MADAME BOVARY IN TRANSLATION: QUESTIONS OF POWER, GENDER AND FAITHFULNESS
From Arsenic to Prussic Acid Years after Emma Bovary poisoned herself with arsenic, Eleanor Marx – daughter of Karl Marx and one of the first people to translate Madame Bovary into English – took her own life by drinking prussic acid. Shortly after the novel’s translation, the motifs of Emma’s life started appearing in Marx’s: unfaithful men, accumulating debts, and adultery. Many contemporary discussions of Madame Bovary in translation still discuss Eleanor Marx’s version of 1886 and the similarities between her and Flaubert’s protagonist. Distancing myself from such comparisons, I compare Marx’s rendition with Lydia Davis’ 2010 translation in order to