One of the books I've been browsing here and there is JuliAn Green's Le langage et son double, traduit par JuliEn Green. It's interesting how he thinks of the two languages separated by a thick wall. Somebody like Wallace Stevens, a casual reader, could pretend that English and French were one. Not so for Green, native in both languages.
This book presents his own texts and his own translations side by side; it is a source of infinite illuminations. Just look at his epigram for one of the essays:
She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely apparition sent
To be a moment's ornament.
(Wordsworth)
This is rendered as:
C'était le fantôme de la joie
Quand la première fois elle brûla à mes yeux,
Charmante apparition envoyée
Pour embellir un instant.
The difference is striking. In the original English, "she" from the beginning is given with its anthropomorhic resonance. Then it is revealed that she is but a phantom, an apparition. Then in the French, the sentence is lead by a "Ce" and "le fantôme" is given sooner than the human-designating pronoun. Although the time lag is minimum, there is certainly a deep gap, with "elle" appearing late. "To be a moment's ornament" rendered with "embellir" gives a different impression, too.
There is much to be learned from here.
