De cometas, ballenas y traductores: cuatro retraducciones activas de Moby-Dick en español

Este artículo aborda desde una perspectiva teórica y práctica el estudio de la retraducción de obras literarias. Para ello, se acude a las retraducciones publicadas en España de la novela Moby-Dick (Herman Melville, 1851). El apartado teórico establece dos elementos de análisis novedosos en los estudios de la retraducción: i) el hecho y la explicación de que algunas de estas retraducciones aparecen en períodos de tiempo muy breves; y ii) los testimonios personales de los retraductores en relación con su trabajo como retraductores de una obra literaria determinada. El análisis de estos dos factores ayuda de manera decisiva a determinar si esas retraducciones son «activas» o «pasivas» (Pym 1998). El apartado práctico ofrece, en primer lugar, una panorámica histórica de las dieciocho retraducciones de Moby-Dick publicadas en España hasta el momento; y, después, analiza cuatro retraducciones activas de la novela aparecidas en España en un período de ocho años (2007-2014), empleando para ello los testimonios directos con que contamos de los cuatro retraductores que ilustran los orígenes, objetivos y supuestas aportaciones de cada una de esas cuatro versiones. El artículo concluye subrayando la importancia que se debe otorgar primero al conocimiento histórico de las diferentes retraducciones en períodos de tiempo determinados y, después, a los testimonios escritos de los retraductores sobre su trabajo en el caso de que estén disponibles para el investigador, como es el caso de este estudio.

The Nineteenth Century Revis(it)ed: The New Historical Fiction by Ina Bergmann

The nineteenth century is a crucial phase in America’s history. Key features such as geographical expansions, the industrial revolution, development in science and technology, and America’s emergence as a super power, after the American Revolution and the War of 1812, mark the century. The Civil War becomes the most important historical event of this phase that will impact the lives of Americans in the years to come. The century has literary importance also because, during this phase, forerunners of American literature, like, Edgar Allen Poe, James Cooper, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, etc., come to the scene. Thus, the century as the setting has always been a literary choice for historical novelists.

Depois da tempestade, o relato Experiência e narrativa em Primo Levi

Resumo Neste ensaio investigamos de que maneira o longevo topos “depois da tempestade, a bonança” comparece em autores como Homero, Aristóteles, Virgílio, Dante Alighieri, Giacomo Leopardi e Herman Melville para, em seguida, analisarmos sua presença no trabalho de Primo Levi (1919-1987), químico turinense e escritor que sobreviveu e testemunhou os horrores de Auschwitz. Embora o referido lugar-comum apareça, de forma mais evidente, em Os Afogados e os sobreviventes (1986/2016), seus pressupostos ampararam as reflexões de Levi sobre as experiências no Lager, especialmente no que diz respeito aos limites da representação. O itinerário de uma tópica em diferentes (con)textos admite significados nem sempre análogos, pois cada formulação se ampara em prescrições, categorias, orientações e estilos particulares. Por meio deste estudo, pretende-se contribuir com as reflexões sobre o “irrepresentável” na literatura de testemunho, evidenciando um esforço no sentido de figurar o inaudito e amplificar eventos dramáticos e/ou trágicos com argumentos convencionais, muitos deles provenientes de práticas letradas antigas.

Os estudos literários na era da pós-verdade

Embora visível principalmente na esfera política, o que veio a ser conhecido como pós-verdade, ou seja, o conceito que aponta para circunstâncias em que a fronteira entre fato e ficção se torna intensamente porosa e em que crenças pessoais adquirem valor igual ou superior a fatos considerados objetivos, atinge também os estudos literários no meio acadêmico. É o que se pode verificar exemplarmente em interpretações recentes do conto “Bartleby, o escrevente”, escrito por Herman Melville em 1853. Enquanto a hermenêutica tradicional definia a validade interpretativa em termos de uma contextualização rigorosa do texto em seu momento histórico e cultural, interpretações recentes associadas ao momento pós-moderno possibilitam a revalidação interpretativa em termos de escolhas idiossincráticas do sujeito leitor ou de sistemas arbitrários de pensamento.

Disaffected

In Disaffected Xine Yao explores the racial and sexual politics of unfeeling—affects that are not recognized as feeling—as a means of survival and refusal in nineteenth-century America. She positions unfeeling beyond sentimentalism's paradigm of universal feeling. Yao traces how works by Herman Melville, Martin R. Delany, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Sui Sin Far engaged major sociopolitical issues in ways that resisted the weaponization of white sentimentalism against the lives of people of color. Exploring variously pathologized, racialized, queer, and gendered affective modes like unsympathetic Blackness, queer female frigidity, and Oriental inscrutability, these authors departed from the values that undergird the politics of recognition and the liberal project of inclusion. By theorizing feeling otherwise as an antisocial affect, form of dissent, and mode of care, Yao suggests that unfeeling can serve as a contemporary political strategy for people of color to survive in the face of continuing racism and white fragility. Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient

An Eco-critical Analysis of Moby Dick

Moby Dick is well acknowledged as a world masterpiece by the American author Herman Melville. This paper attempts to analyze Melville’s Moby Dick by the theory of eco-criticism. In order to better approach the American society before the 1950s, the author aims to scrutinize the novel with eco-criticism from three such aspects as nature, society and spirit so that the present society can gain some insights in preventing and solving similar problems. Divided into several parts as follows, this paper introduces Melville and Moby Dick as well as eco-criticism first and then interprets the novel via eco-criticism in three aspects, and finally ends with its realistic significance as a conclusion.

Work and purpose: A return to Sisyphus and Bartleby

Work is a semiotically oriented activity, that is, when working, individuals anticipate aspects of their activity using a network of signs and meanings and project themselves in time with the aim to achieve certain goals. This study proposes a discussion on the relationship between purpose and work and distinguishes purpose as objective, related to actions aimed at goals, and purpose as a glimpse or a hyper-generalized sign. Both of these purposes are related to other dimensions of an individual’s relationship, with their work that are not contained in their actions aimed at situated ends. From a methodological viewpoint, the arguments are developed based on the analysis of two fictional characters, inspired by the cultural psychology of semiotic orientation: Sisyphus, extracted from classical literature, and Bartleby, the scrivener of the novel of the same name written by Herman Melville. Based on this analysis, we propose considering the purpose–work relationship on two axes: (1) what articulates sense-meaning in the process of meaning-making, and (2) the axis of action potency and its relationship with the concepts of emptiness and contingency based on a human agent’s experiences in culture. The paper aims to contribute both to the cultural psychology of semiotic orientation and to the literature on the meaning of work.

Melville's Wisdom

This book explores the manner in which Herman Melville responds to the spiritual crisis of modernity by using the language of the biblical Old Testament wisdom books to moderate contemporary discourses on religion, skepticism, and literature. Melville’s work is an example of how romantic literature fills the interpretive lacuna left by contemporary theology. This book argues that attending to Melville’s engagement with the wisdom books (Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes) can help us understand a paradox at the heart of American modernity: the simultaneous displacement and affirmation of biblical language and religious culture. In wisdom, which addresses questions of theology, radical skepticism, and the nature of evil, Melville finds an ethos of critical inquiry that allows him to embrace the acumen of modern analytical techniques such as higher biblical criticism, while salvaging simultaneously the spiritual authority of biblical language. Wisdom for Melville constitutes both object and analytical framework in this balancing act. Melville’s Wisdom joins other works of postsecular literary studies in challenging its own discipline’s constitutive secularization narrative by rethinking modern, putatively secular cultural formations in terms of their reciprocity with religious concepts and texts. The book foregrounds Melville’s sustained, career-spanning concern with biblical wisdom, its formal properties, and its knowledge-creating potential. By excavating this project from Melville’s oeuvre, Melville’s Wisdom shows how he seeks to avoid the spiritually corrosive effects of suspicious reading while celebrating truth-seeking over subversive iniquity.

The Accursed Economy of Literature

In this article, the author explains the connection between literature and economy on a philosophical level, especially in case of logic of exchange and concept of mimesis in novels. Basic tools for his arguments are derived from Georges Bataille’s concept of Accursed Economy (from the essay “The Accursed Share”). The French philosopher argues that in our everyday reality we use logic imposed on us by capitalism, which means that the value of everything is measured by its utility and, at the same time, values of all things can easily be accumulated. Because of that blind belief something important is omitted – surplus, a particle which does not fit into the global system of exchange. In the author’s opinion this phenomenon (and all its consequences) can be used to interpret the novel Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville, showing the main character’s activities (or their lack) in different contexts. This interpretation also proves the usefulness of applying some tools and terms from the language of economics into literary studies.

Call me Pastichemael

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville is frequently used as the example document for EPUB and CSS applications. At around 670 pages, it is also a good choice for demonstrating the automated analysis features of AH Formatter. This presentation describes features of working with – and sometimes augmenting, sometimes correcting – the TEI source for the American first edition of Moby Dick to create a PDF version in the style of the 1851 original.