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Article published In:
Target
Vol. 21:2 (2009) ► pp.308–332

Translating for a Good Cause

Joseph Lavallée’s antislavery novel Le Nègre comme il y a peu de Blancs (1789) and its two English translations (1790)

| Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki

In Joseph Lavallée’s Le Nègre comme il y a peu de Blancs (1789) novelistic means are openly used to serve the abolitionist cause. The author announces in the preface that his aim is to “make his readers love Black people”. The novel was quite well received in France and it was translated into English twice the following year, first by Joseph Trapp and then by an anonymous translator. My article is based on a comparative analysis of some key passages containing abolitionist discourse in the source text and in the two target texts. I argue that the second English translator systematically made the novel more suitable for the abolitionist cause, by omitting or by modifying contradictory material found in the source text. Interestingly, it was this manipulated version of Lavallée’s novel that became popular among English-speaking readers.

Keywords: slavery, abolitionism, antislavery, manipulation, Lavallée, Trapp, negro, Oroonoko, Itanoko
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. Le Nègre comme il y a peu de Blancs and its two English versions
  • 3.Analysis
    • 3.1Structure and style in Le Nègre comme il y a peu de Blancs
    • 3.2Lavallée’s novel and Oroonoko
    • 3.3Abolitionist discourse in the source text and the translations
  • 4.To conclude: The revealing last words
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Corpus texts
  • References
Published online: 16 December 2009
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.21.2.05tai
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