TRANSLATION, MINORITY AND NATIONAL IDENTITY The translation/appropriation of WB Yeats ...

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TRANSLATION, MINORITY AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
The translation/appropriation of W.B. Yeats in Galicia
(1920-1935)

Submitted by Silvia Vázquez Fernández, to the University of Exeter as a thesis
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Studies, in September
2013.

This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright
material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper
acknowledgment.

I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been
identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for
the award of a degree by this or any other University.

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Abstract
Recent developments in translation studies since the 1990s have focused on
the ideological implications of translation, seeing the role of the translator as an
interventionist and a mediator. This new paradigm overcomes the idea that
translation is a mimetic task that consists merely of transferring meaning from
one language to another, but rather it is associated with political processes
which may involve domination, oppression, submission or resistance amongst
social groups and communities. Recognition is given to the capacity of
translation to forge social and cultural change. Postcolonial contexts have
proven to be particularly fertile for the study of ideological issues related to
translation insofar as they reflect a situation of inequality between language
communities. In these contexts, translation can be used as a political artefact
either to perpetuate colonial domination or to fight against it. As a result, the
1990s have seen the emergence of postcolonial translation theories.

These new theories are not only applicable to contexts that are most commonly
identified as postcolonial, but to any type of situation where there exists
inequality between the two systems in which translation takes place (e.g., in
subaltern cultures where the practice of translation can become a means of
resistance against a situation of cultural domination and a channel of self-
definition). In this regard, the situation of Galicia in the 1920s and 1930s is
paradigmatic and it offers invaluable grounds for the study of translation when
used as an ideological instrument in the struggle for the search and construction
of a national identity. During this period a group of intellectuals, widely known as
Xeración Nós, emerged in the region concerned with the articulation of a
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nationalist discourse based on the cultural and political differentiation of Galicia
with regard to the rest of Spain. Their nation-building project was a response to
a situation of cultural oppression, long imposed by the Spanish state
represented by Castile, and it was based on the concepts of Celticism and
Atlanticism. Resorting back to the alleged Galician ancestors, the Celts, they
strove to establish affinities with the other so-called Celtic nations of Northern
Europe, particularly Ireland, in order to include Galicia within the Celtic
mythological tradition and, by extension, within a new Atlantic civilisation
opposed to the Mediterranean one which they associated with Spain.

Within this well planned ideological agenda, translation of Irish literary texts
played an essential role as it was used as a political tool to establish the
abovementioned affinity with Ireland. From the selection of the texts to be
translated to the actual discourse strategies used by the translators, translation
became a process of appropriation and manipulation to support ideological
ends. Focusing on the translations of the Irish poet and playwright W.B. Yeats,
the most translated Irish writer of the period and profoundly admired by the
Galician intelligentsia, this thesis intends to explore how translation was used in
a subversive and manipulative way to show Galicia’s distinctiveness and to
build a national identity resisting cultural domination. Therefore, I will
demonstrate the capacity of translation to shape cultures and to aid and support
cultural and social change.

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A meus pais,
Juan Vázquez Dacal e Lola Fernández Fernández,
polo seu apoio incondicional.

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Acknowledgments
Foremost, I would like to thank my main supervisor Professor Derek Flitter for
his intellectual help and support, but mostly, for the motivation and steady
encouragement he provided throughout the duration of this project. I am also
indebted to Dr. Alberto Álvarez Lugrís for agreeing to take part in this project
and for his guidance and assistance at some crucial stages of the manuscript. I
thank them both for believing in me and guiding me through the writing of this
thesis.

I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Kim Schulte for the help he
offered me as second supervisor at the very early and decisive stage of this
thesis. My special thanks go to Dr. Paul O’Neill for taking time out of his busy
life to proofread my dissertation. I am particularly grateful to my friends who
have helped me get through the whole process with their unconditional support
and great patience.

Last but not least, I thank all the people and institutions who have assisted me
with the gathering of the material that has made the writing of this thesis
possible: staff at the Biblioteca Central (Ourense), Biblioteca Xeral (Santiago de
Compostela), Biblioteca de Filoloxía (Santiago de Compostela), Bibliothèque
Nationale de France (Paris), Fundación Vicente Risco (Allariz, Ourense).

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Table of Contents

Abstract 2
Acknowledgements 5
Abbreviations 9
Introduction 10

Chapter 1
Translation and the nation-building project: Galicia as a paradigm 19
1.1Imagining the nation: the Celtic origins of Galicia 19

1.2 Ireland as a role model 44

1.3 The Xeración Nós and the practice of translation 54

1.4 The need for a comprehensive study of W.B. Yeats’ translations 56

Chapter 2
Translation and the Ideology of Resistance: a theoretical approach 62

2.1 Translation and Ideology in the Galician context 62
2.2 Paving the way: polysystem theory and descriptive
translation studies 67

2.3 The ‘cultural turn’ in translation studies.
Towards the consideration of translation as an ideological act 73

2.4 Translation as a way of resistance; postcolonial translation theory 78
2.5 Critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a tool for translation studies 97

Chapter 3
Appropriating the author: Risco (para)translates W.B. Yeats 102

3.1 The reception of W.B. Yeats in Galicia 102

3.2 Vicente Risco, the main ideologue of Galician nationalism 114

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3.3 Yeats in Risco’s translations 123

Chapter 4
Promulgating self-sacrifice: translation strategies in
Cathleen ni Houlihan 146
4.1 Political meaning of the Irish play 146
4.2 The source text: English or Catalan? 151
4.3 Translation Strategies .158
4.3.1 Linguistic differentiation 160
4.3.2 Additions and omissions 171
4.3.3 Strategy of deletion/ retention of foreign features 175
4.3.4 Strategy of manipulation of meaning 177
4.4. Comparison between the 1921 and the 1935 versions 185

Chapter 5
Celticism and Saudade: translation strategies in
The Land of Heart’s Desire 198

5.1 Celticism and Saudade: the convergence of two cultures 198

5.2 The Galician and the Catalan versions of the folk-drama 207

5.3 Translation strategies 216
5.3.1 Strategies of linguistic differentiation 217
5.3.1.1Inflected infinitive 227
5.3.1.2 Pronouns 229
5.3.1.3 Inclusion of more vernacular vocabulary
and expressions 230

5.3.2 Strategy of deletion/retention of foreign features 234

5.3.3 Mistranslations 236

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5.3.4 Additions 238
5.3.4.1 Inclusion of religious and pagan references 238
5.3.4.2 Inclusion of conversational traits 241
5.3.4.3 Inclusion of enxebre language 242
5.3.4.4. Addition of lyrical effects 243
5.3.4.5 Manipulations of meaning 244
5.3.5 Omissions 246
5.4 1977 re-edition of Catuxa de Houlihan and O país da saudade 249
Conclusion 252
Bibliography 260

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Abbreviations

ANT A Nosa Terra
CDA Critical Discourse Analysis
CT Catalan
DdD Diccionario de diccionarios-Corpus lexicográfico da lingua galega
GL Galician
SL Source language
ST Source text
TL Target language
TT Target text

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Introduction

In the context of a minority culture, the practice of translation can become an
essential tool of national self-definition and a way of resistance against a
situation of cultural domination. As a social and cultural activity which is inserted
in a specific political, social, historic and cultural context, translation reflects the
unequal power relationships that exist between certain language communities.
Consequently, it should be understood and studied as an ideological activity
that has the potential to shape cultures and build identities. For a minority
culture struggling for cultural differentiation, the texts selected for translation can
acquire a symbolic meaning of national self-affirmation, and the discursive
strategies used by the translators are often oriented to show that particular
culture’s distinctive identity rather than trying to achieve mimetic reproduction of
the source text.

This was the situation with the practice of translation in Galicia during what is
called the Nós period (1920-1936), when a group of intellectuals, known as
Xeración Nós and Irmandades da Fala, sought to defend Galicia’s singularity
and distinctiveness with regard to the rest of Spain after a long period of
repression and neglect. This intelligentsia followed a nationalist agenda based
on the integration of Galicia within the group of Celtic nations. Furthermore, they
proposed the birth of a new Atlantic civilization, as opposed to the
Mediterranean one associated with Castilian Spain, which would result from the
Celtic revival. The Celtic myth had already been introduced in Galicia by the
nineteenth-century historians José Verea Aguiar, Benito Vicetto and Manuel
Murguía who, believing that the history of Galicia had been ignored for too long,
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