georges didi huberman, confronti... - lensbased.net

TRANSLATOR’SNOTEThis book poses special challenges to the translator. Its diction is studiedand its rhetorical machinery is intricate. There is much wordplay.As so often in postwar French critical writing, metaphors tend towardthe extravagant. In a way reminiscent of Heidegger, the half-forgottenliteral meanings of colloquial phrases are sometimes exploited. Likewise,secondary or archaic definitions of French verbs are often turnedto account. These verb usages frequently—and cunningly—intermeshwith the psychoanalytic lexicon, but the extent to which this is trueonly becomes apparent in Chapter 4, where the relationship betweenimages and unconscious processes takes center stage.Accordingly, I have included more than the usual number of translator’snotes. This seemed the only way to retain something like thefull polyvalence of the original. I hope readers will find them morehelpful than cumbersome.In the author’s notes, I have tried to use authoritative English editionsof important texts, notably the Cambridge editions of Kant’s firstand third critiques, the Standard Edition of Freud, and the recentBruce Fink translation of selections from Lacan’s Ecrits. The Interpretationof Dreams is a special case: here I provide references to both theStrachey translation and Joyce Crick’s recent rendering of the originaledition (without Freud’s copious later additions). As with all thecited translations, however, I have felt free to modify them wherenecessary.The original text is eloquent, playful, and elegant. Insofar as theEnglish edition fails to convey these qualities, the fault is entirelymine.JG