Poéticas em conflito: a literatura brasileira traduzida por Elizabeth Bishop no contexto das trocas culturais Brasil x EUA

Abstract

This article proposes to analyse, from a systemic approach of cultural exchanges between different nations and languages, the Brazilian translation work of American poet Elizabeth Bishop, produced in the 1950-70’s. Based on the polysystem theory of Itamar Even-Zohar, and Andrè Lefevere’s theory of rewriting, we demonstrate how the flow of literary translations often follows dynamics that go beyond strictly literary criteria. Bishop’s view of Brazilian literature is traced through the study of her translations and other textual production and it shows a cultural conflict. This conflict is found in the contact of two different literary poetics and two different modernist proposals: the Anglo-Saxon tradition in which Bishop developed her literary career, and the Brazilian literature, until then affiliate to French literary tradition. It is appointed in this article that this tension is a consequence of this specific historical moment, when two central literary systems dispute over one considered peripheral.