several
levels: syntactical, morphological, lexical,
semantic and stylistic
I encountered one of the most complex
syntax and I find it really challenging
The indefinite pronoun one has great
frequency all along the novel, influencing the
style and the understanding of V. Woolfs To
the Lighthouse
I did not manage to approach all the topics I
first intended