Dévoilement, a Literary Nontranslation of the Apocalypse

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze certain mechanisms of the nontranslation – the québécois writer Jacques Brault’s translation poetics – applied to the translation of a sensitive text. The nontranslation sets a triple enunciative relation among the original, the translation and the final text. Thus, to John of Patmos’ voice joined in Brault’s one – by making use of distinctive procedures of such poetics – to dispel the esoterism that tradition granted to the book of the Apocalypse with its many retranslations. It concerns a rewriting which, by overlooking its biblical affiliation, ensured that the Apocalypse’s “testimonial nature” – provided by its author – determined Brault’s nontranslation choices. Regarded by Brault as a powerful poem of epic proportions, the nontranslation of the last tome of the Scriptures sets aside its religious ascendancy and focused on its poetic aspect. The result is Dévoilement [Revelation], a literary nontranslation of the book which is one of the most difficult and controversial of the Bible.