Goethe and cannibalism as a concept of translation

• Grant number: 12/24093-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: May 20, 2013
• End date: May 19, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature
• Principal Investigator: John Milton
• Grantee: Vanete Santana-Dezmann
• Supervisor: Volkmar Hansen
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Goethe Museum, Germany

Abstract

As recent studies in Translation Studies and especially in the area of Postcolonial Studies have shown, the dispute between different theoretical lines in translation is not confined to the realm of literary aesthetics, but also takes place within the context of politics and economics. It is in this context that Else Vieira recovers the notion of translation as cannibalism, which she sees as underlying the concept of translation of Haroldo de Campos, who uses the blood transfusion as a metaphor for the translation process. One of the basic differences between the concept of translation of Haroldo de Campos and those who recommend the domestication of the foreign is that Haroldo accepts the foreign as a source of enrichment. According to Vieira, a concept of translation like this could only arise in the social, economic and cultural characteristics of peripheral countries, and its origin goes back to Oswald de Andrade, who, in the late 1920s, proposed the assimilation of foreign influences through a metaphorical synthesis of what was European, a sort of "cannibalism", as part of the effort to enrich Brazilian national culture. In fact, there is no denying that Harold was influenced by Oswald's ideas, but his contact with the ideas of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the similarity between their concepts of translation leads us to believe that the basis of his concept of translation is found in Goethe. Based on this assumption and the fact that Goethe's ideas on translation are related to romantic construction of "Germanness" [Deutschheit], this study aims to investigate the relationship between the Goethe's concept of translation and the context in which it was developed. Subsequently, in the postdoctoral project developed at FFLCH / USP (to which this study is linked), the results of research developed in the study period in Germany will be compared to the results found in the part of the research now in progress (research on the relationship between the concept of translation of Haroldo de Campos and the context in which it was developed), to then attempt to respond to what extent the two seemingly disparate contexts - eighteenth-century Germany, a term used to refer to events which took place and people who lived in places that currently constitute Germany; and twentieth-century Brazil - could give rise to similar concepts in translation, in order to assess the validity of Vieira's assertion whereby a concept of translation that proposes that the "cannibalization" of the foreign can only be can only originate in peripheral cultures. (AU)