René

Editorial Note

The text. The French is that of the Œuvres complètes de M. le Vicomte de Chateaubriand, tome XVI (Paris: Ladvocat, 1826), the last text of René that Chateaubriand prepared for the press, transcribed from the University of Toronto copy. Ladvocat was its bookseller; the volume names no printer. It comprises the Preface of 1805 (pp. 1–16), René (pp. 137–192), and, in Appendix II, two reviews from the volume’s “Notes et critiques” (pp. 351–358). Each printed page of the 1826 volume is set on a left-hand page, its translation on the facing right-hand page, and both carry the original page number in the running head. Page 138, which is blank, has no spread. Where the original divides a word at the foot of a page, the French keeps the division; the English completes the word, or the phrase, on the earlier page.

What is kept and what is changed. The French keeps the spelling of 1826 exactly: the imperfects and conditionals in -oi- (avoit, connoître, foible, françoise), long-temps, tout-à-fait, poëte, the accents and capitals as printed, and the italics. It keeps as printed three readings that look like misprints: Tu nous a fait (p. 155), verso for Tasso’s vero in the Italian verses quoted in the Preface (p. 12), and ces for ses in the review of 1805 (p. 354). It removes the hyphens that divide words at the end of a line, and the guillemet that the original prints at the head of every line of a quotation; it keeps the guillemet that opens each paragraph of continued speech. Spacing around punctuation follows modern French practice. The headpieces, tailpieces and ornamental initials of the original cannot be set in type: a headpiece or tailpiece is described in small italic between rules where it stands, and an ornamental initial is set as a plain capital.

The notes. Three kinds of note appear, and they are kept apart. Chateaubriand’s own notes stand at the foot of the French page with his own numerals, as in the original, and are translated at the foot of the English page, marked *, † and ‡ and headed “Chateaubriand’s note”. The editor’s notes stand at the foot of the English page, numbered afresh on each page. They identify people, places, quotations and allusions, explain words that an English reader would misread, and give cross-references; they do not interpret the story, and where they rest on inference they say so.

The readings of 1802. The first edition of René, in the Génie du Christianisme (Paris: Migneret, 1802), tome II, pp. 163–216, has been compared with the text of 1826 word by word, and so has the chapter “Du vague des passions” (pp. 158–162) with the extract of it printed in the Preface. Every verbal difference that shows in English is recorded: words added, omitted or replaced, changes of tense or construction that show in English, and the notes of 1802. Each is marked by a small italic letter at the same place in the French and in the English, and set out at the foot of the French page after the word “1802”, with the 1802 French in italic and a translation. The letters begin again on each page. A reading too long for the foot of the page is summarized there and printed in full, with a translation, in Appendix I. Differences of spelling, accent, capitals, punctuation and paragraphing, changes of word order alone, and synonyms or prepositions that make no difference in English, are not recorded. The separate edition of 1805, in which Chateaubriand first revised the story, has not been collated. A difference between 1802 and 1826 therefore cannot be assigned to 1805 or to 1826, and the notes never say “revised in 1805”.

The translation. The English aims to keep Chateaubriand’s rhythm: his long suspended periods, his triads and repetitions, his turns into apostrophe, and the change from past to present at the crises of the story. It uses modern vocabulary and avoids period costume, but it does not soften the period’s words: the Indians are “savages”, and the enslaved Africans at the French fort are “Negroes”, as in the French. It rises and falls with the original, lyric in René’s confession and plain in the frame. Where a word carries weight across the book it is rendered the same way every time; the chief of these are explained in the Key Terms, and all are listed in the Glossary. Where the English follows a sense the printed French does not strictly give, as with ces for ses in a review (p. 354) or Tasso’s vero (p. 12), a note says so.

Square brackets enclose editorial matter: the descriptions of ornaments in the French text, and words supplied in a translation where the French leaves them to be understood.