Translating poetry, or the poetry of translating

Abstract

This research aims to study rhythm as an element – considered essential and indispensable to analyse when examining the poetic verse – which also arises as a concrete concern to those who write and translate prose. More than intuitively approaching the material or worrying about stablishing or reproducing the tones and sounds in a work of art, dealing with rhythm can be a systematic part of the making, another literary element to compose and constitute the textual materiality. Thus, throughout our route, we are reflecting on the matter of rhythm in prose while analysing “carta do tradutor” – or “a translator’s letter” –, an open letter written by Brazilian translator Caetano Waldrigues Galindo to Marcia Copola, who would later proofread his translation of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Our observations are made according to the critical lens of the creative process, a line of reasoning which allows us to see literary translation as a creative and, therefore, continuous act. Furthermore, this study believes that even though it has its materiality, the text is a malleable organism which depends on its readings to stay fixed – or even to keep its moving nature. Therefore, while applying such theoretical principles to our object of study analysis, we reason regarding the translation practice and the possibility of it being traversed by the matter of rhythm and rhythmic patterns.