Karl Philipp Ellerbrock, M.A.

Institute of Romance Studies

Erstes Staatsexamen and Magister Artium degrees in French, English and Italian from Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. 4/2009-4/2012, Research Assistant at the Cluster of Excellence "Religion and Politics in Pre-Modern and Modern Cultures". Winter Semester 2010-11, Visiting Researcher, Department of Comparative Literature, Stanford University. Summer Term 2012, Assistant Lecturer at the Department of Romance Languages, WWU Münster.

Ph.D. Project:

Pantheonizing Poe. Charles Baudelaire as Translator and Author

Supervisor: Professor Karin Westerwelle

Having contributed to the representation of nation and state since the courtly society of Renaissance France, translators of literary, philosophical or historical texts suffered a legitimation crisis after the fall of the Ancien Régime. Charles Baudelaire, 19th-century poet and critic and translator of Edgar Allan Poe’s prose works, is a significant example of how a translator can invest a public role to position himself in post-revolutionary society. Published from 1848 in feuilleton articles and gathered in several anthologies by 1865, his translations are prefaced by detailed biographical studies which celebrate Poe as "grand homme". Baudelaire employs a language of pseudo-religious elevation to present the American contemporary as the beacon figure of a fallen civilization. By advertising Poe’s entry into the French canon, if not his symbolic enshrinement in the Pantheon, Baudelaire, in his public role of translator, links the fields of literature, politics and religion in an novel way. He describes his function as "très-humble et très-dévouée faculté de traducteur", requesting motherly "charité" from Poe’s aunt and mother-in-law, to whom he dedicates his translations. Baudelaire’s stylization of intellectual activity is informed by elements of cultic piety. He develops an author image based on the Christian virtues of humilitas, devotio and caritas, while also using elements which refer back to translators’ mise-en-scène of their official and ceremonial functions in courtly society.

This dissertation project investigates the meaning of Baudelaire’s use of these forms, which can only be understood when considering the translations themselves. Here, Baudelaire crucially departs from the source text in passages central to interpretation. The subservient gesture of the prefaces and dedications is thus challenged by an 'unreliable' translation practice in which Baudelaire rises above the original and its author, emphasizing the linguistic groundedness of translational transfer. The project compares source texts with their translations in order to detect such deviations as cannot be accounted for by the translation process, but rather constitute changes made deliberately by the translator. Baudelaire’s interventions will be interpreted against the backdrop of the statements made in the paratexts. By applying religious and political forms of mise-en-scène on the one hand and challenging these forms on the other, Baudelaire accords a distinguished position to the translator, who becomes the producer of a new invisible. 

Functions within the cluster:

• Research assistant, project B2 Figures of Distinction. Authorship in Post-Revolutionary France
• Member of the study group on Authorship

Talks:

• "Michael Kohlhaas", Heinrich von Kleist's Gestures, Colloquium Stanford University, panel contribution, 16 March 2012
• "Pantheonizing Poe. Baudelaire's translation prefaces", XXXII. Romanistentag, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 28 September 2011.
• „The Translator as Prophet? Du Bellay, Amyot, Malherbe", Authorship and Prophecy. Charisma, Promises of Salvation, Compromise, Cluster of Excellence, Münster, 28 May 2011.
• „Dévotion and enthousiasme. Charles Baudelaire and the translator’s authorship“, Authorship. Icons – Styles – Institutions, Cluster of Excellence, Münster, 8 April 2010.

Classes taught at the Institute of Romance Studies:

Summer 2012

• Dialogue and Tolerance. Michel de Montaigne’s Essais (co-taught with Professor Karin Westerwelle)
• Literature and Courtly Culture. La Fontaine’s Fables

Winter 2011-12

• Introduction to French Literature and Literary Studies

Summer 2011

• Baudelaire’s Spleen de Paris and the ‚tableau de Paris’ tradition (co-taught with Professor Karin Westerwelle)
• Introduction to French Literature and Literary Studies

Summer 2010

• Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal. Literary and linguistic perspectives (co-taught with Professor Karin Westerwelle)

Winter 2009-10

• Literary relations between France and England: the 19th century

Summer 2009

• Contrastive Linguistics, French-English-German

Contact

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