UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title “Huerto nuestro que nos hizo extraño”: Poetics of (un)translatability in Chilean literature across the Americas Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/76v8v8xg Author Jones, Mark Publication Date 2016 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ “Huerto nuestro que nos hizo extraño”: Poetics of (un)translatability in Chilean literature across the Americas A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in LITERATURE by Mark Jones June 2016 The Dissertation of Mark Jones is approved: ______________________________ Professor Norma Klahn, chair ______________________________ Professor Juan Poblete ______________________________ Distinguished Professor Wlad Godzich __________________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Mark Jones 2016 Table of Contents Abstract iv Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Leer y Viajar, Tal Vez la Misma Cosa: The Reader of Roberto Bolaño and Pablo Neruda 21 Chapter 2: The Reader as a Language Learner: Poetry, Translation, and Teaching 73 Chapter 3: The Code and Context of Raúl Zurita’s Purgatorio and Anteparaíso 123 Conclusion: Translation and Multilingualism 169 Works Cited 177 iii Abstract Mark Jones “Huerto nuestro que nos hizo extraño”: Poetics of (un)translatability in Chilean literature across the Americas This dissertation engages with the fields of translation studies and 20th-Century Latin American literature in order to explore sites of encounter and hybridization both represented and enacted by literary texts. I argue for a theory of reading, which is also a theory of translation, that situates subjects and texts as spaces of contact and intermingling between languages and cultures. By investigating the travels and travails of readers, authors, and texts, this dissertation develops a multilingual, transnational approach to the study of literature; by using literature to make the case for a more nuanced, non-homogenizing understanding of language and culture, it also argues for the potential of difficult, “thick” translations. Such translations provide the specificity necessary for such nuance, and, through their estrangement of readers from their domestic habitat, activate the transformative capacity of poetic language. This project centers on the texts of four Chilean authors whose work has been significantly transnational. The first chapter takes an intertextual approach in reading the literary relationship between Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) and Pablo Neruda (1904-1973). In doing so, this chapter begins to formulate my project’s theory of reading and translation by drawing a connection between reading and travel, substantiated by an exploration of the central tropes of detective fiction, a genre with which Bolaño enters into an extended dialogue. The second chapter continues to build iv upon this theory by proposing that reading be understood as language learning, supported by further reading of Neruda (specifically, his Canto General) as well as his predecessor, Gabriel Mistral (1889-1957), examining source texts as well as various translations into English. Translations of poetry are further examined, and further complicated, in the third and final chapter, which examines the treatment of historical and political context(s) in and around Purgatorio (1979) and Anteparaíso (1982) by Raúl Zurita, works written under conditions of military dictatorship in Chile. v Acknowledgements My work on this dissertation would not have been possible but for the enthusiastic support of my advisor, Norma Klahn, throughout my time in Santa Cruz. Her knowledge and passion for literature has been a valued source of guidance and encouragement. My time as a graduate student was enriched by a number of faculty who have stimulated my intellectual development, beginning with my readers: Wlad Godzich, who led my graduate proseminar in the Fall of 2009 and who forever changed my view of translation and scholarship in general; and Juan Poblete, whose emphasis on society was always present to remind me that literature does not exist in a vaccuum. Other faculty in the Literature Department, whose seminars helped broaden my understanding, also merit heartfelt thanks: Kirsten Silva Gruesz, Jody Greene, Jordi Aladro-Font, Richard Terdiman, and Susan Gillman. The focus on language learning and multilingualism that eventually became a central part of this project’s argument grew out of experience teaching introductory Spanish at UCSC. For this opportunity, and for the insights gained in the process, I want to thank members of the Education and Languages and Applied Linguistics Departments, in particular George Bunch and Zsuzsanna Abrams for their courses in language pedagogy, and Eve Zyzik and Mark Amengual for their guidance as mentors. Finally, my acknowledgements would be incomplete without mention of my family, Randy, Susana, and Michael, and my wonderful, generous, and inifinitely patient wife, Sasha, who have stood by me during this long process. vi Introduction The study of translation, in the last decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, has acquired greater prominence in academic institutions; Mary-Louise Pratt, for instance, writes of “…a renaissance of translation studies and the use of translation as a point of departure or metaphor for analyzing intercultural interactions and transactions” (“Traffic in Meaning,” 25). For literary studies, the reasons for this increased prominence have been located by some critics in both theoretical and material developments; Emily Apter, for instance, writes of a wide-ranging interdisciplinary confluence in which Translation has emerged as a catalyst for disparate yet coherent pedagogies because it effectively conjugates classical and Renaissance traditions of philosophy, philology, humanism, and translatio studii with exilic humanism (associated canonically with the work of Leo Spitzer, Erich Auerbach, and Edward Said); with post-Sputnik intellectual developments in linguistics, machine translation, and deconstruction; and with cultural translation (advanced by Lawrence Venuti, Jill Levine, Tejaswini Niranjana, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Mary Louise Pratt, Lydia Liu, and Robert Young, among others). “Translation as Critical Pedagogy,” 50. A significant portion of translation studies has centered on the role of translation in pedagogy, which is Apter’s focus in the piece cited above. This is in no small part due to what scholars have described as the “worlding” of literature.1 The effect of such worlding is felt in supposedly monolingual programs, like English departments, with (for instance) the obvious realization 1 See, for instance, The Worlding Project, eds. Rob Wilson and Christopher Connery, 2007. 2 Despite the fact that “far more translations entered the classroom,” the rate for 1 that, in the words of Wittman and Windon, “many of these English-language texts have their basis in non-English works, and are therefore inextricably tied to an international literary tradition” (450). But for comparative literature, it has perhaps been more keenly felt: In the 1960s and much of the 1970s, comparative literature still focused almost exclusively on a historical study of the major European literatures. These were read, whenever possible, in the original language. But in the later twentieth century, thanks in large part to new interest in cultural studies and postcolonial studies and responding to changes in the material world as well, the field extended its geolinguistic reach. Its emphasis on language learning did not decrease. But with its growing investment in languages, literatures, and cultures from many parts of the globe, far more translations entered the classroom. Sandra Berman, “Teaching in – and about – translation,” 83 Told this way, the increased presence of translations in comparative literature comes as a result of placing increased importance on texts that students (or teachers) cannot read in the original language. Although Berman is careful to note that the “emphasis on language learning did not decrease,” ignorance of languages is precisely the problem – for which translation theory is sometimes proposed as the solution.2 2 Despite the fact that “far more translations entered the classroom,” the rate for translation, and in particular literary translation, in the United States is nothing short of abysmal. Venuti, in The Translator’s Invisibility, cites the following figures: in 1995, 2.85% of books published in the U.S. were translations; in 2004, 2.07. Venuti also notes the trade imbalance that these numbers reveal; other countries publish more translations. He cites the figures for numerous European countries: France in 1985, 9.9%; Italy in 1989, 25.4%; Germany in 1990, 14.4%. The majority of these translations are from English, which dominates the numbers worldwide: in 2000, more than twice as many books were translated from English than French, German, Italian, and Spanish combined (43,011 from English versus 6670 from French, 6204 from German, 2432 from Italian, 1973 from Spanish). 2 My project seeks to complicate prevailing notions in literary studies that translation serves as a potential substitute for a direct engagement with the native language of texts. I will instead