On the Matter of Authority in Almeida Garrett's Frei Luís De Sousa
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On the Matter of Authority in Almeida Garrett’s Frei Luís de Sousa João Dionísio Because original documents of ancient and mediaeval texts rarely exist, Lachmannian textual criticism concentrated on trying to reconstruct not the text as it left the hands of its author, but the exemplar at the start of the transmission process: the archetype. Although the archetype is frequently lost, its past existence can be detected through the interpretation of stemmatically relevant common errors and lacunae. Such inductive reasoning is not gener- ally necessary in the case of modern texts for which we frequently have original autograph manuscripts. However, rather than having to reconstruct an archetype, the textual critic is faced with a new problem: he have a need to assess the autograph tradition in order to select its best textual form. Since many witnesses are autographic or idiographic in nature, textual scholars refer to the authority of document emerged as a means to decide which witness takes prec- edent over which. Authority, however, is a polysemic concept, and textual scholars apply it differently in different contexts. Debates about authority thus evolve around ways of assessing the superior- ity of one document over another in terms of a criterion other than authenticity. In this article I will consider the matter of authority by looking at the extant versions of a play by a Portuguese Romantic author, Almeida Garrett. In doing so, I acknowledge the ways each one of these versions is authorized according to Siegfried Scheibe’s pro- posal (Scheibe 1995) which holds that from the editor’s perspective (which is different from that of the writer) no form of authority is historically superior to another form. I want to suggest however that at the end of his life Garrett adopted a point of view similar to that of an editor after he tried, but failed to control over the transmission and circulation of his work. I further suggest that this failure occurred because no surviving witness, autograph or ideograph, has preeminence over any other. Textual resistance to authorial control is in my view however not only an aspect of the 23 24 VARIANTS 11 (2014) João Dionísio On the Matter of Authority in Frei Luís de Sousa 25 case at hand, but a universal condition of all texts and textual tradi- Swedish, Konkani and German.1 Published in Frankfurt in 1847, tions. Then I put forward the hypothesis that, even in modern lit- the first translation ever of Garrett’s play was made by the Dane erature, an autograph or an ideograph is never straighforwardly a Count W. von Lückner, who at the time was living in Lisbon as text, nor is it an unproblematic actualization of authorial intention. Minister of Denmark. This translation served as the basis for a stag- The creation of Garrett’s archive was quite possibly a consequence ing of the play at the Hoftheather in Dresden within a few years of the resistance texts offer to authorial control. Because all autho- after its premiere in Portugal in a private theatre. According to rized versions in the archive seemingly stand on an equal footing, Gerd Moser, the German composer Mendelsohn saw the Dresden I will touch upon Peter Shillingsburg’s view that authority is no performance and asked Friedrich von Schack, who had previously more than an editorial decision-making tool when it is governed translated two other works by Garrett, to write a libretto with the by a critical identification of the source of authority (Shillingsburg title Manuel de Sousa based on Garrett’s play. But Mendelssohn’s 1996). With this in mind, I will end by briefly describing some stra- death, so Moser says, prevented the composer from carrying out tegic options for the critical edition of Garrett’s work which is cur- his intention. While this is further evidence of the play’s reputation, rently in preparation. the facts do not stack up. Since Mendelssohn’s had died in 1847, he could not have seen the German premiere which did not take place, * * * according to the Dresdner Anzeiger, until the following year (Moser 1939, 87; see Buescu 1991–1992, 242–43). Almeida Garrett (1799–1854) is one of the major figures in Portu- The first adaptation of Garrett’s text dates from 1891 when an guese Romanticism. His historical play Frei Luís de Sousa (Friar Luis opera by the Portuguese composer Francisco Gazul based on the de Sousa) was published in August 1844, ten years before he died. play had its first of two performances at the Lisbon Theatre of S. Set at the end of the sixteenth century when Portugal belonged Carlos under the title Fra Luigi di Souza: drama lirico in quatri atti. As to the Kingdom of Spain, the play is divided into three acts. Act customary in Portugal at the time, the opera was written in Italian I introduces the audience to the political situation of the country and performed by Italian singers (Sousa 1993; Carvalho 1993, 112, and to the noble family around which the plot evolves: after the 360). In the twentieth century, Frei Luís de Sousa was also adapted death of his first husband, John, who had died in the battle of Ksar for the screen on two occasions: first in a 1950 film by the prolific El Kebir (1578), Magdalen married Manuel de Sousa; the couple have a child, Maria, who at the start of the play is thirteen. In the 1 The following is a tentative bibliography of translations. Bulgarian second act, however, Magdalen’s first husband, who everyone ― by Daniela Dimitrova Petrova (Sófia: Svetulka 44, 2002); Catalan ― by Gabriel de la St. Sampol (Barcelona: Institut del Teatre, 1997); Czech, by Marie believe to be dead, reappears disguised as a pilgrim. In the third Havlíková (Prague: Torst, 2011); English ― by Edgar Prestage (London: Elkin act, the effects of John’s return become overwhelmingly apparent: Mathews, 1909); French ― by Maxime Formont (Livourne: Giusti, 1904) and by Magdalen and Manuel decide to take orders and they both enter a Claude-Henri Frèches (Paris: Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, Centre Culturel Dominican convent; while their daughter’s death, who was suffer- Portugais, 1972); German ― by W. von Lückner (Frankfurt a. M., 1847) and by ing from tuberculosis, is precipitated by these events. Georg Winkler (Wien: Braumüller, 1899); Konkani ― by Śāntārāma Ananta The degree of success and popularity of Frei Luís de Sousa can be Hedo (Gõya: Jāga Prakāśana, 1977); Italian ― by Giovenale Vegezzi-Ruscalla (Torino, Tip. Speirani e Tortone, 1852); Spanish ― by D. Emilio Olloqui (Lisboa: measured by the large number of editions that were published over Imprensa Nacional, 1859), by Luis López-Ballesteros and Manuel Paso, the title the years, especially after 1895, the year in which the play became Después del Combate (Madrid: Florencio Fiscowich Editor, 1890); by anonymous part of mandatory reading list in Portuguese high schools (Sousa (Madrid-Buenos Aires: Compañia Ibero-Americana de Publicaciones, 193–); 1993, 195), as well as the numerous translations that were made by José Andrés Vázquez and Antonio Rodríguez de León (Cádiz: Escélicer, in Spanish, French, English, Catalan, Bulgarian, Czech, Italian, 1942); by Iolanda Ogando (Madrid: Asociación de Directores de Escena de España, 2003); Swedish ― by Marianne Sandels and Teresa Duarte Ferreira (Malmö: Ariel, 1999). 26 VARIANTS 11 (2014) João Dionísio On the Matter of Authority in Frei Luís de Sousa 27 director António Lopes Ribeiro and more recently in 2001 in a film Closer analysis further suggests that the original, unrevised text of directed by João Botelho. Although these adaptations are not the the fair copy (to be designated C1) was used for P, and that the focus of this article, they demonstrate the extent to which Garrett’s revised text (designated C2) was copied in I and used for setting the play had a life well beyond the control of the author. text of E. I believe, however, that this hypothetical sequence is not totally consistent with the writing process. A look at the very first * * * words of the play will make this apparent. Frei Luís de Sousa begins with a quotation. At the beginning of The main textual witnesses of Frei Luís de Sousa are four manu- Act I, Magdalen reads out two lines of Luís de Camões’ epic poem scripts, which are kept at the University of Coimbra (three in the Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads) taken from the Third Canto, Stanza 120: University General Library, one at the Sala Ferreira Lima), and the first printed edition (Lima 1948, 3–4). D: an autograph draft; C: a fair copy; P: a set of sheets with the parts of the actors who performed in the premiere transcribed; I: a copy submitted to the theatre censors’ board (as is attested by the board’s wax seal on the front page); E: the first printed edition, published in Garrett’s lifetime in two seemingly different issues and states (Garrett 1844a; Garrett 1844b). C, P and I are copies annotated by the author; the preparation of E was probably supervised by Garrett himself. The collation of one sentence (“Eu tenho fe n’este escapulario preto”, [“I have faith in this black scapular”] [Garrett 1844a, 126) offers a tentative chronological sequence that indicates that C sup- plied the text for I and E. The cancellation in the fair copy was car- ried through in the censors’ copy and the first edition: D: Eu tenho fe n’este escapulario preto P: Eu tenho fe n’este escapulario preto C: Eu tenho fe n’este escapulario preto I: Eu tenho fe n’este escapulario E: Eu tenho fe n’este escapulario Fig.