“I seek to shock and surprise the reader” Grande Sertão: Veredas – the poetics of creation and translation

Abstract

This article, motivated by my project of a new German translation of Grande Sertão: Veredas, by João Guimarães Rosa, examines the source text in view of real and possible strategies in foreign language translations, which  are part of the critical fortune and, at the same time, an interpretation tool, since translating allows a privileged hermeneutic approach, by tracking, revealing and trying to reconfigure the "manner of meaning" (Benjamin) of a text, its "logic of being-produced" (Adorno), and its "shaping operations" (Haroldo de Campos). For Rosa, the poetics of creation must guide the poetics of translation, aiming at systematic deviation of the standard language, regarding musicality, elliptical composition, effects of shock, defamiliarization, mystery and suggestiveness. A comparative microanalysis of six phrases from the beginning of the novel in nine translations allows us to make the hypothesis that for the last 50 years there has been a certain reorientation from assimilation and domestication strategies towards defamiliarization and foreignization strategies, some which are closer to the intentions of the author and the text itself.