著者

松村 恒

出版者

大妻女子大学

雑誌

大妻比較文化 : 大妻女子大学比較文化学部紀要 (ISSN:13454307)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.6, pp.65-75, 2005

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In the early stage of his writing activity, Lafcadio Hearn was eager to translate French literature into English. At the same time he published reviews of English translations from French novels made by his contemporaries in the U.S.A. and criticized them severely. Through these reviews he expressed his view on translation, and his own translations correlate with his translation theory. He began a career as translator with Theophile Gautier, which may have suited his taste for mysterious things. The reason why Hearn chose Gautier's works is not confined to this. Young Hearn needed to brush up his writing style, and Gautier's splendid style gave strong influence to Hearn in forming his own flowery style, which lasted until the first half of his time in Japan. If we compare Hearn's translation of the Clarimonde to Gautier's original, we realize that his English translation is very faithful to the French original and surprisingly his English style is as magnificent as Gautier's. Akutagawa Ryunosuke adopted similar way of self-training of writing. When he was an Ichikou student, he translated the Clarimonde into Japanese under Kume Masao's direction. The text Akutagawa's translation was based on was not the French original, but Hearn's English translation. Although we may be afraid that Akutagawa's translation might deviate from Gautier's original, close comparison of the three versions, i.e. Gautier's French original, Hearn's English rendering and Akutagawa's Japanese translation, lead us to confirm that Akutagawa reached a good achievement in both aspects of faithfulness to the original and a brilliant style of Japanese. The significance of Hearn's translations has not been given due evaluation heretofore, but the above example may be a sufficient cause which requires us to make reconsideration of Hearn's translation.