Abstract:
This thesis comprises three parts: a translation into English of Maude, by Suzanne Jacob, published in Quebec in 1988; a critical introduction to the work; and a commentary dealing with some of the problems encountered during the translation of the text. This commentary aims to examine the relationship between the literary analysis and the translation of this enigmatic and often confusing text.
The first chapter, a textual analysis, examines the thematic connection between territory and geographical frontiers, corporeal frontiers, and the notion of integrity, both physical and psychological. The disintegration, or "dis-integrity" of the body as well as the personality, in Maude and in other works by Jacob, is examined with reference to the feminist theory of Luce Irigaray. This chapter also explores the association between psychological disintegration and the functional isolation of the female gaze from the rest of the body. Isolation and detachment are also features of feminine discourse in Maude, and the disconnected and fragmentary qualities of this discourse are examined in the context of Irigaray's description of woman's "fluid speech". Finally there is a brief discussion of the various ways in which light imagery establishes thematic connections between integrity, the gaze and language. The second chapter comprises a commentary which links various translation difficulties to Jacob's skilful manipulation of language. In analysing the interdependence of thematic content and Jacob's idiolect in Maude, the commentary aims to establish a close connection between analysis and translation of the text.
