The Revue britannique (1825–1901): transnational engagements and Romantic literary culture in French periodical translation

Although both periodicals and translation are being recovered as areas of interest in Romantic Studies, their intersection remains neglected. As de Clerck states, ‘none of the studies on Romantic literary magazines actively engaged with the national border-crossing dynamics of the medium’, that is to say, with the large extent to which Romantic periodicals featured translations (de Clerck, Citation2020, p. 348). This article examines the Revue britannique (1825–1901), which translated articles from British periodicals for Parisian readers. Translation represented fraught territory for French literary culture. Contemporary debate around translation problematised ongoing debates around newly nationalising conceptions of culture, exemplified by the contemporary disputes between the neo-classicists and the romantics. This tension is reflected in the Revue britannique, which embodied the transnational tastes of the French literary marketplace and functioned as a locus for the theorisation and development of translation and media discourse. Through a close reading of thematically relevant sections from the prospectus and first issue, this article situates the Revue within the para-literary production of French Romanticism, revealing its formative role in shaping the movement’s anxieties about transnational mediation and the growing industry surrounding it.