Cover not available
Article published In:
Target
Vol. 32:1 (2020) ► pp.143–161

‘We’ve called her Stephen’

Czech translations of The Well of Loneliness and their transgender readings

ORCID logo | University of Liverpool

This article aims to contribute to the still largely unexplored intersection of translation and non-cisgender identities through a comparison of three reeditions of Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1928) in Czech translation. While the novel is considered by many to be the most famous lesbian story published in the 20th century, it can also be read as a narrative with a transgender protagonist. This is in part supported by the fact that the hero of the story is born with a female body but is named Stephen, creating a sense of gendered dissonance throughout the novel. This article asks what happens when this masculine name changes into a feminine one in translation, and explores the sociopolitical circumstances and publishing norms that have motivated this change.

Keywords: queer translation, transgender translation, censorship, gender in translation, Czech, The Well of Loneliness
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The well of non-normative identity
  • 3.The Czechoslovak lesbian s(h)elf
  • 4.Lesbian loneliness of state socialism
  • 5.When Stephen becomes Štěpa
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 5 December 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.19107.spi
References
Asimakoulas, Dimitris
2012 “Dude (Looks Like a Lady).” The Translator 18 (1): 47–75. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baer, Brian James
2011 “Translating Queer Texts in Soviet Russia. A Case Study in Productive Censorship.” Translation Studies 4 (1): 21–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016 “Translation, Transition, Transgender.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 3 (3–4): 506–523. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baer, Brian James, and Klaus Kaindl
eds. 2017 Queering Translation, Translating the Queer: Theory, Practice, Activism. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Čáp, Daniel
2008 České bibliofilství 1918–1938: Příspěvek k dějinám knižní kultury za první republiky. Thesis Charles University Prague.Google Scholar
Casagranda, Mirko
2011 “Trans/gendering Translations? Crossing Gender in Translation.” In Translating Gender, edited by Eleonora Federici, Manuela Coppola, Michael Cronin, and Renata Oggero, 205–214. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
2013 “Bridging the Genders? Transgendering Translation Theory and Practice.” In Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice in Translation and Gender Studies, edited by Eleonora Federici and Vanessa Leonardi, 112–121. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Corrin, Chris
1992 Superwomen and the Double Burden: Women’s Experience of Change in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. London: Scarlet Press.Google Scholar
Einhorn, Barbara
1993 Citizenship, Gender and Women’s Movements in East Central Europe. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Ellis, Havelock
1895 “Sexual Inversion in Women.” Alienist and Neurologist 161: 141–158.Google Scholar
1933 Psychology of Sex: A Manual for Students. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
1937 Pohlavní Psychologie. Translated by Anna Pospíšilová. Prague: Orbis.Google Scholar
Epstein, B. J., and Robert Gillett
eds. 2017 Queer in Translation. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fodor, Éva
2002 “Smiling Women and Fighting Men: The Gender of the Communist Subject in State Socialist Hungary.” Gender and Society 16 (2): 240–263.Google Scholar
Gramling, David, and Aniruddha Dutta
eds. 2016 Translating Transgender, special issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 3 (3–4).Google Scholar
Halberstam, Jack
1998 “A Writer of Misfits: John Radclyffe Hall and the Discourse of Inversion.” In Female Masculinity, 75–110. Durham: Duke University Press Books. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hall, Radclyffe
1928 The Well of Loneliness. London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
1931 Studna osamění. Translated by Vladimír Vendyš. Prague: Rudolf Škeřík, edice Symposion.Google Scholar
1948 Studna osamění. Translated by Vladimír Vendyš. Prague: Rudolf Škeřík, edice Symposion.Google Scholar
1969 Studna osamění. Translated by Vladimír Vendyš. Prague: Práce.Google Scholar
2014 The Well of Loneliness. London: Wordsworth Classics.Google Scholar
Josephson, Jyl, and Þorgerður Einarsdóttir
2016 “Language Purism and Gender.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 3 (3–4): 376–387. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krafft-Ebing, Richard von
1886 Psychopathia Sexualis. Translated by Francis Joseph Rebman. New York: Rebman Company.Google Scholar
Ladenson, Elisabeth
2007 “Radclyffe Hall: The Well of Prussic Acid Book.” In Dirt for Art’s Sake: Books on Trial from to , 100–122. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Newton, Esther
1984 “The Mythic Mannish Lesbian: Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman.” Signs 9 (4): 557–575. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nozar, Lukáš
2013 “Diskriminace, trestní stíhání a tolerance homosexuality na příkladu plzeňských afér z roku 1932.” In Miluji tvory svého pohlaví, edited by Pavel Himl, Jan Seidl, and Franz Schindler, 109–174. Prague: Argo.Google Scholar
Oates-Indruchová, Libora
2015 “Řekni, kde ty traktoristky jsou? Kulturní reprezentace genderu v pozdním socialismu.” In Vyvlasněný hlas: Proměny genderové kultury české společnosti 1948–1989, 393–426. Prague: Sociologické Nakladatelství.Google Scholar
Rachůnková, Zdeňka
1992 Zamlčovaní překladatelé. Prague: Ivo Železný.Google Scholar
Robinson, Douglas
2019 Transgender, Translation, Translingual Address. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rochefort, Christiane
1971 Odpočinek válečníka. Translated by Jarmila Fialová. Prague: Československý spisovatel.Google Scholar
Rose, Emily
2016 “Keeping the Trans in Translation: Queering Early Modern Transgender Memoirs.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 3 (3–4): 485–505. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 “Revealing and Concealing the Masquerade of Translation and Gender: Double-Crossing the Text and the Body.” In Epstein and Gillett 2017, 37–50.Google Scholar
Rubáš, Stanislav
ed. 2012 Slovo za slovem: S překladateli o překládání. Prague: Academia.Google Scholar
Rule, Jane
2013 Lesbian Images: Essays. New York: Open Road Media.Google Scholar
Sappho
1924 Sapfo: Osobnost, překlady a evokace. Translated by Ferdinand Stiebitz. Prague: Rudolf Škeřík, edice Symposion.Google Scholar
Schindler, Franz
2013 “Život homosexuálních mužů za socialismu.” In Miluji tvory svého pohlaví, 271–386. Prague: Argo.Google Scholar
Sokolová, Věra
2015 “Duhový život pod rudou hvězdou: Státní přístup k homosexualitě a neheterosexuální životy v normalizačním československu.” In Vyvlasněný hlas: Proměny genderové kultury české společnosti 1948–1989, edited by Hana Havelková and Libora Oates-Indruchová, 243–284. Prague: Sociologické Nakladatelství.Google Scholar
Steinbeck, John
1960 O myších a lidech. Translated by Vladimír Vendyš. Prague: Československý spisovatel.Google Scholar
Taylor, Melanie A.
1998 “ ‘The Masculine Soul Heaving in the Female Bosom’: Theories of Inversion and The Well of Loneliness .” Journal of Gender Studies 7 (3): 287–296. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vicinus, Martha
2012 “The History of Lesbian History.” Feminist Studies 38 (3): 566–596.Google Scholar
Whitlock, Gillian
1987 “ ‘Everything Is out of Place’: Radclyffe Hall and the Lesbian Literary Tradition.” Feminist Studies 13 (3): 554–582. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Woolf, Virginia
1929 Orlando. Translated by Staša Jílovská. Prague: Rudolf Škeřík, edice Symposion.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Baldo, Michela, Jonathan Evans & Ting Guo
2021. Introduction. Translation and Interpreting Studies 16:2 ► pp. 185 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 7 february 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.