© Intercultural Studies Group Universitat Rovira i Virgili Plaça Imperial Tàrraco 1 43005...

© Intercultural Studies GroupUniversitat Rovira i Virgili Plaça Imperial Tàrraco 1

43005 Tarragona Fax: (++ 34) 977 55 95 97

On Don Quijote in English

Anthony Pym

© Intercultural Studies Group

Don Quijote (1605, 1615) Why apparently a “classic”? What can translations say about relations

between cultures?


Don Quijote’s diet

En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor. Una olla de algo más vaca que carnero, salpicón las más noches, duelos y quebrantos los sábados, lantejas los viernes, algún palomino de añadidura los domingos, consumían las tres partes de su hacienda.


Saturday dinner… “eggs and abstinence” (Grossman 2003) “boiled bones” (Cohen 1950) “sorrows and troubles” (Stevens 1700) “scraps” (Ormsby 1885) “lardy eggs” (Rutherford 2001) “eggs and bacon” (c. 19th) ‘omelette of eggs and brains’ (c. 18th) “peas soup” (c. 18th, c. 19th) “gripes and grumblings” (Smollett 1755)


Saturday dinner annotated “pains and breakings, and evidently points at

such eatables as generate and expel wind” (footnote by Smollett)

Plus a 30-line note by his editor Battestin (2003).


Main translators Thomas Shelton (1612, 1620) Pierre Antoine Motteux (c. 1700) Charles Jervas (1742) reprinted through to 1885 Tobias Smollett (1755) Alexander J. Duffield John Ormsby (1885) Henry Edward Watts Samuel Putnam (1949) J. M. Cohen (1950) Burton Raffel (1996) John Rutherford (2001) Edith Grossman (2003)


Accuracy? Only a concern from the mid nineteenth century. The History and Adventures of the Renowned

Don Quixote. Translated from the Spanish of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra by Tobias Smollett. Introduction and Notes by Martin C. Battestin. The Text Edited by O M Brack, Jr. (The Works of Tobias Smollett). Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 2003.

Don Quixote. By Miguel de Cervantes. A New Translation by Edith Grossman. Introduction by Harold Bloom. London: Secker & Warburg, 2003.


Names for Sancho’s wife Juana / María (1.7) Smollett (1755): “How comes Juana to be so

suddenly metamorphosed into Mary?” Grossman (2003): “Presumably through an

oversight on the part of Cervantes, Sancho’s wife has several other names, including Mari Gutiérrez, Juana Panza, Teresa Cascajo, and Teresa Panza.”


Locating the language—«Nunca fuera caballero dedamas tan bien servidocomo fuera don Quijotecuando de su aldea vino:doncellas curaban dél;princesas, del su rocino»

Las mozas, que no estaban hechas a oír semejantes retóricas, no respondían palabra; solo le preguntaron si quería comer alguna cosa.


Locating the language Smollett:

‘Never was knight so honoured by the service of ladies as Don Quixote when he first ushered himself into the world; ladies ministred unto him, and princesses took charge of his Rozinante. […]’

The charmers, whose nature never designed to expose such extraordinary compliments, answered not a syllable, but asked if he chose to have anything for supper? (p. 35)


Locating the language Grossman:

‘‘Never was a knightas well-served by ladiesas was Don Quixotewhen he first sallied forth:fair damsels tended to him;princesses cared for his horse.

The women, unaccustomed to hearing so much high-flown rhetoric, did not say a word in response; they only asked if he wanted something to eat. (p. 28).


Addressing the reader Desocupado lector, sin juramento me podrás

creer que quisiera que este libro,… (The language of the narrator should be more

recent than the language of the romances, and of the sonnets.)

(The reader is “tú”; a discussion between the narrator and a friend is in vos”).


Addressing the reader Shelton (1612): THOU mayst believe me,

gentle reader, without swearing Smollett (1755): Idle reader, without an oath

thou mayest believe Motteux/Ozell (1762) You may depend upon

my bare word, reader, without any farther security

Kelly (1769) READER, you may depend upon my bare word without any other security

Wilmot (1774) THOU mayst assure thyself, reader, that I

Smirke (1818) READER, thou wilt believe me, I trust, without an oath


Addressing the reader Jarvis (1809, 1824): You may believe me,

without an oath, gentle reader Clark (1864-67) You may depend upon my

bare word, reader, without any farther security Anon (1862) Reader, thou wilt believe me, I

trust, when I tell thee Jarvis (1866): Loving reader, thou wilt believe

me, I trust, without an oath Ormsby (1885): IDLE READER: thou mayest

believe me without any oath Watts (1888) IDLE READER; thou canst believe

me without an oath


Addressing the reader Cohen (1950): Idle reader, you can believe

without any oath of mine Raffel (1995): Leisurely reader: you don’t need

me to swear Rutherford (2000): Idle reader, I don’t have to

swear any oaths to persuade you Grossman (2003): Idle reader: Without my

swearing to it, you can believe


Naming the true authorI.9

Con esta imaginación, le di priesa que leyese el principio, y haciéndolo ansí, volviendo de improviso el arábigo en castellano, dijo que decía: Historia de don Quijote de la Mancha, escrita por Cide Hamete Benengeli, historiador arábigo

II.1…. el autor de la historia se llama Cide Hamete Berenjena! —Ese nombre es de moro —respondió don Quijote.—Así será —respondió Sancho—, porque por la mayor parte he oído decir que los moros son amigos de berenjenas.


Naming the true author Smollett:

1. Cid Hamet Benengeli (p. 66) 2. ‘… the author of our history is called Cid Hamet Bean-and-jelly?’ ‘That name is Moorish,’ replied Don Quixote. ‘Very like,’ said the squire, ‘for I have been told that the Moors are very fond of beans and jellies.’ (p.387)

Grossman: ‘…the author of our history is named Cide Hamete Berenjena?’ ‘That is a Moorish name,’ responded Don Quixote. ‘It must be,’ responded Sancho, ‘because I’ve heard that most Moors are very fond of eggplant.’ (p.473)


Naming the true author Grossman:

‘…the author of our history is named Cide Hamete Berenjena?’ ‘That is a Moorish name,’ responded Don Quixote. ‘It must be,’ responded Sancho, ‘because I’ve heard that most Moors are very fond of eggplant.’ (p.473)

Footnote refers to footnote on p. 67:‘Benengeli (berenjena in Spanish) means “eggplant”, a favorite food of SpanishMoors and Jews’.


Naming the original languageI.9

Y puesto que aunque los conocía no los sabía leer, anduve mirando si parecía por allí algún morisco aljamiado que los leyese, y no fue muy dificultoso hallar intérprete semejante, pues aunque le buscara de otra mejor y más antigua lengua le hallara.


Naming the original language Smollett:

I looked about for some Portugueze Moor who should understand it; and indeed, tho’ the language had been more elegant and ancient, I might easily have found an interpreter. (p.66)


Naming the original language Grossman:

I looked around to see if some Morisco who knew Castilian, and could read it for me, was in the vicinity, and it was not difficult to find this kind of interpreter, for even if I had sought a speaker of an older and better language, I would have found him. (p.67)

Note 1: ‘A Moor who had been converted to Christianity’. Note 2: ‘An allusion to Hebrew, spoken by the Jews who were merchants in the Alcaná.’


Translations? Mrs. Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote

(1752) on the perils of reading Fielding, Don Quixote in England (play, 1727,

1734):Since your madness is so plainEach spectator Of good nature With applause will entertain His brother of La Mancha.


Translations? The Spirit of Cervantes, or Don Quixote Abridged (1820) Stories and Chapters from Don Quixote, versified (c.

1830) The Story of the Don, Rewritten for our Young Folks

(1870) The Wonderful Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha

by Sir Marvelous Crackjoke (1872) Don Quixote de la Mancha as a three-act opera (1876) Alonso Quixano, Otherwise Don Quixote. A

Dramatization of the Novel of Cervantes, and Especially of those parts which he Left Unwritten (1895)

The Don Quixote Birthday Book (1896) The Child’s Don Quixote (1901)

“abridged and adapted for Japanese students by the ‘English student’, 28th edition” (Tokyo 1903)


The perils of classicization… The example of “democracy”. The text becomes clean, noble, and distanced. The specific tragedy of decadence is forgotten. The tragic decline of an aristocracy becomes

the triumphant self-conscious rise of a merchant class.

Spanish cuisine can be advertised in celebration of the Quijote…

© Intercultural Studies Group Universitat Rovira i Virgili Plaça Imperial Tàrraco 1 43005...

Documents

Transcript of © Intercultural Studies Group Universitat Rovira i Virgili Plaça Imperial Tàrraco 1 43005...