The Challenge of Free Indirect Speech in Mrs Dalloway

Reading Virginia Woolf is the same as entering “a room of her own”, moulding impressions, listening to words spoken and unspoken, experiencing her well balanced, sensitive, and synaesthetic world. The way she spins out her stories creates a unique lacework where tout se tient since each single stitch contributes to the whole. Translating Virginia Woolf implies appropriating these impressions and techniques, as well as bridging the gap between the perception of feelings and the way they are worded. It also implies creating a palette to paint a comparable picture for the TL reader, who expects to enjoy rhythms, sounds, suggestions, and impressions which can somehow evoke the original. And yet, despite the effort to get this aim, the perfect finish of a translated text may be more aspiration than fact. Being aware of how difficult it can be to get this aim, I would like to discuss a couple of issues which are of some relevance in literary translation, namely 1) the role of textual components - first and foremost speech styles such as FIS – and 2) the crucial challenge of keeping the stylistic features of the original. Indeed, what happens when a highly peculiar text goes through translation? How much important is it to avoid forms of modulation which can thin down the semantic thickness of a text as well as blur its neat formal framework? Examples from published translations will help to answer these questions.