Retranslation, accentuation, redialogisation: editorial strategies and strategies of translation in Dutch translations of the Liaisons dangereuses

Abstract

To study what happens when a classic is translated or, a fortiori, retranslated – in this case Laclos into Dutch – implies considering translations as steps in the historical process of continuous re-interpretation of the classics, which Bakhtin called 're-accentuation'. Based on this concept, we will analyse the editorial and translation strategies employed, to show how the early Dutch translations re-accented the linguistic and literary material of Les Liaisons dangereuses towards a modern and conventionalised interpretation of the libertine. The latest translation, however, offers a more historicising interpretation, while at the same time dialogising language, which is less conventional and more heteroglossic. In this respect, the latest translation redialogises the earlier translations as much as it re-accents Laclos' text in the Dutch-speaking target culture.