Resituating Nitheroy in the Translation Zone: Transnational Travels, Creative Transformations, and the Making of a Modern Brazil

Abstract

This article situates Domingos Goncalves de Magalhaes (1811–1882) and Nitheroy, which he published in Paris in 1836, between languages, nationalist cultures, political beliefs, and economic models. My reading of the poet and the periodical as transnational translators complements existing studies that either emphasize their literary contributions of introducing Romanticism in Brazil or focus on their political relevance to Brazilian nationalism in comparison to Spanish American countries. I highlight how Nitheroy and its editors engaged in acts of translation by extending the reach of European and North American ideas, values, and practices to elite Brazilian readers through the periodical's content and circulation. By reading Goncalves de Magalhaes and Nitheroy through the lens of trans-national translation, I emphasize that Brazilian writers and artists did not copy European Romanticism and other foreign concepts, but rather, creatively transformed them for Brazil as part of the process of transatlantic transfer.