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16. ‘Beside myself; or rather out of myself’: First Person Presence in the Estonian Translation of Jane Eyre
© 2023 Madli Kütt, CC BY-NC 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0319.24
Jane Eyre is undoubtedly a narrator who is very present in her storytelling, on many levels. This presence is both intense and polyvalent, but for the most part it inheres in a first-person narrator who is at the centre of her own story. Jane presents herself as someone who acts, perceives, thinks and remembers, and gives a great deal of attention to her own thoughts and feelings. She explicitly separates her two narrative selves into the character in the scene and the retrospective writer. As a character, she controls her inner point of view by referring often to herself as she is experiencing something (‘I heard’, ‘I saw’): I will call this her ‘experiencer’ role. In her ‘narrator’ role, she keeps her knowledge mostly in line with the chronological progress of the story, and whenever she seems to have more information than she should, she takes good care to explain to her reader how and when she got it, thereby asserting the truthfulness of her story. This does not mean that her narration is without inconsistencies: in fact, there have been fruitful and passionate studies by Charlotte Fiehn, Kevin Stevens and Lisa Sternleib, asserting Jane’s dubious or even unreliable position as a narrator.1 Yet the fact that, after a century-and-a-half of criticism, these scholars still feel the need to announce such disparities only goes to emphasise Jane’s strong personal presence in the novel.
In this essay, I would like to discuss the ways that Jane’s intense presence is changed in Estonian translations, putting forward the hypothesis that these changes significantly affect the image and the functioning of the first person in the novel. I have two reasons for this hypothesis. The first comes from one of the remarkable differences between English and Estonian: their ways of expressing the subject in a clause. Estonian, together with other Finno-Ugric languages, is considered as a ‘passive’ language: there is a natural tendency to prefer passive constructions, which may lead to concealing the subject, especially in its functions as possessor and experiencer, in both oral and written forms. Estonian also has a large variety of means to avoid direct reference to either the speaker or the listener, and to focus instead on the event, possession or experience itself.2 This tendency has somewhat weakened in the last thirty years (mainly due to contacts with Indo-European languages like German or Russian, and more recently, and contrastingly, English), but it is still present and recognisable today,3 and was even more so during the time when Jane Eyre first appeared in Estonian in 1959. It is fair to expect that such a tendency might also have left its prints on the translation of a first-person narrative from English into Estonian.
The second reason is the possibility of what I will call an ‘immersion effect’ during the translation process. A fictional immersion effect, as explained by Jean-Marie Schaeffer in Pourquoi la fiction?, is a way for the author and the reader (or viewer, or player) to engage with the fictional world, an affective investment that, as Schaeffer insists, ‘operates not only at the reception of works but also at their creation’.4 The translator as both a reader and a co-creator is indeed right at the heart of these dynamics, and their effects would be even stronger in case of a first-person narration. In other words, when a translator is rewriting in her own language a novel in which someone keeps using the first-person perspective, it is possible that, at least in some respects, the translator might start to see herself in that ‘I’ as well. Clearly, the identification with the first person is not entirely straightforward, not even in translation. The translator’s ‘I’ is obviously not the same as the author’s ‘I’. This understanding has led translation theorists to recognise that translation brings along a multiplication of voices which may be present in the text to different degrees. Theo Hermans is the first to call this phenomenon by the term ‘Translator’s voice’, by which he argues for a discursive presence of the translator in any translated text, including first-person narratives.5 In The Conference of the Tongues (2014), Hermans demonstrates that translator’s voice can become especially visible in translating strongly ideological first-person writings, such as Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, where the translator may be openly intervening in a text to mark disapproval or reservation towards the anterior speaker’s values. He recognises, however, that translators can struggle with the first-person perspective in the text, not only when translating a work with which their personal views do not agree but ‘even when they are in sympathy with what they translate’.6 When translating a work of fiction, these processes are bound to be even more complex because of different voices and modalities involved in the ‘I’. In translation, these various instances of subjectivity can converge through the translator’s immersion and affect the first-person appearance in both her experiencer and her narrator roles.
An Estonian translator of Jane Eyre is thus torn between these tendencies of language, translation and fiction, which can cause various movements and momentums to manifest themselves in the text. However, more than the causes of these movements, I will focus on their effects on the performance of the first person. For this purpose, I have chosen to address the translator’s immersive experience by comparing some narrative aspects of the translations and the source text, such as the enhancement or masking of the first-person expression in the text, the presentation of a different point of view, or a change in the spatial perspective. These aspects will allow us to understand how the translator’s immersive experience may alter the first-person narrative in the course of translation. Which moments tend to increase or decrease the presence of the ‘I’ in the text? How do changing degrees of closeness to or distance from the first person alter the point of view and other narrative functions? How does Jane come across through her narration in the Estonian version?
The Presence of Jane Eyre in Estonian
Before looking more closely at the changes that Jane goes through when translated into Estonian, a few points in the Estonian history of translating Jane Eyre need clarification. The novel entered into this small Finno-Ugric language, of about a million native speakers, in 1959 in Elvi Kippasto’s translation (published first under her married name Raidaru), with verses translated by Edla Valdna. In 1981, a second edition was issued with some proofreading corrections and under the translator’s maiden name Kippasto. The 1981 text was reprinted in 2007 with no alterations, and the edition of 2013 brought some additional minimal changes.7 All of these editions also include Valdna’s translation of the verses but only the edition of 1981 gives her the credit; the two more recent editions only refer to Elvi Kippasto as translator and relate themselves to the 1981, not the 1959 edition.
In 2000, another version of Jane Eyre was published, and this time it bore a different name for the translator, Ira Inga Vilberg. This is an interesting case of publishing that falls between making a new translation and editing an existing one, where the two activities merge in practice. Although Brigitta publishing house issued the text as a new translation, comparative reading of Kippasto’s and Vilberg’s versions indicates a great similarity between them, which points to the fact that Vilberg has worked with Kippasto’s text as a source. Such cases are not unfamiliar to translation history, as Kaisa Koskinen and Outi Paloposki demonstrate in their study of retranslations in Finland; they note that reasons for such incidents are complex and case specific, and they can sometimes happen without a consent of the translators or editors themselves.8 In addition to these reasons, Ira Inga Vilberg’s case seems to be related to its publishing period. The publication of this version falls into a time of cultural adjustments in Estonian history. In 2000, with Estonia’s recently regained independence nine years earlier, publishing norms were undergoing a phase of significant changes and had not yet properly set in. Many small publishing companies worked for financial purposes and were not immediately concerned by copyright laws.9 The publishing house Brigitta from Tallinn seems to fit the profile: it was active from 1994–2000, and Vilberg’s Jane Eyre is their last publication in a series of youth-oriented classical literature, historical and crime novels. Attempts to find out about the translator-editor Vilberg as a person have turned out unsuccessful as of yet, which points to a likelihood that a pseudonym was used. The fact that Valdna’s verse translations have been completely removed (possibly due to copyright issues), as well as the presence of many proofreading mistakes in the text (letters and words left out or misspelt) also indicate a low-budget publishing situation. This however does not discredit Vilberg’s effort on working with the text in this particular situation in which she found herself. The changes that Vilberg has made are mostly motivated by the intent of modernising the language (adjustments in syntax, grammar, and vocabulary). Occasionally, the changes have also increased accuracy towards the English source text, though this goal has not been followed consistently. In the context of this essay, I have chosen to use Kippasto’s edition of 1981 as the main source since this is the most well-known and republished version, and differences in Vilberg’s version are discussed where they concern the first-person presence in the text. Comparing the two versions will provide valuable insight into the alternative ways in which the first-person presence can be affected. However, due to a great number and frequency of similarities between the two versions, the comparison is not followed systematically but is undertaken only when Vilberg’s version provides additional understanding of the topic.
‘Moving where all else was still’: Feeling with the Protagonist
I would like to begin my discussion by looking into some ways by which the translation increases the presence of the first person and moves closer to the character-level of the narration. Indeed, despite the linguistic tendency of Estonian to conceal the subject, there are some moments where Kippasto’s translation seems to intensify this presence. The very first scene of the novel offers an example of this movement. It is the moment of Jane’s solitary reading behind the curtains, on the window sill, which she expects to be interrupted ‘too soon’.
JE, Ch. 1: I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon.10
EK 9: Ma ei kartnud midagi rohkem, kui et mind segatakse. Ja minu kurvastuseks juhtuski see õige peatselt.
BT: I feared nothing more than that I would be interrupted. And to my regret, this happened shortly.
IIV 7: Ma ei kartnud midagi muud, kui et mind segatakse. Kuid kahjuks juhtuski see kohe.
BT: I feared nothing more than that I would be interrupted. But unfortunately, this happened shortly.
Kippasto’s translation adds two more mentions of the first person in that short sentence. This has also caused some changes in the syntax, so that there are now two separate sentences, both of which focus on the first person. In the first sentence, the translation changes a shorter, nominal form — ‘interruption’ — into a full sub-clause ‘that I would be interrupted’ [et mind segatakse]. In the second, a temporary adverb ‘too’ becomes a first-person experiencer-phrase which makes explicit Jane’s feelings of ‘regret’ [kurvastuseks] towards the upcoming event. In Vilberg’s version, one of these additions of ‘I’ has been removed but the other one remains.
The translation can move closer to the first person also through other characters’ speech. Such is the case with Miss Abbot’s comment at the beginning of the red-room passage, directed in English only to Bessie. Abbot refers to Jane in the third person throughout this reply, excluding her completely from the conversation. Jane is left to herself, and in God’s care.
JE, Ch. 2: ‘Besides,’ said Miss Abbot, ‘God will punish her: he might strike her dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go? Come, Bessie, we will leave her: (...)’
EK 13: “Pealegi võib Jumal ise teid karistada,” ütles miss Abbot. “Ta võib teid keset niisugust vihahoogu surmaga rabada, ja mis siis...? Tulge, Bessie, lähme ära. (...)”
BT: ‘Besides, God himself may punish you,’ said miss Abbot. ‘He may strike you dead in the midst of such a fit of anger, and what then...? Come, Bessie, let us go. (...)’
IIV 12: “Peale selle,” ütles miss Abbot, “jumal ise võib teda karistada. Ta võib teda keset sellist purset surmaga tabada, ja kuhu ta hind [sic!] siis läheb...? Tulge, Bessie, lähme ära. (...)”
BT: ‘‘Besides, God himself may punish her,’ said miss Abbot. ‘He may strike her dead in the midst of such a burst, and where would her soul go then...? Come, Bessie, let us go. (...)’
In Kippasto’s translation, this comment addresses Jane by using a formal second person ‘you’ [teid], making this a three-way conversation. As is characteristic in Estonian, there are also fewer personal addresses — two of the ‘her’s have been left out. Abbot’s words are still strict and threatening, and it could be argued that her threats have now a more personal direction and thus more power to take their effect. On the other hand, by including Jane as a participant in this conversation, and by using the formal address, the translation also allows more respect and sympathy towards the child. Vilberg’s version corrects this dialogue significantly, by switching the personal pronouns back to the third person, and thus removing Jane from the conversation again. Still, Vilberg’s corrections do not touch the way Abbot invites Bessie to go with her, rather than leave Jane behind as she does in the English version. Thus, by leaving out the final ‘her’, Jane in this version is even more intensely pushed away.
However, Kippasto’s movement against the linguistic distance of Estonian happens only rarely. More often, the effect of increased closeness becomes apparent through less direct devices. For example, translation can interfere with the dramatic setting of the scene, as we can see in the red-room passage. Jane has been locked up in the red-room which has a certain effect of magic on her. Although inwardly full of movements of thought and emotion, Jane is physically rather immobile in the room, being imprisoned (‘Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure’) and ‘left riveted’ by Bessie and Abbott on ‘a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece’. She moves around once, to confirm that the door is indeed locked, and returns right to her stool. On her way back, she takes an ‘involuntary’ look into the mirror which opens a view into a magical world, a ‘visionary hollow’. She also notices her own reflection there, ‘a strange little figure’ in contrast with the surroundings: ‘a white face and arms specking the gloom’.11 She sees the little figure’s eyes moving, in contrast with ‘all else’ that is ‘still’.
JE, Ch. 2: with [...] glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still
EK 14: hirmust läikivate silmadega, kus ainsana elu näis tuksuvat toas, mis oli otsekui surnud
BT: with glittering eyes of fear, which [were] the only place where life seemed to be throbbing in a room that was like dead
Translation makes this scene more dynamic, as it adds a description of the movement in the eyes, a ‘throbbing’ [tuksuvat]. It also pushes the contrast between the figure and its surrounding to an extreme by interpreting movement as ‘life’ [elu], and stillness as ‘dead’ [surnud]. More importantly, translation takes this otherworldly vision back into the reality: the mirror starts to work as a mirror again, bringing Jane’s gaze back into the ‘room’ [toas] where she was, and her being there becomes even more real as it is now a question of life and death.
These dynamics continue into the next example from the red-room scene, where Jane is still sitting on her stool, looking at the room around her. Her field of vision is again described as rather static, and consists of only two still frames: the bed and the walls form one single frame, and the mirror forms another.
JE, Ch. 2: and now, as I sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls — occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaming mirror —
EK 16: Mu rahutu pilk eksles valgelt voodilt hämarusse uppuvaile seintele ja sealt uuesti tuhmilt läikivale peeglile, ning...
BT: My restless glance was wandering from the white bed to the overshadowed walls drowned into the darkness and from there again to the dimly gleaming mirror, and...
Translation has let go of Jane’s sitting body altogether, and instead follows her ‘glance’ [pilk] which has gained some emotion and momentum. It has become ‘restless’ [rahutu], and it is ‘wandering’ [eksles] around more, switching between different frames, going from the bed to the walls (the spatial movement in Estonian is indicated by declinations -lt, and -le), and ‘from there again’ [sealt uuesti] to the mirror.
The above examples convey a certain degree of increase in the first person presence in Kippasto’s translation. Vilberg’s version seems to have been sensitive to these increases of the subject’s presence and has sometimes guided the translation back towards a greater distance. Interestingly, Vilberg’s changes mostly concern the times where subjects are directly mentioned but do not interfere with the dynamics of the scenes. The stronger presence of the first person indicates the immersion effect in Kippasto’s version, which has two major effects on Jane’s experiencer role: at these moments, the character-Jane becomes more active than in the English version; and other characters have more ability to interact with her directly. It is perhaps not without interest that most of these moments where the translation seems to be approaching the first person perspective come from the first few chapters of the book, where Jane is still a child. This seems to indicate that Kippasto as the translator has more sympathy for young Jane and thus moves closer to her also in her expression. However, as the following analysis will demonstrate, this closeness is not prevalent in the rest of Kippasto’s translation.
Dimming the First-Person Presence
The dominant tendency in the Estonian Jane Eyre is to omit the first-person experiencer or alter and dim her position in other ways. This has consequences on both the narrator and the character levels.
On the narrator level, losing the first person as the focal point shifts the point of view towards a more diffused, general perspective. In descriptive passages, the first person can easily be left out. In the following example, Jane has taken a rest on her way to Hay, just before meeting Mr Rochester for the first time. She is again describing what she could see from where she was sitting.
JE, Ch. 12: From my seat I could look down on Thornfield: the gray and battlemented hall was the principal object in the vale below me;
EK 108: Siit oli kogu Thornfield selgesti näha: oru põhjas kõrgus sakmelise katusevalliga maja helehall massiiv,
BT: Thornfield was easily visible from here: in the vale, the monolithic, light gray and battlemented hall was towering
IIV 133: Minu kohalt oli kogu Thornfield hästi näha: oru põhjas kõrgus sakilise katusega maja hall massiiv,
BT: From my seat, Thornfield was easily visible: in the vale, the monolithic, gray and battlemented hall was towering
In the first phrase, Kippasto’s translation maintains the deictic reference with ‘from here’ [siit] so that the point of view is still relatable to the first person, but any mention of the experiencer herself, as well as the spatial indicator ‘below me’ in the second phrase, have been omitted. The role of the subject has been given to Thornfield Hall instead. Vilberg makes the first person presence only slightly more explicit, by reintroducing the possessive ‘from my seat’ [minu kohalt] instead of Kippasto’s more generic deixis, but still leaving out the subject ‘I’ who ‘could look down’ in the English text.
Some omissions of the experiencer may bring more crucial changes to the narrative point of view. When, in Chapter 1, Jane and John Reed have had their fight, others come and separate them. Jane recalls: ‘I heard the words’, and quotes what she heard. The dialogical form indicates that there is more than one speaker.
JE, Ch. 1: We were parted: I heard the words —
‘Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!’
‘Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!’
EK 11–12: Meid lahutati.
“Helde taevas! Küll on metsaline! Tormab noorhärra Johnile kallale!”
“Kes niisugust raevuhoogu enne on näinud!” kostsid hüüded läbisegi.
BT: We were parted. / “Good Heavens! What a savage! Storming at Master John!” / “Who has seen such a fit of fury before!” the voices sounded, mixed.
In translation, the first-person phrase has been lost and, instead, the plurality of voices is given focus. There are indeed many speakers present in the scene, but in addition to the dialogical form, we learn about this from a separate phrase. The first person does not form a focal point any longer, and thus the voices are given the freedom to ‘sound’ [kostsid] of their own accord, and are allowed to disperse and to get ‘mixed’ [läbisegi] with one another.
Similarly, the first person may disappear in a cognitive function, as with the red-room scene’s vision in the mirror where Jane compares herself to ‘a strange figure’:
JE, Ch 2: I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp,
EK 14: See oli midagi tillukese haldja ja väikese kuradikese taolist,
BT: It was something like a tiny fairy and a little devil,
The translation does not preserve the act of intellection expressed in the first-person phrase. The Estonian sentence is simply stating the nature of the figure, without any personal input into the image, which presents the view as a general description rather than someone’s imagination.
These cases demonstrate the loss of a focal point but more importantly they indicate the gain of another, more open one. The descriptions are no longer a strict account of what Jane could see or hear or what she was thinking, but of what was visible and audible from that place, which operate as an implicit invitation to the reader to experience it as well.
In addition to the effect of giving up the experiencer’s remarks in favour of a more generalised point of view, Kippasto’s translation also often disregards the re-phrasings and correctional additions which show the narrator hesitating, rethinking, re-remembering, or otherwise revising her expression. This may be a more deliberate choice by the translator who perhaps sees these reiterations as author’s ‘mistakes’ and tries to edit them out by writing the ‘correct’ version right away. These corrections have also survived in Vilberg’s version where they have been considered relevant enough to keep.
Such a correction of corrections happens already in the red-room scene where the narrator is describing the room as one ‘very seldom slept in’, and then specifying: ‘I might say never, indeed’, making the room seem even more drastically solitary.
JE, Ch. 2: The red-room was a spare chamber, very seldom slept in; I might say never, indeed; unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead-hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it contained:
EK 13: Punane tuba oli seisnud kasutamata. Seal magati noil äärmiselt harvadel juhtudel, kui Gateshead-halli nii rohkesti külalisi kokku voolas, et kõik majas olevad toad ära tuli kasutada.
BT: The red-room had remained unused. It was only slept in on those rare occasions when there was such an influx of visitors at Gateshead-hall that it became necessary to turn to use all the rooms in the house.
The Estonian version does not provide any equivalent for the first-person specification in the English text, and changes the comment into a conclusive passive tense sentence: ‘It was only slept in on those rare occasions when’ [Seal magati noil äärmiselt harvadel juhtudel, kui]. This omission does not change the information given about the room; however, it does cancel out the first-person narrator’s input. What remains is a straightforward, general informative description of how the room was used, without any personal comment or opinion about it.
Omission of the narrator’s corrective comment occurs more drastically in Chapter 15, where Jane hears Bertha’s laughter behind her door, just before she discovers the fire that Bertha has set on Mr Rochester’s bed. In this scene, however, Jane does not yet have the knowledge of the real source of that ‘demoniac laugh’. Instead, the laughter itself is personified as a ‘laugher’: it ‘stood at my bedside’ as a human would, but then, changing her mind, the narrator corrects herself. She is shifting the position of the laugher into ‘crouched by my pillow’, as if crouching would seem more like something a goblin would do.
JE, Ch. 15: and I thought at first, the goblin-laugher stood at my bedside — or rather, crouched by my pillow:
EK 145: ja algul tundus mulle, nagu kostaks õel naer otse mu kõrval padja juures.
BT: and at first it seemed to me, as if the evil laughter was coming from right beside me, near the pillow
In the Estonian translation, there is no personification, which makes the laughter just a sound that also behaves like a sound. It comes from a certain place ‘right beside me, near the pillow’, but there is no information given about the position of the one who laughs, whether standing or crouching, so no correction is needed. In addition, the laughter is characterised not as ‘goblin’ but as ‘evil’ [õel], so all the references to a possibly non-human source of the laughing sound have also disappeared. Again, the Estonian sentence has a conclusory effect: it contains both the bedside and the pillow, the visual references in the room, but not the narrator’s correction which binds them in the English version.
These corrections or hesitations also reach into the speech of other characters in the novel, as with this comment made by Mrs Fairfax on Mr Rochester’s character, where she repeatedly points out that the opinion expressed is her own.
JE, Ch. 11: ‘Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar, perhaps: he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the world, I should think. I dare say he is clever: but I never had much conversation with him.’
EK 102: “Oo, iseloom on tal laitmatu. Tõsi küll, ta on veidi omapärane. Ta on palju reisinud ja palju maailma näinud. Küllap ta on tarkki, aga ma pole temaga palju vestelnud.”
BT: ‘Oh, his character is unimpeachable. However, he is rather peculiar. He has travelled a great deal and seen a great deal of the world. He is probably clever as well, but I haven’t had much conversation with him.’
All of the remarks in the first person have disappeared in the translation. Some indication of the presence of Mrs Fairfax’s opinion in these words is still conveyed, but only with the use of impersonal adverbs ‘however’ [tõsi küll] and ‘probably’ [küllap]. This does not change the point of view — Mrs Fairfax is still the source of information — but it focuses on learning about Rochester and pays less attention to how Mrs Fairfax comes across, herself. Considering Jane’s opinion about the lady which she offers a few lines further on (‘There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a character …’),12 this is not an entirely insignificant change in the narrator’s point of view as well.
The process of editing out the narrator’s comments sometimes extends to moments where the narrator does not introduce a qualification or correction, but adds a specification. In this example, where Jane has had the rather mystical experience of hearing a voice through the air, the narrator explains that she only heard her name three times — and nothing more.
JE, Ch. 35: I heard a voice somewhere cry —
“Jane! Jane! Jane!” Nothing more.
EK 411: kusagilt kaugusest kuulsin ma hüüdu:
“Jane! Jane! Jane!”
BT: from somewhere far away I heard a cry: / “Jane, Jane, Jane!”
The Estonian text drops that comment, as if to point out that when there is ‘nothing more’ to be said, it does not really need saying.
The changes in translation can also add more distance towards the diegetic level of the acting character in the scene. These are often changes that happen in the rhythm of the text. They may be brought about through various means, such as changing the syntax or tense of the verbs, or adding logical connectors to the text. The rhythm thus becomes less dramatically charged and the scene is narrated in a more neutral tone. This happens for example at the beginning of Chapter 28 where, for two paragraphs, Jane gives her story in a present-tense narration, describing her arrival at Whitcross:
JE, Ch. 28: Two days are passed. It is a summer evening;
EK 313: Möödusid kaks päeva. Oli suveõhtu.
BT: Two days passed. It was a summer evening.
This dramatic effect does not come across in Kippasto’s translation where all of the present tense use has been disregarded and the story continues in its usual retrospective manner. Vilberg brings the narration slightly closer to the scene by switching back to the present tense, although for her the scene begins a couple of sentences later:
JE, Ch. 28: The coach is a mile off by this time; I am alone.
EK 313: Nüüd oli postitõld juba miili võrra edasi sõitnud ja mina seisin ristteel üksinda.
BT: Now the coach had driven for a mile already and I stood on the crossroad, alone.
IIV 392: Nüüd on postitõld juba miili võrra edasi sõitnud ja mina seisan üksinda ristteel.
BT: Now the coach has driven for a mile already and I stand alone on the crossroad.
However, Vilberg keeps Kippasto’s translation in other discursive points like the altered syntax and a more descriptive approach which manifests in adding the verbs ‘has/had driven’ [oli/on sõitnud] and ‘stood/stand’ [seisin/seisan] as well as in placing the subject ‘on the crossroad’ [ristteel]. Thus it becomes clear that despite the temporal differences, both Estonian versions opt for a more descriptive account of the situation and stay with the narrator-Jane rather than permitting the character-Jane to actively experience the scene.
The increased distance may be created also in the form of a more external point of view. In this case, the translator distances herself both from the character-Jane and the narrator-Jane. This may be observed in a scene in Chapter 8 where Jane and Helen are invited by Miss Temple to have tea and toast, and Jane describes a change in Helen’s appearance and behaviour. She first attributes the change to the warm atmosphere and friendship, but then suggests that ‘perhaps, more than all these’, there is something ‘within her’, Helen’s intrinsic powers that generate the change. Jane observes these powers becoming active: ‘they woke, they kindled’, ‘they glowed’ and ‘they shone’. Still, Jane does not give up her own point of view either, but alludes to her presence through what she sees from the outside, on Helen’s cheek, and through memory when she reminds herself that she ‘had never seen [her cheek] but pale and bloodless’. Jane is present here both as narrator and as character, and thus she sees Helen at once from the inside and from the outside.
JE, Ch. 8: The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kindness of her beloved instructress, or perhaps more than all these, something in her own unique mind, had roused her powers within her. They woke, they kindled: first, they glowed in the bright tint of her cheek, which till this hour I had never seen but pale and bloodless; then they shone in the liquid lustre of her eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty more singular than that of Miss Temple’s.
EK 70: Võib-olla et kosutav toit, hele kaminatuli, armastatud kasvataja leebus ja ligidus või ka tema enda ainulaadses vaimus peituv miski olid temas uusi jõude äratanud ja sütitanud. Heleni kahvatud põsed kattusid õhetava punaga, silmadesse tekkis niiske sära, andes neile ebatavalise ilu, mis oli veelgi haruldasem kui miss Temple’i silmade oma.
BT: Perhaps the refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the kindness and presence of the beloved instrcutress, or something hidden in her own unique mind had roused and kindled new powers in her. Helen’s pale cheeks became covered with a bright tint, a liquid lustre appeared in her eyes, giving them an unusual beauty, more singular than that of Miss Temple’s.
Such a double vision is not preserved in translation. Interestingly, we notice a loss on both sides. The Estonian text does not give any voice to Helen’s inner powers — they are no longer the subject of the verbs, but are instead observed through visible effects: ‘Helen’s pale cheeks became covered with a bright tint’ [Heleni kahvatud põsed kattusid õhetava punaga], ‘a liquid lustre appeared in her eyes’ [silmadesse tekkis niiske sära]. The Estonian narrator no longer sees what is happening inside Helen, and at the same time we have also lost most of the first person’s presence. Firstly, the narrator’s suggestion ‘perhaps’ [võib-olla et], even if still present, has become shorter and moved to the beginning of the sentence, which makes it valid for all possible effects on Helen’s new appearance, not just the inner powers. Secondly, Jane’s memory of seeing Helen’s cheek before as ‘pale and bloodless’ has changed into a mere impersonal description of ‘Helen’s pale cheeks’ [Heleni kahvatud põsed].
Just a few moments later, at the farewell to Miss Temple, Jane’s perspective undergoes another translational change. In English, this perspective manifests in a rather particular view of Helen and Miss Temple’s relationship which becomes apparent in a rhythm of short clauses with a repetitive emphasis on Helen, and in a comparison between Helen and Jane herself. This perspective is very personal and even gives a hint of jealousy. We can almost hear Jane’s regretful voice behind the text continuing ‘it was her, and not me’ who got Miss Temple’s attention. Truthfully, it is unclear whether this is a sign of a sisterly competitiveness belonging to the teenager Jane in the scene or the narrator-Jane of the later years expressing her own regret, knowing Helen’s fate; but this distinction is not necessary to conclude that it is a moment where Jane’s person (and personality) is strongly present in the text.
JE, Ch. 8: Helen she held a little longer than me: she let her go more reluctantly; it was Helen her eye followed to the door; it was for her she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear from her cheek.
EK 71: Helenit hoidis ta oma süleluses veidi kauem, nagu oleks tal kahju olnud teda ära lasta. Saatnud teda pilguga ukseni, ohkas miss Temple kurvalt, ja ta põsel hiilgas pisar.
BT: Helen she held in her arms a little longer, as if she had regretted letting her go. Having followed her to the door with her glance, Miss Temple sighed sadly, and a tear shone on her cheek.
The translation bears practically no signs of this emotion. The emphasis has moved away from Helen except for the beginning of the first sentence. The syntax in the Estonian paragraph shows no distinctive repetitions. It also has a less rhythmical structure: the five clauses of the English text have been connected into two longer sentences, with a hypothesis as a connection in one case (‘as if she had regretted’ [nagu oleks tal kahju olnud]), and a temporal succession in the other (‘having followed her’ [saatnud teda]). In the last subordinate clause, the subject of the verb has switched from Miss Temple to the ‘tear’ [pisar] that ‘shone’ [hiilgas] on her cheek. The hypothesis and the changing of the subject again suggest a more external point of view, one from which the narrator can guess but does not know of Miss Temple’s feelings, and sees the instructress, her cheek and a tear on it, from the outside.
Thus we can conclude that the narrator in the Estonian translation, although less present in the text in the first-person form, comes across as more confident and better prepared for telling the story. The narration in the Estonian Jane Eyre is focusing on the story to be told and hiding the storyteller character in ways that are provided for the translator by her language and her translating practices. Comparing Kippasto’s translation with Vilberg’s edits confirms this conclusion in most aspects. Despite slight differences, Vilberg’s version has a very similar effect on the narrator. Her alterations are more linguistically oriented and almost never interfere with the settings or the dynamics of the scenes which often remain the same as Kippasto’s, word for word. This suggests that the appearance of the first person in its grammatical forms is more sensitive to an editor’s alterations (and perhaps more generally, to the changes in language) than other literary devices which create the immersion effect. However, as the prevailing distance of the narrator’s point of view indicates, the immersion effect which comes through from the Estonian versions has indeed been greatly influenced by the Finno-Ugric tendency to conceal the subject, in both discursive and narrative aspects.
The Vampyre with a Wedding Veil
Having observed several processes emphasising or dimming the presence of the first person in translation and altering the point of view, I would now like to read more closely one particular scene which helps us to understand the function of the narrator’s new position in the Estonian text. This is what we might call the ‘Vampyre’ scene, a tale within the tale where, the night before their wedding, Jane tells Rochester about a mysterious ‘shape’ that had intruded into her bedroom and ripped her wedding veil. In order to address the narrator’s position in the scene, there are two main questions to be discussed: who or what is the form that emerges from the closet and vents her frustration on the wedding garments? And to whom do these garments really belong?
Throughout Jane’s tale, the being whom she sees and hears in her room that night is named as a questionable, possibly non-human thing: ‘a shape’, ‘a form’, ‘a ghost’, ‘a figure’. It remains unrecognised: ‘this was not Sophie, it was not Leah, it was not Mrs Fairfax: it was not — no, I was sure of it, and am still — it was not even that strange woman, Grace Poole’.13 It is referred to with neuter pronouns ‘it’ and ‘its’, most of the time. Though it seems like a woman by appearance and on a few occasions Jane does use the pronoun ‘she’, it is not recognised by Jane as a living person (this feature of the narration is also discussed by Yunte Huang in Essay 13, above, in connection with the Chinese translations). Instead, it reminds her ‘[o]f the foul German spectre — the Vampyre’.14
The Estonian translator deals with this uncertainty in two ways. On three occasions, all in the first part of the tale where the intruder has not yet been seen by Jane, the subject of the verb is replaced with something less personal.
JE, Ch. 25: I heard a rustling there.
EK 274: Sealtpoolt kostis mingit sahinat.
BT: a rustling sounded from there.
Here the experiencer phrase ‘I heard’ is replaced by ‘a rustling’ [sahinat] ‘sounded’ [kostis], which points to the sound itself, not a person hearing or making it.
JE, Ch. 25: No one answered:
EK 274: Vastust ei tulnud
BT: The answer did not come,
In this example, ‘the answer’ [vastus] becomes the subject of the negative verb ‘did not come’ [ei tulnud].
JE, Ch. 25: “Sophie! Sophie!” I again cried: and still it was silent.
EK 274: “Sophie! Sophie!” hõikasin ma uuesti, aga kõik jäi vaikseks.
BT: “Sophie! Sophie!” I cried again, but everything remained silent.
Next, the pronoun ‘it’ referring to the intruder is replaced by a broad and impersonal pronoun ‘everything’ [kõik].
On the other hand, when the figure becomes visible, the Estonian text identifies the intruder immediately as a living human being.
JE, Ch. 25: but a form emerged from the closet: it took the light
EK 274: kuid keegi ligines kapi poolt, võttis küünla
BT: but someone approached from the direction of the closet, took the candle
The noun that Jane uses here, ‘a form’, is translated with the personal pronoun ‘someone’ [keegi], and the verb ‘emerged’ — an action proper to spirits and ghosts — is changed into ‘approached’ [ligines], an action more appropriate to humans. The pronoun ‘it’ is not translated separately, so the subject of the verb ‘took’ [võttis] is still the ‘someone’ from the previous clause. There is also a change in the spatial movement. In the English version, the form ‘emerged from the closet’, which is consistent with the idea of a ghost. The Estonian translation sees the someone coming from that ‘direction’ [kapi poolt], but not necessarily originating from the closet: this is more suited to the idea of a human being.
On the second occasion on which the intruder is named with a noun, ‘the shape’ decidedly becomes a ‘person’ [inimene], and a relative personal pronoun ‘who’ [kes] is added:
JE, Ch. 25: The shape standing before me
EK 274: See inimene, kes mu ees seisis,
BT: The person who was standing before me
Throughout the scene, the neuter pronoun ‘it’ by which Jane refers to the creature is translated, where present, by a personal pronoun ‘he/she’ [ta]. ‘Ta’ does not have a gender in Estonian and may sometimes refer to inanimate things, especially in spoken form. Still, given the context of nouns and pronouns the translator uses in this passage, ‘ta’ is perceived clearly as a personal pronoun:
JE, Ch. 25: Shall I tell you of what it reminded me?’
EK 275: “Kas ütelda teile, keda ta mulle meenutas?”
BT: Shall I tell you of whom she reminded me?
Here, for instance, both pronouns ‘what’ and ‘it’ are translated as personal ‘whom’ [keda] and ‘he/she’ [ta].
The comparison to the vampire itself does not undergo any significant changes in translation, neither in the discourse nor in the point of view.
JE, Ch. 25: ‘Of the foul German spectre — the Vampyre.’
EK 275: “Jälki viirastust — vampiiri!”
BT: ‘Of [a] foul spectre — [a] vampire!’
The German reference is missing, however, so that the vampire becomes a less specific reference. As the creature is leaving Jane’s room, it is once more named by a noun, ‘the figure’.
JE, Ch. 25: Just at my bedside, the figure stopped:
EK 275: Otse minu voodi kõrval ta seisatas.
BT: Just at my bedside she stopped.
The translation replaces it by a pronoun, which makes ‘the figure’ again into a personal ‘he/she’ [ta].
I leave it to every reader of the English text to decide how believable is Jane’s claim to have really met a vampire that night, but it is clear that the Estonian translator has not taken this claim very seriously. To Kippasto, this creature is definitely a human being, and if yet unknown to the character-Jane, then seemingly already known to the translator who is likely to be familiar with the continuation of the novel.
As for our second question, ‘who do the wedding garments really belong to?’, we also get a slightly different answer from the Estonian text. At the first mention, they clearly belong to the first person of the tale, Jane, in both languages.
JE, Ch. 25: and the door of the closet, where, before going to bed, I had hung my wedding-dress and veil, stood open:
EK 274: ja kapp, kuhu ma oma laulatuskleidi ja loori olin riputanud, oli lahti.
BT: and the closet, where I had hung my wedding-dress and veil, stood open.
In this sentence, the translation drops a couple of spatio-temporal indicators. The ‘door’ is not mentioned but left to the reader’s implicit deduction. Secondly, the temporal indicator for Jane’s action of hanging her garments ‘before going to bed’ is also left out. The attention of the translator is here centred on anticipation of the event that is about to happen, and is not concerned with past circumstances.
The spatial reference becomes crucial in the following example, as the next time the garments are mentioned, the English narrator identifies them by that spatial attribute. They are the garments that are ‘pendent from the portmanteau’, but their belonging is left somewhat open: they belong in that space and are now potentially accessible to anyone who can reach the portmanteau.
JE, Ch. 25: and surveyed the garments pendant from the portmanteau.
EK 274: silmitses mu laulatusrõivaid.
BT: surveyed my wedding garments.
However, the translator does not go along with this move. She leaves out the spatial indicator and replaces it with a possessive pronoun. The garments in translation still belong to ‘me’, wherever they may be.
When, in the next example, the intruder takes the veil, the Jane of the English text needs to try to reclaim it by affirming that the veil is still hers, even though it has been taken ‘from its place’.
JE, Ch. 25: But presently she took my veil from its place; she held it up
EK 275: aga siis võttis ta loori enda kätte,
BT : but then she took the veil to her hands,
That claim is lost in translation, but so is the indication of the spatial belonging. The veil no longer has its own place, and is now in the ‘hands’ [kätte] of the intruder. What happens next is interesting for two reasons. First, Jane says that the intruder throws the veil ‘over her own head’, stressing Jane’s comment that the veil is now on the wrong head, the intruder’s, not Jane’s. The second is the intruder’s movement when she turns to the mirror. This allows Jane to see the reflection of her ‘visage and features’.
JE, Ch. 25: and then she threw it over her own head, and turned to the mirror.
EK 275: ja heitis endale pea ümber ning vaatas peeglisse.
BT: and threw over her head and looked into the mirror.
In translation, that opposition is not stressed. The woman throws the veil on her head, but there is no objection to that by the storyteller. The second point of interest brings us back to the woman’s identity, as her movement towards the mirror changes in translation into ‘looking’ [vaatas]. This makes her act more explicitly dialogical, because Bertha is no longer just an object of Jane’s gaze or imagination but is given the ability to look back. She is recognised as a partner, not just a shape or a creature.
A bit later, Jane tries once more to reclaim her veil by calling it hers. Bertha has become again an ‘it’ with ‘its gaunt head’:
JE, Ch. 25: ‘Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt head,
EK 275: “Oh, sir, ta kiskus loori peast,
BT: ‘Oh sir, she tore the veil from [the] head,
The translation is rather emotional here, calling out an ‘Oh’ and describing the action with a more dynamic verb ‘tore’ [kiskus]. But the veil is no longer Jane’s, it is just a veil; and Bertha is a person, a ‘he/she’ [ta], whose head is just a head, no stranger or gaunter than any other human being’s.
This passage also reveals the visual aspect of the immersion effect, where visuality is increased in translation. Just as we saw above, with Bertha being given the ability to look into the mirror instead of just turning towards it, we can notice more visual activity in Jane’s character too. In addition to allowing more visual contact between the characters, there are also indications of a desire to see better.
The scene begins with Jane hearing some noise and noticing a light in the room, but it takes a while before she can actually see the intruder. When she does, however, she leaves her listener, Rochester, and her reader in a momentary suspense, describing her own movement and feelings rather than saying directly what was in front of her.
JE, Ch. 25: I had risen up in bed, I bent forward: first, surprise, then bewilderment, came over me; and then my blood crept cold through my veins.
EK 274: Tõusin voodis istukile, kummardusin ettepoole, et teda näha: algul üllatusin, sattusin segadusse, ent siis tardus mul veri soontes.
BT: I rose up in bed, I bent forward to see her: at first I was surprised, became bewildered, but then the blood froze in my veins.
This does not seem to be enough for the translator who adds an explanatory purpose for Jane’s movement: Jane bends forward in order ‘to see her’ [et teda näha]. The translator’s impulse to enter the fictional scene becomes almost tangible here — it is as if the translator had stretched up together with Jane to reach out for a better position in order to see what Jane has seen. Something similar happens a little while later when Jane describes the dress that the intruder was wearing.
JE, Ch. 25: I know not what dress she had on: it was white and straight;
EK 274: Ma ei tea, missugune ta kleit oli, nägin ainult, et tal oli seljas midagi valget ja laia.
BT: I know not what her dress was like, I only saw that she was wearing something white and loose.
Here too the translation takes a more descriptive approach and fills the rhythmical hiatus with an explanation in a first-person form, spelling out that the narrator had indeed had visual proof of her information about the dress. Through these additions, which seem somewhat contradictory to Kippasto’s usual way of avoiding the first-person subject where possible, the translation makes the experience of seeing more visible in the text. Seeing becomes an additional confirmation to Jane’s story: she now has even more concrete proof of the reality of her intruder.
Through these questions of identity and belonging, and the increased aspect of visuality, the Estonian translation gives more credibility to Bertha, both as a person and as a truthful (or at least lawful) owner of the wedding veil. By doing so, the translation also puts the narrator in a more neutral position, allowing the two female rivals to be recognised as equals rather than showing the duel from the jealous Jane’s point of view. This equality is something that Kevin Stevens, among others, has shown to be missing from Jane’s narration in its English version.15 Through his analysis of auditory thematics in the novel, Stevens demonstrates how Jane deliberately deprives Bertha of the ability to speak and to appear human: Jane claims Bertha’s murmurs to be unintelligible noise while she also ‘frames Bertha’s sounds to evoke horror and disgust’.16 Stevens also observes that Jane builds her narrative strategically to conceal and misdirect Bertha’s identity for many chapters, although she offers freely her retrospective knowledge on other issues. These findings lead him to conclude that ‘Jane crucially privileges aesthetics over ethics: withholding Bertha’s existence also withholds her very humanity, as she is alive in the narrative only through noises — demonic laughter and seemingly non-linguistic murmurs’.17 To Stevens, Jane Eyre is an unreliable and manipulative narrator who is trying to mislead her reader and present the story with her own personal agenda.
The image of the first person that comes across from the translation is rather different from her English counterpart, at least as seen by Stevens, Fiehn, or Sternlieb, but she acquires her own entirely coherent and functional existence. To answer Stevens’s concern: Jane translated into Estonian does seem to become more ‘trustworthy’ as a narrator, in the sense that she now presents a more external point of view. We meet with a Jane who is less of a character in her story and more of the detached, autobiographical storyteller that she claims to be. She does not get so absorbed in her story, does not go along so easily with its movements and emotions, but rather gives a more neutral account of the events and experiences retrospectively. Her storytelling also becomes more confident and ethical. She does not have to correct herself so often: it is as if she has had a chance to think through and edit her words before (re-)writing them. And she has more consideration both towards her main adversary, Bertha, and towards her own younger self.
Furthermore, the translational changes in the first-person presence reveal some pervasive tendencies in the translator’s attitudes towards Jane. For the most part, Kippasto seems not to absorb Jane’s ‘I’ fully, but rather to remain a bystander, literally “beside myself”, so as to represent new, altered points of view. Among these additional points of view, we can perhaps recognise that of someone who feels empathy for the poor child and moves closer to her, as well as that of a more neutral storyteller who is taking her distance, and also the point of view of an editor who corrects the hesitations and shifts the attitudes. However, this is not something to be regretted or disapproved in the work of the translator, although that has been many a translator’s fate. Instead of interpreting these changes as losses of the novel’s versatile aspects, translation offers a new opportunity for interpretation. Thomas Pavel has noted that readers or viewers immersed in the world of a work of art ‘have no actual power to modify what happens in the fictional world, but [they] still project [their] desires, exercise [their] will, even though, in fact, [they] do it only homeopathically and with little effect on the world of the work of art’.18 Yet, translating is a work that consists precisely in this power to modify a text, to interact with its world more actively and effectively. It is the translator’s job to, figuratively speaking, move around in the spaces of the fictional world, have a relationship with its characters, tell the story and record the experience of immersion. Clive Scott has described this experience through the notion of fieldwork and he points out that translation is in fact more of a live recording, ‘an encounter-in-action’ of the experience than an account after the fact: it is ‘the interlocution between an I and a you, not a treatment of the it’.19 This experience has revealed itself in the Estonian Jane Eyre as a certain shift in the points of view which is brought about by adding a new linguistic, cultural and historical situation, and simply another set of eyes. We have seen how the translator has been immersed into the fictional world but has done so not quite as the narrator, nor as the character, and not quite as her own self either. So, just as much as this is an encounter between an author and a translator (and eventual editors), it is also an encounter with Jane’s roles and attitudes. Like a prism, it brings forth different aspects of her character as a narrator.
Works cited
Translations of Jane Eyre
Brontë, Charlotte, Jane Eyre, trans. by Elvi Kippasto (Tallinn: Kirjastus Eesti Raamat, 1981).
——, Jane Eyre, trans. by Ira Inga Vilberg (Tallinn: Brigitta, 2000).
——, Jane Eyre, trans. by Elvi Kippasto (Tallinn: Mediasat Group, Eesti Päevaleht AS, 2007).
——, Jane Eyre, trans. by Elvi Kippasto (Tallinn: Tänapäev, 2013).
Other Sources
Erelt, Mati, and Metslang, Helle, ‘Kogeja vormistamine eesti keeles: nihkeid SAE perifeerias [Expression of the experiencer in Estonian: Shifts in the periphery of the SAE]’, Emakeele Seltsi aastaraamat [Yearbook of the Estonian Mother Tongue Society], 53 (2007), 9–22.
Fiehn, Charlotte, ‘The Two Janes: Jane Eyre and the Narrative Problem in Chapter 23’, Brontë Studies, 41 (2016), 312–21, https://doi.org/10.1080/14748932.2016.1222698
Hermans, Theo, ‘The Translator’s Voice in Translated Narrative’, Target, 8:1 (1996), 23–48.
Hermans, Theo, The Conference of the Tongues (London: Routledge, 2014), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315759784
Lindström, Liina, ‘Kõnelejale ja kuulajale viitamise vältimise strateegiaid eesti keeles [Strategies of avoidance of reference to the speaker and hearer in Estonian]’, Emakeele Seltsi aastaraamat [Yearbook of the Estonian Mother Tongue Society], 55 (2010), 88–118.
Koskinen, Kaisa and Paloposki, Outi, Sata kirjaa, tuhat suomennosta. Kaunokirjallisuuden uudelleenkääntäminen [A Hundred Books, A Thousand Translations: Retranslating Fiction] (Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura [Finnish Literature Society], 2015).
Metslang, Helle, ‘Estonian grammar between Finnic and SAE: some comparisons’, Language Typology and Universals, 62 (2009), 49–71, https://doi.org/10.1524/stuf.2009.0004
Möldre, Aile, Kirjastustegevus ja raamatulevi Eestis aastail 1940–2000 [Publishing and Book Distribution in Estonia in 1940–2000] (Tallinn: TLÜ kirjastus [Tallinn University Press], 2005).
Pavel, Thomas, ‘Immersion and distance in fictional worlds’, Itinéraires, 1 (2010), 99–109, https://doi.org/10.4000/itineraires.2183
Schaeffer, Jean-Marie, Why Fiction? trans. by Dorrit Kohn (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2010).
Scott, Clive, The Work of Literary Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
Sternlieb, Lisa, ‘Jane Eyre: “Hasarding Confidences”’, Nineteenth-Century Literature, 53 (1999), 452–79, https://doi.org/10.2307/2903027
Stevens, Kevin, ‘“Eccentric Murmurs”: Noise, Voice, and Unreliable Narration in Jane Eyre’, Narrative, 26 (2018), 201–20, https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2018.0010
1 Charlotte Fiehn, ‘The Two Janes: Jane Eyre and the Narrative Problem in Chapter 23’, Brontë Studies, 41 (2016), 312–21; Lisa Sternlieb, ‘Jane Eyre: “Hasarding Confidences”’, Nineteenth-Century Literature, 53 (1999), 452–79; Kevin Stevens, ‘“Eccentric Murmurs”: Noise, Voice, and Unreliable Narration in Jane Eyre’, Narrative, 26 (2018), 201–20.
2 Liina Lindström, ‘Kõnelejale ja kuulajale viitamise vältimise strateegiaid eesti keeles [Strategies of avoidance of reference to the speaker and hearer in Estonian]’, Emakeele Seltsi aastaraamat [Yearbook of the Estonian Mother Tongue Society], 55 (2010), 88–118.
3 Mati Erelt and Helle Metslang, ‘Kogeja vormistamine eesti keeles: nihkeid SAE perifeerias’ [Expression of the experiencer in Estonian: Shifts in the periphery of the SAE]’, Emakeele Seltsi aastaraamat [Yearbook of the Estonian Mother Tongue Society], 53 (2007), 9–22.
4 Jean-Marie Schaeffer, Why Fiction? trans. by Dorrit Kohn (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), pp. 153–54.
5 Theo Hermans, ‘The Translator’s Voice in Translated Narrative’, Target, 8:1 (1996), 23–48.
6 Theo Hermans, The Conference of the Tongues (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 57.
7 Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (Tallinn: Mediasat Group, Eesti Päevaleht AS, 2007); Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (Tallinn: Tänapäev, 2013). The changes in the 2013 print include spelling ‘söör’ [sir] phonetically instead of using the loan word ‘sir’ like the earlier editions, and occasionally adjusting the syntax by one word.
8 Kaisa Koskinen, and Outi Paloposki, Sata kirjaa, tuhat suomennosta. Kaunokirjallisuuden uudelleenkääntäminen [A Hundred Books, A Thousand Translations: Retranslating Fiction] (Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura [Finnish Literature Society], 2015).
9 Aile Möldre, Kirjastustegevus ja raamatulevi Eestis aastail 1940–2000 [Publishing and Book Distribution in Estonia in 1940–2000] (Tallinn: TLÜ kirjastus [Tallinn University Press], 2005), pp. 232–34.
10 The examples in this essay are taken from Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, trans. by Elvi Kippasto (Tallinn: Kirjastus Eesti Raamat, 1981), abbreviated to ‘EK’; and Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, trans. by Ira Inga Vilberg (Tallinn: Brigitta, 2000), abbreviated to ‘IIV’. All emphases in the examples as well as the back-translations (‘BT’) are by the author of this essay.
11 JE, Ch. 2.
12 JE, Ch. 11.
13 JE, Ch. 25.
14 JE, Ch. 25.
15 Stevens, ‘“Eccentric Murmurs”’, pp. 201–20.
16 Ibid., p. 214.
17 Ibid., p. 209.
18 Thomas Pavel, ‘Immersion and distance in fictional worlds’, Itinéraires, 1 (2010), 99–109 (p. 103).
19 Clive Scott, The Work of Literary Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), p. 6.