Schiller's Maria Stuart Translated by Manuel Bandeira

Abstract

“Brilliant”, “beautiful”, “erudite”, “poetic”, “exquisite”, “more than poetic”, “beautifully fluid”, “superior”, “rigorous”, “most inspired” and “masterpiece”. With such terms the critics have been reading Manuel Bandeira’s 1955 translation of Friedrich Schiller’s Maria Stuart into Portuguese. The literary and theater critics have always unanimously praised Bandeira’s translation’s high quality and linguistic thoroughness as undoubtedly perfect. His translation is “faithful” to the original, carefully made and effective at the stage. However this praise seems to lack a more closed reading of Bandeira’s translation and so reveres the translator-poet and silences any finer criticism. In this text I look for causes and effects of Bandeira’s translation of Maria Stuart, examine the reception of the spectacle and the critical premises for Bandeira’s translation project in the terms of Antoine Berman.