Point of View, Intertextuality and the Uses of Translation in Lisa Robertson’s "Early Education"

The paper aims at analyzing from a stylistic perspective how intertextuality and translation practice are employed to build point of view in Lisa Robertson’s idiosyncratic text "Early Education"(2009). Its constant but asystematical mistranslations of Augustine’s "Confessions", far from being mere linguistic plays, end up being pragmatic modal devices to present the author’s stance. This highly original use of translation allows a fruitful stylistic analysis which shows how Robertson’s text can challenge and question the Augustinian original and its religious and epistemological tenets, while highlighting its own cultural and ideological bearings.