Proust novel title translation
- Thread starter mathman
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From Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Lost_Time
"
of Lost Time (French: À la recherche du temps perdu), also translated as Remembrance of Things Past, is a novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust (1871–1922). It is his most prominent work, known both for its length and its theme of involuntary memory; the most famous example of this is the "episode of the madeleine," which occurs early in the first volume. It gained fame in English in translations by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin as Remembrance of Things Past, but the title In Search of Lost Time, a literal rendering of the French, became ascendant after D. J. Enright adopted it for his revised translation published in 1992"
As it says there , In Search of Lost Time is a more literal translation and they seem to attribute it to a D.J.Enright in 1992.
The two English titles seem quite distinct to me.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Yes indeed. I suppose the difficulty is in capturing the sense of "perdu". Literally it means "lost" but, according to the little French I acquired from my wife, it is used in a wider sense than the English "lost". It seems also to have the sense of "gone", or something like that, cf. pain perdu. So the recollection of bygone times, or something, might do as well.
I never tried to read that book,except the beginning but the idea of a reverie that takes off following on one idea is a strong one.
On another forum I was considering suggesting a new subforum where lines from books or poems were suggested for interpretation. But the thread was old and long with noone suggesting anything other than scientific subjects,
https://www.scienceforums.net/topic...ld-here/page/11/?tab=comments#comment-1156294
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Hmm, I've considered joining that forum, as the two I currently belong to seem pretty dead.
But maybe a science forum is not a great place to discuss literature anyway.
Yes it is pretty active and I like the fact that Markus Hanke is there to answer questions on relativity,whilst Strange is a good mod and very active and helpful in the posting(although he is absent for the last 6 weeks or so)
Clive James has a worthwhile take on that title and its translations, in this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Amnesia_(book)