Translating Jean de Léry’s Brazil. The Case of De Bry’s America III (1593)

Abstract

Jean de Léry’s Histoire d’un voyage faict en la terre de Brésil, like his contemporary Michel de Montaigne’s Essais, is a work that underwent significant modification and above all expansion over the course of several editions published during the author’s lifetime. We would in fact be justified in asserting that Léry’s account is ultimately a more polyvalent work than are the Essais, for when we think of the Histoire as a discursive event during Léry’s lifetime, we must factor in its multiple translations, some of which also included illustrations. Any attempt to interpret the work in a broader cultural sense must take into account these multiple incarnations and this wide circulation. As a case in point, the present article examines the interplay between Léry’s text and the German version of the Histoire that appeared in Book Three of the De Bry thirteen-volume America series in 1593.