A few weeks ago, we opened a new exhibition in the Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics library, relating to a collection of 1870-71 caricatures held in the University Library. This project was highly collaborative, involving librarians, academic staff and students. It followed an exhibition held at the UL last year and started with translations of the text and legends of French caricatures into English.
The caricatures range from the Franco-Prussian war and the first siege of Paris (in the Summer and Autumn of 1870) to the armistice, the Paris Commune, and its defeat by the Versailles-based Republican forces (in the Spring of 1871). Working on the translations showed the necessity for a commentary of the prints. The caricatures referred to events of the time which needed some historical background to be understood by the contemporary viewer. It was equally important to be able to identify the characters and situations portrayed in a satirical manner.
The project led us to use TEI (which stands for Text Encoding Initiative), a code or standard used for the representation of texts in digital form. This allowed us to format the text intended to be published in Cambridge University Digital Library. Translations and commentaries thus enrich some of the metadata of the caricatures which feature on the Digital Library. You can find them by looking at a specific caricature and selecting the tab “View more options > Translations”.
Examining and attempting to translate these Franco-Prussian War caricatures was fascinating and rewarding. In particular, I enjoyed tackling the translation of the “Jeu de Lois“, a variation on the game of snakes and ladders inspired by the events of the war and the Paris Commune, which I find is full of little details which bring the period to life. The level of detail in some of the caricatures is astonishing, and even the more simplistic caricatures are really entertaining – in “Les derniers moments de Napoléon le Petit” (The final moments of Napoleon the Little) it’s clear what the message of Napoleon vomiting gold coins is, for instance. It has also been great working with the library team who have provided many insights into the caricatures, especially when we worked on commentaries to accompany our translations. I’m so happy to see the exhibition come together and hope people will enjoy it! – Aaron Syposz
Do get in touch (french@lib.cam.ac.uk) if you would like to know more, and / or have a guided tour of the display!
This exhibition was curated by Irène Fabry-Tehranchi and Hélène Fernandes (Cambridge University Libraries), Christophe Gagne (MMLL staff), Matt O’Neill and Aaron Syposz (MMLL students), with Marion Glaumaud-Carbonnier (Marie Curie EU Postdoctoral Fellow) as scientific advisor.
Languages across Borders 