Introduction to and translation of Jeanne Hyvrard's Les doigts du figuier

Abstract

This thesis consists of a translation and an introductory discussion of Les Doigts du Figuier, a poetic work by the French author, Jeanne Hyvrard. The preliminary section of the introduction situates Hyvrard's work in the context of a particular stream of contemporary French women's writing known as écriture féminine. The philosophical and religious ideologies that the text draws upon and questions are discussed. The text rejects the separation of mind and body inherent in western philosophical and religious thought and challenges the oppressive use made of this hierarchical and dualistic ideology. The male has been identified positively with reason and the female negatively with the physical. Les Doigts du Figuier affirms the female body and female difference and inscribes them in language. The view, long repressed by western culture, of the world as body and of life as a cyclic process is retrieved from ancient traditions and expressed in modern everyday terms. The background of some of these traditions, alluded to in the text, is also discussed in this section. The second part of the introduction examines a selection of the linguistic techniques by which this view is articulated and stresses the oral quality of the writing. A general translator's note concludes the introduction pointing out the main difficulties encountered in translating a text written in a spare, highly allusive style which is in essence ambiguous and open ended.