One question that occurred to me as I read the essays about translating Proust was one of revision and modernity. Proust’s first translator, C. K. Scott Moncrieff, worked to bring the text into English less than a decade after its publication in 1917, which obviously implies that the prose will utilize the literary style and tropes of that era. Moncrieff’s translation was “reworked” or updated in 1982 by Terence Kilmartin. Now, in 2026, the most recent English translation is currently coming out of Oxford University Press, which considers its predecessors in translating as a guidepost.
The idea of relying on past translations is troublesome to me. As a reader, I often struggle with classical works due to the density and old-fashioned nature of their diction—it will take me weeks or months to get through slim volumes. However, I still have a strong desire to participate in literary tradition by reading those “classics.” Thus, when I am reaching for a work by Shakespeare, for example, I will frequently choose those editions which have modernized language (either in comparison to the original or just by itself). I believe this modernization of language is a form of translation—taking a text that would be difficult or impossible to decipher and turning it into something more accessible. However, based on the discourse around Proust translation and the stated importance of referencing “predecessors” of translating the work, it appears that this is not a commonly held opinion. Of the three notes we read, I most appreciated Davis’s take on translation, saying that she does not want to be affected by the prose of previous translators—I hope she was able to produce a translation that maintained Proust’s “blunt” style while not being beholden to classical English diction.
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