“A dance of strength”: structural elements in three translations of Rainer Maria Rilke
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2020v40n3p109Abstract
In this paper, I intend to investigate if and how the structural elements of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “Der Panther” (“The panther”) were recreated by three of his most influential translators in Brazil, namely by Geir Campos (1924-1999) in 1953, by José Paulo Paes (1926-1998) in 1993 and by Augusto de Campos (1931- ) in 1994. Based on the assumptions presented by Haroldo de Campos in the essay “Of translations as creation and criticism” (1963), according to which the translation of poetry is a work with “the sign itself […], that is, the sign’s tangible self, its very materiality” (Campos (a) 315, translated by Diana Gibson and Haroldo de Campos), I intend to firstly point out the even greater importance of these elements in those poems by Rilke (among them “Der Panther”) which have been described by critics (Müller 298) as “Dinggedicht” (or “thing-poem”) for the last hundred years. Secondly, I will briefly analyse the original poem’s structural elements (meaning here meter, alliterations, assonances, phrasal movement and other aspects of the materiality of the linguistic sign). Finally, I intend to briefly compare the ways by which the three translators dealt with these structural elements in their respective translations to the Portuguese.
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