Ilha do Desterro (Apr 2008)
Expanding boundaries: traveling theories in the Americas Expanding boundaries: traveling theories in the Americas
Abstract
In the above quotes, two North-American women writers who traveled to Brazil in the twentieth century express their view of the potential of travel and the continuous possibilities of moving from one place to another in an endless list of “choices” that grant each journey a unique quality—“one’s route is one’s own.” Page’s traveler is also a “conjuror” who performs clever tricks and makes things appear and disappear—a magician who, in her reading, uses painting to create his or her own version of reality from the scenes observed while traveling (“Traveler” 36-37). Traveling becomes thus not only a trope for movement and Transference, but also for creation, rereading and translation. Of interest here is precisely this connection between traveling and translation as tropes that informs the encounter of cultures and the blurring of boundaries. In the above quotes, two North-American women writers who traveled to Brazil in the twentieth century express their view of the potential of travel and the continuous possibilities of moving from one place to another in an endless list of “choices” that grant each journey a unique quality—“one’s route is one’s own.” Page’s traveler is also a “conjuror” who performs clever tricks and makes things appear and disappear—a magician who, in her reading, uses painting to create his or her own version of reality from the scenes observed while traveling (“Traveler” 36-37). Traveling becomes thus not only a trope for movement and Transference, but also for creation, rereading and translation. Of interest here is precisely this connection between traveling and translation as tropes that informs the encounter of cultures and the blurring of boundaries.
