Quevedo’s Sueños: Commented Translation of Paronomasia to Portuguese, English, and French

Abstract

This article proposes a comparative analysis of several strategies applied to deal with the paronomasias in three translations of Sueños to different languages: Brazilian Portuguese by Liliana Raquel Chwat (Os sonhos. São Paulo: Escala, 2006), English by Wallace Woolsey (Dreams. New York: Barrons Educational Series, 1976), and French by Annick Louis and Bernard Tissier (Songes et discours. Paris: José Corti, 2003). Firstly, the translators’ profiles were briefly explored in order to, as Antoine Berman recommends, observe their projects and points of view on translation. The starting point is James O. Crosby’s text (Sueños y discursos. Madrid: Castalia, 1993), however, when necessary, other editions are also mentioned. Sueños, literary piece written in the 17th century by Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas, is made of five narratives: “Sueño del Juicio”, “Alguacil endemoniado”, “Infierno”, “El mundo por de dentro”, and “El sueño de la Muerte”; all of them appear as dialogues and satirize the customs and characters of their time, taken from distinct social classes. The paronamasia, through different figures of speech, is a stylistic mark in Quevedo’s writing and stands as a great challenge for the translator. Thus, our research identified whether the solutions found tended to a recreation or to a deletion, resulting in the loss of the pun.