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the volume. At present, such notes are discouraged in
works of fiction, where, it is often said, they break the
illusion and prevent the reader from identifying with
the work. For this reason, some recommend that the
translator find a way to incorporate these in the text
without overloading it.
However, they seem desirable even in classic
works that are distant from us in time, place, and
spirit; I found them indispensable in the Brazilian
edition of Balzac’s Comédie Humaine. At any rate,
one must distinguish between the notes by the
translator and those of the author, by following them
with the appropriate abbreviations.
In works of a nonliterary nature, footnotes do not
arouse resistance. It is important, however, that they
be explanatory. In my work as an editorial assistant, I
have already come across a translator who allows
himself to argue with the author, or to openly
contradict him. This sort of collaboration recalls the
well-known fable of La Fontaine in which the Bear, in
order to swat a fly that has landed on the nose of his
friend the Man, mashes both with a paving stone. 9
The famous adage “To err is human” is
abundantly and picturesquely exemplified in the work
of translation. Because of haste, distraction, poor
knowledge of one language or the other, lack of
culture, absence of good sense, lack of imagination,
the translator lives to make mistakes, and his mistakes
are pointed out with irony and sarcasm. Many
publishers, having been burned in the past, have made
use of a system of copy-editing, especially in the case
of technical translations. As a general practice, it is
desirable that every translation be seen by someone
who reads it as an autonomous work and experiences
its impact before it goes to be typeset. But, on the
other hand, and above all in literary translations of
artistic value, such modifications must not be made
without the permission of the translator himself. There
have been cases in which the collaboration of a
professional editor introduced mistakes, pedanticisms,
and absurd alterations in works of high quality. An
excellent Italian translator of Hemingway complains
that the editor eliminated all the repetitions (i.e., he
said, she said) so characteristic of the author. In the
Brazilian translation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses of
Laclos, by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, an
exemplary work, the copy editor improperly
punctuated all the à’s in the addresses of the letters
that make up the novel .
Until it is shown to be otherwise, the translator
who signs his work is a responsible professional, and
his work is already beginning to be protected by law.
The standard contract, which the Brazilian
Association of Translators (Associação Brasileira de
Tradutores) is working to make mandatory, will
contain a clause prohibiting this type of revision.
Notes
1 The Balzac was republished and is currently available; the
Dostoyevsky is not. (Translator’s note).
2 Various professionals at the International Colloqium on
Translation (Nice, May 1972) were of the same opinion.
They underlined a difficulty inherent in French, “an
excessively precise language, but particularly inabalavel,
the vocabulary of which is not very open to flexibility,
invention, neologism. More literary than most languages, it
avoids the natural vernacular diction, oscillates between
jargon and preciosity, and gives a very poor idea of verbal
play to be found in the majority of other languages. The
birth of Franglais clearly demonstrates the almost total
incapacity of our language to reproduce the practical (and
even theoretical) notions that a civilization in a state of
accelerated evolution produces every day. (Babel: Revue
International de la Traduction, no. 4, 1972).
3 Escola de Tradutores, cap. “As Traduções Indiretas.”
4 In this respect, the thesis by Onédia Célia de Carvalho
Barbosa, Byron no Brasil, Traduções, São Paulo: Editora
Ática, deserves special mention.
5 “Translating for Actors,” in The Craft and Context of
Translation, organized by William Arrowsmith and Roger
Shattuck. Garden City: Anchor Books, 1964, pp. 129 ff.
6 “The Art of Translating,” in The World of Translation.
Papers delivered at the Conference on Literary Translation
held in New York City in May 1970 under the auspices of
P.E.N. American Center.
7 Frederick C.H. Garcia, O Uraguai, Alguns problemas de
uma tradução inédita. Minas Gerais, Suplemento Literário,
September 7, 1974.
8 Paulo Rónai, “O Teatro de Brecht,” in Revista de Teatro,
September Abrates: October 1973.
9 The topic of translators’ notes is examined in an
illuminating manner in the article by Agenor Soares dos
Santos, “Problemas da Tradução,” Abrates: Boletim da
Associação Brasileira dos Tradutores, no. 1, 1979.
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