Les traductions de Shakespeare par Bonnefoy, entre oralité «silencieuse» et intensification mélodique et sensorielle

In this paper, we develop a brief reflection about the oral nature of Shakespeare’s dramatic poetry, since this dimension is the one that creates the greatest difficulties to the contemporary translator. We also consider the problem of translating poetic orality from a theoretical point of view. Translating Shakespeare means coming back to the oral nature of the source text, and even intensifying such an orality in order to guarantee the preservation of its dramatic essence. Bonnefoy’s Shakespeare translations are an excellent example of this. Through an analysis of an excerpt of his translation of Antony and Cleopatra, we show that the poet’s aim is to recreate the « melodic » essence of the source text. He looks for a vertical configuration of sounds and rhythms which exploits the specific power of voice, in order to make the reader/audience’s experience more powerful.