James Hervey's Meditations among the Tombs: In a Letter to a Lady, translated into French in 1770 by Mme d'Arconville

Abstract

The so-called Graveyard School emerged in the twilight of the Augustan literary aesthetics, which flourished during the early 1700’s. This turn meant a change from the the idyllic landscapes of Arcadian poetry owing to the humanitarian look that characterised the Culture of Sensibility in the mid-century England. The underlying leitmotiv of this gloomy and melancholy poetic mode was the reaction to the idea of material progress, which estranged the social echelons making the poor class even poorer and devoid of rights. In light of that, these poets devoted themselves to denouncing precariousness and to urging the upper classes to commiserate with the poor. Death, the tomb and the graveyard were recurring images representative of the mutability and fugacity of worldly life, which meant to move the reader deeply and instigate him/her to meditate upon the Christian salvation of the silenced other and upon his/her own. Translating these poets’ masterpieces, particularly Meditations among the Tombs: In a letter to a Lady (1746) by James Hervey, bridged the gap between the unique English melancholy aesthetics and that of the neighbouring countries, especially France. Mme d’Arconville’s version (1770) is an example of this intertextual-intercultural exchange and it outstands for its sublimity and fidelity to the original text. However, her talent has been eclipsed by other greatly acclaimed translators of the period. The primary objective of this paper is to analyse the main features that give shape to Mme d’Arconville’s French translation of the original version of Meditations among the Tombs: In a letter to a Lady.