Radical Translators: Paratexts as Political Practice in the Revolutionary Era

Accounts of the beginning of modern translation theory traditionally start with the German Romantics, who conceived of their models of cultural transfer in the context of the Napoleonic wars and at a time when heightened national sentiments intersected with, and later eclipsed, the universalist spirit of the French Revolution. Yet, the tide of revolution that engulfed Europe from the 1790s gave rise to new practices of translation whose inventive impetus has not been sufficiently recognized. This article presents an alternative canon of discourses on translation, drawn not from theoretical set-pieces but from dispersed fragments recovered from the paratexts of translations published in English, French, and Italian. Radical translators sought to extend ideas of equality, freedom, and rights into new contexts. They saw translation as an act with purpose, strove to intervene in the fast-moving, open-ended temporality of revolution, and reoriented relations between source and target cultures toward an ideal of universal equality. What emerges is a varied picture of translation as a radical intervention and of translators as cultural and political agents who, even when publishing anonymously or protesting humility, actively sought to influence the course of political events, the beliefs of their readers, and the shape of history.