The experience of reading Patrick White in the United States described below by the American critic James Stern is worth citing, as it is a common situation involving Brazilian readers as well:
The author’s name was new to me. Within an hour my whole world has changed... I had never been to Australia, yet here was prose which, by its baroque richness, its plasticity and wealth of strange symbols, made an unknown landscape so real that I felt I could walk into it as into country I had been brought up in. I could see the black volcanic hills, the dead skeleton trees… I could all but touch the rock, scrub, bones, the sheep’s carcass, the ox’s skull, as they lay bleached in Australia’s eternal greyness… under the immense blue of its skies (MARR, 1995, p. 304).
This is this same reaction we would like to instill in the Brazilian readers when they eventually have the book in their hands, or the file open in their reading device, by providing a translation which takes into account the diverse elements of the Australian reality depicted by White, with respect to all the body of knowledge developed on his oeuvre and which has been studied over so many years. When reading Patrick White in the original, the reaction is quite evident, but in translation, the challenge is doubled. The procedures adopted in this meticulous work will be detailed presently.
In the next item, the Australian and Brazilian systems will be described, with the
Before starting the application of the Polysystems Theory to this dissertation, a brief contextualization and the definition of its essential concepts are necessary. The gap opened in the 1970s between linguistics and literary studies was partially closed by the Polysystems Theory, whose emphasis lies in the poetics of the target culture. In essence, this trend represented a revolution which transformed translation theory and translation science into
“translation studies”, a term coined by the late American theorist J.S. Holmes in a famous 1972 paper (HOLMES, 1972/88, p. 70). Along with Holmes, other scholars started viewing translation in a descriptive light, and no longer in the normative terms employed by the linguistic school. Translated texts were considered, in addition to target texts (i.e. in relation to their sources), texts in their own right. The scholars who embraced this approach questioned the pertinence of the concepts of fidelity and equivalence, since these and other concepts, according to the Polysystem view, are constructed historically. Hence, translation started to be viewed as a “manipulation” rather than a mere textual replacement:
Translation is, of course, a rewriting of an original text. All rewritings, whatever their intention, reflect a certain ideology and a poetics and as such manipulate literature to function in a given society in a given way. Rewriting is manipulation, undertaken in the service of power, and its positive aspect can help in the evolution of a literature and a society (BASSNETT & LEFEVERE, 1990, preface).
For example, the conditions of production of a translation might be tracked down and predicted, as well as the strategies the translator might use. For that purpose, the methodology above was based on case studies of translations across time to validate (or not) such a hypothesis of predicting conditions of production, in addition to consolidating and clarifying its principles. In addition, it might be said that the Polysystems Theory methodology gave rise to the now called descriptive studies in Translation Studies, which helped shape and legitimize it as an autonomous academic field. Indeed, perhaps its great move was to change the focus from the mere comparison of original and translation (concentrating on the losses and betrayals) to the understanding of the changes of emphasis which took palce during the transference of texts from one literary system into another.
There are many names to refer to in this approach within Translation Studies, such as the Manipulation School, Descriptive Studies in Translation, Polysystemic Approach, the Tel Aviv-Leuven Axis, the Low Countries Group and Translation Studies154; Theo Hermans tries _______________
154 The American theorist James Holmes decided to use Translation Studies to name the group in the Netherlands, but this is an extremely reducing and restrictive denomination, as basically the ideas developed would find application only in the domain of literary texts. When we study literary texts, we are doing translation
to bring together all these denominations under the term “Descriptive and Systemic Approach” (HERMANS, 1999). In addition to this multitude of denominations, a plethora of theoretical ramifications and divisions is a natural consequence. For example, there is the group based in Tel Aviv, with the main names of Itamar Even-Zohar and Gideon Toury (then with the Polysystems Theory, which is the one used in this dissertation), and the group based in the United States and Europe (mainly in the Netherlands) formed by James Holmes, Theo Hermans, José Lambert, Andre Lefevere, Susan Bassnett, Raymond Van den Broeck, Maria Tymoczko, and others). Theo Hermans and Gideon Toury were responsible for establishing the methodological and theoretical parameters of the subject, whereas Andre Lefevere and Lawrence Venuti sought to explore the implications of translation in broader cultural and historical spheres (in this dissertation, Venuti’s concept of the translator’s invisibility will be drawn on). Both groups share the descriptive and functional perspective, but this does not mean that the work is restricted to these two circuits: Theo Hermans (1999) ascertains that other theorists affiliated to the approach make investigations in Brazil, Korea, Hong Kong, Spain, etc.
The descriptive and systemic perspective was first introduced in 1985 by Theo Hermans, but had been developing in the 1970s, extended in the 1980s and, after revisions and expansions, consolidated in the 1990s (HERMANS, 1999, p. 9). Three international academic events helped consolidate this investigative trend: a conference at the University of Leuven (in 1976), another at the University of Tel Aviv (in 1978) and the last one at the University of Antwerp (in 1980). The paper written by Theo Hermans, entitled The Manipulation of Literature (1985) marks the confluence of the works produced by both groups. The main aspects shared by both groups are: 1) Literature is viewed as a complex and dynamic system; 2) There must be a continuous interaction between theoretical models and practical case studies; 3) Literary Translation requires a functional, systemic, descriptive approach, oriented to the target language text, and 4) There must be an interest in the norms and conditions which govern the production and reception of translations, in the relationship between translation and other kinds of textual processing and in the place and role of such translations at the core of a given literature and at the relationship among literatures.
Expressly, this dissertation follows the approach devised by Itamar Even-Zohar. Thus, these guidelines will appear in the analysis of the translation of Patrick White into Brazilian studies, but not all translation studies are confined to the domain of literary texts. Thus, in this dissertation we only mention that there is this terminological inconsistency, and from now on, the predominant term will be Polysystems Theory, to avoid any misunderstanding. We follow Amparo Hurtado Albir’s disagreement about Holmes’s denomination.
Portuguese, but predominantly, the broader ideas of the Polysystems Theory. The term
“polysystems” aims at describing the system as dynamic and heterogeneous, opposing the synchronic approach, and calling attention to its multiple intersections, thus inferring its complex structuration. Literature is seen as a dynamic, heterogeneous system, which comprises a great number of subsystems. During its evolution, each stage presents diverse trends, bringing together different literary systems, encompassing many genres. The system interrelates with the other systems pertaining to the socioeconomic and ideological structures of each society. Hence, the Polysystems Theory is pertinent to this dissertation not only because it views translation “as an extension or expansion of the text, not as a second derivation of it, or, at worst, a parasite” (WEST-PAVLOV;VOLLAND-ELZE, 2010, p. 11), but also because the literary analysis takes into account the textual production allied to its reception in a given historical context and its position inside a determined system and its relation to other systems (thus possibly explaining why Britto’s translation did not care about the word “country”). In his theory, Itamar Even-Zohar uses binary oppositions, such as canonical vs. non canonical, central vs. peripheral and primary vs. secondary. Translation belongs to the receptor culture (in our case, the Brazilian), and it has a primary function - for example, to create new genres and styles - and a secondary one, to consolidate existing genres and styles. One of the questions which guides our reasoning in this section is: How would the translation of The Solid Mandala work in the Polysystem Theory? Before trying to answer that question, it is necessary to introduce the main concepts pertaining to the Polysystems Theory.
Recalling the model of speech events (or functions of language) developed by Roman Jakobson in the 1960s, there is a context, a code, an addresser, an addressee, a channel/contact and a message. Jakobson devised his model having in mind a single utterance, but Even- Zohar (1990) made some adaptations, trying to account for the complexities of the literary system. For example, the addresser would be the producers (writers), in this case, playwrights, writers, poets and translators; the context would be an institution (in this case, publishing- houses, universities, literary critics), which would govern relations and rules; the code would be the repertoire (i.e., models shared by producer and consumer, the language); the addressee would be the consumer (reader); the channel/contact would be the market; and the message would be the product (i.e., the literary text and its models of production).
Producer was the term chosen by Even-Zohar to create a word that would be different from writer, which sounds rather too specific. The producer is an agent of the system which plays diverse roles: sometimes s/he, in addition to producing things in the system, is a
consumer too; sometimes, s/he becomes an agent of the market or of the institution. In reality, when producing, the producer (which can be an individual or groups of individuals) puts into practice a creative function, is subject to the rules of a given institution and interacts with the market, and can either reproduce models or transform them. The repertoire is shared by the producer and consumers, and it is put into practice by the producer. In this work, the position of the translator needs to be highlighted: in the system, s/he is seen as a producer, but the whole production/creation is subject to the rules governing the system, as a publishing-house will be responsible for the choice of a determined title to be translated, and, often, such title represents a legitimized model.
As for the consumers of the product, producers, agents of the market and of the institution are seen as consumers too because, although they do not directly read a literary text, they are indirectly involved in the system, as a part of a community (i.e., a cultural polysystem), interacting with fragments of texts in many ways. Most people in Brazil, for example, recognize the characters of the Brazilian literary canon, such as Capitão Rodrigo Cambará, because they have watched adaptations of novels into movies and television series, and not because they have actually read the novels (in the example cited, the gaucho author Erico Veríssimo’s trilogy O tempo e o vento). The success of the adaptation (in this case, that of the television channel as a non-literary institution) may move people to try to obtain access to the literary work, thus making publishing-houses (the agents of the market) launch new editions. Then the cycle restarts, signalling the importance of the indirect consumption of the product at many levels.
The institution is responsible for mainting literature as a sociocultural activity, i.e., for organizing the rules of the literary activity. Producers (critics, publishing houses, the academy, literary journals, the media, governmental institutions) are important elements in this respect – for example, the idea of banishing Monteiro Lobato’s O sítio do pica-pau amarelo from schools in Brazil because of supposed racist connotations in the text is a misconceived example of the power of such governmental institutions. In Brazil, one can say that television is a very strong institution in mainting a literary repertoire. Some groups of writers might be at the centre of literary activity, but the academy, traditionally more conservative, usually goes on reproducing a different repertoire. Literary criticism, still limited to the academy, might be considered peripheric in the system. Publishing-houses, although responsible for selecting what deserves to be published or not, cannot shape people’s literary preferences, which, by their turn, are today increasingly influenced by mass media.
The market controls the mechanisms involved in the buying and selling of literary products and the merchandising of patterns of consumption. Libraries, publishing-houses, bookstores, distributors and the Internet fall into this category. In this case, it is interesting to notice the role represented by the university: while seen as a regulator in the system, it can be a very important vehicle in divulging titles and trying to introduce new authors into the system (in a way, this is what this dissertation aims at: to make Patrick White exitthe academy and reach the general Brazilian audience). Television channels are another example, for they reproduce legitimized models but also stimulate the consumption of certain products and, as already metioned, interfere with the editorial market. Without a consumer market, i.e., without people interacting with the literary product, there is nopossibility of survival for any literary system.
The repertoire may be defined as the set of options (elements, laws and models) used by the members who organize the activities in the polysystem, as well as by the rules which govern the production and consumption of any literary product. Furthermore, it is where canonicity is more manifest. The repertoire has both a passive and an active characteristic: it is passive when we look at it as a set of strategies adopted by the consumers to help their interpretation of a given product, and active when we look at it as a set of procedures that a producer can use to create a product at any specific moment.
How is our Brazilian Polysystem constituted? We might say it has acquired its independence from Portugal quite easily, but independence from France has been slower.
Brazilian Literature, conceived in the core of the Portuguese Literature (CANDIDO, 2008), was influenced, according to Alexander (2006), by the Neo-Latin, the Italian, the Spanish and the French Literatures: “[…] to both romantics and modernists, Europe was France and European culture was French culture. Neither English, nor German, but only French155” (ALEXANDER, 2006, p. 227, my translation).
In terms of language, most of the Brazilian literary production is written in Brazilian Portuguese (and all its linguistic variety). Considering the limitation that Portuguese does not present a range of readers as wide as that offered by English (for instance, an Australian author writing in English has access to millions of readers in English outside Australia), it is quite common for Brazilians to take the literature of their country as the literature of their language. In other words, the idea is that the books written in Portuguese in Brazil supposedly _______________
155 In the original: […] tanto para os românticos quanto para os modernistas, a Europa era a França e a cultura europeia era a cultura francesa. Não a inglesa, não a alemã, mas apenas a francesa” (ALEXANDER, 2006, p.
227).
make sense only in the Brazilian literary tradition. This instinct might explain Patrick White’s narrow context of reading, restricting it only to Australia.
How is the Australian Polysystem constituted? Australia’s, like Canada’s, is not quite independent, such as the American one. It is still in a dependent position in relation to the British one. How could translation possibly help change this situation, if it at all? Let’s begin with the fact that it is a peripheral subsystem that depends on the British system, and in which the most eminent exponent is William Shakespeare. Patrick White would oftencriticize the fact that the establishment only recommended (or imposed) British reference works on Australia, without valuing or respecting the national and local production. Would this reasoning be responsible and/or account for the difficulty in systematizing Australian Literature not only as a subject in its own territorial domain, but also overseas (particularly in Brazil), in a way explaining the enormous difficulty in creating (and in sustaining the exisiting) departments dedicated to the study of the field at universities? How could we contrast this idea to the American system, which, although sharing William Shakespeare as its most eminent exponent, insisted on cultivating their own literary icons (such as Henry James, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, and so on)?
We might venture to say that Patrick White, although not as read nowadays as before, remains canonical in a subsystem (in this case, the Australian) of a central system (the English). Even-Zohar calls attention to two uses of the term “canonicity”: the first, referring to the level of texts, and the other, to the level of models. To introduce a text into the literary canon is not the same as introducing the text through its model into some repertoire: in the static canonicity (the first case), “a certain text is accepted as a finalized product and inserted into a set of sanctified texts literature (culture) wants to preserve” (EVEN-ZOHAR, 1990, p.
19), whereas in the second case, called dynamic canonicity, “a certain literary model manages to establish itself as a productive principle in the system through the latter’s repertoire”
(Ibidem), thus being the most important case for the polysystems theory, because to be rejected as a model for living literature (although being recognized as a great writer) is not desired by any writer who is part of the system. The writers who are acutely aware of their position and have a “more flexible and vigorous maneuvering capacity” (EVEN-ZOHAR, 1990, p. 20) always attempt to change that situation when they realize it has come to them.
Most writers tend to follow one set of models throughout their career; they may create more accomplished texts than previous ones according to the same models, yet they may change
their contemporary position (but not necessarily their public, who moves with them from the center to a periphery of the literary system).
Although they may produce more accomplished texts than previously according to the same (previous) models, they may lose their contemporary position (though not necessarily their public, which thus moves with them from the center to a periphery of the literary system). This is clear-cut evidence that it is not through their texts as such that writers acquire positions in the literary system. A new dominant occupant of the center may not deny them their position in the static canon, while at the same time it may reject them as acceptable models for making new texts. At other times, however, this rejection – at least in its initial stages – also involves a rejection of these dethroned writers, that is of their texts, from the canon as well (EVEN-ZOHAR, 1990, p. 20).
In Chapter 2, we followed these movements in Patrick White’s oeuvre: his rejection, first as a poet and then as a playwright, made him, in a way, change (or perfect) his model and alter his position. Furthermore, because of the French translator’s desire to translate one of his novels into French, White reconsidered his literary talent as being useful, and went on writing, eventually being nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1973, which signals White’s static canonicity. However, his dynamic canonicity positions him nowadays in the periphery of the Australian subsystem (which is part of the system of English-language Literature). The Australian repertoire is quite dependent on the English-language Literature system, but translation is a good tool not only to renew repertoires, but also to make systems and subsystems evolve.
Notably, the most recent case involving the new Spanish translation of The Solid Mandala is quite interesting, as “it is clear that the very principles of selecting the works to be translated are chosen according to their compatibility with the new approaches and the supposedly innovatory role they may assume within the target literature” (EVEN-ZOHAR, 1990, p. 47). Translation helps a literature incorporate new ideas and characteristics, as well as keep traditional taste. Even-Zohar asserts that
[…] This discrepancy between the original central literature and the translated literature may have evolved in a variety of ways, for instance, when translated literature, after having assumed a central position and inserted new items, soon lost contact with the original home literature which went on changing, and thereby became a factor of preservation of unchanged repertoire. Thus, a literature that might have emerged as a revolutionary type may go on exisiting as an ossified système d’antan, often fanatically guarded by the agents of secondary models against even minor changes (EVEN-ZOHAR, 1990, p. 49).
Thus, the idea of J.M. Coetzee’s Biblioteca Personal (and we use this example because it is the most recent situation involving Patrick White’s oeuvre) being accepted and put into