Translation as Recreation: Interrogating Heteronormativity in Emma Donoghue’s “The Tale of the Rose”

For a long time, translation has been considered as the faithful rendering of a source text into a target text, taking into account the linguistic and grammatical rules in the target language. Nowadays, thanks to the cultural turn initiated by scholars such as Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere, translation is no longer seen as such. Rather, it is seen as the very negotiation of different cultural aspects in the act of translation to offer a renewed version that raises expectations for a new set of readers. Thus, translation intends to contribute in the remaking, remodeling and refashioning or better, as Lefevere calls it, “rewriting” of a source text. In this sense, Irish writer Emma Donoghue’s “recreation” of the tale “Beauty and the Beast” falls within this category inasmuch as it can be considered as a ‘rewriting’ in Lefevere’s terms, though, of course, it is clearly distinct from translation per se. This paper analyzes how Donoghue’s creative and innovative rewriting of the fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” challenges its previous versions by including in her narrative same-sex desires and lesbianism. I shall argue that Donoghue’s rewriting, her recreation, and retelling of the tale “Beauty and the Beast” in “The Tale of the Rose” are aimed at questioning notions of heteronormativity and heteropatriarchal assumptions that women can only be safe and happy in a heterosexual marriage.