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aspects of Beauvoir s writing in this area. However, Klaw s compari-
son of the original version and the 1956 English translation reveals
censorship of certain passages and a tendency to edit strong language
in many others. Klaw writes,
The 1956 English translation evidently also judged the novel as too sexually
explicit: [& ] the two scenes evoking oral sex are neatly omitted in the Eng-
lish text and several passages are changed either to attenuate the boldness of
the sexual imagery or to strengthen the criticism of women who act upon
their desires. (197)
Such discussions and evaluations of the English versions of Beauvoir
texts1 produced in the wake of 1970s feminism, with its keen inter-
est in the most important forethinker of post-World War II feminism
sharpened critics awareness of the power and influence of transla-
tion, largely coinciding with the development of a new discipline,
1
Other critiques of Beauvoir translations include those of Cordero, Moi,
Alexander, and von Flotow.
von Flotow 37
Translation Studies, one of whose interests is this often hidden influ-
ence of translation. The criticisms became so detailed that existing
Beauvoir translations in English were no longer deemed acceptable as
material to cite. In 2000, Melanie Hawthorne, editor of Beauvoir and
Sexuality, made clear in her introduction that, due to the uncertain
quality of the English translations, all quotations from Beauvoir s
work in this book are given in both the original French and in Eng-
lish (8). In other words, the translations were considered too uneven,
unsure, untrustworthy to serve as the sole version of Beauvoir s
expression.
In what follows, I would like to bring together ideas on transla-
tion criticism and the rereading and retranslation it generates, from a
womanist/feminist perhaps matrixial/matricial point of view and
posit translation criticism not so much as an attack on some earlier
translator/translation but simply as a new understanding and repre-
sentation of the source text, in another time and space and culture, and
by another individual who chooses to, and is able to, read differ-
ently.
But first, a brief reiteration of a typical aspect (viewed today as a
failing) of the English translation of Le deuxième sexe published in
1953, by Howard Parshley, a retired professor of biology at Smith
College.2 In my work on his translation, I found that in general, Parsh-
ley attenuated and sanitized all references to sexuality, and in referring
to the material available on Parshley, it became clear that the work
had been rendered by a polite and scholarly elderly gentleman with a
certain horizon, 3 an attitude about what was admissible in writing.
In fact, it could be said that he practiced a particular version of aes-
thetic correctness. It is still not clear to what extent the publishing
house Knopf was involved apart from demanding extensive cuts
and slashes in the work, so that it could come out in one volume
rather than two, and therefore sell better.
2
The coincidences which led to this man becoming Beauvoir s translator are
just one example of the often random ways in which translators are selected. The
selection of the new translators of Beauvoir s Le deuxième sexe has also been viewed
critically in this respect.
3
Berman, in Pour une critique des traductions, explores various horizons that
may explain the outcome of translation; one of these is the horizon du traducteur.
38 FLS, Vol. XXXVI, 2009
Besides abridging and sanitizing Beauvoir s work, Parshley often
used simple stylistic means to moderate Beauvoir s writing on sexual-
ity, as these short excerpts from the chapter entitled Initiation à la
sexualité show. In this segment, Beauvoir discusses young women s
often traumatic sexual experiences, and refers to the findings of Dr.
Wilhelm Stekel, a German sexologist of the 1920s, who reported on
his women patients. Beauvoir incorporates statements by women pa-
tients and descriptions of sexual encounters that she has culled from
Stekel. These are often narratives, told in the first person, or accounts
that include direct quotes from dialogue with the patient. Beauvoir ar-
gues, for example, that a woman s anxiety about sex can be the result
of her lack of knowledge about her own body, and she cites and pa-
raphrases Stekel s patients:
Toute jeune fille porte en elle toutes sortes de craintes ridicules qu elle ose à
peine s avouer dit Stekel... Une jeune fille par exemple croyait que son ou-
verture inférieure n était pas à sa place. Elle avait cru que le commerce
sexuel se faisait à travers le nombril. Elle était malheureuse que son nombril
soit fermé et qu elle ne puisse y enfoncer son doigt. Une autre se croyait
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