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UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA
CENTRO DE COMUNICAÇÃO E EXPRESSÃO
CURSO DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM ESTUDOS DE TRADUÇÃO
Juliet Attwater
TRANSLATING BRAZILIAN POETRY: A BLUEPRINT FOR A
DISSENTING CANON AND CROSS-CULTURAL ANTHOLOGY
Tese submetida ao Programa de Estudos de Traduçao da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina para a obtenção do Grau de Doutora em Estudos deTradução. Orientador: Prof. Dr. Walter Carlos Costa Co-orientador: Prof. Paulo Henriques Britto.
Florianópolis
2011
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Catalogação fonte pela Biblioteca Universitáriada Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
A886t Attwater, Juliet Translating brazilian poetry [tese] : a blueprint for a dissenting canon and cross-cultural anthology / Juliet Attwater ; orientador, Walter Carlos Costa. - Florianópolis, SC, 2011. 246p.: grafs., tabs. Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Estudos da Tradução. Inclui referências
- Tradução e interpretação. 2. Poesia brasileira
- História e crítica. 3. Cânones da literatura. 4. Antologias. I. Costa, Walter Carlos. II. Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Estudos da Tradução. III. Título. CDU 801=
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For Olívia Cloud and Louie Sky
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AGRADECIMENTOS
With thanks to my parents for everything, to Magdalen for her friendship, love and constant support, to Walter and Paulo for their astounding professorial qualities and even more astounding patience, to Luana for being in the same boat and beating me to it, and to my late husband for sharing his love of his native country with me – wherever he is now I hope he is at peace. I would also like to express my sincerest gratitude to Charles Cosac, my friend and colleague in virtual space, to Régis and Flávio for their patience, support, and friendship, and my dear friend Sophy, as without her help this thesis wouldnot have been possible. And finally, last but by no means least: to Kevin – for surprising me, believing in me, and keeping me on the straight and narrow.
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RESUMO
Este trabalho parte da investigação do cânone poético brasileiro e o ‘cross’-cânone anglo-brasileiro com o objetivo de criar uma nova antologia em inglês de poesia brasileira canônica e contemporânea de 1922 aos tempos atuais. Dessa maneira, examina a formação e os critérios de seleção de antologias em ambas as culturas literárias e analisa estratégias e abordagens para a tradução de poesia. Para concluir, discute três dos poetas e os poemas escolhidos para o projeto, bem como o processo tradutório e o resultado.
Palavras-chave: Poesia brasileira do século vinte, Cânone, Antologia, Tradução
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ABSTRACT
With the aim of creating a new anthology in English of canonical and contemporary Brazilian poetry from 1922 to the present day, this thesis investigates both the Brazilian poetic canon and the cross-cultural Anglo-Brazilian poetic canon. It examines the formation and selection criteria of anthologies in both literary cultures, and strategies and approaches for poetry translation. Finally it discusses three of the poets and their poems chosen for the project, analyses the translations, and evaluates the finished product.
Keywords: Brazilian Twentieth-Century Poetry, Canon, Anthology, Translation.
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INTRODUCTION
A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape and significance of the universe, helps to extend everyone ’s knowledge of himself and the world around him. (Dylan Thomas, 1960, “On Poetry”, Quite early one morning )
While Thomas’ statement is true to an extent, it is almost certainly utopian. His comment is somewhat hyperbolic; he seemingly ignores any extra-linguistic and cultural repercussions and one must surmise that his use of _everyone_ is limited to those who understand the language in which the poem is written. He also does not define a “good poem” (in itself a utopian task), but one assumes that he is referring to a work that through its quality and emotive power pertains – or will pertain – to a cultural canon. It is this that limits the veracity of the statement and his use of _everyone. While a ‘good’ poem may well help to change the shape and significance of its surroundings, it is invariably limited by its own linguistic parameters. In the light of this, perhaps one of the greatest values of translation is that through the process of the transmission of a poem into other linguistic realms, one hopes eventually to really reach _everyone – in a truer sense of the word. In any culture much of what we know has come through the vehicle of translation; we have inherited a wealth of knowledge though the mediation of frequently invisible translators, who have made works from one language culture available to others. In all cultures the literary canon evolves over time, but although there have been numerous studies of national mono-lingual cultural canons^1 and their evolution, there has been comparatively little investigation into how translated works infiltrate and shape other cultures, and until relatively recently^2 fairly scant formal research on comparative and cross-cultural canon, the translated literary canon and the role of anthologies of translated works in writing cultures. Although
(^1) Eg. Ezra Pound’s ABC of reading (1934) (with a pedagogical slant), T.S. Eliot’s On Poetry and Poets 2. (1944), and rather more broadly, Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon ( 1994). Particularly with the Göttingen group in Germany (cf Essmann and Frank, 1990).
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translation, i.e. ‘inter-systemic transfer’ of poetry, drama and prose created within a society along patterns of creativity in style, genre, and literary tradition, and which may include use of poetic and stylistic devices such as alliteration, rhyme, rhythm, metaphor, pun, irony, neologisms, intertexuality, and cultural allusions. Prior to the polysystem theory there was comparatively little consideration of the role translated works played within a given culture^4 ; but because the theory is descriptive, target-oriented and functional, it is able to treat translation as deservedly having an important reflexive influence in literary systems and in the multicultural formation of literary styles. This systemic approach is enticing. Although research into individual systems has been too limited to come to firm conclusions (cf. Even-Zohar 1978/1990:196) – if such things are indeed possible in translation studies –, its implications for both practitioners and theorists of translation are wide-ranging and positive, since literature seen in the light of the polysystem is flexible and reflexive, ‘a highly kinetic situation in which things are constantly changing’ (Holmes, 1985:150). Systemic approaches have since been further developed by the Göttingen group as a theory that is transfer rather than target oriented and which suggests ‘that the translation of literature means the translation of a literary work’s interpretation, one that is subject to the literary traditions of the target culture.’ (Gentzler, 2001:191). Increasingly, connections are being forged between Cultural Studies and Translation Studies; scholars like Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere (1990 & 1998) and José Lambert have attempted to strengthen these interdisciplinary links in order to situate linguistic transfer within today’s realities, while at the same time studying the linguistic and textual forms that are used for cultural exchange. The mid-century New Critics held that any kind of extra-textual commentary would distort a poem in its unity – this included study of the poet’s biography, philosophy, or historical-cultural context. This approach is nowadays considered by most to imply an idealized model of what a poem ‘should’ be, ‘should’ communicate. For a translator, particularly a translator of poetry, which has a multiplicity of codes and associative images, I believe it is untenable to pass over time, culture and values, using some ‘miraculous’ highway to access the ‘essence’ of a poem (if indeed such a thing exists). Therefore, in the scope of this
(^4) Although Levý’s 1963 study on literary translation Ume˘ni p ř ekladu (translated into Enlish as The Art of Translation and reprinted by Benjamins in 2011) did address some related issues. Levý’s work is also addressed in Snell-Hornby (2006).
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thesis, Anthony Pym’s approach to translation history (cf. Pym, 1998) is more useful to consider, not only as a method of post-translation analysis and evaluation, but also as a pre-translational incentive to discover as much as possible about the poets to be translated, their influences, aims, and intertextual inspiration. This helps to contextualize work within a system, rather than diving headlong into the translation of uncontextualized syntax. In a similar vein, although he is referring to comprehension of a poem rather than to its translation, Antonio Candido suggests “o levantamento de dados exteriores à emoção poética, sobretudo dados históricos e filológicos”^5 (1994:29). I am convinced this kind of interpretation is an essential part of the hermeneutic circle. Compared with Brazil, where, according to UNESCO^6 over 60% of all published texts are translated, translated literature in the UK and other English-speaking nations constitutes as little as 3% of all publications^7. At face value these figures imply that translated literature holds a much less influential position in Anglophone countries than it does in Brazil. However, as they are generalized figures, they do not specify what kind of translated texts they encompass. While the former percentage is much higher and suggests that the Brazilian market is awash with translated works, one must consider the issue of quality rather than of merely quantity. There are hundreds of instruction manuals, potboilers and bestsellers that have been translated into Brazilian Portuguese, and while major works from the ‘international’ canon have also been translated, there have been, for example, relatively few anthologies of translated poetry when compared to the number on the Anglophone market. The seemingly insignificant ratio of translation in English-speaking countries tends to include more influential international works and also includes many more anthologies of poetry^8. Source texts^9 are invariably carefully screened, as publishers do not wish to import something that their own language culture already has in plenty. However, it is thought provoking to find that there is no
(^5) “[...]collecting data, particularly historical and philological, that is external to poetic emotion” (author’s translation). (^6) This use of “according to” is relevant as a great deal of what is published in Brazil is recorded neither by UNESCO or by the Biblioteca Nacional. (^7) Figures from the UNESCO Index Translatorium (2011). It should be noted that these figures indiscriminately include purely communicative, informative texts as well as literary ones. 8 This is particularly because anthologies as a genre have been widely accepted for a much longer period than they have in Brazil. For more on these international exchange relations cf. Casanova (2005). (^9) As opposed to referring to an ‘original’ text I will use the term ‘source text’ to avoid any unwanted connotations that ‘original’ may carry.
