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I agree, and that is a point I myself made. However, the "common people" reading remains viable. One advantage of ambiguity is that you can choose the reading that suits you, and it may be that this is actually what some people have done in interpreting it as "small nations".
But in any event, I have to say that closing this question without grading, while at the same time saying that the translation chosen is identical to one of the answers proposed, is incomprehensible to me. Helen's answer should have been chosen, she should have been given the points and her proposal should have been put in the glossary.
I chose to go with my own version, which is a mix of both possibilities, your discussions were very enlightening but my translation serves my purpose: the foreword of a book on small communities of common people, actually. Please confirm that it is grammatically correct: "I believe in the virtue of the common people, in that of the few. The world shall be saved by such few common people." (a few?). The emphasis is on people, not on "virtue" (repetition eluded) nor numbers... Again, thank you all for your interesting contributions.
That is possible, yes, if you are thinking of the common people as more than one entity. It strikes me as a little unlikely that you would do so when expressing your faith in the virtue of the common people, which would normally imply seeing the common people as a single international body. As I say, I personally find the other reading more convincing, and such contextual clues as there are seem to me to point the other way, but it's certainly not clearcut and everyone must make up their own mind.
There's no doubt that "le petit peuple", like "le menu peuple" or "les petites gens", is standard French for "les couches les plus modestes de la société": i.e., the common people. So that interpretation is linguistically reasonable. If this were in the singular I don't think we'd give it a second thought; but it's in the plural. If Gide meant to refer here to the common people, you might have expected "le petit peuple" rather than "les petits peuples". As a countable noun, used in the plural, "peuple" primarily means a people, in the sense of a society, a community or a nation. From a purely linguistic point of view this seems to me the natural reading, and it does seem to be how most people have read it.
I didn't say anything about 'personal'. You are arguing against the translation I have posted. That is all I meant. I can't see how you could understand it differently. My last post sought to make it clear that common people are not 'common', as you stated. That is all.
I am not against the translation!! It's not a personal matter, we're just discussing a literary subject, before it's a question of translation!! And all my searches conclude in the same thing, that the French author was talking about small (in terms of number) societies & groups of people that could constitute nations!!!
The common people are not 'common' - here is a definition, including some French history, which might clarify things a bit for you. Perhaps this misunderstanding is why you are so against the translation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commoner
When speaking about André Gide, it was reported that he said the mentioned quote before his death & he was talking about small communities & small nations in terms of number!!!Common people are "common", however André Gide said he believed in the differences and particularities of small groups, communities, nations rather than imperialism & big nations that caused such a chaos in that period of the human history...
(Just for the record, and not directed only to you): No, of course not! I didn't mean to suggest that you were. But by the same token, proof that such a translation is wholly wrong will never be forthcoming. It's a balance of probabilities. But I do think there are indications. Another is what follows:
"Je crois à la vertu des petits peuples. Je crois à la vertu du petit nombre. Le monde sera sauvé par quelques-uns."
It seems to me that the emphasis here is on the few, the small, small numbers. To take "petit" as meaning common actually goes against this, since the common people are the many.
I am not silly enough to say they are proof. On the other hand, I have seen no argumentation or proof to suggest the translation is wrong. Of course, over my career as a translator and art historian, I have seen instances where such translations were wrong, as no doubt we all have. It happens, but if I were using a short citation, like this, out of context, I would stick to such a translation unless something proved it to be wholly wrong. It is up to the Asker of this question now. I'm off!
My last was in answer to your last but one. This is getting confusing!
Yes, I also noticed that the published version is endorsed by Jeanine Parisier Plottel. This does carry weight. But arguments from authority, however impressive the authority, are not proof. Did she check this detail? If she did, can we be sure she was right? "Petits peuples", plural, remains a slightly odd way of saying common people, in my opinion. I still lean the other way.
Yes indeed. I was suggesting the opposite: that by the standards of French writers of the period Gide wasn't notable for instinctively identifying with the common people. Maybe Camus was unfair in regarding him as a bourgeois elitist, but there's a grain of truth in that.
The translation which I quote was overseen by Jeanine Parisier Plottel, Professor Emeritus of French at CUNY Hunter College and Graduate Center, decorated twice for her contribution to French language, literature and culture (Palmes Académiques). If it is ok with her, in possession of the full context and with an extensive, in-depth knowledge of Gide, I would have to see very well-argued proof to believe she and the translator had got it wrong.
It is very difficult to decide which meaning was intended on the basis of the rest of the text. In the passage just preceding this he is speaking above all of his faith in young people, "the salt of the earth"; it is this that saves him, an old man, from despair. But on balance I still think he's thinking more about countries, nations, than social strata. I don't see anything that clearly indicates he's thinking of the common people versus the powerful here.
I agree with Charles Davis. André Gide was a great proletarian & the circumstances of these "sayings" & all the analyses orientate us to the small nations, small numbers & small communities not common people.
As an afterthought, the idea of Gide putting his faith in the common people rings slightly false to me. He wasn't really a great proletarian. But I could be wrong about that.
In speaking of "problèmes actuels" in April 1946 he very probably had Germany, and perhaps also the Soviet Union, in his mind, and like many people he had been very concerned about Germany for some time. Perhaps he meant small peoples as opposed to large peoples like these. (Contd.)
Earlier in the same lecture Gide said (I quote from the published English version):
"There is not a country, however protected it may have been, however far from the field of battle, that has not been more or less reached by the shadow of the new problems, no people that does not feel itself a little liable, no thinking youth who does not ask himself disturbing and serious questions."
It could be argued, in principle, that the plural, "peuples", is more likely to mean peoples, as in nations, rather than people: little peoples rather than little people, though I don't think it's impossible that he meant people in general.
This is really very interesting. We have two possible readings. Which did Gide intend?
The rendering "common people" appears in the published translation cited by Helen. That fact must carry some weight, though of course it doesn't guarantee accuracy. I know nothing of the translator, Elsie Pell.
The other, "small nations", has been quoted by Nesrine from a published source, but not a translation of Gide's lecture. The author of that source is writing about a small nation and has quoted Gide, presumably in his own translation. But that doesn't mean that the translation isn't right. On balance, I personally think "small nations" is more likely to be what Gide meant. This phrase occurs at the end of a lecture entitled "Souvenirs littéraires et problèmes actuels", which Gide delivered in Beirut in April 1946 and again in Brussels two months later. Lebanon and Belgium: I think it's quite likely that by "petits peuples" Gide meant small nations like these. (Contd)
This is very easy to google. I don't believe in 'official' translations of literary writing. We can choose to go with an existing one, such as the one below, or retranslate.
peer agreement (net): +5