Anthropophagy and Translation
Alice LEAL
University of Vienna
Anthropophagy: the eating of human flesh; cannibalism.
(Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary)
A coincidência da primeira construção brasileira no
movimento de reconstrução geral. Poesia Pau-Brasil.
Oswald de Andrade
The coincidence of the first Brazilian construction within a
great movement of reconstruction. Brazilwood Poetry. 1
Abstract
Anthropophagy was a key concept in the European arts of the late 19 th and early 20th centuries, with
the image of the “noble savage” at its centre. Similarly, it became emblematic of Brazilian
Modernism, though with the opposite connotation it had in Europe. For Brazilian artists, it was the
image of the “evil savage” that represented the first national and overt attempt to create “truly”
Brazilian art.2 Later, these notions of cannibalism and anthropophagy had a great impact on
translation, with the Noigrandes at its forefront. In the present article, I intend to analyse the notion
of Anthropophagy in both the European avant-gardes of the early 20th century and the Brazilian
avant-gardes of more or less the same period. Finally, I will briefly look at the (lack of) importance
this concept – embedded in a poststructuralist context – acquired within translation theory and
practice in Brazil. Therefore, my main aim is twofold. On the one hand, I want to show how the
notion of Anthropophagy gradually changed from a European to a Brazilian motif. On the other
hand, I intend to demonstrate that, however important this motif may have been in previous years
(particularly as far as literature and national identity are concerned), it does not reflect the field of
Translation Studies in Brazil – unlike what is often assumed outside Brazil.3
1. Introduction
Before I explain how the present paper will be structured, I ask the reader to allow me to
digress briefly, just so that I can clearly explain my objectives. When I started writing my
1
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine.
Anthropophagy was also a key concept in Brazilian filmmaking and music (for Tropicália, see, for
example, Veloso 2003 [1997] and Dunn 2001), but due to time and space constraints, this paper will
focus on literature and translation only.
3
Originally this was meant to be a chapter of my PhD thesis, started in late 2007 under the
supervision of Mary Snell-Hornby. As I would like to focus on more contemporary matters, the
present paper will (probably) no longer be included.
2
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
2
PhD thesis (see footnote 2), my supervisor kindly asked me to write and present a paper (in
our research seminar) on Anthropophagy and translation in Brazil, a topic that seems to
inspire great fascination in Europe. When I started doing research and talking to people
about it, I realised that two major stereotypes prevailed as far as Anthropophagy in Brazil is
concerned, and then set out to “deconstruct” them. The first stereotype states that
cannibalism is a beautifully exotic subject matter, which of course makes sense in a
European context (as I will explain in detail in section 1 below). The second stereotype
refers to the fact that Anthropophagy is a key motif as far as translation in Brazil is
concerned (including translation theory, practice and teaching). Since my impression as a
literature and translation student from Brazil by no means matched these stereotypes, I
decided to show, in my paper, firstly how the notion of Anthropophagy acquired opposite
connotations in Europe and in Brazil, and secondly that Anthropophagy is not a
predominant motif in Brazilian translation theory and practice.
In order to do so, I will divide the present paper into three parts. In the first part I will
present a short overview of the concept of Anthropophagy in Europe, before it actually
became emblematic of Brazilian literature. The main objective of this first part is to clarify
the connotation that the concepts of anthropophagy, cannibalism and savagery had within
the European artistic avant-gardes of the 20th century. Next, the second part will be devoted
to Brazilian Modernism and the Anthropophagic Movement, and its main aim is to contrast
the abovementioned concepts taken from European avant-gardes with the meaning these
concepts acquired in Brazilian avant-gardes. In other words, this second part will explore
the dialectic relationship between early 20th century European avant-gardes and Brazilian
avant-gardes of the same period. Finally, in the third and longer section I will analyse the
impact of these ideas on translation theory and practice in Brazil, briefly pointing out that
they are not representative of Translation Studies in Brazil. Given the fact that the notion of
Anthropophagy and Deconstruction are often perceived as linked, I will also (very briefly)
comment on their relationship. Finally, I intend to close the paper with a short reflection on
translation theory and practice, which at first sight may seem off topic but, as I hope to be
able to show, is the key to understanding the impact of Anthropophagy on Translation
Studies in Brazil.
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
3
2. Anthropophagy in Europe
The European arts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a fierce movement towards
primitivism mainly through the use of the iconic images of black and indigenous peoples.
Many are the instances of such trends – the paintings of Picasso, Brancusi, Paul Gauguin
and Tarsila do Amaral; the poems of Apollinaire, Tzara, Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob; the
re-reading as well as the production of the texts of Montaigne, Nietzsche, Frazer, KochGrünberg, Kayserling, Freud and Blaise Cendrars (Netto 2004: 19-28). The wide-spread
motifs of cannibalism and anthropophagy emerged as the corollary of both this looking back
into Europe’s own artistic origins and this turning to more “primitive” nations (of which
Brazil was a good example) and their artistic trends.
The cannibal that was then portrayed matched the description of Rousseau’s “noble savage”
perfectly, thus granting cannibalism and anthropophagy a dignified and pure status. Only
through this overvaluing of the “primitive” would European art be able to finally question
its own traditions and once again reach originality. The Brazilian painter Tarsila do Amaral
wrote to her family in 1923 from Paris, where she was learning about modern painting:
Sinto-me cada vez mais brasileira: quero ser a pintora da minha terra (...). Não
pensem que essa tendência brasileira na arte é mal vista aqui. Pelo contrário. O que
se quer aqui é que cada um traga a contribuição de seu próprio país. Assim se explica
os sucessos dos bailados russos, das gravuras japonesas e da música negra. Paris está
farta de arte parisiense (quoted from Netto 2004: 61).
Here I feel more and more Brazilian: I want to be the painter of my own country (...).
And don’t think that this Brazilian tendency in art is perceived as negative around
here. Quite the opposite. What they want us to do here is to bring contributions from
our own countries. This is why Russian dances, Japanese pictures and African music
are so popular. Paris is fed up with Parisian art.
Turning oneself to other cultures also meant criticising one’s own traditions, aiming at
deconstructing them so as to reconstruct them anew. The manifests of the early 20th century
avant-gardes pointed towards this direction. When Francis Picaiba published in 1920 his
Manifeste Cannibale, so fierce was his criticism of capitalism and bourgeoisie that the media
started calling the Dadaists “anthropophagi”. Anthropophagy became their slogan, as a
symbol of aesthetic deconstruction and restructuring. The Dadaists took Valéry’s
anthropophagic metaphor of intertextuality (through which he advocates anthropophagy as
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
4
an original way of devouring others, digesting them and giving rise to something new –
Valery 1996 [1943]: 17) to an extreme by actually “cannibalising” newspapers, pictures and
objects (Netto 2004: 28). Tzara’s 1918 Manifeste Dada also perceived anthropophagy as an
enriching form of absorption, and so did Marinetti in his 1909 Il Manifesto del Futurismo,
defending war as the world’s only hygiene.
Amongst the artists mentioned in the first paragraph of this section, a few actually had the
opportunity to travel to more “primitive” lands to draw direct inspiration for their own art.
Not surprisingly, it is with fascination that Blaise Cendrars and Paul Gauguin describe their
experiences in Brazil and on the Marquesas Islands (southern Pacific Ocean, part of French
Polynesia), respectively, particularly when approaching cannibalism:
Em Tiradentes passamos lá pela cadeia. Dois homens estavam presos (...) Então
Cendrars perguntou: ‘Por que estão presos esses homens aqui?’ Um outro soldado
que estava assim ali do lado contou: ‘Eles mataram um homem... depois comeram...
arrancaram o coração e comeram!’ Imagine que coisa horrível!... Cendrars então
falou: ‘Quelle merveille!’ Que tudo para ele era ‘quelle merveille’! Ele achou
estupendo isso (quoted from Netto 2004: 35).
In Tiradentes we stopped by the city prison. Two men were in jail (...) And so
Cendrars asked, ‘Why are these men here?’ Another soldier who was right next to us
explained, ‘They killed a man... and then ate him... they ripped his heart out and then
ate it!’ What a horrible thing! . . . Cendrars then said, ‘Quelle merveille!’ For
everything was ‘quelle merveille’ to him. He found it fabulous!
E, além disso, eles eram antropófagos (...) O nativo marquesão não é absolutamente
um valentão terrível; é mesmo, pelo contrário, um homem inteligente e inteiramente
incapaz de ruminar uma maldade (...) Diz-se que ele foi antropófago e imaginamos
que ele não é mais: um erro. Ele continua sendo, sem ferocidade: gosta da carne
humana como um russo gosta do caviar, como um cossaco gosta de bebida. Pergunte
a um velho adormecido se ele gosta de carne humana e, uma vez desperto, os olhos
brilhando, ele lhe responde com uma doçura infinita: ‘Oh, como é bom!’ (quoted from
Netto 2004: 33)
And, besides, they [the natives] were anthropophagi (...) A native Marquesan is by no
means a ruthless brute; on the contrary, he is indeed an intelligent man, absolutely
incapable of meaning any harm (...) We hear that he used to be anthropophagus and
think he no longer is. That’s a mistake. He still is, but without wildness. He likes
human flesh as a Russian likes caviar, or a Cossack likes drinking. Ask the old man
whether he likes human flesh while he’s asleep and, once he’s awake, he’ll turn to you
with sparkling eyes and will say, with endless sweetness, ‘Oh, I love it!’.
The accounts of colonial America, written by a number of European writers during the 16th
century, played an important role in this process of “aesthetic restructuring” (see above).
Léry, who inspired many artists of the 19th and 20th centuries with his texts on Brazil, also
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
5
defended cannibalism as a healthier measure when compared to the hypocrisy of European
civilisation:
Não abominemos, portanto, demasiado a crueldade dos selvagens antropófagos.
Existem entre nós criaturas tão abomináveis, se não mais, e mais detestáveis do que
aquelas que só investem contra nações inimigas de que têm vingança a tomar. Não é
preciso ir à America, nem mesmo sair de nosso país, para ver coisas tão monstruosas
(Lery 1980 [1578]: 203-204)
Therefore, let us not execrate the cruelty of these anthropophagic savages. There are
amongst us creatures as abominable, if not more, and more hateful than those who
only set upon enemy nations for purposes of revenge. One does not have to go to
America or even leave the country to find such ruthless behaviour.
Indeed, Montaigne’s well-known Essays also confirm this trend, which was brought back
from Renaissance times to 20th century Europe:
They are savages at the same rate that we say fruit are wild, which nature produces of
herself and by her own ordinary progress; whereas in truth, we ought rather to call
those wild, whose natures we have changed by our artifice, and diverted from the
common order. In those, the genuine, most useful and natural virtues and properties
are vigorous and sprightly, which we have helped to degenerate in these, by
accommodating them to the pleasure of our own corrupted palate (Montaigne 2008:
223 – translated by Charles Cotton).
In summary, European artists resorted to primitivism so as to question and reinvent their
own traditions and trends. To take a more contemporary point of view on this matter, let us
look at how the Austrian author E. H. Gombrich summarises it when commenting on
Gauguin’s stay in Tahiti. According to Gombrich, because Gauguin feared that European art
had lost its “strength and intensity of feeling,” he decided to seek inspiration elsewhere,
namely in Tahiti (Gombrich 2004 [1950]: 550-551). As a result of this journey of (self-)
discovery and (self-) reinvention, Gauguin’s paintings arguably became “too savage and
primitive,” epithets that brought him great joy: “He was proud to be called ‘barbarian’. Even
his colour and draughtsmanship should be ‘barbaric’ to do justice to the unspoilt children of
nature he had come to admire during his stay in Tahiti” (idem).
As I hope this first section has shown, the depiction of the “savage” in the Europe of the
early 20th century suited its own political and ideological agenda. It is true that this savage
was significantly more sexualised and wilder than the romantic savage of the 16th, 17th and
18th centuries. Nevertheless, the key element here is that the image of the noble savage still
prevailed, unlike what happened in Brazil, as we will see in the next section. This rather
positive, exotic and openly primitive connotation seems to underlie the first stereotype I
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
6
mentioned in the introduction above, i.e. until today a strong fascination and a strange
curiosity seem to surround these issues in Europe.
3. Anthropophagy in Brazil
O primitivismo que na França aparecia como exotismo era para nós, no Brasil,
primitivismo mesmo. Pensei, então, em fazer uma poesia de exportação e não de
importação, baseada em nossa ambiência geográfica, histórica e social. Como o paubrasil foi a primeira riqueza brasileira exportada, denominei o movimento Pau-Brasil.
Sua feição estética coincidia com o exotismo e o modernismo 100% de Cendrars (...)
(Oswald de Andrade, quoted from Campos 1994 [1992]: 31).
The primitivism that in France emerged as something exotic was, for us Brazilians,
actual primitivism. That’s why I thought of making export poetry rather than import
poetry, respecting our own geographic, historic and social settings. As brazilwood was
the first Brazilian resource ever to be exported, I decided to call the movement
Brazilwood. Its aesthetic features perfectly matched Cendrars’ exoticism and
modernism (...).
Oswald de Andrade’s words summarise the connotation that the concept of primitivism
acquired in early 20th century Brazil. Brazilian artists of the time also turned themselves to
the primitivism of their own nation; nevertheless, this turning back had by no means the
same purpose as it did in Europe. One can say that this movement was twofold and
contradictory: on the one hand, it was the Brazilian reception of the European avant-gardes,
and in this sense it was actually rather similar to the European trends; on the other hand, it
was the very first overt attempt in the history of Brazil to produce truly Brazilian art, thus
distant from the new European standards.
This is the reason why the concept of Anthropophagy was so emblematic. According to the
Brazilian poet and literary critic Adriano Bitarães Netto (2004: 125), the restructuring (or
rather structuring) process of national identity took place in two different phases. The first
consisted of the familiarisation of these foreign trends within the national context; the
second, in turn, concretely consummated the construction of national identity through the
critical metabolism of these foreign references in the national literature: “A primeira fase é
(...) período de devoração da cultura externa (...), a segunda (...) época de nacionalização,
fortalecimento orgânico da terra”, or the first phase is (...) the period in which the foreign
culture is devoured (...), the second is (...) nationalisation, organic strengthening of the
country (idem). One such two-phase movement could only take place through parody (in
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
7
which translation plays a central role), which is the perfect genre for openly using tradition
and discarding it at the same time. The two most prominent anthropophagic writers, Mario
de Andrade and Oswald de Andrade, made wide use of parody, producing texts that do not
necessarily copy European models, but rather metabolise them through intellectual
cannibalisation.
The reading and cannibalisation of the first chronicles on Brazil (such as Pero Vaz de
Caminha’s letter to the King of Portugal, Manuel I, as well as the accounts written by Léry
[see above], Gandavo and Cardim) was the first step towards the search and establishment
of a national literature. Indeed, a whole chapter of Oswald de Andrade’s Pau-Brasil is
devoted to poems that parody these accounts and letters (Andrande 1990 [1925]: 68-88), and
most of the others poems also bear the same burlesque-dialogic relationship to other texts
perceived as classic – from Roman Catholic prayers to Romantic poems.
Differently from the image of the “noble savage”, depicted with great fascination by
European artists (see part 1 above), the “savages” portrayed by the Brazilian Modernists
were actually ruthless and wild. The idea was to rebel against what they perceived as the
European sugar-coated version of their own peoples,4 so as to invert, for the first time, the
logic between coloniser and colony. The evil savage became the symbol of a nation that no
longer wished to be raw material for the creation of European art.5 Therefore, to make use of
the same cannibal allegory, the motto of these young Brazilian artists was to devour and no
longer be devoured.
Indeed, the role that Europe had always played was, from the Brazilian point of view, of the
devourer, and this epithet can actually be understood both from a more metaphorical and a
more literal perspective. The metaphoric perspective refers to the fact that Brazilian artists
felt that their art and history was being consumed by European artists for the production of
4
The image of the “noble savage” is widely-spread in the Brazilian Romanticism, particularly in
authors such as José de Alencar and Gonçalves Dias. The Brazilian Modernists will parody these
authors, too.
5
The most important literary hero of those times, or maybe of all times (Ribeiro 1999: 1) was
Macunaíma, the protagonist of Mario de Andrade’s novel with the same title. The title of the novel
actually is Macunaíma – o herói sem nenhum caráter, or the hero with no character in Portuguese,
but simply Macunaíma, in English (translated by E. A. Goodland and published by Random House
in 1984). According to Octavio Ianni (2005: 7), Macunaíma is a mixture of “informality, innocent
liberty, (...) labor as a game, indiscipline, rejection of labor as an obligation, loose sociability and
unpredictability”.
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
8
their own art. According to one of the most important Brazilian literary critics, Antônio
Candido (2000 [1995]: 111),
(...) no Brasil as culturas primitivas se misturam à vida cotidiana ou são
reminiscências ainda vivas de um passado recente. As terríveis ousadias de um
Picasso, um Brancusi, um Max Jacob, um Tristan Tzara, eram, no fundo, mais
coerentes com a nossa herança cultural do que com a deles.
(...) in Brazil the primitive cultures either blend in with people’s everyday lives or are
living remainders of a recent past. The bold deeds of a Picasso, a Brancusi, a Max
Jacob, a Tristan Tzara would suit our cultural heritage far better than theirs.
The more literal reading points towards the exploitation of Brazilian resources mostly by
European countries. Curiously, many of the words used by the first chroniclers who wrote
about Brazil (see above), as well as by late 19th and early 20th century European writers,
hinted at nourishment (see Nietzsche’s quote below). The rivers were made of honey; the
cliffs, of sugar; the earth, of biscuits. Brazil was perceived as some sort of cake with a lot of
icing (Netto 2004: 80). Indeed, until today one of the most important Brazilian landmarks
still keeps the name given by Léry – Rio de Janeiro’s Pão de Açúcar or Sugar-loaf (pot-aubeurre, originally).
By inverting this nourishment logic, it would be the Brazilian artists who would feed on the
European avant-gardes so as to establish their own national literature, and so as to frustrate
these European artists who expected Brazilian art to confirm the stereotypes spread by
European chroniclers, poets and painters. This cannibalism is somewhat close to Nietzsche’s
nutriment metaphor:
I am interested in quite a different way in a question upon which the “salvation of
mankind” depends far more than it does upon any kind of quaint curiosity of the
theologians; the question of nutriment. One can for conveniences’ sake formulate it
thus: “how to nourish yourself so as to attain your maximum of strength, of virtu in the
Renaissance style, of moraline-free virtue?” (Nietzsche 1992 [1888]: 21-22, translated
by L. J. Hollingdale).
In his Ecce Homo, Nietzsche uses the notion of nutriment to advocate the idea that a nation
will be culturally strong as long as it properly selects what to nourish itself on so as to
metabolise, within the national body, these external, foreign elements (Netto 2004: 15). This
was the national project sketched by the Brazilian Modernists, and this nourishing on
European avant-gardes would eventually lead to the production of something truly national,
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
9
but always in dialectic and dialogic relationship with the “foreign” (Campos 1994 [1992]:
234).6 Haroldo de Campos maintains that
A ‘Antropofagia’ (...) é o pensamento da devoração crítica do legado cultural
universal, elaborado não a partir da perspectiva submissa e reconciliada do ‘bom
selvagem’ (...), mas segundo o ponto de vista desabusado do ‘mau selvagem’,
devorador de brancos, antropófagos (idem).
Anthropophagy (...) is the notion of critical devouring of the world’s cultural legacy,
formulated through the insolent point of view of the ‘evil savage’, white men eater,
anthropophagus, rather than through the submissive and reconciled perspective of the
‘noble savage’.
Before analysing the impact that the notion of Anthropophagy had in translation theory and
practice, it is important to remark that more recent readings of the Anthropophagic
Movement acknowledge that it was, to some extent, naive and exaggerated. Even at that
time, critics as Alceu Amoroso Lima (quoted from Netto 2004: 63) manifested their doubts
concerning the movement, claiming that Europe could and had to deconstruct its own
tradition as an attempt to start afresh; Brazil, however, hardly had any tradition at all, and
therefore could by no means start by deconstructing anything.7 This controversy is rather
polemical until today, but the range of topics has expanded significantly: the import of
musical trends, of literary movements, of fashion styles, of technology, of technical terms.
In other words, it all comes down to the excessive openness of Brazilian culture and
language to what is foreign.
One way or another, it is undeniable that Brazil is a culturally cannibal nation. If one
cannot speak of pure originality and uninfluenced artistic expressions in any nation in the
world, let alone in those countries which, as Brazil, went through a relatively recent
colonisation process. And colonies tend to suffer from a chronic inferiority complex that
makes them underestimate the national and overvalue the foreign; a complex which is
reinforced by neo-colonialism, or the virtual occupation of former colonies due to their
financial dependence on their former colonisers (Vieira 1992: 12 – see part 3 below).
Ironically, for the very same reason these colonised nations tend to translate far more than
their colonisers, thus providing their own literature with more input. Despite his obviously
Anglophone context, Venuti’s remarks on this matter also serve the purpose of the present
6
This notion is close to Ezra Pound’s idea of Paideuma as the general spirit of a vast age of time.
Indeed, Haroldo de Campos asserts that Latin American literature had no infancy; it was born in
Baroque times and, therefore, spoke an “extremely elaborate universal code” already from birth
(Campos 1994 [1992]: 239). By using the term infancy, Campos means the Latin word infans, or the
one unable to speak (idem).
7
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
10
section of this paper: “Since World War II English has been the most translated language
worldwide, but it isn’t much translated into, given the number of English-language books
published annually” (Venuti 1995: 14). More specifically on Brazil in contrast with North
America or Britain, he maintains that
In Brazil, where 60 percent of new titles consists of translations (4.800 out of 8.000 in
1994), as much as 75 percent is from English (...) British and American publishers, in
sharp contrast, translate much less. In the United States, 1994 saw the publications of
51.863 books, 1.418 (2.74 percent) of which were translations (Venuti 1998: 160).8
All in all, the Anthropophagic Movement can be understood as the first overt attempt to
work out these foreign influences into the production of national art, which was, at the same
time, “universal” art (universal in the sense that it incorporated so-called foreign elements as
well). This tendency towards the “universal” is by no means a process exclusive of
colonised nations. As Marx and Engels formulated in the first half of the 19th century, based
upon Goethe’s concept of Weltliteratur (Marx and Engels 2008 [1848]: chapter I),
An die Stelle der alten lokalen und nationalen Selbstgenügsamkeit und
Abgeschlossenheit tritt ein allseitiger Verkehr, eine allseitige Abhängigkeit der
Nationen voneinander. Und wie in der materiellen, so auch in der geistigen Produktion.
Die geistigen Erzeugnisse der einzelnen Nationen werden Gemeingut. Die nationale
Einseitigkeit und Beschränktheit wird mehr und mehr unmöglich, und aus den vielen
nationalen und lokalen Literaturen bildet sich eine Weltliteratur.
Indeed, Goethe asserts in 1828 that “Eine jede Literatur ennuyiert sich zuletzt in sich
selbst, wenn sie nicht durch fremde Teilnahme wieder ausgefrischt wird” (quoted from
Campos 1994 [1992]: 255 – see part 3 below). Finally, to quote a Brazilian writer, “a
falácia logocêntrica (...) ronda todo nacionalismo ontológico”, or the logocentric fallacy
(...) surrounds every ontological nationalism (Campos 1994 [1992]: 237).
4. Anthropophagy in Translation
Entre o sacrifício e o jogo, entre a prisão e a transgressão,
entre a submissão ao código e a agressão, entre a obediência
e a rebelião, entre a assimilação e a expressão - ali, nesse
lugar aparentemente vazio, seu templo e seu lugar de
clandestinidade, ali, se realiza o ritual antropofágico
8
More recent UNESCO statistics suggest that the number of translations published in Brazil has
risen to about 70% of all publications.
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
11
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
da literatura latino-americana
Silviano Santiago
There, between sacrifice and game, prison and transgression,
submission to the code and aggression, obedience and
rebellion, assimilation and expression – there, in this
apparently empty place, the temple and place for clandestinity,
there the anthropophagic ritual of Latin American literature
takes place.
In the same way as the concept of Anthropophagy emerges as the fierce affirmation of
marginal literature as the devourer of canonical literature – thus inverting the colonisercolonised logic – it also emerges within translation. From this anthropophagic point of view,
original texts are for colonisers as translations are for colonised nations. The same
traditional complex of inferiority and the same struggle for autonomy applies. In Derrida’s
words (quoted from Vieira 1992: 23-24),
Essa existência continuada dá mais vida, mais do que uma sobrevivência. A obra não
vive simplesmente por um tempo maior, ela vive mais e melhor, além dos meios do seu
autor. Seria, então, o tradutor um receptor endividado, submetido à doação e ao doado
de um original? De forma alguma.
This prolonged existence [in translation] is more than mere survival; it adds new life.
The work does not simply live longer, it lives more and better, beyond its author’s own
means. Would translators then be indebted receivers, submitted to the original donation
and donor? By no means.
In this new light, original texts are not sufficient in themselves, but rather need translation
for their own completion. It is the originals that are indebted to their translations, and no
longer the other way round. The Algerian philosopher goes further and, by making use of
Walter Benjamin’s well-known concept of “pure language” (Ursprache), asserts that
originals and their translations are pieces that, together and together only, would make up
this “pure language” (idem), or this peaceful pre-Babelic stage. In other words, by no means
are original texts a whole in themselves; instead, this “virtual whole” could only be achieved
through translation.
Going back to colonisation, once again the same logic applies. Europe expanded, enriched
and prolonged its own existence through colonisation. These colonies are “transported”,
“translated” culture with life of their own. According to Else Vieira, “poderíamos dizer que
a colonização latino-americana representou a existência continuada da Europa no seu
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
12
renascimento”, or one can say that Latin American colonisation meant Europe’s prolonged
existence in its own renaissance.
Perhaps the most brilliant examples of the anthropophagic philosophy applied to translation
are Augusto de Campos’ Verso, Reverso, Controverso (1978) and Poesia de Recusa (2006 –
a collection of his life’s work), in which there are translations of various authors, including
English metaphysical poets, medieval poets, Italian baroque poets, Russian poets, Hopkins,
Laforgue, Blake, Mallarmé, Yeats, Emily Dickinson, Gertrud Stein, amongst others. In other
words, these works are his own Paideuma (see footnote 6 above). In the introduction to his
1978 book, while explaining the choice of authors he translates, he maintains that
A minha maneira de amá-los é traduzi-los. Ou degluti-los, segundo a Lei Antropofágica
de Oswald de Andrade: só me interessa o que não é meu. Tradução para mim é
persona. Quase heterônimo (...), tradução é crítica, como viu Pound melhor que
ninguém. Uma das melhores formas de crítica. Ou pelo menos a única verdadeiramente
criativa, quando ela – a tradução – é criativa (quoted from Dick 2007).
My way of loving them is by translating them. Or swallowing them, according to
Oswald de Andrade’s Anthropophagic Law: I only want what is not mine. For me,
translating is persona. Almost heteronym (...), translation is criticism, as Pound saw it
like no one else. One of the best forms of criticism. Or at least the only truly creative
one, when it – the translation – is creative.
He takes the notion of criticism to an extreme by blending translation, criticism and
anthologising in one work. In his texts one or more other writers’ verses often blend in with
his own words, and he does not always use inverted commas, thus erasing the “foreign”
within his own texts. The translation gesture is thus accompanied by the donation gesture,
i.e. he takes from but also gives to the original. His poems/translations are followed by
critical texts in which the author explains his translation project as well as the choice of
texts. In these texts he provides insight on the translated authors’ backgrounds, but always in
combination with analogous movements and events in Brazil, which results in an interesting
parallel.
As a result, his works do not represent original texts, but rather re-present them in a new
light. The title to his 1978 Verso, Reverso, Controverso points towards the same direction.
Verso means verse; reverso, reverse; controverso, controversial. Verses are then re-versed,
in the sense of versed again, but also reversed, as in the opposite position. This leads to
poetic controversy, or to the opposite of a verse – as in counter-verse. This is the reason why
Augusto de Campos often refers to his translations as “in-translations” (intraduções),
another play on the Portuguese words “tradução” and “introdução”, which mean translation
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
13
and introduction. An “in-translation” is something in between a translation and an
introduction.
A well-known example of Augusto de Campos “transcreations” is his translation of John
Donne’s “The Apparition” (Campos 1986). The verse “And thee, fain'd vestall, in worse
armes shall see” becomes two verses in Portuguese, “Onde serás, falsa vestal, uma mulher
/Qualquer nos braços de um outro qualquer”. This second verse was taken from a song
(“Nervos de Aço”) by Lupicínio Rodrigues, a celebrated Brazilian musician who was a
contemporary of Augusto de Campos. Specific though it may be, this brief example shows
one of the strategies through which Augusto de Campos accomplished his so-called
anthropophagic translation technique.9
According to Else Vieira (1992: 30-37), another significant example of the anthropophagic
philosophy applied to translation theory and practice is Haroldo de Campos’ translation of
Goethe’s Faust. The title of the book already points towards what Vieira calls “um
empreendimento cultural bidirectional” (or a bidirectional cultural undertaking) rather than a
“fluxo unidirecional da cultura originária para a receptora” (or unidirectional flow from the
original culture into the target culture). The book is called Deus e o Diabo no Fausto de
Goethe (God and the Devil in Goethe’s Faust), a clear allusion to the work of the Brazilian
filmmaker Glauber Rocha Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol.
In a three-section postface, Haroldo de Campos justifies his translation project by claiming
that Goethe himself made wide use of parody when writing Faust, and by adding Goethe’s
own words when the German writer himself was accused of plagiarising the Bible and
Shakespeare: “Somente se pode produzir algo de grande mediante a apropriação de
tesouros alheios”, or one can only produce something great by seizing other people’s
treasures (quoted from Vieira 1992: 32). Based on this idea, H. Campos devises his concept
of plagiotropia (“plagiatropy”), or the non linear transformation of texts through history.
The third section of his postface is entirely dedicated to his concept of translation, for whose
formulation the notion of Anthropophagy as well as Benjamin’s ‘Die Aufgabe des
Übersetzers’ are particularly relevant. Following the same logic of inversion, Haroldo will
take Benjamin’s “angelical” translation theory and invert it by calling it “satanic”. He
9
I have decided not to include further examples as this would certainly discourage those readers who
are not familiar with Portuguese. I hope, however, to provide enough references for those who are
interested in reading more about the anthropophagic translation technique.
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
14
maintains that “toda tradução que se recusa a servir submissamente a um conteúdo, que se
recusa à tirania de um Logos pré-ordenado [é] uma empresa satânica”, or every translation
that refuses to submissively serve a certain content is a satanic undertaking. In addition to
that, the Brazilian author advocates that Benjamin’s idea of the achievement of pre-Babelic
stability through translation is actually instable, seeing as it – the relationship between
original and translation – consists of the fierce assertion of difference.
In practical terms, Haroldo de Campos accomplishes his “transcreational” task, like Goethe,
by drawing inspiration from numerous literary sources, most of which are Brazilian. Rather
than using Shakespeare, for instance, as Goethe did, he will use the Brazilian poet João
Cabral de Melo Neto; for the German compound words, inexistent in Portuguese, he will
borrow words taken from Sousândrade’s poems, another Brazilian poet (Vieira 1992: 33-36).
According to Vieira (idem 36), in Haroldo de Campos’ translation of Goethe’s Faust, “a
tradução enquanto transtextualização ou transcriação desmistifica a ideologia da
fidelidade”, or translation as transtextualisation or transcreation demystifies the ideology of
fidelity. For her, this double seizing – i.e. of the original text and of other local sources – is
what takes translation into Postmodernity, corroborating the new reading of Benjamin by
Derrida. The Brazilian literary critic, “postmodern” translator and novelist Silviano Santiago
seems to have the same opinion: “Nesse sentido, este tradutor é um exegeta de asas curtas,
certamente um duplo plagiador. Plagia o texto a ser traduzido e plagia os poetas nacionais
que selecionou como modelos de tradução”, or in this sense, this translator [himself] is a
short-winged exegete, surely a double plagiarist. He plagiarises the text to be translated as
well as the national poets that he selected to be his translation models (quoted from Vieira
1992: 38).
Ever since these “new” perspectives derived from the motif of Anthropophagy were applied
to translation theories and practices in Brazil, much has been published about it, be it directly
or indirectly. The theoretical contributions dedicated to the notion of Anthropophagy applied
to translation were those generally known as the Brazilian reception of Deconstruction, of
which Else Vieira (whose PhD thesis was extremely important for the present paper),
Rosemary Arrojo, Kanavillil Rajagopalan, Paulo Ottoni, Cristina Carneiro Rodrigues, Maria
José Coracini and Marisa Grigoleto are good examples.
However, one could say that in more practical terms little seems to have been produced since
the Campos brothers. Their rather revolutionary translations remain the few examples of
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
15
anthropophagic translation in Brazil. Perhaps few translators actually have such a clear
translation project and agenda; perhaps few translators have the freedom the Campos
brothers did in terms of the publishing market; perhaps having a clear and radical translation
project does not necessarily imply a completely different translation practice. Indeed, the
main point here seems to be whether different theoretical standpoints will necessarily lead to
different practices. When investigating the works of the Campos Brothers, John Milton,
quoting Jorge Wanderley, arrives at the following conclusion:
(...) apesar de sua retórica radical, a obra sobre tradução dos irmãos Campos é ‘capaz
de não ser radical’. Não consegue encontrar uma política poundiana de “Make It
New” (“Renovar”) através de sua obra. (...) De fato, várias das traduções dos irmãos
Campos (...) estão bem próximas ao original (Milton 1998 [1993]: 121, his emphasis).
(...) despite their [Campos brothers’] radical rhetoric, their works on translation “are
actually not radical”. One cannot find a kind of Poundian “Make It New” motto in their
works. (...) Indeed, a number of translations by the Campos brothers (...) remain very
close to the original texts.
Indeed, there are undoubtedly a few translation works by the Campos brothers that are
clearly radical, such as Deus e o Diabo no Fausto de Goethe and Verso, Reverso,
Controverso (see above). Nevertheless, as Milton and Wanderley point out, most of their
translations would probably not strike one as radical, not always including local references
and not always overtly blending different texts.10
To borrow another example from John Donne, this time taken from Verso, Reverso,
Controverso, let us look at the initial verses of “Elegy XX – To his Mistress Going to Bed”,
and Campos’ translation “Elegia: Indo para o Leito”:
Come, madam, come, all rest my powers defy;
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing, though he never fight.
Vem, Dama, vem que eu desafio a paz;
Até que eu lute, em luta o corpo jaz.
Como o inimigo diante do inimigo,
Canso-me de esperar se nunca brigo.
For those readers who understand Portuguese, it is clear that the translation is not at all
radical. Indeed, the entire poem is translated in so-called “traditional” fashion, as are many
of his and his brother’s translations. Nevertheless, this does not mean to say that translations
10
Not overtly since every translation (or every task of text production for that matter) includes, to
some extent, other texts; hence blending different references is something no translation can escape.
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
16
as these were (and are) not appreciated because of their lack of “innovative” translation
strategies. It simply seems that outside Brazil they remain largely unaccounted for, with the
more “radical” ones at the forefront.
In any case, not to say that there have not been more contemporary attempts in the direction
of a more radical translation rhetoric and practice, in 2006 Mauricio Mendonça Cardozo
(translation professor from the Universidade Federal do Paraná) published a two-volume
translation of Theodor Storm’s Der Schimmelreiter, the first of which is a translation strictu
sensu and the second, a project of “transcreation” or “transculturalisation” whereby Northern
Germany is transposed to North-eastern Brazil. Many are the consequences of such
transposition; however, the plot clearly remains the same. What is particularly interesting for
the purposes of this paper is, however, his work with language in the second translation.
As Storm did in his times, and as our anthropophagic authors did a few decades ago,
Cardozo chooses national authors from whom he draws inspiration for his work. While in
the first translation he makes use of some of the same references which Storm seems to have
used, in the second he chooses four Brazilian novelists as his “cardinal points” (Cardozo
2006: 161), namely José de Alencar, Graciliano Ramos, Guimarães Rosa and Euclides da
Cunha. According to him, the choice of such writers and their works was due to the fact that
“em nenhum dos casos as obras lançam mão de um uso padrão da língua, tampouco de uma
linguagem menos preocupada com a relação entre o narrado e a narrativa”, or in none of
the works chosen do the authors make use of standard language, nor do they make use of a
language not concerned with the relationship between narrated [as the language] and
narration [as the plot] (idem). Cardozo claims that his intention was not to write in the same
way as these authors; instead, he wanted their voices to echo in his translation by using
collage and pastiche (idem 162).
In addition to choosing his own national models to guide his translation, Cardozo also strives
to recreate the local dialects which grant Storm’s novels their regionalist character. In the
first translation his effort is to recreate the Frisian culture within an entirely new fictional
space, seeing as one such place is beyond any typical Brazilian’s imagination. The language,
therefore, is also fictional, as are the settings. In the second translation, on the other hand, he
attempts to re-enact the very same story within the Brazilian fictional sertão. Fictional not
because it does not exist; indeed, the area known as sertão comprises the semi-arid region of
North-eastern Brazil. It is fictional because it has been established in people’s minds through
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
17
the works of the abovementioned authors. This is the reason why the language of Storm’s
characters echoes in the language of the characters that inhabit the novels of Cardozo’s four
“cardinal points”, who, like Storm, wrote regionalist literature.
Despite the existence of translation projects such as Cardozo’s, for example, one can say that
much of what is published in the Brazilian translation market consists of rather “traditional”
translations. Indeed, as Ruth Bohunovsky’s explains in her 2001 article (Bohunovsky
2001/2002), there are huge discrepancies between translation theory and translation practice
in Brazil, and these discrepancies are twofold. By interviewing a number of prominent,
contemporary translators in Brazil, Bohunovsky finds that their attitude towards translation
is a far cry from the theoretical developments made by Arrojo and Vieira, for instance.
Furthermore, while on the one hand the reception of Deconstruction seems to be what
defines Translation Studies in Brazil from a foreign point of view, on the other hand the
number of Brazilian scholars engaged in so-called poststructuralist research is rather low.
Indeed, three of the most well-known foreign volumes on Translation Studies in Brazil,
namely Übersetzungswissenschaft in Brasilien (Wolf 1997), Übersetzen in Lateinamerika
(Scharlau 2002) and Translation and Identity in the Americas (Gentzler 2008) are fully
dedicated to the Brazilian reception of Deconstruction and to postmodern trends in Brazil.
However, when one looks at all the MA theses defended at the Universidade Federal de
Santa Catarina (the only Brazilian university that offers MA and PhD courses specifically
on Translation Studies), for example, none of them are about Deconstruction or more
poststructuralist trends in translation.11 Therefore, even though Anthropophagy and
Deconstruction may be perceived as key within Translation Studies in Brazil, neither
translators nor most translation scholars are engaged in this kind of thinking and/or research.
In any case, there are numerous instances of translation scholars engaged in translation
practice as well, and some of them also have a very relevant literary production – Paulo
Henriques Britto is perhaps the most well-known example. Nevertheless, so far there have
11
In November 2009 the total number of MA theses defended within the Pós-Graduação em
Estudos da Tradução - PGET (Post-graduation in Translation Studies) was 68 (see
http://www.pget.ufsc.br/curso/dissertacoes_defendidas.php). The first thesis was defended in 2005.
Seeing as the PhD course was opened only last year (2008), no dissertations have been concluded
yet.
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
18
not been any works devoted to their production – theoretical, practical and literary – and the
possible impact of Anthropophagy in their work.12
Before we move on to my final remarks, I would like to briefly look into the relationship
between Anthropophagy in translation (or the Concretistas’ poetics) and Deconstruction,
since the two are often linked, especially outside Brazil (see previous paragraph). Here
Susana Kampff Lages’ Walter Benjamin – Tradução e Melancolia (2007 [2002]) provides
with us great insight. In the chapter entitled “A Tradução como Reescrita, Subversão e
Transcrição”, or Translation as Rewriting, Subversion and Transcreation (Lages 2007
[2002]: 73), Lages analyses the paradigm shift through which Translation Studies went
around the 1980s and points towards a new, contemporary shift in the area, whereby the
translator is on the spotlight for the first time. More specifically on the Concretistas, i.e.
mainly Augusto de Campos, Haroldo de Campos e Décio Pignatari (idem 88), the Brazilian
theorist advocates that
O elemento definidor do projeto poético concretista está seguramente numa aplicação
radical do conceito modernista de antropofagia como estratégia particular de leitura
da tradição. Esse conceito reflete sobretudo uma atitude diante da tradição tanto
poética quanto universal, que não se deixa mais se definir nos termos tradicionais de
“influência”, no sentido de uma assimilação passiva de elementos externos. Trata-se
de um processo de violenta apropriação (...). Portanto, a poética concretista pode ser
chamada de uma “poética da destruição” (idem 90, her emphasis).
The defining element of the Concretistas’ poetic project is firmly bound to a radical
application of the concept of anthropophagy as a particular strategy for reading
tradition. This concept mainly reflects an attitude towards tradition, be it poetic or
universal, whereby one does not allow oneself to be defined merely in the traditional
terms of “influence”, as a sort of passive assimilation of external elements. Instead, it is
a process of violent seizing (...). Therefore, the poetics of the Concretistas may be
named “poetics of destruction”.
Expanding on the notion of “destruction”, Lages arrives at the term “Deconstruction”
(idem), with which the Concretistas have great affinity (idem). According to her, one can
justify this affinity not only through the numerous references more contemporary theorists
make to Jacques Derrida’s and Haroldo de Campo’s works and their resemblance – as
Edwin Gentzler’s in his 1993 Contemporary Translation Theories (Gentzler 1993: 91).
Indeed, she explains that both Campos and Derrida seem to acknowledge this affinity.
Campos, for instance, speaks of the “deconstruction of logocentrism”: “já no Barroco se
nutre uma razão antropofágica, desconstrutora do logocentrismo que herdamos do
12
I hope my PhD thesis (Contemporary Translation Studies in Brazil: an Overview – working title)
may shed light on this topic.
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
19
Ocidente”, or already in Baroque one nurtures an anthropophagic reason, a reason that
deconstructs the logocentrism we have inherited from the West (Campos 1994 [1992]: 243).
Derrida, on the other hand, explicitly refers to Haroldo de Campos as a paradoxical
precursor acknowledged a posteriori (Lages 2007 [2002]: 90-91). Indeed, the Algerian
philosopher wrote one of the chapters of the Homenagem a Haroldo de Campos (Homage to
Haroldo de Campos), published in 1996 by the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São
Paulo. In this chapter, Derrida claims that Haroldo saw translation as the “passage to
philosophy” before and better than he did (Lages 2007 [2002]: 90-91, quoting Derrida).
Therefore, this affinity between Deconstruction and the notion of Anthropophagy in
Brazilian Translation Studies is essential as the reception of the former is strongly
influenced by the latter. However, one cannot speak of a direct relation or “affiliation” here;
the two lines of thought seem to have developed quite independently.
5. Final Remarks
In conclusion, one can say that the impact of the concept of Anthropophagy as it emerged in
Brazil in the early 20th century is undeniable – both on national literature and on translation.
It seems to me, however, that its impact on translation is far more theoretical than it is
practical, as is the case of Deconstruction and post-structuralist thought as a whole. And
“theoretical” here has by no means negative connotations, but rather refers to a kind of
practice, a philosophical practice (or “theoretical practice”). These theoretical movements
have more to do with awareness, with philosophical outlook, than with translation methods
or techniques. In other words, I strongly believe a philosophical affiliation to poststructuralist thought (or anthropophagic thought, if the reader likes) does not necessarily
entail radical translation strategies. In this sense, one could say that the impact of
Anthropophagy is probably more present in the minds of translators and translation scholars
than the publishing market allows one to see. Nevertheless, I would still say that the motif of
Anthropophagy is not representative of translation in Brazil given the low number of
scholars engaged in this kind of research (see footnote 11 above).
With this argument I hope to have thrown some light on the second stereotype mentioned in
the introduction above, according to which Anthropophagy and post-structuralist thought
would be key concepts as far as translation in Brazil is concerned. Being myself a researcher
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
20
whose affinities lie with post-structuralist thought, I would by no means say that I am a part
of a majority, a predominant trend in Brazil.
What remains unanswered is why these Brazilian lines of thinking (meaning here
Anthropophagy and the reception of Deconstruction) get some attention abroad and so little
interest from local scholars and translation students. Or to go further, why so-called
“Western” scholars, such as Michaela Wolf, Edwin Gentzler and Birgit Scharlau, are
interested in these matters when in their own circles Deconstruction and poststructuralist
thought as a whole seem to play a rather minor role?13
13
I do not mean to generalise, but when one looks at all CETRA papers since 1989, for example, one
does not find anything on poststructuralist thought or Deconstruction – at least not from the titles of
the papers and their references. This probably means that most scholars and students who have taken
part in CETRA in the past 20 years are not particularly interested in these issues. In this sense, it is
interesting to observe that some non Brazilian scholars show interest in these lines of thinking the
way they are in Brazil, but the lines of thinking themselves do not have a large number of followers
within Translation Studies in Europe.
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
21
References
Andrade, Oswald de. 1990 [1925]. Pau-Brasil. São Paulo: Editora Globo.
Bohunovsky, Ruth. 2001/2. “A (im)possibilidade da “invisibilidade” do tradutor e da sua
“fidelidade”: por um diálogo entre a teoria e a prática de tradução”. In Cadernos de
Tradução VIII, UFSC. 63-88.
Campos, Augusto de. 1986. O Anticrítico. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras.
Campos, Haroldo de. 1994 [1992]. Metalinguagem e outras metas. São Paulo: Editora
Perspectiva.
Candido, Antonio. 2000 [1995]. Literatura e Sociedade. São Paulo: T. A. Queiroz.
Cardozo, Mauricio M. 2006. “...e o mar vai virar sertão”. In O Centauro Bronco (translation
of Theodor Storm’s Der Schimmelreiter). Curitiba: UFPR.
Dick, André. 2007. “A aceitação do difícil”. In Zunái – revista de poesia e debates.
(available at http://www.revistazunai.com.br/ensaios/andre_dick_a_aceitacao_do_dificil.htm)
Dunn, Christopher. 2001. Brutality Garden: Tropicalia and the Emergence of a Brazilian
Counterculture. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Gentzler, Edwin. 1993. Contemporary Translation Theories. London and New York:
Routledge.
Gentzler, Edwin. 2008. Translation and Identity in the Americas. London and New York:
Routledge.
Goethe, Johann W. Von. 2001 [1808]. “Drei Stücke über Übersetzen.” In Clássicos da
Teoria da Tradução – volume 1. Florianópolis: Núcleo de Tradução, UFSC.
Gombrich, Ernst H. 2004 [1950]. The Story of Art. London: Phaidon Press Limited.
Lages, Susana K. 2007 [2002]. Walter Benjamin: Tradução e melancolia. São Paulo: Edusp.
Lery, Jean de. 1980 [1578]. Viagem à terra do Brasil. Translated by Sérgio Milliet. Belo
Horizonte: Itatiaia/Edusp.
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
22
Marx, K. and Engels, F. 2008 [1848]. Manifest der kommunistischen Partei. Available at
http://www.vulture-bookz.de/marx/archive/volltext/Marx-Engels_1848-90~Das_Kommunistische_Manifest.html).
Milton, John. 1998 [1993]. Tradução: Teoria e Prática. São Paulo: Martins Fontes.
Montaigne, Michel de. 2008 [1575]. Essays. Translated by Charles Cotton. Available at
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/montaigne/m-essays_contents.html).
Netto, Adriano Bitarães. 2004. Antropofagia Oswaldiana - um receituário estético e
científico. São Paulo: Annablume.
Nietzsche, Friedrich W. 1992 [1888]. Ecce Homo – How One Becomes What One Is.
Translated by L. J. Hollingdale. London: Penguin Classics.
Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. 1999. Random House Inc. v3.0 for
WindowsTM Systems.
Ribeiro, Gustavo Lins. 1999. “Macuinaíma: To Be and not to Be, That is the Question”.
Journal of Latin American Anthropology. American Anthropological Association, 4/2:
60-77.
Scharlau, Birgit (Hrsg.). 2002. Übersetzen in Lateinamerika. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
Valey, Paul. 1996 [1943]. Tel quel. Paris: Gallimard.
Veloso, Caetano. 2003 [1997]. Tropical Truth: a Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil.
Translated by Isabel de Sena. London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.
Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility – a history of translation. London and
New York: Routledge.
Venuti, Lawrence. 1998. The Scandals of Translation. London: Routledge.
Vieira, Else. 1992. Por uma teoria pós-moderna da tradução. PhD thesis defended at the
Faculdade de Letras of Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte (265
pages).
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Alice LEAL. “Anthropophagy and Translation”
23
Wolf, Michaela (Hrsg.). 1997. Übersetzungswissenschaft in Brasilien – Beiträge zum Status
„Original“ und Übersetzung. Tübingen, Stauffenburg.
About the author:
Alice Leal is the head of the Portuguese Department at the Centre of Translation
Studies at the University of Vienna. She is currently writing her PhD thesis on
Translation Studies in Brazil under the supervision of Mary Snell-Hornby. She has a BA
in Portuguese and English Linguistics and Literature from the Federal University of
Paraná (Brazil), and an MA in Translation Studies from the Federal University of Santa
Catarina (Brazil).
Email: [email protected]
© 2010. Omid AZADIBOUGAR (ed.). Translation Effects. Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in
Translation Studies 2009. http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/papers.html
Download

Anthropophagy and Translation Alice LEAL University of Vienna