Prismatic Scene: The Shape in Jane's Bedroom

This prismatic animation, created by Paola Gaudio, presents a passage from near the end of Chapter 25: Jane’s narration to Mr. Rochester, on the eve of their planned wedding, of a strange and threatening incursion into her bedroom the night before, by a figure whom she does not yet know to be his current wife, Bertha. Brontë’s English is shown together with translations into Spanish by Juan G. de Luaces (1943), María Fernanda Pereda (1947), Jesús Sánchez Diaz (1974) and Toni Hill (2009), selected and back-translated by Andrés Claro; into Estonian by Elvi Kippasto (1959), selected and back-translated by Madli Kütt; into Slovenian by France Borko and Ivan Dolenc (1955) and Božena Legiša-Velikonja (1970), selected and back-translated by Jernej Habjan; into Arabic by Munir Baalbaki (1985), selected and back-translated by Yousif M. Qasmiyeh; into Polish by Emilia Dobrzańska (1880), and Teresa Świderska (1930) selected and back-translated by Kasia Szymanska; and into Greek by Polly Moschopoulou (1991) and Maria Exarchou (2011), selected and back-translated by Eleni Philippou.

Full details of the translations quoted are in the PDF attached to this record.

In the animation, the English text appears in blocks, so you have time to read it. Click on the revolving globe in the bottom right-hand corner to start the translations appearing. You will see that colour is used in two ways: the colour of the text is keyed to the language of the translation, while the colour of the frame around each translation shows you which English words it corresponds to. When all the translations have appeared around a given block of text, click on the revolving globe again to move forward, and click once more to launch the next set of translations. You can also navigate using the numbers in the left-hand margin or the triangles in the bottom left-hand corner.

For discussion, see Matthew Reynolds et al., Prismatic Jane Eyre: Close-Reading a World Novel Across Languages (Cambridge: Open Book, 2023). https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0319