Wright's Process
Wright’s archive is crucial to the study of the interpretive translation approach, as her meticulously curated notes and correspondence exhaustively and transparently capture every step in her process and thus provide a microcosmic guide to this type of translation. From handwritten lexicons beside multicolored drafts to consultation with the author through correspondence, Wright documents the transformation from Exercices de style to Exercises in Style, allowing literary and linguistic scholars alike to examine her choices and involvement in the process.
Letter from Wright to Andée Bergens, author of Raymond Queneau, Novelist, outlining her translation process of Queneau's work. The archives contain both a first draft of the reply, written in French, and a later draft translated into English. Wright’s meticulous habit – almost a compulsion – of translating correspondence, both hers and Queneau’s, from French to English highlights the central role of translation in her everyday life.
Word bank for "Cockney" exercise.
List of secondary sources for "Botany" exercise.
List of secondary sources for several exercises.
Word bank for "Rhyming Slang" exercise.
Excerpts from Wright's four exercise notebooks which contain drafts of Exercises in Style. The word banks and lists of secondary sources illustrate the thorough, multifaceted translation process she outlines in her letter to Bergens. The multicolored notes written on any space available - including back covers, in the case of the list of various secondary sources - do admittedly display at least some degree of disarray. However, they more significantly reiterate the importance of translation in Wright’s life, the way her projects permeated everything she did and created a constant stream of ideas that had to be hastily written on whatever paper was available
Draft of "Gustatory" exercise. Within the four exercise notebooks, the exercises themselves occupy only the right-hand pages, as Wright reserves the left-hand pages for notes, lengthy corrections, and sizeable question marks. The use of black, red, and blue pens with the occasional pencil mark allows us to distinguish between each stage of revision.