The anthropophagic theory of translation in Brazil: the Haroldo de Campos subject

Abstract

This article has as its primary object the analysis of how some essays from Haroldo de Campos (1929-2003), more specifically those written during the 1960s, were crucial to the construction of an anthropophagic theory of translation in Brazil. Amongst them, this study chooses as objects of discussion the texts ‘Da tradução como criação e como crítica’ (1962), ‘Arno Holz: da revolução da lírica à elefantíase do projeto’ (1962) and ‘Texto literário e tradução’ (1967), with the intention to scrutinize the path of a possible epistemology about the translation assignment thought from the tropics. As a result, we sought to investigate throughout those essays the importance of the ideas of ‘anthropophagy’ and ‘constellate history’ toward the theoretical project elaborated by Campos during the twentieth century. Starting from the perspectives of literary criticism, comparative literature, and the studies of literary translation, we made use of, whilst connected to the preconceptions created by the Brazilian poet-translator, the principles of Oswald de Andrade (2017), Walter Benjamin (1994), Jacques Derrida (2009) and Leda Tenório da Motta (2002). Therefore, we embodied the importance of these principles for Campos’ line of thought and, reaching its end, we confirmed the relevance of his essays when we think about the deconstruction of more traditional thought about literary translation on Latin-American grounds.