Dickens in ‘Trajes Portugueses’:Translation and Retranslation of the Short Narrative ‘The Black Veil’
The way Alexandre Herculano (1810-1877), one of the founders of Portuguese Romanticism, refers to Charles Dickens (1812-1870) in 1851, including him among the modern representatives of ‘industrial literature,’ of ‘merchandise literature,’ of ‘pot boilers’ (“Da Propriedade Litteraria”), is significant proof that admiration for the British novelist and recognition of his work’s social scope were late in arriving in Portugal. The following years saw some of the most prominent Portuguese literary critics of the Romantic period follow in Herculano’s footsteps in displaying the same lack of knowledge of and appreciation for Dickens’s work. This poverty in the critical reception of Dickens was matched by an equally poor reception of his work in translation. Up to 1865, the year which witnessed the crucial turning point in the Portuguese Romantic process, published translations into Portuguese of Dickens’s work were few and did not include any of his novels. However, these translations appeared in the periodical press, at the time the most widely read medium for cultural dissemination, so that they will have reached a relatively wide audience. Of the narratives to be found in Sketches by Boz published by Jornal do Porto in 1863-1864, ‘O veu negro’ (‘The Black Veil’ in the original) stands out as the Boz story which would most often be published in Portuguese: nine times between 1863 e 1904. This peculiarity constitutes this article’s object of study, which seeks to follow the transit of this short narrative in Portugal in translation. By comparing the nine versions one against the other I will enquire whether these are all different translations or reprints, subject to revision or otherwise. I will further examine the linguistic-textual features of the successive translations, considering whether there is paratextual material, the translating strategies used, the processes of manipulation and re-writing, and also the elements which allow us to infer the status of the translator and of the practice of translation in the Portuguese literary system of the time.
Maria Zulmira Castanheira is Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Languages, Cultures and Literatures at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal, where she teaches English Literature, Translation Studies and Anglo-Portuguese Studies and coordinates the Undergraduate Programme in Translation. She is also a researcher at CETAPS (Centre for English, Translation and AngloPortuguese Studies, Portugal), where she coordinates the “AngloPortuguese Studies” research area. She holds an MA and a PhD in Anglo-Portuguese Studies. Her research concentrates mainly on 18th, 19th and 20th century Anglo-Portuguese historical, literary and cultural relations. She has written extensively on British travel writing on Portugal and on the reception of British culture in the periodical press of Portuguese Romanticism.
ORCID
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4793-4068
CIÊNCIA ID
https://www.cienciavitae.pt/portal/6C1A-6B97-FA63
EMAIL
mira.castanheira@gmail.com
Como citar / How to cite:
Castanheira, Maria Zulmira, “Dickens in ‘Trajes Portugueses’:Translation and Retranslation of the Short Narrative ‘The Black Veil’.” Revista de Estudos Anglo-Portugueses / Journal of Anglo-Portuguese Studies, no. 30, 2021, pp. 127-153.doi:https://doi.org/10.34619/meak-vctq
