Translating Orientalism. Louis-Mathieu Langlès as editor and translator of English literature between Oriental studies, commerce, and popularisation

From Firenze University Press Journal: Diciottesimo Secolo

Emanuele Giusti, Università degli Studi di Firenze

Louis-Mathieu Langlès (1763–1824) has long been recognised for his role in the development of Oriental studies in early nineteenth-century France. Arguably, his most significant achievement was the establishment of the École spéciale des langues orientales vivantes, a seminal institution based in Paris that later evolved into what is now known as the Institut national des langues et civilisations de l’Orient (INALCO). However, despite his influential position in the Orientalist scholarly landscape of early nineteenth-century Paris, Langlès faced marginalisation in his later years and near-oblivion after his death. Only recently have scholars started to pay attention to his manifold activities, opening up new research avenues. This essay aims to contribute to this renewal by drawing upon his printed works as well as his private papers and other archival sources scat-tered across various Parisian institutions. While Marten S. Saarela has reconstructed Langlès’ role in the «early modern travels» of the Manchu script, and Fabien Simon has shed new light on Langlès’ involvement with Oriental typography, I will primarily focus on Langlès’ role as editor and translator against the backdrop of his multiple scholarly pursuits as an Orientalist.However, this article does not dwell on Langlès’ (dubious) translations from Asiatic languages. Instead, it focuses on his interest in the extensive array of English literature about Asia that was produced in the context of a burgeoning British empire in the East. From this per-spective, employing the history of translation as a lens through which specific problems and events can be better observed can offer fresh insights on the history of Oriental studies and Orientalism as a broader political, social, and cultural phenomenon. As is widely acknowledged, Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) has triggered far-flung debates in the humanities and has also left its mark on translation studies. One of Said’s primary arguments concerns the power/knowledge nexus and the connection between Orientalism and imperialism. As we will see, Langlès’ case could be interpreted as an exam-ple of such argument, even though he was interested in commercial and diplomatic power rather than on out-right conquest. However, the focus here is not so much on the relationship between European countries and the East, as on how the entanglement of Oriental studies, commerce, and empire could shape cultural interactions and translations among different European countries involved in the construction or the projection of power in the East. Langlès’ translations and his relationship with British knowledge about Asia have been discussed by Indologist Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat and translation stud-ies scholar Paul St. Pierre. Both scholars focused on Langlès’ interest for India and the latter has interpreted Langlès’ attitude towards translation and Oriental studies as «utilitariste». In addition, St. Pierre saw reactions to Langlès’ work as reflecting the evolving landscape of Oriental studies. He suggested that some colleagues leveraged Langlès’ reliance on British sources to make the case for the superiority of French Oriental studies, subtly undermining Langlès’ credibility. While I share these conclusions, I contend that a broader perspec-tive is needed to understand Langlès’ translation activities. Drawing inspiration from sociological approaches to both biography and translation, I will first attempt to show that translation may have initially served Langlès’ strategy of social ascent, only to later become a vulnera-bility in his reputation and finally influence how the his-torical memory of his scholarly persona was constructed. Then, by emphasising his role as a cultural broker and his agency as a translator, I will discuss Langlès’ contribution to making a large amount of practical knowledge about Asia available to the French public. Finally, I will argue that Langlès sought to import and adapt locally what he perceived as a distinctly British way of dealing with ‘the Orient’, in a clear display of Anglophilia. This point underscores the significance of intra-European translation and cultural transfers for the early development of Oriental studies and allows us to situate Langlès’ activities within the broader context of intel-lectual exchanges through translation in the eighteenth century. However, the fact that Langlès’ efforts at cultural translation took place during a period of ongoing armed conflict between France and Great Britain should not only alert us to the political purposes attributed to translation during the French Revolution and its after-math; it should also draw our attention to the ways in which Orientalism was shaped as a technology of knowledge and power — one to be applied well beyond India — by the dynamics of emulation between different polities.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/ds-15060

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