Translation and geography 9781138828902, 1138828904

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Orientation: an introduction
1 “Navegar ver ponente”: the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis and its Venetian translation
2 Translating the map: carticity and transmediation in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso
3 Translating the territory: Cabeza de Vaca’s Naufragios
4 The fiction of translation: Abbé Prévost’s nautical writing
5 Translating the sea: Jules Verne, Nemo, and nineteenth-century oceanography
6 Translational mimesis: Tabucchi, the Azores, and cartographic writing
7 The redress of (self-)translation: Juan Gelman’s Dibaxu and the cartography of Sepharad
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Translation and Geography

Translation and Geography investigates how translation has radically shaped the way the West has mapped the world. Groundbreaking in its approach and relevant across a range of disciplines from translation studies and comparative literature to geography and history, this book makes a compelling case for a form of cultural translation that reframes the contributions of language-based translation analysis. Focusing on the different yet intertwined translation processes involved in the development of the Western spatial imaginary, Federico Italiano examines a series of literary works and their translations across languages, media, and epochs, encompassing: UÊ UÊ UÊ UÊ UÊ

poems travel narratives nautical fictions colonial discourse exilic visions.

Drawing on case studies and readings ranging from the Latin of the Middle Ages to twentieth-century Latin American poetry, this is key reading for translation theory and comparative/world literature courses. Federico Italiano is a senior research associate at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a lecturer in comparative literature at the University of Munich (LMU). He is the author of Between Honey and Stone: Aspects of Geopoetics in Montale and Celan (2009, in Italian) and co-editor of several volumes including Translatio/n: Narration, Media and the Staging of Differences (with Michael Rössner, 2012) and The Disclosure of Light: Contemporary Italian Poetry (with Michael Krüger, 2013, in German).

New Perspectives in Translation Studies Series editors: Michael Cronin holds a Personal Chair in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Dublin City University. Moira Inghilleri is Director of Translation Studies in the Comparative Literature Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The New Perspectives in Translation Studies series aims to address the changing needs in translation studies. The series features works by leading scholars in the field, on emerging and up to date topics in the discipline. Key features of the titles in the series are accessibility, relevance and innovation. These lively and highly readable texts provide an exploration into various areas of the field for undergraduate and postgraduate students of translation studies and cultural studies. Cities in Translation Sherry Simon Translation in the Digital Age Michael Cronin

Translation and Geography

Federico Italiano

First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Federico Italiano The right of Federico Italiano to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Italiano, Federico, 1976- author. Title: Translation and geography / by Federico Italiano. Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, [2016] | Series: New Perspectives in Translation Studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015046904| ISBN 9781138828902 (hardback: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138828919 (pbk.: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315738000 (ebook: alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Translating and interpreting–Social aspects. | Language and culture–Social aspects. | Intercultural communication. | Geographical perception in literature. | Literature, Modern–History and criticism. Classification: LCC P306.2.I88 2016 | DDC 418/.0391–dc23LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015046904 ISBN: 978-1-138-82890-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-82891-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-73800-0 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Sunrise Setting Ltd, Brixham, UK

Contents

1

Acknowledgments

vi

Orientation: an introduction

1

“Navegar ver ponente”: the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis and its Venetian translation

15

Translating the map: carticity and transmediation in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso

32

3

Translating the territory: Cabeza de Vaca’s Naufragios

51

4

The fiction of translation: Abbé Prévost’s nautical writing

73

Translating the sea: Jules Verne, Nemo, and nineteenth-century oceanography

93

2

5

6

7

Translational mimesis: Tabucchi, the Azores, and cartographic writing

114

The redress of (self-)translation: Juan Gelman’s Dibaxu and the cartography of Sepharad

133

Notes Bibliography Index

150 161 177

Acknowledgments

The germinal conception of this book dates back some six years to when I was working as a research fellow and coordinator of the research cluster on “Cultural Translation” at the Institute for Culture Studies and Theatre History (IKT) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. To this institution and to its director, my mentor and long-time advisor Michael Rössner, who believed in and supported my research from its crucial early stages until its final phase, I owe my deepest gratitude. I would also like to thank all of my colleagues at the Austrian Academy of Sciences with whom I had the pleasure to collaborate in Vienna, for the stimulating working atmosphere they provided and the brilliant conversations they animated. In particular, I would like to thank Monika Mokre, Johannes Feichtinger, Christoph Leitgeb, Hermann Blume und Johann Heiss for the enthusiasm with which they discussed my ideas and perspectives, giving thoughtful comments and excellent support. At Munich University (LMU), I am very grateful to my many colleagues who have accompanied me during the different stages of my writing. Above all, my sincerest thanks go to Robert Stockhammer for agreeing to mentor my Habilitation and firmly endorsing my project. Moreover, I am grateful to him for the fundamental insights on the relationship between literature and cartography that he has shared with me over the last few years. In Munich, I would also like to thank Bernhard Teuber for the discernment of his academic and philological advice. I also extend my gratitude for their support to Martin Hose (a member of my Habiliation committee), Martin von Koppenfels, and Michael Ott. A special and grateful acknowledgment is owed to my friend and colleague Daniel Graziadei, who has been a constant source of illumination and a careful reader during the whole process of my research. I am also extremely grateful for the help and encouragement provided by my colleagues at the University of Innsbruck, among whom I was able to complete, with unexpected serenity and unique quiet, the main writing of this book (2013–15). In particular, I would like to thank Sebastian Donat and Martin Sexl for their attentive guidance and the invaluable suggestions they offered me along the way and Brigitte Rath for sharing her knowledge

Acknowledgments

vii

on pseudotranslation with me. Moreover, I would like to thank my friends and colleagues Gabriella Mazzon and Monika Raic for their encouragement and feedback. Furthermore, I am truly thankful to both Barbara Tasser and Francesca Bagaggia of the Italien-Zentrum at Innsbruck University, who greatly supported the organization of important steps during the final phase of my research. My book began to take its current shape during a visiting scholarship over the 2014 spring semester at the Department of Romance and Latin American Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I am grateful to Manuela Consonni, head of that department, for making this scholarship possible and for her constant and enthusiastic support. In Jerusalem I also would like to thank Anat Lapidot-Firilla, Ruth Fine, and Aldina Quintana Rodríguez for their help and valued suggestions. In particular, I would like to mention and heartily thank Sameer Kadan and Daniel Blaustein in Jerusalem, and Jack Arbib and Emanuella Amichai in Tel Aviv, for their invaluable friendship and the inspiring profundity of their conversation. A special thanks goes to the geographer Marco Mastronunzio, with whom I share a love of maps and a life-long friendship, for his wise and competent counsel. To many others I would like to extend my gratitude, to my friends and indefatigable interlocutors, Giancarlo Sánchez-Aizcorbe, Carlos De Los Ríos, Camilla Miglio, Alessandra Sorrentino, Nora Zapf, Manuel Almagro Bonmatí, and Nicolás Pallavicini; to both the University Library of Munich and the Bavarian State Library, the extensive holdings of which made a great part of my research almost a domestic pleasure; to Michael Cronin and Moira Inghilleri for believing in my book and welcoming me to their Routledge series; to Laura Sandford at Routledge for making the whole publishing process a delightful experience; and to Joanna White for her invaluable suggestions and for helping me render my exophonic writing (see Chapter 7) a bit less arduous than it might otherwise have been. Most profoundly, however, I thank my wife, Karin Birmele, for her undying forbearance and her perceptive, unfailing support, and my children, Mathilda and Clara, for covering me with love, notwithstanding my repeated absences. Finally, I would like to acknowledge publishers’ and editors’ permission to re-use and reprint material of mine, though necessarily revised, updated, translated, and changed for this book. Some passages from the Introduction and sections from Chapters 1, 2, and 5 have appeared in: “Translating Geographies: The Navigatio Sancti Brendani and its Venetian Translation,” in: Translation Studies (5:1 2012, 1–16); “Die globale Dichtung des Orlando Furioso: Von der Kartizität des Poetischen zur Geopoetik der EntOstung,” in: Arcadia. Internationale Zeitschrift für literarische Kultur (47:1 2012, 16–33); “Translatio maris: Zur Übersetzung von Geographien bei Jules Verne,” in: Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften (2:2012, 59–69); and “Orientation as Translatio/n: Monks, Pygmies and the Spaghetti Western,” in: F. Italiano, M. Rössner (eds), Translatio/n: Narration, Media and the Staging of Differences (Bielefeld: transcript-Verlag 2012, 203–22). A final

viii Acknowledgments acknowledgment goes to the heirs of Juan Gelman and to Ediciones Era for the permission to print and translate into English poem XI from Juan Gelman’s Dibaxu (1994). Unless otherwise stated, all translations into English are my own. Munich, Germany September 2015

Every effort has been made to contact copyright-holders. Please advise the publisher of any errors or omissions, and these will be corrected in subsequent editions.

Orientation An introduction

I was raised in Piedmont, at the foot of the Alps,1 between the river Ticino and the lowlands around Novara. If asked, I would have instinctively described myself as a northerner, as an Italian from the north. And yet, when in my mid-twenties I left Piedmont and moved to Munich, in southern Germany, I suddenly became a “Südländer,” a southerner, a native of an indefinite and vast region that embraces the whole Mediterranean basin and that, from a German perspective, begins south of the Brenner Pass—or south of Bolzano from an Austrian viewpoint. I became a man from the south in the eyes of most of the people I came into contact with. To some extent, while I was heading north, I was being translated into the South—into an imaginary South that has very little if nothing to do with the tangled discourse on the Italian north–south divide I was well acquainted with. Crossing the Alps thus became a translation of cardinal points, a negotiation of differences across languages, geographical imaginations, and identitarian ascriptions. A further, though welcome, complication in this translational re-location was that in my “new north,” I found an unhurried and festive society, who paradoxically pitied me for having left warm and joyful Italy, without knowing, however, how foggy, stiff and cold the place I come from could sometimes be. In my own small way, I experienced how geographical (re)orientation works—a process of de- and reterritorialization that indissolubly links together location, language, and translation. As a literary scholar, I have always been fascinated by the relationship between space and the most immaterial, though most corrupted, of all tools of art: language. Over the past years, investigating, for instance, a Ligurian poet’s sense of place, the hallucinatory landscape of a post-apocalyptic American novel or the cartographic imagination of a Sicilian writer, I invariably came to the conclusion that the spatial imagination contained in a work of literature was the most truthful mirror in which humanity could reflect and examine itself. Inevitably spurred on by my own experience of orientation in space as a form of translation across cultural differences, I started to ask myself how spatial imaginations negotiate geographies not only across epochs, languages, and literary texts but also across media, in particular between the medium of writing and the medium of the map.

2

Orientation

From French, s’orienter, and Italian, orientare, literally “to face the east” (from Old French orient, “east” and Latin oriens, “the rising sun, the east, part of the sky where the sun rises,” the present participle of oriri, “to rise”), the word “orientation” is not only a complex metaphor in itself, meaning to find one’s way or pointing in a given direction, but is also an “absolute metaphor” (Blumenberg 2010) that opens up a multiplicity of folds, like an endless mise en abyme. In his Paradigms for a Metaphorology, Blumenberg describes absolute metaphors as the “foundational elements of philosophical language,” defining them (following Kant’s symbolic hypotyposis) as “translations,” which “resist being converted back into authenticity and logicality” (Blumenberg 2010: 3). According to him, through their preconceptual function such metaphors reveal the sub-structures of thought. Indeed, the metaphorical content contained in the word “orientation”— that is, to face east towards the rising sun in order to find one’s way—goes beyond the simple illustration of a spatial practice and in fact works as a cultural paradigm that determines “a particular attitude or conduct” and “give[s] structure to a world” (Blumenberg 2010: 14). In his 1786 essay “What is Orientation in Thinking?,” Immanuel Kant, who lectured on geography in Königsberg for forty years, begins his discussion of the notion of orientation with a geographical explanation: “To orientate oneself, in the proper sense of the word, means to use a given direction—and we divide the horizon into four of these—in order to find the others, and in particular that of sunrise” (Kant 1991: 238). Kant argues—and this is the crucial moment of his geo-cognitive argument—that in order to identify and recognize the cardinal directions of our terrestrial horizon, we must necessarily be able to experience a difference in our own subject, the difference namely “between my right and left hands” (ibid.). Feeling a difference, a preliminary, non-cognitive experience of differentiation is what enables orientation in the first place. In what is probably an unorthodox reading of this passage, we might say that orientation is possible only because we are able to recognize and weigh up “differences.” As Kant further argues, “in spite of all the objective data in the sky, I orientate myself geographically purely by means of a subjective distinction” (ibid.: 239, my emphasis).2 In his illustration of mythical space, Cassirer (1955) asserts that Kant was right in defining the basic perception of a difference as the conditio sine qua non of orientation but wrong in locating its origin in the subject-inherent opposition between right and left. For Cassirer the primal distinction which enables orientation is a kind of extrinsic evidence, something that exists outside and precedes the subject: the opposition between night and day, between darkness and light. Starting from this elemental experience of opposition, we begin to spatialize, to conceive the world geographically— and ourselves within it. This is the reason why in mythical thinking the differences between the cardinal directions are not purely quantitative but are also qualitative. “East, west, north, and south are not essentially similar zones which serve for orientation within the world of empirical perception;

Orientation

3

each of them has a specific reality and significance of its own, an inherent mythical life” (Cassirer 1955: 98). Orientation in mythical space is, therefore, a negotiation between the empirical perception of the world we live in and the “inherent mythical life” of a cardinal direction. As the geographer Yi-Fu Tuan has brilliantly shown, in everyday life we are immersed in a holistic, mythical way of thinking most of the time (Tuan 1977: 86–100). Thus, Cassirer’s observations on mythical space are in no way the exclusive intellectual property of paleoanthropologists or classical philologists. On the contrary: every time that we think about places that we believe to know perfectly—the beach from our childhood, a particular corner of our neighborhood, the micro-cosmos surrounding our favorite bench in the park, or the way back home—at this moment we are orientating ourselves in a mythical dimension, conceiving of a mythical space and constructing geographies, “imaginative geographies” (Said 2003: 55). Here the main questions of my book arise: how do literary texts translate such “imaginative geographies”? And is it, in the first place, possible to translate the “inherent mythical life” of a cardinal point? From Homi K. Bhabha’s conceptualization of the “third space” (2005 [1994]), through Emily Apter’s monograph The Translation Zone (2006), to Sherry Simon’s Cities in Translation (2013), the paradigm of space has been experiencing a boom within translation studies. While Bhabha’s argument on the performativity of translation as the “staging of cultural difference” (Bhabha 2005: 325)3 still manipulates the concept of “space” as a mere metaphor, Apter’s view introduces the notion of “zone” as the “intellectual topography” of global translation (Apter 2006: 5), referencing in particular actual war zones as problematic, conflictive spaces of translation (ibid.: 129). In her investigation, Apter repeatedly underscores the importance of a spatial awareness when discussing translation. In particular, she reworks the postcolonial concept of location in order to understand world literature today and to define what she calls “a location-conscious translational transnationalism” (ibid.: 87). Even more concretely, Sherry Simon’s latest work on the intersections of language and memory (2013) focuses on (urban) space as an integral part of the translation process. Examining linguistically divided cities such as Calcutta, Trieste, Barcelona, and her hometown, Montreal, Simon demonstrates how each city, each one a precise kind of anthropic environment, “imposes its own patterns of interaction” (ibid.: 2), shaping and modulating the negotiation among languages. However, these are just three prominent positions among many others which indicate the increasing attention paid by translation scholars towards a spatial understanding of translation. This “spatial turn” within the recent flourishing of the “translational turn” is not merely another academic trend but probably the most consistent attempt to overcome the almost positivistic view of translation based on the illusion of linguistic equivalence in the transfer of meaning. As Michaela Wolf, starting from an ethnographical perspective, has distinctly pointed out, translation is not only a matter of

4

Orientation

transfer between cultures but “a place where cultures merge and create new spaces” (Wolf 2002: 186, my emphasis). In short, a new perspective is making itself conspicuous within translation studies today, one we might refer to as the geography of translation, or what Lawrence Venuti defined as the “ethics of location” in translation studies (1998: 186–7); that is, the question of “where” translation happens. What I try to do in this book runs along the same epistemic furrow, although it does so in the opposite direction. The geography of translation is not the subject of my research. Rather, I am interested in the translation of geographies; that is, a negotiation of cultural differences between constructions of worlds and spatial imaginations. Consequently, the questions raised in my book primarily concern how and to what extent Western spatial imaginations, in particular those constructed by literary works, have been translated across languages, media, and epochs. As far as I am aware, there is currently no monograph that deals explicitly with this question and which offers a synthesis of the spatial and translational turn. In 2011, Alvstad, Helgesson, and Watson edited the collection of essays Literature, Geography, Translation: Studies in World Writing, the title of which might suggest an affinity with my project. On the one hand, this volume does in fact highlight the importance of geography in contemporary literary studies, showing how urgent it is for translation studies to deal with geographical issues as constituent parts of its research horizon. On the other hand, this volume does not advance beyond the locative approach (the geography of translation and the “ethics of location”) nor does it ever broach a discussion concerning the “translation of geographies,” which is central to my book. Only the third and last part of the book focuses on the spatial imagination, but it does so with reference to concepts of transnationalism rather than processes of translation. However, there are many books which have approached the relationship between geography and translation tangentially, indicating possible ways for getting to the core of the issue. Since his seminal monograph on travel writing, language, and translation, Across the Lines (2000), in which narratives of space, and in particular of movement in space, were coherently considered through the looking-glass of linguistic transfer for the first time, Michael Cronin’s books have laid the essential groundwork for a bridge between the praxis-oriented cosmos of translation and interpreting studies, on the one hand, and culture-oriented, literary studies, on the other. In Translation and Globalization (2003), Cronin examines the status of translation as an indispensable cultural practice in the era of globalization and rejects the idea that translations and translators are becoming superfluous. On the contrary, he states that translation plays an important role in the survival of cultural differences in a world dominated by globalizing processes that produce homogenization. Moreover, his analyses of translation processes frequently focus on their spatial coordinates and the relationship between language and geography (see especially the chapter “Globalization and the new geography

Orientation

5

of translation”). In Translation and Identity (2006), he describes translation as a “negentropic” process (a term I will expand on later) that creates newness out of precarious processes of communication. His main goal is to show how translation practices shape the construction of identity. This aspect is crucial to my present book too, since I also strongly believe that we are continuously imagining and building new worlds through negotiating our own identity constructions.4 Cronin’s approach to translation has also proved constructive in the discussion of translation in the era of the Internet. In Translation in the Digital Age, Cronin “locates” translation in the digital sphere, showing that translation processes “reveal again and again […] the world as network” (Cronin 2013: 33). In my opinion, this digital perspective on translation also urges us to read translation geographically as a process that not only connects spaces but which also creates them. As for literary studies, many works over the last twenty years have shown how crucial it is for the humanities to bring together philology and cartography in order to explain how geography shapes our minds, pervading the medium of (literary) writing through the spatializing device of the map. I refer here to the works of Conley (1996), Padrón (2004), Scafi (2006), Stockhammer (2007), Smith (2008) and, more recently, Dünne (2011). All of these books deal more or less with the issue of geographical and cartographic imagination in literature and, although they seem unrelated to the issue of translation, they frequently implement notions such as “re-writing,” “reconfiguration,” and “negotiation” across media (especially between maps and written texts) to examine the interconnections between literature, geographical imaginations, and maps. Dealing with Western literatures in particular, these works discuss the way geographical and cartographic imaginations shape literary texts and how maps can be transposed into texts and vice versa. However, they never explicitly examine this process as a translational phenomenon—which is precisely the step I will take in the following pages. My translational approach to investigating the relationship between literature and geography carries with it at least two problematic dimensions. First, it characterizes the process of translation as (cultural) negotiation; that is, as something closer to a trade rather than a transfer (see in particular Chapter 3). Second, it spatializes the concept of translation; that is, it transposes a notion commonly used for linguistic transfer into a context of knowledge/power relations, that of geography, which obviously transcends the mere linguistic-verbal horizon. These two dimensions need separate elucidation in order to understand how the concept of translating geographies will eventually function.

Translation as negentropy As Michaela Wolf (2002) states—speaking from within an epistemological analysis of translation in the ethnographic discourse and beyond—translation is a place where cultures merge and new spaces are created. Now, what are

6

Orientation

those spaces? For Homi K. Bhabha, those spaces are metaphorical, the fictional products of encounters across cultures: they are interstitial spaces created by performative negotiations between “differential identities” (2005: 313), where “the subject of cultural difference” becomes what Walter Benjamin has described as “the irresolution, or liminality, of translation” (ibid.: 321). Thus, translation for Bhabha does not just happen somewhere in-between: translation is this space in-between, a space which is continually and contingently “regulate[d]” and “negotiate[d],” a place “where difference is neither One nor the Other but something else besides, in-between” (ibid.: 313). It is on the basis of this argumentation that, at the core of his essay, Bhabha can point out that “translation is the performative nature of cultural communication. It is language in actu (enunciation, positionality), rather than language in situ (énoncé, propositionality)” (ibid.: 326). Up to this point, I agree with Bhabha’s view on (cultural) translation. Furthermore, I find the way in which he intersects the dimensions of time and space in his definition of translation not only very plausible but even inescapable (see also Chapter 5). In fact, if translation, intended as a performative negotiation between cultural differences, creates spaces—be it the metaphorical, Bhabhian third space or the geographical fictional spaces that I will examine—it is evidently necessary that the process of this creation must have a progression in time: the time of its own movement, the time that language needs to operate and unfold itself, that temporal dimension which is unavoidable for any practice of communication. Thus, every reflection on the translation of spaces and geographies should consequently be a reflection on a precise temporal dimension. There is no space without time. In this sense, the researcher of spaces in translation should internalize Fredric Jameson’s motto positioned at the start of his Political Unconscious: “Always historicize!” (Jameson 2002: ix). As Sathya Rao rightly argues, commenting on Bhabha, “translation is neither repetition of the same original authority nor the relativist equalization of different linguistic communities,” being instead “the performative process of ‘negotiating’ time and space within the disjunction” and consisting “in relocating the performance of translation within the future tense of enunciation and the spatial experience of displacement” (Rao 2006: 89, my emphasis). In this sense, Bhabha’s “newness” is the product of a re-location, a negotiation of time and space— and, as with every sort of negotiation process, it is a performative one. Now, the problem with Bhabha is that he is seeking to individuate and explain the process of cultural translation but, honestly, we would scrutinize his work in vain in search of the step in the argument between so-called translation proper—or “interlingual translation” as Jakobson described it (1960)—and the concept of cultural translation.5 Even though he is completely absorbed in trying to move beyond the pure linguistic moment of translation, Bhabha provides no decisive argument for the extra-linguistic aspects of cultural translation—unfortunately, this is precisely the missing ingredient, the step in the argumentation we need.

Orientation

7

Without abandoning the furrow carved by Benjamin, Derrida, and Bhabha, Boris Buden and Stephan Nowotny have tried to recalibrate and implement the deconstructionist perspective on cultural translation by providing the extra-linguistic argument for it. Going back to Saussure and Jakobson, they argue that “the ‘cultural’ dimension has always already been included in concepts of translation that emerged from general reflections on language or linguistics” (Buden and Nowotny 2009: 203). Their arguments are based on the Saussurean hypothesis of a “contractual sociality of linguistic unities” which should pre-exist “the actual putting into practice of language.” “[E]vidently,” so they consequently state, this is “an extralinguistic assumption” (ibid.: 202–3). The Saussurean hypothesis also reverberates in Jakobson’s theoretical framework, in his “Saussurean heritage.” In fact, Jakobson, as much as the Swiss linguist, believed that sign systems function because they inhabit “some sort of ‘contractual’ foundation” (ibid.: 203). In a certain way, Buden and Nowotny “rescue” the opaque, Bhabhian definition of cultural translation not by avoiding a confrontation with the hardest principles of linguistics but by digging deeper in the theoretical foundations of Saussure’s and Jakobson’s oeuvres. Their intervention presents “cultural translation” not as an epistemic operational paradigm which should enlarge the narrowness of “translation proper” but as the natural path of translation studies, since the linguistic field is inseparable from the cultural dimension. This renewed claim for a “cultural turn” within translation studies provided by Buden and Nowotny (Wolf 2002; Sturge 2008) somehow mirrors the “negentropic translational perspective” proposed by Michael Cronin who, though he has rooted it in different arguments, comes to a similar conclusion: it is because so much cannot be translated that much more remains to be translated. Pointing to the impossibility of translation should then be accounted not as further evidence of the entropic, of translation as fundamentally a practice of imitative or even transformative loss, but as a proof of the negentropic function of translation in culture. By this we mean both in what translation tells us about cultures and what cultures tell us about translation we can discern a practice that not only counters cultural apocalypticism and the recurrent End-of-Diversity trope but challenges the repeated devaluation of translation as a particular kind of cultural activity. Cronin 2006: 130, my emphasis Translation as a negentropic process, as the “emergence of the new” (ibid.: 129)—that is, as a process that produces “newness” out of precarious negotiations, out of ties of impossibility—is, in this sense, simply a “cultural activity.” Thus, translation is always already a “cultural translation” because “so much cannot be translated” and, simultaneously, much more emerges as “newness” (ibid.: 130). Paradoxically, it is the intrinsic untranslatability

8

Orientation

of language that makes every translation a cultural activity, a performative negotiation of cultural differences.

Geographical imagination and cartographic writing In his book on the crisis of “cartographic reason,” the Italian geographer Franco Farinelli commences with a short pedagogical provocation. Many geography teachers—says Farinelli—believing they are saying something intelligent, tell their pupils that geography is neither a catalogue of capital cities nor a list of the correct tributaries of the river Po. “It depends” says Farinelli. “It is true and not true at the same time and, anyway, it is true not in the sense in which we commonly think” (Farinelli 2009: 3). Every representation, staging, or concealment of the “simple” data of physical geography belongs to a complex discursive enterprise that depends on constructions of power/knowledge (Ó Tuathail and Agnew 1992: 192). Therefore, even a list of tributaries is a genuine part of that discourse. Geography as a discourse is a mighty construction of world(s). Our “geographical consciousness” (Besse 2003: 7–8) is the way in which we orientate ourselves, the way we read, interpret and negotiate our location in the world—and the way that we invent the Other through processes of demarcation and differentiation. Drawing on Edward Said’s famous concept of “imaginative geographies,” Derek Gregory states that our imaginative geographies “are global as well as local,” since they do not simply articulate the differences between places, “inscribing different images of here and there, but they also shape the ways in which, from our particular perspectives, we conceive of connections and separation between them” (Gregory 1994: 203–4). What we already surmise from this brief quote is the performative character of the geographical imagination: “Geography,” argues Gregory “produces the effects it names” (2004: 183). Since geography produces spaces by naming them, it is, to some extent, a poietical activity that reads and constructs the world at the same time. It is in this sense that we can speak of a semiotic and rhetorical dimension to geography, of a geographical textuality—and ultimately of “geo-poetics.” In his paper on postcolonial insularities, Balasopoulos points out two “independent but insistently cross-pollinating strands of enquiry” within the terrain of what he calls “geopoetics”: the textuality of geography and the geography of text (2008: 9). To Balasopoulos, “geopoetics” is a hybrid epistemological approach in which the diachronic perspective of geography as text and the synchronic perspective of the geography of texts—that is, the approach that analyzes the spatial distribution and reception of texts—coincide and challenge “the frequently inert and undialectical divisions of subject and object, of representation and referent, on which traditional understandings of geography and in some cases, poetics have rested” (ibid.). Nevertheless, though valid in itself, this geopoetic approach risks—as do many postcolonial perspectives—reducing the “poetics” of geo-“poetics” to a minor feature of the geo-“political” delineations of the discourse.6 I, therefore, prefer to consider geopoetics not as an epistemic approach but rather as

Orientation

9

an operative category of analysis. Geopoetic features are coded representations of the earth that cannot be hived off from the mediality and aesthetic conventions (and ruptures) that make their emergence possible—and eventually determine the degree of their intelligibility. It is on the basis of this premise that we should understand geopoetics as the result of a negotiation between a certain geographical imagination and the territorial, geographical discourse of a certain epoch (see Italiano 2009: 15–28). Thus, considered in its textuality, in its poietical/poetical tension, geography is not only the translandum but is translation per se, the process of translation in which the imagined (and imaginative) earth—the prefix “geo” (ibid.: 24–7), with all its complexities and possible affixes—becomes textual, the process by which we fix our “imaginative” constructions of the world we live in. On the basis of these premises, it should now be clear in what ways and to what extent the intentions of this book differ radically from the “literary geography” of Franco Moretti (1998, 2005) and Barbara Piatti (2008). In their research, Moretti and Piatti attempt, with more or less diagrammatic precision, to map the literary spaces of Western literature. Their aim is to create a geographical representation of literature and to establish a sort of geography of literature as a discipline. In my book I expressly distance myself from this research perspective. First, I consider both Moretti’s as well as Piatti’s intention to map literature as a relapse into a positivistic understanding of geographical or topographical cartography. It is an approach that runs the systematic risk of generating essentialist statements. Second, my book does not at all seek to produce an atlas or diagrammatic representation of literature, showing instead how geographical and cartographic imaginations are themselves translated and transposed across different epochs and media. In this sense, Translation and Geography is oriented towards approaches that analyze the affinity between cartographic writing and maps as a (performative) negotiation across media (see in particular Chapters 2, 3, 6, and 7).7 By “cartographic writing” I mean a historically and discursively determined, transmedial practice of writing that negotiates between the medium of the map and the medium of writing, and which recodes maps textually (i.e. in alphabetic script). This kind of broad definition of the phenomenon also includes Robert Stockhammer’s “carticity of the literary description”; that is, the “affinity or distance” between texts and “cartographical processes of representation” (2007: 68).8 The affinities or detachments that a literary text develops when thematizing maps point to a process of negotiation; that is, to a performative negotiation between literary and cartographical processes (of representation) that I term transmediation (see in particular Chapter 2).

On the book: interstices and connections In contrast to Sherry Simon’s brilliant monograph on Cities in Translation (2013), which is, at the present time, the work that comes closest to the research horizon and subject matter of my book, my approach does not

10 Orientation survey the relationship between geography and translation in a geo-centric manner. By “geo-centric” I mean an approach that begins by focusing on a particular segment of geographical space, be it a town or other kind of geographical entity such as a river or a region, and moves out from there looking for linguistic clues, textual traces, or translation processes that could represent and explain that place as best as possible. Although she takes the precaution of warning her readers by stating that “the stories” she tells “highlight moments revealing of the cultural dynamic at work” and should not be considered as “systematic or exhaustive portraits of each city” (2013: 18), Sherry Simon’s depiction of divided cites as translational spaces seems to me to be affected by the same epistemic problem that was encountered by Bertrand Westphal’s “géocritique” (2007) and its geo-centered literary analysis of geographical spaces: the corpus question. Which texts, which authors, which translators can or should one consider in order to produce a relatively fair depiction of the place in question? And, how can we avoid partiality or distorting bias? I have tried to follow another path, one which sets out from the texts themselves and asks them in which direction my reading should go—and that too is a question of orientation. In this book I investigate seven exemplary cases of what I call the translation of geographies. Starting from one of the key texts of the Middle Ages, the Navigatio Sancti Brendani, which did more than any other to shape Western spatial imagination, I chose texts and translations which belong to the major languages of the Romance world and which occupy a significant, if not decisive, position within their individual literary tradition. In chronological succession, I opted for literary works in which the geographical and/or cartographic imagination was not only one aspect among others but an ineluctable, structuring component of the work. On the one hand, I singled out texts that are strongly linked to each other by thematic threads and, in at least three cases, by evident intertextual ties as well. On the other hand, I selected a corpus that is capable of giving both a holistic panorama of my subject and, at the same time, a differentiated view of heterogeneous literary genres and styles—from epic poetry to travel accounts, and from novels to short stories and poetry. In order to examine the core question of this book, which is the translation of Western spatial imaginations, I will look at different spatial practices and representations as much as I consider different kinds of translation. Besides the notion of orientation and the relationship between literature and cartography, which will be an issue in every chapter of this book, I will also examine different delineations of the translatio imperii (see in particular Chapters 3 and 5), which is a concept that is profoundly related to the symbolic texture of the cardinal directions and to the practice of orientation in space. As Dilek Dizdar rightly claims, today’s theories of translation have the idea of a translatio imperii to thank for the history of their foundation, as well as for the modern norm of delimiting the meaning of “translation” to linguistic transfer (Dizdar 2006: 25–6) (see Chapter 5). Even more indebted to the

Orientation

11

medieval concept of translatio are those cultural theories that see translation as a process of appropriation, acquisition and, ultimately, colonization (Cheyfitz 1997; Robinson 1997) (see in particular Chapter 3). In addition, I believe that the debate between literary convention and the theory of the translatio imperii is an urgent task within the humanities, especially from the perspective of transdisciplinary globalization studies.9 In fact, the relationship that exists between the concept of a translational dynamic (such as translatio) and a political, geographical and cultural category (such as imperium) allows paradigmatic aspects involved in processes of globalization—for example heterogeneity, heterolinguality, transculturality and de- and reterritorialization, and so on—to come to the fore and forces us to conceptualize and analyze globalization as a translation process (Cronin 2003, 2006; Italiano and Rössner 2012). Also closely related to both the notion of globalization and the concept of translatio imperii is the paradigmatic connection between navigation and translation. In particular, I investigate how navigation as a spatial practice has been translated into (literary) texts and maps. Among others, I discuss the translation of the highly symbolic, west-oriented Navigatio into a more profane Venetian, east-oriented sea voyage (Chapter 1); the shipbased transfer of knowledge and power between Spain and the New World (Chapter 3); the alternating interconnections between ships and writings in the pseudotranslation of an eighteenth-century travel account (Chapter 4); and, the submarine navigation and re-writing of Odysseus’ sea travels into the submarine world of Captain Nemo (Chapter 5). Understanding the concept of cultural translation as an umbrella term that encompasses different processes of translation, this book will focus on at least four of them. In the first place, I deal with aspects related to so-called “translation proper,” or “interlinguistic translation” (Jakobson), which is a type of translational process that, to varying degrees, will turn up in almost every chapter of the book. Second, I define and explore a particular kind of translation between media, a process that I call with Elleström (2014) “transmediation.” Contrary to Jakobson’s “intersemiotic translation,” in which the source medium vanishes into the target medium, in a process of transmediation the inherent logic and the semiotic characteristics of the source medium do not disappear completely but remain perceivable, continuing to work within the target medium (see in particular Chapter 2). Third, I delve into translation as a fictional or mimetic device. Here, I consider the figure of the interpreter as a representation of translation processes at the story level (Chapter 3), analyze a classic case of pseudotranslation (Chapter 4), and discuss “translational mimesis” (Sternberg 1981) as part of the fictional world (Chapter 6). Finally, I consider exemplary cases of literary re-writing as a form of translation and self-translation (see in particular Chapters 5 and 7). While all these translation processes differ from one another, they are not entirely separate phenomena. On the contrary, they form an interwoven continuum of translational functions, in which the

12 Orientation function that enacts one process—quasi recursively—activates the function of another. Chapter 1 discusses the Navigatio Sancti Brendani and its Venetian translation, La Navigazione di San Brandano. A tenth-century, Christian narrative by an anonymous Irish monk, the Navigatio is the tale of a pilgrimage embarked on out of love for God (a so-called peregrinatio pro Dei amore), a journey across the Atlantic Ocean in search for the island of Paradise, the terra repromissionis sanctorum (the Promised Land of the Saints). In this opening chapter, I show, first, to what extent this devotional and hagiographic text should be considered as a cultural translation on its own; that is, a translation of Mediterranean, anchoritic practice into the Hiberno-Atlantic world. Second, I examine its Venetian version (early fourteenth century) as a counter-translation of geographies; namely, as the reinscription of a westoriented, Atlantic geopoetics into an east-oriented, Mediterranean one. In Chapter 2, I look at the chivalric epic poem Orlando Furioso (1516– 32) by Ludovico Ariosto, which was one of the most influential texts of the Renaissance. Beginning with a more general discussion of early modern cartographic knowledge and practice, I show that not only is Ariosto’s poem based on a precise understanding of the most advanced, up-to-date cartography of his epoch, but that it should be read—at least crucial parts of it—as a transmediation of maps into poetry, as displayed by the journeys around the globe of the knights Ruggiero and Astolfo. Flying on the back of the legendary Hippogryph—a true hybrid vehicle, half eagle and half horse— Ariosto’s paladins fly over the earth as if they were gliding over a map. Moreover, I shall argue that by translating the map into poetry, Ariosto performs a new geopoetics that turns away from the symbolic dominance of the East (or “Ent-Ostung,” as Peter Sloterdijk has usefully called it) and offers us one of the first poetic versions of modern globalization. Chapter 3 explores one of the most popular travel accounts of the early modern period, the Naufragios (1555 [1542]) by Álvar Núñes Cabeza de Vaca. First and foremost a story of shipwreck and imprisonment, the Naufragios is also considered to be one of the first, if not the first, modern ethnographic descriptions of North America. From a spatial and translational perspective, I examine the Naufragios as a paradigmatic expression of the Habsburg translatio imperii and, in this sense, as a translation of geographies that transposes the medieval itineraries of the Old World’s saints into the New (Atlantic) World, reterritorializing the colonial aim as an evangelical aim but also inscribing a hitherto unknown territory with an imperial Christian topography. Furthermore, I focus on the translational figure of Cabeza de Vaca as a trader and stranger among the natives and on the role of Estebanico, a slave from the Moroccan Atlantic coastal town of Azemmour, who became the interpreter between the Spaniards and the American natives. Finally, I explore the interconnection between ships and writing as the medial scene that made the printing of Naufragios possible in the first place and the way that Cabeza de Vaca’s account was

Orientation

13

transmediated into one of the most important maps of the sixteenth century, Sancho Gutiérrez’s hand-drawn world map (1551). In the preface to his (pseudo)translation Les voyages du capitaine Robert Lade (1744), the celebrated author of the eighteenth-century bestseller Manon Lescaut (1731), Abbé Prévost d’Exiles, presents the account of a sea voyage undertaken by a (proto-capitalist) English hero as an edifying example for his French readership. In Chapter 4, I will explore the fiction of translation performed by Prévost’s Robert Lade through its different strata and show to what extent its “nautical writing” translates the pragmatic and logbook-centric English maritime culture exalted in literature into French navigational discourse, which was more abstract, was explicitly militarized, and was dominated by Cartesian geometric principles. Furthermore, I will discuss Prévost’s pseudotranslation not only as a powerful device of cultural translation but also as a translational performance by means of which the author is able to introduce himself as a mediator, and make a plea for literary innovation and social change. Jules Verne’s Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (1869–70) poses the captivating question of whether and how literature offers insights into phenomena of global interconnection. Given the enduring popularity of Verne’s submarine novel and the unique presence of its geographical imagination in twenty-first-century media, I consider it of great importance for the scope of my book to analyze the translation of geographies that this novel enacts. In Chapter 5, I will show, first, how Verne’s underwater fiction should be read as a translation of the insular, Mediterranean narrative of the Odyssey into the oceanic reign of Captain Nemo, whose name encapsulates the key to deciphering his story as a “transfer of power.” Beginning with a historical overview of the concept of translatio imperii et studii, I explain to what extent I call Nemo’s “transfer of power” a translatio maris. In order to do so, I investigate the relationship between scientific and literary writing in Verne’s novel and, in particular, the various concealed translations from Matthew Fontaine Maury’s The Physical Geography of the Sea (1858). Second, I discuss how Verne also depicts this translatio maris by transposing an imaginative submarine geography into the spatial code of Western cultural practices. In particular, I examine both the very human and very terrestrial episode of an underwater burial and the scene in which Verne translates one of the paradigmatic urban spatial practices of his time, flânerie, into the mobile contemplation of the submarine world made possible by the Nautilus. In Chapter 6, which examines Tabucchi’s fiction and in particular the collection of short stories and prose texts Donna di Porto Pim e altre storie (1983), I show to what extent “translational mimesis” (Sternberg 1981) participates in negotiating geographical imaginations and how this process operates at different levels, such as heterolingualism, poetic diction, and transmediation. I will then discuss the carticity enacted by Tabucchi’s book and assess to what extent this carticity is based on translational mimesis.

14 Orientation Moreover, I show that the collage-like structure of Tabucchi’s collection activates a cartographic perspective that translates the text into a fractal, archipelagic structure. In my opinion, what makes Tabucchi’s book so exemplary is, in fact, the way that the author transposes the archipelagic geography of his fiction into his narrative by means of translational mimesis—or, in other words, how he transmediates the cartography of the Azores archipelago into textual form. In this sense, I argue that Tabucchi’s cartographic writing not only stages the idea of the archipelago but also works as an archipelago. In Chapter 7, I will discuss the relationship between poetry, (self-)translation and cartography, focusing on the “Jewish period” of the Argentine poet Juan Gelman and, in particular, on his bilingual (Ladino and Castellano) poetry collection Dibaxu, which was published in Buenos Aires in 1994 but written during his Parisian exile between 1983 and 1985. Translated into Argentine Castellano by the author himself, Dibaxu undoubtedly represents one of the most exemplary works of contemporary bilingual and exophonic writing. In my reading, I examine the relationship between Gelman’s exilic perspective and the diasporic dimension of Ladino. Concentrating on the relationship between language, translation, and geographical imagination, I argue that while, for Gelman, writing in Ladino represents an act of self-exile into the “deepest” and “most exiled” roots of his own tongue, his self-translation should, in turn, be considered as redressing the lacerating displacement of exile. In order to illustrate this thesis, I delve first into some decisive aspects that concern both the question of Ladino as a written and spoken language in general and, more specifically, the way that Juan Gelman employs Ladino as a literary language. Second, I explain Gelman’s spatial imagination of medieval Spain and the Sephardic diaspora through a cartographic exploration of Com/posiciones (1986), a book written by Gelman at a very similar time to Dibaxu. In this quite unique collection of poetry, in which Gelman translated and “com/posed” various poems taken mostly from Hebrew sources, ranging from biblical texts through to Andalusian Hebrew poetry to Sephardic Renaissance poetry, the Argentine poet “com/poses,” I argue, a translational map of the Sepharad.

1

“Navegar ver ponente” The Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis and its Venetian translation

In the first half of the fourteenth century, an anonymous translator in Venice completed the manuscript of an astonishing, opulent translation of the Navigatio Sancti Brendani into the Venetian vernacular. This translation, full of innumerable and extensive interpolations, was certainly not the first translation of that medieval bestseller, but it was surely the most important and widespread in the Italian peninsula at that time.1 Such a geolinguistic coordinate—Venice and the Venetian dialect—alone would suffice to awaken our interest. The location of this translation, in fact, opens up a suggestive constellation of cultural encounters and negotiations. First of all, it is an encounter between the monastic Latin of northern Europe and the bubbling lengua of the Dogi, the Romance dialect spoken in the most prosperous harbor of the pre-Columbian Mediterranean. Second, it is an encounter between the language of a major maritime power—which, at least until the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, ruled the trade in the eastern Mediterranean Sea—and a maritime “devotional text,” the “primary message” of which is that “the Lord will provide for the faithful” (Mackley 2008: 30). Third, this translation represents an encounter between an east-oriented political and cultural entity, as Venice was at the beginning of the fourteenth century, with one of the first and most significant literary expressions of west-orientation in Christendom. In fact, the Navigatio localized the Earthly Paradise—and more generally, the direction of redemption—explicitly westwards, contrary to the east-oriented positioning which was predominant in the Christian topography of the early Middle Ages and which was acknowledged by one of the most influential authors of that period, Isidore of Seville. By following the Itala or Vetus Latina version of Genesis (2:8), which translates the Hebrew word miqedem as in oriente, “eastward” (Scafi 2006: 35), Isidore’s Etymologies (c. 630) fostered and secured for several centuries after him the eastward location of Paradise (Scafi 2006: 47). Worthy of note is that Isidore did register the existence of a parallel literary topography (implicitly referring to Homer, Pindar, and Horace, among others) that located Paradise in the Fortunate Isles—westward: the Canary Islands—but only to dismiss it as a pagan fallacy and poets’ fancy inspired by the fertility of those islands (ibid.: 48;

16 “Navegar ver ponente” Sobecki 2008: 80–1). In this sense, the Navigatio performs a remarkable alteration—if not a turn—within the Christian redemptive geography and consequently deserves to be considered as not just one medieval text among others, but as one of the most significant texts. These elements are doubtlessly all good reasons to examine the Venetian traduzione of the Navigatio as an emblematic medieval translation. But there is another aspect of it that I find most revealing and decisive. It is the fact that the Venetian version is not just the translation of a text but is the translation of a translation, a counter-translation. The presumed original, the Navigatio Sancti Brendani, is in fact a translation in its own right, a translation of geographies, as I will try to show. Therefore, the encounter between these two anonymous authors shows much more than a cultural “transfer” between languages—it reveals an uninterrupted process of translation and counter-translation. As Naoki Sakai argues, “every translation calls for a counter-translation, and in this sort of address it is clearly evident that within the framework of communication, translation must be endless” (Sakai 1997: 8, my emphasis). I shall now try to explain this process, starting from the translation of geographies within the Latin work.

Geopoetics of a pilgrimage The Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis is an Irish, monastic odyssey written not later than the tenth century.2 It is the narration of a peregrinatio pro Dei amore, a pilgrimage, a wandering for the love of God. The author, an anonymous monk, recounts in very readable and sober Hiberno-Latin the mystical journey of the Irish monk St Brendan of Clonfert. Brendan is said to have sailed west with a company of monks from his abbey, located on the Irish west coast. His friend and colleague, the abbot Barrind (Barinthus), had told him of a marvelous island, the “Terra repromissionis sanctorum,” or Paradise Island, which he visited in his youth, and Brendan is resolved to find that place with the help of God. The journey lasts seven years and it has a cyclical and circular dynamic, meaning that the encounters with different islands and the various adventures of the mystical sailors repeat themselves over seven years, with the faultless precision of a desk calendar. This circular and cyclical wandering, this highly allegorical pilgrimage, inscribes itself into the Christian tradition of the cathartic journey. The souls of the nautical pilgrims are cleansed and purified by God and the sea. Their purgation, their redemption, is indeed the result of the timetabled, mystical experience they undergo, and the reward at the end is nothing less than the Garden of Eden, the “Terra repromissionis” of Barrind’s tale, that Paradise Island which will survive— as a topographical certainty or hypothesis—as the Island of St Brendan for several centuries and even into the first modern charts and globes—from the famous Ebstorf Map (1235) through Martin Behaim’s Globus of 1492, to the Carte de la Barbarie, de la Nigritie et de la Guinée (1707) of Guillaume

“Navegar ver ponente”

17

Delisle. Columbus, for instance, who knew Martin Behaim and his work well, was genuinely convinced of the island’s existence. Now, why do I consider the Navigatio Sancti Brendani to be a translation of geographies? In what sense is this tenth-century anonymous work a negotiation between different imaginative geographies? The main reason is a geopoetic one. The oceanic narration of St Brendan, the Atlantic Navigatio Sancti Brendani, is a translation of early Mediterranean anchoritic practice: the practice of retreating to the country or the wilds as practiced by the Desert Fathers such as St Paul the Anchorite, Antonius the Great, Pachomius, and Shenouda the Archimandrite.3 It translates their desert, land-based journeying into the Irish, monastic context. As Bartoli argues, through the peregrinatio pro Dei amore the ocean becomes the symbolic place of the hermitic practice, since it translates the function of the desert of the oriental hermitic tradition into the terms of the Celtic tradition (Bartoli 1993: 56). As the Medieval Latinist Giovanni Orlandi has shown, the spatial imagination of the Navigatio leans heavily on late antique texts like the itinera Hierosolymitana, Athanasius’s Vita Antonii, the Dialogi of Gregory the Great and Sulpicius Severus’s Vita Sancti Martini. Orlandi highlights two main “oriental sources” for the Navigatio: Jerome’s Vita Pauli, where the “thematic of the journey, with its fantastic elements, assumes a preponderant role” (Orlandi 1968: 108), and the Vita Macharii romani, the Latin version (c. ninth century) of a Greek text that dates back to the fifth century. The Vita Macharii, which is also known as itinerarium Theophili, presents an astonishing analogy to the Navigatio Sancti Brendani. In fact, it recounts the story of three monks from a Mesopotamian monastery who set out to find the Earthly Paradise, as does Brendan with his brethren; but, while Brendan navigates the ocean, Theophilus and his companions travel on land; and while Brendan searches for Paradise in the West, the monks of the Vita Macharii look for it in the east (ibid.: 115). For Orlandi, the oceanic, west-oriented Navigatio can thus be considered a “backward version” of the desert, land-based, east-oriented journey of Theophilus and his companions (ibid.). The translational relation between eastern-Mediterranean and westernAtlantic spiritualities is further sealed by the diegetic encounter between Brendan and Paul the Hermit, who has always been considered the first hermit of Christianity. Perfectly mirroring the figure of Judas Iscariot, approached at the Gates of Hell, Brendan and his brothers encounter Paul the Hermit before they reach Paradise, thus legitimating their entrance into that final, sacred dimension (Mackley 2008: 215–18).4 Septem jam anni sunt postquam egressi sumus de nostra patria usque in hoc pascha quod venturum erit cito. Namque modo videbitis Paulum heremitam spiritualem in hac insula sine ullo victu corporali commorantem per LX annos. Nam XXX° (triginta) annos antea sumpsit cibum a quadam bestia. […] Erat autem coopertus totus capillis suis et barba

18 “Navegar ver ponente” et ceteris pilis usque ad pedes et erant candidi sicut nix prae nimia senectute. Tantum facies et oculi videbantur illius. Nihil aliud erat sibi indutum exceptis pilis qui egrediebantur de suo corpore. Selmer 1959: 70 It is seven years to the coming of Easter since we left our fatherland. You will now see Paul the spiritual hermit, who has lived in this island for sixty years without any bodily food. For the previous thirty years he got food from an animal. […] he was entirely covered by his hair from his head and beard and other hair down to his feet, and all the hair was white as snow on account of his great age. They could see only his face and eyes. He had no other clothing on him except the hair that grew from his body O’Meara and Wooding 2005: 59–60 The superhuman fasting and the radical nakedness of Paul the Hermit stage an aura of perfect sanctity,5 which evidently contrasts with the misery of the “evil trader,” Judas Iscariot. The author of the Navigatio depicts the apostle who betrayed Christ for thirty pieces of silver as “infelicissimus,” as “negociator pessimus” (“unhappy Judas, the most evil trader ever”) (O’Meara and Wooding 2005: 57). Moreover, Paul the Hermit is the last human figure—although somewhat otherworldly-looking—encountered by Brendan before he reaches Paradise. According to Jerome, Paul was a rich, educated Egyptian from Thebes (Vita Pauli, 4.1), who escaped Roman persecution by finding refuge in the desert (Vita Pauli, 5.1). His presence in the Navigatio represents monastic perfection. Correspondingly, his island is described as a steep, flint-like, naked rock, “petra nuda in modum silicis” (Selmer 1959: 71), impervious to access; here the spatial and topographical description works as “a metaphor for the arduous monastic discipline and vow of poverty” (Mackley 2008: 217). The exile and the dwelling in the desert of the first Christian hermits such as Paul—which was itself already an important cultural translation of biblical topoi such as the Exodus narrative, the episode of the Temptations of Christ and the calling of Matthew (19:29) into the new genre of Christian hagiography—is turned into a “voluntary exile on the sea” (Sobecki 2008: 63). In the Irish version, the monastic withdrawal in the desert became a peregrinatio on water, a wandering, a pilgrimage within and across deserts of water (ibid.: 49). The Mediterranean anchoritic practices and the Sayings of the Desert Fathers—strongly idiosyncratic and charismatic meditations on the Bible—here encountered the fresh and vibrant Christian experience of Ireland on a most fertile field provided by the interface between the “grand narrative” of the new Christian belief and the older, profoundly rooted Celtic tradition. That interface was the immram (from the Old Irish verb imm-rá, literally meaning “to row around”), which was the already-Christianized version of ancient Celtic myths concerning the voyage, mostly a navigation,

“Navegar ver ponente”

19

of a hero who was supposed to visit, or to look for, the Otherworld (ibid.: 48–9; Mackley 2008: 55–62; Iannello 2013: 134–201). The anonymous author of the Navigatio was thus a translator of geographies, a translator across world constructions: he translated the Mediterranean, land-based geopoetics of the peregrinatio into the oceanic, aqueous, mostly insular geopoetics of the immrama. The real undertakings of Irish monks in and around the fifth and sixth centuries—sea journeys to flee from the world, navigations across the islands of the Atlantic archipelago—became a mise en scène in the Navigatio, a “staging,” a “staging of difference” (Bhabha 2004: 325), the negotiation of two diverse geopoetics of spontaneous exile, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, exchanging and calibrating their constructed identities. However, here we cannot really talk of a “staging of difference” as radically as Bhabha does in reference to the explicitly subversive role of cultural translation in a postcolonial context. The Navigatio stages differences not in order to deliberately deconstruct political or religious power but to affirm a new geographical and cultural identity. More precisely, it points to a new transcultural entity, that of Irish Christianity, which is located within the Christian community but outside the Mediterranean oikumen . We should thus understand this translational process, this performative negotiation of differences, as the mise en scène of a reterritorialization. The Navigatio performs the marine, oceanic deterritorialization of the narrative of redemption as a pro-vocative (i.e. something that pro-vokes, that calls to life) and transforming act of reterritorialization.

Latin Atlantic Understanding the Navigatio as a cultural translation of early Mediterranean monastic practices, as a reterritorialization of spontaneous anchoritic exile, highlights one aspect we might well have overlooked from other points of view: the display of the North Atlantic as the new Christian geography of redemption. The Navigatio performs the far northwest of Europe, and its seas and islands as an accredited Christian topography. In particular, it stages the unknown and perilous North Atlantic as a Christian sea with credentials equal to those of the Mediterranean. This was no small change in perceptions of this large body of water, confronting it from a Mediterranean cultural perspective. For the Greeks and the Romans, the Atlantic was, in fact, a strange, uncomfortable, and largely unknown space. For Homer and Hesiod, the Atlantic was a river God, the Ocean River, Ωκεανός ποταμός, an enormous earth-encircling flux that served as a source for all other waters and rivers (Odyssey, XII. 1; Theogonia, v. 242, 959). A couple of centuries later, Herodotus literally laughed at this limnological notion, so to speak, of the Atlantic (Histories 4.36) and named the great sea to the west of Africa and Europe the ’Aτλαντι`ς θάλασσα, the Sea of Atlas (Histories 1.202). However,

20 “Navegar ver ponente” he had no way to describe it other than as “the sea that lies beyond the Pillars,” “η‘ ’ε΄ξω στηλέων θάλασσα” (Histories 1.203), clearly in opposition to the Mediterranean. The Atlantic was thus something unfamiliar, uncanny (unheimlich), mysterious, even for the sober-minded Herodotus. It was a big watery mystery in comparison to the well-known, homely Mediterranean, the sea “within” the Pillars “η‘ ε’ντòς ‘Hρακλείων στηλω˜ν θάλασσα,” as Aristotle put it (Meteorology 2.1). But the genuine fear of this immense, aqueous space did not stop the Greeks from venturing into it, on the contrary: following the coastal trade routes of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the Greeks, in spite of the navigational difficulties caused by the mighty winds and currents of the ocean, not only established functioning trade with the Atlantic port of Tartessos in southern Spain, as Herodotus also reports (Histories 1.163), but they sailed to the North Atlantic. After the discovery of the sea route to the trade centers of the Atlantic by a “Phocean captain” in the sixth century BCE and the Atlantic explorations of the Massiliote Pytheas in the fourth century, the Greeks repeatedly sailed to Brittany and to Cornwall in search of precious tin (Cary 1924; Antonelli 1997: 27). One of the most important sources documenting this trade and, consequently, proving the Greek presence in Brittany and Cornwall is Diodorus Siculus, who, supposedly reporting Pytheas’ eyewitness accounts (c. 325 BCE), described the traffic in tin from the island of Ictis—which some identify as St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall—to Bordeaux (Diodorus 5.22; Cary 1924: 174; Hudson 2012: 2). Besides navigational difficulties on the agitated waters of the ocean, a significant obstacle to the Greek Atlantic tin trade was the monopoly of the Carthaginians, who repeatedly blocked the passage at the Strait of Gibraltar. But as soon as Rome besieged Carthage, this route was re-opened by “Italian” navigators, “most of whom probably were Italiote Greeks, and it is likely that these participated in the overseas traffic to the Atlantic so long as this traffic lasted” (Cary 1924: 179). Around the third century BCE, “a Greek trade network linked both the eastern and the western Mediterranean with the North Atlantic” (Ruiz 2014: 413)—a network with the potential to connect Alexandria in Egypt to the sandy shores and mainland mines of Cornwall. The Romans were not such fierce merchants as the Greeks, but they were eventually their successors to the Atlantic–Mediterranean trade. However, they rarely attempted to explore the Atlantic further. They were quite conscious of the limits of their naval technique and ships; so much so that Cesar borrowed vessels from allied Gauls, the Pictones, and Santones (De bello Gallico 3.11)6 in order to fight against the Gallic tribe of the Veneti, whose naval engineering he clearly considered superior (ibid 3.8).7 Despite Roman political and military dominance in the Atlantic region, stretching from the Iberian and the Gallic Atlantic coasts to Britain, Roman sailing on the ocean was limited to coastal navigation. “Even something as trivial as the passage across the Irish Sea,” as Benjamin Hudson writes,

“Navegar ver ponente”

21

“seems to have given them pause, although the arrival of an Irish prince in Britain together with finds of Roman goods in Ireland show that someone was sailing between the islands” (Hudson 2012: 3). However, the Romans never really improved their nautical skills, but rather concentrated their efforts on sustaining and developing Atlantic trade within the given boundaries of the empire without seriously pushing into the Irish Sea or into the North Atlantic. “Though victorious across the rest of the globe,” writes James R. Romm, “[the] Romans are continually denied access to the waters of the North Sea and the North Atlantic” (1992: 145). This brought two somewhat antithetical consequences. On the one hand, innumerable new geographic data about the islands and the coasts of the Roman Atlantic world were flowing to Rome and Alexandria, where historians and cosmographers translated them into the imperial master code, as the works of Pomponious Mela, Pliny the Elder, Tacitus, Ptolemy, and Rufius Festus Avienus testify. On the other hand, the Atlantic, as a geographic notion, increasingly became the matrix for poetic imageries—like the famous escapist visions in Horace’s Epode 168—and for geographical speculation about fabulous islands, like Thule and the Fortunate Isles. Moreover, the Atlantic Ocean became a metaphor for vastness, uncertainty, and disorientation that served, from Cicero to the fifth-century poet Claudian, as “a standard cliché of the immeasurable” for the spatial imagination of the Mediterranean peoples (Hudson 2012: 4). In summary, Rome’s maritime hegemony always remained centered, culturally and technologically, on the Mediterranean. The North Atlantic world started to change considerably with the implosion of the Western Roman Empire and the evangelization of Ireland. While Rome was losing its authority over Atlantic trade, in the year 431 CE Pope Celestine I sent a deacon from Gaul, Palladius, to preach among the Irish (so preceding Ireland’s patron saint Patrick). With the Christianization and Romanization of Ireland, a process was set in motion that, within only a few decades, would have radically changed the face of the North Atlantic archipelago. The increasing traffic on the western sea-routes at the close of the Imperial age materially assisted the propagation of Latin influences. The Irish curach which had for so long carried sword and fire to the coastlands of Roman Britain was destined, in the early medieval era, to bear the light of the Faith to the distant heathen lands of the west and the north. In the end, Irish monks and hermits carried the religion and letters of Rome to far, unknown regions where the Eagles had never penetrated. They set up Christian symbols and recited the Christian prayers in the furthermost isles of the Hebrides. During the eighth century, at the latest, the Latin tongue was heard amid the mists and loneliness of the Faroe Islands and in the hermit settlements along the southeast coast of Iceland. Marcus 1980: 8–9

22 “Navegar ver ponente” It was the Irish curach or coracle then—a hide-covered watercraft with a single mast and a square sail—and not the apparently mightier Roman galley that enabled the Latin world (and the Latin word too!) to expand to the farthest islands of the North Atlantic and to reach even the coasts of Iceland. Paradoxically, the Latin world and the values of Rome spread across the North Atlantic only after the Western Roman Empire had fallen apart. The “large sea-going curach” used in Atlantic pilgrimages and described in Andomnán’s Vita S. Columbae (ibid.: 9) is also the type of boat that Brendan builds and uses for his Atlantic journey. In the fourth chapter of the Navigatio Sancti Brendani we find a very detailed description of the curach, probably one of the best descriptions of this watercraft from the early Middle Ages. Sanctus Brendanus (et qui) cum eo erant acceptis ferramentis fecerunt unam naviculam (levissimam costatam et columnatam) ex silva sicut mos est in illis partibus et cooperuerunt illam coriis bovinis (atque rubricatis in cortice) ruborino. Et linierunt foras omnes juncturas pellium ex butyro (et miserunt duas alias) paraturas navis de aliis coriis intus in navim et dispendia XL dierum et butyrum ad pelles preparandas ad cooperimentum navis et cetera utensilia quae ad usum vitae humanae pertinent. Arborem quoque posuerunt in medio navis fixum et velum et cetera quae ad gubernationem navis pertinent. Sanctus autem Brendanus fratribus suis precepit in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti intrare in navim. Selmer 1959: 10 Saint Brendan and those with him got iron tools and constructed a light boat ribbed with wood and with a wooden frame, as is usual in those parts. They covered it in ox-hides tanned with the bark of oak and smeared all the joints of the hides on the outside with fat. They carried into the boat hides for the makings of two other boats, supplies for forty days, fat for preparing hides to cover the boat and other things needed for human life. They also placed a mast in the middle of the boat and a sail and the other requirements for steering a boat. Then Saint Brendan ordered his brothers in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to enter the boat. O’Meara and Wooding 2005: 26 Depicted as a new Noah building his ark, with the help of his companions Brendan fabricates the navigation device for his peregrinatio. The size of the watercraft, the mast (arbor) in the middle and the sail (velum) indicate that Brendan’s currach is conceived for an open-sea passage, an oceanic journey. The realistic and precise description of Brendan’s naval carpentry confirms both that the author wants the reader to believe in Brendan’s sea journey and that the sea crossed by the seafaring saint is to be identified with the dangerous, unexplored North Atlantic.

“Navegar ver ponente”

23

Now, asking if the anonymous author of the Navigatio recounts an actual journey or a fictional one, as many scholars9 have tried to prove (Mackley 2008: 53–5), is a tricky question for two reasons: first of all, there is no historical or archaeological record that can substantiate whatever answer we give; second, the Navigatio should be considered as a fiction—and therefore transcendentally unmappable (Stockhammer 2013: 128). Fiction “is by definition unmappable—even if it produces the fictional effect of internal mappability”—as in the case of Faulkner’s or Tolkien’s fictional but coherent topographies—“and even if it produces the fictional effect of referential mappability”—as in the case of Joyce’s Ulysses (ibid.). As a hagiographical text—that is, as an “exalted discourse” that narrates the life of a saint (Coon 2001: 5)—the Navigatio is indisputably fiction, a kind of devotional, sacred literature. As an example, let us take one of the most apparently “mappable” Atlantic features of the Navigatio: the “mare […] quasi coagulatum,” the coagulated sea. Following Stockhammer (2013), this feature creates not merely the effect of “internal mappability” within the constructed world of the Navigatio but also the effect of the “referential mappability,” since it charts both the northern limits of Brendan’s journey and the frozen margins of the Atlantic Ocean, suggesting, metonymically, the Arctic ice pack. Moreover, the formulation “mare […] quasi coagulatum” hints at sources that span from Virgil all the way to Dicuil, an Irish monk and geographer who was born in the second half of the eighth century and authored the Liber de mensura orbis terrae (c. 825), demonstrating the sophisticated and up-to-date geographical knowledge at the base of the Navigatio (Iannello 2013: 212–13). Nevertheless, this geographical record cannot be charted. This is not because the text fails to deliver valuable locating coordinates and not because we cannot retrace the extension of the Arctic ice pack in the early Middle Ages. Rather, the “mare […] quasi coagulatum” is not the setting of a fictive story,10 it is fiction itself, a place that exists, like every literary place, only in the order of fiction, a place that lies beyond the concept of reality as the word “quasi” (“resembling,” “as if”) already suggests (Makley 2008: 155). In this particular case, the frozen sea is an allegorical representation of an obstacle that the pilgrim must overcome in order to advance in his cathartic journey. The constitutive, transcendental unmappability of literature nullifies then the question of whether Brendan’s journey “really” took place or which places are “really” meant. It does not, however, invalidate the question about its textual properties or implications concerning the spatial imagination displayed by the Navigatio. Quite the contrary: it makes the spatial, geographical, geo-poetical investigation even more interesting and urgent. In fact, notwithstanding its unmappability or perhaps precisely for this reason, literature performs spaces, constituting imaginative geographies and cartographic discourses. In this sense, while it is true that the order of fiction cannot be fixed on a map, it is also true that fiction itself can be highly cartographical, serving as a matrix for geographical and cartographic imaginations or

24 “Navegar ver ponente” negotiating transmedially between the medium of the map and the medium of writing, as I will explain further in the following chapters.11 The geopoetics of the Navigatio gives rise to a spatial imagination in which the margins of the known world are striated by means of altars, crosses, rituals, and the Latin language carried by the Irish monks. Brendan’s Atlantic archipelago is thus the translation of the North Atlantic into the master code of the Latin Christian world.

The Venetian translation Translating the biblical topos of the desert as a place of religious orientation into an oceanic and monastic imagery transforms a whole region formerly forgotten by God—the extended Atlantic archipelago that reaches from Scotland to Iceland—into a significant and deeply marked geography, a region of revelation and salvation. For the first time in the history of Christendom, the geopoetics of redemption are shifted westwards. Completely bypassing the troubled concept of Rome, the Navigatio thereby instigates the relocation of the Earthly Paradise and its imagery from the East, where both had been located since their inception, into the Atlantic West. At the culmination of the Navigatio, the finding of the Earthly Paradise, the Venetian translation — or, as we formulated it above, the Venetian counter-translation—offers something surprising: a very extensive interpolation, more prominent than other additions we know from the medieval praxis of translation.12 While the Navigatio dedicates just two short chapters to the scenes of the encounter with the Promised Land of the Saints and the sojourn of the monks there, the Navigazione di San Brandano offers impressively detailed descriptions and adds numerous newly created scenes. With just a few laconic strokes, the anonymous compiler of the Navigatio describes the marvels and the beauty of the Earthly Paradise as follows: Porro ascendentibus de naui, uiderunt terram spaciosam ac plenam arboribus pomiferis sicut in tempore autumnali. Cum autem circuissent illam terram, nihil affuit illis nox. Accipiebant tantum de pomis (quantum uolebant) et de fontibus bibebant, et ita per quadraginta dies perlustrabant totam terram et non poterant finem illius inuenire. Quadam uero die inuenerunt flumen magnum uergentem per medium insule. Tunc sanctus Brendanus fratribus suis ait: “Istud flumen non possumus transire et ignoramus magnitudinem terre illius.” Selmer 1959: 79 On disembarking from the boat they saw a wide land full of trees bearing fruit as in autumn time. When they had gone in a circle around that land, night had still not come on them. They took what fruit they wanted and drank from the wells and so for the space of forty days they reconnoitered the whole land and could not find the end of it. But one

“Navegar ver ponente”

25

day they came upon a great river flowing through the middle of the island. Then Saint Brendan said to his brothers: “We cannot cross this river and we do not know the size of this land.” O’Meara and Wooding 2005: 63 Those are the few features of the long-yearned-for Paradise that we get to know through the Navigatio. But this brevity and concision should not surprise us because the religious reader of the Latin text did not need much more. It was sufficient for him to know that this place exists, that this marvelous outpost of the celestial Paradise can truly be reached—if you are pious enough. Therefore, finding and reaching the island were the crucial events for the monk who wrote it; what it looked like—its actual appearance—was superfluous. For the Venetian audience, in contrast, such a succinct description would have been boring, incomprehensible, and unworthy of reading. Those minimalistic brushstrokes were insufficient. Therefore, the Venetian translator dedicates almost one-fifth of his traduzione to the Paradise Island. His interpolations are not just the result of stylistic exigencies—as in the case of vernacular translators who utilized an ornatus difficils in order to elevate something facilis—rather, they are consistent insertions which are not even hinted at in the Navigatio. The praxis of interpolation was not an exception within medieval vernacular translations, so-called volgarizzamenti, but the norm—at least until the fifteenth century. It was only then that a new philological policy of adherence to the “original” gained ground, supported by the flourishing of Latin humanism and the first modern texts to theorize on translation, such as Leonardo Bruni’s groundbreaking essay De interpretatione recta (1424) (see Folena 1991). As Alison Cornish points out, since vernacular translations “function like commentary, they are liable to accretion, reduction and reuse”; and since “their aim is clarity rather than fidelity, they often abbreviate, interpolate and, by following more than one example, contaminate” (Cornish 2011: 6). In fact, in the majority of cases, as in our Venetian example, the vernacular translator between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, was an anonymous agent who assumed “the multiple roles of glossator, exegete, and mythographer” (Copeland 1991: 101). Consequently, just like the figure of the “translator,” the medieval notion of “translation” was, as Folena (1991) has brilliantly shown and many after him have repeated, also far from being homogeneous. That said, it is my opinion that we can gain more clarity on the issue by following Rita Copeland’s rhetorical approach. She distinguishes two forms of vernacular translation. The first one—which she calls “primary” — “orients its practice towards a self-sufficient or independent discourse,” articulating “its motive in terms of exegetical and perhaps didactic service” and “using the original as a model against which to discover and define new textual idioms” (Copeland 1991: 94). As an example of this “primary” form, Copeland analyzes the translation of Martianus Cappella into Old German by Notker the German (St Gall, from the mid-tenth century to 1022). In the “secondary”

26 “Navegar ver ponente” or “later” form of vernacular translation, which “typically instantiates itself as a product of the primary type of translation,” “the rhetorical motive takes precedence so that the translations tend to define themselves as independent textual productions” (ibid.: 94). To exemplify this second type of vernacular translation, Copeland looks at texts from the English historical canon such as Chaucer’s Legend of the Good Women and Gower’s Confessio amantis. Copeland’s distinction is neither a hierarchical scheme nor a rigid structuralist binarism. As she rightly remarks, the two models of vernacular translation represent “poles at either extreme of a continuum.” For this reason, she avoids the terms “exegetical” and “rhetorical” to define the different types of vernacular translation, “for such a designation would be misleading.” The models Copeland proposes “differ only in the way that they direct their emphasis” (ibid.: 95). My point is that the Venetian translation of the Navigatio Sancti Brendani directs “its emphasis” towards what Copeland calls “rhetorical invention” (ibid.: 179), and thus belongs to the secondary form of vernacular translation. The translator did not merely operate a rhetorical exercitatio to test the limits of his vernacular or augment the possibilities of a new literary language, but produced a “hermeneutical performance on a traditional textual source” (ibid.), which, translating the Atlantic, west-oriented geopoetics of the Navigatio into an east-oriented geopoetics, displaced and twisted the “original” in order to create a familiar “newness.” In this way, the alternative maritime legend of St Brendan resulting from the “hermeneutical performance” provided by the translator was able to reinforce the east-oriented geographical imagination of its Venetian audience. After a period of expansion and growth, Venice experienced a time of uncertainty and stagnation in the fourteenth century. Challenged by Bologna and Ancona in the Adriatic, shaken by the rebellion of the Dalmatian port of Zara, weakened by “food shortages and a constricting economy” at home and, most importantly, threatened once again by Genoa with respect to commerce in the East, Venice’s claim to dominance in the eastern Mediterranean was wavering (Pincus 2000: 90). In such a socio-political context, it seems to me plausible to argue that rather than “exegetically” serving the source (as, according to Copeland, the “primary” form of vernacular translation mostly does), the east-oriented geopoetics of the Venetian translation operates performatively for its audience in order to reinvigorate the traditional geographical and maritime orientation of the community. In this sense, the traduzione of the Brendan legend is an exemplary case of the “translation of geographies,” since the politics of translation that it displays depends mostly on geopoetic features that are offered in the various interpolations. Let us now look more closely at some of these accretions. In chapters 39–42, the traduzione offers astonishing new scenes, such as the encounter with the prophets Elias and Enoch (ch. 39), the finding of a forest with golden apple trees and birds singing praises (ch. 40), a flame-column in the shape of a stairway to heaven (ch. 41), and finally

“Navegar ver ponente”

27

a highly symbolic chapter on the seven fountains (ch. 42) spouting seven different liquids: Eli trovà sete fontane, l’una a pruovo l’altra e l’una tocava l’altra senza riva de tera de mezo da l’una a l’altra. Ziascuna menava uno rielo ben grande: l’una s’iera d’aqua clarisima plu de cristalo, la segonda de vin, la terza de late, la quarta de sague, la quinta de mana meza e l’altra mitade de balsemo, la sesta de oio bon e claro, la setima de miel. Grignani 1975: 250 They came upon seven springs, one next to the other, without any bank of dry land between them. From each flowed a great river: the first was of water, [clearer than] crystal; the second was of wine; the third of milk; the fourth of blood; the fifth was half of manna and half of balsam; the sixth was of [good and clear] oil; and the seventh was of honey. Davie 2005: 22513 Generally speaking, the Venetian version expands the narration with other sources, like the Books of Enoch (most cherished by the apocalyptic medieval tradition) and treatises on the magical virtues of the stones (see Grignani 1975: 23, and Mackley 2008: 183–5). In particular, it embellishes the paradise visited by St Brendan with fabulous and pleasant vegetation made of hypertrophic flowers (for example roses as big as pans), wonderfully aromatic herbs and bountiful plants—some of them even laden with gold, silver, and precious stones: Et adeso nu’ andasemo apreso lo bosco, e là iera albori cargadi de piere preziose, con foie d’arziento e con foie d’oro e de geme a li rami, e pareva ch’eli brasase da l’altro ladi e vegniva ’nde a lo naso uno odor sì soave, che quasio nu’ strangusi(a)vemo, e parevano sì como (de) inzenso e aloe e muscio e balsemo e de anbra e de ’osmarin e de savina e de ruose e como oldor de ziasemin; e per questa cusì gran flama e non vedevemo fumo. Nu’ andasemo da quelo ladi o’ pareva la flama, e nu’ non trovasemo per zo altro se no li albori. Grignani 1975: 244 Then we came closer to the wood, and there we found trees laden with precious stones, with leaves of silver and gold, and with gemstones on their branches. The other side of the trees seemed to be burning, and there came to our nostrils a fragrance so sweet that we almost fainted; it was like incense, aloes, musk, balsam, amber, rosemary, savin and roses, and like the scent of jasmine. But for all the flames we could not see any smoke. We went round to the side where the flames appeared to be, but we saw nothing but trees. Davie 2005: 223

28 “Navegar ver ponente” And according to this almost unlimited amplificatio, the fauna does not lack its own mirabilia either: the traveling monks are astonished by giant prawns14 as big as human beings and by innumerable other weird animals that run, dance, jump, or even sing all around the island: sì viti ganbari grandi como omeni; sì viti animali molti stranii da veder e de diverse figure, et altre da do piè et altre da tre et altre da quatro, in per infina XII piè, altri aveva uno cavo et altri do et altri tre e cusì in per infìna XII; de questi, altri aveva man, altri ale, e altri con pene e altri con sede, altri con pelo, altri con scorzo duro; e de questi, altri aveva corne forzelade, altre cresta, altre barba; altre uno ochio, altre do, altre tre infina XII ochi; e de queste, altre cantava e altre balava, altre andava, altre saltava e altre coreva. Grignani 1975: 232 [I saw prawns] the size of a human being. There were strange creatures of all shapes and sizes; some had two feet, some three or four or as many as twelve; some one head, others two or three, and so on up to twelve; some of them had hands and other wings, some had feathers and others bristles, some fur, other skin, yet others a hard shell. Of these some had forked horns, others crests, others beards; some had one eye, others two or three, and so on up to twelve. Some of them sang, others danced; some walked, others jumped or ran. Davie 2005: 22015 These interpolations, which emphasize the supernatural and stupendous appearance of the island, are a powerful strategic rewriting of the Latin text, and I propose reading them as the geopoetic clues, the traces, of a translation of geographies. Overall, the Venetian readers of the vernacular version were not merely presented with a seductive image of Earthly Paradise, they received the level of amplification they needed in order to be capable of hearing and understanding the voyage of St Brendan. I use the oxymoron “familiar newness” to describe this. The Navigazione di San Brandano is thus a perfect example—as much as the Navigatio itself—of the negotiation of differences between and across world constructions. This translation of the Hiberno-Latin, written for and within the monastic community of the tenth century, into the colorful, dynamic and mercantile Venetian of the fourteenth century16 not only operated as a negotiation between languages, but also staged a geographical performance. The Navigatio had to become, if not completely laical, at least a little worldlier. This does not mean it had to be more “realistic” or “naturalistic”—these are evidently modern categories—but it had to underline the marvelous features, the meraviglioso, in accordance with the aesthetic demands of the society it was written for. It had to be filled with fancies of herbs and spices, with the taste of the unseen and unheard; in sum, it had to acquire the features of

“Navegar ver ponente”

29

an east-oriented geopoetics, the ingredients of the Venetian imagination. “Reading the text,” as Mark Davie rightly states in his brief introduction to the English version of the Venetian traduzione, “one is repeatedly reminded of the most famous of all Venetian travelers’ tales, Marco Polo’s Divisament dou monde” (Davie 2005: 163). But the traduzione does not just echo the tales of the famous Venetian traveler; it recompiles and rewrites, within the frames of devotional rhetoric, the exotic and hyperbolic features of the oral narratives that populated the houses and streets of medieval Venice. Moreover, the Venetian translation can also be considered a negotiation between the highly intellectual quaestio of whether the Earthly Paradise should be located at the eastern antipode of the known world or on the equatorial line (or even further south; see Hiatt 2008: 117–34)—which was certainly a lively and topical discussion at the beginning of the fourteenth century, though not accessible to everybody—and the Venetian audience’s mercantile curiosity, nautical expertise and familiarity with the East. As the historian Deborah Howard points out, for Venetians between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries “the symbiosis with the East was the raison d’être of the city’s existence. […] Every traveler’s tale contributed to the city’s shared experience of the East, creating a mosaic of evocative memories of distant lands” (Howard 2007: 70).17 Thus, the Promised Land of the Saints, the Earthly Paradise of the Venetian Brandano, had to retain some Orient in its generalities in order to be palatable and familiar to its audience—and ultimately to reinvigorate the east-oriented geographical imagination of a collectivity. This eminently geopoetic translation of the Navigatio re-actualizes the sacred island, translating it back into the East. The cultural translation of the East into the West, predicated by the Brendan legend, has therefore once more undergone a process of de- and reterritorialization. We find one last and probably most patent clue to this geopoetic translation at the very end of the Venetian version, where, in direct contrast to the nautical data provided by the Navigatio, Brendan and his monks sail westwards to go back home: Et eli cusì fe, et abiando questo fato, eli domandà conbiado a lo procurador che iera là con eli e sì montà su la so nave con li suo’ frari et in lo nome de Iesù Cristo comenzà a navegar ver ponente Grignani 1975: 263–4 Then he took leave of the Steward who was with them, and embarked in the boat with his brethren, and set out in the name of Jesus Christ, sailing towards the west. Davie 2005: 229 The indication “towards the west,” “ver ponente,” is a clear interpolation by the translator, since no correspondence can be found in the Latin version. With this nautical information, the translator reveals the imagined

30 “Navegar ver ponente” geography that he had in mind. The brethren had not sailed westwards to reach Paradise, the Promised Land of the Saints, as the monks of the Navigatio explicitly do, but had instead sailed eastwards. The Venetian version thus translates the West of the Navigatio back into the imagined, fabulous East of its Mediterranean audience. Moreover, this radical change of orientation cannot be simply qualified as an oversight by the translator due to the instinctive, customary ascription of Paradise to the eastern cardinal point. In fact, the translator coherently locates the “tera de promision de li santi,” the Promised Land of the Saints, in the East from the very beginning, even in Barrind’s introductory tale—the tale that inspired Brendan’s voyage in the first place. E nui cercasemo tuta la isola et io vini a tanto che questo mio fiolo me menà a lo lido de lo mar contra ozidente o’ iera la nave soa e dise a mi: “O pare mio, monté in nave e navegemo inver levante, a ziò che nui posemo andar a quella isola là, che vien dito tera de promision de li santi, la qual devemo dar a li nostri suzesori driedo nui.” Grignani 1975: 36, my emphasis

We traveled over the whole island until my son took me to the western seashore, where his boat was, and he said to me: “My father, go aboard the boat and let us sail towards the east, that we may go to the island which is called the Promised Land of the Saints, which God will give to those who will come after us.” Davie 2005: 165, my emphasis Even more explicitly than in the previous example, this passage decidedly inverts the cardinal points, translating the Latin sentence “navigemus contra occidentalem plagam ad insulam quae dicitur terra repromissionis sanctorum” (Selmer 1959: 3, my emphasis)—“let us sail westwards to the island which is called the Promised Land of the Saints” (O’Meara and Wooding 2005: 26)— with “let us sail towards the east.” We can therefore state that congruently, the Navigazione structures the orientation of Brendan’s maritime peregrinatio as a west to east route, translating the West of the Navigatio back into the imagined, fabulous East of its Mediterranean audience. Furthermore, since to the Venetians of the fourteenth century the East was much more than a stimulus to delightful fancies, namely the principal direction of their trade routes, we can therefore also recognize in the geopoetics of the Venetian traduzione the clues to a geopolitical raison d’être, the politics of translation. The west to east route of the Navigazione establishes nothing less than an ideological parallel with the west to east trade of Venice. As we have seen, the Venetian translation of the Navigatio Sancti Brendani should be regarded as a counter-translation of geographies. It is a translation of highly symbolic cardinal points, of identity-building directions, the

“Navegar ver ponente”

31

translation of the west-oriented geopoetics of the Navigatio into the eastoriented geopoetics of the Venetian koiné. In fact, since the Navigatio is per se a translation of geographies, namely the translation of the Mediterranean, anchoritic practice and east-oriented geopoetics of salvation into the Atlantic, Irish geopoetics of redemption, the Venetian translation is a countertranslation of geographies. Furthermore, the Venetian translation does not simply mirror the situational context from which it hails. It performs a translation of geographies—the translation of the Navigatio’s westwardness into a renewed yearning for the East—that strengthens and reassures a collective geographical imagery, helping “the mind [here: of the Venetian audience] to intensify its own sense of itself” (Said 2003: 55). This translational performance of reterritorialization produces and stages the East as a decisive ingredient for a particular construction of identity. In this sense, translating geographies, beyond any ethical positioning, is indeed a performative negotiation of cultural differences across world constructions.

2

Translating the map Carticity and transmediation in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso

Somewhere in the middle of the epic poem Orlando Furioso, Ariosto describes the journey of the Christian Paladin Astolfo as follows: e girato da l’India all’Inghilterra tutto avea il lato destro della terra. (XXII, 24)1 And had from Ind to England rounded all The right-hand side of the terrestrial ball.2 At first sight, these two verses seem completely understandable and somehow unspectacular. But if we take a closer look, some questions do arise. First, in which sense can you round “the right-hand side” of the earth? Second, from which perspective is it possible to locate India on the righthand side of the globe and ascribe England to the left-hand side? And finally, where does the left begin at all? Even if we did not know that Ariosto meticulously constructed the world of the Furioso by negotiating his narrative using the cartographical knowledge of his time, and in particular two world maps, the Universalis cosmographia (1507) of Martin Waldseemüller and the oval planisphere (1507–8) of Francesco Rosselli (we will return to this point later), we would intuitively suppose that a two-dimensional projection of the earth, that is a map, must lie at the base of a statement such as “the right-hand side of the terrestrial ball.” In order to understand this sentence, we have to think cartographically. Astolfo moves from right to left in order to reach England as if tracing it with his finger on a map; but not on just any map. Astolfo is circulating on a north-oriented map. Today we are used to looking at north-oriented maps. But at that time, in Ariosto’s times, this kind of geographical orientation was not yet selfevident. Until at least the middle of the fourteenth century, world maps were conventionally orientated towards the east, following the spatial pattern established in the seventh century by Isidore of Seville by means of his famed TO-map, with the east at the top. This was, so to speak, a true “etymological” orient-ation. Only after the rediscovery of Claudius Ptolemy’s Geography at the beginning of the fifteenth century and the subsequent

Translating the map

33

production of maps that followed the Alexandrine scholar’s north-oriented projection scheme was this east-orientation abandoned relatively quickly; and with it also the archaic solar mythology. However, the most famous and most detailed world map of the fifteenth century was Fra Mauro’s mappamundi, which displays a singular, fascinating south orientation. And this was probably also the map which Ariosto’s most important predecessor, the poet Boiardo, had in mind when he wrote his unfinished masterwork Orlando Innamorato (1493–5), of which the Furioso may be considered the continuation.3 So, why did I begin with this fragment from the Orlando Furioso? Because these Ariostian verses ultimately suggest a complex typology of writing that we can define as cartographic writing. In the verse “the right-hand side of the terrestrial ball,” we not only observe how literature transforms the spatial thinking and spatial practices of an epoch, but also how poetic language incorporates the diverse structures and functions of the cartographic projection by translating them into the medium of writing, a process that I term transmediation. An important issue that we must outline when we talk about transmediation and, in particular, about the translation process between maps and literature, is that we are dealing with a nuanced phenomenon that is not easy to delineate. Rather than a translation, we are facing a chain of different and interwoven translations. This is because cartography itself, and especially early modern cartography, is arguably the product of a powerful translation process. Renaissance maps translated the reports of travelers and sailors written in different European vernaculars (especially Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) into more or less congruent semiotic systems made up of a determined language (in most cases Latin), numbers, icons, and geometric constructions. A common trait shared by these maps is the source upon which they were based—the Geography of Claudius Ptolemy, a Hellenistic atlas, gazetteer, and treatise on cartography. They were all somehow actualized versions of Ptolemy’s Geography, written by the Alexandrine scholar in the mid-second century, inherited by Islamic cartographers in the ninth century, and rediscovered by the Byzantine scholar Maximus Planudes in only 1295 (Dilke 1987: 59).4 But what is of most interest for us is the role played by translation in this context. It was namely a translation from Greek into Latin that allowed the enormous success of Ptolemy’s Geography during the Renaissance. In fact, a copy of Ptolemy’s Γεωγραφικη` ‘Yφήγησις made its way in the Latin West into the hands of the émigré Byzantine scholar Manuel Chrysoloras, who began translating it into Latin, a task completed (1406– 9) after his death by the Italian humanist Jacopo d’Angelo da Scarperia (Roberts 2013: 22–3; Gautier Dalché 2009), also known as Jacopo Angeli or by his Latin name Jacobus Angelus. Since then, Ptolemy’s Geography5 lies more or less implicitly behind every modern Western map, not least because of its gridlines of longitude and latitude—which Ptolemy not only invented and placed on the map, but employed for the whole planet—and its northoriented projection (Gautier Dalché 2007; Stockhammer 2007: 16).

34 Translating the map The astonishingly rapid advancements in the field of cartography between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were the consequence of a complex transcultural and translational process (Cosgrove 2001: 95–6) that stretched from the Latin translation and cultural appropriation of Ptolemy in humanist Italy to the first empirical world map of history, the padrón real (1527) by Diogo Ribeiro (also known by the Spanish version of his name as Diego Ribero), a Portuguese cartographer who mainly worked for the Spanish crown at the Casa de Contratación de Indias (Vigneras 1962; Sandman 2007).6 The Spanish, more than any other nation, very quickly recognized that maps were a multifarious power device. For good reason, just a few years after Columbus’s first transatlantic trip, the Spanish crown founded the Casa de Contratación de Indias in Seville, the first “cartographic institute,” so to speak, of world history. The main purpose of this institution was not only to organize and reproduce the valuable geographical knowledge that was flowing in from the oceanic expeditions undertaken by Spanish vessels,7 but also to filter and regulate it politically and economically, keeping it secret from maritime competitors for as long as possible (Acosta Rodríguez et al. 2003; Siegert 2006). The cartographic, nautical departments of the Casa de Contratación were thus something like the NASA of their time, the technocratic center of the Renaissance. And its stewards, its pilotos mayores, were navigators and cartographers as famed as Amerigo Vespucci and Sebastiano Caboto. As Sandman explains, “[a]ll of the information included on charts” made at the Casa de Contratación “came ultimately from voyages” (2007: 1101), specifically: The pilots on voyages of exploration kept logs, made and annotated charts, and eventually reported back to officials at the Casa de la Contratación and to cosmographers in Seville. The information from explorers was supplemented by reports from pilots aboard the merchant and armada ships, compiled in the hope that repeated voyages to the same places would help determine their exact locations. In the long term, this approach was successful, and charts in general had fewer errors as the century went on. However, the use of information from pilots was not as straightforward as people would have liked, especially when the available reports contradicted one another, and in the short term it gave rise to many controversies. Sandman 2007: 1101 However, regardless of its accuracy, a map was and remains a two-dimensional translation of a more or less faithful flow of information into a “papery index” (Stockhammer 2007: 51–2; Italiano 2015). In this sense, cartography does not simply represent the earth—it invents it. Maps structure and construct the way we imagine the world (Wood and Fels 1992: 17–22). They shape our image of the world, so much so that we can state that the territory is a map of itself, but not vice versa. As the

Translating the map

35

Polish-American philosopher and mathematician Alfred Korzybski put it, “the map is not the territory” (1933: 750), which means that the abstract depiction of an experienced object is not the thing itself and, consequently, confusing a map (i.e. a model of reality) with the actual territory would be misguiding. In fact, territories are produced by maps. As Pickles puts it: Cartographic institutions and practices have coded, decoded and recoded planetary, national and social spaces. They have literally and figuratively over-coded and overdetermined the worlds in which we live. They have respaced the geo-body. Maps and mappings precede the territory they “represent” […] [T]erritories are produced by the overlaying of inscriptions we call mappings. Pickles 2004: 5 This applies to both ancient and medieval maps of course, but it also applies to modern cartography. However, the crucial difference that distinguishes the (early) modern map from the ancient and medieval one is not that a previously inaccurate or religiously conceived representation of space has now become more accurate but that a continuous and coherent indexical relation between map and territory has now been established (Dünne 2008: 57). This is also the reason why early modern maps are not only products in which you have to believe but also objects with which you can perform something, do things. The cartography of the early modern period was effective as a colonial device to such an extent precisely because it animated the individuals practicing it to imagine further and enabled their virtual movement through geographic space (ibid.: 61–2).8 Early modern cartography was, therefore, a paradigmatic world construction that stimulated the imagination and summoned to performance. Back then mapping was—but somehow still is9—a performative negotiation between fictions and difficult measurements, between fragmentary reports and millennial representations of the earth, between contingent mercantile needs and cemented cosmographies. In short, early modern cartography was the geometric, indexical and iconic recodification of an imperial and expansionist geographical imagination.

Carticity and transmediation Just as Renaissance cartography may be considered as a complex form of translation from written reports, logbooks and oral narratives into maps, so can the Orlando Furioso (or at least some important passages of it) be described as a translation from maps into writing. In particular, I refer here to two famous journeys around the world taken by the Ariostian knights Ruggiero and Astolfo.10 That the Universalis cosmographia (1507) by Martin Waldseemüller and, in part, the oval map of the world (1507–8) by Francesco Rosselli doubtless constitute the basis for these episodes of

36 Translating the map the Furioso has already been shown with great precision and convincing “philologie géographique” by Alexandre Doroszlaï in his 1998 study Ptolémée et l’hippogriffe (Doroszlaï 1998). Doroszlaï’s aim was to show whether any, and if so which, maps were available to the Furioso as a “source encyclopédique” for “la grande diversité des parcours imaginés” (Doroszlaï 1998: 10) or great diversity of the imagined itineraries. This meticulous “épreuve des cartes” (proof of the maps) yielded the positive result that Ariosto did indeed know of the cartographic works of Waldseemüller and Rosselli, and he used them as the “source” for his narration (Doroszlaï 1998: 181–3). This result also confirms how exact and up-to-date Ariosto’s handling of the geographical knowledge of the time was; so much so that his epic can justifiably be defined as a literary inventory of the globe, a gazetteer of the planet earth.11 While building on Doroszlaï’s geographical philology (1998), my research questions tend in another direction. Is Ariosto’s use of the map a simple, albeit original and philologically significant revaluation of a source; that is, an intertextual problem? Or, is the map not rather a system for linking together signs reconfigured and translated by Ariosto in his text? The Furioso—and here is my main thesis—points towards a process of translation in which the narration not only incorporates or adapts various cartographical elements but also transmediates them. Drawing on Lars Elleström’s broad definition of the “complex transmediation of media products” (2014: 24–7), by the term transmediation I mean a process of transfer between media by which the semiotic and medial traces of the transmediated medium are not merely relics, lacking in significance or value per se, but rather the essential features of the process (Italiano 2015: 255–6), as we shall see in the following pages. In the exordium of the last canto, when the global travels of the cavalieri have come to an end and the mist of wonder is dispelled, and just before the long-awaited marriage of Ruggiero and Bradamante, Ariosto introduces an apparently conventional metaphor, very in vogue during the Middle Ages, namely the nautical metaphor. Covering the entire octave, the metaphor presents the topos of the neighboring harbor and of the sailor who finally reaches the shore and, hence, the end of his journey. Or, se mi mostra la mia carta il vero, non è lontano a discoprirsi il porto; sì che nel lito i voti scioglier spero a chi nel mar per tanta via m’ha scorto ove, o di non tornar col legno intero, o d’errar sempre, ebbi già il viso smorto. Ma mi par di veder, ma veggo certo, veggo la terra, e veggo il lito aperto. (XLVI, 1)

Translating the map

37

I, if my chart deceives me not, shall now / In little time behold the neighboring shore; / So hope withal to pay my promised vow / To one, so long my guide through that wide roar / Of waters, where I feared, with troubled brow, / To scathe my bark or wander evermore. / But now, methinks — yea, now I see the land; / I see the friendly port its arms expand. In this Ariostian variatio, the nautical metaphor as a figuration of literary writing, to which Curtius and Blumenberg ascribed an eminent role within the late medieval Latinitas (Curtius 1967: 138; Blumenberg 1997), acquires a particular, unprecedented depth: the truth, writes the poet, is on the map (“la carta”) and, according to this very map, the writing, intended as a journey, is approaching its end. The way that Ariosto combines the idea of a poetic work coming to an end with the image of a navigator who reaches the harbor differs slightly but decisively from the traditional semantic repertoire of nautical metaphors: the navigator does not foresee the end of his journey by contemplating the sky or scrutinizing the horizon but by checking a nautical chart for cartographic support. The navigator studies the map and not the world around him in order to orient himself. It is highly significant that Ariosto initiates the last canto of the Furioso with such cartographic imagery for, in doing so, the entire epic poem appears retrospectively as a map reading. Moreover, this nautical metaphor, or, to put it more accurately, this metaphor of the nautical chart, functions as an eloquent trace of transmediation, of a process of translation between the medium of the map and the medium of writing. By revealing the unequivocal presence of the map in the poetic laboratory of Ariosto, this textual, rhetorical trace alerts us to the fact that we are looking at a negotiation between different media. Ariosto’s trope of the map in fact highlights a fundamental element of Orlando Furioso’s cartographic imagination, namely the “carticity” of its writing. Analogous to the term “poeticity,” the Munich-based literary scholar Robert Stockhammer speaks of the carticity of literary texts in order to illustrate writing processes that exhibit an affinity to the cartographic dispositive and its practices (2007). By “carticity of literary description” itself Stockhammer understands “its affinity or distance to cartographical processes of representation, that can have an effect on not only the setting, but also […] on the creatures to be located there” (Stockhammer 2007: 68). Central for Stockhammer is “the question of the relationship of literary texts to the map as medium: as a specific system of combining signs and as a specific form of processing knowledge” (ibid.). This refers to texts or passages that “thematise the medium of the map” and, at the same time, make “implicit or explicit statements on its relationship to its own medium of the literary text” (ibid.: 69). The affinities or detachments that a literary text develops when thematizing maps point to a process of negotiation; that is, to a performative negotiation between literary and cartographical processes (of representation). This means that texts not only may incorporate the geographic “content” of maps but rather that they can implement specific

38 Translating the map functions, medial structures and semiotic characteristics of the cartographic medium into their own linguistic form. This process ultimately creates analogies, affinities, and distances between the map and literature, displaying a performative negotiation between literary and cartographic procedures. In this sense, carticity is not an “intersemiotic translation” (Jakobson 1959: 233) such as, for example, the film adaptation of a novel or the transposition into music of L’Après-midi d’un faune by Mallarmé (Jakobson 1960: 350). Neither is it a “media representation” in the sense given to this notion by Elleström (2014: 27–35), since the characteristics of the source medium still operate in the target medium. Rather it is a transmediation as defined above, since the (phantasmic) traces of the source medium, its semiotic and structural characteristics, do not vanish or become transparent but remain perceivable and continue to work within the target medium.

Ruggiero and the hippogriff A first example of this transmediation can be found in Ruggiero’s airborne travel around the planet. A Saracen knight, loyal to the king of Africa, Agramante, Ruggiero falls in love on the battlefield with the beautiful Christian Amazon Bradamante. Although their love proves to be reciprocal, it still seems unattainable, since the two lovers are fighting for feuding armies. However, Bradamante learns from the wizard Merlin that she will eventually marry Ruggiero and that from this (somehow transcultural) marriage, the glorious royal family of the Estensi in Ferrara will arise—the powerful and sophisticated mentors of Ariosto. Despite his Muslim background, Ruggiero, as a descendant of Hector and Alexander the Great, united in himself all the necessary genealogical ingredients for the perfect realization of the so-called translatio imperii of Ferrara.12 But that is only one part of the story. A parallel prophecy said Ruggiero would find early death in battle. In order to avoid this fate, the “invisibil signor,” the powerful African magician and Ruggiero’s tutor Atlante locks his protégé in his enchanted castle on Mount Carena in Africa. After a painstaking search, Bradamante finds her fiancé and frees him from Atlante. But the amorous idyll lasts only a moment before Ruggiero unwillingly vanishes into the sky on the back of a hippogriff, a winged horse with the head and claws of a griffin, controlled remotely by Atlante himself. Poi che sì ad alto vien, ch’un picciol punto lo può stimar chi da la terra il mira, prende la via verso ove cade a punto il sol, quando col Granchio si raggira. (IV, 50)

Translating the map

39

After the hippogryph has won such height, / That he is lessened to a point, he bends / His course for where the sun, with sinking light, / When he goes round the heavenly crab, descends; Ruggiero flies westwards, transported by the hybrid beast. More precisely, he flies west–south-west, over Spain, crossing over the Pillars of Hercules and, once the hippogriff reaches the line of the “Granchio” —that is, the Tropic of Cancer—the journey goes directly westwards and continues until they reach the island of Alcina. Lasciato avea di gran spazio distante Tutta l’Europa, et era uscito fuore per molto spazio il segno che prescritto avea già a’ naviganti Ercole invitto. (VI, 17) All Europe’s region he had left behind / In his swift course; and, issuing in that part, / Passed by a mighty space, the southern sound / Where great Alcides fixed the sailor’s bound. Poi che l’augel trascorso ebbe gran spazio per linea dritta e senza mai piegarsi, con larghe ruote, omai de l’aria sazio, cominciò sopra una isola a calarsi. (VI, 19) When the huge bird his pinions long had plied, / In a straight line, without one stoop or bend, / He, tired of air, with sweeping wheel and wide, / Began upon an island to descend. Ruggiero, leaving Spain and the Pillars of Hercules behind, crosses the Atlantic and reaches the island of Alcina.13 With a great sense for spatial practice, Ariosto even estimates the mileage covered by Ruggiero in his armored flight: “senza mai posar, d’arme guernito, / tre mila miglia ognor correndo era ito” (VI, 25) (Three thousand miles, without repose, he went, / And still, at speed, in ponderous armor pent). It is obvious that with this fictive itinerary (which is only the first half Ruggiero’s journey around the globe), Ariosto is proposing a movement in space that shows many analogies with Columbus’s first Atlantic crossing. With plenty of philological detail and cartographic material, Alexandre Doroszlaï (1998) has proven irrefutably that the two routes are not only analogous but are an impressive match. Moreover, he also argues convincingly that the island of Alcina may be identified with the island of Cipangu, as Europeans called Japan in the Middle Ages and which was the unreached destination of Columbus’s enterprise (ibid.: 45–73).

40 Translating the map However, what is even more important to us is the inherent carticity that constitutes the literary description of this journey—an aspect that was not an issue at all for Doroszlaï. At an earlier point in the narrative of Ruggiero’s flight, Ariosto alerts us to the fact that we are going to experience a radical change of perspective due to the altitude gained by means of the hippogriff. After reaching a considerable height on the back of this fabulous flying device, Ruggiero can no longer distinguish where the “terren” is a plain (“pian”) and where the land rises (“dove sorge”): “di sotto rimaner vede ogni cima / et abbassarsi in guisa, che non scorge / dove è piano il terren né dove sorge” (IV, 49) (beneath his ken, / Each peak and promontory sinks in guise, / That he discerns not flat from mountain-rise). In this ingenious passage, Ariosto describes a “view from above” that flattens the three-dimensionality of the perceived world into a two-dimensional surface (Bagnoli 2003: 78). What the poet suggests here is a cartographical view of the earth that bears a strong similarity to the structural two-dimensionality of the map and enacts a perspective that is very close to that from the zenith. At first sight, the description of Ruggiero’s flight resembles the classic pattern of an itinerary. The structure of the itinerary is essentially a “phoric” (i.e. directional) one, in which the course of the text follows more or less undisturbed the direction of the journey and in which the relations between syntactic elements within the description correspond deictically to the relations in the field (Stockhammer 2007: 75). However, the main elements of this itinerary do not display only a directional nature and do not originate solely from a linguistic deixis but they also point to an extra-linguistic situational context and, by doing so, they function as indices, as spatial indices. Simply by referring to the notion of the index, we can explain, for example, the orientation function contained in the periphrasis quoted above regarding the Tropic of Cancer (prende la via verso ove cade a punto / il sol, quando col Granchio si raggira) and the “segno,” the “sign,” of the Pillars of Hercules (il segno che prescritto / avea già a’ naviganti Ercole invitto). Both markers correspond to positional information. Their indexical function is the same as for those we find in a positional catalogue. In contrast to the itinerary model, the model of the positional catalogue can ignore directional elements. Its structure is based not on the linguistic deixis, but on a writing code with indexical function composed of toponyms, numbers, and special characters (ibid.). The carticity of the description of Ruggiero’s flight is, therefore, a hybrid case between the (deictic) model of the itinerary and the model of the positional catalogue, between the narration of a determined path and the enumeration of geographical data. It is a transmedial phenomenon— a transmediation—in which characteristics of the cartographic medium are translated into the literary master code. It is as if the author, checking the exact route on a world map (on the Cosmographia of Waldseemüller, for example) and following it with his forefinger, was showing us the precise trajectory of Ruggiero’s flight. Pricking out the course upon a nautical chart becomes a metaphor for the whole poetic enterprise. Along the lines of

Translating the map

41

the aforementioned verses, “Or, se mi mostra la mia carta il vero, / non è lontano a discoprirsi il porto” (I, if my chart deceives me not, shall now / In little time behold the neighboring shore), Ariosto repeatedly indulges in the semantic field of cartography and mapping in order to stage the search for orientation at both the diegetic and the extradiegetic level, as these verses also strongly suggest: “Chi sta col capo chino in una cassa / su la carta appuntando il suo sentiero / a lume di lanterna piccolina” (XIX, 44) (Here, pricking out their course upon the chart, / One by a lantern does his ministry, / Upon a sea-chest propt). In these lines, the one who pricks out the route on a nautical chart in fact embodies both the navigating officer in the middle of a tempest (at the narrative level) and (metafictionally) the poet in the middle of his work. In all the passages we have looked at so far, it seems as if it does not really matter to Ariosto whether the sea is green or blue, peaceful or stormy, whether it has been painful or exhilarating for Ruggiero to leave Europe and his beloved Bradamante. Even a spatial category such as landscape would be out of place here. There is namely no subjective (or spiritual) apperception of a determined portion of space (Italiano 2009). Even the wonderful, unheard-of experience of flying seems almost negligible. Only the relations of distance and proximity, latitudes, directions, and positional information are important. The reconstruction of the itinerary based on a cartographic medium is neither concealed nor disguised by Ariosto, but it is structurally highlighted. In the second part of Ruggiero’s flight, in which the Saracen knight, following a couple of adventures, leaves the island of Alcina and heads back to England on the hippogriff’s hump, the carticity of the poetic description is even more evident. After a seminar in flying from the good fairy Logistilla, Ruggiero can now pilot his dazzling winged steed. He will not, however, simply fly back home, recrossing the Atlantic. Instead he takes another direction, namely the opposite one, from east to west—exactly as airliners do today when they fly from Japan (aka Chipangu) to Europe. This part of the trip does not follow a straight line but conforms to Ruggiero’s curiosity or, more accurately, it mirrors the cartographic curiositas of Ludovico Ariosto. Forming a zigzag and against the logic of an economical route, the Saracen knight skims famous and less famous parts of Asia until Europe is reached and his global flight comes to an end. Al venir quivi, era, lasciando Spagna, venuto India a trovar per dritta riga, là dove il mare orïental la bagna; dove una fata avea con l’altra briga. Or veder si dispose altra campagna, che quella dove i venti Eolo instiga, e finir tutto il cominciato tondo, per aver, come il sol, girato il mondo.

42 Translating the map Quinci il Cataio, e quindi Mangïana sopra il gran Quinsaí vide passando: volò sopra l’Imavo, e Sericana lasciò a man destra; e sempre declinando da l’iperborei Sciti a l’onda ircana, giunse alle parti di Sarmazia: e quando fu dove Asia da Europa si divide, Russi e Pruteni e la Pomeria vide. Ben che di Ruggier fosse ogni desire di ritornare a Bradamante presto; pur, gustato il piacer ch’avea di gire cercando il mondo, non restò per questo, ch’alli Pollacchi, agli Ungari venire non volesse anco, alli Germani, e al resto di quella boreale orrida terra: e venne al fin ne l’ultima Inghilterra. (X, 70–2) Borne hither, good Rogero, leaving Spain, / Had sought, in level line, the Indian lands, / Where they are watered by the Eastern main; / Where the two fairies strove with hostile bands. / He now resolved to visit other reign / Than that where Aeolus his train commands; / And finish so the round he had begun, / Circling the world beneath him like the sun. // Here the Catay, and there the Mangiane, / Passing the great Quinsay beheld; in air / Above Imavus turned, and Sericane / Left on the right; and thence did ever bear / From the north Scythians to the Hyrcanian main: / So reached Sarmatia’s distant land; and, where / Europe and Asia’s parted climes divide, / Russ, Prussian, he and Pomeranian spied. // Although the Child by every wish was pressed / Quickly to seek his Bradamant, yet he / With taste of roving round the world possest, / Would not desist from it, till Hungary / He had seen; and Polacks, Germans, and the rest / Should in his wide extended circuit see, / Inhabiting that horrid, northern land; / And came at last to England’s farthest strand. The journey of Ruggiero thus proceeds as a collection of toponyms. In this long catalogue of names, the approximate location of indexicalized places appears to be more important than the cultural and geophysical properties of the places themselves. However, the absence of any anthropological, geopolitical or even topographical digression at this point should not come as a surprise. As Ita Mac Carthy has noted, Ariosto was not particularly interested in so-called “otherness” and his epic poem displays no special sensibility or fascination for what we could call cultural difference. “Unlike Montaigne fifty years later,” writes Mac Carthy,

Translating the map

43

Ariosto does not conduct experiments in cultural perspectives and his characters are not concerned with rubbing shoulders (or “brains,” as Montaigne would have it) with others in order to understand themselves. On the contrary, the Furioso’s characters are more noteworthy for their cultural homogeneity than their diversity. They are often differentiated from each other solely by the insignia of their armor and the objects of their quest. Mac Carthy 2007a: 405–6 In Ariosto’s paradigmatic positional catalogue, the concessions to the meraviglioso, otherwise a trademark of the Orlando Furioso, are also kept within bounds. Almost as if switching off the lights, Ariosto suspends even the most recurrent rhetorical device of medieval travel literature from Marco Polo to John Mandeville—the hyperbole. In contrast, other key components arise: the arbitrariness of the route, the quantity (vs. quality) of the listed regions of the earth, and the pure joy of collecting toponyms. We can, therefore, argue that this second part of Ruggiero’s global journey not only represents the perfect realization of the model of the positional catalogue but enacts almost a parody of its opposite model, the itinerary—and, to whit, of the entire medieval travel literature, which was based inextricably on that very model. Ruggiero’s view from the zenith represents a distancing from contingency, a distancing from the perceived world and, ultimately, a distancing from the deictic coherence of the route’s description. But this happens not for psychological or religious reasons but solely out of curiosity; that is, out of a basic impulse for knowledge. Ruggiero experiences the world through his spatial relations. He not only flies over the world, he measures it like a cartographer. And the hippogriff serves as his mobile observation device.14

Astolfo’s travels We may also interpret the intercontinental and extra-planetary travels of the English Count Astolfo in a similar way, who flew over the African continent and from the earth to the moon to retrieve the lost mind of Orlando. The lunar episode, in particular, is extremely elucidating, for it provides a completely new view of the earth. From the hippogriff, on whose back Astolfo flew to Ethiopia to find a cure for Orlando, the English Count jumps onto the chariot of St John the Evangelist. The transfer to the Evangelist’s spacecar is also a further change of perspective. From a zenithal, central perspective, Astolfo becomes a kind of satellite viewing device who can take in the entire spherical shape of the earth. Thus, Astolfo, with the help of St John, lands on “the lunar reign” (“nel regno della luna”). Quattro destrier via più che fiamma rossi al giogo il santo evangelista aggiunse; e poi che con Astolfo rassettossi, e prese il freno, inverso il ciel li punse.

44 Translating the map Ruotando il carro, per l’aria levossi, e tosto in mezzo il fuoco eterno giunse; che ’l vecchio fe’ miracolosamente, che, mentre lo passar, non era ardente. Tutta la sfera varcano del fuoco, ed indi vanno al regno de la luna. Veggon per la più parte esser quel loco come un acciar che non ha macchia alcuna; e lo trovano uguale, o minor poco di ciò ch’in questo globo si raguna, in questo ultimo globo de la terra, mettendo il mar che la circonda e serra. Quivi ebbe Astolfo doppia meraviglia: che quel paese appresso era sì grande, il quale a un picciol tondo rassimiglia a noi che lo miriam da queste bande; e ch’aguzzar conviengli ambe le ciglia, s’indi la terra e ’l mar ch’intorno spande, discerner vuol; che non avendo luce, l’imagin lor poco alta si conduce. (XXXIV, 69–71) Four goodly coursers next, and redder far / Than flame, to that fair chariot yokes the sire; / Who, when the knight and he well seated are, / Collects the reins; and heavenward they aspire. / In airy circles swiftly rose the car, / And reached the region of eternal fire; / Whose heat the saint by miracle suspends, / While through the parted air the pair ascends. // The chariot, towering, threads the fiery sphere, / And rises thence into the lunar reign. / This, in its larger part they find as clear / As polished steel, when undefiled by stain; / And such it seems, or little less, when near, / As what the limits of our earth contain: / Such as our earth, the last of globes below, / Including seas, which round about it flow. // Here doubly waxed the paladin’s surprise, / To see that place so large, when viewed at hand; / Resembling that a little hoop in size, / When from the globe surveyed whereon we stand, / And that he both his eyes behoved to strain, / If he would view Earth’s circling seas and land; / In that, by reason of the lack of light, / Their images attained to little height. From the lunar perspective, Astolfo observes the earth in its globality, as a globe—as “the last of globes” in the universe, in accordance with Aristotelian–Ptolemaic cosmography. Following the topo-logical tradition of the Greco-Roman kataskopos—“the view from above,” which stretches from Plato to Seneca to Lucian of Samosata (Cosgrove 2001: 49–51)— Astolfo’s satellite perspective operates from a distance and provides a

Translating the map

45

whole-earth view. Not unlike Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis, Ariosto’s depiction of Astolfo’s lunar travel “captures the combination of cosmic spatiotemporal unity, common humanity, willed individual destiny, and the geographical limits of the earth—eschatos and telos—that shapes the imperial incubus of the Western spatial dream” (ibid.: 50). Furthermore, it mirrors the process of cartographic generalization, which is probably the mapping process par excellence.15 By doing so, Ariosto explicitly imagines a view from a satellite, quite realistically prefiguring an actual moon-based observation of our planet. Beside the extra-terrestrial view of the earth, it is the representation of Astolfo’s terrestrial journey that bears the clearest traces of carticity. In the paradigmatic verses that we discussed at the beginning of this chapter, Ariosto is in fact summarizing Astolfo’s voyage from the island of Alcina back to England: “girato da l’India all’Inghilterra / tutto avea il lato destro della terra” (XXII, 24). (And had from Ind to England rounded all / The right-hand side of the terrestrial ball). It should now become clearer why I considered these two verses a powerful example of cartographic writing and, in particular, of carticity, that is a process of transmediation between map and writing. Ariosto fabricates these lines not solely by thematizing a cartographic representation but also by translating within the minuscule space of a single rhyme one of the most significant and influential (especially in terms of colonialism and globalization) changes in modern cartography— the north-oriented, Eurocentric map. It is not by chance that during this very journey, Astolfo is informed of the future “discoveries” of the Spanish and Portuguese in the form of a prophecy (we should not forget that the events are set in the time of Charlemagne, that is, in the second half of the eighth century),16 the fairy Andronica tells him about the new continent, the “nuovo mondo,” and the adventures of the famed navigators and explorers who serve the Iberian monarchies. But before doing so, she submits Astolfo to an intensive course on the rudiments of early modern geographical and cosmological thought. Scorrendo il duca il mar con sì fedele e sì sicura scorta, intender vuole, e ne domanda Andronica, se de le parti c’han nome dal cader del sole, mai legno alcun che vada a remi e a vele, nel mare orientale apparir suole; e s’andar può senza toccar mai terra, chi d’India scioglia, in Francia o in Inghilterra. – Tu déi sapere (Andronica risponde) che d’ogn’intorno il mar la terra abbraccia; e van l’una ne l’altra tutte l’onde, sia dove bolle o dove il mar s’aggiaccia;

46 Translating the map ma perché qui davante si difonde, e sotto il mezzodì molto si caccia la terra d’Etiopia, alcuno ha detto ch’a Nettuno ir più inanzi ivi è interdetto. Per questo del nostro indico levante nave non è che per Europa scioglia; né si muove d’Europa navigante ch’in queste nostre parti arrivar voglia. Il ritrovarsi questa terra avante, e questi e quelli al ritornare invoglia; che credono, veggendola sì lunga, che con l’altro emisperio si congiunga. Ma volgendosi gli anni, io veggio uscire da l’estreme contrade di ponente nuovi Argonauti e nuovi Tifi, e aprire la strada ignota infin al dì presente: altri volteggiar l’Africa, e seguire tanto la costa de la negra gente, che passino quel segno onde ritorno fa il sole a noi, lasciando il Capricorno; e ritrovar del lungo tratto il fine, che questo fa parer dui mar diversi; e scorrer tutti i liti e le vicine isole d’Indi, d’Arabi e di Persi: altri lasciar le destre e le mancine rive che due per opra Erculea fersi; e del sole imitando il camin tondo, ritrovar nuove terre e nuovo mondo. (XV, 18–22) Scouring a large broad ocean, with a guide / So faithful and secure, the cavalier / Questions Andronica, if from that side / Named from the westering sun, of this our sphere, / Bark, which with oars or canvas stemmed the tide, / On eastern sea was wonted to appear; / — And could a wight, who loosed from Indian strand, / Reach France or Britain, without touching land. / Andronica to England’s duke replies: / “Know that this earth is girt about with seas, / And all to one another yield supplies, / Whether the circling waters boil or freeze: / But, since the Aethiops’ land before us lies, / Extending southward many long degrees. / Across his waters, some one has supposed / A barrier here to Neptune interposed. // “Hence bark from this Levant of Ind is none / Which weighs, to shape her course for Europe’s shore; / Nor navigates from Europe any one, / Our Oriental regions to explore; / Fain to retrace alike the course begun /

Translating the map

47

By the mid land, extending wide before: / Weening (its limits of such length appear) / That it must join another hemisphere. // “But in the course of circling years I view / From farthest lands which catch the western ray, / New Argonauts put forth, and Tiphys new / Opening, till now an undiscovered way. / Others I see coast Afric, and pursue / So far the negroes’ burning shore, that they / Pass the far sign, from whence, on his return, / The sun moves hither, leaving Capricorn; // “And find the limit of this length of land, / Which makes a single sea appear as two; / Who, scouring in their frigates every strand, / Pass Ind and Arab isles, or Persian through: / Others I see who leave, on either hand, / The banks, which stout Alcides cleft in two, / And in the manner of the circling sun, / To seek new lands and new creations run. In the second and longest part of her prophetical speech (XV, 23–6), the fairy Andronica celebrates the maritime power of the Spanish crown and the translatio imperii which will eventually convey to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, “the justest and most fraught with prudent lore / of emperors, since Augustus, or before” (“il più saggio imperatore e giusto, / che sia stato o sarà mai dopo Augusto”) (XV, 24). Written presumably around 1530 and published in the 1532 version of Orlando Furioso, these verses glorifying Emperor Charles V show quite how blatantly the Renaissance epic had in its genes a proclivity to link geographical discoveries to the idea of a transfer of power. Ariosto was the first among the great Renaissance poets to perceive and to stage the recent American conquests as the natural progression of the Old World’s translatio imperii. In a broader sense, Andronica’s speech shows how highly codified literary writing such as an epic poem could operate perfectly within the imperial code, conjugating geographical imagination, spatial expansion, knowledge, and rhyme with the belief in a transcendental order.17 I will elaborate on these and other aspects of the translatio imperii and its link to the geographical imagination in the following chapters (see in particular Chapter 3 and Chapter 5).

Poetics of the global Astolfo can circle the right-hand side of the earth because he—as much as the Saracen knight Ruggiero—travels on a map. Only he who moves along a map projection of the “terrestrial ball,” over a two-dimensional reduction of our planet, can move either to the left or to the right side of the earth. This literary rendering of cartographic logic may seem obvious today but in the context in which it emerged (i.e. in an epic poem at the beginning of the sixteenth century) it reveals not only the poet’s profound knowledge of the most advanced cartographic achievements of his time but also the way that maps were changing the perception of the world and European patterns of orientation (Italiano 2015: 249). In this sense, the cartographic writing of

48 Translating the map Ariosto should not only be considered as a product determined simply by aesthetic conventions and intertextualities but also as a transmedial phenomenon that participated in the transformation of the Western spatial imagination. Indeed, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Europe was decidedly turning away from the East as the privileged spatial reference for its dreams and fancies, emancipating itself from the metaphysical primacy of the Orient, as Sloterdijk notes: In opting for the western course, he [Columbus] had set in motion the emancipation of the “Occident” from its immemorial solar-mythological orientation towards the East; indeed, with the discovery of a western continent, he had succeeded in denying the mythical-metaphysical priority of the Orient. Since then, we have no longer been returning to the “source” or the point of sunrise, but rather moving progressively with the sun without homesickness […] After the Portuguese seafarers from the mid-fifteenth century on had broken the magical inhibition obstructing the westward gaze with the Pillars of Hercules, Columbus’s voyage gave the final signal for the “disorientation” of the European interests. Only this “revolutionary” de-Easting could bring about the emergence of the neo-Indian dual continent that would be called “America.” It alone is the reason why for half a millennium, the cultural and topological meaning of globalization has always also meant “Westing” and “Westernization.” Sloterdijk 2013: 33–4 Ariosto translated this process of de-Easting into an epos. Although its geography is deeply marked by Eastern topographies and it even delivers a six-stanza appeal for a new Crusade to “retake Jerusalem” (XVII, 74–5), as a whole the Orlando Furioso instead stages a new territorial order, in which Europe, the Christian Occident, looks westwards. Based on both the idea of the westward migration of imperial power, symbolized by Aeneas’ journey towards Latium, and Columbus’s revolutionary western course, Ariosto’s Occident is caught in the process of emancipation from its immemorial orientation towards the East. Ariosto’s depiction of the world enacts not only a totalizing, all-encompassing representation of the earth, it is a revolutionary—in both a metaphorical and geophysical sense—de-Easting. By turning away from the East, Ariosto’s poetry not only demythologizes an orientation pattern which had symbolically influenced (and still influences) the majority of religion-based cosmological views but it also inscribes itself in global dimensions. Ariosto’s global poetry reproduces the precarious but unique balance between Orient and Occident enacted by the new spatial and topological order of the Renaissance. In fact, the turning away from the East and the consequent reshaping and reduction of its symbolic importance during the sixteenth century should not be confused with a de-valuation of

Translating the map

49

the Orient—and even less as a consequence of the disappearance of trading interests between Europe and the East. As Lisa Jardine and Jerry Brotton convincingly state, the Renaissance shows rather the highest degree of permeability and balance between East and West in world history. Between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, “East and West fixed each other with an equal, reciprocal gaze” (Jardine and Brotton 2005: 63). Going back to the cartographic medium, a trace of this permeability between East and West is the semantic ambiguity, as Walter Mignolo argues, with which the New World was first named, that is, as Indias Occidentales, or West Indies. Before Orientalism developed as a massive discursive formation during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a similar imaginary construction flourished with the inclusion of Indias Occidentales in the map and the subsequent invention of America. Spain and the rest of Europe began to look West to build an extension of their own destiny by enacting the ambiguity between Indias Orientales and India Occidentales […] If the idea of the West was not properly born in the sixteenth century, it was certainly shaped in a lasting fashion. Mignolo 2003: 325 Through the westward routes of his knights, their cartographic reconnaissance and extra-planetary journeys, Ariosto does not invent the West nor does he lay the foundation for future processes of Westernization. Rather, he eliminates the hierarchical disequilibrium between East and West. In place of the religiously connoted dominance of the East, Ariosto’s epic poem highlights an axis, the east–west axis. It is along this abstract line, along this latitudinal directionality, that Ariosto structures the maritime and airborne journeys of his cavalieri around the globe. Ruggiero’s flight is primarily a journey from east to west for the joy of sightseeing. It draws a trajectory following, on the one hand, the famed route of Christopher Columbus and, on the other, the last journey of Dante’s Ulysses beyond the Pillars of Hercules—as the repeated allusions to Inferno and Purgatorio would confirm (Ascoli 1987: 145–7). As Ascoli argues, Ruggiero is at the same time paradoxically “aligned with the humanistic Hercules and with the exceeder of Herculean limits, Ulysses, and is effectively torn between at least two figures and versions of humanism” (ibid.: 145). He does not discover a New World as Columbus (unconsciously) did nor does he sink dramatically into the depths of the sea (and consequently of Hell) as did Dante’s Ulysses, but he certainly shares the same cartographic curiositas that distinguishes both these paradigmatic figures of Italian humanism. In fact, after his insular sojourn with the sorceress Alcina and the good fairy Logistilla, the Saracen knight Ruggiero flies back to Europe not by taking the most reasonable and swift direction, which would have been eastwards, but by again heading westwards, thus circumnavigating the globe. And the only reason he does it, or rather, the reason why Ariosto makes him do it,

50 Translating the map is to satisfy his cartographic curiosity, which spurs him to contemplate this global facet of the world. Not unlike Ruggiero’s travels, Astolfo’s maritime and airborne voyages are also enterprises of global dimensions. Besides his aforementioned planetary circumnavigation and, in particular, his journey to the moon, which permits him a whole-earth view, Astolfo also introduces the African continent into the geographic space of the Orlando Furioso. Just as Ruggiero’s flight over the Eurasian landmass provided Ariosto with a chance to list the multitude of regions and peoples of that part of the world, so too does Astolfo’s itinerary from Europe to Ethiopia, where the paladin lands at the court of the emperor Senapo, also known as the legendary Prester John (XXXIII, 96–106). With Africa also a part of the big picture, the whole globe, so to speak, is registered in Ariosto’s gazetteer—only Oceania is missing for understandable reasons. To conclude, Ariosto’s cartographic writing points to a translation of geographies in which the narration not only adapts cartographical or topographical information but also transmediates characteristics of the medium of the map into the literary medium. Moreover, blending together Virgil’s Aeneas with Columbus, the idea of a translatio imperii with transatlantic navigations, and classical cosmography with the newest cartographic advancements of his time, Ariosto stages the globe as a projected surface for Europe’s spatial imagination, delivering, some decades before Camões’ Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads, 1572), what I consider to be the first epic poem of the era of globalization.

3

Translating the territory Cabeza de Vaca’s Naufragios

While the third, definitive version of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso was being published in Italy (1532), a then obscure Spanish hidalgo, Cabeza de Vaca, after a disastrous series of shipwrecks, was wandering almost naked and barely alive across what today is known as the US Southwest. For nine years he wandered through the terra incognita of the New World and his mainly pedestrian odyssey became the subject of one of the most intriguing texts of Spanish colonial literature, Cabeza de Vaca’s Relación (Zamora, 1542), also known as Naufragios since Andrés González Barcia’s 1743 edition, published in Madrid (Adorno and Pautz 2003: 33). In this chapter I will discuss some aspects of Cabeza de Vaca’s account, focusing in particular on three issues: the translation of geographies enacted by Cabeza de Vaca as a contribution to the Habsburg translatio imperii; the diegetic figures of translation and translator; and finally, the transmediation of Cabeza’s account into the cartographic medium.

The naked shaman and the translatio imperii A 17 días del mes de junio de 1527 partió del puerto de San Lúcar de Barrameda el gobernador Pánfilo de Narváez, con poder y mandado de Vuestra Majestad para conquistar y gobernar las provincias que están desde el río de las Palmas hasta el cabo de la Florida, las cuales son en Tierra Firme. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 77 On the seventeenth day of the month of June of 1527, Governor Pánfilo de Narváez departed from the port of San Lúcar de Barrameda by authority and order of Your Majesty to conquer and govern the provinces which lie on the mainland from the River of Palms to Cape Florida. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1993: 30

52 Translating the territory So begins the account of the Spaniard Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, one of the most intriguing and controversial narratives of early modern Spanish literature. The book was first published in Zamora in 1542 bearing the title Relación que dio Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca de lo acaescido en las Indias en la armada donde iba por Gobernador Pánfilo de Narvaez, but it became truly popular only after the publication of its second edition in 1555 in Valladolid, from which this and all other quotes are taken. This report (relación) was the only gain, the only commodity that Cabeza de Vaca could offer to his king when he returned to Spain in 1537, for the expedition led by Pánfilo de Narváez, in which he participated as “tesorero y […] alguacil mayor” (treasurer and warden) and second in command, failed tragically shortly after docking in the Tampa Bay. From that huge fleet, which “consisted of five ships in which went six hundred men, more or less” (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1993: 30) and which departed under the best auspices on its mission to explore and administrate the territories between Florida and the river town of Panuco, only four men survived: Andrés Dorantes, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Estebanico, a Moroccan slave from Azamor, and Cabeza de Vaca himself. After a nine-year odyssey from the Florida peninsula along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and from the interior almost to the Pacific, in 1536 the four survivors reached San Miguel de Culiacán, capital of the province of New Galicia and then Mexico-Tenochtitlan, the capital of Nueva España (Adorno and Pautz 2003: 17). In the preamble, the author explicitly presents his account as a service to the king, as “the only thing that a man who returned naked could bring back” (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1993: 29). Since he could not protect or improve the Crown’s investments, he offers his king the knowledge he has acquired on “muchas y muy extrañas tierras” (many and very strange lands) as a gift, as an equivalent substitute for gold or other commodities. […] no me quedó lugar para hacer más servicio de éste, que es traer a Vuestra Majestad relación de lo que en diez años que por muchas y muy extrañas tierras que anduve perdido y en cueros, pudiese saber y ver, así en el sitio de las tierras y provincias de ellas, como en los mantenimientos y animales que en ella se crían, y las diversas costumbres de muchas y muy bárbaras naciones con quien conversé y viví, y todas las otras particularidades que pude alcanzar y conocer, que de ello en alguna manera Vuestra Majestad será servido. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 76 […] I can render only this service: to bring to Your Majesty an account of what I learned and saw in the ten years that I wandered lost and naked through many and very strange lands, noting the location of lands and provinces and the distances between them as well as the sustenance and animals produced in each, and the diverse customs of the

Translating the territory

53

many and very barbarous peoples with whom I came into contact and lived, and all the other particulars which I could observe and know, so that Your Majesty should be served in some way by this. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1993: 28, my emphasis Cabeza de Vaca’s account is, first and foremost, a story of shipwreck and captivity. But it is also one of the first (if not the first) modern, self-aware ethnographic descriptions of North America, as the passage quoted above shows perfectly. In fact, many historians recognize Cabeza de Vaca as America’s “first ethnographer” (see Bauer 2003: 31). Indeed, Cabeza de Vaca did carry out a sort of ethnographic fieldwork ante litteram in the nine years1 he spent with various Native American tribes. And because of his “ethnographic” gaze and surprisingly “positive” view of Native American culture (at least in appearance), his Naufragios enjoyed much attention in twentieth-century scientific discourse, even more so over the last forty years. Some modern historians, as Ralph Bauer critically points out, have described his narrative as an enlightened expression of a redemptive experience, more “American” and “realistic” than any other Renaissance chronicle of discovery and conquest (ibid.: 32). But things are not as simple as that. From a narratological and rhetorical perspective, Cabeza de Vaca’s account is so complex, differentiated, and inhomogeneous that it would simply be ideological to interpret its general attitude towards American Indians as sympathetic and appreciatory. The text switches registers almost seamlessly, sliding between the picaresque, the ethnographic, the devotional, and the colonial perspective (Kiening 2006: 89). The result is a continuum of positions: conquistador, slave, healer, trader, fugitive, and then conquistador again, a continuum that subsumes the “Indian experience” within the Spanish horizon of experience (ibid.). Perplexing incongruities arise throughout the account which point to this co-presence of different registers on a continuum. For example, in a passage taken from chapter XVII, the author initially dramatizes the sufferings of his imprisonment as the messianic signs of his imitatio Christi, but then immediately counteracts this almost spirited self-fashioning as Christ with an unexpected, rather anticlimactic observation on the alimentary habits of his captors, which mainly consist in eating “tunas”— that is, quite unspectacularly, prickly pears.2 The messianic self-glorification of Cabeza de Vaca has been explored in many ways. In particular, Pupo-Walker (1987) has delivered a convincing reading of this aspect that opens up a translational perspective. The wandering of Cabeza de Vaca in the semi-desert areas of what today are the southern United States and Mexico is transformed into a narrative structure that resembles that of the medieval peregrinatio pro Dei amore, the pilgrimage for the love of God (see the Navigatio Sancti Brendani, Chapter 1). Cabeza de Vaca—who becomes a shaman and heals the sick in various Native American tribes; who preaches Christian beliefs; who constantly

54 Translating the territory describes and presents himself as naked as a new-born babe, that is, as poor and innocent—enacts and develops throughout the account a strong analogy which is hard to overlook with the medieval hagiographic tradition that gave rise to countless popular narrations (Pupo-Walker 1987: 529). In particular, the programmatic nakedness, as Pupo-Walker underlines, links Cabeza de Vaca’s self-fashioning to many medieval hagiographies—among others, to the legend of St Brendan.3 In these tales the miracle is turned into a program for action, in which the holy figure becomes a hero—a hero, however, surrounded by a holy halo, a kind of holy hero (ibid.: 529 and 532). In this way, Pupo-Walker rightly interprets the emblematic passage in which Cabeza de Vaca resurrects an Indio believed to be dead as an episode permeated by Pauline messianic tones (ibid.: 532–5).4 […] yo vi el enfermo que íbamos a curar que estaba muerto, porque estaba mucha gente al derredor de él llorando y su casa deshecha, que es señal que el dueño estaba muerto. […] Yo le quité una estera que tenía encima, con que estaba cubierto, y lo mejor que pude apliqué a nuestro Señor fuese servido de dar salud a aquél y a todos los otros que de ella tenían necesidad. Y después de santiguado y soplado muchas veces, me trajeron un arco y me lo dieron, y una sera de tunas molidas […] dijeron que aquel que estaba muerto y yo había curado en presencia de ellos, se había levantado bueno y se había paseado, y comido, y hablado con ellos, y que todos cuantos había curado quedaban sanos y muy alegres. Esto causó muy gran admiración y espanto, y en toda la tierra no se hablaba en otra cosa. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 157–8 […] I saw that the sick man whom we were supposed to heal was dead, because there were many people weeping around him and his lodge was dismantled, a sign that its owner was dead. […] I removed a mat that covered him, and as best I could I beseeched our Lord to be pleased to grant him health and to grant health to all who needed it. After I made the sign of the cross over him and breathed on him many times, they brought his bow to me along with a basketful of ground prickly pears […] They said that the man who was dead and whom I had healed in their presence had gotten up well and walked and eaten and spoken to them […] This caused great wonder and awe, and nothing else was spoken about in the entire land. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1993: 80 This translation of medieval hagiographic narrative structures may be read from a spatial perspective as a translation of geographies in which Cabeza’s peregrinatio—his pilgrimage and evangelical mission—figuratively rewrites the medieval itineraries of the holy heroes of the Old World into the New World, the pilgrimages of the Greco-Roman (Mediterranean) world into the

Translating the territory

55

Atlantic world (Pupo-Walker 1987: 531). This translation not only reterritorializes the colonial aim as an evangelical aim but also inscribes the new territory, which had hitherto existed outside the known Christian world, into the positional catalogue of Christian geography. It transforms the pagan, nomadic spatiality of the terra incognita into a Christian geography. Cabeza de Vaca as Christ’s disciple carves Christian symbols into the smooth surface of Native America and integrates it into a Christian–Catholic, soteriological geography, thus transferring the Old World into the New (Bauer 2003: 47). In this sense, I do not agree with Bertrand Westphal’s interpretation of Cabeza de Vaca’s journey as a perfect example of nomadism in Deleuzian– Guattarian terms. While it is true that Cabeza de Vaca, in contrast to Columbus, does not mark the land he has set foot on by “baptizing” it (Westphal 2013: 103) or by erecting buildings in order to transform the territory into a sedentary place, it is also true that the space and the movements in space within the Naufragios are constantly coded through Christian symbols, allusions, and topoi. Almost every step Cabeza de Vaca takes in his journey, especially in the second part of the account, is followed by a prayer or an act of proselytism, or is immediately paralleled with scenes of the Passion of Christ. Therefore Cabeza de Vaca, as an autodiegetic narrator par excellence, cannot possibly be a “vector of deterritorialization” who “add[s] desert to desert, steppe to steppe, by a series of local operations whose orientation and direction endlessly vary” (Deleuze and Guattari 1980, quoted in Westphal 2013: 108) as Westphal suggests (ibid.). He is rather an agent who territorializes the space he walks through by transferring to it a new set of values, an agent who translates the new territory onto an imperial, Christian geography. Furthermore, Cabeza de Vaca is not an aimless, desultory nomad whose direction endlessly varies. As a diegetic figure, he has a clear, explicit aim: returning to the land of Christians. At least, that is what he states—and not just once—in the text. The day he reunites with Andrés Dorantes, for example, he writes: “llegado donde Castillo estaba, me preguntaron donde iba. Yo le dije que mi propósito era de pasar a tierra de cristianos” (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 137–8). (When we got to where Castillo [Alonso del Castillo] was, they asked me where I was going. I told him that my plan was to go to a land of Christians) (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1993: 67). As Rolena Adorno, too, has observed, in opposition to the popular imagery of tales of captivity and escape, “none of their [Cabeza de Vaca and his companions’] time was spent in aimless wandering.” They learned how to survive and “always traveled accompanied by natives […] over established trails that were used by nomadic groups for annual migrations in search of food and by sedentary groups for communication and commerce” (Adorno 1991: 165–6). As the linguistic anthropologist Nancy Hickerson has argued, the whole narrative of the Naufragios offers a clear testimony on “Cabeza de Vaca’s keen awareness of the formal aspects and functions of gift giving and trade, within and among the various tribes”

56 Translating the territory (Hickerson 1998: 208). In fact, Cabeza de Vaca’s success as a transregional trader among different groups of natives was, ultimately, not only the positive consequence of a survival instinct but also of a well-calculated strategy for obtaining valuable first-hand information on the territory to further his escape plans (I will expand on this later). As Cabeza de Vaca affirms, “I liked this trade, because it gave me the freedom to go wherever I wanted. I was obligated to nothing and was not a slave […] Most of all I liked it because it gave me the opportunity to search for an escape route” (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1993: 65). Moreover, I find the way that Bertrand Westphal interprets Cabeza de Vaca’s nakedness as a way “to allow these places to maintain their ‘open space’ nature” (Westphal 2013: 108) incongruent and, to some extent, misleading, since Cabeza de Vaca does not spontaneously undress himself—at a narrative level, he simply has no other option. The multiple shipwrecks gradually disrobe him and his companions, leaving them “naked as the day they were born” (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1993: 56). The total failure of the mission, the incompetence of the Governor, and the whole series of misfortunes eventually result in that nakedness on which Cabeza de Vaca, as an autodiegetic narrator, retrospectively comments with Christological and devotional remarks. Ya he dicho como por toda esa tierra anduvimos desnudos […] La tierra es tan áspera y tan cerrada, que muchas veces hacíamos leña en montes, que, cuando la acabábamos de sacar, nos corría por muchas parte sangre, e las espinas y matas con que topábamos que nos rompían por donde alcanzaban. A las veces me aconteció hacer leña donde después de haberme costado mucha sangre no la podía sacar ni a cuestas, ni arrastrado. No tenía, cuando estos trabajos movía, otro remedio ni consuelo sino pensar en la pasión de nuestro redentor Jesucristo y en la sangre que por mí derramó, e considerar cuánto más sería el tormento de que las espinas padeció, que no aquel que yo entonces sufría. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 161–2 I’ve already mentioned that we went naked all this time […] The country is very rugged and overgrown. We often gathered firewood in the woods, and by the time we carried it out, we were scratched and bleeding in many places, since the thorns and thickets we brushed against cut any skin they touched. Many times the gathering of firewood cost me a great deal of blood and then I could not carry it or drag it out. When I was afflicted in this way, my only comfort and consolation was to think about the suffering of our redeemer Jesus Christ and the blood he shed for me, and to consider how much greater was the torment he suffered from the thorns than what I was suffering at that time. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1993: 82

Translating the territory

57

In this fundamental passage of the account, the nakedness, the territory, and the Christological semantics are paradigmatically intertwined. The pain caused by the great loads Cabeza de Vaca and his companion had to carry on their shoulders is figuratively reminiscent of Christ carrying the cross. The same applies to the “bleeding in many places” that was caused to them by “thorns and thickets,” which clearly evokes the wounds inflicted by the crown of thorns and by the flagellation. As Xuan Jing observes, the depiction of the Passion of Christ so accurately retold by Cabeza de Vaca could be associated with so-called “white martyrdom,” an ascetic practice that, in contrast to the red one, to bloody martyrdom, does not aim at physical but at spiritual/mental mortificatio (Xuan 2014: 24). In this regard, it is not superfluous to add that white martyrdom, especially in Celtic Christianity, could be linked to the practice of pilgrimage and to the concept of the peregrinatio pro Dei amore or peregrinatio pro Christi (Herren and Brown 2002: 147– 8). The Cambrai Homily, a Gaelic text from the late seventh century, states: “This is the white martyrdom [bánmartre] to man, when he separates for the sake of God from everything he loves, although he suffer fasting or labor thereat” (Quoted in Herren and Brown 2002: 147). The Irish connection between the white martyrdom and the peregrination pro Dei amore would strengthen the already existing relationship between Cabeza de Vaca’s narrative and the voyage of Saint Brendan, as mentioned above. With this self-fashioning as a naked, bleeding Christ in the inhospitable country of the Maliacones, Cabeza de Vaca not only rewrites the late medieval, European topos of the imitatio Christi, he transforms this “very rugged and overgrown” territory into a sacred scenario.5 His suffering marks the pagan territory and prepares it for its annexation to the Christian world. His imitatio Christi is thus preparation for the translatio imperii. In using miracle and prayer, Cabeza de Vaca presents the country, which has been healed and purified through his pilgrimage, as capable of being and ready to be civilized. In the end, this is an imperialist mission, a form of translatio imperii. As Eric Cheyfitz remarks, the “translatio […] is inseparably connected with a ‘civilizing’ mission, the bearing of Christianity and Western letters to the barbarians, literally […] those who do not speak the language of the empire” (Cheyfitz 1997: 112). From the beginning, the imperialist mission has always been “one of translation,” that is, “the translation of the ‘other’ into the terms of the empire” (ibid.). And the primary term in this translation has always been “barbarian” or “savage” or one of its numerous variations (ibid.). In particular, the inability of speaking or of speaking properly is a characteristic that alienates the “barbarian” from the empire as much as the eloquent orator is figured “within the dynamics of translatio […] as the prime agent of this mission of translation” (ibid.). The eloquent orator, as an imperial agent, translates the “barbarian” into the imperial code. His translation is, therefore, not merely a semantic, rhetorical, and prosodic negotiation; it is rather a massive discursive effort that combines the segregation and appropriation of otherness.

58 Translating the territory Eric Cheyfitz’s postcolonial perspective on the concept of the translatio imperii echoes Nietzsche’s inveighing against the Roman practice of translation as an act of conquest (Boggs 2007: 92). In a famous passage from the Gay Science, originally published in 1882, Nietzsche accuses the Romans and, in particular, the great Roman poet-translators Horace and Propertius, of having been not only violent but also naïve translators of the Greeks, since they did not comprehend the historical dimension of what they were translating. “[A]nything past and alien was an irritant to them and as Romans they considered it to be nothing but a stimulus for yet another Roman conquest. In those days, indeed, to translate meant to conquer” (Nietzsche 1974: 69). In his severe reproach, Nietzsche glimpses one of the most typical traits of imperialism that runs from the Romans to the colonialism of the twentieth century: the translation of the other as a form of extending imperial dominion. It is then not by chance that the Roman practice of translation-as-conquest emerges again virulently in the Renaissance with the formation of European nation-states and the emergence of new boundaries and vernacular languages (Randall 2001: 192). In Renaissance Europe, translation became a form of ideological mise en scène and the literary pendant to the military battlefield where nation-states were showing the strength and resistance of their identity constructions. But there is a decisive difference between the Romans’ translational approach and the use of translation by early modern European imperialistic enterprises. While the Romans translated what they perceived as the superior culture of the Greeks, the conquered, into the culture of the conqueror as a strategy for enhancing their own culture (ibid.: 191), the early modern colonial powers (but also modern and contemporary ones) aimed to transfer their imperial values, the values of the conqueror, onto the conquered, who were perceived as barbarian and inferior, for purposes of dominion, possession, and control. It is at this point, in my opinion, that the intersection between translation as a cultural activity of linguistic/semiotic recodification and the political, ideological agenda of the translatio imperii becomes evident. By translating the language, the codes, the cultural artifacts of the conquered, the empire superimposed its dominant set of values and translated the colonized into its terms, into its “master code” (Huggan 2001: 24). This is also the way that Cheyfitz understands the translatio imperii and why he can state that “translation was, and still is, the central act of European colonization and imperialism in the Americas” (Cheyfitz 1997: 104). Within the dynamics of the translatio, Cabeza de Vaca is the translator, the “eloquent orator” in Cheyfitz’s sense—even if sometimes communication was only possible by way of signs—who performatively negotiates between different identity and world constructions. He is a negotiator of fear, as Rolena Adorno has argued (1991), who negotiates not only his fear of the natives but also their fear of him (ibid.: 167). The whole process of becoming healers and shamans through which Cabeza de Vaca and his companions must go, should be read as part of this double negotiation.

Translating the territory

59

As Adorno states, there is no doubt that the four Spaniards cured “some psychosomatic maladies, yet this point is subordinate to a more fundamental one: it is not that they became great shamans because they performed cures but rather that they performed cures because they were perceived to be great shamans” (1991: 173). That means that they were believed to be shamans because the natives had no other way to both understand and order them within their social structure. Moreover, believing them powerful healers was also a measure to accept their unusual skills and powers and to “compensate for the unclear threat implicit or explicit” that their presence represented (ibid.). This negotiation of fear corresponds, from our spatial point of view, to a negotiation of geographical imagination that models and enacts the territory of the Native Americans. The word territo¯rium is related to terre¯re; that is, to terrify, to frighten, to create terror, to practice fear (Neocleous 2003: 412; Elden 2007 and 2009: XXVIII–XIX). As Sextus Pomponius writes in the Digest (L.I6.239, §8): “The territory [territorium] is the whole of the land within the boundaries of a city, and some say it has this name because within its boundaries, the ruler of the place has the right to frighten [terrendi], that is to exclude [summovendi]”6 (my translation). It is in this sense that the seemingly “Indian-friendly” position of Cabeza de Vaca is in fact a transfer of Spanish power, in that it takes from the Native Americans the power to frighten, the power of terre¯re. Only after the incorporation of the New World into the imperial, Christian topography can the emperor— to whom the Naufragios were, of course, dedicated—practice his power “legally” and “peacefully.” After long years of bloody colonialism, the new policy of the Habsburg monarchy in Spain was “peace”: peaceful administration and peaceful dominion. The Zamora edition of the Relación (1542) and, yet more so, the 1555 Valladolid edition inscribed the narration of Cabeza de Vaca in what Ralph Bauer has termed the Habsburg “geopolitics of pacification” (2003: 42). During the 1530s and the 1540s, in the wake of pro-Indian reforms such as the Ordenanzas sobre el buen tratamiento de los Indios (Ordinances on the good treatment of the Indians, 1526) and Pope Paul III’s bull Sublimis Deus (1537), which declared the Indians children of God and consequently their enslavement illegal, the Habsburgs triggered and encouraged a process of “de-mythification” of the “ideology of conquest” that staged the monarch as “the harbinger[s] of Christ’s millennial reign of peace after a victorious struggle against seignoral discord, tyranny, and confusion” (Bauer 2003: 44). Therefore, the symbols and iconographies of peace became an integral element of imperial propaganda. Charles V, for instance, explicitly staged himself as the guarantor of (global) peace, as the new Augustus, the emperor of peace, and the famous equestrian portrait Charles V at Mühlberg by Titian (1548), which has traditionally been taken for a representation of a king always at war, could be interpreted as an image of a self-controlled king, whose victorious battle has brought

60 Translating the territory peace (ibid.). In this regard, Cabeza de Vaca as a healer, as a conqueror of souls, as the translator of a “reign of peace,” conformed better to the new imperial propaganda than the old-school conquistadores such as Cortés or Pizarro. Whereas Cortés’s Cartas de relación (1519–26) reterritorialized American territory into a military chart “that transforms each one of the topographical elements into strategic points and each one of the commercial and cultural centers into military objectives” (Pastor 1989: 133), the Naufragios translate the New World into a Christian topography by means of the individual suffering of the conquering pilgrim. With his translation of geographies that effortlessly combined magical-religious and proto-scientific elements, Cabeza de Vaca was certainly one the most able imperial “propagandists” that Charles V could have wished for.

Trader, translator, and stranger The whole narrative of the Naufragios can and should indeed be considered as a cultural translation. As discussed above, the crucial aspects of this process are, among others, the proto-ethnographic perspective through which Cabeza de Vaca extensively interprets and renders the cultural habits and costumes of the peoples he meets and, inextricably linked to this, the re-codification of narrative structures and topoi from the Old World—in particular, the rewriting of medieval pilgrimage narratives and hagiographies. However, both the ethnographic gaze and the process of rewriting represent not only powerful generators of a cultural translation but their narrative interaction in the Naufragios is what engenders the translatio imperii that we mentioned—the translation of the American territory and its inhabitants into the imperial master code. Yet translation, or the impossibility of translation, also has a determinant role in the Naufragios at another level, namely the intra-diegetic one (Genette 1988; Delabastita and Grutman 2005: 24–6; Cronin 2008: 116). This is when translation emerges at the diegetic level as a fictionalized process, as a communication device or as an ability distinctive to a particular figure (an interpreter or a translator, for instance). At the beginning of the Naufragios, in the third brief chapter called “How we came to Florida,” all of a sudden translation becomes an issue. In a short, matter-of-fact way, Cabeza de Vaca sketches a typical first encounter situation by drawing attention to the absence of a lengua (literally: tongue), that is, an interpreter. Otro día los indios de aquel pueblo vinieron a nosotros, y aunque nos hablaron, como nosotros no teníamos lengua, no los entendíamos; mas hacíannos muchas señas y amenazas, y nos pareció que nos decían que nos fuésemos de la tierra, y con esto nos dejaron, sin que nos hiciesen ningún impedimento, y ellos se fueron. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 85

Translating the territory

61

The next day the Indians of that village came and spoke to us, but we did not understand them since we had no interpreter [lengua]. They made many signs and threatening gestures and it seemed to us that they were telling us to leave that land. Then they left us and went away without hindering us. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1993: 34 The description of this scene by Cabeza de Vaca—who was, we should not forget, the second in command of the Narvaéz expedition—is indeed remarkable. By tracing the communication failure back to themselves, the Spanish, who could not understand the natives for lack of an interpreter, Cabeza de Vaca inverts the common pattern displayed by previous chronicles of colonization in which the conquered were usually expected to deliver an interpreter (López 2002: 121). This reversal grows even more intriguing if we consider that Cabeza de Vaca ascribes to the natives the prerogative of speech. While the natives “spoke,” (“hablaron”) and “told” (“decían”), the Spaniards seem to be mute, silenced, as if they were petrified by the appearance of a new, previously unheard language. A few paragraphs later, Cabeza de Vaca returns to the problematic condition of being “unable to speak with the Indians.” In the Spanish original, the relation between the lack of an interpreter and being “mute,” without a language that can foster interaction with the inhabitants of the unknown territory, sounds even more disquieting: “íbamos mudos y sin lengua” (we traveled mute and without tongue/interpreter). At this point in the account, Cabeza de Vaca’s attitude towards language and verbal interactions does indeed appear to be “quite extraordinary in the context of the chronicles and the rhetoric of conquest overall” (López 2002: 121). In particular, his anti-hegemonic view on language, which does not assume a priori that Castilian is the superior language into which the natives must be translated, is truly an unprecedented position. Perhaps the feeling of impotence and disorientation, caused by incomprehension and uncertainty, mixed with the painful contingencies of shipwrecks, hunger, and calamities, temporarily produced a sort of cultural reset in Cabeza de Vaca, as if he had been reduced to the degree zero of communication. Without knowing the languages of the natives and without access to interpreters, Cabeza de Vaca stages his entrance to La Florida as an unspeakable moment, which, according to Martínez-San Miguel, can be understood as the “degree zero,” or “the point of origin” that propels the entire narrative (Martínez-San Miguel 2010: 80). Things change when Cabeza de Vaca is forced to stay for a prolonged period of time on the island of Malhado with the Capoques, a group belonging to the Native American group of tribes collectively termed the Karankawa, who inhabited the low-lying Texas coast from what is known today as Galveston Bay to Corpus Christi Bay. This semi-captivity allows the Spaniard to learn the language and to regain his subjectivity. As Cabeza de Vaca himself claims (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 195), he

62 Translating the territory learned six Native American tongues during his journey, the first one being the language of the Capoques. One of these six tongues must “have been a lingua franca, or trade language” as the anthropologist Hickerson states (1998: 211). “In addition he quickly acquired the intertribal sign language that prevailed in the region” (ibid.). With these linguistic and communication skills, Cabeza de Vaca could successfully function as a trader for almost three years after leaving the Capoques for the mainland. He traded “pieces of sea snails and their insides, and seashells […] sea beads and other things,” carrying them inland and bartering them for “hides and red ochre, which they [the natives] rub on their faces and hair to dye them, flints for arrowheads, paste and stiff canes to make arrows, and some tassels made from deer hair, which they dye red” (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1993: 65). In particular, as a neutral merchant among different groups of Amerindians, Cabeza de Vaca not only enjoyed a relative degree of freedom of movement but could cautiously scout the land for his escape uninterrupted, as he himself remarks: yo me hice mercader […] Y ya con mis tratos y mercaderías entraba en la tierra adentro todo lo que quería, y por luengo de costa me alargaba cuarenta o cincuenta leguas. […] y este oficio me estaba a mí bien, porque andando en él tenía libertad para ir donde quería y no era obligado a cosa alguna, y no era esclavo, y dondequiera que iba me hacían buen tratamiento y me daban de comer por respeto de mis mercaderías, y lo más principal porque andando en ello yo buscaba por dónde me había de ir adelante. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 133–4 I became a trader and tried to ply my trade the best I could […] With my trading and wares I went as far inland as I wanted [probably as far as Oklahoma] and I would travel the coast for a distance of forty or fifty leagues. […] I liked this trade, because it gave me the freedom to go wherever I wanted. I was obligated to nothing and was not a slave. Wherever I went they treated me well and fed me because I was a trader. Most of all I liked it because it gave me the opportunity to search for an escape route. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1993: 64–5 Trade and translation are basic human practices that are profoundly connected to one another (Cronin 2013: 17–19). Besides the etymological kinship between the Latin verbs tradere (trans + do: give, hand over), from which “trade” (and “betray”!) comes, and transferre (trans + fero: carry across, transfer), the participial form of which (trans-latus) gives us “translation,” these activities enact dynamics whose affinity is much more than simply metaphorical: it is a dense, coherent interaction. While every trade always somehow implies a translation, the act of translating, as a

Translating the territory

63

cultural activity of communication, always somehow performs a trade, a negotiation between (semiotic and cultural) differences. Translation enables the trade to happen, and makes sense of what the trade involves (Cronin 2013: 19). In order to trade something, the trader has to give and negotiate meanings. The trader is the middleman, the mediator, the translator, not in spite of being a stranger, but precisely because he is a stranger. As Georg Simmel argues, the stranger everywhere appears as the trader, or the trader as stranger. As long as economy is essentially self-sufficient, or products are exchanged within a spatially narrow group, it needs no middleman: a trader is only required for products that originate outside the group. Insofar as members do not leave the circle in order to buy these necessities—in which case they are the “strange” merchants in that outside territory—the trader must be a stranger, since nobody else has a chance to make a living. Simmel 1950: 403 Cabeza de Vaca is a trader, a translator, and a stranger. Alone among the natives, he is the stranger par excellence, one who does not belong to any of the country’s groups and whose homeland, far away beyond the sea, is mysterious and unimaginable. Although the act of translation implied by the trading activity rarely receives an explicit mention in the account, it nevertheless emerges through the indirect speech with which Cabeza de Vaca narrates various scenes of translation and information exchange. In particular, in the second part of the Naufragios the episodes of crosstalk and information exchange become more dense. These negotiations of meanings, which are Cabeza de Vaca’s prime source for his ethnographic, linguistic, and geographical knowledge of the territory and its inhabitants, show very well the plurality of idioms, groups, and cultures that are concealed under the general appellation of “Indian.” From beneath the homogenizing Castilian of Cabeza de Vaca’s narrative transpires the multilingual, transregional world of the natives. Estebanico: slave, polyglot, and interpreter In one of the briefest but at the same time most decisive chapters of the entire narrative, entitled “How we escape,” we find a coming together of the most typical motifs of the intra-diegetic translation: the mise en scène of a translation process, markings of heterolinguality and translational mimesis (see Chapter 6),7 basic patterns of communication (such as a question/ answer sequence), and the delineation of a translator/interpreter figure: vimos unos humos, y yendo a ellos, después de vísperas llegamos allá, donde vimos un indio que, como vio que íbamos a él, huyó sin querernos

64 Translating the territory aguardar; nosotros enviamos al negro tras él, y como vio que iba solo, aguardólo. El negro le dijo que íbamos a buscar aquella gente que hacía aquellos humos. Él respondió que cerca de allí estaban las casas, y que nos guiaría allá, y así, lo fuimos siguiendo […] nos recibieron bien. Dijímosles en lengua de mareames que íbamos a buscarlos, y ellos mostraron que se holgaban con nuestra compañía. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 151 we saw some smoke. Going towards it, we arrived there after sundown. There we saw an Indian who fled without waiting for us when he saw us coming. We sent the black man after him, and when the Indian saw that he was going alone, he waited for him. The black man told him we were looking for the people who were making that smoke. He replied that the lodges were near there and that he would guide us there. […] They received us well. We told them in the language of the Mariames that we were looking for them. They indicated that they were pleased with our company and took us to their lodges. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1993: 76, my emphasis “We sent the black man after him” (“nosotros enviamos el negro tras él”), writes Cabeza de Vaca, and the “black man” talks—or, better said, he acts as an interpreter. The black man is Estebanico (also known as Esteban de Dorantes, Esteban the moor, Stephen the Black, Mostafa alAzemouri or Mustafa Zemmouri), a slave from the Moroccan Atlantic coastal town of Azemmour in the province of Doukkala. Located at the mouth of the Oum er Rbia River, in the 1520s Azemmour was, according to Leo Africanus, “a large and well-populated city, frequented constantly by Portuguese merchants, inhabited by ‘civilized people, decently dressed’ […] and noted for its fishing […] and the production of wheat” (quoted in Adorno and Pautz 1999, II: 414). In 1513, the city of Azemmour was occupied by the Portuguese and Estebanico came to the Iberian Peninsula as a “Portuguese” slave, probably arriving in Seville, where he was sold to the nobleman Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, one of the survivors in Cabeza de Vaca’s account. For this reason, because he was his Spanish master’s slave, Estebanico joined Pánfilo de Narváez’s expedition and thus became one of the first African-born dwellers of today’s North America to be known by name. However, the “black man” from Azemmour was not the only African slave on the expedition—the Greek Doroteo Teodoro also had his own Christian African slave (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 110). Furthermore, Estebanico was just one among thousands of African slaves who were brought to the Antilles from 1501 onwards (Nellis 2013: 29). A common trait of these African slaves—and a relevant aspect for understanding who Estebanico really was—is that they were all Christians, or at least they all professed themselves as Christians. In the royal instructions to Nicolás de Oviedo dated September 16, 1501, Queen Isabella stipulated

Translating the territory

65

that passage to the New World for slaves was restricted to those who were Christians (Adorno and Pautz 1999, II: 419). Had Estebanico not been a Christian, he could not have taken part in the expedition. Only at the end of the account, when listing the names and the origins of the four survivors, does Cabeza de Vaca gives us a clue about Estebanico: “El cuarto [among the survivors] se llama Estebanico; es negro alárabe, natural de Azamor” (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 222). This is indeed the very last sentence of the Naufragios. In the Zamora edition of 1542, the line is exactly the same apart from some insignificant orthographic modifications (Adorno and Pautz 1999, I: 278). This remark is relevant for us because it is here that I would like introduce the translation by Adorno and Pautz (1999, I), which is based on the Zamora edition and is, in my opinion, the most solid interpretation we have of this line up to now: “The fourth is named Estevanico; he is an Arabic-speaking black man, a native of Azamor” (ibid.: 279).8 Since Cabeza de Vaca never called into question Estebanico’s Christian faith, the adjectival modifier “alárabe” cannot imply the inference Arab-ergoMuslim and must instead indicate “some other dimension of the Arabic cultural heritage, and surely it was Estevanico’s knowledge of the Arabic language” (Adorno and Pautz 1999, II: 417). Not only does Cabeza de Vaca assume that his readers would have taken it for granted that Estebanico was a Christian slave (or a Christianized slave), but he would probably have avoided that particular adjective had he had the slightest doubt it would be misunderstood. Concerning the figure of Estebanico—to recapitulate: a dark-skinned, Arabic-speaking, Christian slave from Azemmour—what is interesting for us here is his role as a mediator, as an interpreter. On more than one occasion in the Naufragios we read about Estebanico being sent to scout the land and to serve as an interpreter (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 151, 189, and 195 are the most explicit passages). Why did the Spaniards give him such a crucial, such a vital task? Since Cabeza de Vaca, as he himself states, was so versed in many of the natives’ languages and had proved himself a successful negotiator of meanings, why then did he entrust his life to this slave’s competence in interpreting? There are certainly many plausible and fascinating cultural and psychological motives on which we could speculate, but I see two primary reasons, both directly substantiated by the text. The first is contained in the following passage: Teníamos con ellos mucha autoridad y gravedad, y para conservar esto, les hablábamos pocas veces. El negro les hablaba siempre; se informaba de los caminos que queríamos ir y los pueblos que había y de las cosas que queríamos saber. Pasamos por gran número y diversidades de lenguas Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 195

66 Translating the territory We enjoyed a great deal of authority and dignity among them [the natives], and to maintain this we spoke very little to them. The black man [Estabanico] always spoke to them, ascertaining which way to go and what villages we find and all the other things we wanted to know. We encountered a great number of and variety of languages. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca 1993: 104 In this passage, Cabeza stresses the subordinate position of Estebanico, whose services as interpreter ensure both the well-being of the survivors’ group and the maintenance of the Spaniards’ “authority and dignity” among the Native Americans—in other words the higher status of the three hidalgos. Cabeza de Vaca shows he is convinced that the less they (i.e. the Spaniards) spoke, the more respect they enjoyed. And it goes without saying that in Cabeza de Vaca’s logic, only the Spaniards—and not Estebanico—were owed respect. Moreover, acting as an interpreter, at least in the first encounter with a new group of natives, was a life-threatening task. Employing Estebanico for the job was thus the natural consequence of a hierarchical system that was still fully operational among the four survivors. In addition to these socially determined motives, we should also consider a further reason: the linguistic skills of the “Arab-speaking” Estebanico, who could master not only Spanish and Arabic, of course, but also Portuguese. We have no explicit textual confirmation of the latter language skill, but since Estebanico spent his childhood and part of his adult life under Portuguese occupation, it is highly probable that he could speak the language. In contrast to the defining cultural monolingualism of the three Spaniards, Estebanico’s multilingual dexterity, his experience in dealing with other languages and cultures, his acquaintance with translation processes were strong enough arguments for Cabeza de Vaca and his companions to entrust their lives to his care as the lengua, as interpreter. The combination of both reasons—Estebanico’s inferior social role and superior linguistic competence—is what finally led to the decision to employ him as the “official” interpreter of the survivors’ party. Moreover, this combination places Estebanico in a position between the two typologies of interpreters who characterized the first colonial enterprises in the New World: the erudite polyglot from the Old World, on the one hand, and the autochthonous interpreter, on the other. At the end of the fifteenth century—the century which saw the rise of linguistic translation as the privileged device of knowledge transfer—the erudite polyglot was a highly respected intellectual figure in Europe, whose services were invaluable to every European court. This was the case for Luis de Torres, a Jew who served as a translator and interpreter to the Governor (adelantado) of Murcia (Vilar 1995). In order to avoid deportation following the decree of the Alhambra in March 1492, Luis de Torres converted to Catholicism and joined Christopher Columbus’s first expedition as a converso. We can assume that the Genoese explorer enrolled Luis de Torres because of his

Translating the territory

67

experience as an interpreter to an esteemed Spanish noble house and, in particular, for his knowledge of Hebrew, Chaldean, and Arabic, besides, of course, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin (Columbus 2006: 122). Since Columbus was convinced that he was sailing towards Asia, he presumably thought that Luis de Torres’s knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic would help him to communicate with the Arab or Jewish merchants who, according to Marco Polo’s account, resided at those latitudes (see Vilar 1995: 249–51). As we can imagine, Luis de Torres, who is also known for being the first Old World man to view tobacco (Columbus 2006: 128–9), could not help very much as an interpreter. Columbus himself realized that the only way to solve the problem was to take the natives by force and ship them to Spain, where they could learn the language (ibid.: 131). In this early phase of the conquest, the method for recruiting interpreters “consisted mostly in capturing male Indians” (Ríos Castaño 2005: 48–55). One of these was the baptized Amerindian Diego Colón who, after being captured in San Salvador and named after Columbus’s first son Diego, followed the admiral as his godson and interpreter. Diego Colón belongs to the second and most successful typology of interpreters to characterize the first phase of conquest—enslaved and forcibly baptized natives who were instructed in the Spanish language (see Bastin 2001: 505–6). These interpreters became an invaluable necessity for conquest. Their linguistic and cultural skills transformed them not only into well-functioning devices of cultural translation, but also into precious assets for diplomatic negotiations and military intelligence. Unfortunately, their indispensable work did not enjoy recognition and, except for a few mentions in the letters and accounts of the conquistadores—whose reports rarely went beyond noting their name and role as lengua—they sank into complete oblivion (Ríos Castaño 2005: 47). Moreover, the few who were named—the interpreter-mistress of Hernán Cortés, La Malinche, and Felipillo, who played a vital role in the negotiations between Atahualpa and Pizarro among others—became the targets of derision and disdain for subsequent generations. At the time of the conquest, despite being engaged in decisive talks between conquerors and native rulers, their linguistic savoir-faire seems to have passed unnoticed as the conquerors were reluctant to acknowledge the role of servants, slaves and women. Willingly or not, they eventually turned into advisers and lovers who warned against conspiracies and told their own people not to revolt against the Spaniards. On the side of the conquered, they could wield a power they had never been favored with in their native societies, while their role of intermediaries condemned them to be judged as betrayers. Ríos Castaño 2005: 58 The role of Estebanico as an interpreter is located rather beyond than between these two typologies. He was a polyglot, but not an erudite one; he

68 Translating the territory came from the Old World, but he did not belong entirely and legitimately to it, since he was a slave and a displaced person. In American captivity, Estebanico became a two-fold slave. As an African-born, forcibly baptized Christian, he was not simply the stranger among the “pure blood” Christian noblemen who survived but the perceived tertium in the interaction between the natives and the Spaniards, the quintessential trading stranger (Simmel 1950), whose position could more easily win the sympathies of the natives on the one hand, while increasing the authority of the Spaniards, his masters, on the other. Like Cabeza de Vaca, who has been called the first ethnographer of North America, Estebanico too inspired (more or less) ideological sentences such as “the first black American”—which might be true if we at least add “known by name”—or “one of the first Muslims to set foot in the Americas” (Hancock 2010: 172)—which cannot be true for the reasons we discussed above. However, according to Rolena Adorno (2001), the figure of Estebanico the interpreter, the successful mediator between cultures, does indeed have an emblematic character. As Cabeza de Vaca himself states (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 151), as soon as the four survivors had built a homogeneous group for mutual survival, it was the role of Estebanico to act as scout and interpreter on the “basis of what he knew (his experience, his ‘history’) as well as on the basis of his smartest speculations (his best efforts at ‘theorizing’)” (Adorno 2001). This is Estebanico’s legacy— his ability to complement his tri-continental, multilingual history with the theorizing necessary in order to bring about a positive result in negotiations. In its broadest metaphorical sense, for Rolena Adorno this ability also constitutes an epistemological lesson that should be considered carefully by today’s scholars (ibid.). Moreover, Estebanico’s ability to combine history and theory, experience and speculation, is emblematic for the figure of the interpreter tout court—the figure of the one who goes between, whose main goal is to create (or feign!) reciprocal understanding where this is lacking. To conclude this section, we could hazard our own “the-first-man-who” sentence about Estebanico by stating that he was probably the first recognized interpreter of the Americas with a sound curriculum as such. Not only do his skills and performances enjoy attention in the Naufragios to a degree beyond comparison with any other colonial account of that epoch, but Estebanico can be considered as the first transatlantic interpreter who was booked a second time for the job. After the survivors reached MexicoTenochtitlan, the viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, animated by their account on the Seven Cities of Gold (the semi-legendary Cibola), was eager to sponsor his own expedition towards the north in search of this fabulous site. For this reason, he purchased Estebanico from Dorantes and enrolled him as an experienced interpreter and guide (Adorno and Pautz 1999, II: 421) who would have helped the Franciscan Fra Marcos de Niza in the exploration preceding the real expedition in search of the Seven Cities of Gold, which was led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. It is reported that Estebanico

Translating the territory

69

died during this mission, killed, ironically, by the Zuñi following a misunderstanding (Robert and Roberts 2006: 26–7). In fact we do not know for sure how he died. We do not even know whether he really perished at all on this occasion or whether, as some believe, that the natives helped him to fake his death in order to become free (Maura 2002). Whatever the case, whether he died on that particular mission or whether he survived, either outcome would have been a consequence of his profession.

From the ship to the map At the very beginning of his account, Cabeza de Vaca records when and where Pánfilo de Narváez’s expedition started, providing the basic geographic coordinates of the mission with the exactitude of a logbook: “A 17 días del mes de junio de 1527 partió del puerto de San Lúcar de Barrameda el gobernador Pánfilo de Narváez, con poder y mandado de Vuestra Majestad” (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 77) (see translation above). What interests us here is, in the first place, the name of the harbor from where the expedition departed: “San Lúcar de Barrameda,” an Andalusian port city, situated in the northwest of the province of Cadiz. With the foundation in 1503 of the Casa de Contratación (see Chapter 2) in Seville, the 52-mile-long stretch of river between Seville and Sanlúcar de Barrameda became the transit route par excellence of the Habsburg government—the threshold, so to speak, between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, administered by the Spanish authorities (Acosta Rodríguez et al. 2003; Siegert 2006: 14–15). Situated at the mouth of the Guadalquivir river, Sanlúcar de Barrameda was the starting point for all transatlantic navigations under Spanish jurisdiction. After completing the first two visitas (controls) in the harbor district of Seville (at least until 1553), all of the ships had to go through the third and final visita in the port of Sanlúcar before leaving for America (Haring 1918: 287–9). In that transit space of entry and exit control, the movement of goods, people, and information was transposed into a general symbolic order that “linked the transport of things and people and the movement of the means of transport itself (the ships) to the transport of letters and numbers from one papery place to another papery place” (Siegert 2006: 14). The stretch between Seville and Sanlúcar de Barrameda was thus not only the entry and exit point for the transatlantic transfer of people and goods, but also the place of translation of the Christian–occidental symbolic order into the new, imperial master code (ibid.: 11), the translation zone, so to speak, between the Old and New Worlds. As treasurer and warden, Cabeza de Vaca was not only responsible for the cashbox on the ship, he was also carrying “letters and numbers” from one “papery place,” located at the very heart of the empire in the Old World, to another “papery place,” the bureaucratic outpost of the Spanish crown in the New World. In fact, his main duty was to transport that papery apparatus (that is orders, projects, financial and government plans) to Florida and

70 Translating the territory to act there accordingly. As we have already seen, things turned out otherwise than expected: Cabeza de Vaca was shipped back to Spain at the end of his odyssey with a completely different set of words and numbers than those hoped for. In any case, by returning to Spain, the possibility opened up for Cabeza de Vaca to write down, print, and publish his story: he did not come back with rose-tinted financial accounts and expansion plans, but with a report, his Relación, which nevertheless contributed to the imperial cause. At this point, navigation and writing come together in a way that is paradigmatic for that period—the interconnection between ships, that is, navigational and transport devices, and writing, a representational and storage medium. From a translational perspective, we can say that the interconnection between navigation and writing, especially in the transatlantic cultural translation of the Naufragios, constitutes the third ‘T’ within the so-called 3T paradigm—Translation, Trade, and Technology—amply discussed by Michal Cronin in his volume on Translation in the Digital Age (2013). Translation never comes alone. As discussed above, translation always performs a sort of trade, a negotiation, while trade needs translation in order to make sense of what is being traded. Although it is not self-evident, the interconnection between translation and trade always implies a technology of circulation. Moreover, as Cronin argues, the technology of circulation is not merely a tangential aspect, it is “a powerful multiplier of mutation” (ibid.: 41) that profoundly affects the translational process. In the case of Cabeza de Vaca’s account, the third operating ‘T’, the Technology of circulation, is above all the relay-like connection between writing and navigation, between scripts and ships. The latter are, on the one hand, the ship that transported Cabeza de Vaca with his “letters and numbers” (a form of writing indeed) to the New World and, on the other, the boats, rafts and vessels (the last one was a Portuguese ship) which made his return to Spain possible, allowing him to write and publish his account. However, it is not only Álvar Núñes Cabeza de Vaca who travels as both an agent and a narrative figure. His writing, his Naufragios as a book, that is, as a medium for knowledge storage and dissemination, migrates too. Following its first printing in 1542 in Zamora, Cabeza de Vaca’s account continued to move—both geographically and in terms of social hierarchy. Álvar’s account reached both the more important centers of the empire as well as its political and intellectual elite. While his account was quoted and studied “by readers with geographical and political interests in Spain, such as the royal chronicler and cosmographer of the Indies, Juan López de Velasco,” it also migrated to Italy and to England, where it was also being translated and commented upon (Adorno and Pautz 2003: 32). Eventually, this horizontal and vertical dissemination of the Naufragios underpinned the text’s favorable reception in Seville at the Casa de Contratación. With the reception of Cabeza de Vaca’s account in Seville a circle seems to close, but the medial transfer goes on. As a pivotal source of knowledge on

Translating the territory

71

unexplored regions of the New World, the text of the Naufragios attracts the avid attention of the mapmakers. In particular, Cabeza de Vaca’s account does not go unnoticed by a young, but already well-positioned cartographer, Sancho Gutiérrez, son of Diego Gutiérrez, cosmographer and substitute piloto mayor at the Casa de Contratación.9 In his world map dated 1551— one of the most important, even if not the most accurate, world maps of the sixteenth century10—Sancho Gutiérrez introduces a cartographic legend that reads: “la florida por aqui fue cabeça de vaca” (La Florida Cabeza de Vaca went this way). Written in the common orthography of mid-sixteenthcentury Castilian, this sentence is positioned on the depiction of North America, across territories that are known today as the Southern United States. The gently curving legend follows the western sweep of the Gulf of Mexico and surrounds the toponyms scattered along the coast. Written upside down, the sentence reads “cartographically” from east to west, visualizing the direction of Cabeza de Vaca’s journey. In this sense, the legend may be considered as a transmediation of the alphabetic, languagebased travel narrative of the Naufragios into the cartographic code system for at least two reasons. First, as integrated systems of virtual spatial indices, maps, and especially early modern world maps, do not actually locate something, but they store the knowledge through which places can be addressed (Stockhammer 2007: 52).11 In the classic, but still useful definition given by J. Brian Harley and David Woodward, maps are “graphic representations that facilitate a spatial understanding of things, concepts, conditions, processes, or events in the human world” (Harley and Woodward 1987: xvi). Functioning as a spatial index, the sentence thus establishes a relation between its symbolic content, the space it occupies on the map, and the place outside the map it is supposed to refer to. This means that the legend makes sense as a sentence only within the visual order of the map. Second, due to the north-oriented projection of the map, Sancho must write the sentence upside down in order to suggest a westward movement in space. Negotiating between the text and the map, between the readability of an alphabetic sentence and the visual realization of the map, he ultimately performs a transmediation between textual and visual narration. This was not an unusual procedure for the early modern cartography, on the contrary, as Woodward argues, [a] striking continuity between the medieval and Renaissance periods involves the persistence of textual descriptions of the world, which were by no means replaced by their graphic equivalents. […] Examples of the continued use of texts in the Renaissance period can be cited for all these categories of function, such as general descriptions of the world, horographies, land itineraries, portolans (sailing directions), and land surveys. Woodward 2007: 712

72 Translating the territory In general then, the cartographic legend about Cabeza de Vaca’s itinerary shows, first, how rapidly and visibly Renaissance chronicles and narratives influenced and shaped early modern maps. Besides its intrinsic value, this legend provides us “with a look at sources of information and methods used in constructing maps” (Kelsey 1993: 254). Second, it testifies to the political and cultural impact of Cabeza de Vaca’s Naufragios in Habsburg Spain even before the more successful reprint of his account (Valladolid, 1555) was published. Sancho Gutiérrez was not just a mapmaker. In the period between 1551 and 1553, when he published the complete version of his world map, inclusive of all cartouches and legends, he became no less than the royal cosmographer,13 that is, the leading cartographer at the Casa de Contratación and supervisor of the manufacture and improvement of nautical devices (Haring 1918: 36). Considering Gutiérrez’s position, his world map can be defined as a very close copy of the padrón real (Kelsey 1993: 251), the master chart of the Casa de Contratación; that is, the official and secret record of geographic data coming in from the Spanish crown’s domains and expeditions (see also Chapter 2). As the cartographic hand of the emperor, as the engraver, so to speak, of the Habsburg’s reign of peace, Sancho Gutiérrez puts his imprimatur on the translation of geographies performed by Cabeza de Vaca and stages the hallowed adventure of the shipwrecked hidalgo as a contribution to the Habsburg translatio imperii, as a journey that carries “Christianity and Western letters to the barbarians” (Cheyfitz 1997: 112). Moreover, the cosmographical dimension of Gutiérrez’s world map transposes the transatlantic narrative of Cabeza de Vaca into a global discourse of mobility and cultural colonization.

4

The fiction of translation Abbé Prévost’s nautical writing

In The Fur Country (Le Pays des fourrures, 1873), Jules Verne tells the story of Lt. Jasper Hobson, who was commissioned by the Hudson Bay Fur Company to find a new, profitable outpost for the fur trade on the north coast of America. After founding a fort at Cape Bathurst, beyond the seventieth parallel, the success of Hobson’s polar expedition seemed assured. However, this would not be a Verne novel if the peninsula where Hobson believed to have erected his Fort-Espérance (Fort Hope), did not turn out to be an “immense piece of ice […] converted by successive deposits of sand and earth into apparently solid ground well clothed with vegetation” (Verne 1874: 169). Welded to the mainland since time immemorial, an earthquake had transformed the peninsula into an island, a “floating island, at the mercy of the winds and waves” (ibid.), drifting west and slowly melting away with its helpless residents—or rather unwilling passengers—onboard. Jules Verne’s polar novel The Fur Country is, therefore, a sort of shipwreck narrative, a shipwreck tale without the wreck, so to speak, since the endangered floating device is not a ship, nor a boat, but an iceberg, a drifting platform made of dissolving ice. However, the shipwreck narrative subtext is not the reason why I mention this very peculiar novel by Jules Verne—although it would be surely interesting to read it as a nineteenth-century pendant to Cabeza de Vaca’s narrative discussed in the previous chapter. The reason why I begin here with The Fur Country is that it contains the following report on the benefits of the fur trade with the natives of Hudson Bay by the English sailor and merchant, Captain Robert Lade: We shall see from the following table, taken from the “Voyage of Captain Robert Lade,” on what terms exchanges were formerly made with those Indians who have since become the best hunters of the Company. Beavers’ skins were then the currency employed in buying and selling. The Indians paid—

74 The fiction of translation For one gun, half a pound of powder, four pounds of shot, one axe, six knives, one pound of glass beads, one laced coat, one coat not laced, one laced female dress, one pound of tobacco, one box of powder, one comb and one looking-glass,

10 beavers’ skins 1 ˝ 1 ˝ 1 ˝ 1 ˝ 1 ˝ 6 ˝ 5 ˝ 6 ˝ 1 ˝ 1 ˝ 2 ˝

Verne 1874: 11

Neither the veracity of the information contained in the table nor its mercantile meaning are what interest me most about this citation, but rather the motives that brought Jules Verne to mention Robert Lade’s travel account in the first place. Who was this English ship’s captain? Robert Lade was an impoverished English merchant, who in 1722 undertook a voyage halfway around the world in order to restore his good name and his vanished fortune. Onboard of the ship Depfort, he sailed around Africa to Indonesia and from there back to Africa, to the Gulf of Mexico and finally back to London. Thanks to a successful trade on the west coast of Africa, Robert Lade came into possession of large amounts of gold. A second voyage followed this first one, which led Captain Lade to America. For the English merchant, this second sea journey was no longer undertaken out of necessity, but rather out of enthusiasm for a maritime and adventurous life. This transatlantic navigation also ends in success, with the definitive return of Robert Lade to full economic and social stability and status (Prévost 1744). This is, roughly, the story of Captain Robert Lade: the story of a proto-capitalist, seafaring hero at the beginning of the eighteenth century. However, the Voyages of Captain Robert Lade is anything but a homogeneous, balanced narrative. Whereas, on the one hand, the main narrative can be described as a travel journal in the first-person—a typical autodiegetic travel narrative—full of cartographic and hydrographic observations as well as geographic and ethnographic digressions; on the other hand, Robert Lade’s first-person report is accompanied by substantial (more or less justified) insertions from other sources, such as Captain Flint’s report on Vera Cruz in Mexico, a supplement to the history of the Hudson Bay authored by the eldest son of Robert Lade, and the maritime memories of Captain Best. The above-mentioned passage on the benefits of the fur trade, for example, quoted by Verne in The Fur Country, comes from the supplement to the history of the Hudson Bay; and, as I will explain in a moment, it certainly stems from the following French version of Robert Lade’s account, which was published in Paris in 1744 by the famous novelist and translator Antoine-François Prévost d’Exiles, better known as Abbé Prévost (1697–1763).

The fiction of translation Un Fusil, Poudre à tirer, Plomb à tirer, Haches, Couteaux, Grains de colliers, Habits galonnés, Habits sans galon, Habits de femme avec galon, Habits de femme sans galon, Tabac, Boëte à Poudre de corne, Chaudron, Peigne & Miroir,

75

dix bonnes peaux de Castor. un Castor pour une demie livre. un Castor pour quatre livres. un Castor pour une grande & une petite. un Castor pour six grands couteaux. un Castor pour une livre. six Castors pour un habit. cinq Castors pour un habit rouge. six Castors pour un habit. cinq Castors. un Castor pour une livre. un Castor pour une grande boëte ou pour deux petites. un Castor pour le poids de chaque livre. deux peaux. Prévost 1744, 2: 203–4

According to the general narrative strategy of his Voyages extraordinaires, Jules Verne uses this report as a factual anchor for the development of his fiction. In fact, he regularly punctuates his imaginary narratives with references, citations, and arguments from authoritative sources in order to give his fiction a plausible dimension (see next chapter). However, while he thereby seeks to lend plausibility to his novels, these effets de réel, made up of geographical and scientific materials, primarily support the development of a fictional, often fantastic geography that gives his literary journeys a truly “extra-ordinary dimension” (Dupuy 2011: 235). So why did Jules Verne quote Robert Lade’s Voyages? Was Captain Lade’s travelogue a particularly authoritative or reliable source? Judging by its impact factor, so to speak, on eighteenth-century scientific production, the response should be decidedly affirmative. Among others, Captain Robert Lade’s Voyages is in fact quoted in two milestones of French scientific literature written by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, and Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert.1 At several points in his Histoire naturelle, Buffon quotes the “French translation” of Captain Lade’s Voyages published in 1744, mentioning in the footnote the name of the translator, who was the then very popular novelist and translator Abbé Prévost. Already in the first volume of his Histoire, published in 1749, Buffon includes Robert Lade’s report among the most important sources for his Théorie de la Terre (Theory of the Earth). Il y a aussi beaucoup de glaces dans les mers du nord de l’Amérique, comme dans la baie de l’Ascension, dans les détroits de Hudson, de Cumberland, de Davis, de Forbisher, etc. Robert Lade nous assure

76 The fiction of translation que les montagnes de Frisland sont entièrement couvertes de neige, et toutes les côtes de glace, comme d’un boulevard qui ne permet pas d’en approcher: « Il est, dit-il, fort remarquable que dans cette mer on trouve des îles de glace de plus d’une demi-lieue de tour, extrêmement élevées, et qui ont 70 ou 80 brasses de profondeur dans la mer; cette glace qui est douce, est peut-être formée dans les détroits des terres voisines, etc. Ces îles ou montagnes de glace sont si mobiles, que dans des temps orageux elles suivent la course d’un vaisseau, comme si elles étaient entraînées dans le même sillon: il y en a de si grosses, que leur superficie au-dessus de l’eau surpasse l’extrémité des mâts des plus gros navires, etc. » Voyez la Traduction des Voyages de Lade, par M. l’Abbé Prévost, tome II, page 305 et suiv. Buffon 1749, 1: 371 There is also much ice in the seas of North America, as in Ascension Bay, in the Straits of Hudson, Cumberland, Davis, Forbishers, &c. Robert Lade asserts that the mountains of Friezeland are entirely covered with snow, and its coasts with ice, like a bulwark, which prevents any approaching them. “It is, says he, very remarkable, that in this sea we meet with islands of ice more than half a mile round, extremely high, and 70 or 80 fathoms deep; this ice, which is sweet, is perhaps formed in the rivers or straits of the neighboring lands &c. These islands or mountains of ice are so moveable, that in stormy weather they follow the track of a ship, as if they were drawn along in the same furrow by a rope. There are some of them tower so high above the water, as to surpass the tops of the masts of the largest vessels.” / See the Voyages of Lade, vol. ii, page 305, &. suiv. Buffon 1797: 329–30 This passage, telling of drifting islands and mountains of ice in North America, not only contains in nuce the very geographical setting for Jules Verne’s Fur Country, it is also one of the most glaring examples of Buffon using the “translation” (“Voyez la Traduction […]”) of The Voyages of Captain Robert Lade as a source. From his assessment on African customs and practices to the ornithology of the “River Ruppert,”2 the travel journal of Robert Lade does indeed seem to form one of Buffon’s strongest first-hand testimonies. Furthermore, the remarkable presence of Robert Lade’s Voyages as a trustworthy source in Buffon’s Histoire naturelle almost automatically determined its inclusion into Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie as well. In his article “Glacial,” Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert quotes the same passage (with the same bibliographical notes) from Robert Lade’s Voyages cited by Buffon (d’Alembert 1757: 668–9). More precisely, d’Alembert reproduces word-for-word the whole paragraph by Buffon—without, however, citing its source. As Colas Duflo also argues (2009: 50), the fact that Robert Lade’s travel testimony is so highly regarded by the most important

The fiction of translation

77

scientists of the eighteenth century should not represent a problem per se, since at that time travelogues were commonly used as sources by the most serious naturalists and geographers. Rather, the problem lies elsewhere, namely in the status of Robert Lade as an author, for he has never existed, or at least, not under that name. Captain Robert Lade is an invention—a literary fabrication of his pseudotranslator, Abbé Prévost d’Exiles. My paper trail of quotations of Robert Lade’s Voyages, from Buffon’s Natural History to Jules Verne’s The Fur Country, would be nugatory and superfluous were it not for this simple fact: since 1936 we have had the philological evidence that the Voyages of Captain Robert Lade is nothing but a literary fiction. Thanks to the detective-like work of the French philologist Joseph Ducarre (1936), one of the leading experts of Prévost’s writing in the first half of the twentieth century, this curious and almost forgotten work by the acclaimed author of Manon Lescaut (1731) made a temporary comeback among literary scholars—along the lines of what happens to famous paintings when they are unexpectedly alleged to be a forgery. Spurred on by the strong doubts on the authenticity of Robert Lade’s Voyages of Captain Robert Lade expressed for the first time in 1896 by the bibliophile and North American historian Harry Harrisse3 (Harrisse 1896: 371), Ducarre demonstrated that Prévost’s translation was, in fact, a fictitious translation and called it a “supercherie littéraire,” a literary fraud. Interestingly enough, he did not dismiss the work completely; on the contrary, he praised Prévost’s lively, albeit incoherent, imagination (Ducarre 1936: 476) and acknowledged the general value of the work at least as a “témoignage,” as a testimony, to the positive influence that English culture was exerting over France and its writers around the middle of the eighteenth century (ibid.). How could two men of science such as Buffon and d’Alembert mistake this “original” French narrative for a translation from the English? Since neither Buffon nor d’Alembert could possibly have proved Robert Lade’s existence (and probably never really questioned it), the only reason that we can adduce to explain the aura of credibility that surrounded the text, legitimating both the naturalist and the encyclopedist in using it as a source, was its being the translation from an English travel journal written by an English ship’s captain and merchant; that is, something plausible a priori (as I will later elaborate). But how could this fake endure for almost two centuries? First, because it was a good fake: Prévost’s Voyages du capitaine Robert Lade en différentes parties de l’Afrique, de l’Asie et de l’Amérique (1744) was undoubtedly an astutely intentioned and skillfully orchestrated literary forgery, a wellperformed, convincing (pseudo)translation, marked as a translation from the English across its paratexts. Second, the writer, Abbé Prévost d’Exiles, that is, the pseudotranslator of the text, was already famous at the time of the publication as both novelist and translator. In particular, after the publication of his acclaimed translation of Cicero in 1745,4 his name became almost synonymous with excellent translation in France (Sgard 2006: 229).

78 The fiction of translation Third, two years after the publication of his Voyages du capitaine Robert Lade, Prévost began publishing his voluminous Histoire générale de voyages (1746–59), which was initially conceived as a translation of the earlier four-volume edition by the English geographer John Green, A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels (1745–7), and was later continued as a historiographical anthology selected, assembled, and translated by Prévost himself. This translation and editing work consolidated Prévost’s fame not only in matters of geography and maritime history, but also, of course, as a mediator, trader, and negotiator between British and French geographical culture and writing. Over the following pages I will elucidate these issues and their implications, focusing in particular on the decisive relationship between (pseudo) translation, geography, and navigational practices and techniques.

Pseudotranslation When Ducarre exposed Prévost’s Robert Lade in 1936, translation studies was still at an embryonic stage and the investigation of pseudotranslation as an integral and legitimate part of this academic discipline was not yet even in sight. It was the Israeli comparatist and translation theorist Gideon Toury who, having been a committed promoter of the study of pseudo- or fictitious translation (1983) since the early 1980s, declared in his major work Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond (1995) that, while they do not “constitute the most central objects of Translation Studies, pseudotranslating (as a practice) and pseudotranslations (as individual manifestation thereof) nevertheless emerge as proper objects of the discipline” (ibid.: 46). In his already classic definition, Toury describes pseudotranslations, or fictitious translations, as “texts which have been presented as translations with no corresponding source texts in other languages ever having existed—hence no factual “transfer operations” and translation relationships” (ibid.: 40). Some pages further on, he reformulates his definition even more succinctly, calling a pseudotranslation an “original composition disguised as a translation” (ibid.: 62) (see also Chapter 6). To this textual typology belong such disparate works as Montesquieu’s Lettres persanes (1721), Macpherson’s Ossian (1761) and Mérimée’s La Guzla (1827), but also Cervantes’ Don Quixote (1605–15) and Voltaire’s Candide, Louÿs’s Chansons de Bilitis (1894) and Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (1980). What all these works have in common is the way that they stage themselves; that is, as a translation. Using Anton Popovicˇ’s text theory and his—still valuable—definition of pseudotranslation as “fictitious translation” (1976: 20),5 Douglas Robinson observes that a pseudotranslation is “not only a text pretending, or purporting, or frequently taken to be a translation, but also […] a translation that is frequently taken to be an original work” (Robinson 1998a: 183). Generally speaking, “a pseudotranslation might be defined as a work whose status as

The fiction of translation

79

“original” or “derivative” is, for whatever social or textual reason, problematic” (ibid.). In this sense, we should consider as pseudotranslations not only those original compositions disguised as translations but also those translations that have been or are “frequently taken to be an original work” (ibid.).6 An interesting example of this vice versa typology is the Persian version of The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (1824) by the British diplomat James Morier, which was published in Calcutta in 1906 as Ha¯ji ˙ Ba¯ba¯ without any mention of the translator (Amanat 2003). Taken by many in Persia as an original text, it was regarded by its Persian-speaking readership as an autochthonous, “critical depiction of Persia’s backwardness and moral decadence, a self-image that begged for Westernizing remedies” (ibid.). However, both typologies, the original disguised as translation and the translation taken for an original, share a common trait; that is, their “pseudity,” so to speak. This means that both, for a greater or lesser period of time and over a larger or smaller region of the world, were taken for something they were not. But where the second typology of “pseudity” is mostly based on a subtraction, on a blending or silencing of the source, the first depends on the almost opposite procedure; that is, a sort of addition, an accumulation of fictional factors, an overexposure. Furthermore, the second type of pseudotranslation—the translation taken for an original—can happen without this being the explicit intention of the translator or the editor, as is the case for the Ha¯ji Ba¯ba¯. The first type, in contrast, is inevitably the product of a devised,˙ strategic fictionalization by the (pseudo)translator, as shown by our case. Prévost published the Voyages of Captain Robert Lade explicitly marking its translational status, staging the French text, authored and scripted by himself, as a translation from an English work (Prévost 1744: frontispiece). He presents it as an actual product of a language transfer between the English of Captain Robert Lade and the French of the (pseudo)translator. Usually, the mise en scène of an original composition as a work of translation, its performative disguise, operates on at least two levels. On the one hand, as an effet de réel, it corroborates the verisimilitude of the text, helping its reception as an authoritative work or, at least, as a text worth reading. On the other hand, it covers and masks not just a fiction, but a twofold one, the fiction of a fiction. Especially in the case of Prévost’s Voyages of Captain Robert Lade, the twofold fiction not only “invents” (from Latin invenio, to find, discover) the existence of a source text, but stages it as a travel journal, that is, as a liminal sort of writing—and I will return to this aspect later—that continuously oscillates between fiction and nonfiction. A pseudotranslation of this kind enacts, therefore, a performative process of fictionalization that can be described as a forgery—and they have indeed frequently been paralleled to faking or counterfeiting activities (Apter 2006: 212–13). For Emily Apter, the concept of pseudotranslation explicitly “invites emphasis on the exposure of fraudulent translations” and thematically

80 The fiction of translation drives critics towards the so-called revelation of the “literary scandal” in order to readjust the presumed right order of things (ibid.). To avoid this reparative hermeneutic contained in the concept of pseudotranslation, she introduces the idea of “textual cloning” in order to describe the inception of a translation without an original (ibid.). “As a code of codes,” writes Emily Apter drawing on Benjamin, “translation becomes definable as a cloning mechanism of textual transference or reproducibility rather than as a discrete form of secondary textuality predicated on an ‘auratic’ original” (ibid.). Apter’s clone view on translation offers a fascinating approach: it suspends, on the one hand, the duality of original-versus-translation and; on the other hand, it redirects the interpretative aim of the critic towards a new kind of polarity that sidesteps the controversial category of originality: clone and code (ibid.). Albeit refreshing and thought-provoking within a general theory of translation, Apter’s metaphor of a cloning mechanism falls a little too short as a description for pseudo- or fictitious translation. The idea of genetic identity between code and clone would, if we take Apter’s analogy seriously, in fact exclude quasi physiologically crucial aspects of the pseudotranslation process such as the paratext, with its main distinction into peritext and epitext (Genette 1991), and the metatext. When a text, for example, reflects on its own status, stating that it is a translation, like the famous opening of Cervantes’ Don Quixote part II, we are dealing with a kind of metatextuality that is integral to the pseudotranslation process but that cannot possibly be considered as part of any cloning process. Moreover, the concept of the clone seems to me to be unable to include those peritextual components that are integral to the fictitiousness of the pseudotranslation, such as the text in the frontispiece or in the header, the preface by the (pseudo)translator but also the blurbs and tables of contents that might appear in a volume (Rizzi 2008: 156–7). A case apart is, admittedly, the epitext; that is, the text outside the text such as reviews, letters, notes, quotations, and related archival records. For Andrea Rizzi, epitexts are fundamental investigative documents for establishing the status of a (pseudo)translation (ibid.). But, notwithstanding their value during the so-called revelation phase of unsolved “literary frauds,” their textual status falls outside the proper scope of a pseudotranslation. Whereas the peritexts and metatexts can be enhancing parts of the fiction of a translation, epitexts are external statements on the (pseudo)translation—like Buffon’s and d’Alembert’s quotations from the Voyages—that tend to reflect the reception history of the text.7

Traduit de l’Anglois The frontispiece of the Voyages of Captain Robert Lade8 furnishes not only a micro synopsis of the book in the form of title and subtitle, as was customary at that time, but it explicitly states that the text is a “work translated from the English,” although it does not indicate the name of the translator.

The fiction of translation

81

Voyages du capitaine Robert Lade en différentes parties de l'Afrique, de l'Asie et de l'Amérique: // contenant L'Histoire de sa fortune, & ses Observations sur les Colonies & le Commerce des Espagnols, des Anglois, des Hollandois, &c. // Ouvrage traduit de l'Anglois. Prévost 1744, 1: frontispiece Voyages of Captain Robert Lade in Different Parts of Africa, Asia, and America // Containing the Story of his Fortune and his Observation on the Colonies and Commerce of the Spanish, English, and Dutch, etc. // Work Translated from the English. The absence of the translator’s name should not come as a surprise. In the eighteenth century, both in France and in England, the anonymity not only of the translator but also of the author was a common phenomenon (McMurran 2010: 48–9). For example, Elizabeth Helm, a popular eighteenth-century British novelist in her day, told the Royal Literary Fund that, besides her known works, she had also “translated sixteen volumes for different booksellers [i.e. publishing houses] without my name” (quoted ibid.: 171, my emphasis). On the other side of the Channel, in France, the anonymity in matters of authorship (as much for original compositions as for translations) was so heavily widespread that, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the bibliophile Antoine-Alexandre Barbier felt the necessity for collecting and commenting on all known anonymous and pseudonymous works in French into a dictionary (Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes en français, 1806–8). With his Dictionnaire, Barbier concocted a sort of secret encyclopedia of eighteenth-century French fiction. However, the diffusion and pervasiveness of anonymous works of fiction and translations in eighteenth-century France and England (we could also say, in all Europe) does not essentially contradict what Foucault wrote in his famous essay “What is an Author?” (1980). There he states that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, “a switch” took place. Scientific writing, which seldom circulated in the state of anonymity during the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, shifted towards anonymity, whereas literary discourses came to be accepted only when they carried an author’s name: “every text of poetry or fiction was obliged to state its author and the date, place, and circumstance of its writing […]. If by accident or design a text was presented anonymously, every effort was made to locate its author” (Foucault 1980: 126). Every book of fiction published anonymously became, therefore, an excuse for a more or less bibliophilic and erudite hunt for lost identities. In a sense, Barbier’s Dictionnaire perfectly mirrors the situation between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. On the one hand, this encyclopedic collection of lost or camouflaged authorial identities satisfied a typical curiosity of its time, so newly obsessed with the author’s name and story. On the other hand, it shows that the Foucaultian “switch” was not a sudden turn but a process of adjustment in which the habit of anonymity

82 The fiction of translation and the cult of the author long coexisted, enhancing and shaping the emergence of modern fiction together. In fact, as McMurran explains, [e]ighteenth-century fiction translation relied at least in part on the concealment of origins; novels were especially mobile because they did not bear the stamp of the author or nation. This might be a sign of transnationalism, but not in the modern sense of crossing historical stable national-cultural borders. Translations did not necessarily go abroad as national representative, ushered in by the target culture’s gatekeepers, but roved about promiscuously. McMurran 2010: 50 In the case of Prévost’s (pseudo)translation, the absence of the name of the translator in the frontispiece was not supposed to conceal for good the name of the pseudotranslator. In fact, the publisher’s catalogue (placed at the end of the second volume of the Voyages, immediately after the letter of approbation) explicitly lists this (pseudo)translation under the works by Abbé Prévost available from Didot as late as 1744, followed by the announcement of two forthcoming translated works by the same author, the Lettres de Cicéron (published one year later) and the Histoire générale des voyages (1745–59) (Prévost 1744, 2: 359–60). As a text type on its own, the publisher’s catalogue represents the periphery of the paratext, so to speak, the remotest of all peritexts. Nevertheless, it rounds out the book and pertains to its closed system and materiality. In this sense, it provides valuable hints for tracing the status of the work we are dealing with. Now, if we consider both of the mentioned peritexts together—the statement given by the frontispiece that in every sense opens the work, presenting it as a translation, and the conclusive information on the author of the (pseudo)translation contained in the publisher’s catalogue—there should be no doubt that the “implicit reader” (Iser 1978: 34–5) was expected to read the work as a translation by Abbé Prévost. In his preface to the Voyages of Captain Robert Lade, the paramount peritext of our pseudotranslation, Prévost addresses a Francophone readership made up mostly of intellectuals, both aristocrats and commoners, with a special interest in the literature of the sea voyage. And to this readership Prévost presents an account of a sea voyage from the maritime nation par excellence—or, to put it more accurately, he offers his public a cultural translation of a fictitious Englishman’s travelogue. As Paolo Rambelli states, a pseudotranslation is a powerful device for cultural transitions (2009: 208–11). While it recurs in almost any epoch, pseudotranslation gains in saliency and proliferates “in periods of profound political and social transformation,” enabling “intellectuals to introduce innovations into their own cultural polysystems more easily, while at the same time drawing readers’ attention to the role of these intellectuals as cultural mediators” (Rambelli 2009: 210). In this sense, pseudotranslation can be broadly defined as a sort of cultural translation device which, by means of an authorial fiction, performs and stages a transfer between cultural code systems. Over the following pages,

The fiction of translation

83

I will try to show to what extent Prévost’s pseudotranslation can be described as a cultural translation of geographical imaginations and in what sense its fictional narrative of sea travel stages itself as nautical writing.

Ships and books Prévost, who lived and worked in England, first as a tutor for an influential London family and then as journal editor of Le Pour et Contre9 (Sgard 2006: 90–5 and 119), was not only a connoisseur and admirer of English culture and habits but also one of the most respected French-speaking experts on British nautical history of his time. Two years after the publication of Les voyages du capitaine Robert Lade, Prévost published the first volume of his monumental Histoire générale des voyages (1747–59) that was considered, until the beginning of the nineteenth century, as the reference work par excellence in the history of European navigation, geography, and travel writing. Prévost embarked on this editorial enterprise as a more or less accurate translation of the four-volume edition of A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels (1745–7) by John Green, but he later resumed it as main editor. The aim of his impressive historiographical work was to collect, systematize, and translate all significant non-fiction travel literature from the end of the Middle Ages to the mid-eighteenth century. Interestingly enough, the majority of logbooks and travelogues selected and translated by Prévost are authored by English sailors and travelers. Why is that so? We can find a first answer to this question in the opening lines of Prévost’s preface to his pseudotranslation: De qui attendrait-on des Relations de Voyages plus utiles & plus intéressantes que des Anglais? La moitié de leur Nation est sans cesse en mouvement vers les parties du monde les plus éloignées. L’Angleterre a presqu’autant de Vaisseaux que de maisons, & l’on peut dire de l’Isle entière ce que les Historiens de la Chine rapportent de Nankin; qu’une grande partie d’un Peuple si nombreux, demeure habituellement sur l’eau. Aussi voit-on paraître à Londres plus de Journaux de Mer, & de Recueils d’observations, que dans tout autre lieu. Les Anglais joignent à la facilité de s’instruire par les voies de la Navigation, le désir d’apprendre, qui vient du goût des sciences & de la culture des beaux Arts. Prévost 1744, 1: I

From whom would we expect more useful and more interesting travel reports than from the English? Half of their Nation is constantly moving towards the remotest parts of the world. England has almost as many vessels as houses, and it can be said of the entire island that which China’s historians relate about Nanjing; that a great part of such a large population usually lives on the water. Thus do we see published

84 The fiction of translation in London more logbooks and collected observations than in any other place. The English combine their facility in learning through navigation with the desire to learn, which comes from the taste for science and for the culture of fine arts. As can be understood from this preliminary paragraph, Prévost’s admiration for English seafaring culture is based not only on Britain’s de facto political-military maritime hegemony (which would have been hard to deny anyway in the first half of the eighteenth century), but lies instead in the advanced English maritime literacy and the country’s effervescent writing practices. Moreover, the incomparable number of logbooks, travel reports, and collected observations that were cranked out in England on an almost weekly basis between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries represents for Prévost not only the natural consequence of courageous and pioneering maritime policy but also testifies to the presence of a receptive audience that craved this kind of writing. On y voit surtout quel est l’esprit de nos voisins, non-seulement à l’égard des possessions qu’ils ont dans les Indes, mais par rapport même à celles d’autrui. Ils poussent la jalousie si loin, qu’un Anglais se tua, dans le siècle passé, du seul regret qu’il avait conçu de ce que les Espagnols & les Portugais sont maîtres de la plus belle & de la plus riche partie de l’Amérique. Mais cette disposition les portant à ne rien négliger dans leurs voyages & à publier toutes les remarques qui peuvent être utiles à leur commerce, il ne se passe guères de semaines où l’on ne voie paraître à Londres, le récit de quelque nouvelle Navigation. Prévost 1744, 1: VII–VIII One can see, above all, what kind of spirit our neighbors have not only by judging their possessions in India, but in relation with those of others. Their envy goes so far that an Englishman, in the last century, committed suicide solely because he could not tolerate that the Spanish and Portuguese were masters of the most beautiful and richest part of America. But this predisposition induced them to not leave any stone unturned in their travels and to publish all observations that could prove useful for their commerce. Hardly a week passes without the report of some new navigation being published in London. In what he calls the English “esprit,” Prévost sees the symbolic reunification of two very heterogeneous manifestations, namely, the suicide of an Englishman as the ultimate expression of some sort of nationalist envy towards the Spanish and Portuguese possessions in Central and South America, and an effervescent English book market galvanized by a hyperliterate society hungry for new stories about sea voyages and remote lands. While we will never know the real motives of the poor suicidal Englishman,

The fiction of translation

85

we do, however, know that Prévost was not exaggerating one bit about the English book market. In fact, from the mid-eighteenth century until the breakthrough of Romantic poetry, no other literary genre could compete with travel literature in terms of popularity and sales (Martin and Pickford 2012: 7–8). As the journal editor Ralph Griffiths wrote in the Monthly Review for March 1768, only 24 years after the publication of the Voyages of Robert Lade, “[o]f all the various productions of the press, none are so eagerly received by us Reviewers, and other people who stay at home and mind our business, as the writings of travelers” (quoted ibid.: 8). As Prévost’s preface proclaims, the more passion that the English invested in their navigations, explorations, and colonializations, the greater their yearning for new travel accounts grew. According to Prévost, this relationship between experience and writing is the decisive trait of English society, and his preface repeatedly stages English history as the result of this interconnection between maritime politics and the book market, between explorations and written observations, between literature and navigation. Prévost’s observations on English maritime culture somehow anticipate that which we discussed about Cabeza de Vaca in the preceding chapter; that is, the relay-like connection between ships and writings as a conditio sine qua non for early modern globalization. But for Prévost, this is not the whole story. The fundamental reason for England’s rapid advancement as a global maritime player is the category of spirit, that is of “l’ardeur,” the ardor, the passion, the eagerness: “Celle que je donne au Public [i.e. the (pseudo)translation of the Voyages of Captain Robert Lade] n’a point un objet si vaste [in comparison to the sea voyages of seafarers like Francis Drake or Thomas Cooke among others]; mais elle n’est pas moins propre à faire connaître l’ardeur des Anglais pour tous les objets de fortune & de curiosité” (Prévost 1774: 11, my emphasis) (What I am offering to the public does not have such a vast subject; but it is no less apt to convey the ardor of the English people for all objects of fortune and curiosity). In the way Prévost celebrates and praises the English people’s enthusiasm for voyages and expeditions, and their passion for all possible objects of wealth and knowledge, we grasp a sort of sideswipe at French maritime culture, which he implicitly reproaches for its lack of ardor. Under the visionary direction of the Controller-general and Minister of the Marine, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–83), France made, in fact, gigantic steps towards the technical and organizational overhaul of its navy and maritime policy in the second half of the seventeenth century (Lynn 1999: 83–4). Its naval engineering and administration was probably the most advanced in Europe at that time, but in the first decades of the eighteenth century, the gap with the Royal Navy was still noticeable. This was, at least, the general perception shared by Prévost. Following his arguments, the de facto superiority of the English navy was the result not only of a combination of excellent nautical knowledge, pragmatism, and determination on the part of the ambitious seafarers, but was also the natural result of a process of reciprocal stimulation that

86 The fiction of translation linked virtually every ship leaving England with thousands of readers sitting at home in their insular kingdom waiting impatiently for new reports and stories. To put it pointedly, we can say that the origin of the British maritime supremacy is effectively a book or, more precisely, the translation of a navigational treatise: the 1551 treatise by Martin Cortés, Breve Compendio de la Sphera y de la arte de navegar, translated into English in 1561 by Richard Eden with the more concise title The Arte of Navigation. This translation, which the Commander and Royal Navy historian David Waters quite seriously defined as “the most formative, the most influential book after the Bible in the English language” (Waters 1970: 15), became a bestseller and was reprinted several times until 1630. You could find a copy of it in every captain’s cabin on every English sea-going vessel, including of course the cabin of Francis Drake, of whom we know with certainty that he took The Arte of Navigation with him on his voyage around the world and consulted it frequently (ibid.). But why has this translation from Martin Cortés’s Arte de navegar been so important for England? Because it transferred Iberian knowledge in the field of oceanic navigation (which was based on astronomical observations and mathematical calculations to determine the position of a ship on the ocean) into the navigational practices of the English fleet. And by doing so, it merged, so to speak, the most advanced theory in matters of navigation with the radical maritime ratio which, since its inception, has shaped the self-understanding of the English monarchy. As the English barrister and jurist Sir Edward Coke proclaimed in 1631: “The greatnesse and glorie of this Kingdom of Great Britaine consisteth not so much in the extent of his Majesty’s territories by land, as in the souerantie and command of the seas” (quoted in Wolf 2013: 193). England, we may therefore say, built its maritime empire on the nautical and cartographic expertise of its arch-enemies, the Spanish. Incidentally, this example once again shows us the dark side of translation, namely, how translation not only induces cultural and technological change but can also boost colonialism and an imperial agenda (Niranjana 1992; Cheyfitz 1997; Robinson 1998b: 108–13). After the double success of Eden’s translation of Martin Cortés, which was both a navigational and an editorial hit, the number of logbooks, on board journals, travelogues, navigational treatises, and collections of observations published increased almost without end until it became quite normal, as Prévost puts it, that a week seldom passed without the report of some new navigation being published in London (Prévost 1744, 1: VIII). This did not apply to Paris or to France. It was not until the middle of the seventeenth century and Richelieu that France began to cultivate a serious interest in ocean navigation, thus exhibiting an enormous delay in comparison with its direct adversaries, England, Spain, and Holland. Things changed radically with the coming to power of the Colbert family. The reforms to the merchant marine and to the navy by Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1681) and his son (1689), Colbert de Seignelay, an advocate of the guerre d’escadre, the

The fiction of translation

87

battle between fleets, catapulted France onto the global scene.10 However, although the establishment of trading companies (such as the Compagnie des Indes Orientales), on the one hand, and the enhancement of the military potential of the navy, on the other, did present France as a serious contender on the global chessboard at the end of the seventeenth century, the expensive extravagances and the entrenched terrestrial mentality of the Sun King repeatedly frustrated and impeded every structural advance in this sense (Chapman 2004: 118–19). After the death of Colbert de Seignelay (1690) when the French navy was at its height, Louis XIV’s land-based geopolitics regained the upper hand; naval strategy soon shifted from guerre d’escadre to a guerre de course, that is, “isolated assaults on the enemy’s commercial vessels by using a small number of privately contracted ships” (ibid.). This change of the warfare strategy, which dramatically diminished the importance of the navy, allows us to recognize that the decay of French naval power in the first half of the eighteenth century was not a twist of fate, but rather the consequence of a “deliberate shift in strategy and policy” (ibid.), a shift that reestablished the terrestrial, land-based vision of the French monarchy’s self-understanding. Closely related to Colbert de Seignelay’s advocacy of the guerre d’escadre is the first French treatise on navigation by the Jesuit ship’s chaplain and professor of mathematics Paul Hoste: L’art des armées navales ou Traité des évolutions navales (Art of naval armies or treatise on naval evolutions). Published almost anachronistically in 1697, when the guerre d’escadre was no longer an option for the French navy, Paul Hoste’s treatise on naval evolutions translated, to put it briefly, Descartes’ geometry (1637) into the theory of maritime warfare. It shows the utility of the naval square, “quarré naval,” drawn on the deck of the ship between the mainmast and the mizzenmast, for enabling ships to maintain their positions and spatially coordinate the operations of the entire fleet (Hoste 1697: 409–10). Hoste’s groundbreaking work on the Art of Naval Armies not only testifies to the high degree of sophistication achieved by the French in the field of naval technique, but gives an extraordinary example of applied rationalism at the peak of the Baroque era. However, from Prévost’s point of view, this geometric capture of maritime space was a substantial part of the problem. The rationalistic, Cartesian development of French nautical thinking did not suffice to foster a new maritime mentality in a society which favored a terrestrial existence. It was missing an important counterpart to cold military tactics, something that could operate on the emotional level, stimulating in the French audience, in particular in the literate French bourgeoisie, the same “ardor for all objects of fortune and curiosity” that Prévost recognized in the English—that is, travel literature, especially non-fiction literature about sea voyages and explorations. With his pseudotranslation of the Voyages of Captain Robert Lade and subsequently his Histoire générale des voyages, Prévost wanted to fill precisely this lacuna.

88 The fiction of translation

Nautical writing If we give credit to Prévost as a (pseudo)translator, the fictive source on which his translation is based should consist of an ensemble of logbooks, travel journals, and memoirs redacted and arranged by Captain Robert Lade around 1734. The main part of this source consists of an autobiographical narration by Robert Lade. Oscillating repeatedly between an autodiegetic and a homodiegetic mode of narration,11 it offers the narrative frame for the insertion (mainly in the second part of the book) of heterogeneous memoirs and observations, such as the Supplement to the History of the Hudson Bay written by the son of Robert Lade, the Memoirs of Captain Georges Best and the Description of New Spain. Generally speaking, Prévost’s fictitious travel journal stages a form of retelling that mainly consists in the recuperation and editing of preliminary collected data, impressions, and memories. In this sense, the Voyages of Captain Robert Lade not only inscribes itself into the vast realm of travel literature, but enacts an ideal, almost programmatic version of travel writing: Travel writing is pre-eminently a recuperative genre. Its exemplary form is the private journal, diary, or logbook onto whose pages are dutifully recorded everything of consequence that happens, along with much of no consequence or interest at all. Just as the logbook takes place among the baggage, accompanying the traveler along the way, hence becoming a metonym of the itinerary as it is carried from place to place, so its entries mime the journey’s narrative, sequenced as they are by the post hoc propter hoc rule of calendar dates and locatable place names. Brought back home, the sequence of entries can be published tel quel, forgotten in some attic, mined for material to be used in unrelated writings, or obsessively edited and re-edited, sometimes for years or even decades. Van Den Abbeele 2008: 240 Prévost, of course, does not present his readership with a logbook sensu stricto, which would contain only marginal narrative entries. Rather, he opts for a hybrid form of travel writing, that is, the travel journal, which can be located between the narrative, mostly homodiegetic modus of a travelogue and the neutral, dutiful recording typical of a logbook. While the logbook can be considered as a type of “degree zero of travel literature,” on whose formulaic trace almost every travelogue is based, the travel journal, or travel diary, is a sort of “intermediary form” that enables what “the would-be objective logbook” per definition forbids: “the privileging of the narrator who […] permits mediation between and connection of the text’s two dimensions, external and internal worlds, the landscape and the mindscape” (Forsdick et al. 2006: 25). In Robert Lade’s account, however, the “mindscape” is always subordinate to the “landscape,” or more precisely, to the geographic and navigational dimension of the narration. In fact, there

The fiction of translation

89

is, strictly speaking, no landscape in Robert Lade’s narrative: at one with the main subtext of the account—Robert Lade’s commitment to his own and his family’s material wealth—the narration tells about the external world not as something to be perceived aesthetically but to be exploited economically. The disproportionate presence of geographical observation is, therefore, a function of Lade’s proto-capitalistic agenda, the success of which mostly depends on reliable cartographic information and the navigational skills of the main figures. Furthermore, as mandatory for the logbook, Lade’s account assiduously registers navigational data, climatic conditions, and relevant facts concerning the ship and its crew, regardless of whether they harmonize with the main narrative. In a sense, if the travel journal in general may be considered as an intermediary text sort that slides between the logbook and the travelogue, then Robert Lade’s travel journal tends rather towards the logbook model, since its meticulousness and discipline in keeping records promise certainty and corroborate the account’s illusion of “authenticity.” The logbook is often invoked figuratively in sea narratives as a stand-in for truth, or as an objective register of experience […] Indeed logbooks are the model for many sea narratives, which adopt either the logbook’s diary-entry form, or at least its insistence on a meticulous chronological progression. Logs likewise display the precision of navigational measurements and reflect the discipline of record-keeping practices aboard ships. They presume a linear narrative structure and make date, time, and location a vital narrative preoccupation of sea fiction. Blum 2008: 103 Imbued with coordinate entries, coastal descriptions and observations on winds and ocean currents, Captain Lade’s autobiographical account figuratively invokes the logbook as a stand-in for truth to increase the impression of a first-hand experience. And as if that were not enough, he also inserts a complete “Table de la latitude & de la longitude des principaux Ports, Isles, Rivières, Bayes, Caps, & autres lieux remarquables de la Côte Occidentale de l’Amérique dans la Mer du Sud, depuis la Californie du Nord jusqu’au détroit de Magellan au Sud” (Table of latitudes & longitudes of the major Ports, Islands, Rivers, Bayes, Caps, and other notable places of the West Coast of America in the South Sea, from Northern California to the Strait of Magellan in the South). This list of coordinates, or positional catalogue, taken from the journal of Mr Rytwood, covers almost six pages and is introduced, with no irony intended, as “the most useful and noticeable” part of the said journal (Prévost 1744, 1: 297). This table of toponyms and coordinates, six pages and 160 items long, appears at first glance like a foreign body in the economy of the narration, like a curtain of sparkling numbers that all of a sudden occludes the narration—or even like a recourse to parody, as Margaret Cohen interprets it (Cohen 2010: 91).12 On closer examination, however, it becomes clear that this astonishing insertion is

90 The fiction of translation neither an arbitrary importation nor a parodic strategy, quite the contrary: Mr Rytwood’s positional catalogue visualizes the device that holds travel journals, mapping practices, and individual fates together, suggesting an almost physical contiguity between the captain’s log and the unfolded nautical charts on his cabin desk. Together with two maps appositely produced for Prévost’s (pseudo)translation by no less a figure than the King’s Official Hydrographer Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703–72),13 Mr Rytwood’s catalogue potentiates the carticity (see Chapter 2) of Prévost’s fictitious travel journal, that is, its affinity to mapping devices, and reveals the way in which Captain Lade sees the world, that is, as a series of coordinates that locate potential zones of profit. However, Prévost is not primarily interested in the mappability of Robert Lade’s routes. His focus does not lie in the cartographical evidence of his hero’s itinerary. Instead, he is keen to forge a plausible, trustworthy seaman’s journal along the lines of the “poetics of historical mariner-authors” (Cohen 2010: 91). What Robert Lade says about Mr Rytwood’s journal, in that it is a typical seaman’s journal because it focuses “rather on the position of places, the descriptions of coasts, ports, bays and waters, than the physical and moral history of the countries that he visits” (Prévost 1744, 1: 290),14 is also what Prévost would say about Robert Lade’s journal, that is, it is a verifiable, trustworthy seaman’s journal for this exact same (cartographical) reason. It is not by chance that, a few pages before the above-mentioned positional catalogue, Lade introduces the “real” story of Selkirk, the famous real-life castaway on the island of Juan Fernández who inspired Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe (1719), transcribing some excerpts from his journal (Prévost 1744, 1: 285–90). In these lines by Selkirk (or Selcrag, as Mr Rytwood explains), following Robert Lade’s arguments, we find “la vérité de son avanture” (ibid.: 285), the truth of his adventure. In a sense, by inserting and staging Selkirk’s “original” account, Prévost is effectively challenging the foundational text of the modern sea novel, which also happens to be the founder of the modern English novel tout court (Blum 2011: 153). The superior validity of Selkirk’s journal in comparison to Defoe’s version of the story lies, for Robert Lade, alias Prévost, in the veracity conveyed by its status as first-hand and journal-like testimony. From this perspective, when Prévost informs the reader in the preface that he had to omit some passages because they sounded too unlikely to be believed, not only is it quite amusing but it is also very much in accord with the notion of vraisemblance (literally the semblance of truth, plausibility), which explicitly informs and structures the whole narrative: “L’aversion que j’ai pour le merveilleux sans vraisemblance, m’a fait retrancher, à l’article de Saint Vincent, de longs récits” (Prévost 1744, 1: XIII) (The dislike I have for marvels without likelihood, made me cut some long accounts in the article of Saint Vincent). Robert Lade as a narrator also seems to deploy strategic cuts in order to conceal particularly profitable trade routes. For example, he

The fiction of translation

91

carefully avoids giving any precise cartographical detail about the location on the west coast of Africa where, together with his future son-in-law Captain Rindekly, he swapped two barrels full of gold bars for almost nothing, just for some “Bœuf salé,” corned beef, and brandy (ibid.: 22). In “Silence and Secrecy,” Brian Harley has shown that “silence and utterance are not alternative but constituent parts of the map language […] silence elucidates and is likely to be as specific as any other cultural aspect of the language map” (1988: 58). Prévost is not only conscious that silence construes maps as much as utterance does; in his editor’s role, he stages the suppression of cartographic, orientation-specific information in Robert Lade’s account out of mercantile interest as the ultimate sign of reliability (Prévost 1744, 1: XVI). The silencing of some apparently important cartographic information, therefore, becomes a demonstration of the sincerity of the rest of the account, an indicator of Lade’s respect for the truth—since it would have been easy, so concludes Prévost, to replace the correct geographical information with misleading indications (Prévost 1744, 1: XVI). With a light ironic touch— detectable as such, however, only by posthumous readers who know they are dealing with a pseudotranslation—Prévost ends his preface by playing on the unsolved duality between fiction and non-fiction, highlighting the concept of vraisemblance as the main feature of his (pseudo)translation: L’Écrivain Anglois laisse entrevoir dans plus d’une occasion, le motif qui lui a fait supprimer les hauteurs, lorsqu’il est question de cette riche Côte d’Afrique, qui devint le fondement de sa fortune. Ce n’est pas la première fois que l’intérêt ait fait garder le silence aux Négocians sur les voies du commerce. Mais on peut regarder cette suppression même, si elle est volontaire, dans un lieu où l’on est porté à la regréter, comme un caractère de bonne foi pour le reste de l’Ouvrage; puisqu’avec moins de respect pour la vérité, il auroit été facile de remplir ce vuide par des suppositions imaginaires. ibid. In more than one occasion, the English writer let show through the reason that made him suppress the high ground when it comes to this rich coast of Africa, which became the foundation of his fortune. This is not the first time that interest has forced merchants to silence their trade routes. But you can consider this same deletion, even if it is voluntary, at a point where one might be brought to regret it, as a character of bona fide for the rest of the work; since with less respect for the truth, it would have been easy to fill this void by means of imaginary assumptions. In conclusion, we may state that the Voyages of Captain Robert Lade, as a pseudotranslation—that is, as an effective device for cultural translation— while surely capitalizing on a French readership’s hunger for things English,

92 The fiction of translation on the one hand, on the other stages the logbook-based travel journal as the constitutive (alphabetical) medium of the English model of globalization, proposing it to a French-speaking audience, mostly of fellow writers, geographers and philosophes, as a model worth following. Interestingly enough, in doing so, Prévost foresaw the formula that governed not only the enormous popularity of English-language sea novels in the nineteenth century, from James F. Cooper and Richard H. Dana to Herman Melville and Robert L. Stevenson, but also of many of the works of Jules Verne: that is, the logbook imagination, the illusion of veracity conveyed by a logbook, which the extra-ordinary part of fiction made more plausible. Or, to put it more plastically: “It is no bragging, sir, to speak log-book truth!” (quoted in Blum 2008: 102), as Tom Coffin proclaimed paradigmatically in Cooper’s The Pilot (1823). Furthermore, Prévost introduces quite an unusual heroic figure into the French literary panorama of the mid-eighteenth century; that is, the figure of the broken merchant who re-establishes his status and his wealth by sailing and trading around the world. By doing so, Prévost presents sea travel and trading on a global scale as a practice of self-reliance and independence, thus inviting his fellow citizens to liberate themselves from their atavistic terrestrial mentality. Beside the quite despicable materialism of Robert Lade—which, not by accident, has a lot in common with the proto-capitalistic Weltanschauung of Robinson Crusoe—Prévost’s plea for a more maritime life can also be read, in the context of France’s absolute monarchy, as a call to liberty and self-determination.

5

Translating the sea Jules Verne, Nemo, and nineteenth-century oceanography

If Captain Nemo invites you into his austere yet elegantly decorated submarine dining room after you have almost died at sea, and kindly tells you to take a seat and eat, you do as he requests, probably without enquiring too deeply about where the meal’s ingredients have come from. But, fortunately for us, the curiosity of Professor Aronnax, a French marine biologist taken captive by Nemo, was not to be exhausted. Gently but firmly, he confesses to his mysterious host and captor that he can understand perfectly how his nets can provide excellent fish, and that he also understands, though less clearly, how he can perform aquatic games in his underwater possession. But what he definitely does not understand is how red meat can possibly figure on his menu. Nemo, noticeably spurred on by Aronnax’s astonishment, responds as follows: Ce que vous croyez être de la viande, monsieur le professeur, n’est autre chose que du filet de tortue de mer. Voici également quelques foies de dauphin que vous prendriez pour un ragoût de porc. Mon cuisinier est un habile préparateur, qui excelle à conserver ces produits variés de l’Océan. Goûtez à tous ces mets. Voici une conserve d’holoturies qu’un Malais déclarerait sans rivale au monde, voilà une crème dont le lait a été fourni par la mamelle des cétacés, et le sucre par les grands fucus de la mer du Nord, et enfin, permettez-moi de vous offrir des confitures d’anémones qui valent celles des fruits les plus savoureux. Verne 1871: 73–4 What you believe to be red meat, Professor, is nothing else than sea turtle’s loins. Similarly, here are some dolphin livers that you might confound with a pork ragout. My chef is a skillful food processor who excels at conserving these various products from the ocean. Feel free to taste all of these foods. Here are some conserves of sea cucumber that a Malaysian would declare to be unrivaled in the whole world, here you have a cream from milk obtained by cetacean udders, and sugar from the tang field in the North Sea; and finally, allow me to offer you some jams of sea anemone, comparable to that from the tastiest fruits.

94 Translating the sea In this hilarious passage from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Verne describes for us the vivid result of a translational process, a geopoetic translation, so to speak, in which the marine products of Nemo’s underwater dominions are translated into the gastronomic code of the dry-land world—with a light but unmistakable French touch. The ragout of pork becomes “foies de dauphin,” dolphin livers, whereas the potted cream (a milky product par excellence and the apotheosis of the very terrestrial process that transmutes the green grass into a nourishing, white liquid substance) becomes a categorically oceanic product, obtained with cetacean milk and algae sugar. Particularly interesting seems to me here the “confiture d’anémone,” the sea anemone jam that Nemo offers to Professor Aronnax last. With this exotic example of a marine product processed through a very terrestrial culinary practice for preserving foods, that is, jam making, we are seeing a telling case of double translation. In fact, the sea anemone (Actiniaria R. Hertwig, 1882) bears a popular name in French, “anémone de mer” (as in English and German too), which already implies an analogical translation from the terrestrial world into the marine, that is, the utilization of the name of a terrestrial flower, the anemone, for describing a slightly similar inhabitant of the abyss. Curiously enough, the sea anemone—otherwise called the “sea rose” in German (Seerose) or, even more earthy, the “sea tomato” in Italian (pomodoro di mare)—is not exactly a plant but a predatory animal, a sort of polyp that belongs to the subclass of Hexacorallia (Shick 1991: 1–2), whose zoophyte nature was known at least as early as 1770 (De Félice 1770, II: 628).1 The name of a colorful terrestrial plant, the anemone, is thus used to describe a sea-dwelling animal. This particular process of re-naming can be described as an intra-lingual, analogical translation (Delabastita 1993: 11), which lends weight to the optical similarity between the flower and the polyp by diminishing the biological divergences. As Delabastita states, the “search for analogues is often considered to be the only genuine form of linguistic translation” and this derives from the fact that analogical translation “most closely resembles the ‘ideal’ of the strict recoding procedure” (ibid.). And it is this “recoding procedure” that most profoundly substantiates the diegetic submarine world of Verne’s Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, 1869–70). Nemo’s oceanic world is, in fact, the result of a series of analogical translations, both intra- and interlingual in nature, which transposes and recodes the oceanic, watery world into the master code of the terrestrial, dry-land world. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is one of Jules Verne’s major novels and one of the most popular and influential of his Voyages extraordinaires, especially if we consider the innumerable (proper) translations, adaptations, and transmediations this novel has initiated and inspired. The reason why I picked up on precisely this novel from Jules Verne’s vast output lies not only in the uniqueness of its plot and the unprecedented strength of its imagination, but rather in its decisive geographical focus. It goes almost without saying that Verne’s oeuvre as a whole is based primarily on a

Translating the sea 95 geographical imagination rather than on a historical or even a scientific one. As Timothy Unwin states in his brilliant monograph on Jules Verne, geography is the “discipline that seems to have most interested Verne, the one that underpins his quest for total coverage” (Unwin 2005: 27). But what makes Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea an important case study for my investigation is its paradigmatic figuration of the modern globalization and its powerful translation of geographies. With his underwater epos, Verne prefigured the “liquid modernity” (Bauman 2000) of later globalization. The Nautilus’s motto, MOBILIS IN MOBILE, which emphasizes the special property of the submarine to move in a liquid substance beneath the surface, anticipates today’s transnational movement of goods and people and the global flow of communication (Palano 2007: 29–30), questioning, to some extent, the very concept of the nation-state. Moreover, as Michel de Certeau has incisively shown, Captain Nemo’s anarchistic dream also represents an itinerant space of knowledge, a “space of memory” that is constantly “on the move […] a place of comings (it is returning) and goings (it is departing), of descents and surfacings” (Certeau 1986: 142). In this chapter, I will show how Nemo’s narrative—based primarily on the idea of a mobile, submarine “space of memory,” the Nautilus, which sustains itself by exploiting underwater dominions—may be considered as a translatio maris. By translating the sea into the Western master code of the dry-land world, Verne’s submarine novel offers a nineteenth-century, oceanic version of the early modern translatio imperii et studii. But contrary to the traditional epic version of the translatio, which usually negotiated the telluric spectres of Troy and Aeneas in order to stage the right lineage of the transfer of power (Bellamy 1992 and Rössner 2011), Verne’s translatio maris harks back to another Homeric spectre, the thalassic spectre of Odysseus and his seafaring legacy. In doing so, Verne marks, striates, and reterritorializes the quintessentially unscratchable part of our world, the sea, establishing a strong connection with what was then a relatively new scientific discipline: oceanography. In particular, Verne repeatedly quotes one of the founders of this discipline, Matthew Fontaine Maury, author of The Physical Geography of the Sea (1858), in his novel. In the second part of this chapter, I will show how Verne more or less invisibly translates Maury’s oceanography into his work and I will examine the role played by these concealed translations in the novel.

Translatio maris; or, Nemo’s underwater empire As I explained in the introduction—but it is probably worth repeating at this point in the book—by speaking of a translation of geographies I do not, of course, understand translation in its narrow sense only; that is, in the sense of a transfer-like remodeling of a particular linguistic expression into another language. Rather, I understand it in a broader cultural and semiotic sense as a process of transformation and recodification of geographical imaginaries

96 Translating the sea within one or across different media. This extension of the concept of translation should not be considered as simply the metaphorical exploitation of a buzzword, but rather as the recovery of the cultural dimensions and complexity which are still encapsulated and, as I think, very much active in the term “translation.” On the one hand, Birgit Wagner has rightly outlined the weakness of Bhabha’s concept of “cultural translation,” since it always oscillates between the linguistic-oriented importance of translation and the “cultural” moment of a translation process without, however, reflecting on the highly problematic aspect of this transition (Wagner 2009). I agree with her completely on this point and I believe that this is precisely the reason why most translation studies scholars find it difficult, if not awkward, to utilize Bhabha’s grasp of translation. On the other hand, far from wanting to defend Bhabha, we must recognize at least one achievement of the doctor difficilis of modern-day philology. With his understanding of cultural translation based on Benjamin’s famous essay on the task of the translator, Bhabha not only re-evaluates translation as a space of performative negotiation (2005 [1994]: 325) but he also—probably unintentionally—reactivates older, forgotten substrates of the medieval concept of translatio. Here I am referring in particular to the explicit spatial dimension that inhabited the term translatio until at least the end of the Middle Ages. The complexity of today’s use of “translation” reflects that of the medieval term translatio. As a form of constructive provocation, we could argue that, following the decline of a purely linguistic and positivistic perspective, and given the impact of post-structuralism, the current terminological debate within the field of translation studies is partly experiencing those inner tensions which Gianfranco Folena, in his too often forgotten essay Volgarizzare e tradurre, attributed to the medieval, Romance notion of “translation” (1991 [1973]). The medieval notion of translatio described, first, a “material transfer from one place to another” (Hans Vermeer, cited in Dizdar 2006: 45), whereas in the religious sphere, the term meant the “transfer of the remains of a saint or the transfer of a bishop to his place of action” (ibid.). Later on, a new complex of meanings appeared on the signifier horizon indicating what Hans Vermeer has paraphrased as “technical power transmission,” “transfer of mental facts” and “implementation of ideas” (ibid.). As you see, in these particular meanings of translatio, the basic idea of an interlingual translation is not yet to be found, at least not manifestly. This occurs only later, in particular, through the technical implementation of the term in the fourteenth century, when words such as translation (French) and translazione (Italian) replaced the former terms volgarizzare and romancier (Folena 1991: 33). With the contribution of Leonardo Bruni’s De interpretatione recta at the beginning of the fifteenth century (probably 1426), further vocabulary related to the noun translatio and the verb transferre entered the scene. I refer here to the terms originating from the Latin verb traducere (trans-ducere, to lead across, to transfer) such as traductio (later: traducción in Spanish, traduzione in Italian) and

Translating the sea 97 traductor (later: traducteur in French, traductor in Spanish, and traduttore in Italian). These new terminological entries were introduced by Bruni himself and placed stronger emphasis on the act of translation and consequently on the figure of the translator (Folena 1991: 67–70; Fubini 2001: 110). Gianfranco Folena retraced the “invention” of these terms through meticulous investigation and—with a dash of Italian pride perhaps—declared them the fundamental interface between the medieval, spatially oriented concept of translatio and the modern, language-oriented meaning of translation (Folena 1991: 70). A glimpse at the history of the term “translation” has taught us at least two things: first, that the notion of “translation” not only allows but solicits adoption for describing processes of spatial and geographical negotiation; and second, that using the word “translation” to describe a movement in space or between spaces is, paradoxically, even less metaphorical than the customary use of translation for illustrating processes of interlingual transfer. Distinctly related to the first acceptation of the term translatio (transfer from one place to another) is one of the paramount political concepts of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the so-called translatio imperii et studii; that is, the transfer of rule and knowledge from one place to another. According to this theologically dictated, geopolitical formula, history is a linear succession of power relocations, whose straightforward movement would mirror a cultural and a geographical advancement—from paganism to Christianity, and from East to West. The eschatological Weltanschauung inscribed in this notion originates in the “four kingdoms” doctrine contained in the Book of Daniel (c. 164 BCE). Most certainly written by a wealthy and learned Jew during the Maccabean period (Collins 2002: 2), this book retells the activities and visions of Daniel, a noble Jew taken into Babylonian captivity in the fifth century BCE.2 In the second chapter of the book, Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, dreams of a statue with its body parts assembled out of different materials, which Daniel then interprets as four kingdoms (Daniel II, 39–43). However, the medieval, Christian reappropriation of the concept is based on Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel (c. 407 CE), which represents the shift of power in the following order: Babylon, Persia, Greece (the empire of Alexander the Great), and Rome, under whose dominion the end of the world would have come. “Finally, there will be a fourth empire, strong as iron” writes Daniel (Book of Daniel, II, 40), and Jerome comments: Now the fourth empire, which clearly refers to the Romans, is the iron empire which breaks in pieces and overcomes all others. But its feet and toes are partly of iron and partly of earthenware, a fact most clearly demonstrated at the present time. For just as there was at the first nothing stronger or hardier than the Roman realm, so also in these last days there is nothing more feeble, since we require the assistance of barbarian tribes both in our civil wars and against foreign nations. Jerome 1958: 32

98 Translating the sea With this paragraph from his Commentary, Jerome translated Daniel’s fourth iron kingdom into the theologico-political horizon of the Roman– Latin world, laying the groundwork for many monarchical European narratives. Curiously enough, Jerome was not only the most respected Doctor of the Church of his time, but he can be also considered as one of the founding fathers of translation theory. His distinction between word-for-word and sense-for-sense translation, famously explained in his Letter to Pammachius (c. 395 CE), represents one of the first attempts, after Cicero and Horace, to question the idea of equivalence in translation. And Jerome’s rejection of word-for-word translation emerges clearly in his own work as a translator and commentator. After all, a word-for-word translation would have made it impossible for Jerome to accomplish his main goal; that is, the Christianization of both the Hebrew Bible and the great load of Roman education he carried with him. Whatever the case, his cultural and instrumental translation of Daniel’s prophecy became the authoritative code for the medieval notion of translatio imperii et studii. From Otto von Freising to Richard de Bury, Jerome’s model of translatio alternately bolstered and enhanced the making of European monarchies, from Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire (which bears unto its name the sign of the translatio) to the English Kingdom. Having originated in the Jewish eschatological thought of the Hellenistic period, the formula of the translatio imperii became, through Jerome, the cipher of Christian medieval geopolitics. It not only shaped the majority of royal Christian narratives, justifying their juridical existence as well, but it also molded European intellectual history. In fact, the center of knowledge was supposed to migrate together with the center of rule and power, moving from Greece to Rome and from Rome to Paris or to London. In the Philobiblon, for example—a homage to books written in Latin by the chancellor of England and bishop of Durham, Richard de Bury, shortly before his death in 1345—Minerva, Goddess of Knowledge, relocates to Britain, “the noblest of islands” (Richard de Bury 1889: 87). Proclaiming England a new home for Minerva, Richard de Bury does not spare his harsh criticism towards what he considers the precursor, France. The admirable Minerva seems to have traversed the nations of men from end to end of the world, bravely touching on each that she might give herself to all. Already do we see that she has passed away from the Indians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians and the Greeks, the Arabians and the Latins. Already has she forsaken Athens, departed from Rome, passed by Paris, and is happily come to Britain, the noblest of islands, nay, the very microcosm, that she may show herself debtor both to Greeks and Barbarians. From this wonder it is plainly conjectured by many that even as the learning of France is now become lukewarm, so her soldiery is weakened and unmanly. Richard de Bury 1889 [1345]: 873

Translating the sea 99 In the Renaissance, the notion of translatio imperii et studii experienced an enormous literary revival, especially through the resurgence of the epic poem, conceived, among other things, as a more or less sincere celebration of a particular monarchy or of an aristocratic patron. From Ariosto to Du Bellay, and from Ercilla y Zúñiga to Camões, the early modern rewritings of Virgil’s Aeneid dominated the European literary scene. Written between 29 and 19 BCE by the Augustan Latin poet as a continuation of the Iliad, the Aeneid depicts a powerful foundational myth that glorifies both the traditional values of Roman society and the pietas of the ideal Roman princeps, legitimating the imperial destiny of Rome (imperium sine fine) by tracing back the lineage of the Gens Iulia, the family of Julius Cesar, to Ascanious/ Iulius, the son of Aeneas, and so to Troy. Virgil’s Aeneid became for the Renaissance what Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel was for the Middle Ages: the ground on which to stage and translate power. As Bellamy brilliantly showed, “the exercise of imperial power known as the translatio imperii must be “translated” to another epic narrative (and another, and another)—and for this translation of power to occur, it must negotiate the ghost of Troy as the origin of its own narrative” (1992: 34). The early modern translatio imperii is thus a tireless reframing and negotiation of the ghost of Troy.4 In the case of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, we observe a different kind of translatio, an oceanic and submarine translatio, a translatio maris, so to speak, which does not negotiate the telluric ghost of Troy, nor the spectre of the pious colonizer Aeneas, but the spectre of a seafaring king, Odysseus, the polytropos (much-traveled) hero of Homer’s Odyssey, the most astute and talkative among the Greek leaders. In his Jouvences sur Jules Verne, Michel Serres even argued that Verne’s entire oeuvre can be interpreted as a rewriting of Homer’s Odyssey (1974: 150).5 In a sense, Serres is right but none of Verne’s other novels translates the maritime dimension of the Homeric epos as explicitly and consequently as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.6 Verne’s submarine novel translates the insular, Mediterranean narrative of the Odyssey into the oceanic reign of Captain Nemo. The key to deciphering this epic “transfer of power” is encapsulated in the very name of Jules Verne’s main hero, Nemo. With this Latinized form of the Greek Outis (Ου˜’ τις, no one, nobody), Verne establishes a ghostly link between the mysterious captain of the submarine and the king of Ithaca, Odysseus—who famously called himself “Nobody” to swindle and elude the one-eyed giant Polyphemus. Moreover, like Nobody for Odysseus, Nemo too is a pseudonym, an excogitated name to designate a new identity. Captain Nemo, as readers would learn in Verne’s sequel, L’Île mystérieuse (The Mysterious Island, 1875), is in fact the Indian prince Dakkar, son of an Indian rajah and nephew of the (real person) Sultan Tippo–Saïb (Verne 1875: 566). After the English took over his land and massacred his family, Prince Dakkar retired from the world and immersed himself completely in science and books. Using his wealth, he

100 Translating the sea then developed an advanced electric submarine, which would have carried him through his fight against the Western world: “Il nomma son appareil sous-marin le Nautilus, il s’appela le capitaine Nemo, et il disparut sous les mers” (ibid.: 570) (He named his submarine vessel the Nautilus, called himself Captain Nemo, and disappeared beneath the seas). However, the onomastic kinship between Nemo and Odysseus (which is per se a fiction in the fiction, a mise en abyme of the fiction) is only the tip of the iceberg. Verne’s strategy of calling the mysterious hero of his novel “Nemo” functions as a clue easily recognizable to the majority of Western readers. It is a sort of compass, so to speak, in the texture of the narrative which points to the core of Verne’s enterprise, that is, the translation of Odysseus’ mythological, insular, Mediterranean world—a space governed and inhabited by gods and heroes—into the submarine, technologically measurable, and exploitable oceanic world of Nemo. As Christian Moser has argued, the Odyssey enacts a “discursive precolonization” of the insular world (2005: 414). By means of language, of a “protective wall of language” (ibid.: 420), Odysseus prevents his being cannibalistically devoured by the forces of nature, embodied in the one-eyed giant Polyphemus. And through language and narration, he wins the hearts of the Phaeacians and secures himself his return, his last possible ticket to Ithaca. The only efficient vehicle in the thalassic peregrination of Odysseus is therefore not a ship, but language. Odysseus’ words are the ultimate weapon by means of which the hero can reclaim his rule and restore his royal authority over land, woman, and progeny. As shown by the episode with Nausicaa, the princess of the Phaeacians, Odysseus is the maritime hero of the beach, the metonymic figure of the liminal zone who inhabits the space between the highest risk of nature, the sea, and the origins of civilization. He dwells in the transit zone between nature and culture, shaping his destiny not by means of brutal force, helping himself with a spade, but through verbal communication. At the banquet of King Alcinous, when Odysseus tells his unfortunate story, his words reunite the different islands of his forced peregrination into a coherent scheme, into a narration. By the way, this is not merely an episode in an ancient myth, but one of the founding moments of European literature. Odysseus’ words transform non-places into places of memory, into an “archipelago of memories” (Moser 2005: 418). Odysseus does not have an empire, but a kingdom made of words. Verne’s Nemo, on the other hand, does indeed possess an empire: the oceans. He has even turned in his favor that greatest danger of all—being incorporated, imbibed by nature. Nemo is no longer afraid of water but converts the sea into his exclusive habitat, into his own habitat. For Nemo, water has become a protection device. Captain Nemo’s submarine exhibits “the model of a double envelope” (Innerhofer 2010: 97). As the metal body of the Nautilus protects its occupants, so the sea surface forms a protective cover for the Nautilus (ibid.). As if in a giant belly, the Nautilus remains hidden and inaccessible to a hostile world, floating undisturbed in a nutrient

Translating the sea 101 liquid. In the Nautilus, the rules and norms of dry-land, human society do not matter anymore; at least, this is what Captain Nemo tells Professor Aronnax: “J’ai rompu avec la société tout entire […]. Je n’obéis donc point à ses règles, et je vous engage à ne jamais les invoquer devant moi!” (Verne 1871: 67–8) (I have done with the entire society […] Therefore I do not obey its laws and I ask you to never invoke them in front of me again). Breaking with the human consortium, Captain Nemo joins forces with nature; but his relationship with nature is nevertheless ambiguous. In fact, he is not just an equal, unbiased ally of the sea and its creatures; Nemo colonizes and exploits the oceans: “Oui, monsieur le professeur, la mer fournit à tous mes besoins. […] J’ai là une vaste propriété que j’exploite moi-même et qui est toujours ensemencée par la main du Créateur de toutes choses” (ibid.: 71–2) (Yes, Professor, the sea supplies all my needs […] There I own vast properties that I harvest myself and that every day are sown by the Hand of the Creator of all things). Moreover, Nemo is the self-proclaimed ruler of the oceans and his behavior, his words and his gestures resemble those of an emperor or a tyrant, like in the episode at the South Pole, where, after taking possession of the continent, he says goodbye to the sun and invites a night lasting six months to come on his “new domain”: “Adieu, soleil! s’écria-t-il. Disparais, astre radieux! Couche-toi sous cette mer libre, et laisse une nuit de six mois étendre ses ombres sur mon nouveau domaine” (ibid.: 357) (Farewell, sun! He cried. Disappear, radiant star! Lie over this free sea and leave a six months night to expand its shadows on my new domain). In his imperial vision, the ocean provides him with an endless source of energy—and his Nautilus is not merely a vehicle, but an “archival facility for capturing and processing data” (Richards 1993, 118). In the autarkic microcosm of the Nautilus, words (language) cooperate with things (data). Nemo, despite his extraordinary multilingualism, is no longer the hero of language, as Odysseus, but “the undisputed master of a new kind of audiovisual power” (ibid.: 119). Inside the Nautilus, various techniques and media interact and work together. The submarine is, at one and the same time, a vehicle and residence, a museum and archive, a space of knowledge (with its wonderful library and collection of maps) and of the beaux arts (including its improbable art gallery and the luxurious furniture in Second Empire style). But it is foremost the prosthetic eye/ear of its master. “Nemo’s continuous electro-optical surveillance of the sea (using Bunsen cells, Krupp engines, and Rouquayrol diving apparatus) exhibits an archival construction of power of sensors, interceptors, and remote electronic detectors […] Nemo’s Nautilus is not a gun, but a camera” (Richards 1993: 118). Among other things, Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is, therefore, a fiction of revelation and demonstration; it is, so to speak, an attempt to make visible the invisible, to reveal the unknown that lies under the surface of the sea by means of Nemo’s audio-visual power. In this sense, Verne’s translatio maris is not only a thalassic version of the

102 Translating the sea translatio imperii, but, to a certain extent, a variation on the notion of translatio studii too. At the dawn of the modern audio-visual revolution in the Western world, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea not only offered its readers the vision of the unseen, but it prefigured the instruments with which the invisible par excellence—the depths of the sea with its creatures— could be sounded out, surveyed, and inventorized. As Innenhofer argues, Nemo embodies a “pure science” that refuses to serve humanity, accumulating knowledge for the sake of knowledge, with no other purpose than selfoptimization (Innerhofer 2010: 102). Nemo is the brilliant revolutionary hero who risks his life to follow his implacable thirst for knowledge. In this sense, Verne’s rewriting of the Homeric maritime epos is somehow inseparable from the tragic figure of the infernal Ulysses, Dante’s version of Odysseus depicted in Canto XXVI of the Inferno (1306–9). In fact, Nemo is not only a sort of technologized, electric Odysseus; he also bears the hallmarks of Ulysses’ insatiable thirst for knowledge. In Verne’s imaginative geography, it is probably no coincidence that the search for the sea monster which has been terrorizing the world (Nemo’s Nautilus) begins in the Atlantic; that is, in the waters where the last journey of Dante’s Ulysses ended in a fatal maelstrom (XXVI, 85–142).7 What earned Ulysses a place in Hell—and more precisely, bolgia 8, among the fraudulent counselors—was both his pursuit of knowledge without divine guidance (a clear case of hubris) and the fact that he ignored his familial responsibility as a father, husband and king, abandoning his home, his island, and his kingdom for good.8 While Homer’s Odysseus was primarily concerned with the fate of his fellow beings, always protective towards them, Dante’s Ulysses pushed them ruthlessly into the unknown, encouraged them to question the ultimate meaning of life, to pursue the frontiers of knowledge even at the cost of their own lives. In the closing verses of Canto XXVI, Ulysses tells Dante the story of his last navigation, of how he encouraged his companions to follow him in his last “folle volo” (mad flight) beyond the Pillars of Hercules (see also Ariosto, Chapter 2). After five months at sea on a west–south-west course, Ulysses and his companions sighted an extremely high mountain on the horizon, the Purgatory Mount (although at that point Ulysses did not know what it was). However, before they could approach it, a whirlwind rose up and engulfed their ship—and the sea closed above them. Homer’s Odysseus had multiple shipwrecks but never drowned; Dante’s Ulysses died in the ocean (in the most prophetic shipwreck of the Middle Ages, seen from an early modern, transatlantic perspective) and was swallowed up, together with his companions, into an unknown abyss. Nemo, by contrast, prospers, protected and nourished, under the surface of the sea. From Homer to Verne, we therefore behold a gradual progression into the depths, so to speak. Verne’s rewriting of the Odyssey is primarily a journey into the depths of knowledge. What Dante forbade his Ulysses, Verne granted to Nemo. In relation to this aspect, there is another subtle difference

Translating the sea 103 separating Dante’s Ulysses from Verne’s Nemo: the figure of judgment. In Verne’s positivistic depiction of an indomitable man thirsty for knowledge, the figure of the arbiter can no longer be played by God but rather by science itself. The scientific doxa of Professor Aronnax replaces the metaphysical power who wants Odysseus to rot in Dante’s Hell. As much as God condemns Ulysses’ blatant hubris, Aronnax condemns Nemo’s resistance to making his revolutionary discoveries public. In particular, Professor Aronnax cannot accept that Nemo would not submit his findings to any agency of state control, command, or intelligence (Richards 1993: 119). Aronnax does not really care to which state Nemo might belong—he is no dumb nationalist—what the Professor does not and cannot understand is that Nemo does not belong to any state or institutional superstructure at all. Aronnax is perceivably annoyed by the fact that Nemo has no traceable juridical or political identity, that he, as his name implies, is a “nonentity, legally nobody” (ibid.). As Thomas Richards argues: “like most of Verne’s characters, Aronnax subscribes to the most basic presupposition of the ideology of progress, namely, that progress means that history is a oneway progression toward the state” (ibid.). Whereas Verne is undeniably intrigued by the mix of anarchism and scientific vision in his own superhero, he nonetheless shares—at least in the definitive version of the novel supervised by Hetzel—Aronnax’s positivistic mentality and his questions, after the disappearance of the Nautilus, not only reveal the author’s focus, but almost function as the announcement of a sequel: Mais qu’est devenu le Nautilus? A-t-il résisté aux étreintes du Maelstrom? Le capitaine Nemo vit-il encore? Poursuit-il sous l’Océan ses effrayantes représailles, ou s’est-il arrêté devant cette dernière hécatombe? Les flots apporteront-ils un jour ce manuscrit qui renferme toute l’histoire de sa vie? Saurai-je enfin le nom de cet homme? Le vaisseau disparu nous dirat-il, par sa nationalité, la nationalité du capitaine Nemo? / Je l’espère. Verne 1871: 434 But what happened to the Nautilus? Did it resist the embrace of the Maelstrom? Is Captain Nemo still alive? Does he still pursue under the ocean those frightening reprisals? Or did he stop in front of the last hecatomb? Will the waves one day deliver that manuscript containing the history of his life? Will I finally know the name of this man? Will the disappeared vessel tell us his nationality, the nationality of Captain Nemo? / I hope so. The final—and somewhat pathetic—question posed by Professor Aronnax at the end of the novel again concerns Nemo’s nationality, as if nothing would enthrall the French professor more than to know which country the creator of the Nautilus stems from. Interestingly enough, especially in combination with Aronnax’s fixation on nationality, Nemo’s anarchism is quite

104 Translating the sea far from being a crystalline dream of universal, transnational peace and in fact harbors a true obsession with domination and power. Ultimately, Verne’s translatio maris stages a political paradox: a borderless, aqueous global empire, where “No-one” rules. But this no-one is an individual, who claims power and authority for himself and does bear a name. Nemo, in other words, no-one, the ruler of a liquid empire, embodies the problematic paradox of an aristocratic, anarchic nationalism (Steinberg 2001: 121). As Steinberg writes in his Social Construction of the Ocean, Nemo the anarchist is obsessed with nationalism and committed to land-based national struggles (ibid.). This paradox is particularly evident “when he begins to behave much like the despised warring land-based states: sinking vessels and taking prisoners” (ibid.). The same thing, writes Steinberg, can be said of the Nautilus’s motto, MOBILIS IN MOBILE since, on the one hand, it rejects the “spatial fixity that characterizes both the territorial nation-state and the economics of industrial capitalism” (ibid.) while, on the other hand, it creates a submarine subsidiary of the land-based society.

Verne’s oceanography; or, the invisible translation In the spring of 1867, Jules Verne crossed the Atlantic. This remained Verne’s only transatlantic journey. He and his brother Paul were VIP guests on board of the Great Eastern, a “210.9 meters long and 25.3 meters wide ocean liner made of pure steel” (Dehs 2005: 168). Due to an accident, the “Monster,” as Verne called the ship, left Liverpool eight days behind schedule and docked in New York on April 9, 1867 (ibid.: 169). As Verne’s biographer Volker Dehs conjectures, Jules Verne probably was unaware of the fact that a famous colleague of his was working as a customs inspector for the port of New York, and that this colleague, no less a person than Herman Melville (who held this position from 1866 until his retirement in 1885), might have even controlled his luggage (ibid.). This hypothetical encounter between the then underestimated author of the sea epos MobyDick; or The Whale, originally published in 1851, and the successful writer and journalist from France—who, just after his transatlantic experience, would publish one of the greatest bestsellers of all times, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea—introduces us to one of the most important aspects of Verne’s translation of geographies: the striation of the seas. In a famous chapter of A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Deleuze and Guattari distinguish between a striated space (“espace strié”) and a smooth space (“espace lisse”): “In striated space, lines or trajectories tend to be subordinated to points: one goes from one point to another. In the smooth, it is the opposite: the points are subordinated to the trajectory” (1987: 478). They consider the sea as the smooth space par excellence, but also the one that, more than any other, has to face the increasing demands of striation (ibid.: 479). The sea is thus not only the “archetype of all smooth spaces, but the first to undergo a gradual striation

Translating the sea 105 gridding it in one place, then another, on this side and that” (ibid.: 479–80). In the striation of the sea, Deleuze and Guattari also recognize “the archetype of all striations of smooth space: the striation of the desert, the air, the stratosphere” (ibid.: 480). Over a century before Deleuze and Guattari, the founder of modern oceanography, Matthew Fontaine Maury, had a similar idea, with one small difference: if we see the sea as a smooth space, it is because we cannot read its markings. For Maury the sea was always already striated, at least as much as a forest can be—and in fact, the forest represents a case of natural striation for Deleuze and Guattari too (ibid.: 384).9 By collecting and examining ships’ logbooks and other records, Maury began to trace the routes of individual ships, noticing that the maritime space is, in a certain way, striated and intrinsically marked by currents and winds, since the vast majority of vessels usually sail on the same “great highways” across the sea (Maury 1858: 69).10 As Maury argues, we assume that the sea is a smooth space, “a trackless waste,” but our assumption is just the consequence of the limits of our perception and knowledge rather than an inference based on prolonged observation. We, as land-beings, simply cannot see and decipher the striated nature of the sea space. An experienced navigator, in contrast, can read it very well indeed and therefore he sails on the sea as if it had highways, signposts, and crossings. When one looks seaward from the shore, and sees a ship disappear in the horizon as she gains an offing on a voyage to India, or the Antipodes perhaps, the common idea is that she is bound over a trackless waste […] Yet the truth is, the winds and the currents are now becoming to be so well understood, that the navigator, like the backwoodsman in the wilderness, is enabled literally “to blaze his way” across the ocean; not, indeed, upon trees, as in the wilderness, but upon the wings of the wind. The results of scientific inquiry have so taught him to use these invisible couriers, that they, with the calm belts of the air, serve as sign-boards to indicate to him the turnings, and forks, and crossings by the way. Maury 1858: 336–7 In all likelihood, Matthew Fontaine Maury and his main work, The Physical Geography of the Sea (1858), might well have been a hot topic of conversation between Melville and Verne in that hypothetical meeting in New York in 1867. Melville quotes Maury in Moby-Dick only once and even then in a footnote, but the role of that footnote is paramount, since it corroborates the cartographical fiction that steers Ahab’s hunt for the white whale. “Since the above was written [Moby-Dick],” writes Herman Melville in the footnote, “the statement [concerning the existence of whale charts] is happily borne out by an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of the National Observatory” (Melville 2002: 167). In fact, the circular quoted by Melville—which also contained the Explanations and Sailing Directions to Accompany the Winds and Currents Chart—announced the forthcoming

106 Translating the sea publication of a Whale Chart (1851), based on information supplied by captains’ logbooks. In the footnote, Melville also cites a paradigmatic passage from the circular in which Maury explains the process of gridding (the quintessential act of striation) the sea into districts and timelines in order to locate, cartographically and seasonally, sperm whales and right whales (ibid.).11 Thus, sealed in a footnote, so to speak, in the middle of the maritime novel par excellence, at the heart of the nineteenth century, literary fiction and oceanography joined forces to track down the white whale. But Moby-Dick cannot be found in a striated space. For this reason, towards the end of the novel and of his life, an infuriated Ahab curses the practice of scientific orientation, destroying the quadrant in an act of symbolism.12 Ahab turns into a furious and wild navigator (Stockhammer 2007: 198), rejecting any navigational instrument to determine his and Moby-Dick’s positions (ibid.). Only after this radical refusal of science-based navigation practices does he eventually spot the whale. For Moby-Dick dwells in a smooth space, eluding the system of striation. Only when the striation of the maritime space is suspended can Ahab find Moby-Dick (ibid.: 199). We encounter the exact opposite situation in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Captain Nemo follows Lt. Matthew F. Maury to the bitter end and does not suspend cartographic or navigational devices for one second. On the contrary, he intensifies the striation of the sea by creating new and more precise sea charts and optimizing the instruments for navigating it. Moreover, Lt. Maury is also part of the fiction, a benchmark for Captain Nemo even, who is described as “un Galilée moderne, ou bien un de ces hommes de science comme l’américain Maury” (Verne 1871: 100) (a modern Galileo, or one of these scientists, such as the American Maury). In many passages of the novel, the “savant” Maury is mentioned, singled out, and commented on. As Kylstra and Meerburg (1972) have shown, Verne not only read Maury’s The Physical Geography of the Sea, but he translated, adapted and interpolated many passages from it into his novel, embedding his “fanciful adventures” in “state-of-the-art geography and science,” as Rozwadowski has noted (Rozwadowski 2005: 27). De Certeau describes the recording and inventory of scientific sources in Verne’s oeuvre as a transfer of relics (Certeau 1986: 140–1). He rightly interprets Verne’s nautical writing—pointing in particular to the Nautilus paradigm—as a continuous descending into and a rising out of the abyss of the library (ibid.: 140). De Certeau’s reading of Verne therefore alerts us to the fact that we are dealing with something much more constitutive and structural than a simple intertextual relationship. The French cultural critic sees a strong, decisive analogy between Verne’s relationship with past literature and science on the one hand, and the movement in space of the Nautilus on the other. As Timothy Unwin has shown in his monograph on Jules Verne, crucial to “Verne’s writing is the extensive use of written sources […] His task was much like that of the scholar, digesting a range of different texts, condensing his knowledge into note form, then working

Translating the sea 107 from those notes and re-ordering, rewording, recasting or re-using them as appropriate” (Unwin 2005: 52–3). In the specific case of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Verne’s confrontation with Maury, as well as with other scientific sources, can best be described as a process of translation. Nemo’s striation of the sea in fact works as a fictional rendering of nineteenth-century oceanography and, in particular, as the literary transposition of Maury’s mapping of the oceans. Verne translates Maury’s geo-graphy of the sea into poiêsis, into a geopoetics of the oceans. To perform this translation, Verne enacts both types of transfer: the interlingual (and partially intralingual) transfer of scientific and geographical texts into the literary code, and the translation of the geographical imagination of the liquid world into a solid one. The first type, the transfer of scientific and geographical texts into the literary code, presents, more or less, what we may call a translation proper. Barring a few exceptions, Verne does not explicitly mark when this kind of translation occurs in his novel. The reader is, therefore, confronted with concealed translations, so to speak, intertextual translations that are rendered invisible (Cronin 2000: 51). This kind of textual transference or “intense intertextuality” (Pfister 1985: 25–30) dwells in that grey zone, particularly extensive in fiction, which separates authorial creativity from plagiarism. However, the status of these invisible or concealed translations is, on many levels, uncertain, since we cannot fully retrace if and how the author has used a previous translation or completed his or her own without any other strata of intertextuality. In Verne’s novel, we find almost every possible nuance of this type of concealed translation. I will show two examples, starting with the one that declares it most openly; that is, a passage, in which Verne explicitly quotes Maury’s explanation of the Sargasso Sea phenomenon, marking the oceanographer’s text with inverted commas. Et voici pourquoi, suivant le savant Maury, l’auteur de la Géographie physique du globe, ces hydrophytes se réunissent dans ce paisible bassin de l’Atlantique: “L’explication qu’on en peut donner, dit-il, me semble résulter d’une expérience connue de tout le monde. Si l’on place dans un vase des fragments de bouchons ou de corps flottants quelconques, et que l’on imprime à l’eau de ce vase un mouvement circulaire, on verra les fragments éparpillés se réunir en groupe au center de la surface liquide, c’est-à-dire au point le moins agité. Dans le phénomène qui nous occupe, le vase, c’est l’Atlantique, le Gulf Stream, c’est le courant circulaire, et la mer de Sargasses, le point central où viennent se réunir les corps flottants.” Verne 1871: 311 And this is the reason why, following the learned Maury, the author of the Physical Geography of the Globe, these hydrophytes unite in the peaceful basin of the Atlantic. “The only explanation which can be

108 Translating the sea given, he says, seems to me to result from the experience known to the entire world. Place in a vase some cork’s fragments or other floating bodies, and give to the water in the vase a circular movement, the scattered fragments will unite in a group in the center of the liquid surface, that is to say, in the part least agitated. In the phenomenon we are considering, the Atlantic is the vase, the Gulf Stream the circular current, and the Sargasso Sea the central point at which the floating bodies unite.” In this passage, Verne quotes Maury’s main work, presumably rewording the existing French translation, the Géographie physique de la mer, published in 1861. Maury’s text reads as follows: When the companions of Columbus saw it, they thought it marked the limits of navigation, and became alarmed. To the eye, at a little distance, it seems substantial enough to walk upon. Patches of the weed are always to be seen floating along the outer edge of the Gulf Stream. Now, if bits of cork or chaff, or any floating substance, be put into a basin, and a circular motion be given to the water, all the light substances will be found crowding together near the center of the pool, where there is the least motion. Just such a basin is the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf Stream; and the Sargasso Sea is the center of the whirl. Maury 1858: 30 In Verne’s passage we find two substantial variations from Maury’s text. The first one is the addition of the sentence beginning “The only explanation […].” It is a rather functional interpolation by means of which Verne substitutes the historical digression of Maury on Columbus with a more general sentence that improves the embedding of the citation in the narrative. The second variation concerns the title of Maury’s work, which is transmuted by Verne into The Physical Geography of the Globe. These little changes indicate both the fictionalization of Maury as a historical figure and the fictionalization of his own work. On the one hand, Verne is in fact letting Lt. Maury speak from within the fiction as an integral part of the diegetic world, as a figure who does not partake in the events but whose thoughts and sentences influence the story and the narrative flow. On the other, Maury’s real oceanographic work becomes a fictitious work in and of itself by means of the new title given to it by Verne; it becomes an indeterminate entity between fiction and factuality, between literature and science. Moreover, the variation on the title, which substitutes “Sea” with “Globe,” stages both Maury and Nemo as symbolic figures of nineteenth-century, transoceanic globalization. In their relatively short article, which, interestingly enough, was published in the biological section of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Kylstra and Meerburg (1972) showcase various other passages

Translating the sea 109 from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea which can be considered as rewordings, translations and rewritings of Maury’s main work. One of these passages seems to me exemplary for showing how Verne’s invisible intertextual translations function. I refer here to Nemo’s disquisition on the salinity of the sea. Et ne croyez pas que la présence de ces sels ne soit due qu’à un caprice de la nature. Non. Ils rendent les eaux marines moins évaporables, et empêchent les vents de leur enlever une trop grande quantité de vapeurs, qui, en se résolvant, submergeraient les zones tempérées. Rôle immense, rôle de pondérateur dans l’économie générale du globe! Verne 1871: 135 And do not believe that the presence of these salts is due only to some whim of nature. No. They make marine water less evaporable and prevent winds from removing from them excessive amounts of vapor, which, by condensing, would submerge the temperate zones. Salts play a leading role, namely the role of stabilizing the overall ecology of the globe! Kylstra and Meerburg correctly compared this passage to §448 of Maury’s The Physical Geography of the Sea, noting the striking similarity between the two texts. What Kylstra and Meerburg did not specify is that this paragraph exists in editions of the Physical Geography from 1860 onwards. Without them [the salts] the climates of the earth could not harmonize as they do; neither could the winds, by sucking up vapor, hold in check the expansive power of tropical heat […] nor prevent the solar ray from unduly disturbing the aqueous equilibrium of our planet. Maury 1860: 233 Considering that the French translation is based on the 1858 edition of the Physical Geography and consequently does not “translate” this passage, this could be interesting proof that Verne was not only not fluent in English (Unwin 2005: 56), but that he consulted and used the 1860 edition or a later one. However, be it a translation authored directly by Verne or not, this passage shows perfectly Verne’s technique of appropriating and transposing the language of science into the realm of fiction. What is supremely fascinating to Jules Verne is not the naked knowledge of science, but rather its prose, the variegated textuality of its discourse, the abundance in it of strange, exotic-sounding names that literally propel his imagination. Lt. Matthew Fontaine Maury was surely a founding oceanographer whose scientific authority worked as a trait d’union between Nemo and Professor Aronnax, but he was a wonderful prose writer too, whose descriptions of maritime phenomena gave great stimulation to Verne’s terminological fancies.

110 Translating the sea Verne rewords and translates scientific texts not only for the knowledge they propound, but rather—and I would say foremost—for their linguistic texture, for their exotic vocabulary, for the wondrous terminologies that they ceaselessly generate. Professor Aronnax, the quintessential scientist among all Verne’s scholarly figures and Verne’s alter ego, does exactly the same. While he, on the one hand, admits the necessary dryness of accurate taxonomy, he contrives, on the other hand, to instill a “wondrously exotic aura” (Unwin 2005: 196) into his taxonomies—as shown by the amazing list of submarine life he delivers in chapter XVII “Du cape Horn a l’Amazone” (Verne 1871: 375–86). Going against all convention, Aronnax the scientist turns into a poet who infuses an enumeration of underwater beings with poetic power not by diminishing the scientific lexicography but by “the sheer accumulation of unusual words” (Unwin 2005: 196). The compositional art of Jules Verne is thus based not only on the intertextual assemblage and translation of different sources and texts but in the re-contextualization of scientific terminology into a melodious, evocative texture, in which the abstruse or unheard-of names of fish, cetaceans, mollusks, algae etc.13 become poetic by means of their sound, regardless of whether the reader understands what these words actually refer to or not. Furthermore, it is more than obvious, as Unwin explains, that “terms and nomenclatures used by Verne are ‘quoted’ from encyclopaedias and scientific manuals” and transposed into his texts (Unwin 2005: 197). What really matters is that the borrowing of words from a technical and scientific discourse is a poetic gesture per se: it is “the open act of borrowing” that gives a “powerful poetic effect” to the embedded textual foreign body (ibid.). By inserting and transposing scientific and technical terminology into his fictional prose, Verne translates the language of science into the realm of literary aesthetics, into the verbal and poetic properties of a composition, into “sonorities and rhythms,” letting us appreciate and examine it “in ways we would be unlikely to adopt with the reading of an encyclopaedia entry” (ibid.).

Geopoetic translations: the funeral and the flâneur The second type of transfer, that is, the translation and recodification of a maritime underwater imaginary into the master code of the terrestrial, dryland world, is profoundly interwoven with Verne’s intertextual translation as discussed above. Drawing in particular on Maury’s source text, but also on other similar scientific sources, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea not only maps and orders the underwater space, it also translates it geopoetically. The submarine world is presented and described through typical features of the dry-land world: oceans have forests, mountain ranges, vegetable gardens, orchards, cemeteries, and even meadows where Nemo’s herds can graze undisturbed. From the point of view of this pseudo-anarchic captain, obsessed with gathering energy for his submarine, the ocean is seen

Translating the sea 111 and perceived as an immense, human-free empire of energy resources to exploit without restraint, “without confronting him [Nemo] with the labor troubles that usually plague mining conglomerates and cash-crop cartels. In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, the ocean is a depopulated Ceylon, Bolivia, South Africa, India” (Richards 1993: 117). As numerous passages of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea show, Verne not only describes the underwater world by analogy with the salient features of the non-submerged land but he also translates functions and cultural practices of terrestrial human society into the aquatic, oceanic space. As examples of this particular kind of translation of geographies, I would like to draw attention to two scenes: the famous cemetery episode and the scene where Professor Aronnax enjoys a very special, tourist view from the Nautilus. In the cemetery scene, we assist in an unexpected burial in the so-called “royaume de corail” (coral kingdom) of Captain Nemo. Professor Aronnax is dazzled and overwhelmed by the mix of bizarreness and solemnity that characterizes this submarine version of a terrestrial interment. Je compris tout! Cette clairière c’était un cimetière, ce trou, une tombe, cet objet oblong, le corps de l’homme mort dans la nuit! Le capitaine Nemo et les siens venaient enterrer leur compagnon dans cette demeure commune, au fond de cet inaccessible Océan! / Non! Jamais mon esprit ne fut surexcité à ce point! Jamais idées plus impressionnantes n’envahirent mon cerceau! Je ne voulais pas voir ce que voyaient mes yeux! / Cependant, la tombe se creusait lentement. Les poissons fuyaient çà et là leur retraite troublée. J’entendais résonner, sur le sol calcaire, le fer du pic qui étincelait parfois en heurtant quelque silex perdu au fond des eaux. Le trou s’allongeait, s’élargissait, et bientôt il fut assez profond pour recevoir le corps. Verne 1871: 198–9 Finally I understood! This clearing was a cemetery, that hole a grave, this oblong object the body of the man who died during the night! Captain Nemo and his crew came to bury [enterrer] their companion in this communal abode on the bottom of the inaccessible Ocean! / No! My mind was as excited as never before! Never such impressive ideas had invaded my brain! I did not want to see what my eyes were seeing! / Meanwhile, the digging of the grave proceeded slowly. Fish fled here and there through their perturbed retreat. I could hear the pick ringing on the limestone soil, its iron peak sometimes sparkling, when it hit an isolated piece of flint on the sea floor. The pit lengthened, widened, and soon was deep enough to receive the body. Besides the lack of verisimilitude in this episode, what leaps out first is the telluric dimension of this burial ceremony. Nemo does not merely transfer the most human of all rituals, the funeral, into his aquatic dominion; he

112 Translating the sea even chooses to practice it in the most terrestrial way, by digging a grave at the bottom of the sea, excavating the earth’s soil and interring the dead body. He could have chosen the sailor’s way, for example, of committing the corpse to the waves, but instead he opts for a tomb that, with its presence, marks the sea floor, instituting a place of memory in the abyss, a permanent space for anthropic remains. The scene is also very eloquent in its minor details, such as the little fish fleeing because the humans have disturbed their placid retreat—the submarine equivalent, so to speak, of irritated birds flying away from a burial scene. The other scene which, to me, seems to cogently exemplify the translation of geographies enacted by Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is the submarine flânerie of Professor Aronnax. As Thomas Richards has also pinpointed, “[f]rom the observation deck of the museum, Aronnax, himself a museum curator in Paris, practices a kind of underwater urbanism. He views the ocean as the flaneur [sic!] views the street, continually experiencing the direct or indirect side effects of movement among moving bodies and objects” (Richards 1993: 117). In Baudelaire’s (1863) famous depiction of the painter Constantine Guy, the flâneur (from French flâner, the act of strolling), the mobile, passionate spectator is described as a prince who rejoices in being incognito, as somebody who dwells in the heart of the multitude, who is away from home but at home everywhere, who sees the world without being seen (1964: 9). Drawing on Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin defined this literary and cultural type as the dweller of the street who abandons himself in the crowd “as he goes botanizing on the asphalt” (Benjamin 2003: 19). For Benjamin, the flâneur is the urban, bourgeois observer par excellence, a typical product of modern life, electricity, and the industrial revolution, whose joy at observation prevails over all (ibid.: 41). Verne, who not only read his Baudelaire carefully but had a seismographic sense of the changes in the society he lived in, translated this paradigmatic figure of his time into Nemo’s submarine world. Professor Aronnax moves through the crowd of the oceanic population, observing it from the window of the Nautilus, from a vitrine, without being seen, as an unseen, submarine flâneur. De chaque côté, j’avais une fenêtre ouverte sur ces abîmes inexplorés. L’obscurité du salon faisait valoir la clarté extérieure, et nous regardions comme si ce pur cristal eût été la vitre d’un immense aquarium. Le Nautilus ne semblait pas bouger. C’est que les points de repère manquaient. Parfois, cependant, les lignes d’eau, divisées par son éperon, filaient devant nos regards avec une vitesse excessive. Emerveillés, nous étions accoudés devant ces vitrines […]. Ned nommait les poissons, Conseil les classait, moi, je m’extasiais devant la vivacité de leurs allures et la beauté de leurs formes. Jamais il ne m’avait été donné de surprendre ces animaux vivants, et libres dans leur élément naturel. Verne 1871: 103–4 and 109

Translating the sea 113 On each side, I had a window on the unexplored depths. The darkness in the salon reinforced the outer clarity, and we watched as if this pure crystal were the window of an immense aquarium. The Nautilus did not seem to be moving. It was so because there were no benchmarks. Sometimes, however, the water lines, divided by its prow, flowed before our eyes with excessive speed. Amazed we stood before these windows […] Ned named the fish, Conseil classified them, and as for me, I was in ecstasies over the vivacity of their movements and the beauty of their forms. Never before had I been able to glimpse these animals alive and at liberty in their natural element. With this episode, Verne translates the most recognizable urban spatial practice of his time, the flâneur’s practice of strolling around and observing the city landscape, into the mobile underwater watching made possible by the Nautilus. Professor Aronnax becomes a sort of oceanic flâneur who practices “underwater urbanism” (Richards 1993: 117).14 Nemo’s empire is presented as an endless aquarium, completely open to the visual apperception and curiosity of its new dwellers. Interestingly enough, as Judith Hamera states in her book on the cultural history of the American aquarium, Verne’s “panoramic visions of undersea sightseeing were quickly appropriated by aquarium discourses of the day, and connections to the book persist to the present, most recently by lending the name of its central character to that of the Disney company’s animated fish odyssey Finding Nemo” (Hamera 2011: 40). To conclude, through Nemo’s audio-visual power and his territorial regimentation of the abyss, the ocean reterritorializes itself into the dry-land world. This reterritorialization translates the maritime and submarine space into the territorial code of the solid world, not only by recourse to terrestrial geomorphic terminologies (mountains, forests, meadows, rivers, etc.) but also by transposing an imaginative underwater geography into the codes of Western spatial practices, such as, among others, mining, planting, grazing, breeding, burying, or simply strolling around and contemplating the world in a flâneur-like fashion. Ultimately, Verne’s geo-poetics of the oceans does not disrupt the positivist and colonialist porthole of its vision, but it nevertheless prefigures features of later globalization by means of its performative, textual negotiation of territorial practices.

6

Translational mimesis Tabucchi, the Azores, and cartographic writing

In the last chapter, by exploring Jules Verne’s translation of the submarine space into the territorial code of the solid world, I discussed two different types of translation. First, I introduced the notion of translatio maris, arguing that Verne’s rewriting and recodification of Homer’s Odyssey is a nineteenth-century, oceanic version of the medieval concept of the translatio imperii et studii. Second, I exposed the concept and the function of invisible translations, that is, concealed, intertextual translations, in particular from scientific texts on oceanographic issues, on which Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is substantially based. What I did not consider is a third type of translation, which shapes the majority of Jules Verne’s Voyages extraordinaires, that is, the narrative strategy of reproducing direct speech, thoughts, quotations, notes, and so forth in the audience’s own language (in Verne’s case: French), insofar as they were imagined to have occurred in another language. This kind of strategy always implies, more or less explicitly, the existence of a different language, of a source language—either a real one or a completely fictional one, such as an extra-terrestrial langue, for instance—that has been negotiated culturally, that is, translated, in order to make it intelligible to the target audience. In the first pages of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, for example, shortly after Professor Aronnax embarks on the Abraham Lincoln, we “hear” the ship’s captain, Mr Farragut, giving an order to his ship’s engineer: “Sommes-nous en pression? Lui demanda-til. / Oui, monsieur, répondit l’ingénieur. / Go ahead, cria le commandant Farragut” (Verne 1871: 18; italics in original) (Are we under pressure ? He asked / Yes, sir, replied the engineer. / Go ahead, cried Captain Farragut.) The French reader of Verne’s novel is obviously not surprised by reading a simple sentence such as “Go ahead” in English, since it is a command given by an American captain on board his American ship, named after an American president, Abraham Lincoln, who even then was already an almost global figure, and weighing anchor from the port of New York. Nonetheless, the same French reader might have wondered, at least just for a second, what kind of linguistic status should be ascribed to the brief dialogue between Captain Farragut and his engineer, since the question formulated by the captain—“Sommes-nous en

Translational mimesis 115 pression?”—and the subsequent answer by the engineer—“Oui”—are given in French: in which language did they actually speak? Of course, Captain Farragut and his ship’s engineer communicated in English with each other, but Verne marked only one part of the direct speech in that language. Why? Generally speaking, we can assume that while the English “Go ahead” conveyed a sort of thrilling foreignness, if not exoticism, to the scene on the ship’s deck, marking both the source language and the geographical imagination it implies, the French rendering of the first part of the dialogue anchored the reader in his/her linguistic comfort zone, allowing him to easily understand this quite common maritime tableau. The first part of the dialogue is thus a sort of translation that renders an imagined speech in English in the audience-oriented language, French. The second part of the direct speech, which is explicitly left in English, functions, instead, as a marker that both strengthens the effet de réel and discloses to the reader, if it were necessary, the linguistic status of the dialogue. Whereas this kind of translational writing appears every now and then in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, in Verne’s other novels such as The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (1864), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1867), and Michel Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar (1876),1 to name just a few, it is a more general presence that grounds and determines the entire fiction. The British English of Captain Hatteras, the German of Professor Lindenbrock, and the Russian of Michel Strogoff have all been a priori translated, so to speak, into the all-incorporating, French-speaking textual fabric of their author. Since the majority of Jules Verne’s figures are either globetrotters on world-scale missions or heroes from distant lands whose mother language is not French, a good part of Verne’s speech acts are not only fictional but also translational; that is, they are French versions of speech acts and thoughts which were imagined, or to put it better, which should be imagined as having taken place in another language. In this chapter, I will focus on the relationship between this type of translational process and its interdependence with geographical and cartographic imaginations. In particular, I will examine the work of a contemporary writer, Antonio Tabucchi (1943–2012), who, as much as Jules Verne, can be considered both a master of translational fiction and an extremely geographically minded narrator. Incidentally, Tabucchi was not only a passionate reader of Verne but he even published a short story, L’angelo nero, in which Captain Nemo reappears at the bottom of the sea along an imaginary Tuscan littoral, guiding with an almost fatherly attitude the young protagonist of the story through a decidedly Vernesque, submarine space (Tabucchi 1991a). Perhaps one of the most intriguing writers Italy has produced in the last few decades, Antonio Tabucchi mainly wrote short stories, although his major international breakthrough came with a novel, Sostiene Pereira: una testimonianza (1994; Pereira Maintains), which still remains his most celebrated and commented-upon work. Moreover, he was an essayist, a literary critic, a translator (in particular of Fernando Pessoa), an academic (he taught

116 Translational mimesis Portuguese language and literature at the University of Siena), and, not unimportant for our approach, an exophonic writer à la Beckett and Nabokov (see chapter 7), at least by dint of one work of fiction he wrote in Portuguese, Requiem: uma alucinação (1991b, Requiem: A Hallucination). In the following pages, I will focus on a single work by Antonio Tabucchi, a collection of short stories and prose pieces, Donna di Porto Pim e altre storie (1983, Woman of Porto Pim and Other Stories). This very short, apparently unpretentious book on an archipelagic journey around the Azores precedes and somehow introduces two of the most analyzed books by Tabucchi, the novella Notturno indiano (1984, Indian Nocturne), which still enjoys almost cult status among readers, and the novel Sostiene Pereira: una testimonianza (1994, Pereira Maintains), probably the author’s most ambitious work. The lowest common denominator between these three books (besides their authorship) is that the narratives they construct are set outside of an Italian-speaking environment and are profoundly, if not constitutively, tied to the geographical and topographical settings they enact. Now, given that these fictions are written in Italian, we can already intuitively sense that some language negotiation must have occurred. My main purpose is to show what kind of translation processes we are therefore looking at with this narrative strategy and, more specifically, to what extent Tabucchi’s translational approach can be considered to be a part of a translation of geographies.

Pseudotranslation versus translational mimesis For Brigitte Rath—a German researcher on precisely this topic—the translational process that I have outlined above should be considered a pseudotranslation (Rath 2012; 2013a; 2013b) (see Chapter 4). Drawing on Gideon Toury’s seminal works (1983 and 1995), Rath has adapted and expanded the concept of pseudotranslation, reformulating it as a “mode of reading one utterance as the translation of a preceding original utterance in a different language which is only accessible through an act of imagination based on the seemingly derivative utterance” (2013b: 172). Moreover, she has argued that pseudotranslation is a process in which an utterance given in the source language “evokes” (“evoziert”) an utterance in a different language, which can be accessed only by means of the utterance in the source language (2012: 193–4). It is not by accident, I suppose, that in her definition, Brigitte Rath uses the German verb evozieren—from Latin evocare, to call out, summon (ex-vocare)—the etymological meaning of which is primarily “calling spirits from the underworld,” or, in the passive form, being called by them. Following this reasoning, we could argue that pseudotranslation functions as a medium, as a ghostly process of translation. However, Brigitte Rath prefers another, albeit quite similar, analogy for elucidating this kind of translational process. In her close examination of Indra Sinha’s novel Animal’s People (2007)2 she argues that “pseudotranslation shows a

Translational mimesis 117 structure similar to that of the prophet’s voice,” meaning that a text that is constructed and staged as a pseudotranslation “points away from itself to another, authentic source,” which lies both “within the text and somewhere else” (Rath 2013b: 172). While the source is both concealed and revealed by the (pseudo)translation—like the divine voice in the prophet’s case—the text itself is regarded as authentic by means of a source that lies “beyond a divide of languages” (ibid.). Rath’s approach to pseudotranslation not only reinforces the link between the theoretical fields of narratology and translation studies, it also shows how interdependent these two fields are when it comes to the analysis of language and cultural contacts in both fictional and, I would add, non-fictional texts. Moreover, she no longer employs the term pseudotranslation as a descriptive tool for the ontological distinction of texts, but as a concept that can grasp dynamically the process of evoking foreign-language utterances (Rath 2013a: 16). However, Brigitte Rath’s analogy between pseudotranslation and the prophet’s voice, which is perfectly suited for the examination of Indra Sinha’s subaltern voices, is rather too specific to be integrated into my reading of Tabucchi. In the first place, the concept of “voice,” in contrast to what is the case for Sinha’s Animal’s People, does not play such a paramount role in the collection of short stories and prose pieces that I am going to focus on.3 Second, the notion of “pseudity,” unavoidably related to the concept of pseudotranslation as used in the classic positions of Toury (1995) and Robinson (1998) (see Chapter 4), as well as Rath’s expanded definition, also does not quite correspond to the premises of Tabucchi’s collection. Much more appropriate to me in this case is an approach that can take account of both the mimetic effort with which literature in general is confronted and, more specifically, how literary art represents the reality of heterolingual discourses through a medium, the writing, which is usually unilingual. In this sense, I find it very helpful to introduce to my reading of Tabucchi an older concept from Meir Sternberg, namely “translational mimesis” (Sternberg 1981), which has been recently been taken up again and explored further by Susanne Klinger in her book on translation and linguistic hybridity (2015).4 As Sternberg argues, “[t]he interlingual tension between language as represented object (within the original or reported speech-event) and language as representational means (within the reporting speech-event) is primarily mimetic rather than communicative” (ibid). In this sense, the notion of translational mimesis is somehow connected to the concept of pseudotranslation but it is also clearly separate from it, since it focuses on the representation of the interlingual tension within a literary text. Generally speaking, translational mimesis is the aesthetically codified employment of mimetic strategies to represent heterolinguality on an intratextual level through a medium which is normally unilingual (Sternberg 1981: 221–3). For Sternberg, a specialist in both modernist fiction and biblical narratives, translational mimesis could almost be considered as a synonym to

118 Translational mimesis hetero-lingual (or polylingual) mimesis, except for the emphasis that it places on the dynamism of the mimetic process and on the transformational features of what is represented in polylingual discourse. Sternberg distinguishes four procedures of translational mimesis that lie “between the polar extremes of vehicular matching and homogenizing convention” (ibid.: 225). The first of these mimetic procedures is what he calls “selective reproduction,” which operates as a kind of “mimetic synecdoche,” functioning as “an intermittent quotation of the original heterolingual discourse as uttered by the speaker(s), or in literature, as supposed to have been uttered by the fictive speaker(s)”; that is, by simply inserting words and phrases of the “evoked” language (ibid.). The second procedure is called “verbal transposition.” Sternberg defines this second typology as “the poetic or communicative twist given to what sociolinguists call bilingual interference.” For the Tel Aviv-based literary scholar, this mimetic procedure is more oblique than verbal reproduction, “since it suggests […] heterolingual speech in and through an ostensibly unilingual medium rather than directly incorporates such speech into an openly mixed framework” (ibid.: 227). He defines the third type of translational mimesis as “conceptual reflection,” which he considers “even further removed than transposition from the concrete texture of the original discourse.” For Sternberg, conceptual reflection does not so much retain the verbal forms of the foreign code but rather “the underlying socio-cultural norms, semantic mapping of reality, and distinctive referential range, segmentations and hierarchies” (ibid.: 230). Conceptual reflection works at the crossroads between language, cultural norms, and reality; it produces “the impression of heterolingualism through culturally typical (or typified) topics, interests, attitudes, realia, forms of address, fields of allusion, or paralinguistic features like gesticulation” (ibid.: 231). The last mimetic procedure suggested by Sternberg is the “explicit attribution,” which is a “direct statement on the reporter’s (or even the reportee’s) part concerning the language (or some aspect of the language) in which the reported speech was originally made” (ibid). In her book on linguistic hybridity in cross-cultural texts, with a particular focus on Anglophone Nigerian literature, Susanne Klinger has recently reintroduced and further developed Sternberg’s concept of “translational mimesis.” In her words, translational mimesis is a set of “writing strategies that signal that the story level language is translated by the narrator for the benefit of the narratee” (Klinger, 2015: 14). Translational mimesis, she argues, does not simply imitate the other language but it rather disrupts “the illusion of direct access,” highlighting the “translatorial intervention through the mixing of different codes” (ibid.: 15). She states, moreover, that “although translational mimesis does not aim to mimic the foreign language (i.e. the language as object), it nevertheless aims to represent the foreign language in the language as medium” (ibid.). Particularly interesting and very helpful for my purpose in Klinger’s reformulation of Sternberg’s theory is the way in which she combines the concept of translational mimesis with

Translational mimesis 119 Genette’s narratology (ibid.: 17–18). As she argues, “translational mimesis can thus be conceptualized as the narrator’s translation of a character’s speech or thought act for the benefit of the narratee,” be it a “heterodiegetic narrator, a homodiegetic narrator or—in the case of embedded narratives— an intradiegetic narrator” (ibid.: 17). If we now go back to the brief example from Jules Verne I gave at the beginning of this chapter, we might describe the direct speech between the ship’s captain, Mr Farragut, and his ship’s engineer in terms of pseudotranslation—at least following the expanded definition of pseudotranslation by Brigitte Rath. However, we can describe it more precisely, with Sternberg (1981) and Klinger (2015), as a kind of translational mimesis, in which the homodiegetic narrator, Professor Aronnax, translates the speech between two characters for the benefit of the reader or narratee. Moreover, following Sternberg’s differentiation among mimetic procedures, we may define this passage as a “selective reproduction” of heterolingual language. In fact, its mimetic synecdoche disrupts the illusion of monolinguality by inserting original heterolingual discourse as formulated by the speaker—in this case, in American English.5 Over the following pages, by examining Tabucchi’s fiction I will show to what extent translational mimesis participates in negotiating geographical imaginations and how this translational and mimetic process operates linguistically and transmedially.

Disrupting the illusion of monolinguality In “Donna di Porto Pim” (The Woman of Porto Pim), the eponymous story of the collection (1983), Antonio Tabucchi recounts the tale of a complicated, asymmetric and eventually fatal love affair set during World War II between an Azorean fisherman, who became a singer of traditional Azorean songs, and the new owner of the “Bote” inn, a foreign married woman, presumably American, named Yeborath. However, whereas the tale “Donna di Porto Pim” can be seen, in principle, as a conventional short story, the eponymous collection is, instead, an original and heterogeneous assortment of texts and subgenres, an assemblage of short prose pieces that, by means of its fragmentary nature, also depicts an archipelago made up of islands (the Azores), languages, and texts. Besides the brevity of the pieces, the only constants that unify the collection are the geographical setting and the narrative perspective, for all of the stories and texts are told from the point of view of an Italian writer, who is himself visiting (or has been visiting) the islands. More specifically, Tabucchi’s collection includes, among others, biographical entries, the account of a past whaling expedition, some extracts from a Portuguese code of regulations for whaling, long quotations from authors like Melville and Michelet, (proper) translations by the author of extracts from the journals of oceanic explorers and travelers,6 and a postscript supposedly written by a whale, who observes unseen the

120 Translational mimesis world of the humans. Moreover, the collection Donna di Porto Pim, like many other works by Tabucchi, is equipped with multiple and important paratexts. The book opens with a prologue dated “Vecchiano, 23 settembre 1982” (Vecchiano, September 23, 1982) and closes with an appendix, containing a map (on which we will elaborate later), a geographical and historical note on the Azores archipelago and, finally, a basic bibliography, called “Qualche libro” (Some books). In the prologue, Tabucchi thematizes the semi-fictional nature of his “libretto” (booklet), preventing his readers from taking it as a faithful “diario di viaggio” (travel diary)—a genre which, as he states, he cannot pursue because of his own “paradoxical sense of realness” (Tabucchi 1983: 9). In doing so, he qualifies it as a product of both his “disponibilità alla menzogna” (readiness to falsehood) and his own factual experience as a traveler around the islands (ibid.: 10). With studied understatement and an insistence on the smallness of his book, he declares that the main contents of his “volumetto” (pocket-size volume) are basically whales and shipwrecks: “le balene, che più che animali sembrerebbero metafore; e insieme i naufragi, che nella loro accezione di atti mancati e fallimenti sembrerebbero altrettanto metaforici” (ibid.) (The whales, which more than any other animal would seem to be metaphors; and shipwrecks, which in their meaning acceptation as faulty actions and failures, would likewise seem metaphorical). Furthermore, almost pre-emptively eschewing the comparison with the biblical figure of Jonas or Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, Tabucchi confesses that “[s]e ho parlato di balene e di naufragi è solo perché alle Azzorre essi godono di una inequivocabile concretezza” (ibid.) (If I talked about whales and shipwrecks, it is solely because in the Azores they possess an unequivocal concreteness). The prologue then closes by providing a series of brief notes, in which the author somewhat playfully touches on the origins and textual status of the individual texts. For example, he writes that the title story was supposedly told to him in confidence by a man he met in a tavern in Porto Pim, but that he cannot rule out having modified it slightly because, among other reasons, the confession took place in a pub where alcohol was served in abundant quantities and he did not want to appear impolite by refusing that local custom (ibid.: 11). Or, similarly, he states that the short story entitled “Piccole balene azzure che passeggiano alle Azzore” (Little Blue Whales Strolling about the Azores) can be considered a “finzione guidata” (guided fiction), in the sense that it was inspired by a piece of a conversation he overheard by chance (ibid.). On the basis of these premises, we can already assume both that a considerable part of the book may present different degrees and processes of translational mimesis and that this translational mimesis may be considered as a constitutive part of the carticity (see Chapters 2 and 4) displayed by the work. In fact, the Portuguese-speaking, archipelagic environment in which the stories are set compels the narrator writing in Italian to render everything that has been formulated in Portuguese, either actually or supposedly,

Translational mimesis 121 into the audience-oriented language; that is, Italian. As I will show, this is true not only for the Portuguese–Italian axis but also for other languages, principally French and English, which play a major role in the heterolingual nature of the fiction. Furthermore, I will show that the fragmentary, collagelike structure of the collection, which is founded on the interplay of translational mimesis, among other things, enacts a cartographic perspective that reterritorializes the text transmedially into a fractal, archipelagic structure. In the above-mentioned short story, “Piccole balene azzure che passeggiano alle Azzore” (Little Blue Whales Strolling about the Azores), the reader is catapulted into the middle of a private conversation between a man and a woman on the deck of a passenger ship sailing towards an unspecified island in the Azores. The dialogue between them is told from the perspective of an external observer (presumably a passenger on his own), who reports, as a passive homodiegetic narrator, on what he is hearing and seeing. From the conversation, the reader learns that the man, called Marcel, is a writer of comedies, who has been writing a memoir during his sojourn in the Azores. The woman, who is visiting him, is probably his wife and had just arrived on the archipelago. The story reaches its subtle climax when the woman confesses to Marcel that she “saw a lot of Albertine in the winter” (ibid.: 26). Albertine is an actress who has been working with the man, and, as we understand between the lines, she has been (or still is) Marcel’s mistress. The woman tells Marcel of her growing empathy towards Albertine, an “unhappy and generous woman,” who seems to have truly liked Marcel, as she came to believe (ibid.). Besides the literary allusion to Proust, given by the names of Marcel and Albertine, the reader can easily grasp that the language being spoken by the couple may be French. The fictive title Marcel is considering for his memoir, “Le regard sans école” (in French and italics in the original, ibid.: 25), shows he is a French-speaking author. Moreover, he seems quite familiar with Rimbaud, whom he quotes in French: “Oh sì, la delicatezza, rise l’uomo: par délicatesse j’ai perdu ma vie” (italics in the original, ibid.) (Oh yes, the delicacy, laughed the man: par délicatesse j’ai perdu ma vie).7 From the perspective of translational mimesis, the hypothetical title of Marcel’s memoir and the quotation from Rimbaud work together as markers, as a mimetic synecdoche that disrupts the illusion of monolinguality by reproducing some element of the evoked language. With Sternberg (1981) we can call this procedure “selective reproduction.”8 However, the translational negotiation between French and Italian is not the only interlingual tension staged by the polylingual texture of this short story. The French-speaking couple, whose conversation, as we saw, is reproduced in the audience-oriented language (i.e. Italian), interact with another figure on the ship’s deck, namely the “bigliettaio,” the ticket collector, who presumably speaks Portuguese. He explains to the couple that what they are looking at are “little blue whales strolling about the Azores”—and not rocks, as Marcel mistook them for. The woman then translates for Marcel what the ticket collector has said, as only she can speak that language (I will

122 Translational mimesis expand on this point later). In this instance, the mimesis of heterolinguality operates at a conceptual level (“conceptual reflection”) and thereby reaches an even deeper narrative sense, since it not only disrupts the illusion of monolinguality but places the power relations between the two main figures of the story in a new light. As Marina Spunta argues in her comments on the representation of orality in Donna di Porto Pim, Marcel’s “initial patronizing attitude”—exemplified by his opening declaration of power and reinforced by the use of cataphora—“is counteracted by the woman’s actual linguistic power” (Spunta 2004: 150). By inverting the power relations within the couple, the woman’s translatorial knowledge prepares the way for the narrative climax that I mentioned above, emancipating her both intellectually and emotionally from the patronizing figure of the man. Visiting Albertine, Marcel’s lover, and establishing a sort of conspiratorial communication with her liberates the woman from the dominating, territorializing regime of lies built by the man. In analogy to the woman’s process of emancipation, Tabucchi thus stages the process of translation not only as a communicative instance but as a process of deliverance and redress (see following chapter). Another interesting case of translational mimesis, in particular of the two typologies of selective reproduction and explicit attribution, is to be found in the collection’s title story, “Donna di Porto Pim. Una storia.” The narrator, an Azorean whaler who became a bar singer, shows a classic example of confessional autodiegesis and mixes this with a range of indexical markings of heterolinguality. Using a narrative strategy that we have already encountered in “Piccole balene azurre,” the reader of “Donna di Porto Pim. Una storia” is plunged into the story in medias res with the narrator, Lucas Eduino, recounting his story to an Italian customer—who is a fictional projection of the author himself, according to the hint in the prologue. Tutte le sere canto, perché mi pagano per questo, ma le canzoni che hai ascoltato erano pesinhos e sapateiras per i turisti di passaggio e per quegli americani che ridono là in fondo e che fra un po’ se ne andranno barcollando. Le mie canzoni vere sono solo quattro chamaritas, perché il mio repertorio è poco, e poi io sono quasi vecchio, e poi fumo troppo, e la mia voce è roca. Mi tocca vestire questo balandrau che si usava una volta, perché agli americani piace il pittoresco, poi tornano nel Texas e raccontano che sono stati in una bettola di un’isola sperduta dove c’era un vecchio vestito con un mantello arcaico che cantava il folklore della sua gente. Tabucchi 1983: 78 I sing every evening, because that is what I am paid for, but the songs you heard were pesinhos and sapateiras for the tourists and for those Americans who are laughing over there, and who will soon leave, staggering. My real songs are just four chamaritas, because my repertoire is

Translational mimesis 123 small and I am getting old and I smoke too much and my voice is gruff. I am supposed to wear this balandrau like in the old times, because Americans love the picturesque; then they go back to Texas and report that they went in a honky-tonk bar of a lost island where an old man dressed in an archaic coat sang the songs of his people’s folklore. These few lines show distinctly how the author reproduces both orality and heterolinguality. He reproduces the narrator’s speech not only by highlighting its spoken nature but also by means of translational mimesis, evoking the source language in particular by inserting foreign-language utterances. However, Tabucchi does not embed just any Portuguese word into Lucas Eduino’s monologue, but rather a particular set of Portuguese vocables, which present a definite, albeit not exclusively, Azorean touch. The fine distinction between traditional song genres, “pesinhos,” “sapateiras” and “chamaritas,” underscores Lucas’s autochthonous knowledge and, at the same time, draws the reader’s attention to the text’s “linguistic hybridity” (Klinger 2015). Moreover, it suggests that due to their local colour, these Portuguese words are particularly resistant to a process of homogenization. In a sense, translational mimesis works in this story as a mise en scène of the incommensurability and untranslatability of culture (Bhabha 2005: 321). As Douglas Robinson argues, commenting on Bhabha, “[c]ulture is ‘untranslatable’ […] not because each culture is unique, special, unlike all others, but because it is always mixed with other cultures, because culture always overflows the artificial borders that nations set up to contain it” (1998: 27). This is not only true for the contexts specifically targeted by Bhabha—spaces of hybridization such as borders and migration routes, for example—but it is also perfectly suited to a cultural enclave such as the Azores archipelago, which simultaneously enacts and eludes the translation of its geographical and linguistic insularity into the master code of the continental center of power (Lisbon). The same can be said about another verbal inclusion, balandrau, a term that denotes a traditional Azorean coat that Lucas is supposed to wear for the sake of his own show. In this case, the selective reproduction of the heterolingual source introduces a reflection on the part of the narrator that works on both a diegetic and a meta-diegetic level. In fact, while the balandrau, on the one hand, diegetically covers the artifice of the whole scene, exposing the inauthenticity of tourist-oriented folkloristic practices, on the other, it exposes the linguistic illusion of monolinguality. Furthermore, Lucas’s direct address to his Italian interlocutor, alias the author, also works as a kind of explicit attribution, confirming the language in which the both are having this conversation; that is, Portuguese. Interestingly enough, Lucas does not say that the stranger speaks Portuguese, but that he pretends (“fare finta”) to speak their language. “Tu sei curioso e cerchi qualcos’altro … ordini vino di cheiro come se tu fossi dei nostri, sei straniero e fai finta di parlare come noi” (ibid.: 78–9) (You are curious and look for something else, order cheiro wine, like you were one of us,

124 Translational mimesis you are a stranger and pretend that you speak like us). Towards the end of the story, another language breaks in, the woman’s own language, English, the language that Lucas has been learning during his love affair with her. English enters the scene when Yeborath’s husband, unexpectedly reunited with his wife, asks the woman about Lucas, who has just appeared at her door. “Che cosa vuole? Le chiese in quella lingua che io ora capivo. È ubriaco, disse lei, una volta faceva il baleniere, ma ha lasciato l’arpione per la viola, durante la tua assenza mi ha fatto da servo. Mandalo via, disse lui senza guardarmi” (ibid.: 85–6) (What does he want? He asked her in that language which I now understood. He’s drunk, she said; once he was a whaler, but he abandoned the harpoon for the viola; during your absence he worked for me as a servant. Send him away, said he without looking at me). This brief and somehow fatal dialogue between Yeborath and her husband concerning the man who, that very night, will kill the woman with a harpoon out of jealousy and frustration, has been fictively translated twice: into Portuguese by the homodiegetic narrator, who translates it for the Portuguese-speaking Italian writer, and then into Italian by the author himself. Within our framework, we are, therefore, dealing with a complex translational mimesis which, by means of an explicit attribution, reproduces a chain of linguistic transfers. At the level of the story, English enters the scene as the harbinger of an unpleasant truth that dissolves Lucas’s illusion of eternal love and strips bare the inauthenticity of his hitherto monolingual relationship with Yeborath.

Translating the archipelago One could easily find other eloquent cases of translational mimesis certainly worthy of further discussion in Tabucchi’s collection, but I will now turn to another issue which I am eager to discuss: Tabucchi’s cartographic writing. In fact, in my estimation of what makes this “libretto,” this little book, so profound and exemplary—and, in a sense, an important criterion of comparison for other similar works of fiction—is the way in which Tabucchi employs translational mimesis at a macro-structural level in order to translate the geographic setting of his fiction into his narrative, or, in other words, how he transmediates the cartography of the Azores archipelago into his text. Continuing the line of Melville, Pessoa, and Borges, Antonio Tabucchi breathes literature; he dexterously overlaps multiple strata of intertextuality, knowing very well how stories and fictional journeys can suddenly gain a boost from a short, well-positioned quotation. He acts accordingly in the selection of the map as well, which is, as we will see, a double quotation, or, more precisely, a chain of quotations. With the map that he places at the end of the book, Tabucchi tells a story of bequests and transfers, of inheritance and, of course, of translation. He tells the story of a translation of geographies, suggesting that there is no clear origin and that nothing is perfectly

Translational mimesis 125 stable, not even the soil we walk on, but that it too is part of a permanent process of translation. In the pages that follow, I will therefore discuss the carticity (see Chapters 2 and 4) enacted by Tabucchi’s Donna di Porto Pim e altre storie and assess to what extent this carticity is based on translational mimesis. Besides the titular role played by the geographical setting, there are at least two essential features that invite us to analyze this collection of prose pieces and short stories from the perspective of a translation of geographies. The first one is quite evident. As mentioned above, at the end of his “libretto,” Tabucchi places a map of the Azores, accompanied by a note on the main geographical, cartographical, and historical aspects of this archipelago. This encyclopedic, atlas-like entry would be enough to alert our attention on its own. But there is a second, perhaps not so obvious reason, but one very much interwoven with the first. I am talking here about the fragmentary nature of the collection, the structure of which is not only analogous to the archipelagic structure of the Azores, but which translates both the Azores as a closed system of islands and the fractal nature of insularity (Mandelbrot 1983: 25–33).9 Let me, therefore, begin with the end of the book, where we find, among other important paratextual elements, a map of the Azores archipelago: it is an old and fine chart, adorned with sailing ships and compass roses, and provided with a central title cartouche featuring sea creatures. Tabucchi does not add further information about this map, nor does he reveal the reason why he opted for this work in particular—and, as far as I know, literary scholars have hardly bothered to investigate this issue. As stated in the cartouche—INSULÆ AÇORES DELINEANTE LUDOVICO TEISERA—the cartographic depiction of the archipelago has been drawn by “Ludovico Teisera.” A Portuguese Jesuit and mathematician, Luís Teixeira (active between 1564 and 1613) is best known for his cartographic work and for having served Portugal’s most fierce maritime competitor, the Spanish crown, as a mapmaker.10 However, the paratextual map, the map incorporated in Donna di Porto Pim e altre storie, is not simply a reproduction of Luís Teixeira’s map, but is the reproduction of a reproduction, the story of whose publication provides important clues for understanding Tabucchi’s cartographic writing. Originally published in the 1584 edition of Abraham Ortelius’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1570), the Teixeira map chosen by Tabucchi is the reworked and decorated version of the map contained in the largest, finest, and most coveted collection of maps of the seventeenth century, the Atlas Maior sive cosmographia Blaviana (1662), published by the Dutch typographer Joan Blaeu, also known as the “typographorum princeps,” the “prince of printers,” as the French diplomat Claude Sarrau once called him (Koeman et al. 2007: 1314). The cartographic work of Joan Blaeu—who, incidentally, never drew a map himself—consisted mostly in collecting already existing maps, adding new cartouches and illuminations and, obviously, in having a

126 Translational mimesis conception of the big picture.11 As Jerry Brotton states, Blaeu’s Atlas Maior, although not necessarily the most up-to-date, was surely the most comprehensive and influential atlas of its time, since it established “the format of the atlas as the primary vehicle for disseminating standardized geographical information about the shape and scale of the world and its regions” (2012: 265). As a result, by opting for Blaeu’s version of Teixeira’s map, Tabucchi not only offers the reproduction of a reproduction, a sort of cartographic mise en abyme of the Azores but he also quotes the cartographic work that, for the first time since the first printed editions of Ptolemy’s Geography in the fifteenth century, achieved what every mapmaker desired most—to bound the world in a book (ibid.).12 In this sense, the selection of Joan Blaeu’s version of Teixeira’s map, while symbolically sealing the relationship between maps and books in general, suggests in particular the subtle and decisive affinity between cartography and literary fiction that animates Tabucchi’s collection of prose works. Furthermore, by avoiding a modern, up-to-date map of the archipelago, Tabucchi draws his readers’ attention to the diachronic dimension of the representation of the Azores, highlighting the historicity of the cartographic gaze. So, rather than a tool to help the reader decipher the imagined archipelagic travels of the narrator, the Azores map, positioned as it is at the end of the book, is an orientation device for comprehending Tabucchi’s writing and the macrostructure of his fiction; it is a key, so to speak, for unlocking the textual territory. The actual image of the map in Donna di Porto Pim e altre storie— published in 1983 by one of the finest Italian publishers, Sellerio Editore in Palermo—is printed in black and white, covers approximately half a page, and is scarcely legible. Without presumably having incurred any additional costs, the editor could have offered a higher resolution map or, at the very least, a more intelligible version of it, sharp enough to allow the reader to easily distinguish the names of the islands and the morphology of the archipelago. I strongly suspect that this indistinctness was somehow deliberate. Because of the fuzzy definition of the image, the cartographic contours of the Azores islands in fact resemble the shapes of cetaceans swimming on the surface of the sea, like the small blue whales mistaken for rocks in the short story discussed above. In this sense, the Teixeira map used here suggests a connection, a transmedial relationship, between the cartographic depiction of the Azores archipelago and the book, the main contents of which, as stated in the prologue, are indeed “whales and shipwrecks.” All’orizzonte si vedeva il cono verde dell’isola che emergeva netto dall’acqua. Stiamo arrivando, disse l’uomo […]. Poi strizzò gli occhi e si appoggiò al parapetto. Ci sono anche degli scogli, aggiunse. Mosse il braccio verso sinistra e indicò due escrescenze turchine, come due cappelli posati sull’acqua. Che brutti scogli, disse, sembrano dei cuscini. […] non sono scogli, disse [la donna] tenendo in sospeso di proposito quello

Translational mimesis 127 che aveva saputo. L’uomo la guardò con aria interrogativa e forse un po’ seccata. Sono piccole balene azzurre che passeggiano alle Azzorre, esclamò lei, ha detto proprio così [il bigliettaio]. E finalmente liberò la risata trattenuta, una piccola risata breve e squillante. Tabucchi 1983: 22–3 One could see on the horizon the island’s green cone rising sharply from the water. We are almost there, said the man […]. Then he contracted his eyes and leaned on the rail. There are cliffs too, he added. Moving his arm to the left, he pointed to two blue protuberances, like two hats posed on the water. What ugly rocks, they look like pillows. […] they are not rocks, she said, deliberately holding back what she had learned. The man looked at her, inquisitively and maybe a little daunted. They’re little blue whales strolling about the Azores, she exclaimed, he [the ticket collector] used exactly these words. And finally she freed a laugh she had been restraining, a quick, shrill, little laugh. The visual analogy between whales and islands suggested by the map is thus reiterated in the short story “Little blue whales strolling about the Azores” and presented diegetically as an optical misunderstanding resolved by a translation process. Marcel mistakes some swimming whales for pillow-like rocks and shows them to the woman, stretching out his arm and pointing at them. In that moment, the ticket collector, standing nearby and sensing the couple’s perplexity, intervenes, explaining in Portuguese that these shapes are little blue whales. In this “fragment of a story,” as Tabucchi explicitly named it, the translation process not only inverts the relations of power between Marcel and the woman, as discussed above, by means of the latter’s linguistic competence and translation abilities, it also unravels an optic blunder that binds together the diegesis of the story told, the translational mimesis of the story-telling and the map at the end of the book, drawing attention to the carticity that permeates Tabucchi’s writing. Mistaking cetaceans or other sea creatures for rocks, islets, or even islands is a recurring literary topos, which stretches from the Aspidochelone of the didactic tractate Physiologus (c. second century CE) to the giant fish Jasconius from the Navigatio Sancti Brendani (see Chapter 2), from Sinbad’s whale-island in the Thousand and One Nights (c. tenth century) to Milton’s Leviathan in Paradise Lost (1667). In the Babylonian Talmud (c. fourth century CE) we come across a short, colorful tale of a whale-island told by Rabbah bar bar H . ana, which bears motifs reminiscent of the later tales of Sinbad the Sailor (Fishbane 1998: 43) and in three brief sentences exposes almost all the paramount features of the whale-island topos: “Once we were traveling on board a ship,” recounts Rabbah bar bar H . ana, “and saw a fish whose back was covered with sand out of which grew grass. Thinking it was dry land we went up and baked, and cooked, upon its back. When, however, its back was heated, it turned, and had not the ship been nearby,

128 Translational mimesis we should have drowned” (Baba Batra 73b, quoted in Stein 2012: 126). But closer to the (poetic) Italian ear lies Ariosto’s famous octave on the whaleisland, the musicality of which is echoed in several passages of Donna di Porto Pim e altre storie. Veggiamo una balena, la maggiore che mai per tutto il mar veduta fosse: undeci passi e più dimostra fuore de l’onde salse le spallacce grosse. Caschiamo tutti insieme in uno errore, perch’era ferma e che mai non si scosse: ch’ella sia una isoletta ci credemo, così distante a l’un da l’altro estremo. (VI, 37) There we behold a mighty whale, of size / The hugest yet in any water seen: / More than eleven paces, to our eyes, / His back appears above the surface green: / And (for still firm and motionless he lies, / And such the distance his two ends between) / We all are cheated by the floating pile, / And idly take the monster for an isle. (trans. by W. S. Rose) The literary convention of whale-islands is essentially based on a misinterpretation (“caschiamo tutti insieme in uno errore”) caused by the ambiguity of contours, shapes, and shadows, which allow a living being—mostly a cetacean seen from behind and in a condition of temporary stasis—to appear as a land mass surrounded by water. In most cases, this ambiguity is solved at the story level, dismantling the visual illusion of the island and establishing the natural order of things. In this sense, the translational mimesis that constitutes Tabucchi’s story “Little blue whales” not only disrupts the illusion of monolinguality, as I discussed above, but it also draws attention to the transformative relationship that exists between language and space, between narration and geography. As a matter of fact, any time that whale-islands or similar objects appear in a text, they compel the diegetic observer and consequently the reader to face a cartographical problem based on the shape and dimension of a geographical object. In other words, they mark and disclose the carticity of a poetic text; that is, its affinity or distance to cartographical processes of representation (Stockhammer 2007: 68; see Chapters 2 and 4). At the very beginning of the collection, Tabucchi not only raises a cartographical issue par excellence, upholding the relativity of the cardinal points, in particular on the east–west axis but he also describes the Azores archipelago as the backbone of a giant being, of a Leviathan perhaps, which has emerged from the vast and immutable waters of the ocean, thus commenting metaphorically on the ambiguity between islands and “living” beings.

Translational mimesis 129 Dopo avere veleggiato per molti giorni e per molte notti, ho capito che l’Occidente non ha termine ma continua a spostarsi con noi, e che possiamo inseguirlo a nostro piacimento senza raggiungerlo mai. Così è il mare ignoto che sta oltre le Colonne, senza fine e sempre uguale, dal quale emergono, come la spina dorsale di un colosso scomparso, piccole creste di isole, nodi di roccia perduti nel celeste. / La prima isola che s’incontra, vista dal mare è una distesa verde […] Tabucchi 1983: 13 After having sailed for many days and many nights, I understood that the Occident has no end, but keeps on shifting with us, and that we can follow it as long as we want without ever reaching it. Such is the unknown sea that lies beyond the Pillars, infinite and always the same, and from its depth, like the backbone of a dead colossus, little island crests emerge, knots of rock lost in the blue. / The first island one reaches, seen from the sea, is a green expanse […] As these first lines (and the title) of the text “Esperidi: Sogno in forma di lettera” (“Hesperides: Dream in Letter Form”) show, from the very beginning of the collection, Tabucchi’s Azores are located at the intersection of multiple discourses, which include the cartographic, the historical, and the mythological. The geopoetic reflection on the unreachability of the West negotiates its episteme with the mythological figure of Hercules’ Pillars, which stood for centuries as the image of the insuperable occidental frontier.13 Similarly, the archipelagic structure of the nine volcanic islands is described as the visible spinal column, “spina dorsale,” of a vanished colossus, using analogy to suggest the unity of the individual islands as part of the same body, as relicts of the same being. From the very exordium of the book, Tabucchi thus stages the archipelago as the structural frame through which the reader should apprehend both the specific territoriality of the Azores and the macro-textual dimension of the book. Tabucchi’s anti-hierarchical and rhizomatic writing not only evokes a sort of archipelagic connection between the texts but its structure follows the geographical, “nissological” (McCall 1994) and archipelagic reality of the Azores.14 As “loci of imagination” par excellence (Cosgrove 2005: 302, quoted in Thomas 2007: 22), islands stimulate invention, creativity, and experimentation, juxtaposing local and global realities, thriving in “a coexistence of autonomous and relational zones, in a mingling of universality and particularity” (ibid.). Islands function, so to speak, as matrices for the imagination and themselves become spaces of writing, pages, and texts. So, the nine islands with their cluster of islets become, in Tabucchi’s work, an archipelago of nine prose pieces accompanied by a “cluster” of paratexts. Mirroring the geomorphological and cultural differences within the Azorean archipelago, different sorts of textual subgenres, registers, figures, perspectives, and languages intersect and overlap in Donna di Porto Pim e altre

130 Translational mimesis storie. Its carticity is defined by its very affinity to the archipelagic nature of the space it is reporting on. The geographical and, in particular, the cartographical organization of the Azores is translated into Tabucchi’s text not only as a particular set of contents but also as a projection, as a “narrative projection” (Stockhammer 2007: 81–3). The archipelagic imagination not only allows but structurally urges actual relations between the archipelago’s insular components, between its islands. In doing so, the archipelago does not eliminate insularity but rather negotiates it, creating different grades of connectivity. As Paul Carter argues, the “physical archipelago is a geographical analogue of language as discourse […] an evolving interlingual discourse, where tongues are constantly morphing, innovating and migrating” (Carter 2013: 81). As an analogue of language, the archipelago constructs fluid borders without subjugating or reducing any of its elements to a fixed whole. In this sense, Tabucchi’s use of translational mimesis participates in the archipelagic imagination of the collection, working both within and between the texts. Disrupting the illusion of monolinguality, translational mimesis performs what Carter calls the “evolving interlingual discourse” of the archipelagic imagination. The texts “Altri frammenti” and “Alto mare,” in particular, follow a seemingly random pattern and intersect with various epochs, texts, and events concerning the archipelago. In “Alto mare” (High Seas), the homodiegetic narrator frequently suspends his anecdotal and meditative narration on the nature of whales to give space to appropriate quotations from Michelet’s La Mer (1861), Melville’s Moby-Dick (quoted in the Italian translation by Cesare Pavese) and La carrière d’un navigateur (1905) by Albert I, Prince of Monaco. Like an exquisite anthologist, Tabucchi collects some of the best nineteenth-century samples of prose on whales— from Michelet’s powerful glorification of the whale’s blood (ibid.: 54–5) to Melville’s poetic taxonomy (ibid.: 58)—and builds on them, commentating, deviating, and digressing. What is extremely interesting for the heterolingual texture of the collection as a whole is that the second quote from Michelet is left completely in French because it is “too intense and poetic […] to tone it down with translation,” as Tabucchi writes (ibid.: 57). In “Altri frammenti” (Other Fragments), the recount of the sojourn of the Bullar brothers in the Azores between 1838 and 1839, mostly based on their astonishing travelogue A Winter in the Azores; and Summer at the Baths of the Furnas (1841),15 overlaps with some quotations from Chateaubriand about the volcanic island of Pico (some of them in the original French version) and, again, from the oceanographic diary of Prince Albert I, Prince of Monaco. The text ends with the vivid depiction of “Peter’s bar,” a legendary café on the island Faial by the port of Horta, which Tabucchi describes as “something between a tavern, a meeting point, an information agency and a post office” (Tabucchi 1983: 39). Paraphrasing Emily Apter (2006), Tabucchi’s “Peter’s bar”—which truly does bear a great resemblance to Peter Café Sport near Horta, a favorite social haunt for yachtsmen in the

Translational mimesis 131 North Atlantic—can be considered as the quintessential depiction of a translation zone, where messages, letters, and notes in almost every language of the globe converge on and migrate to a wooden counter. Tabucchi cites two brief messages written in French and in English. The first one sounds like a micro-novel, in which a woman tells a man named Tom that she had to leave for Brazil, since she was going crazy on the island. Leaving her new Brazilian address on the Post-it note, she invites the man to write to her, to join her; she is waiting for him (Tabucchi 1983: 39). The other message written in English stems from a young lady, Carol Shepard, “with 26,000 miles of crewing/cruising/cooking experience” (italics and slashes in the original) eager to embark in any boat “bound for Europe” (italics in the original, ibid.). Besides their inherent narrative function, which operates as a multiplier of tales, both messages perfectly convey a sense of multilingualism and crossing destinies, of travels and goodbyes, all compressed into the tiny space of a Post-it note. Tabucchi’s cartographical writing, therefore, not only stages the idea of an archipelago but it also works as an archipelago, it enacts an archipelagic imagination that sanctions its own detours, inversions, deviations, and reversals. As Eduard Glissant, one of the major writers of the Caribbean and maître à penser of the Antilles, has argued in his Traité de TouteMonde: “La pensée archipélique convient à l’allure des nos mondes. Elle en emprunte l’ambigu, le fragile, le dérivé. Elle consent à la pratique du détour, qui n’est pas fuite ni renoncement. Elle reconnaît la portée des imaginaires de la Trace, qu’elle ratifie” (Glissant 1997: 31). (Archipelagic thinking suits the shape of our worlds. It borrows from their ambiguity, their fragility, and drifting. It consents to the practice of detour, which is neither escape nor renunciation. It recognizes the range of the imaginaries of the Trace, which it ratifies). Tabucchi’s archipelagic writing is undoubtedly a product of its time, considering the postmodern traits it exhibits such as the tendency to fragmentation, pastiche, and metafictional digression, among others. However, it cannot be labeled as a typical postmodern collection of prose. In fact, rather than following postmodern (or postcolonial) patterns of travel literature that knowingly indulge in the negotiation of identity constructions, Donna di Porto Pim e altre storie seems more interested in reactivating an understanding of inter-insular travels from previous eras; that is, a kind of writing that orientates itself towards the non-linearity of archipelagic imageries such as Rabelais’ Pantagruel, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, or Melville’s collection of short stories The Encantadas. As Frank Lestringant has shown extensively in his Le livre des îles (2002), the archipelago’s calling is to reproduce itself by mise en abyme and miniaturization, reflected in each of its units by a kind of fractal dynamics (ibid.: 369).16 In this sense, in disrupting the illusion of an itinerary with a destination, the archipelago produces uniqueness and each of its islands is, potentially, an archipelago (ibid.).

132 Translational mimesis To conclude: Tabucchi’s cartographic imagination proposes an alternative to every travel narration that relies on the illusion of its own taken-forgranted mappability. In spite of (or precisely because of) its close affinity to mapping procedures and to the cartographic medium, Tabucchi’s writing in fact eludes the figments of mappability, showing, so to speak, the reverse of the map, the irreducible fiction on which cartography is based. In what we may call Tabucchi’s critique of “cartographic reason” (Farinelli 2009), the reader is constantly faced with two interwoven issues of the (relative) untranslatability of the heterolingual text, on the one hand, and the inherent unmappability of the archipelagic imagination, on the other hand. Furthermore, Donna di Porto Pim e altre storie proposes a vision of the world and its creatures that avoids clear-cut destinations, definitive objectives, or road maps. With its archipelagic, relational writing, Tabucchi’s collection of prose can be considered as a narrative about the spaces of relation, a quiet celebration of translation. An archipelago exists only by means of the watery spaces that connect its islands: Donna di Porto Pim e altre storie is a book about these kinds of spaces.

7

The redress of (self-)translation Juan Gelman’s Dibaxu and the cartography of Sepharad

As I briefly mentioned in the last chapter, Antonio Tabucchi not only employs heterolingual and translational strategies within his works of fiction but he is also an exophonic (Arndt et al. 2007; Wright 2008) writer à la Beckett and Nabokov.1 By exophonic writing, I mean texts written in a language other than the author’s native tongue; that is to say, written in an adopted language to which the writer feels a strong existential bond and closeness (I will later expand on this).2 One of Tabucchi’s main works, Requiem (1991b), was in fact originally written in Portuguese—a language familiar (see Chapter 6) to the Tuscan writer and professor of Portuguese literature, but still an adopted language; that is, something he had to learn and practice as an adult. Besides its exophonic nature, generally speaking Requiem is a hybrid sort of fiction, which hovers between novel, novella, and long short story, a liminal composition that unites autobiographical confession with the author’s ars poetica, an exquisite culinary guide to the beloved city of Lisbon and a passionate tribute to the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa—who, incidentally, was also an exophonic writer, since he wrote poems in English, the main language of his literary apprenticeship. Divided into nine parts, as required by the aesthetic convention of the requiem in music,3 the book is described by the author himself as a “Hallucination.” And indeed, Requiem is an oneiric journey through places of the mind and memories, through imaginative geographies and literary heritage. At the beginning, the auto diegetic narrator is sleeping under a mulberry tree in a country village south of Lisbon when he suddenly finds himself in Lisbon, transported, “translated” as if by magic to Portugal’s capital, where he is supposed to meet a great deceased poet. While the poet’s name is never explicitly revealed, the title of the book the narrator was reading under the mulberry tree, O livro do desassossego (The Book of Disquietude),4 together with other clues scattered in the final chapter, when the meeting takes place, leaves no doubt about the poet’s identity: he is Fernando Pessoa. Waiting to meet with him, the narrator wanders through Lisbon, encountering different people, both dead and alive, negotiating memories and exchanging thoughts. In the fourth chapter, the narrator encounters his dead father as a young man in military clothes, who

134 The redress of (self-)translation speaks to him in Portuguese, a language he ignored in life but which he now speaks fluently in this oneiric version, albeit with a light, rustic Tuscan melody. This is the germinal dream of the book, the episode in which reallife mourning5 and fictional requiem are bound together in a meaningful whole that generates further imaginations. The whole book can be read as the consequence of this dream, as the transcription of an oneiric, to some extent Hamletic dialogue between the narrator and the ghost of his young father (Brizio-Skov 2002: 100). Within Tabucchi’s œuvre, which is inherently haunted by a myriad of ghosts, phantasms, and doubles, the appearance of the narrator’s father in Requiem diachronically precedes the spectral encounter with the ghost of Pereira in Sostiene Pereira (1994) and bears many similarities with it, with an important difference: while Pereira tells his story to the narrator in Portuguese and the narrator (pseudo)translates it into Italian, in Requiem the Portuguese is the only language in which the story can be written, as Tabucchi states in the authorial introductory note to the novel: “Se alguém me perguntasse por que é que esta história foi escrita em português, responderia que uma história como esta só poderia ter sido escrita em português, e pronto” (Tabucchi: 1991b: 3) (If someone would ask why this story was written in Portuguese, I would answer that such a story could only have been written in Portuguese, and that’s that). Moreover, he states that he could not possibly have written a requiem in his own language (i.e. Italian) and for that reason too he chose “uma lingua que fosse um lugar de afecto e reflexão” (Tabucchi 1991b: 3) (a tongue which would represent a space of affection and reflection); that is, Portuguese. Interestingly enough, how the tongue is imagined—and in particular the imagination of the Portuguese language—acquires a spatial dimension. Echoing a famous phrase by Fernando Pessoa,6 language is not only a vehicle of communication, a verbal device for interaction, but is also a place where one can reside: Tabucchi sees it as a place of “affections and reflections,” as a geography of emotions and thoughts, with an intrinsic extension in the world. Unable, by his own admission, to translate the novel into his mother tongue, the author “entrusts” the job to Sergio Vecchio, who then produced the Italian translation published in 1992 by Feltrinelli.7 However, Tabucchi tried to self-translate Requiem at least once, as a brief excerpt from the novel in Italian translation, published in 1991 by the Italian newspaper Corriere delle sera (Tabucchi 1991c: 17–18) demonstrates. Newly rediscovered by Roberto Mulinacci (2013), a Bologna-based professor of Portuguese and Brazilian literature, this almost forgotten, two-page self-translation by Antonio Tabucchi—although it has been signed with a pseudonym, Nuno Pereira8—shows wonderfully the advantages and the risks inherent to this particular genre of literary translation. As Mulinacci argues, Tabucchi’s tendency to insert, merge, and assimilate typical Portuguese expressions from his own composition into his Italian version freely is not so much the consequence of a translator’s vague foreignizing policy, but is rather the fruit

The redress of (self-)translation

135

of an authorial automatism that does not need to follow the text to the letter, and even less the rules of honest rendering (ibid.: 108). Because of this automatism, in that first and last attempt at self-translation Tabucchi very plausibly glimpsed the almost imperceptible resurfacing of his authorial voice, which would eventually have imposed the author on the translator, transforming the original story into “another book” (ibid.). Now, besides the fact that a literary re-writing is also a form of translation, in Tabucchi’s self-translation we cannot avoid noticing the linguistic short-circuit provoked by the difficulty of residing simultaneously in the geographies of both languages. Indeed, following Tabucchi’s description of the Portuguese tongue as “a place of affections and reflections,” being in both languages presents an almost irresolvable problem of ubiquity. Therefore, Tabucchi’s reiterated calques from Portuguese scattered in his Italian self-translation cannot merely be described as linguistic interferences due to rough, approximate translation work—in particular not by someone who was as fine a translator as he was. Rather they signal a metanarrative dis-location of language, one which could be described psychoanalytically— as Tabucchi himself suggests we do—as a “profound split” caused by “linguistic schizophrenia” (Tabucchi 2003: 172).9 In an interview with Carlos Gumpert Melgosa in 1995, the Tuscan writer explained that he was not only afraid of re-writing the book; above all he “lacked courage to go to both his linguistic and emotional shores, speaking in psychoanalytical terms. I have been able to go to the other side, yes, but not to go back in the same boat” (quoted in Mulinacci 2013: 102n).10

Gelman’s Ladino This task—that is, coming back across the river, to follow Tabbuchi’s fluvial metaphor—was successfully completed by Juan Gelman (1930–2014) in Dibaxu (1994), an astonishing collection of 29 poems written in Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish (or sefardí as he calls it—I will expand on this later), accompanied by a translation into Castellano by the author himself. In the following pages, I will try to show to what extent Gelman’s bilingual writing and self-translation practice is successful. In particular, I will concentrate on the relationship between language, translation, and geographical imagination enacted by Gelman’s bilingual work, arguing that Gelman’s self-translation should be considered as a sort of return to the mother tongue he had deliberately exiled himself from. But in order to do so, I must first clarify some important preliminary aspects of Dibaxu that concern, above all, the use of Ladino. Why did Gelman choose to write poems in this language? And, which variant of Ladino did he use? What is the connection between the Ladino used by Gelman and the imagined geography of Sepharad? To answer these questions I will also have to analyze what I call the “translational map of Sepharad,” which Gelman creates in one of his most fascinating books of poetry, Com/posicionen (1986).

136 The redress of (self-)translation Gelman was born in Buenos Aires into a Jewish family of Ukrainian immigrants. His father was a railway worker, who fled from tsarist Russia to Argentina in 1905; his mother was the daughter of a rabbi, who was justice of the peace in Odessa.11 However, although he grew up in a multilingual milieu in which Castellano (with a strong Argentinian accent), Russian, and Hebrew, among others, could all be heard simultaneously, he did not learn Ladino, the diaspora language of Sephardim (I will return to this point later), at home, where his eastern European Ashkenazi parents spoke to each other in Russian and Yiddish. Furthermore, he did not even really see himself as a Jew until his forced exile dramatically cast a new light on his Jewishness and on the complex connection between the Jewish diaspora, political exile, and cultural minority. Introduced early to the political and social movements taking place in the country, in his youth he joined the Communist Party, which he would later abandon, and he was part of the militant Montoneros guerrilla group who fought against the Argentinian dictatorship. This was the main reason that forced Gelman into exile in 1976. He spent time in different European cities until 1988, when he moved to live in the United States and Mexico, where he died in 2014—he never moved back to Argentina. During the military dictatorship, his son Marcelo and his daughter-in-law were kidnapped and murdered, becoming two of the 30,000 missing persons, the so-called desaparecidos, of the Argentinian dictatorship. These intensely painful events have indelibly shaped Gelman’s poetry written during and after exile. The exile and his existential consequences mark a strong caesura in Gelman’s artistic and intellectual work. While the first Argentinian phase of his poetic production is strongly motivated by the necessity of “discursive transparency” (Livon-Grossman 2009: xxxv) and by a tenacious left-leaning political engagement, following in particular the stylistic mastery of the Peruvian poet Cesár Vallejo, on the one hand, and the aesthetic paradigms of French surrealist poetry, on the other hand, the second phase, the one in which Dibaxu was composed, could be described as Gelman’s “Jewish period” (Pérez Hernández 2009: 210), a phase dedicated in particular to the many and multifarious declinations of the theme of exile and nourished, among other things, by reading Spanish mystic poets, such as the Carmelite nun Teresa of Ávila (she too, incidentally, is of partly Jewish origins), and Spanish-Hebrew poetry. In particular, for Juan Gelman the reading of mystical texts represented an attempt to overcome the pain caused by loss and having been expelled from his own native country. In the exalted, transcendental language and visions of Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross, he found the starting point for a personal mystical experience that would allow “a dialogue of souls” between him and what he called his “patria de gracia,” “homeland of grace” (Sillato 2000, 3: 428). From that profound experience of reading, dictated both by intellectual curiosity and existential contingency, emerged one of Gelman’s main works of poetry, Citas y comentarios (1982). In the following years, Gelman worked on both Dibaxu

The redress of (self-)translation

137

and Com/posiciones (1986), two intimately related poetry collections with a particular affinity in their Jewish, Sephardic substrate. This confrontation with Teresa and John of the Cross in fact leads him to start exploring Jewish mysticism and, in particular, its cabalistic reinterpretation. Shaken by the “exilic vision” of Jewish poets and philosophers of the Middle Ages (Sillato 2000, 3: 428), especially those from Sepharad (Spain) such as Solomon Ibn Gabirol and Judah Halevi, Gelman translated their poems originally written in Hebrew (again, I will expand on this later) into his Castellano, producing a type of text he called “com/position,” a hybrid form of translation that hovers between linguistic transfer (translation proper) and re-writing. At the same time, he moved closer to another epoch and geography of Sephardic writing, namely towards the East, towards the Ladino culture which developed in the western provinces of the Ottoman Empire after the expulsion from Sepharad in 1492. More precisely, he approached the Ladino poems of the Franco-Bosnian poet Clarisse Nicoïdski née Abinoun (1938–96), who wrote not just novels in French but also poems in Ladino, the intimate language of her family, a Sephardic Judeo-Spanish-speaking family from Sarajevo who migrated to France and lived in semi-concealment in Lyon during the Nazi occupation under the Vichy government (Balbuena 2009: 288). It was Nicoïdski’s literary work in Ladino that persuaded and inspired Juan Gelman to choose that distant language for writing Dibaxu. However, before considering Gelman’s Ladino poetry and his self-translation more closely, it might be helpful to spend some time on Ladino as language. According to Haïm-Vidal Sephiha, one of the leading scholars in Judeo-Spanish studies, Ladino and Judeo-Spanish should not be confused. Ladino is a sort of “Judeo-Spanish calque” (Sephiha 1986: 56) into which the Hebrew Bible has been translated for liturgical and pedagogical reasons by Spanish rabbis. Ladino is thus an artificial language based on Hebrew syntax and an Old Spanish vocabulary—unlike Judeo-Spanish, which is a spoken language with a clear Romance syntax. To a certain extent, therefore, Ladino is a sort of translation device, a “translational language” (Balbuena 2009: 286), conceived exclusively for a word-for-word rendering of Hebrew or Aramaic biblical or liturgical texts into a Spanish—mostly CastilianSpanish—vocabulary. In this sense, “Ladino is only Hebrew clothed in Spanish, or Spanish with Hebrew syntax” (Sephiha 1997: 29–30). Judeo-Spanish, on the other hand—or Judezmo, as David M. Bunis calls it (1975)—is a spoken and written language,12 essentially based on fifteenthcentury Castilian and colored by different Hispanic regionalisms (Aragonese, Leonese, Catalan, among others)13 and various linguistic influences. Among these, the most important influences and elements of fusion besides Hebrew and Aramaic are Arabicisms, Turkisms, Italianisms, Hellenisms, and Slavisms that were taken on in the various host countries in which JudeoSpanish vernaculars flourished (Sephiha 1997: 22). Moreover, “with the creation of the schools of the Alliance Israelite Universelle in 1860,” JudeoSpanish was “affected by a mania for gallicization, to the point that a new

138 The redress of (self-)translation dialect called judeo-fragnol (Judeo-Franco-Spanish)” emerged (ibid.). In his socio-economic, demographic and linguistic analysis of Judeo-Spanish, The Agony of the Judeo-Spanish (1977), Sephiha named as Judeo-Spanish speakers not only all the Jews of the Ottoman Empire and of Morocco who have preserved Spanish (or at least the Judeo-Spanish vernacular which resulted from it) since 149214 but also those who adopted the language by integrating with Judeo-Spanish communities. After the Alhambra edict (March 1492), which decreed their expulsion from the Spanish Kingdom, Jews who did not want to convert to Christianity quickly migrated towards Morocco, Algeria, Italy, south-eastern Europe, and Turkey, taking with them all of the varieties of Spanish that they were in contact with on the Iberian Peninsula. Some of them, mainly cryptoJews, also migrated during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries towards the Low Countries.15 Yet it was mostly in the regions of the Ottoman Empire (from Bulgaria to the Balkans, and from Greece to Turkey) that the Sephardim conserved their Spanish language, the muestro spanyol, as the privileged tool of communication within their different communities (Bunis 1999; Quintana Rodríguez 2006). It is, therefore, within Ottoman Jewry that the Spanish substratum became “the Judeo-Spanish vernacular, known as Spaniol, Judezmo, Judy¢, Jidy¢ (according to Edgard Morin), Spaniolith (Spaniolis[c]h for the Nobel Prize winner Elias Canetti) or Espanioliko in the Middle East, Haketiya in northern Morocco or Tetuani in the region around Oran in Algeria” (Sephiha 1997: 25–6).16 To recap: whereas Ladino, in a strict sense, mirrors the sacred scriptures and has risen to a status of semi-sacredness on its own, Judezmo, the JudeoSpanish vernacular that flourished in the Ottoman Empire, was a spoken and written language that did not differ much from Iberian Spanish (ibid.). However, not every scholar agrees on using the term Ladino exclusively for the language employed in the study of biblical and liturgical texts. In fact, Ladino is currently used by most scholars and speakers, both in America and Israel, as an “umbrella term encompassing all the different varieties of Judeo-Spanish” (Benaim 2012: 121). The fact that Israeli universities use Ladino as an “umbrella term” for their programs is very revealing in this sense: for example, “Ladino studies” are taught at the Center for the Study of Jewish Languages and Literatures at the Hebrew University.17 In keeping with this efficient simplification, which is taking root in both academic writing and spoken language, I also use the word Ladino as a general term encompassing all of the Judeo-Spanish vernaculars. Coming back to Juan Gelman’s Dibaxu, the reader is confronted with a further complication in the terminology used to describe Ladino. The Argentinian poet calls the language that he employs for his poems “sefardí,” touching, with this lexical choice, on the problematic nexus between the naming of a language, Judeo-Spanish, which was spoken by many but not by all Sephardim, and the definition of an ethnic group.18 In the brief introduction (or “Escolio,” as Gelman calls it, i.e. scholion or gloss) that

The redress of (self-)translation

139

precedes the corpus of poems, Gelman states: “Escribí los poemas de dibaxu en sefardí, de 1983 a 1985” (Gelman 2012: 815) (I wrote the poems of dibaxu in Sefardí, from 1983 to 1985). His decision to write in this language is then immediately connected with the figure and work of Clarisse Nicoïdski: “El acceso a poemas como los de Clarisse Nikoïdski [sic!], novelista en francés y poeta en sefardí, desvelaron esa necesidad que en mí dormía, sorda, dispuesta a despertar” (ibid.) (The access to poems such as those by Clarisse Nicoïdski, novelist in French and poet in Sefardí [JudeoSpanish], unveiled this necessity that was sleeping inside of me, deaf, ready to awaken). Gelman’s “necessity” (“necesidad”) unveiled by Nicoïdski’s poems was the need for the “deepest” and “most exiled” (la mas exiliadas) roots of language—of his language, the Spanish, the Castilian-Spanish, the Castellano, the national language of Argentina. Here we find the most self-evident difference between the use of Ladino in Dibaxu and the cultural and aesthetic motives of his main intertextual reference, the poems of Clarisse Nicoïdski. While for the Franco-Bosnian poet, to write in Ladino meant to recall the language of her childhood, to compose in the tongue of her familial surroundings and within the linguistic imagination of her most intimate space of cultural belonging,19 for Gelman the use of Ladino—or “sefardí” as he calls it in the prefacing gloss—was an intellectual and poetological stance. The language in which Gelman wrote the 29 poems of Dibaxu is not his mother tongue, nor even the language in which his Jewish ancestors spoke. As he states, almost apologetically, in a discreet, circumspect form of captatio benevolentiae: “soy de origen judío, pero no sefardí, y supongo que eso tuvo algo que ver con el asunto” (Gelman 2012: 815) (I am of Jewish origins, but I am not Sephardic, and I suppose that this had something to do with it). Gelman thus writes in a Fremdsprache, in a foreign language, a language that is not completely his own but that still lives and resounds beneath (dibaxu/debajo) his mother tongue, in the “deepest” and “most exiled” “roots” of his Castellano (ibid.).20 To walk the hidden corners of a language, searching for its roots, also means abandoning quotidian speech, the daily idiom, eventually exiting one’s own voice, one’s own φωνή. In this sense, the linguistic and poetological path of Gelman towards Ladino is an exophonic one, whereas the use of Ladino in Nicoïdski should be described primarily as endophonic. Things, however, are not as easy to categorize as we might think. In fact, in any attempt to write literature, all of the literary performances are somehow exophonic, since literature, which constantly pushes language beyond the realm of spoken language, is per se a sort of adopted language. The most radical imitation of spoken language, precisely for its mimetic, highly literary character, would also belong to this kind of adopted language. Although it may sound paradoxical, to some extent you can write in any language you wish, just not in your mother tongue. As a self-normative process, literature—and poetry in particular— can never really coincide with what we call a mother tongue (Arndt et al.

140 The redress of (self-)translation 2007: 21). Now, having said all that, it would somehow be counterproductive and against common sense to neglect the profound meaning contained in the notions of “mother tongue” and “adopted language.” I will, therefore, consider exophony as a fully operational concept but with an important caveat: we should not consider it and its reverse (endo-phony) as clear-cut taxonomies, but as poles towards which different literary strategies orientate themselves, performing different writing typologies (and nuances) of proximity and distance.

Diasporic dis-stance From a diasporic perspective, like the one that Gelman adopts in the second, exilic phase of his writing, “distance” is not only the size, the static dimension of a spatial or temporal (or spatio-temporal) separation in a given chronotope. The dis-stance (I hyphenate and stress the prefix here simply to underline the structure and the etymology of the word),21 the diasporic disstance is the disjunction, the taking apart, the disassembling of a “stance,” of an old position in a place, a position that is no longer sustainable in order to re-orient oneself and survive. It is the quasi oxymoronic and antinomic dynamics of going the distance for the purpose of not succumbing to the pain of separation, to the pressure of the distance. The lexeme stance commonly means “posture” or “position” (but also “standing place” or “station”) and derives from the Middle French stance, “resting place, harbor,” and from the Italian stanza, “abode, dwelling” (from Vulgar Latin *stantia “place, abode”). In poetry, a stanza defines a determined number of verses that make full sense or lead to a sense of closure: herein lies the precise difference between strophe and stanza. A strophe may have a precise number of verses and follow a given rhyme scheme, but it does not need to make full sense or to close a thought circle. Etymologically speaking, what characterizes the word “stance” is a sense of completeness and resting (Agamben 1977: xiii). By diasporic dis-stance, I understand a performative negotiation between imaginary places of belonging, imaginative geographies of completeness and stability on one side, and the contingent, conflictive space (or relational space) of proximity on the other side. From this perspective, every diasporic stance might be considered as a “dis-stance”; that is, as a permanent process of de- and reterritorialization that negotiates differences across distances. And yet, trying to repair a separation, to fill a lack or an absence, always creates a new distance, a new void, and a new kind of separation. The process of translation, as a way of bridging the gap, of shortening the distance, displays a similar (if not the same) dynamics, since by seeking proximity it inevitably engenders new distances (Cronin 2013: 14–17). This does not mean that translation obliterates the culture and the language that it wanted to come closer to, but it certainly dislocates them, it displaces them. Translation is a transformation not only because something

The redress of (self-)translation

141

conceived in a particular semiotic system is transferred into another, for translation always transforms its source, the translandum, at least for the beneficiaries of the translated version. Rather it also shortens the distance and creates a different one. And yet, this is exactly how newness enters the world—as Bhabha would probably put it (2005: 325).22 Choosing Ladino, Juan Gelman opts for a diasporic language that produces a radical dis-stance: from home, first of all, from the place imagined as home, from daily life, from his usual audience, from the habitual, almost automatic paradigms of communication and literary creation, and from his most rooted imaginative geography. This going the distance, this exit from his “first” language is even more dramatic if we consider the context of this decision. As he states in the “Escolio,” Gelman wrote the poems in Dibaxu between 1983 and 1985; that is, during his European exile. As was the case for many of his colleagues and friends, he had to leave Argentina for political reasons; he was forced into an exilic life. Furthermore, for Gelman writing in Ladino means evading the “major,” oppressive geography of Castellano—the Castellano-speaking totalitarian state—in favor of embracing the “minor,” deterritorialized geography of the Sephardic diaspora.23 In this sense, it seems particularly significant to me that Gelman explicitly indicates the Ladino or Judeo-Spanish spoken and sung before the Expulsion as the language that he wants to recreate. As he states in the “Escolio,” Dibaxu should be considered as the “culmination” or the “debouchment” of Citas y comentarios (1982), a poetry collection in which Gelman engages in dialogue with the major Christian Spanish mystics of the sixteenth century such as Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross (Gelman 2012: 815). The poet confesses something akin to an obsession which pushes him through the different layers of the language as if they were geological strata that he wishes to comprehend and eventually to bring back to surface. With the poems of Dibaxu, Gelman wants to go beyond the stratum of Golden Age Spanish poetry and beyond the mystic laboratories of literary language that ushered in the Siglo de Oro. He is seeking the substratum of that very Castellano (“el sustrato de ese castellano”) (ibid.). In a sense, he is searching for the substratum of the substratum: the Judeo-Spanish spoken before the Expulsion, which he argues is the substratum of his own Argentine castellano. It is both a geological and genealogical path that brings him from his mother tongue, through the Spanish of Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross, to Judeo-Spanish. However, the performance of dis-stance enacted by Dibaxu exerts a cathartic and reparative function since it permits a retour, a coming back to the “first” language through the “redress” of translation—to paraphrase Seamus Heaney’s famed Oxford lecture on poetry (2002).24 In fact, the 29 Ladino poems are accompanied by translations in Castellano that were executed by the poet himself. And yet, the redressing of imbalances, the restoration of equilibrium by means of self-translation also has a further meaning: Gelman’s self-translation is, in fact, the redress of a self-exile into

142 The redress of (self-)translation another tongue. Gelman intentionally banishes himself from his own tongue in order to escape the “major” geography of Argentinian national discourse and totalitarianism. He eludes, so to speak, the unbearable tongue of the dictatorial state apparatus by opting for the exiled language par excellence, Ladino—and by rediscovering through it the diasporic roots of his own Castellano. As Balbuena argues, By writing in Ladino he also comes one step closer to distancing himself from the traditional trappings of Argentine national identity. If he spoke of his love for the land, he also detached himself from the country’s institutional apparatus. Gelman sees in Ladino the linguistic possibility of expressing the connection he establishes between the horrors done to the Jews and those done to the Argentines […] The Sephardic language provides Gelman with the means not only to speak of his suffering in exile, but also productively to regain a powerful position, finding a singing, poetic voice. Balbuena 2012: 182 But it is only through the practice of self-translation, I think, that Gelman’s geological crossing of the language substrata and re-gaining of a voice can come to completion. In the “Escolio” he explains that he does not accompany the texts in Ladino with a version in today’s Castellano (“castellano actual”) because he distrusts the intelligence of his reader (“no por desconfianza en la inteligencia del lector), but because by reading both versions aloud, it is possible to “hear between the two sounds something of the trembling time, which gives us the past since [The Poem of] the Cid” (“para escuchar, tal vez, entre los sonidos, algo del tiempo que tiembla y que nos da pasado desde el Cid”) (Gelman 2012: 815). Therefore, the version in “today’s Castellano,” placed on the page in front of the Ladino texts cannot be considered as an ancillary, derivative, or auxiliary version. It is an integral part of the poetic process which shows the “reverse side of the language” (Pérez Hernandez 2009: 216). In a sense, only through his selftranslation into Castellano does Gelman’s imagined Sepharad emerge.

A translational map of Sepharad In his book Com/posiciones (1986)—which was conceived around the same time as Dibaxu; that is, between 1983 and 1984—Juan Gelman translated and com/posed various poems from different sources, ranging from biblical texts such as the Psalms, Amos, and Ezekiel to Hebrew Andalusian poetry and Sephardic Renaissance poetry. In the “Exergo” or preamble to the poetic corpus, Gelman explains what he means by “com/posing” and gives a glimpse into his understanding of translation: “translating is inhuman” (“traducir es inhumano”), he writes, “since no tongue or face can be translated” (ninguna lenuga o rostro se deja traducir) (Gelman 2012:

The redress of (self-)translation

143

673). For this reason, he prefers the word “com/pose,” which he uses to signify that he has put “things of [himself] in the texts that great poets wrote centuries ago” (“puse cosas de mí en lo textos que grandes poetas escribieron hace siglos) (ibid.). Following Gelman’s own words of explanation, “com/posing” is, therefore, a “writing together” rather than a rewriting. It is a sort of translational dialogue (“en todo caso, dialogué con ellos”) with authors of past epochs, a translation that, due to its dialogical dimension, implies a difference from the source text, and which transcends the usual difficulties and strategies inherent to linguistic transfer, allowing, almost by definition, divergences, suppressions, and interpolations. Furthermore, Gelman’s com/positions are (at the least) twofold translations, for they were made on the basis of the English translation of the original Hebrew texts (Sillato 1995: 5–6), mostly taken from the then recently published (1981) anthology the Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, edited by T. Carmi (2006).25 With the exception of Abu ¯ Nuw¯as (one of the greatest classical Arabic poets) and Ramprasad (Sadhak R¯ampras¯ad Sen, an eighteenth-century poet and saint from Bengal), who open and close Gelman’s collection, respectively, all of the com/posed poems have a Jewish character. In addition to the central and most consistent corpus of texts consisting of the Hebrew Andalusian poets, from Samuel Hanagid to Solomon Ibn Gabirol and from Judah Halevi to Todros Abulafia, Juan Gelman also selected and compiled translations from apparently heterogeneous sources: an anonymous Provençal Hebrew poet; poets from the Italian Renaissance such as Joseph Ben Samuel Tsarfati (aka Giuseppe Gallo); esoteric, mystical verses such as the Hekhalot Hymns (third and fourth centuries CE); a poem by the Talmudist poet Abba Jose ben H . anin (first century CE); and, some fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls, among others. But the sources only appear heterogeneous. In fact, Gelman selected the poets and the poems he com/ posed very carefully. As he states in the “Exergo,” what unifies all of these different sources at a deep level and shook him profoundly is their painful focus on exile, their “exilic vision,” to which he added his own experiences in his translations (“me sacudió su visión exiliar y agregué […] aquello que yo mismo sentía) (2012: 673, italics in the original). There is, moreover, another common denominator of the collection profoundly related to the exilic vision, namely the amorous matter from which most of these poems are made. As in Dibaxu, which is also essentially a series of love poems, most of the poems in Com/posiciones speak in some form of love and its mysteries. And as much as in Dibaxu, the material on love becomes a code through which poetry signifies the exilic and diasporic experience. The longing for a friend, for a beloved person, or for God are presented as forms of exile and are channeled into mystical and theological meditations (see Sillato 1995). However, what interests me most in this work of translation and com/ position, in particular for its profound relation to the language and themes

144 The redress of (self-)translation of Dibaxu, is the way that it maps and constructs an imagined geography of exile. In concrete terms, by mapping I mean a topographical grasp of geographical space; that is, a sort of carticity, as we have seen in Chapters 2 and 6. In fact, one of the most striking peculiarities of the Com/posiciones— which, as far as I know, has thus far been overlooked by the critics—is the meticulous topographical (and chronological) register placed under the first poem by each translated poet. For instance, under the first poem by Solomon Ibn Gabirol, “La puerta” (The Door), Gelman places the following caption, “sólomon ibn gabirol (1021–55 / málaga-zaragoza-valencia)” (Gelman 2012: 675). And next to the poem by Abba Jose ben H . anin, “Canción de protesta” (Protest Song), he writes “abba yose ben hanin (siglo I d. JC / jerusalén) (ibid.: 682). Following the same pattern, Gelman locates all of the translated poets topographically—with the exception of the biblical authors David, Ezekiel, Amos, and Job. In the case of the anonymous Hekhalot Hymn, he understandably inserts more general information, “himno hekhalot (siglos I a III d. JC / palestina-babilonia).”26 At first sight, this just seems like additional information for the reader. But if we take a closer look, we may see a kind of secret atlas of the Sephardic diaspora forming between the pages. If considered from the “source” perspective, these topographical inscriptions are external additions to the poems and work as simple informative paratexts. On the other hand, however, if interpreted from the perspective of Gelman’s “com/position,” they are, in fact, integral parts of the poetic text and its imagination. In this sense, this succession of toponyms within the text’s structure builds a positional catalogue of diasporic stopovers and dwellings that summarizes the geographical itinerary of an individual biography. In most cases, such as the captions for Judah Halevi, “tudela-granada-toledo-córdoba-alejándria” (ibid.: 692), and Abraham Abulafia (1240–91), “zaragoza-tudela-barcelona-roma-palermocomino” (Gelman 2012: 702), Gelman simply lists the places that they lived in or traveled to, reproducing the information given in T. Carmi’s anthology of Hebrew verse. A particularly interesting example is that of “eliezer ben jonon (1130–87 / mainz-toledo-provenza)” (ibid.: 685), whose eleven poems more or less fall at the center of the collection. Eliezer Ben Jonon is in fact a heteronym, one of many invented poets to whom Gelman gave a voice.27 Moreover, as is the case for Gelman’s other foreign-language heteronyms (Sidney West, John Wendell, and Yamanokuchi Ando),28 Eliezer Ben Jonon is a pseudotranslated, pseudo-com/posed heteronym. According to the scant biographical fiction devised by Gelman, Eliezer was born in 1130 in Mainz, in the heart of old Ashkenaz. Probably expelled from his home town, at some point he then moved to Toledo, the capital of Christian Spain and one of the most important centers of Sepharad. From there, he finally relocated to southern France, the cradle of the Kabbalah and a region that harbored thriving Jewish communities in the twelfth century. Elizer Ben Jonon’s fictitious itinerary from Ashkenaz to Sepharad mirrors Gelman’s exilic path

The redress of (self-)translation

145

from his Argentinian Ashkenazi milieu towards Sephardic culture and literature.29 Furthermore, considering that Gelman wrote Com/posiciones between 1983 and 1985 in Paris, the last dwelling place of his heteronym, “provenza,” South France, acquires a symbolic significance that marks a carefully considered geographical correspondence. The chain of toponyms held together by hyphens without any discursive, connective, or directional prepositions operates rhetorically as an asyndeton. According to Michel de Certeau (1984: 101), this is the figure par excellence of walking, of human movement in space. “Asyndeton”—argues de Certeau—“is the suppression of linking words such as conjunctions and adverbs, either within a sentence or between sentences. In the same way, in walking it selects and fragments the space traversed; it skips over links and whole parts that it omits. […] Every walk constantly leaps […] It practices the ellipsis of conjunctive loci” (Certeau 1984: 101). In this sense, Gelman’s asyndetic chains of toponyms unite perfectly rhetorical and spatial practice, time and space, topography and individual destiny, poiesis and exile. For each author with whom Gelman “dialogues” in his collection, a topographical inscription visualizes their individual, route-focused, alphabetical map. Gelman’s translated anthology, therefore, operates (almost transmedially) as a collection of itinerary maps.30 In a sense, besides powerful verses on love, friendship, and God, Gelman’s Com/posiciones also collects imagined routes of diaspora, exile and “return,” written in the interstices between poetry and cartography. From the translational texture of the book there emerges a cartographic depiction of a lost world—the “minor” geography of Sepharad and of the Sephardic Mediterranean. Through the individual destinies and travels of their illustrious inhabitants, the names of these ancient centers of flourishing Jewish life in medieval Spain (Tudela, Toledo, Málaga, Córdoba, Saragossa, and Barcelona) are connected to other Mediterranean centers of the Jewish Diaspora (Palermo, Rome, Constantinople, Palestine, Safed, and Jerusalem) and translated into the personal, exilic geography of their translator/composer (as shown, in particular, by the case of the fictitious Eliezer Ben Jonon). From beneath Gelman’s “com/positions,” therefore, there surfaces a translational map of the Mediterranean world that evades the “major” geography of monarchies, states, and nations, focusing instead on towns, communities, and routes, and thereby evokes the precarious and intermittent life of the Jewish quarters (the juderías, calles, carrièrs, ghettos spread out between Spain and Italy), the wandering through languages and cultures, and the shared longing for Jerusalem—which is not only a religious cornerstone of Judaism but also what gave the Jews of the Diaspora the perception of themselves as an exiled nation. At the same time, Gelman’s poems and their topographical inscriptions—in particular those directly concerning Spain—generate a map of coercion and expulsion that charts

146 The redress of (self-)translation the heterotopic dimension of Sepharad, its metamorphosis into a place of memory, and its museum-like, virtual nature today (Feierstein 2011).

A translated world With the com/position “el expulsado,” inspired by Judah al-H . arizi’s Sefer tah. kemoni (The Book of Tahkemoni), ִ Gelman presents a poem that works on many levels: as an ars poetica of the author as translator, as a statement on the relationship between language and exile, and ultimately as a translational map of a diasporic itinerary: “me desterraron de mi tierra / caminé por la tierra / me deportaron de mi lengua / ella me acompañó” (2012: 684) (they banished me from my land / I walked the land / they deported me from my tongue / she [the tongue] accompanied me). In this poem, Gelman focuses his imagery on the bond between exile and language, that is, between the forced separation from a beloved homeland and the parting from the mother tongue that this results in. The relationship between displacement, voice, and poetry that emerges from this understanding of exile is further radicalized by the closing verse, which makes the phenomenology of expulsion explicit at an existential level: “estoy expulsado de mi” (ibid.) (I am expelled from myself).31 The poetic first-person utters his condition of exile as an expulsion from his own being, as an inner separation of the self. The poem closes with the usual chronotopic note regarding the “source” poet—“yehuda al-harizi (1170–1237 / toledo-provenza-palestina).” The toponymic succession given by Gelman summarizes the most important stations in al-Harizi’s ִ life and his journey eastwards towards Palestine, where, at some point after 1216, he wrote his main work, The Book of Tahkemoni, ִ and a Judeo-Arabic maq¯amat (brief narrations in rhyming prose interspersed by verses) describing his journey to the East (Drory 1993: 284–5). Interestingly enough, the com/position inspired by Judah al-Harizi, ִ which so explicitly thematizes the poet’s condition of exile, can also be considered as a meditation on translation, especially if we focus on the translational and transcultural nature of al-Harizi’s ִ oeuvre. As T. Carmi writes in his biographical note (which we know Juan Gelman consulted) on the Toledo-born poet, Judah al-Harizi ִ was not only a “master of the Hebrew maqama,” but the author of a “brilliant translation [into Hebrew] of the maqamat of the Arabic poet al-Hariri ִ (1054–1121), under the title Mahberot ִ Iti’el (The Maqamas of Iti’el)” (Carmi 2006: 114). Moreover, The Book of Tahkemoni, ִ from which Juan Gelman distilled his com/position “el expulsado,” is unanimously considered to be the most important example of “Arabic influence” on Hebrew literature produced in the so-called Andalusian golden age (Drory 1993: 285). In this sense, as a Hebrew maq¯amat, al-Harizi’s ִ Book of Tahkemoni ִ can also be interpreted as a paradigmatic cultural translation into Hebrew of a literary genre that was originally Arabic.32 Thus, understood as the latest in a string of (cultural) translations—from Arabic, to Hebrew, to Argentinian Castellano (via the English translation

The redress of (self-)translation

147

by T. Carmi)—Gelman’s com/position of Judah al-Harizi ִ sheds light on the somewhat obscure but fascinating final reflection on translation contained in the “Exergo” of the Com/posiciones: “lo de la torre de babel fue eso: no discordia esencial sino ciencia parcial de la palabra. La realidad tiene mil rostros y cada cual, su voz” (2012: 673) (that is what the Tower of Babel was all about: not essential discordance but partial science of the word. Reality has a thousand faces and each of them, its own voice). Continuing with a play on words between “ciencia” and “paciencia,” he adds: “ciencia, pero también paciencia para que el rostro y su palabra se levanten del miedo que los ata al amor que los une” (ibid.) (science, but also patience for letting the face and its word rise from the fear that ties them together to the love that unites them). According to Gelman, translation is therefore not just the transfer of a text into another language but rather the “partial science” of words in dialogue. Translating is writing with a predecessor, an intertextual work of convergence and adjustment—it is a “com/position” made of words and voices. The exilic and translational condition depicted in the poem “el expulsado” perfectly introduces the existential, linguistic, and literary circumstance in which Gelman decides to write Dibaxu, electing Ladino as medium of expression, delving into its otherness and translating it back into Castellano. Now, in the following and concluding pages of this chapter and of my book, I will read the exophonic and self-translating performance of Dibaxu as a com/ position (that is, a translation) of geographies in which Gelman establishes and poetically enacts a strong, unequivocal analogy between the atrocious consequences of the 1976 Argentine coup and the Expulsion of the Jews in 1492, translating the Atlantic postcolonial world into the Mediterranean Sephardic diaspora and (self-)translating it back into his mother tongue. XI

XI

partindu di tu ladu discuvro il nuevu mundu di tu ladu /

partiendo de tu lado descubro el nuevo mundo de tu lado /

tus islas como lampas cun una escuridad / yendu / viniendu / nil tiempu /

tus islas como lámparas con una oscuridad / yendo / viniendo / en el tiempo /

in tu boz il mar cayi duluridu di mi /

en tu voz el mar cae dolorido de mí / Gelman 2012: 826

148

The redress of (self-)translation XI moving from your side i discover the new world of your side / your islands as lamps with a darkness going / coming / in time / in your voice the sea falls painful from me /

As this poem exhibits in exemplary fashion, Dibaxu is a book about love and its consequences, about desire and its declinations. But this is only one of the many layers that make up this bilingual collection of poetry. In the “Escolio,” Gelman himself invites us to approach Dibaxu with geological inquisitiveness and to look for the different strata that are combined in the texts. In this sense, it seems legitimate to read the erotic surface of these poems as an allegory of exilic discourse. The feelings for the home that was lost are encoded in the longing for the beloved, whereas the search for a voice (“boz” / “voz”), one of the main themes of the collection, becomes the construction of a new language, the nomadic language of the exiled (see Foffani 2009: 431).33 The first strophe of the poem is very eloquent in this regard. Built on an apparent antinomy, this quatrain affirms that departure does not obliterate the beloved, but sees her/him as if she/he were something unknown, something new: “partindu di tu ladu” (“leaving your side”), says the poetic first-person, “discuvro / il nuevu mundu / di tu ladu” (“i discover / the new world / of your side”).34 Read from an exilic perspective, this stance depicts a sort of anagnorisis (recognition) in Gelman’s narrative of exile.35 The poetic first-person recognizes the world he has left as a New World, as a “nuevu mundu.” Yet, this anagnorisis is not achieved through a dialectical approach or physical proximity—as is famously the case in various episodes of the Odyssey, for example—but by means of a performance of dis-stance, through departure and separation. Paradoxically, the poet re-discovers and recognizes his world by leaving it, by exiting his own language. Only at a distance do recognition and communication become possible. As another exiled Jewish poet, Edmond Jabès, writes in his Livre des marges: “On ne parle vraiment que dans la distance. Il n’y a de parole que séparée” (1984: 183) (One only speaks truly at a distance. There is no word but separated). The movement between islands portrayed in the second quatrain suggests the movement of words between languages, between Ladino and Castellano, and between spaces—an oscillation of islands/words, depicted

The redress of (self-)translation

149

as lights (“lampas”) coming and going in the darkness of time. Besides the presumably Kabbalistic provenience of this image,36 the specialization of language enacted by the quatrain at the semantic level is perfectly mirrored and enhanced by the page layout of Dibaxu, with the Castellano self-translation placed on the facing page. As Balbuena has argued, the layout of the collection highlights “the changes of sounds, the passing of one vowel into another, and the shifts of consonants,” while “[t]he page itself becomes a moving screen showing, in condensed format, elements of two worlds—two voices that complement each other while pointing to reciprocal similarities and differences” (Balbuena 2012: 179–80). The mirrored layout of the texts is thus an integral part of the aesthetic process, a device that forces the reader to dwell between the languages. Furthermore, the translation on the facing page echoes the cross-linguistic writing that typically underlies most projects of “simultaneous self-translation” (Grutman 2007: 259). This is a kind of writing that “allows the bilingual writer to revisit and improve on earlier drafts in the other language, thereby creating a dynamic link between both versions that effectively bridges the linguistic divide.” This is the case for Samuel Beckett’s Ping (ibid.), to some extent for the Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti (see Hokenson and Munson 2007: 172–7) and, as I argue, for Gelman’s Dibaxu. It is in this dynamic sense of bridging the linguistic divide that I understand Gelman’s self-translation as a redress, as a sort of self-reparation. Gelman redresses the imbalance of his lacerating displacement through an active act of self-exile into the “deepest” and “most exiled” roots of his own tongue (Gelman 2012: 815), translating himself back into his Castellano. Translating his own version of exile, the Ladino version, into his Argentinian Castellano, Gelman can finally return to his mother tongue. By reinventing Ladino poetry, the Argentinian poet recovers his own language and finds his world again on the map. And yet, this is a different map, a map in which Sepharad looks across the Atlantic towards Argentina. In fact, Gelman’s poetic return, or reappropriation, is not a coming back to the same place that he was forced to leave: as a negotiation between imagined homelands and the conflictive space of proximity, every “diasporic disstance” is a process of de- and reterritorialization. The world that Gelman recognizes as his own has changed; it has become something new; or better, it dwells somewhere else, somewhere beneath—“dibaxu”—the language. It is a place located between the Ladino Dibaxu und the Spanish Debajo, between the poems and their simultaneous versions, between Judeo-Spanish and Argentinian Castellano, between the Sephardic poetry of the Golden Age and the Ladino poems of Clarisse Nicoïdski, between the Levant of Ottoman Jewry and the Jewish Diaspora on the Río de la Plata. It is a translated world.

Notes

Introduction 1 Piedmont (Piemonte) means “foot of the mountain.” 2 For more on Kant’s geographical thought, see Elden and Mendieta (2011). In particular, for a specific discussion on the relationship between human reason and terrestrial orientation by Kant, see O’Neill (2011). 3 For more on this, see also Italiano and Rössner (2012). 4 For more on this, see Rössner (2015). 5 For more on this, see Birgit Wagner (2009). 6 For more on this, see Italiano and Mastronuzio (2011) and, in particular, Graziadei (2011: 174–7). 7 I here refer in particular to Stockhammer (2007), Smith (2008) and Dünne (2011). For more on this, see Italiano (2015). 8 For more on this, see Chapter 2 and Italiano (2015). 9 For more on this, see Rössner (2010). Chapter 1 1 With regard to the dating of the Venetian translation (at the beginning of the fourteenth century), I refer to Grignani (1975: 269–72) and Davie (2005: 155–7). 2 With regard to the dating of the Navigatio Sancti Brendani, I refer to J. S. Mackley (2008: 14–16). 3 For more on this, see Orlandi (1968: 103–29). 4 Giovanni Orlandi interprets this scene as a rewriting taken from the Visio Pauli, an apocalyptic text within the corpus of the New Testament Apocrypha (1968: 128). 5 Nakedness as a trait of sanctity of the hermit is also an important issue in the chapter about Cabeza de Vaca (see Chapter 3) 6 Moreover, he mentions the Gauls’ knowledge of astronomy (4:14; Henderson 2007: 49). As Henderson argues, it is very plausible that the Atlantic societies of the Iron Age had a body of relatively precise astronomical knowledge that they combined with their intimate knowledge of winds, tides, and currents (ibid.). Otherwise, it would have been impossible for them to navigate, “given the prevailing winds and rugged, rocky coasts of the Atlantic” (ibid.). 7 For more on this, see Henderson (2007: 48–56). 8 For more on this, see Romm (1992: 162–3). 9 This includes modern seafarers such as Tim Severin, who reconstructed Brendan’s currach using the information furnished by the Navigatio and sailed off in it. He wanted to prove that Brendan could have reached Newfoundland (Severin 1978).

Notes

151

10 This is also the core of Stockhammer’s critique of Franco Moretti’s understanding (1998) of the relationship between literature and geography (Stockhammer 2013). 11 See in particular Chapters 2, 3, and 6. 12 Although the Venetian version presents important interpolations throughout, they increase progressively towards the end, in particular in the Paul the Hermit chapter and the Paradise chapters. 13 I have given variations in square brackets. 14 Davie (2005: 220) translates “ganbari” as lobsters. 15 I have given variations in square brackets. 16 On the mercantile aspects of the Venetian vernacular, see Folena (1990: 227–67) and Ferguson (2007). 17 On the staging of Eastern motifs in medieval Venice, see also Howard (2000). Chapter 2 1 All of the quotations from Orlando Furioso are cited in the text by canto and stanza number and are taken from the 1532 edition (Ariosto 2002). 2 All of the translations from Orlando Furioso are by William Stuart Rose (Ariosto 1906). 3 For more on this, see Peter V. Marinelli (1987), Casadei (1997: 25–44; 2008) and Jo Ann Cavallo (2013). 4 For more on this, see Gautier Dalché (2007) and (2009). 5 Ptolemy’s Geography is also known by its Latin names: Geographia and Cosmographia. 6 For more on Diogo Ribeiro, see Vigneras (1962) and Brotton (2012: 186–217). 7 And from Portuguese ships as well, thanks to the espionage network of the Spanish crown. 8 For more on this, see Dünne (2008: 61), Dünne (2011, in particular: 66–70) and Italiano (2015: 252–5). 9 We might consider here the “multitude of little white lies” (Monmonier 2014: 25) that, by default, constitutes a map: they inevitably characterize and mark digital mapping too. We might consider, for example, apparently neutral mapping devices such as Google Maps. Besides the discursive lies that it entails concerning silenced information and manipulated representations, the biggest incongruence on which Google Maps is based is that it uses a Mercator projection as the basis for its satellite imagery. 10 The geography of the Furioso is naturally wider and more multifaceted than the one analyzed in this chapter, which focuses on the transatlantic and global journeys of Ruggiero and Astolfo. The regions around the Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East, for example, play a paramount role in Ariosto’s epic poem, as does the topography of some important medieval cities, in particular Paris. For a more detailed discussion of these aspects concerning Ariosto’s geography, see Doroszlaï (1998), Massimo Rossi (2006), and Cavallo (2013). 11 The importance of geographical and cartographic elements for the structure and global design of the Furioso has also been shown by the tradition of writings going back a century from the then groundbreaking study by Michele Vernero (1913) to the innovative book on literary landscapes by Vincenzo Bagnoli (2003) and Cavallo’s monograph on the world “beyond Europe” in both Boiardo and Ariosto (2013). While Bagnoli presents an original discussion on the depiction of Ariosto’s spatial practices and “spatial gaze,” concentrating mostly on the rewriting of the Orlando Furioso by one of the most important Italian writers of the twentieth century, Italo Calvino (Bagnoli 2003: 61–114), Jo Ann Cavallo offers an extremely detailed analysis of both Boiardo’s and Ariosto’s imaginative geographies, focusing in particular on the depiction of Eastern and African figures and places.

152 Notes 12 For more on this, see Bellamy’s Translations of Power (1992: 82–130, in particular 102 and 126). Bellamy detects the psychopathology of Ariosto’s version of the translatio imperii in the very title of his work (furioso: frenzy, crazy) (ibid.: 86) and analyzes it as a form of mutual narcissism between poet (Ariosto) and patron (the Estensi) (ibid.: 128). 13 On Alcina’s island and the woman’s role in Ariosto’s work, see Mac Carthy 2007b: 17–43. 14 In his essay on the meditatio cartographica in the Renaissance, Thibaut Maus de Rolley defined the hippogriff in a similar manner, namely, as a “moyen d’accès à la privilégié vision cosmographique, ou du moins chorographique, dans la mesure où le regard aérien qu’il autorise n’embrasse jamais la totalité du globe” (Maus de Rolley 2009: 129). For a teratological analysis of the hippogriff, see Cristina Lando’s volume on Ariosto’s monsters (2011: 111–21). 15 In addition to my transmedial reading of the moon episode, one could interpret Astolfo’s extraterrestrial journey as another kind of translation of geographies, namely, as the translation of the moon into the terrestrial, highly codified topos of Arcadia as depicted in Sannazaro’s pastoral prosimetrum Arcadia (1504). For more on this, see the brilliant article by Stefano Gulizia (2008). 16 The comprehensive storyline of both Orlando Innamorato and Orlando Furioso “invented by Boiardo and brought to a conclusion by Ariosto” can be located chronologically between the invasion of southern Italy by Agolante, a fictive Saracen king from Africa (the story of whom is told in the twelfthcentury, Old French chanson de geste Aspremont) and the Spanish expedition (recounted in the various Spagna narratives and the Morgante) that led to the battle of Roncevaux (778 CE), in which the paladin Orlando/Roland famously dies (Cavallo 2013: 16). 17 For more on this, see MacPhail (2001). Chapter 3 1 In the “Proemio” to the Valladolid edition, Cabeza de Vaca speaks of “ten years” (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 76), covering the period between his departure from Spain in June 1527 and his return in August 1537. However, in the Zamora edition (1542), he indicates nine years (see Adorno and Pautz 2003: 17–18). 2 Cabeza de Vaca is very precise about these fruits, in a dietological sense as well; in fact, he states that his captors eat “tuna” three months a year and he almost enjoys describing them as “fruta del tamaño de huevos, y son bermejas y negras y de muy buen gusto” (Núñez Cabeza de Vaca [1555] 1989: 138) (egg-size, red and black coloured fruits with a very good flavour). “Tuna,” that is, prickly pears, are the fruits of the Opuntia ficus-indica plant. The importance given by Cabeza de Vaca to these fruits is comprehensible, since he did not know them from the Old World and they probably appeared to him as marvellous and as delicious as manna. 3 Pupo-Walker quotes the right passage from the Navigatio Sancti Brendani, but he completely misunderstands the sense, since he identifies the naked hermit with Brendan. The naked hermit is of course not Brendan, but Saint Paul. For more on this, see Mackley 2008: 217. 4 For more on this, see Jong Lee (1999: 246–7). 5 From an America-centered perspective, Carmen Gomez-Galisteo argues in a similar way that Cabeza de Vaca’s “making of the Southwest of the United States a place where miracles happened and great riches abounded opened the way for the mythologizing of America as a special place, which later the Pilgrims and the Puritans would take on to erect America as a divinely appointed place for

Notes

6 7

8

9 10 11 12

13

153

providential history to unfold and serve as a beacon for the rest of the world” (Gomez-Galisteo 2013: 170). “Territorium est universitas agrorum intra fines cujusque civitatis, quod ab eo dictum quidam aiunt quod magistratus ejus loci intra eos fines terrendi, id est summovendi jus habent” (quoted in Scattola 1997: 38n). In this case, following the four main typologies of “translational mimesis” proposed by Sternberg (1981), we can detect at least two of them operating in this passage: “conceptual reflection” and “explicit attribution.” For more on this, see Chapter 6. Favata and Fernandez give an alternative translation: “The fourth is Estebanico; he is a black Arab and a native of Azamor.” Adorno and Pautz maintain the typical Spanish postposition of descriptive adjectives, while Favata and Fernandez transform the adjectival modifier “alárabe” into a substantive and, by doing so, present Estebanico as an Arab first of all, suggesting his Islamic faith. See the discussion in Adorno and Pautz (1999, II: 417). For more on this, see Sandman (2007: 1122–4, 1133–4) and Wagner (1951: 47–9). For detailed reproductions and an analysis of the texts on this map, see Martin-Meraz Verdejo (1993: 112–19) The map is now conserved at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austrian National Library) in Vienna (Wagner 1951; Martin-Meraz Verdejo 1993: 123). For more on this, see Chapter 2 and Italiano (2015: 250–1). In addition, an emblematic testimony of this persisting textual perception of maps in the Renaissance can be found in the treatise on the lettering of maps, published by the cartographer, Gerard Mercator, who founded the modern cartography (Osley 1969). In the bottom left-hand corner of the map, Sancho Gutiérrez placed a cartouche in which he states that he is the royal cosmographer: “Esta carta general en plano hizo Sancho Gutierrez, cosmographo de su S.C.C. Mgt del Emperador D. Carlos y Rey Nuestro Senor quinto de este nombre” (see Martin-Meraz Verdejo 1993: 112). The map was drawn in 1551, but Sancho Gutiérrez became “cosmographer to his majesty” only in 1553. As Kelsey has argued, the reason for these incongruent dates becomes evident if we take a closer look at the map. Its manufacture shows that “the cartouche, along with most of the other explanatory texts, was added after the map was finished. These legends are not written on the vellum itself but on thin sheets of paper carefully pasted to the vellum surface” (Kelsey 1993: 251).

Chapter 4 1 See also Duflo (2009: 49–50). 2 For more on this, see Curran (2011: 7) and Duflo (2009: 49). 3 Henry Harrisse (1829–1910) was a French scholar, bibliophile, jurist, and historian, who taught at the University of North Carolina. In particular, he stood out as an expert in the fields of North American history and cartography. Among others, he published books on Christopher Columbus, on the first cartographic depictions of the New World, and on America’s diplomatic history. 4 Prévost translated the Epistulae ad familiares (Letters to his friends, c. 62–43 BCE) by Cicero (1745) into French. 5 “An author,” writes Popovi c˘ , “may publish his original work as a fictitious translation in order to win a wide public, thus making use of the readers’ expectations. The author tries to utilize the ‘translation’ boom in order to realize his own literary program. From the standpoint of text theory, the fictitious translation may be defined as the so-called quasi meta-text, i.e. a text that is to be accepted as a metatext. The fictional translations are often motivated subjectively” (Popovi c˘ 1976: 20).

154 Notes 6 Abbas Amanat defines the work by James Justinian Morier as “the most popular Oriental novel in the English language and a highly influential stereotype of the so-called ‘Persian national character’ in modern times” (Amanat 2003). 7 In particular, Andrew S. Curran argues that the reception history of Robert Lade’s travelogue shows a quite unique example of knowledge transmission in the context of eighteenth-century African ethnography. From Prévost to Buffon and from novel to natural history, Robert Lade’s Voyages demonstrate the capacity, writes Curran, “of African proto-ethnography to move across permeable borders” (Curran 2011: 7). 8 The first 1744 edition of the Voyages is in two volumes and both present the same frontispiece. 9 Le Pour et Contre was a periodical founded in 1733 by Prévost with the explicit purpose of promoting English culture and literature in France. 10 For more on this, see Symcox (1974). 11 For more on this, see Bideaux (2001: 39–40). 12 “Indeed, at moments,” writes Margaret Cohen, “Lade adheres so closely to the mariner’s professional concerns that he almost flips over into a parody reminiscent of the storm sequence in Gulliver’s Travels” (Cohen 2010: 91). 13 For more on this, see Petto (2007: 69–72) 14 “Le Journal de M. Rytwood, étoit celui d’un homme de mer, qui s’attache plûtôt à la position des lieux, à la description des Côtes, des Ports, des Bayes, & des Parages, qu’à l’Histoire physique ou morale des païs qu’il visite” (Prévost 1744, 1: 290). Chapter 5 1 Sea anemones are semi-sessile polyps that occur exclusively in the sea, are mostly solitary, and dwell in both shallow waters and abyssal depths. Sea anemones can slowly creep along on their basal disc, with which they usually cling on hard ground or dig into sand and gravel (Shick 1991: 1–7). 2 The Book of Daniel holds different positions in the Bible. In the Jewish Tanach, Daniel is not part of the prophets, but is collected among the Ketuvim (the writings); that is, the last canonized group of the Holy Scripture. In the Christian Bible, it is instead considered the fourth of the Great Prophets (coming after Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel). Thus, in the Catholic and Protestant Churches, it precedes the Book of the Twelve (the Twelve Minor Prophets), while in the Orthodox Church, it constitutes the last book of the Old Testament, since there the Great Prophets follow the Minor Prophets. 3 “Minerva mirabilis nationes hominum circuire videtur, et a fine usque ad finem attingit fortiter, ut se ipsam communicet universis. Indos, Babylonios, Aegyptios atque Graecos, Arabes et Latinos eam pertransisse jam cernimus. Jam Athenas deseruit, jam a Roma recessit, jam Parisius praeterivit, jam ad Britanniam, insularum insignissimam quin potius microcosmum, accessit feliciter, ut se Graecis et barbaris debitricem ostendat. Quo miraculo perfecto, conicitur a plerisque quod, sicut Galliae jam sophia tepescit, sic ejusdem millitia penitus evirata languescit” (de Bury 1345: Cap IX). 4 For more on this, see Barbara Vinken (2001) and Rössner (2011). 5 The Verne specialist Simone Vierne has dedicated much of her work to showing how Verne’s entire oeuvre should be considered as a rewriting, if not a recycling, of ancient myths and, in particular, of Greek mythology (Vierne 1973 and 1989). 6 Marinus Ossewaarde proposed an analysis of the “iron cage” metaphor in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, interpreting Verne’s submarine novel as a “Homeric vision of modernity, in which the human condition is a warlike one,

Notes

7 8 9

10

11

12

13

14

155

a painful struggle in which good and evil can hardly be separated” (2010: 297). While I agree with Ossewaarde’s point of departure—that is, the contrastive reading of Nemo and Odysseus—I think that it is misleading to reduce, as he does, the thematic complexity of the novel to the terroristic, bellicose aspects of Nemo’s agenda. Moreover, following Roland Barthes (1959) and de Certeau (1986), I do not consider the Nautilus as a mere weapon and vehicle but, rather, as a device for collecting data and a “space of memory.” As I show in this chapter, Verne’s novel is not just a “Homeric vision of modernity,” vaguely inspired by the Odyssey, but a conscious rewriting of the Homeric epos that negotiates, following the formula of the translatio imperii, the ghost of Odysseus. Second, the Nautilus, as Thomas Richards has shown, is more a camera than a gun (1993: 118) and Nemo ultimately resembles the mad scientist type over the figure of a “revolutionary terrorist” invoked by Ossewaarde (Ossewaarde 2010: 297). Verne’s novel ends with a maelstrom as well, leaving the fate of the Nautilus open. For more on this, see Fubini (1966), Lino Pertile (1979), and Barolini (1992: 48–73). “Smooth or nomad space lies between two striated spaces: that of the forest, with its gravitational verticals, and that of agriculture, with its grids and generalized parallels, its now independent arborescence, its art of extracting the tree and wood from the forest” (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 382). For more on this, see Stockhammer (2007: 193–6). Not only “highways” and “couriers” belong to the intrinsic striation of the sea, but also, among others, the critical regions of calm winds such as the “Horse Latitudes” and the “Doldrums,” as Maury has pointed out (1858: 209). The full footnote reads: “Since the above was written, the statement is happily borne out by an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of The National Observatory, Washington, April 16th, 1851. By that circular, it appears that precisely such a chart is in Course of completion; and portions of it are presented in the circular. This chart divides the ocean into districts of five degrees of latitude by five degrees of longitude; perpendicularly through each of which districts are twelve columns for the twelve months; and horizontally through each of which districts are three lines; one to show the number of days that have been spent in each month in every district, and the two others to show the number of days in Which whales, sperm or right, have been seen” (Melville 2002: 167). “‘Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed be all the things that cast man’s eyes aloft to that heaven […] Curse thee, thou quadrant!’ dashing it to the deck, ‘no longer will I guide my earthly way by thee; the level ship’s compass, and the level dead-reckoning, by log and by line; these shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea. Aye,’ lighting from the boat to the deck, ‘thus I trample on thee, thou paltry thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and destroy thee!’” (Melville 2002: 378). The Latin expression “etc.,” abbreviation of et cetera, “and other things,” plays an important role in Verne’s writing, as Andrew Martin has shown (quoted in Unwin 2005: 201), “denoting the interminability of the writer’s own project and the impossibility of totalizing knowledge and observation” (Unwin 2005: 201). For more on the figure of the mobile observer in Jules Verne’s oeuvre, see Kramer (2013).

Chapter 6 1 Voyages et aventures du capitaine Hatteras (1863); Voyage au centre de la Terre (1864); Michel Strogoff: De Moscou à Irkoutsk (1876).

156 Notes 2 Animal’s People is presented as an English translation of 23 tapes recorded in Hindi by the main character, Animal, about people’s lives in a fictional city 20 years after a devastating chemical disaster. 3 Rath’s perspective on pseudotranslation might, however, work in the discussion of the pseudotranslational status of the novel Sostiene Pereira (Pereira Maintains), since the conclusive authorial note at the end of the book, which only appears to be set outside the fictional dimension of the book, states that the story told in the novel has been dictated in Portuguese to the author by the very ghost of Pereira (Tabucchi 1994). Given this ambiguous statement regarding the grey zone between fiction, non-fiction, and metafiction, the whole narrative of the Sostiene Pereira could, therefore, be considered retroactively as a (pseudo) translation, as a ghostly translation, so to speak, from Pereira’s Portuguese into Tabucchi’s Italian. 4 Recently, Robert Stockhammer has proposed a similar approach to intra-textual heterolinguality (2015). Drawing on Plato, Aristotle, and Charles S. Peirce, he distinguishes “glotta-mimesis,” that is the “presence of other languages on the level of the discours” from “glotta-diegesis”; that is, “the presence of other languages on the level of the histoire.” Moreover, he adds a “sub-distinction to the former class (iconic vs. indexical glotta-mimesis)” and introduces two further terms, “glotta-pithanon” and “glotta-aporetic,” which should be “useful in describing key aspects of the relationship between languages on the level of the discours and those on the level of the histoire.” As he states, there are in fact “cases in which it is impossible to determine the language spoken within the fictional ‘world’, as constructed by a particular literary text. This class of glottaaporetic phenomena turns out to be more than just one easily definable class. Limiting the reach of any classification based on the seemingly discrete distinction between histoire and discours, this linguistic aporia marks the autonomy of literature” (ibid.: 146). 5 Following Stockhammer, we could define it as a case of indexical glotta-mimesis (2015). 6 In particular, La carrière d’un navigateur (1905) by Albert I, Prince of Monaco (1848–1922), an ocean explorer and palaeontologist, and the travel diary A Winter in the Azores; and a Summer in the Baths of Furnas (1841) by Joseph and Henry Bullar, two British visitors in the Azores. 7 Rimbaud’s quotation stems from “Chanson de la plus haute tour,” the second poem of the section “Fêtes de la patience” from Derniers Vers (1872). Oisive jeunesse A tout asservie, Par délicatesse J’ai perdu ma vie. Ah! Que le temps vienne Où les cœurs s’éprennent. (Rimbaud 1872) 8 In this case, Stockhammer’s semiotic perspective on the “glotta-mimesis” (2015) seems to me very helpful to fully understand the indexicality of such markers. The French quotation from Rimbaud and the fictive French title of Marcel’s memoirs function perfectly together as indices of a unilingual speech, which must have happened in French at the level of histoire, but was rendered in the audience-oriented language (i.e. Italian) at the level of discours. 9 In his Philosophie de la relation (2009), Eduard Glissant utilizes Mandelbrot’s notion of fractals in order to describe the nature of archipelagos (ibid.: 47).

Notes

157

10 This situation was not as unusual at that time as we might think. Many distinguished Portuguese mapmakers and navigators, such as Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521), Diogo Ribeiro († 16. August 1533) (see Chapter 2), and Pedro Fernandes de Queirós (1565–1614) served the Spanish crown in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 11 For more on this, see Koeman et al. (2007) and Brotton (2012: 260–93). 12 Moreover, Blaeu’s Atlas Maior can be considered partly as “the product of the emergence of a Dutch Calvinist culture that celebrated the pursuit and acquisition of material wealth while also fearing the shame of its possession and consumption […]” (Brotton 2012: 265). Furthermore, it was also “shaped by a specifically Dutch visual tradition that Svetlana Alpers has called ‘the art of describing’—the impulse to observe, record and define individuals, objects and places as real, without the kind of moral or symbolic associations which shaped Italian Renaissance art” (ibid.). 13 For more on this, see Chachey (1995). 14 The term “nissology,” “the study of islands on their own terms,” was coined by Grant McCall (1994: 106) and derives from νη˜σος (nisos), Greek for island, and λόγος (logos), the study of. “McCall claims that islands learn from one another through the promotion of international co-operation and urges that nissological knowledge be multi-dimensional in its approach” (Thomas 2007: 22). For more on the concept of “nissology” and, in particular, “nissopoiesis,” see Graziadei (2015). For more on the archipelagic turn in island studies, see Stratford et al. (2011). 15 Tabucchi reports the title as follows: “uno splendido diario di viaggio che nel 1841, ritornati a Londra, i fratelli Bullar pubblicarono per le stampe di John van Voorst: A Winter in the Azores and Summer at the Furnas [sic!]” (Tabucchi 1983: 31). 16 “La vocation de l’archipel est de se reproduire en lui-même, par mise en abyme et miniaturisation, creusé en chacune de ses unités par une sorte de dynamisme fractal. L’archipel produit de la singularité, et chaque île est un archipel en puissance” (Lestringant 2002: 369). Chapter 7 1 The prefix “exo-” is a combining morpheme, meaning “outside,” “external” and “beyond.” On its utilization, in particular in combination with “-phony,” see Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs (1992: 19) and Arndt et al. (2007). 2 By exophonic writing—or “alloglossia” as Tabucchi calls this phenomenon (2003: 172)—the focus is predominantly on works of fiction although, technically speaking, this academic book of mine can be also considered an example of exophonic (alloglottic) writing, since I use an adopted language and not my native tongue, Italian. However, for more on exophonic literature, see Arndt et al. (2007) and Wright (2008 and 2010). Concerning Yoko Tawada’s notion of “exophony,” see Ivanovic (2010). 3 On the relationship between music and literature in Tabucchi’s Requiem, see Klettke (2001: 193–7). 4 Livro do Desassossego: Composto por Bernardo Soares, ajudante de guardalivros na cidade de Lisboa (Pessoa 1982), translated into Italian by Antonio Tabucchi and Maria Lancastre (Pessoa 1986). 5 In Requiem, Tabucchi re-evokes the death of his father that took place in 1984, also narrating some of the details of his illness (Brizio-Skov 2002: 99–101). 6 In the Book of Disquietude, Pessoa’s semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares writes: “Minha patria é a lingua portuguesa” (Pessoa 1982, 1: 17) (My country is the Portuguese tongue).

158 Notes 7 Tabucchi’s sense of inability does not come from a lack of technical competency, since he was undoubtedly one of the best literary translators from Portuguese Italy has ever had. For more on this, see Mulinacci (2013: 100–2). 8 The French translator of Requiem, probably Tabucchi himself (Mulinacci 2013: 100), is also called Pereira, Isabelle Pereira. In a sense, the reiteration of the name Pereira, from the fictitious translators of Requiem to the shy hero of Sostiene Pereira (1994), corroborates the thesis advanced in Chapter 6 to read the latter novel as a genuine case of pseudotranslation. 9 Tabucchi made this comment in a lecture presented at a conference organized by the Victoria Ministry of Arts (Australia) in 1991. See Tabucchi 2003: 172. 10 “Por otra parte, de haberlo hecho [self-translation], habría acabado por reescribir el libro […] y por último, y quien sabe se no es la razón principal, he tenido miedo, me ha faltado valor para recorrer al mismo tiempo mis dos orillas lingüísticas y afectivas, por hablar en términos psicanalíticos. He sido capaz de ir hasta la otra orilla, eso sí, pero no de volver atrás con la misma barca” (quoted in Mulinacci 2013: 102n). 11 Gelman gives this information in “Discurso en línea,” quoted in Pérez Hernández 2009: 210. 12 Traditionally written in the Hebrew alphabet (both in Rashi script and in Solitreo, the cursive method for handwriting), during the twentieth century the Latin alphabet gradually came to replace the Hebrew one in Ladino texts (Bunis 1975: 1–2). For more on this, see also Bunis (1999). 13 For more on this, see Bunis (1992). In particular, for linguistic correspondences between Aragonese and Judeo-Spanish, see Quintana Rodríguez (2001). 14 This was also the year in which Antonio de Nebrija published his Grámatica de la lengua castellana, which is often used by Ladino scholars to establish what belongs to Old Spanish heritage and what can be considered as a new creation in Judeo-Spanish. 15 By crypto-Jew I mean the so-called conversos or marranos, that is, Jews who converted to Christianity after the Alhambra edict, who remained in Spain, practicing Judaism in secret and recognizing themselves as Jews. For more on the Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands, see Kaplan (1996). 16 For a more detailed treatment of Judeo-Spanish linguistics, see Bunis (1975, 1992, and 1999) and Quintana Rodríguez (2006). 17 Curiously enough, in 1997, the Autoridad Nasionala del Ladino (National Authority of Ladino) was created in Israel, an organization in charge of the study and preservation of the Judeo-Spanish language, which opted for Ladino as its defining term. Although the organization no longer exists, the Ladino magazine it edited, Aki Yerushalmi, is still being published. 18 See also Balbuena (2009: 287). 19 For more on this, see Balbuena (2009: 288). 20 “Como si la soledad extrema del exilio me empujara a buscar raíces en la lengua, las más profundas y exiliadas de la lengua” (Gelman 2012: 815). 21 I recognize an affinity between my use of hyphenation in the notion of disstance and Heidegger’s spatial concept of “Ent-fernung” (dis-stancing or deseverance) and Derrida’s “éloignement” (dis-stance), discussed by Derrida in “Pas” (1986) and commented on in Rapaport (1989: 141–4). However, my use of the prefix and, in particular, of the word “stance,” goes, as I explain, in another direction. 22 For more on this, se Italiano and Rössner (2012). 23 With “minor geography” I am paraphrasing Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of “littérature mineure” (1975), but with a fundamental distinction. While geography, intended as a performative practice that produces spaces by naming them (Gregory 2004: 103), can be “minor” in the oppositional, revolutionary sense

Notes

24 25 26

27

28 29

30

31

32

159

given to it by Deleuze and Guattari, I agree with Balbuena (2012: 181–2) in rejecting Deleuze and Guattari’s belief that “minor writing” can be deterritorializing and oppositional only when written in a major language, that is, from inside the “enemy,” so to speak. In doing so, writes Balbuena, following a broader and more detailed critique of the concept delivered by Chana Kronfeld (1996: 5–13), Deleuze and Guattari valorize “a monolingual production, which does not take into account the multilingualism of minority cultures, and, by favouring only the major, even if unwillingly, [they] end up reproducing a Eurocentric and colonialist stance” (Balbuena 2012: 182). Here I am paraphrasing the Oxford lecture, “The Redress of Poetry,” given in 1989 by the Nobel Laureate Irish poet Seamus Heaney. See Heaney (2002: 257–62). For more on this, see Sillato (1995: 5–6). Gershom Scholem describes the Hekhalot books (Books of the Palaces) as “mystical revelations,” as “a chain of Hebrew and Aramaic texts, preserved, not on the outer fringes of Judaism, but in circles highly conscious of their attachment to rabbinic Judaism” (Scholem 1965: 5). In contrast to Fernando Pessoa, Gelman’s heteronyms are not identity projections that permit different kinds of writing or stylistic experiments, but disguises, masks which allow the author to translate himself into other geographies and contexts. For more on this, see Sillato (1996). From Cólera buey (1964) and Traducciones III: Los poemas de Sydney West (1969). Cynthia Gabbay also notes this coincidence briefly in her commentary on the “eliezer ben jonon” sequence of poems from Com/posiciones (Gabbay 2006: 338). Particularly interesting in her analysis is the reading of the symbolism contained in the name of Eliezer Ben Jonon as a key to understanding the whole sequence of poems (ibid.: 339–40). The itinerary map was very common in the Middle Ages and served both pilgrims and traders as a means to orientate themselves. Perhaps “the least pictorial of all maps,” the itinerary map is a “linear” depiction of space that shows “a progression of places in set order” (Mundy 1996: 36). For its medieval user, they operated almost like a text, offering “a textual way of representing the world” (ibid.). For more on this, see Harvey (1987) and Padrón (2004: 53–91). To retrace the exact verses from the Book of Tahִ kemoni that inspired Gelman is not an easy task—if not impossible. In Carmi’s Hebrew Verse I could not find any passage that was plausible as the hypotext for Gelman’s poem. However, there are some lines from the English translation by Victor Emanuel Reichert (al-H ִ arizi 1965) that highlight the exilic condition, which, I think, could have offered Gelman a basis for his com/position. I refer, in particular, to the passage where the soul speaks to the intellect: “Woe is for me for I dwell as a wanderer / […] From heavenly temples of splendour I was banished […] From the day I was exiled from eating at the / Table of his goodness, did I not afflict my soul with fasting” (ibid.: 207–9). With a lot of imagination, admittedly, and by removing the complex theological horizon of the source, we might extract the nucleus of the imagery in the first verses of Gelman’s poem: “me echaron de palacio / no me importó / me desterraron de mi tierra / caminé por la tierra” (Gelman 2012: 684) (they cast me away from the palace / i didn’t care / they banished me from my land / I walked the land). Interestingly enough, in his translation of Maimonides’ Introduction to the Mishnah, al-H ִ arizi explains his understanding of translation from Arabic into Hebrew quite explicitly in terms of what I consider a “translation of geographies,” as a translation from the West to the East: “When I understood what they [i.e. the Jews of Marseilles, who ordered the translation from him] said, I hurried without waiting, fulfilled their word, and translated the commentary

160 Notes

33 34

35 36

of this master [i.e. Maimonides] from Arabic into the Holy Tongue. I turned its lights from the west (the direction of the setting sun) towards the east (the direction of the rising sun) … I have translated it from the dark language of Kedar [i.e. Arabic] into the language of gold and glory” (quoted in Drory 1993: 296). See Foffani (1995) and Sillato (2009: 431). In this quatrain, we can also find a variation on a famous passage from Solomon Ibn Gabirol’s Keter Malkhut (The Kingly Crown): “And if you search out my skin, I shall flee from Thee to Thee, and hide from Thy wrath in Thy shadow” (Ibn Gabirol 1961: 62). Composed in rhymed prose, Ibn Gabirol’s piyyut The Kingly Crown is not only one of the foundational texts of Hebrew literature, but it is also included in the Sephardic Mahִzor (book of prayers) for the eve of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). For more on this, see Nulman (1993: 195–6). Anagnorisis is one of the three basic elements of the plot, beside pathos (suffering) and peripetia (turning point). Aristotle describes it as: ε’ξ α’γνοίας ει’ς γνω˜ σιν μεταβολή, a change from ignorance into knowledge (Aristotle, Poetics, XI, 4). If we accept the reading that “islands” here stands in for words, the “lamps” (i.e. lights) can be seen as a variation on the typical Kabbalistic relationship between the letters of the Holy script and lights, see Wolfson (1995: 376–7), who quotes the following passage from the Zohar: “There is no word in the Torah that does not have several lights shining to every sights” (ibid.: 376).

Bibliography

Acosta Rodríguez, A., González Rodríguez, A. and Vila Vilar, E. (eds) (2003) La Casa de la Contratación y la navegación entre España y las Indias. Seville: Universidad de Sevilla-CSIC.-Fundación El Monte. Adorno, R. (1991) “The Negotiation of Fear in Cabeza de Vaca’s Naufragios.” Representations 33: 163–99. Adorno, R. (2001) “Estevanico’s Legacy: Insights into Colonial Latin American Studies,” in A Colonial Atlantic? Rethinking Colonial Studies. Special issue of Arachne, 1, no 2. Available online at www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/projects/ arachne/vol1_2adorno.html (accessed 5 September 2015). Adorno, R. and Pautz, P. C. (eds) (1999) Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: His Account, His Life, and the Expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez. 3 vols. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. Adorno, R. and Pautz, P. C. (2003) “Introduction,” in Adorno, R. and Pautz, P. C. (eds) The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1–42. Agamben, G. (1977) Stanze: La parola e il fantasma nella cultura occidentale. Turin: Einaudi. Albert I, Prince of Monaco (1905) La carrière d’un navigateur. Monaco: Impr. de Monaco. al-H ִ arizi, J. (1965) The Tahkemoni of Judah Al-Harizi. Trans. by V. E. Reichert. Jerusalem: Raphael Haim Cohen’s Press. Alvstad, C., Helgesson, S. and Watson, D. (2011) Literature, Geography, Translation: Studies in World Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Amanat, A. (2003) “Hajji Baba of Ispahan.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. Available online at www.iranicaonline.org/articles/hajji-baba-of-ispahan (accessed 5 September 2015). Antonelli, L. (1997) I Greci oltre Gibilterra: Rappresentazioni mitiche dell’estremo Occidente e navigazioni commerciali nello spazio atlantico fra VIII e IV sec. a.C. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. Apter, E. (2006) The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ariosto, L. (1906) Orlando Furioso. Trans. by W. S. Rose. New York: The National Alumni. Ariosto, L. (2002) Orlando Furioso [1532]. Introduction, notes and commentary by M. Turchi. Preface by E. Sanguineti [1974]. 2 vols. Milan: Garzanti. Arndt, S., Naguschewski, D. and Stockhammer, R. (eds) (2007) Exophonie: Anderssprachigkeit (in) der Literatur. Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos.

162 Bibliography Ascoli, A. R. (1987) Ariosto’s Bitter Harmony: Crisis and Evasion in the Italian Renaissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bagnoli, V. (2003) Lo spazio del testo: paesaggio e conoscenza nella modernità letteraria. Bologna: Pendragon. Balasopoulos, A. (2008) “Nesologies: Island Form and Postcolonial Geopoetics.” Postcolonial Studies 11, no. 1: 9–26. Balbuena, M. R. (2009) “Dibaxu: A Comparative Analysis of Clarisse Nicoïdski’s and Juan Gelman’s Bilingual Poetry.” Romance Studies 27, no. 4: 283–97. Balbuena, M. R. (2012) “Ladino in Latin America: An Old Language in the New World,” in Bejarano, M. and Aizenberg, E. (eds) Contemporary Sephardic Identity in the Americas: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 161–83. Barbier, A. A. (1806–8) Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes en français. 4 Vols. Paris: Imprimerie bibliographique. Barolini, T. (1992) The Undivine Comedy: Detheologizing Dante. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Barthes, R. (1957) Mythologies. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Bartoli, R. A. (1993) La Navigatio Sancti Brendani e la sua fortuna nella cultura romanza dell’età di mezzo. Fasano: Schena. Bastin, G. (2001) “Latin American Tradition,” in Baker, M. (ed.) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. Trans. from Spanish by M. Gregson. London: Routledge, 505–12. Baudelaire, C. (1964) The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays [1863]. Trans. and ed. by J. Mayne. London: Phaidon Press. Bauer, R. (2003) The Cultural Geography of Colonial American Literatures: Empire, Travel, Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bauman, Z. (2000) Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bellamy, E. J. (1992) Translations of Power: Narcissism and the Unconscious in Epic History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Benaim, A. (2012) Sixteenth-Century Judeo-Spanish Testimonies. An Edition of Eighty-Four Testimonies from the Sephardic Responsa in the Ottoman Empire. Leiden: Brill. Benjamin, W. (2003) “The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire” [1938], in Benjamin, W. Selected Writings. Vol. 4: 1938–40. Ed. by H. Eiland and M. W. Jennings. Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 3–92. Besse, J.-M. (2003) Face au monde: Atlas, jardins, géoramas. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer. Bhabha, H. K. (2005) The Location of Culture [1994]. 2nd edn. London: Routledge. Bideaux, M. (2001) “Les Voyages de Robert Lade, ou les mécomptes de la fiction,” in Gomez-Géraud, M.-C. and Antoine, P. (eds) Roman et récit de voyage, Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 37–46. Blum, E. (2008) The View from the Masthead: Maritime Imagination and Antebellum American Sea Narratives. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Blumenberg, H. (1997) Schiffbruch mit Zuschauer: Paradigma einer Daseinsmetapher. Frankfurt am M.: Suhrkamp. Blumenberg, H. (2010) Paradigms for a Metaphorology [first German edn. 1960]. Trans. by R. L. Savage. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library.

Bibliography

163

Boggs, C. G. (2007) Transnationalism and American Literature: Literary Translation 1773–1892. London: Routledge. Brizio-Skov, F. (2002) Antonio Tabucchi: Navigazioni in un arcipelago narrativo. Cosenza: Pellegrini. Brotton, J. (2012) A History of the World in Twelve Maps. London: Allen Lane. Buden, B. and Nowotny, S. (2009) “Cultural Translation: An Introduction to the Problem.” Translation Studies 2, no. 2: 196–219. Buffon, G.-L. L. (Comte de) (1749) Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière. 15 vols. Paris: Imprimerie royale. Buffon, G.-L. L. (1797) Buffon’s Natural History. 10 vols. Trans. by J. S. Barr. London: H. D. Symonds. Bullar, J. and Bullar, H. (1841) A Winter in the Azores; and Summer at the baths of the Furnas. 2 vols. London: John Van Voorst, Paternoster Row. Bunis, D. M. (1975) A Guide to Reading and Writing Judezmo [Second printing 1976]. New York: The Judezmo Society. Bunis, D. M. (1992) “The Language of the Sephardic Jews: A Historical Sketch,” in Beinart, H. (ed.) Moreshet Sefarad: The Sephardi Legacy. Vol. 2. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 399–422. Bunis, D. M. (1999) Judezmo: An Introduction to the Language of the Ottoman Sephardim. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. (In Hebrew and Judeo-Spanish). Carmi, T. (ed.) (2006) The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse [1981]. London: Penguin Books. Carter, P. (2013) “Tropical Knowledge: Archipelago Consciousness and the Governance of Excess.” etropic 12, no. 2. Special issue: Refereed Proceedings of the 2013 Tropics of the Imagination Conference, 79–95. Cary, M. (1924) “The Greeks and Ancient Trade with the Atlantic.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 44, no. 2: 166–79. Casadei, A. (1997) La fine degli incanti: Vicende del poema epico-cavalleresco nel Rinascimento. Milan: FrancoAngeli. Casadei, A. (2008) “Nuove prospettive su Ariosto e sul Furioso.” Italianistica: Rivista di letteratura italiana 37, no. 3: 167–92. Cassirer, E. (1955) Mythical Thought. Vol. 2 of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms [first German ed. 1925]. Trans. by R. Manheim. New Haven: Yale University Press. Cavallo, J. A. (2013) The World Beyond Europe in the Romance Epics of Boiardo and Ariosto. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Chachey, T. J. (1995) Le Isole Fortunate: Appunti di storia letteraria italiana. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. Chapman, S. E. (2004) Private Ambition and Political Alliances: The Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain Family and Louis XIV’s Government, 1650–1715. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. Cheyfitz, E. (1997) The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation and Colonization from The Tempest to Tarzan. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Cicero, T. C. (1745) Lettres de Cicéron [62–43 BCE]. 5 vols. Trans. and ed. by Abbé Prévost. Paris: Didot. Cohen, M. (2010) The Novel and the Sea. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Collins, J. J. (2002) “Current Issues in the Study of Daniel,” in Collins, J. J. and Flint, P. W. (eds) The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception. Vol. 1. Leiden: Brill.

164 Bibliography Columbus, C. [= Colón, Cristóbal] (2006) Diario de a bordo. Ed. by L. Arranza Márquez. Madrid: Edaf. Conley, T. (1996) The Self-Made Map: Cartographic Writing in Early Modern France. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Coon, L. L. (2001) Sacred Fictions: Holy Women and Hagiography in Late Antiquity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Cooper, J. F. (1823) The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea. 2 vols. New York: Charles Wiley. Copeland, R. (1991) Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages: Academic Traditions and Vernacular Texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cornish, A. (2011) Vernacular Translation in Dante’s Italy: Illiterate Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cortés de Albacar, M. (1551) Breve compendio de la sphera y de la arte de navegar. Seville: Antón Álvarez. Cortés de Albacar, M. (1561) The Arte of Navigation, Conteynyng a Compendious Description of the Sphere. Trans. by R. Eden. London: Richard Jugge. Cosgrove, D. (2001) Apollo’s Eye: A Cartographic Genealogy of the Earth in the Western Imagination. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Cosgrove, D. (2005) “Review” of J. R. Gillis: Islands of the Mind: How the Human Imagination Created the Atlantic World. Geografiska Annaler, 87B, 302–3. Cronin, M. (2000) Across the Lines: Travel, Language, Translation. Cork: Cork University Press. Cronin, M. (2003) Translation and Globalisation. London: Routledge. Cronin, M. (2006) Translation and Identity. London: Routledge. Cronin, M. (2008) Translation Goes to the Movies. London: Routledge. Cronin, M. (2013) Translation in the Digital Age. London: Routledge. Curran, A. S. (2011) The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Curtius, E. R. (1967) Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter [1948]. Bern: Francke. d’Alembert, J.-B. le R. (1757) “Glacial,” in Diderot, D. et al. (eds) L’Encyclopédie. 7 vols. Paris: chez Briasson, 688–9. Davie, M. (2005) “The Venetian Version,” in Barron, W. J. S. and Burgess, G. S. (eds) The Voyage of St Brendan: Representative Versions of the Legend in English Translation. 2nd edn. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 155–230. de Bury, R. (1345) Philobiblon. Available online at www.thelatinlibrary.com/ debury.html (accessed 5 September 2015). de Bury, R. (1889) The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury [1345]. Trans. and ed. by A. F. West. New York: Grolier Club. de Certeau, M. (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life [original French edn. 1980]. Trans. by S. Randall. Berkeley: University of California Press. de Certeau, M. (1986) “Writing the Sea: Jules Verne,” in de Certeau, M. Heterologies: Discourse on the Other. Trans. by B. Massumi. Foreword by W. Godzich. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 137–49. de Felice, F. B. (1770–80) Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire universel raisonné des connaissances humaines. 58 vols. Yverdon: [s.n.] Defoe, D. (1719) The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. London: W. Taylor.

Bibliography

165

Dehs, V. (2005) Jules Verne: Eine kritische Biographie. Düsseldorf: Artemis & Winkler. Delabastita, D. and Grutman, R. (eds) (2005a) Fictionalising Translation and Multilingualism. Special issue of Linguistica Antverpiensia (New Series) 4. Delabastita, D. and Grutman, R. (2005b) “Introduction: Fictional Representations of Multilingualism and Translation,” in Delabastita, D. and Grutman, R. (eds) Fictionalising Translation and Multilingualism. Special issue of Linguistica Antverpiensia (New Series) 4: 11–34. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1975) Kafka: Pour une littérature mineure. Paris: Minuit. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1980). Mille Plateaux. Capitalisme et schizophrénie 2. Paris, Minuit. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. and foreword by B. Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Derrida, J. (1986) “Pas” [1976], in Parages. Paris: Galilee, 20–116. Dilke, O. A. W. (1987) Mathematics and Measurement. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dizdar, D. (2006) Translation: Um- und Irrwege. Berlin: Frank und Timme. Doroszlaï, A. (1998) Ptolémée et l’hippogriffe: la géographie de l’Arioste soumise à l’épreuve des cartes. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. Drory, R. (1993) “Literary Contacts and Where to Find Them: On Arabic Literary Models in Medieval Jewish Literature.” Poetics Today 14, no. 2: 277–302. Ducarre, J. (1936) “Une supercherie littéraire de Prévost: les Voyages de Robert Lade.” Revue de Littérature comparée 16: 465–76. Duflo, C. (2009) “Le voyage de Robert Lade du monde réel à la littérature (ou Le canard de Buffon),” in Graal, C. and Macé, M. (eds) Devant la fiction, dans le monde. Rennes: La Licorne/Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 49–68. Dünne, J. (2008) “Die Karte als Operations- und Imaginationsmatrix: Zur Geschichte eines Raummediums,” in Döring, J. and Thielmann, T. (eds) Spatial Turn: das Raumparadigma in den Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 49–69. Dünne, J. (2011) Die kartographische Imagination: Erinnern, Erzählen und Fingieren in der Frühen Neuzeit. Munich: Wilhelm Fink. Dupuy, L. (2011) “Jules Verne et la géographie française de la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle.” Annales de géographie 3, no. 679: 225–45. Elden, S. (2007) “Terror and Territory.” Antipode 39: 821–45. Elden, S. (2009) Terror and Territory: The Spatial Extent of Sovereignty. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Elden, S. and Mendieta, E. (2011) Reading Kant’s Geography. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Elleström, L. (2014) Media Transformation: The Transfer of Media Characteristics among Media. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Farinelli, F. (2009) La crisi della ragione cartografica. Turin: Einaudi. Feierstein, L. R. (2011) “Los territorios de la memoria: Sefarad y Ashkenaz como lugares de florecimiento, destrucción e identidad.” Cadernos de língua e literatura Hebraica 9: 159–70. Ferguson, R. (2007) A Linguistic History of Venice. Florence: Leo Olschki.

166 Bibliography Fishbane, M. (1998) The Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thought and Theology. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Foffani, E. A. (1995) “La lengua salvada: acerca de dibaxu de Juan Gelman,” in Spiller, R. (ed.) Culturas del Rio de la Plata (1973–1995): transgresion e intercambio. Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert Verlag, 183–202. Folena, G. (1990) Culture e lingue nel Veneto medievale. Padua: Editoriale Programma. Folena, G. (1991) Volgarizzare e tradurre [1973]. Turin: Einaudi. Forsdick, C., Basu, F. and Shilton, S. (2006) New Approaches to Twentieth-Century Travel Literature in French: Genre, History, Theory. New York: Peter Lang. Foucault, M. (1980) “What is an Author?” in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews by Michel Foucault. Trans. by D. F. Bouchard and S. Simon. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 113–38. Fubini, M. (1966) Il peccato di Ulisse e altri scritti danteschi. Milan and Naples: Ricciardi. Fubini, R. (2001) L’umanesimo italiano e i suoi storici: origini rinascimentali, critica moderna. Milan: FrancoAngeli. Gabbay, C. (2006) “Com/posiciones: los poemas de Eliezer Ben Jonon: heteronimia, simbolismo y exilio,” in Moreno, F. (ed.) Memoria de la dictadura. Nocturno de Chile, de Roberto Bolaño, Interrupciones 2, de Juan Gelman. Paris: Ellipses, 337–45. Gautier Dalché, P. (2007) “The Reception of Ptolemy’s Geography (End of the Fourteenth to Beginning of the Sixteenth Century),” in Woodward, D. (ed.) The History of Cartography. III. Cartography in the European Renaissance. Part 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 285–364. Gautier Dalché, P. (2009) La géographie de Ptolémée en Occident (IVe–XVIe siècle). Turnhout: Brepols. Gelman, J. (1965) Cólera Buey. Havana: La Tertulia. Gelman, J. (1969) Los poemas de Sidney West (Traducciones III). Buenos Aires: Galerna. Gelman, J. (1982) Citas y comentarios. Madrid: Visor. Gelman, J. (1986) Com/posiciones. Barcelona: Ediciones del Mall. Gelman, J. (1994) Dibaxu. Buenos Aires: Seix Barral. Gelman, J. (2012) Poesía reunida. 1956–2010. Barcelona: Seix Barral. Genette, G. (1988) Narrative Discourse Revisited. Trans. by J. E. Lewine. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Genette, G. (1991) “Introduction to the Paratext.” New Literary History 2: 261–79. Glissant, E. (1997) Traité du tout-monde. Paris: Gallimard. Glissant, E. (2009) Philosophie de la relation: Poésie en étendue. Paris: Gallimard. Gomez-Galisteo, C. (2013) Early Visions and Representations of America. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s Naufragios and William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation. New York and London: Bloomsbury. Graziadei, D. (2011) “Geopoetics of the Island,” in Italiano, F. and Mastronunzio, M. (eds) Geopoetiche: Studi di geografia e letteratura. Milan: Unicopli, 163–82. Graziadei, D. (2015) “Nissopoiesis: Wie Robinsone ihre Inseln erzählen,” in Dünne, J. and Mahler, A. (eds) Handbuch Literatur & Raum. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 421–30.

Bibliography

167

Green, J. (ed.) (1745–7) New General Collection of Voyages and Travels. 4 vols. London: Thomas Astley. Gregory, D. (1994) Geographical Imaginations. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Gregory, D. (2004) “Palestine and the ‘War on Terror’.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24, no. 1: 183–95. Grignani, M. A. (1975) Navigatio Sancti Brendani: La navigazione di San Brandano. Milan: Bompiani. Grutman, R. (2008) “Self-Translation,” in Baker. M and Saldanha, G. (eds) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London: Routledge, 257–60. Gulizia, S. (2008) “L’Arcadia sulla luna: un’inversione pastorale nell’Orlando Furioso.” Modern Language Notes 123: 160–79. Hamera, J. (2012) Parlor Ponds: Cultural Work of the American Home Aquarium, 1850–1970. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Hancock, J. T. (2010) “Estevanico,” in Curtis, E. E. IV (ed.) Encyclopedia of MuslimAmerican History. 2 vols. New York: Facts on File, 172–3. Haring, C. H. (1918) Trade and Navigation between Spain and the Indies in the Time of the Hapsburgs. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harley, J. B. (1988) “Silence and Secrecy: The Hidden Agenda of Cartography in Early Modern Europe.” Imago Mundi 40, 57–76. Harley, J. B. and Woodward, D. (1987) “Preface,” in Harley, J. B. and Woodward, D. (eds) The History of Cartography. I. Cartography in Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean. Part 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, xv–xxi. Harrisse, H. (1896) L’Abbé Prévost: histoire de sa vie et de ses œuvres. Paris: Calmann Lévy. Harvey, P. D. A (1987) “Local and Regional Cartography in Medieval Europe,” in Harley, J. B. and Woodward, D. (eds) The History of Cartography. I. Cartography in Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean. Part 3. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 464–501. Heaney, S. (2002) Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971–2001, London: Faber and Faber. Heinrichs, H.-J. (1992) “Sprich deine eigene Sprache, Afrika!”: Von der Négritude zur afrikanischen Literatur der Gegenwart. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. Henderson, J. (2007) The Atlantic Iron Age: Settlement and Identity in the First Millennium BCE. London: Routledge. Herren, M. W. and Brown, S. A. (2002) Christ in Celtic Christianity: Britain and Ireland from the Fifth to the Tenth Century. Series: Studies in Celtic History. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. Hiatt, A. (2008) Terra Incognita: Mapping the Antipodes before 1600. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hickerson, N. P. (1998) “How Cabeza De Vaca Lived with, Worked among, and Finally Left the Indians of Texas.” Journal of Anthropological Research 54, no. 2 (Summer): 199–218. Hokenson, J. W. and Munson, M. (2007) The Bilingual Text: History and Theory of Literary Self-Translation. Manchester: St Jerome. Hoste, P. (1697) L’art des armées navales, ou Traité des évolutions navales. Lyon: Anisson & Posuel. Howard, D. (2000) Venice and the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture 1100–1500. New Haven: Yale University Press.

168 Bibliography Howard, D. (2007) “Venice as an ‘Eastern City’,” in Carboni, S. (ed.) Venice and the Islamic World, 828–1797. Exh. cat. New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hudson, B. (2012) “Prologue: The Medieval Atlantic Ocean,” in Hudson, B. (ed.) Studies in the Medieval Atlantic. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1–32. Huggan, G. (2001) The Postcolonial Exotic: Marketing the Margins. London: Routledge. Iannello, F. (2013) Jasconius rivelato: Studio comparativo del simbolismo religioso dell’isola-balena nella Navigatio sancti Brendani. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso. Ibn Gabirol, S. (1961) The Kingly Crown. Trans. by B. Lewis. London: Vallentine Mitchell. Iser, W. (1978) The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Trans. from the German by D. H. Wilson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Italiano, F. (2009) Tra miele e pietra: Aspetti di geopoetica in Montale e Celan. Milan: Mimesis. Italiano, F. (2015) “Kartographisches Schreiben und kartographische Imagination,” in Dünne, J. and Mahler, A. (eds) Handbuch Literatur & Raum. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 249–58. Italiano, F. and Mastronunzio, M. (eds) (2011) Geopoetiche. Studi di Geografia e Letteratura. Milan: Unicopli. Italiano, F. and Rössner, M. (eds) (2012) Translatio/n: Narration, Media and the Staging of Differences. Bielefeld: transcript-Verlag. Ivanovic, C. (2010) “Exophonie und Kulturanalyse: Tawada’s Transformationen Benjamins,” in Ivanovic, C. (ed.) Yoko Tawada: Poetik der Transformation. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 171–206. Jabès, E. (1984) Le livre des marges. Paris: Fata Morgana. Jakobson, R. (1959) “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation,” in Brower, R. A. (ed.) On Translation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 232–9. Jakobson, R. (1960) “Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics,” in Sebeok, T. A. (ed.) Style in Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 350–77. Jameson, F. (2002) The Political Unconscious: Narrative as Socially Symbolic Act [1981]. London: Routledge. Jerome (1958) Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel. Trans. by G. L. Archer. Grand Rapids: Baker. Jong Lee, K. (1999) “Pauline Typology in Cabeza de Vaca’s Naufragios.” Early American Literature 34, no. 3: 241–62. Kant, I. (1991) “What is Orientation in Thinking?” [first German ed. 1786], in H. Reiss (ed.) Kant: Political Writings. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 235–49. Kaplan, Y. (1996) Judíos Nuevos en Amsterdam. Estudios sobre la historia social e intelectual del judaísmo sefardí en el siglo XVII. Barcelona: Gedisa. Kelsey, H. (1993) “American Discoveries Noted on the Planisphere of Sancho Gutiérrez,” in Lewis, R. E. and Williams, J. M. (eds) Early Images of the Americas: Transfer and Invention. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 247–62. Klettke, C. (2001) Simulakrum Schrift: Untersuchungen zu einer Ästhetik der Simulation bei Valéry, Pessoa, Borges, Klossowski, Tabucchi, Del Giudice, De Carlo. Munich: Wilhelm Fink.

Bibliography

169

Klinger, S. (2015) Translation and Linguistic Hybridity: Constructing World-View. London: Routledge. Koeman, C., Schilder, G., van Egmond, M. and van der Krogt, P. (2007) “Commerical Cartography and Map Production in the Low Countries, 1500–ca. 1672,” in Woodward, D. (ed.) The History of Cartography. III. Cartography in the European Renaissance. Part 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1296–383. Korzybski, A. (1933) “A Non-Aristotelian System and its Necessity for Rigour in Mathematics and Physics.” Science and Sanity, 747–61. Kramer, K. (2013) “Bewegte Beobachter,” in Dünne, J. and Kramer, K. (eds) Weltnetzwerke—Weltspiele: Jules Vernes In 80 Tagen um die Welt. Available online at www.weltnetzwerke.de/bewegte-beobachter/ (accessed 5 September 2015). Kronfeld, C. (1996) On the Margins of Modernism: Decentering Literary Dynamics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kylstra, P. H. and Meerburg A. (1972) “Jules Verne, Maury and the Ocean.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Section B (Biology), 2 vols. (Vols. 72 and 73), Edinburgh, Royal Society, Vol. 1: 243–51. Lando, C. (2010) I mostri dell’Orlando Furioso, specchi della natura umana. Florence: Le Lettere. Lestringant, F. (2002) Le livre des îles: Atlas et récits insulaires de la Genèse a Jules Verne. Genève: Droz. Livon-Grossman, E. (2009) “A Historical Introduction to Latin American Poetry,” in Livon-Grosman, E. and Vicuña, C. (eds) The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, xxxiii–xxxviii. Long, L. (2010) “Medieval Literature through the Lens of Translation Theory: Bridging the Interpretive Gap.” Translation Studies 3, no. 1: 61–77. Lopez, K. S. (2002) Latin American Novels of the Conquest: Reinventing the New World. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. McCall, G. (1994) “Nissology: A Proposal for Consideration.” Journal of the Pacific Society 63–4, nos. 17, 2–3: 99–106 [106–99]. Mac Carthy, I. (2007a) “Ariosto the Traveller.” Modern Language Review 102, no. 2: 397–409. Mac Carthy, I. (2007b) Women and the Making of Poetry in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. Leicester: Troubador Publishing. Mackley, J. S. (2008) The Legend of St Brendan: A Comparative Study of the Latin and Anglo-Norman Versions. Leiden: Brill. McMurran, H. (2009) The Spread of Novels: Translation and Prose Fiction in the Eighteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press. MacPhail, E. (2001) “Ariosto and the Prophetic Moment.” Modern Language Notes 116: 30–53. Mandelbrot, B. B. (1983) The Fractal Geometry of Nature. New York: W.H. Freeman and Co. Marcus, G. J. (1980) The Conquest of the North Atlantic. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. Marinelli, P. V. (1987) Ariosto and Boiardo: The Origins of Orlando Furioso. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Martin, A. E. and Pickford, S. (eds) (2012) Travel Narratives in Translation, 1750– 1830: Nationalism, Ideology, Gender. London and New York: Routledge. Martin-Meraz Verdejo, M. L. (1993) Cartografía marítima hispana: la imagen de América. Barcelona: Lunwerg Editores.

170 Bibliography Martínez-San Miguel, Y. (2008) From Lack to Excess: “Minor” Readings of Latin American Colonial Discourse. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press. Maura, J. F. (2002) “Nuevas interpretaciones sobre las aventuras de Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Esteban de Dorantes, y Fray Marcos de Niza.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 29, nos. 1–2: 129–54. Maury, M. F. Lt. (1858) The Physical Geography of the Sea [1855]. New York: Harper & Brothers. Maury, M. F. Lt. (1860) The Physical Geography of the Sea, and its Meteorology. Being a reconstruction and enlargement of the 8th edn. of “The Physical Geography of the Sea.” London: Sampson Low, Son & Co. Maury, M. F. Lt. (1861) Géographie physique de la mer [first French edn. 1858]. Trans. into French by P.-A. Terquem. Paris: Librairie Militaire, Maritime et Polytechnique de J. Corréard. Maus de Rolley, T. (2009) “Le globe e le chevalier: variations sur la méditation cosmographique dans la fiction chevaleresque de la renaissance,” in Lestringant, F., Besse, J.-M. and Couzinet, M.-D. (eds) Les Méditations cosmographiques à la Renaissance, Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne. Melville, H. (2002) Moby-Dick; or, The Whale [1851]. Ed. by Parker, H. and Harrison, H. 2nd edn. New York: Norton. Mignolo, W. (2003) The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality and Colonization. 2nd edn. with a new afterword by the author. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Monmonier, M. (2014) How to Lie with Maps. 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Chiacago Press. Moretti, F. (1998) Atlas of the European Novel 1800–1900. London and New York: Verso. Moretti, F. (2005) Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History. London and New York: Verso. Morier, J. (1824) Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan. 3 vols. London: Dent. Moser, C. (2005) “Archipele der Erinnerung: Die Insel als Topos der Kulturisation,” in Böhme, H. (ed.) Topographien der Literatur: Deutsche Literatur im transnationalen Kontext. Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler, 408–32. Mulinacci, R. (2013) “La versione di Tabucchi. Appunti su un abbozzo di autotraduzione di Requiem,” in Russo, V. (ed.) Tabucchi o il Novecento. Milan: Ledizioni, 99–111. Mundy, B. E. (1996) The Mapping of New Spain: Indigenous Cartography and the Maps of the Relacíones Geográficas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nellis, E. (2013) Shaping the New World: African Slavery in the Americas, 1500– 1888. International Themes and Issues. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Neocleous, M. (2003) “Off the Map: On Violence and Cartography.” European Journal of Social Theory 6, no. 4: 409–25. Nietzsche, F. (1974) The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs [1882]. Trans., with commentary, by W. Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books. Niranjana, T. (1992) Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context. Berkeley, CA, Oxford: University of California Press. Nulman, M. (1993) The Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer: The Ashkenazic and Sephardic Rites. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Bibliography

171

Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, A. [1555] (1989) Naufragios. Maura, J. F. (ed.). Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra. Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, A. (1993) The Account: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. An annotated translation by Favata, M. A. and Fernández, J. B. Houston: Arte Publico. O’Meara, J. J. and Wooding, J. M. (2005) “The Latin Version,” in Barron, W. J. S. and Burgess, G. S. (eds) The Voyage of St Brendan: Representative Versions of the Legend in English Translation. 2nd edn. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 13–64. O’Neill, O. (2011) “Orientation in Thinking: Geographical Problems, Political Solutions,” in Elden, S. and Mendieta, E. (eds) Reading Kant’s Geography. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 215–32. Orlandi, G. (1968) Navigatio Sancti Brendani. Milan: Cisalpino. Osley, A. S. (1969) Mercator: A Monograph on the Lettering of Maps, etc., in the 16th Century Netherlands. With a Facsimile and Translation of his Treatise on the Italic Hand and a Translation of Ghim’s Vita Mercatoris. London: Faber and Faber. Ossewaarde, M. (2010) “Jules Verne’s Metaphor of the Iron Cage.” The European Legacy 15, no. 3: 287–300. Ó Tuathail, G. and Agnew, J. (1992) “Geopolitics and Discourse: Practical Geopolitical Reasoning in American Foreign Policy.” Political Geography 11, no. 2: 190–204. Padrón, R. (2004) The Spacious Word: Cartography, Literature, and Empire in Early Modern Spain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Palano, D. (2007) “Lo spazio politico: territori, confini, potere,” in Augustoni, A. et al. (ed.) Sociologia dello spazio, dell’ambiente e del territorio. Milan: FrancoAngeli, 54–90. Pastor, B. (1989) “Silence and Writing: The History of the Conquest,” in Jara, R. and Spadaccini, N. (eds) 1492–1992: Re/Discovering Colonial Writing. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 121–63. Pérez Hernandez, N. (2009) “El eco de la memoria: Juan Gelman y Dibaxu.” Alpha 28: 209–21. Pertile, L. (1979) “Dante e l’ingegno di Ulisse.” Stanford Italian Review 1: 35–65. Pessoa, F. (1982) Livro do Desassossego por Bernardo Soares. 2 vols. Lisbon: Ática. Pessoa, F. (1986) Il libro dell’inquietudine di Bernardo Soares. Trans. into Italian by Tabucchi, A. and Lancastre, M. Milan: Feltrinelli. Petto, C. M. (2007) When France was King of Cartography: The Patronage and Production of Maps in Early Modern France. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Pfister, M. (1985) “Konzepte der Intertextualität,” in Broich, U. and Pfister, M. (eds) Intertextualität. Formen, Funktionen, anglistische Fallstudien. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1–30. Piatti, B. (2008) Die Geographie der Literatur: Schauplätze, Handlungsräume, Raumphantasien. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag. Pickles, J. (2004) A History of Spaces: Cartographic Reason, Mapping and the GeoCoded World. London: Routledge. Pincus, D. (2000) “Hard Times and the Construction of the Ruler in FourteenthCentury Venice,” in Martin, J. J. and Romano, D. (eds) Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297–1797. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 89–136.

172 Bibliography Popovic˘, A. (1976) Dictionary for the Analysis of Literary Translation. Edmonton: University of. Alberta, Department of Comparative Literature. Prévost, A. F. (1731) L’Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut. Paris: Didot. Prévost, A. F. (1744) Voyages du capitaine Robert Lade en différentes parties de l’Afrique, de l’Asie et de l’Amérique. 2 vols. Paris: Didot. Prévost, A. F. (1746–59) Histoire générale des voyages. 15 vols. Paris: Didot. Pupo-Walker, E. (1987) “Pesquisas para una nueva lectura de los Naufragios, de Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca.” Revista Iberoamericana 53, no. 140: 517–39. Quintana Rodríguez, A. (2001) “Concomitancias lingüísticas entre el aragonés y el ladino (judeoespañol),” Archivo de filología aragonesa 57/58: 163–92. Quintana Rodríguez, A. (2006) Geografía Lingüística del Judeoespañol. Estudio sincrónico y diacrónico. Sephardica 3. Bern: Peter Lang. Rambelli, P. (2009) “Pseudotranslation,” in Baker, M. (ed.) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London: Routledge, 208–11. Randall, M. (2001) Pragmatic Plagiarism: Authorship, Profit, and Power. Toronto: Toronto University Press. Rao, S. (2006) “From a Postcolonial to a Non-Colonial Theory of Translation,” in Sakai, N. and Solomon, J. (eds) Translation, Biopolitics, Colonial Difference, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 73–94. Rapaport, H. (1989) Heidegger and Derrida: Reflections on Time and Language. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Rath, B. (2012) “Doppelte Rede und Antwort: Pseudoübersetzungsphänomene in Andreï Makines La fille d’un héros de l’Union soviétique und Le testament français,” in Binder, E. and Mertz-Baumgartner, B. (eds) Migrationsliteraturen in Europa. Innsbruck: Innsbruck University Press, 185–202. Rath, B. (2013a) “Unübersetzbares, schon übersetzt: Sprachliche Relativität und Pseudoübersetzungen,” in Dünne, J. et al. (eds) Les Intraduisibles / Unübersetzbarkeiten. Sprachen, Literaturen, Medien, Kulturen / Langues, Littératures, Médias, Cultures. Paris: Éditions des archives contemporaines, 15–25. Rath, B. (2013b) “‘His Words Only?’ Indra Sinha’s Pseudotranslation Animal’s People as Hallucinations of a Subaltern Voice.” Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 38, no. 2: 161–83. Richards, T. (1993) The Imperial Archive: Knowledge and the Fantasy of Empire, London and New York: Verso. Ríos Castaño, V. (2005) “Fictionalising Interpreters: Traitors, Lovers and Liars in the Conquest of America,” in Delabastita, D. and Grutman, R. (eds) (2005a) Fictionalising Translation and Multilingualism. Special issue of Linguistica Antverpiensia (New Series) 4: 47–60. Rizzi, A. (2008) “When a Text is Both a Pseudotranslation and a Translation: The Enlightening Case of Matteo Maria Boiardo (1441–1494),” in Pym, A., Shlesinger, M. and Simeoni, D. (eds) Beyond Descriptive Translation Studies: Investigations in Homage to Gideon Toury. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 153–62. Roberts, C. A. and Roberts, S. (2006) New Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico. Roberts, S. (2013) Printing a Mediterranean World: Florence, Constantinople, and the Renaissance of Geography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Robinson, D. (1998a) “Pseudotranslation,” in Baker, M. (ed.) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London: Routledge, 183.

Bibliography

173

Robinson, D. (1998b) Translation and Empire: Postcolonial Theories Explained. Manchester: St Jerome. Romm, J. S. (1992) The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rossi, M. (2006) “La geografia del Furioso: Sul sapere geo-cartografico alla corte estense,” in Bordin, M. and Trovato, P. (eds) Lucrezia Borgia: Storia e mito. Florence: Olschki, 97–138. Rössner, M. (2010) “Traducción, Translación, translatio, transscriptio … Reflexiones sobre un concepto actual de la discusión en las ciencias culturales,” in Ceballos, R. et al. (eds) Passagen: Hybridity, Transmédialité, Transculturalidad. Hildesheim: Olms, 33–44. Rössner, M. (2011) “Orden mundial y entremundos: historias universales paralelas en los Comentarios reales,” in Morales Saravia, J. and Penzkofer, G. (eds) El Inca Garcilaso entre varios mundos. Lima: Fondo Editorial de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 323–39. Rössner, M. (2015) “Translation/s of Identity-Building Narratives: The Character of El Cid in Spanish and Latin American Texts from the 12th to the 20th Century,” in Blume, H., Leitgeb, C. and Rössner, M. (eds) Narrated Communities – Narrated Realities: Narration as Cognitive Processing and Cultural Practice. Amsterdam: Rodopi/Brill, 173–83. Rozwadowski, H. M. (2005) Fathoming the Ocean: The Discovery and Exploration of the Deep Sea. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ruiz, T. F. (2014) “The Mediterranean and the Atlantic,” in Horden, P. and Kinoshita, S. (eds) A Companion to Mediterranean History. New York: WileyBlackwell, 412–24. Said, E. W. (2003) Orientalism [1978]. 2nd edn. London: Penguin. Sakai, N. (1997) Translation and Subjectivity: On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sandman, A. (2007) “Spanish Nautical Cartography in the Renaissance,” in Woodward, D. (ed.) The History of Cartography. III. Cartography in the European Renaissance. Part 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1095–142. Scafi, A. (2006) Mapping Paradise: A History of Heaven on Earth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Scattola, M. (1997) “Die Grenze der Neuzeit: Ihr Begriff in der juristischen und politischen Literatur der Antike und Frühmoderne,” in Bauer, M., Rahn, T. (eds) Die Grenze: Begriff und Inszenierung. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 37–71. Scholem, G. G. (1965) Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Selmer, C. (ed.) (1959) Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis from Early Latin Manuscripts. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Sephiha, H. V. (1977) L’agonie des judéo-espagnols. Paris: Ed. Entente. Sephiha, H. V. (1986) Le judéo-espagnol. Paris: Ed. Entente. Sephiha, H. V. (1997) “Judeo-Spanish,” in Weinstock, N., Sephiha, H. V. (with Barrera-Schoonheere, A.) Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish: A European Heritage. European Languages 6. Brussels: European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages, 23–39. Serres, M. (1974) Jouvences sur Jules Verne. Paris: Minuit. Severin, T. (1978) The Brendan Voyage. London: Hutchinson. Sgard, J. (2006) Vie de Prévost (1697–1763). Sainte-Foy: Presses de l’Université Laval.

174 Bibliography Shick, J. M. (1991) A Functional Biology of Sea Anemones. London: Chapman & Hall. Siegert, B. (2006) Passagiere und Papiere: Schreibakte auf der Schwelle zwischen Spanien und Amerika. Munich: Wilhelm Fink. Sillato, M. del C. (1995) “Com/posiciones de Juan Gelman o cómo traducir los mil rostros de la realidad.” Hispamérica 24, no. 72: 3–14. Sillato, M. del C. (1996): Juan Gelman: las estrategias de la otredad. Heteronimia, intertextualidad, traducción, Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo. Sillato, M. del C. (2000) “Dibaxu de Juan Gelman: la poesía desde las exiliadas raíces de la lengua,” in Sevilla Arroyo, F. and Alvar Ezquerra, C. (eds) Actas del XIII Congreso de la Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas, Madrid 6–11 de julio de 1998. 4 vols. Madrid: Castalia / Fundación Duques de Soria, 428–34. Simmel, G. (1950) “The Stranger” [1908], in The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Trans. and ed. by Wolff, K. H. New York: Free Press, 402–8. Simon, S. (2013) Cities in Translation: Intersections of Language and Memory. London: Routledge. Sinha, I. (2007) Animal’s People. London: Simon & Schuster. Sloterdijk, P. (2005) Im Weltinnenraum des Kapitals: Für eine philosophische Theorie der Globalisierung, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Sloterdijk, P. (2013) In the World Interior of Capital: Towards a Philosophical Theory of Globalization. Trans. by Hoban, W. Cambridge: Polity Press. Smith, D. K. (2008) The Cartographic Imagination in Early Modern England: Re-writing the World in Marlowe, Spenser, Raleigh and Marvell. Aldershot: Ashgate. Sobecki, S. I. (2008) The Sea and Medieval English Literature. Cambridge: Brewer. Spunta, M. (2004) Voicing the Word: Writing Orality in Contemporary Italian Fiction. Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang. Stein, D. (2012) Textual Mirrors: Reflexivity, Midrash, and the Rabbinic Self. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Steinberg, P. E. (2001) The Social Construction of the Ocean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sternberg, M. (1981) “Polylingualism as Reality and Translation as Mimesis.” Poetics Today 2, no. 4, Translation Theory and Intercultural Relations (Summer– Autumn), 221–39. Stockhammer, R. (2007) Kartierung der Erde: Macht und Lust in Karten und Literatur, Munich: Wilhelm Fink. Stockhammer, R. (2013) “Exokeanismós: The (Un)Mappability of Literature.” Primerjalna književnost (Ljubljana) 36, no. 2: 123–38. Stockhammer, R. (2015) “Wie deutsch ist es? Glottamimetische, -diegetische, -pithanone, und -aporetische Verfahren in der Literatur. Arcadia 50, no. 1: 146–72. Stratford, E., Baldacchino. G., McMahon, E., Farbotko, C. and Harwood, A. (2011) “Envisioning the Archipelago.” Island Studies Journal 6, no. 2, 113–30. Sturge, K. (2008) “Cultural Translation,” in Baker, M. and Saldanha, G. (eds) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. 2nd edn. London: Routledge, 67–70. Symcox, G. (1974) The Crisis of French Sea Power, 1688–1697: From the guerre d’escadre to the guerre de course. The Hague: M. Nijhoff. Tabucchi, A. (1983) Donna di Porto Pim e altre storie. Palermo: Sellerio.

Bibliography

175

Tabucchi, A. (1984) Notturno indiano. Palermo: Sellerio. Tabucchi, A. (1991a) L’angelo nero. Milan: Feltrinelli. Tabucchi, A. (1991b) Requiem: uma alucinação. Lisboa: Quetzal Editores. Tabucchi, A. (1991c) “Se una sera d’estate un viaggiatore.” (Trans. by N. Pereira). Corriere della Sera, August 11: 17–18. Tabucchi, A. (1992) Requiem: Un’allucinazione. Trans. into Italian by S. Vecchio. Milan: Feltrinelli. Tabucchi, A. (1994) Sostiene Pereira: Una testimonianza. Milan: Feltrinelli. Tabucchi, A. (2003) “Some Reflections on Translation.” Italian Culture 21, no. 1: 165–76. Thomas, S. (2007) “Littoral Space(s): Liquid Edges of Poetic Possibility.” Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies 5, no. 1 (spring/summer): 21–9. Toury, G. (1983) “Pseudotranslation as a literary fact: The case of Papa Hamlet” [in Hebrew]. Hasifrut/Literature 32: 63–8. Toury, G. (1995) Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins (Benjamins Translation Library 4). Tuan, Y.-F. (1977) Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Unwin, T. (2005) Jules Verne: Journeys in Writing. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Van Den Abbeele, G. (2008) “‘Tears at the End of the Road’: The Impasse of Travel and the Walls at Angel Island,” in Zilcosky, J. (ed.) Writing Travel: The Poetics and Politics of the Modern Journey. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 239–60. Venuti, L. (1998) The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. London: Routledge. Verne, J. (1863) Voyages et aventures du capitaine Hatteras. Paris: J. Hetzel. Verne, J. (1864) Voyage au centre de la Terre. Paris: J. Hetzel. Verne, J. (1871) Vingt mille lieues sous les mers [1869–1870]. Paris: J. Hetzel. Verne, J. (1873) Le Pays des fourrures. Paris: J. Hetzel. Verne, J. (1874) The Fur Country; or, Seventy Degrees North Latitude. Trans. from the French by N. D’Anvers. Boston: James Osgood. Verne, J. (1875) L’Île mystérieuse. Paris: J. Hetzel. Verne, J. (1876) Michel Strogoff: De Moscou à Irkoutsk. Paris: J. Hetzel. Vernero, M. (1913) Studi critici sopra la geografia nell’Orlando Furioso di Ludovico Ariosto. Turin: Tipografia Palatina di Boni e Rossi. Vierne, S. (1973) Jules Verne et le roman initiatique: Contribution à l’étude de l’imaginaire. Paris: Éditions de Sirac. Vierne, S. (1989) Jules Verne: mythe et modernité. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Vigneras, L. A. (1962) “The Cartographer Diogo Ribeiro.” Imago Mundi 16: 76–83. Vilar, J. B. (1995) “Nuevos datos para una biografía del judío converso Luis de Torres, intérprete oficial en la primera expedición colombina.” Miscelánea de estudios árabes y hebraicos 44: 247–61. Vinken, B. (2001) Du Bellay und Petrarca: Das Rom der Renaissance. Tübingen: Niemeyer.

176 Bibliography Wagner, B. (2009) “Kulturelle Übersetzung: Erkundungen über ein wanderndes Konzept.” Available online at www.kakanien.ac.at/beitr/postcol/BWagner2.pdf (accessed 5 September 2015). Wagner, H. R. (1951) “A map of Sancho Gutierrez of 1551.” Imago Mundi 8: 47–9. Waters, D. H. (1970) “The Iberian Bases of the English Art of Navigation in the Sixteenth Century.” Supplement to Revista da Universidade de Coimbra 24: 1–19. Westphal, B. (2007) La Géocritique: Réel, Fiction, Espace. Paris: Minuit. Westphal, B. (2013) The Plausible World: A Geocritical Approach to Space, Place, and Maps. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Wolf, B. (2013) Fortuna di mare: Literatur und Seefahrt. Zürich and Berlin: Diaphanes. Wolf, M. (2002) “Culture as Translation—and Beyond: Ethnographic Models of Representation in Translation Studies,” in Hermans, T. (ed.) Crosscultural Transgressions: Research Models in Translation Studies II. Historical and Ideological Issues. Manchester: St Jerome, 180–92. Wolfson, E. R. (1995) Through a Speculum that Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wood, D. and Fels, J. (1992) The Power of Maps. New York: Guilford Press. Woodward, D. (2007) “Cartography and the Renaissance: Continuity and Change,” in Woodward, D. (ed.) The History of Cartography. III. Cartography in the European Renaissance. Part 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 3–24. Wright, C. (2008) “Writing in the ‘Grey Zone’: Exophonic Literature in Contemporary Germany.” German as a Foreign Language 3: 26–42. Wright, C. (2010) “Exophony and Literary Translation: What it Means for the Translator when a Writer Adopts a New Language.” Target 22, no. 1: 22–39. Xuan, J. (2014) “Erobern und Erzählen: Narrative Legitimationsstrategien bei Columbus, Cortés, Cabeza de Vaca,” PhiN 68: 27–58.

Index

Abba Jose ben Hִ anin 143–4 Abulafia, A. 144 Abulafia, T. 143 Adorno, R. 58–9, 65, 68, 153 Africanus, L. 64 Albert I (Prince of Monaco) 130, 156 Alexander the Great 38 al-Hariri of Basra 146 ˙ Alpers, S. 157 Alvstad, C. 4 Amanat, A. 154 Amos 142, 144 Andomnán 22 Antonius the Great 17 Apter, E. 3, 79, 80, 130 Ariosto, L. 12, 32–3, 36–43, 45, 47–50, 51, 99, 128, 151–2 Aristotle 20, 156, 160 Athanasius the Great 17 Avienus 21 Bagnoli, V. 151 Balasopoulos, A. 8 Balbuena, M. R. 142, 149 Barbier, A.-A. 81 Barrind, Abbot 16, 30 Barthes, R. 155 Bartoli, R. A. 17 Baudelaire, C. 112 Bauer, R. 53, 59 Beckett, S. 116, 133, 149 Behaim, M. 16, 17 Bellamy, E. J. 99, 152 Bellin, J.-N. 90 Benjamin, W. 6–7, 20, 80, 96, 112 Bhabha, H. K. 3, 6–7, 19, 96, 123, 141 Blaeu, J. 125–6, 157 Blumenberg, H. 2, 37 Boiardo, M. M. 33, 151–2

Borges, J. L. 124 Brendan of Clonfert 16–18, 22–30, 54, 57, 150, 152 Brotton, J. 49, 126 Bruni, L. 25, 96–7 Buden, B. 7 Buffon, G.-L. L. (Comte de) 75–7, 80 Bullar, H. 130, 156–7 Bullar, J. 130, 156–7 Bunis, D. M. 137 Caboto, S. 34 Calvino, I. 151 Camões, L. de 50, 99 Canetti, C. 138 Carmi, T. 143–4, 146–7 Carter, P. 130 carticity 9, 13, 37, 40–1, 45, 90, 120, 125, 127–8, 130, 144; indexical function 40; itinerary 40, 43, 144; positional catalogue 40, 43, 55, 89–90, 144 cartographic imagination 1, 5, 10, 37, 132; and fiction 24 cartographic writing 9, 14, 33, 45, 47, 50, 124–5; and archipelagic imagination 14, 124, 126, 128, 130–1; and cartographic logic 47; and mapping procedures 132; and narrative projection 130; and rhetoric 145; logbook 13, 35, 69, 83–4, 86, 88–9, 92, 105, 106; nautical writing 13, 83, 86, 88, 106; topographical inscription 144–5; translational map 135, 145; travel diary 88, 120, 156; travel literature 43, 83, 85, 87–8, 131; travelogue 75, 77, 82–3, 86, 88–9, 130, 154

178 Index cartography 5, 9, 10, 12, 14, 33–5, 45, 124, 126, 132, 145, 153; and orientation 41; as colonial device 35; as inventing the earth 34; as world construction 35 Casa de Contratación 34, 69, 70–2; Renaissance cartography 33–5, 71; the (early) modern map 35 Cassirer, E. 2, 3 Cavallo, J. A. 151 Celestine I 21 Certeau, M. de 95, 106, 145, 155 Cervantes, M. de 78, 80 Cesar 20, 99 Charlemagne 45, 98 Charles V 47, 59–60 Chaucer 26 Cheyfitz, E. 57, 58 Christ 18, 29, 53, 55–7, 59 Chrysoloras, M. 33 Cicero 21, 45, 77, 98, 153 Claudian 21 Cohen, M. 89, 154 Coke, E. 86 Colbert de Seignelay, J.-B. 86–7 Colbert, J.-B. 85, 86 Colón, D. (interpreter) 67 Columbus, C. (Colombo, Colón) 17, 34, 39, 48–50, 55, 66–7, 108 Conley, T. 5 Cooper, J. F. 92 Copeland, R. 25, 26 Cornish, A. 25 Cortés, H 60, 67 Cortés, M. 86 Cronin, M. 4, 5, 7, 70 cultural translation 6–7, 11–13, 18–19, 29, 60, 67, 70, 82–3, 91–2, 96, 146 Curran, A. S. 154 Curtius, E. R. 37 d’Alembert, J.-B. le R. 75– 77 d’Angelo, J. 33 Dana, R. H. 92 Daniel 97–8 Dante Alighieri 49, 102–3 David 144 Davie, M. 29 de Bury, R. 98 de Niza, M. 68 de Oviedo, N. 64 de Queirós, P. F. 157 de Torres, L. 66–7

Defoe, D. 90 Dehs, V. 104 del Castillo, A. 52, 55 Deleuze, G. 104–5, 158–9 Delisle, G. 17 Derrida, J. 7, 158 Desert Fathers 17, 18 diaspora 14; and dis-stance 140; and Judaism 145; diasporic language 141; imagined routes of diaspora and exile 145; Sephardic diaspora 141, 144, 147 Diderot, D. 76 Diodorus Siculus 20 Dizdar, D. 10 Dorantes, A. 52, 55, 64, 68 Doroszlaï, A. 36, 39, 40 Du Bellay, J. 99 Ducarre, J. 77–8 Duflo, C. 76 Dünne, J. 5 Eco, U. 78 Eden, R. 86 Elias 26 Elleström, L. 11, 36, 38 Enoch 26 Ercilla y Zúñiga, A. de 99 Estebanico 52, 63–8 Ezekiel 142, 144 Farinelli, F. 8 Favata, M. A. 153 Felipillo 67 Fernandez, J. B. 153 Folena, G. 25, 96–7 Foucault, M. 81 Fra Mauro 33 Gabbay, C. 159 Gelman, J. 14, 135–49, 158–9 geo-centric 10 geographical imagination 5, 8–9, 13–14, 26, 29, 35, 47, 59, 95, 107, 115, 135 geography 8; and Sephardic diaspora 141; and Sephardic writing 137 and territory 59; as discourse 8 as performance 8; as translation 9 Christian geography 19, 55; fictional geography 75; literary geography 9; major geography 141, 145; minor geography 141, 145, 158; of exile

Index 144; textuality of geography and the geography of text 8 geopoetics 8, 12, 17, 19, 23–4, 26, 29, 30, 110, 129; and postcolonialism 8; as negotiation 9; east-oriented 31; of redemption 31; of the oceans 107, 113; west-oriented 31 Glissant, E. 131, 156 globalization 4, 11, 45, 50, 85, 95, 113; and global translation 3; and islands 129; and the technology of circulation 70; Ariosto’s global poetry 48, 50; as translation 11; English model of globalization 92; flow of communication 95; global discourse of mobility and cultural colonization 72; global peace 59; interconnection between ships and writing 11–12, 70, 85; liquid modernity 95; Nemo’s aqueous global empire 104; sea travel and trading 92; transculturality 11; trans-oceanic globalization 108; whole-earth view 45 Green, J. 78, 83 Gregory, D. 8 Griffiths, R. 85 Guattari, F. 104–5, 158–9 Gumpert Melgosa, C. 135 Gutiérrez, S. 13, 71–2, 153 Guy, C. 112 Harley, J. B. 71, 91 Harrisse, H. 77, 153 Heaney, S. 141 Heidegger, M. 158 Helgesson, S. 4 Helm, E. 81 Henderson, J. 150 Herodotus 19 Hesiod 19 heterolinguality 11, 63, 117, 122–3, 156 Hickerson, N. 55, 62 Homer, 19, 99, 102, 114 Horace 15, 21, 58, 98 Hoste, P. 87 Hudson, B. 20 Ibn Gabirol, S. 137, 143–4, 160 imaginative geography 3, 8, 13, 23, 30, 102, 113, 140–1 Innenhofer, R. 102

179

interpreter 11, 12, 60–4, 66–8; and subordination 66; as displaced person 68; as necessity for conquest 67; as target of disdain 67; lack of an 61; role as mediator 65 Isabella I of Castile 64 Isidore of Seville 15, 32 Jabès, E. 148 Jakobson, R. 6, 7, 11 Jameson, F. 6 Jardine, L. 49 Jerome 17, 18, 97–9 Job 144 John of the Cross 136–7, 141 John the Evangelist 43 Joyce, J. 23 Judah al-Harizi 146–7, 159 ˙ 143–4 Judah Halevi Judas Iscariot 17–18 Kant, I. 2 Kelsey, H. 153 Klinger, S. 118 Korzybski, A. 35 Kylstra, P. H. 106, 108–9 La Malinche 67 Lancastre, M. 157 Lestringant, F. 131 Louis XIV of France 87 Louÿs, P. 78 Lucian of Samosata 44 Mac Carthy, I. 42 McMurran, M. 82 Macpherson, J. 78 Magellan, F. 157 Maimonides 159–60 Mallarmé, S. 38 Mandelbrot, B. B. 156 map; and cartographic writing 9; and projection 33, 71, 151; and silence 91; and territory 35; as graphic representation 71; as medium 1, 9, 24, 37, 50; as papery index 34; as spatializing device 5; cartographic legend as spatial index 71–2; Eurocentric map 45; Google Maps 151; itinerary map 145, 159; northoriented map 32; north-oriented projection scheme 33; padrón real 72; paratextual map 90, 120, 124–6;

180 Index Renaissance map 33; south-oriented 33; TO-map (east-oriented) 32; translational map 146; twodimensional 32, 34, 40, 47 mappability 23, 90, 132; unmappability 23, 132 Marco Polo 29, 43, 67 Martin, A. 155 Martínez-San Miguel, Y. 61 Matthew 18 Maury, Lt. M. F. 13, 95, 105–10, 155 Maus de Rolley, T. 152 Meerburg, A. 106, 108–9 Melville, H. 92, 104–6, 119, 120, 124, 130–1 Mercator, G. 153 Mérimée, P. 78 Michelet, J. 119, 130 Mignolo, W. 49 Milton, J. 127 monolinguality; cultural monolingualism 66; monolingual production 159; monolingual relationship 124; the illusion of 119, 121–3, 128, 130 Montaigne, M. 42–3 Montesquieu 78 Moretti, F. 9, 151 Morier, J. 79 Morin, E. 138 Moser, C. 100 Mulinacci, R. 134 mythical space 2, 3 Nabokov, V. 116, 133 Navigatio Sancti Brendani 10–12, 15–19, 22–6, 28–31, 53, 127, 150, 152 Nicoïdski, C. 137, 139, 149 Nietzsche, F. 58 Notker the German 25 Nowotny, S. 7 Núñes Cabeza de Vaca, Á. 12, 51–73, 85 orientation 1, 2, 10, 30, 32, 40–1, 48, 55, 126; and information 91; de-Easting 48; disorientation 21; east to west route 41, 49; east– west axis 49, 128; geographical orientation 2; in mythical space 3; maritime orientation 26; mythological orientation 48;

religious orientation 24; scientific orientation 106; west to east route 30; west-orientation 15 Orlandi, G. 17, 150 Ortelius, A. 125 Ossewaarde, M. 154–5 Pachomius 17 Padrón, R. 5, 34 Palladius 21 Pánfilo de Narváez 51–2, 64, 69 Paul III 59 Paul the Anchorite 17 Paul the Hermit 17, 18 Pautz, P. C. 153 Peirce, C. S. 156 Pessoa, F. 115, 124, 133–4, 157, 159 Piatti, B. 9 Pickles, J. 35 Pizarro, F. 60, 67 Planudes, M. 33 Plato 44, 156 Pliny the Elder 21 Pomponious Mela 21 Popovic˘ , A. 78, 153 Prester John 50 Prévost, Abbé A.-F., 13, 73–9, 82–8, 90–2, 153–4 Propertius 58 pseudity 79, 117 pseudotranslation 11, 13, 78, 82–3, 91, 116, 117, 156, 158 Ptolemy 21, 32–4, 126 Pupo-Walker, E. 53–4, 152 Pytheas 20 Rabbah bar bar H . ana 127 Rabelais, F. 131 Rambelli, P. 82 Rao, S. 6 Rath, B. 116, 117, 119, 156 Reichert, V. E. 159 Ribeiro, D. 34, 157 Richards, T. 103, 112, 155 Rimbaud, A. 121, 156 Rizzi, A. 80 Robinson, D. 78, 117, 123 Romm, J. R. 21 Rosselli, F. 32, 35–6 Said, E. W. 8 Sakai, N. 16 Sandman, A. 34

Index Sarrau, C. 125 Saussure, F. de 7 Scafi, A. 5 Scholem, G. 159 self-translation 11, 14, 134–5, 137, 141–2, 149, 158 Selkirk, A. 90 Seneca 44 Sephiha, H. V. 137–8 Severin, T. 150 Sextus Pomponius 59 Shenouda the Archimandrite 17 Simmel, G. 63 Simon, S. 3, 9, 10 Sinha, I. 116–17 Sloterdijk, P. 48 Smith, D. K. 5 spatial turn 3 Spunta, M. 122 Steinberg, P. E. 104 Sternberg, M. 117–19, 121, 153 Stevenson, R. L. 92 Stockhammer, R. 5, 9, 23, 37, 151, 155–6 Swift, J. 131 Tabucchi, A. 13–14, 114–17, 119–35, 156–8 Tacitus 21 Tawada, T. 157 Teixeira, L. 125–6 Teodoro, D. 64 Teresa of Ávila 136, 141 Theophilus 17 Tippo–Saïb (Sultan) 99 Titian 59 Toury, G. 78, 116–17 translatio imperii et studii 10–13, 38, 47, 50, 51, 57, 58, 60, 72, 95, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 114, 152, 155; Verne’s translatio maris 13, 95, 101, 104 translation; and technology 70; and trade 5, 30, 62, 63, 70; as act of conquest 58; as appropriation 11; as colonization 11; as cultural activity 7, 8, 58, 63; as negentropy 5; as performance 6, 13, 26, 31, 68,

181

147; as rhetorical invention 26; as transformation 140; countertranslation 12, 16, 24, 30–1; space of translation 3, 132, 149 translational language 137; archipelago as analogue of language 130; indexical glotta-mimesis 156; translational mimesis 11–13, 63, 117–30, 153; vernacular translation 25–6 translational turn 3, 4 translator 4, 15, 19, 25, 51, 58, 63, 75, 145; and gender 122; anonymity of the 81; as conqueror of souls 60; as eloquent orator 58; as hemeneutic performer 26; as trader 62, 63 transmedial negotiation 24 transmedial phenomenon 40, 48 transmedial reterritorialization 121 transmediation 9, 11–13, 33, 35–8, 40, 45, 51, 71; as mimetic process 118–19, 126; between textual and visual narration 71 Tsarfati, J. b. S. 143 Tuan, Y.-F. 3 Ungaretti, G. 149 Unwin, T. 95, 106, 110 Vallejo, C. 136 Vásquez de Coronado, F. 68 Vecchio, S. 134 Venuti, L. 4 Vermeer, H. 96 Verne, J. 13, 73–7, 92–5, 99, 100–15, 119, 154–5 Vernero, M. 151 Vespucci, A. 34 Virgil 23, 50, 99 Voltaire 78 Wagner, B. 96 Waldseemüller, M. 32, 35, 40 Waters, D. 86 Watson, D. 4 Westphal, B. 10, 55–6 Wolf, M. 3, 5 Woodward, D. 71