By Ezra Pound and „Transcreation“ by Haroldo De Campos
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Poetics in Translation: „Make it New“ by Ezra Pound and „Transcreation“ by Haroldo de Campos D i s s e r t a t i o n zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Doktor der Philosophie in der Philosophischen Fakultät der Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen vorgelegt von José Luis Molina Robles aus Salamanca, Mexiko 2019 Gedruckt mit Genehmigung der Philosophischen Fakultät der Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Dekan: Prof. Dr. Jürgen Leonhardt Hauptberichterstatter: Prof. Christoph Reinfandt Mitberichterstatterin: Prof. Ingrid Hotz-Davies Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 03.02.2017 Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen: TOBIAS-lib “I, José Luis Molina Robles, hereby certify that this dissertation, which is 76660 words in length, has been written by me, that it is a record of work carried out by me, and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. All sentences or passages quoted in this dissertation from other people's work (with or without trivial changes) have been placed within quotation marks, and specifically acknowledged by reference to author, work and page. I understand that plagiarism – the unacknowledged use of such passages – will be considered grounds for failure in this dissertation and in the degree programme as a whole. I also affirm that, with the exception of the specific acknowledgements, the following dissertation is entirely my own work." Introduction _____________________________________________________________ 1 Chapter I – Ezra Pound’s Translations _________________________________________ 5 1.1 Make it New _______________________________________________________________ 5 1.2 The Rumbling Line: Mighty Seafarer (Pound’s Poetics in a Nutshell) _________________ 11 1.3 Provence: What the deffil can that mean? ______________________________________ 18 1.4 Arnaut Daniel – Il miglior fabbro _____________________________________________ 40 1.5 Donna me prega – English Dolce Stil Nuovo _____________________________________ 50 1.6 Perverting Propertius: Pegasus Impounded _____________________________________ 61 1.7 Sea Sun: Cathay ___________________________________________________________ 66 1.8 Kung: L’Asse che non vacilla _________________________________________________ 72 1.9 Exeunt omnes: End of Tragedy _______________________________________________ 79 1.10 Example of Ezra Pound’s “Studies in Form” through the translation of the poem “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” ___________________________________________________________ 82 Chapter II - Haroldo de Campos’ Translations ________________________________ 111 2.1 Introduction: Transcreation ________________________________________________ 111 2.2 Ezra Pound ______________________________________________________________ 114 2.3 James Joyce _____________________________________________________________ 122 2.4 Mayakovsky _____________________________________________________________ 126 2.5 Guido Cavalcanti _________________________________________________________ 129 2.6 Mallarmé _______________________________________________________________ 132 2.7 Dante __________________________________________________________________ 136 2.8 Goethe _________________________________________________________________ 144 2.9 Octavio Paz _____________________________________________________________ 150 2.10 Qohélet – O-que-sabe ____________________________________________________ 155 2.11 Hagoromo _____________________________________________________________ 158 2.12 Bere’Shith _____________________________________________________________ 161 2.13 Homer ________________________________________________________________ 163 2.14 Eden – Biblical triptych ___________________________________________________ 166 2.15 Translations and articles in Journals _________________________________________ 168 2.15.1 Kurt Schwitters_______________________________________________________________ 168 2.15.2 Haiku ______________________________________________________________________ 170 2.15.3 Christian Morgenstern _________________________________________________________ 171 2.15.4 August Stramm ______________________________________________________________ 175 2.15.5 Hagoromo __________________________________________________________________ 179 2.15.6 Arno Holz ___________________________________________________________________ 181 2.15.7 Francis Ponge ________________________________________________________________ 184 2.15.8 Japanese poetry ______________________________________________________________ 187 2.15.9 Ungaretti ___________________________________________________________________ 188 2.15.10 Hölderlin ___________________________________________________________________ 190 2.15.11 Pindar _____________________________________________________________________ 193 2.15.12 Leopardi ___________________________________________________________________ 194 2.15.13 Chinese Odes _______________________________________________________________ 196 2.15.14 Poe _______________________________________________________________________ 198 2.15.15 Bertolt Brecht ______________________________________________________________ 200 2.15.16 W. C. Williams ______________________________________________________________ 203 2.15.17 “The White Rainbow” (Goethe) ________________________________________________ 205 2.15.18 Vallejo ____________________________________________________________________ 209 2.15.19 Wang Wei __________________________________________________________________ 212 2.15.20 Cortázar ___________________________________________________________________ 215 Conclusion ____________________________________________________________ 216 3.1 Fenollosa’s Legacy ________________________________________________________ 216 3.2 Haroldo’s Hyper-Poundian strategy of translation ______________________________ 224 Bibliography ___________________________________________________________ 233 Introduction Translation became a quest to understand poetry in the twentieth century. There is no preceding age when this labor provoked so many opinions and interests as a creative process. This study aims to explore the essential position translation occupied in the works of the American poet Ezra Pound and the Brazilian poet Haroldo de Campos. In both cases, the number of translations and texts on translation exceed the number of their own original works as poets. Also, their original poems are permeated by translations and, in many cases, the authors incorporated foreign words in their poems, i.e., they were anticipating the act of translation in their poems. Both poets followed different paths to develop their unique labor on translation and their results influenced their ideas on poetry and literature. Their discoveries changed not only approaches to the original texts but also contributed to creating a more extensive comprehension of poetry in a period when avant-garde movements were trying to annihilate the traditional understanding of this art. Pound’s importance and controversies in the literary world have produced an overwhelming amount of criticism, not only regarding his original poems but also his translations. The first chapter of this dissertation is devoted to collecting and commenting this critical fortune on Pound’s translation work. Ezra Pound’s academic formation, first at the University of Pennsylvania and later at Hamilton College, would provide him with an unconventional eye for exploring different traditions of poetry. As a student, he studied Anglo-Saxon, Provençal and Spanish; these studies opened his interest for lyric poetry in its earliest stages and translation. Pound’s enthusiasm for Anglo-Saxon led him to create his first translations but also to imitate the rhythm and motifs of this language in his first poems, not collected in his published books but rescued thanks to Fred C. Robinson’s study on this topic. His study of Provençal poetry triggered in Pound an interest that was not exclusive to the poems. He became interested in the lives of the troubadours and tried to embody some of these authors by imitating their style but also by creating new poems following their personalities. It is in this stage of his career when Pound developed his most radical position towards translation, one that points directly to the original text - as was the case with Arnaut 1 Daniel’s poems - and the other that was licentious and creative, maintaining the original as an allusion, which was the case of the poet Bertran de Born. The approach to these different translation processes were documented in Stuart Y. McDougal’s study on Pound and the troubadours. None of Pound’s translations and research on poetic traditions was temporal; he returned to his versions several times and with new eyes he essayed different approaches to the texts. His efforts with Guido Cavalcanti’s poetry are documented in David Anderson’s study and recollection of Pound’s final edition of Cavalcanti’s work. Cavalcanti’s famous Rima “Donna mi prega” became Pound’s Canto XXXVI, the latter as an homage to the text and to Pound’s translation slogan “make it new.” The fortuitous chance that brought Ernst Fenollosa’s manuscripts to Pound’s hands would remain a mystery, but the phenomenal effects of this encounter were to become one of the most important literary findings of the XX century: as T.S. Eliot expressed it, “the invention of Chinese poetry in English.” Wai-lim Yip’s study on Pound’s book Cathay shed light on Pound’s intuitions to interpret the Chinese characters and clarified, as well, Pound’s ambition to obtain