post-colonial_translation

Harold ode Campos’ poetics of transcreation 107
to do with the etymological meaning of parody as ‘parallel canto’ to
designate the non-linear transformation of texts throughout history (ibid.:
75–6). This etymological reactivation of ‘parody’, as has been shown,
was elaborated by de Campos in 1973 in his Morfologia do Macunaíma
and introduced even earlier in his introduction to Oswald de Andrade:
Trechos Escolhidos in 1966. At that time, he argues, he was not familiar
with Bakhtin’s work on Dostoevsky, which only became available in the
West through Kristeva in 1967. Anyway, Bakhtin’s dialogism and
polyphony as well as Kristeva’s reformulation of them in ‘intertextuality’
approximate de Campos’ own etymological reading of parody, as he
demonstrates in an extended note on parody and plagiotropy (ibid.: 73–
4). What is theorized becomes a cannibalist practice. If plagiotropy in
Goethe is evident, like the echo of Hamlet in the song of the gravediggers,
de Campos nourishes on Goethe’s poetic practice to derive his own
translational praxis. The Shakespearean intertext is not translated by
the insertion of existing translations of Shakespeare, but by appropriating
the Brazilian literary tradition. It is João Cabral de Melo Neto, specifically
in Morte e Vida Severina (Death and Life of Severino), who provides the
diction for the intertext in the translation (ibid.: 191–2). Translation, as
he defines it, is a persona through whom tradition speaks. ‘Translator,
transformer’, if one follows the example of the Brazilian poet Sousândrade
(1833–1902), the patriarch of creative translation who would insert in
his homeric translations lines from Camões and others (ibid.: 191).
In the section ‘A Escritura Mefistofélica’, de Campos also presents a
long and detailed interpretation of Faust, and the emphasis is quite
political, even though he does not make it explicit. Instead of presenting
the consolidated body of criticism, as in conventional translators’
prefaces, he follows Bakhtin’s hint and analyses Faust from the point
of view of carnivalization. Carnivalization means, as in Bakhtin’s
analysis of Roman Carnival, ‘familiarization, a break with hierarchies
(the temporary upholding of the hierarchical differences, the proximity
of the superior and the subaltern), the atmosphere of liberty . . . the
general ambiguity of relations . . . the desecrating impudence of gestures’
(ibid.: 78). Yet he extends Bakhtin’s perception, for prior to the explicit
scene of masks in the Imperial Palace, the elements of carnival are present
in Mephistopheles’ language which ‘in its corroding negativity, ridicules
everything, desecrates everything, beliefs and conventions’ (ibid.: 79).
In the second section, ‘Bufoneria Transcendental: O Riso das Estrelas’
(‘Transcendental Buffoonery: The Stars’ Laughter’), he takes up the
non-explicit political tone of his analysis of Faust. This time he relies
on Adorno and Benjamin, more specifically on the latter’s concept of