Henri Meschonnic. Poetica, etica, politica e critica del tradurre

From the very beginning of his career in the early Seventies, the heydays of semiotics and structuralism, Henri Meschonnic (1932-2009) broke with current trends and marked a turning point in critical debates by advocating for a wider, general reflection which, besides the exigence of form, should also take into consideration language, discourse and the creative subjectivity of the literary work, which invents itself through creation. His position may be regarded as “theoretical practice”. In the Bible and its massoretic translation he sees the paradigm of the inseparability of prose and poetry, which he considers strictly related to rhythm as “organization of the movement of language”, revealing itself in the “orality of writing”. Spanning from Pour la poétique II (1973) and Critique du rythme (1982) to Poétique du traduire (1999) and Éthique et politique du traduire (2008), this paper will address the theoretical premises of the author’s position in their poetic, critical and polemic significance. Its aim is to point out their distinctiveness and long-lasting influence on today’s theories and practices of translation as well as their political implications in relation to a conception of writing as historical anthropology of language. In spite of the virulence of some of its assumptions, this conception still maintains high levels of depth and thought-provoking questions which are essential for any new approach of translation mindful of the historical significance implied in translational acts and which renews itself every time.