ABSTRACT
Despite its historical status as a weak and degraded version of authorship, translation has at times emerged as a strong form of expression for women-allowing them to enter the world of letters, to promote political causes and to engage in stimulating writing relationships. What will be considered in this chapter is the way in which women have used translation to open new axes of communication, to create new subject positions and to contribute to the intellectual and political life of their times. An opposite tack could just as well have been pursued. It could be argued and certainly demonstrated that the persistent historical association between women and translation has also meant that women have been confined to a subordinate writing role, that they were “only” translators when they might have been enjoying the privileges of full authorship, “bearers of the word” (Homans 1986) rather than creators. This tension must indeed be read into any consideration of the interaction between gender roles and writing positions. But it need not imply that the link between the social role of women and the literary position of the translator led only to negative results; nor should it obscure the potentially dynamic and inter-ventionist dimensions of translation. As Lori Chamberlain remarks, “Feminist and poststructuralist theory has encouraged us to read between or outside the lines of the dominant discourse for information about cultural formation and authority; translation can provide a wealth of such information about practices of domination and sub-version” (Chamberlain 1992:72). Investigation into the historical activities of translation by women provides a fresh vantage-point into literary practices and their social grounding.
