Aux « croisements des âmes », poétiques françaises et espagnoles au XXIe siècle

Abstract

In the chapter entitled “Topologies of Culture” of After Babel, Steiner states that he has “began to trying to show that translation proper, the interpretation of verbal sings in one language by means of verbal sings in another, is a special, heightened case of process of communication and reception in any act of human speech” (Steiner 1976: 414). It is therefore, more a question of approaching what he describes as “understanding of understanding” rather than a mere “theory of translation”. At the beginning of the 21st century, the poet Luis Antonio de Villena translated into Spanish anthologies of the sonnets of Du Bellay and of French symbolist poetry. Another Spanish poet, Miguel Veyrat, renders the remarkable voice of the French poet Jacques Darras into his own language in Antologia Fluvial as well as translating Martine Broda’s beautiful essay on lyricism L’Amour du Nom. It is important therefore that we should analyse the issues raised by Steiner: “To what extent is culture the translation and rewording of previous meaning?” (Steiner 1976: 415). I shall examine therefore, their translation work which seems to spring from a relation of otherness, supplying the heritage of French culture and its meaning to present day tastes, with the intention, perhaps, of emphasizing the originality of a contemporary voice out of tune with the panorama of French poetry.