Untranslatability: on the translatory controversy in the Journal des Débats

Abstract

This article is the result of a research on Translation Historiography. Its objective is to present to the Portuguese-speaking reader a significant episode in the history of translation thinking. During the period when the famous literary criticism of the Journal des Débats was being developed, the position on the translation of one of its most important writers moved the literary milieu by raising the question of whether or not the works of Classical Antiquity were translatable. Jean Joseph Dussault vehemently defended what he called his system, in which he maintained the untranslatability of the ancients. On the other hand, his friend and writing colleague, Charles Marie Dorimond de Féletz, disagreed with this position. Faced with the vehemence and intransigence of Dussault's criticism, Féletz presented a position understood as a "just measure" between the radicality of untranslatability and the avalanche of translations in the publishing market of the period. Dussault's rigid posture seems to have sealed his career at the newspaper, making way for a new phase in the criticism of translations in this medium, then under the leadership of Féletz, the winner of the debate. Despite this, in theoretical terms, Dussault points out horizons for possible uses of translation, such as training writers, improving teachers and publishing technical works.