“Neither erudite nor didactic”: José Bento’s translation of Spanish literature into Portuguese

Abstract

When considering the long list of translations by the Portuguese poet and translator José Bento (1933–2019), the most striking feature is probably the diversity of Spanish poets, novelists and playwrights that he translated (and often commented on) during his lifelong career. Diversity, however, does not mean randomness, and despite any particular circumstances, it may be argued that this list of translated works suggests that Bento had a clear idea of what should be made available in Portuguese translation as key texts of Spanish literature, including both classical and modern authors, titles and genres. The translator’s comments to his published translations show that they were intended for a large Portuguese audience of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the most emblematic statement being that the anthologies he organized were “neither erudite nor didactic” (Bento 2001: 728). This article will focus on José Bento’s selection, translation and paratextual comment of several Spanish literary works, eventually taking into account he was also a published poet, with clear ideas about literary reading and creative writing. This will allow us to discuss some specificities of the translation of Spanish literature into Portuguese, as well as Bento’s conceptualization of the translator’s task as a reader and re-writer of the Iberian literary tradition.

Keywords

• José Bento. Literary canon. Portuguese translation of Spanish literature. Translation and paratext