Translating Neruda: Femininity and Sensuality ... - Triceratops Home

Mueller 22
most recent (published in 2004), but appears alongside only four of the Veinte poemas as
a part of a broader collection dubbed The Essential Neruda. While for the purposes of
this thesis I am not considering this poem within its broader context, it is instructive to
note the context that the translators felt was important to the reader’s comprehension of
the work. The rest of the poems in Veinte poemas serve to reinforce the sexual
undertones of this poem, as they appear more explicitly elsewhere within the collection.
The translator’s influence is evident in each of these versions before the poem
even begins. Neruda left all of the poems in Veinte poemas untitled and merely
numbered, but each translator here chooses to give the poem a title of some sort. This
seems to be a domesticating decision to make Neruda’s poems conform to what seems to
be standard practice for English poems in the twentieth century, with a title at the
beginning that gives a general indication of the content to follow. Merwin, Eisner, and
Ossman and Hagen each use the first few words of the poem, either in English (Merwin),
in Spanish (Ossman and Hagen), or each respective language in Eisner’s side-by-side
edition. Previtali instead uses his translation of the second image of the poem, “Nets of
Sorrow,” which serves to move the emphasis from the speaker (where it lies with the
other three translators’ titles) to the objects the speaker holds. This choice complicates
the understanding of the general subject of the poem, drawing the reader’s attention away
from the woman who is the object of the speaker’s affection and instead to the metaphors
that Neruda uses to demonstrate this sentiment.
Each translator’s approach to the translation of Neruda’s “tardes” has an effect on
the development of the narrative of the rest of the poem. The term is somewhat
ambiguous, literally referring to “the time of day after noon but before twilight” or “the