Metaphor translated: Figurative language in two Spanish versions of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.

FACULTAD de FILOSOFÍA Y LETRAS DEPARTAMENTO de FILOLOGÍA INGLESA Grado en Estudios Ingleses TRABAJO DE FIN DE GRADO Metaphor translated: Figurative language in two Spanish versions of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez Tutor: Carlos Herrero Quirós 2018-2019 ABSTRACT The present study performs an analysis of the translation of metaphors in Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, arguably one of his most important works, and representative of his main themes: love, friendship or sexuality; the divinity of man, democracy, nature; or the community of the human race. Specifically, the analysis focuses on the poem “Song of Myself” and the handling of figurative language by two Spanish-language translators: Eduardo Moga and Jorge Luis Borges. Both successfully attempt to convey the full impact of Whitman’s striking metaphors, yet each does so according to his distinctive poetics (in turn shaped by literary influences and personal circumstances) and his views on literary translation. Our graduation project tries to qualify their similarities and differences as regards the translation of Whitman’s metaphors and metaphor-related figures of speech. Keywords: Translation, Metaphors, Walt Whitman, Jorge Luis Borges, Eduardo Moga, Leaves of Grass RESUMEN El presente estudio realiza un análisis de la traducción de las metáforas en la obra de Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass, con toda seguridad una de sus obras más importantes y representativa de sus temas principales: el amor, la amistad o la sexualidad; la divinidad del hombre, la democracia, la naturaleza; o la comunidad de la raza humana. Específicamente, el análisis se centra en el poema "Song of Myself” y en el manejo del lenguaje figurado por parte de dos traductores de lengua hispana: Eduardo Moga y Jorge Luis Borges. Ambos intentan con éxito transmitir el impacto total de las llamativas metáforas de Whitman, pero cada uno lo hace de acuerdo con su propia poética (a su vez moldeada por influencias literarias y circunstancias personales) y sus puntos de vista sobre la traducción literaria. El presente TFG aborda sus similitudes y diferencias con respecto a la traducción de las metáforas de Whitman y otras figuras del discurso relacionadas con la metáfora. Palabras clave: Traducción, metáforas, Walt Whitman, Jorge Luis Borges, Eduardo Moga, Hojas de Hierba 1 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez TABLE OF CONTENTS P. 1. INTRODUCTION 3 2. ASSUMPTIONS AND OBJECTIVES 6 3. WALT WHITMAN AND LEAVES OF GRASS 10 4. OTHER SPANISH TRANSLATIONS OF LEAVES OF GRASS 14 5. ANALYSIS 18 5.1 A brief note on the translation of metaphors 18 5.2 Jorge Luis Borges 21 5.2.1 The poetics of a writer/translator 21 5.2.2 Borges’s translation of “Song of Myself” 25 5.3 Eduardo Moga 31 5.3.1 Literary and poetic background 31 5.3.2 Moga’s translation of “Song of Myself” 34 6. CONCLUSION 39 7. WORKS CITED 42 2 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez 3 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez 1. INTRODUCTION The present study performs an analysis of the translation of metaphors in Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, arguably one of his most important works, and representative of his main themes: love, friendship or sexuality; the divinity of man, democracy, nature; or the community of the human race. Specifically, the analysis focuses on the poem “Song of Myself” and the handling of figurative language by two Spanish-language translators: Eduardo Moga and Jorge Luis Borges. Both successfully attempt to convey the full impact of Whitman’s striking metaphors, yet each does so according to his distinctive poetics (in turn shaped by literary influences and personal circumstances) and his views on literary translation. My graduation project aims to qualify the similarities and differences of both versions as regards the translation of Whitman’s metaphors and metaphor-related figures of speech. I will start by providing a brief background section to contextualize the subject of analysis, the work and its author, including a reference to the major themes of Leaves of Grass and some background information about the poet supported by bibliographic sources. Next, the main assumptions and objectives will be laid down. The present study’s approach is hypothetical and deductive, in the sense that it sets out to validate the hypotheses that have been previously formulated. More particularly, I will formulate two main hypotheses in relation to the translations under examination, which my later analysis will either confirm or disprove. Following these preliminary sections, the central part of the project will concern itself with presenting and analyzing the translations of Leaves of Grass by Jorge Luis Borges and Eduardo Moga. Before that, however, I shall briefly review other published Spanish versions of Whitman’s poetic masterpiece. In the analysis proper, a special emphasis will be laid on the strategies used by Borges and Moga in dealing with Whitman’s figurative language. Given the present study’s space constraints, as well as the fact that Borges’s translation is partial and does not include all the poems in Leaves of Grass, I shall confine my analysis to one of the book’s most important poems: “Song of Myself” (1855). The choice of this poem is further supported by the fact that it deals with 4 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez Whitman’s most central topics, as mentioned above. In order to poetically address them, Whitman filled the poem with images and symbolism. Specific examples, particularly relating to figurative language, will be extracted, discussed, and compared with their Spanish translations. The analysis and discussion of such examples will rely on standard classifications of translation procedures for figurative language (Newmark, Álvarez, and van den Broeck). In this sense, interventions such as omission, paraphrase, translation ‘stricto sensu’, modulation, the transformation of the original metaphor into a simile, etc., will be borne in mind with a view to defining overall trends or strategies in the two versions under examination. Ultimately, this analysis aims to ascertain, from a purely descriptive point of view, 1) the levels of fidelity and equivalence of the respective translations by Borges and Moga with regard to Whitman’s handling of metaphors, both in terms of tenors and vehicles, and 2) whether divergences between the strategies deployed by both translators reflect specific poetics or views on literary translation. Such findings and results will be recapitulated in the project’s final section, devoted to the study’s conclusions, where additionally the initial hypotheses will be either confirmed or declared non valid. 5 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez 12 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez later American poetry. We may safely say that Leaves of Grass showcases Whitman’s overall evolution as a poet even though his literary output includes other collections of verse such as November Boughs (1888), which contains sixty-four poems, and prose essays like the classic Democratic Vistas (1871), incidentally included in the sixth edition of Leaves of Grass. Numerous biographies of Whitman have been published. Special mention must be made of the 1883 account of Whitman’s life by Richard Maurice Bucke This biography is important because it was supervised by the poet himself and covers the main episodes of his life. Also important are Gay Wilson Allen’s A Critical Biography of Walt Whitman (1955) and Jerome Loving’s Walt Whitman: the Song of Himself (2000), translated by Carlos Roche Suárez in 2002. 13 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez 14 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez 4. OTHER SPANISH TRANSLATIONS OF LEAVES OF GRASS Leaves of Grass has been repeatedly translated into several languages. In the introduction that precedes Moga’s translation, Moga refers to the Spanish (and Catalan) versions of Whitman’s magnum opus in chronological order (78-94). Moga reminds us, for example, that a translation was first published in Spain in the Catalan language by Cebrià Montoliu in 1909. It was titled Fulles d’Herba and contained twenty-four poems and a preface. The next translation was done by the Uruguayan Armando Vasseur in 1912. Umaña argues that “es una antología que apenas si incluye cerca de una cuarta parte de la totalidad de los poemas” (74). Moga agrees with this statement since he claims that it is “una versión parcial, y de hecho, relativamente pequeña de la producción total de Whitman” (79). This translation was published in several editions until 1953 when it appeared with a foreword by Vasseur himself, who was criticized for the introduction of many modifications that were unsupported by the source text. In 1941, León Felipe translated Leaves of Grass into Spanish. It was composed of a prologue in verse and nine poems (Moga 54). Umaña qualifies this as a free translation that distorts the original work (75). In fact, it is generally referred to as a paraphrase, one that altered many details of the original, including locations, and the age, physical condition, and sex of the characters mentioned, or the actions described. Hence, it is considered by many authors as a personal translation in which León Felipe seems to be the author himself. Borges himself judged this translation as “erroneous and periphrastic” (Gargatagli 68-70), while according to Frau, for instance, León Felipe used elements and typical expressions of his own poetry, such as correlations (18). A few years later, there appeared another selection of Whitman’s poems in Spanish. It was done by the Chilean poet Concha Zardoya in 1945 and titled Cantando a la primavera, although subsequently it would come to be called Obras Escogidas. From then on, partial Spanish renderings of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, some of them remarkable, would follow. Moga himself highlights some of them in his 2015 edition for Galaxia Gutenberg. The first one he mentions is Walt Whitman, canto de la democracia. Ensayo biográfico y breve antología, by Miguel R. Mendoza (1946). This publication was followed by La última vez que florecieron las lilas en el patio, by 15 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez Arturo Torres Rioseco (1946), Gregorio Gasman’s 1949 Saludo al mundo, and the 1953 collection Poesía, by José María Espinós. The first full translation into Spanish was made by Francisco Alexander in 1953 and was finally revised and edited by Editorial Visor in 2006. Alexander maintained, like Moga, that it is important to translate the complete collection by Whitman. In the words of Moga, “la traducción de Alexander es diligente, e incluye, además, cuatro de los cinco prólogos que Whitman incorporó a las sucesivas ediciones del poemario” (82). This publication reflects a standard of fidelity that, as we will see in a later section of this study, characterizes Moga’s own endeavor. The subsequent known translation was written by Borges (1969). Suffice it to say, for the time being, that from Moga’s point of view, Borges’s translation is the best of all those published since it is the most accurate and literary of all available (84). Borges only translated “Song of Myself,” and some poems from Children of Adam and Calamus. After the Borges version, we find another succession of partial translations. These include, among others, the following: Hojas de Hierba, by Leandro Wolfson (1976); Hojas de Hierba. Antología bilingüe, by Manuel Villar Raso (1995); or more recent translations such as La extension de mi cuerpo, by Antonio Rivero Taravillo (2014). Despite being a partial translation, Wolfson’s version arguably possesses the additional merit of containing the most interesting work of the whole set. This is because Wolfson’s translation includes a sound critical apparatus featuring numerous final notes. Together with these partial attempts, two more complete translations supplement the above-mentioned work by Francisco Alexander: those by Pablo Mañé (1978) and Pablo Ingberg (2009). Ingberg’s translation deserves special consideration because it is full of strange and even unintelligible neologisms. Finally, Moga contributed in 2015 a complete and bilingual edition of Leaves of Grass that I intend to discuss next. His version has had five editions, although we will be using the fourth one. As mentioned earlier, the fourth edition includes an introduction with details about Whitman’s life and work, an analysis of the contemporary (mainly negative) critical response, and an assessment of the overall significance of Leaves of Grass. It also includes notes and final references. It is considered a full and definitive translation as it follows the structure established by 16 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez Whitman in his final edition. As Moga claims, “Traducir solo la primera edición, o una parte cualquiera de su obra, supone sustraer al lector una parte sustancial, y muy meritoria, de su hercúlea labor como poeta” (94). 17 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez 18 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez 5. ANALYSIS 5.1 A brief note on the translation of metaphors The translation of metaphors is one of the most complex issues for a translator. As Lakoff and Johnson already explained in their classic monograph (1980), there has been considerable development in the theory of metaphor, particularly within the cognitive sciences. It is beyond the scope of this paper to develop a minimally complete discussion of this issue, but it may be worthwhile to review some simple and even practical notions, especially within the area of translation studies. The main components of metaphors were already defined by I.A. Richards, the first to use the terms “vehicle” and “tenor” together in regards to metaphors. “Vehicle” alludes to the image and “tenor” to “the idea conveyed in the vehicle” (qtd in Álvarez 481). For M. Blacks, a metaphor “is not an isolated term, but a sentence” (qtd. in Álvarez 481), and it is necessary to read the entire sentence to interpret the images. Furthermore, Lakoff and Johnson state that when there is a metaphor, there is a change in the domain of experience (qtd. in Álvarez 479). More specifically in terms of metaphor and translation, according to Newmark, there are five types of metaphors (106-112). The first group is composed of the socalled dead metaphors, often applied to universal themes such as space, time or everyday human activities. According to Álvarez, some metaphors are in the process of dying and becoming part of a common language (479), i.e. lexicalized (Kittay, qtd. ibid.). They are considered easy to translate. The second group consists of cliché metaphors, which have a specific use in occasional contexts. They do not represent feelings or specific psychological motivations. The third group is stock or standard metaphors. Metaphors in this third group are commonly used, and they represent emotions and thoughts. That is why they are trickier to translate or to find an equivalent for. The fourth type of metaphor is recent metaphors. They appear often in computer nomenclature, such as software. None of these, including idioms of set phrases pose the same kind of challenge as the type of figurative language that concerns us now: original metaphors, i.e. non-lexicalized figurations where “the metaphorical meaning is not clearly fixed, but varies from context to context, and typically has to be worked out by the reader from context to context” (Dickins 232). Arguably, poetry contains the most original metaphors. They represent the poet’s unique worldview, feelings and emotions, 19 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez and personality; they enrich the text with connotation, ambiguity and cultural depth; and their translatability has been challenged by some scholars. Indeed, the scholarly debate on metaphor translation is broad and varied. Kloepfer (1967) states that it is typically possible to translate metaphors (qtd. in Álvarez 482). On the contrary, Eugène Nida and Vinay and Darbelnet insist that sometimes it is impossible (qtd. in Álvarez 482). A number of scholars, remarkably Van den Broeck (77) and Newmark (482), pragmatically and didactically classify the several procedures available for metaphor translation (482): from literal or “stricto sensu” to rendering metaphor as sense (paraphrase), including substitution/modulation of the original vehicle , conversion to a simile or a number of combinations of these strategies. Original, poetic metaphors heavily depend on context for their interpretation and frequently involve an element of deviation from ordinary language use. This has led some authors to suggest either extremely cautious and literal (nearly word-for-word) strategies or particularly creative ones (Lomheim, qtd. in Park, 167). 20 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez 21 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez 5.2 JORGE LUIS BORGES 5.2.1 The poetics of a writer/translator Argentina’s Jorge Luis Borges is considered one of the most important writers in the whole of twentieth-century world literature. It is very difficult to summarize his full import, but it is easy to agree that “he created a new literary continent between North and South America, between Europe and America, between old worlds and modernity” (Ciabattari n.pag.). He has had a truly universal projection and has been influential on many later writers. His narratives and essays are full of symbolism and among his vast repertoire of influences English-language literature is paramount. Together with his extensive body of fiction and essay writing, he also wrote poetry. Blanco states that in all of his poems “dominan ampliamente figuras de tipo metonímico, fundadas en la contigüidad” (33). For Borges, a metaphor is a link between two terms that transform one into another (Blanco 29). It is to be expected that he adapted his translations of poetry to his way of understanding metaphor. In fact, Borges once considered that metaphors were the most suitable device in providing a new sense to poetic discourse. That is why in 1919 he began to feel fascinated with a new literary and intellectual movement called Ultraism. It was a literary movement that began in Spain at the end of 1918 and continued until 1922 (Sangoor 253). It emerged after the First World War, and had two leading precursors: Juan Ramón Jiménez and Ramón Gómez de la Serna. Jiménez himself wrote poems using modernistic features such as metaphors and humor. On the other hand, Gómez de la Serna was also an ambassador of the avant-garde movements in Europe (Zayas 9). He published articles in magazines and was a great influence to later writers. According to Ema, Ultraism arose from the need to express emotions and feelings together with an interest in technology (517). Ultraism mainly focused on the use of metaphors and images. Ultraists considered the poem as an object that results from the superposition of images (Gullón 337). Moreover, Ultraists created striking images, because, for them, the image was the most important device in poetry (340). Creating images was the main way to express the writer’s emotions and provide meaning in this new form of poetry. Images were also used to draw the reader’s attention by producing novel, unfamiliar forms of artistic expression. Furthermore, Ultraism tried to create a new world full of dynamism and simultaneity of objects (Zayas 13). 28 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez solves economically and pretty literally: “¡Sonríe, tierra voluptuosa de fresco aliento!” (71). Another particularly central metaphor in the poem (Cf. Welty 87) —“Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son” (76) — is equally dealt with by Borges by identically preserving vehicle and word order: “Walt Whitman, un cosmos, de Manhattan el hijo” (77). Furthermore, in “Know my omnivorous lines and must not write any less” (140), “lines” is likewise transformed into an animated creature. Borges translates it fairly literally, at least as far as the figurative language is concerned: “Sé que mis versos son omnívoros, pero he de seguir escribiéndolos” (141). However, he recasts the negative construction as a positive statement, perhaps introducing a slight change in the statement’s modality. Another interesting example is “The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged” (40), here rendered as “La clara luz juega sobre los vaivenes del verde, del pardo y del gris” (41). Borges chooses to change the word order and resorts to a nominalization (“green intertinged” becomes “vaivenes del verde”), whereas the single concept “brown gray” becomes the dyad “del pardo y del gris.” We may perhaps argue that in dealing with such visual images, Borges resorts to a freer, more personal style of translation, even though his freedom remains controlled. Whitman’s poetic idioms also rely on similes, and accordingly Borges’s version contains a number of explicit comparisons. An example of this is “Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights” (24) and “Seguros como la certidumbre más firme, seguros y afianzados” (25). In this example, there are interesting inventions, particularly in the translation of the second part of the line, for what is not a particularly diaphanous phrasing. “Plumb” is translated by the couplet “seguros y afianzados”, whereas “in the uprights” is omitted in the translated text. Another instance that also involves a comparison is “Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical” (26) translated, this time quite literally and with exactly the same amount of lexical originality, as “Fuertes como un caballo, afectuosos, soberbios, eléctricos” (27), a strategy otherwise maintained in many instances of tropes where the explicit words of comparison are omitted: for example, “Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic” (32) becomes “O sospecho que la hierba misma es un niño, el recién nacido de la tierra. O un jeroglífico uniforme” (33). Borges retains the same structure, but avoids the repetition: a common (sometimes challenged) instinct in ENGL>ESP translation, even in the case of literary texts whose 29 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez TL renderings sometimes exhibit “a tendency not to transfer original repetitions —not out of carelessness nor out of linguistic constraints, but out of normative stylistic considerations, on the assumption that repetitions are not ‘elegant’ and reflect a poor vocabulary” (Ben-Ari 11). Borges is also sensitive to Whitman’s intertextual echoes within the poem. Let us remember that Whitman’s metaphors do not constitute isolated instances but extended, allegorical images and personifications that sustain the whole composition. A central metaphor in the poem used to pantheistically encompass the whole of humankind is “And of these one and all I weave the song of myself” (58). Borges maintains the same structure in his rendering “Y en todos y en cada uno voy tejiendo el canto a mí mismo” (59). This is also a reference to the title of the poem, which is an inclusive metaphor that embraces all readers. The only difference between both versions is that in the English text, the verb is in the present simple tense, while in the Spanish version, it is in the present continuous tense, which may perhaps introduce time-related connotations (Borges’s version seems to highlight the continuity and duration of the song itself). Borges, therefore, appears to deal with figurative language in “Song of Myself” in a way that is varied and flexible in terms of the procedures employed, and adapted to each situation. Even so, there is a consistent accuracy, a remarkable poetic skill in handling both the concrete and the spiritual and an insightful perception of the kind of striking contrasts that characterize Whitman’s figurative language. As Aparicio claims, “Es una traducción de equivalencias poéticas, en la cual el lenguaje whitmanesco se mantiene en el español” (131). However, Borges does not abandon his own way of writing. He introduces a number of resourceful variations according to his own poetic style, which allows the translation to be read as an autonomous and independent text. 30 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez 31 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez 5.3 EDUARDO MOGA 5.3.1 Literary and poetic background Eduardo Moga (1962) is mostly known for his work as a translator of numerous works (including Frank O'Hara, Carl Sandburg, Charles Bukowski, Richard Aldington, William Faulkner and Walt Whitman, among others), but he is also an editor, a literary critic and a poet. In several interviews published in the printed and online media, as well as in his blog Corónicas de España (http://eduardomoga1.blogspot.com/), he has discussed his method of writing and translating, his poetic views and his literary concerns. In an interview for the poetry section of El Nacional, he suggests that a good translator must devote himself wholly to the text. He likewise insists on the critical importance for translators to gain a thorough understanding of the text in order to prevent unwarranted interpretations while at the same time creating a “persuasive” text for the TL audience: one that convinces readers that they are in front of a translation governed by a standard of fidelity to the original work (9). In the same interview Moga elaborates on his view of poetry translation. He points out the need to translate poetry even though part of the original meaning, and of the poetic value of the text, may be lost during the translation process. For him everything in the poetic text, even the slightest detail like a punctuation mark, is meaningful and demands minute attention. Quoting Octavio Paz, he sums up his rationale for poetry translation: the translator has to identify the poet’s goals and achieve the same effects in the TL insofar as it is possible. In his own words, “intento ver qué emoción, qué vibración, qué ánimo, qué idea intentaba comunicar el escritor y yo intento comunicar la misma...ese es un poco el norte por el que me oriento” (Moga El Nacional 9). In Vallejo & Co, an electronic journal of Art and Literature, Moga refers to his own conception of poetry and his literary influences (n.pag). For him composing poetry involves trying to re-learn to write with every new book of verse and creating open and contradictory structures —a statement the fitfully applies to Whitman’s poetics. Among his early influences he mentions Neruda and French symbolism. Later, he paid special attention to French and Latin American poetry. Other writers whose influence Moga acknowledges are Miguel de Cervantes, Pablo Neruda, San Juan de la Cruz, Marcel Proust, Octavio Paz and Walt Whitman. In yet another interview for the literary journal 32 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez Revista Quimera, he expresses his admiration for Juan Ramón Jiménez, whom he believes to be the most important poet of the twentieth century in Spain (n.pag.) 33 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez 34 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez 5.3.2 Moga’s translation of “Song of Myself” Among Moga’s rich body of published literary translations, his version of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is outstanding. Moga chose to translate the 1892 edition because it was authorized by Whitman shortly before dying. In Estación Poesía, Calbarro claims that “estamos ante la nueva traducción de referencia de Hojas de Hierba” (68). This complete translation published by Galaxia Gutenberg in 2015 includes an introduction in which Moga discusses Whitman’s work and life and his contribution to English-language literature, as well as providing relevant information about his critical reception and impact on Hispanic literature. As mentioned earlier in this project, he ends this introduction with a chronological discussion of previous Spanish translations of Leaves of Grass. In the quarterly journal Estación poesía, Juan Luis Calbarro (another Spanish poet) argues that all of them are inaccurate (68). Moga opts for the Leaves of Grass edition from 1892 because it was authorized by Whitman shortly before dying. In Estación Poesía, Calbarro argues “estamos ante la nueva traducción de referencia de Hojas de hierba” (68). The second part of Moga’s edition consists of the “Inscriptions” and poems. Two annexes complete the volume which contains all the poems that appear in Whitman’s original final edition. Moga adds a final section where he discusses Whitman's prose and explains the circumstances and historical events that influenced his writing. Likewise, he includes the translation of the prologues corresponding to each of the editions of Leaves of Grass. The translator’s own views about his rendering of Leaves of Grass are collected in an interview published in Revista de Letras, an online literature journal. There he points out the importance of Whitman’s work and the appeal of his poetic idiom: one that invites the audience to continue reading and penetrating into the heart of the poems. Moga, who admits that he approached the task with utter respect, acknowledges that he took the previous Spanish translations as a reference. In his opinion, the best of all these versions is the one by Borges, even though it only contains “Song of Myself” and a selection of poems (n.pag.) Concerning the main difficulties encountered in performing his job, Moga notes that Whitman is not easy to translate because of his colloquialisms, archaisms, and neologisms. Additional hurdles are the poems’ powerful rhythm and imagery. 35 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez Broadly speaking, Moga’s translation is extremely neat and restrained and often operates on literal principles. Literal enough, for example is his rendering of “the atmosphere is not a perfume (…) I am in love with it” (166) —one of Whitman’s recurrent personifications of abstract concepts— as “la átmosfera no es un aroma (…) estoy enamorado de ella” (167). And nearly word-for-word, yet none-the-less accomplished, is the translation of “Corpses rise, gashes heal, fastening roll from me” (270) as “los muertos se levantan, las heridas sanan, las ligaduras se deshacen” (271). Otherwise, it is not difficult to illustrate specific translations of metaphorical language in Leaves of Grass that involve regular transpositions (nominalizations), for example: “The Lord will be there and wait till I come on perfect terms” (294)/ “Allí estará el Señor, esperando mi llegada, en perfectas condiciones” (295). Sometimes, Moga’s interventions are minimal but give away his close attention to detail, like in the following segment where the poet directly addresses Death and where punctuation is slightly altered in tune with the translator’s views on the rendering of poetry expressed in one of the interviews cited above (34): “And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me” (304)/ “y en cuanto a ti, Muerte, y a ti, amargo abrazo de la mortalidad, es inútil que intentéis asustarme” (305). It is interesting, at this point, to focus once again on one of the poem’s complex images that caused Borges to engage in a drastic rewording of the line (see above, p. 27). “I fly those flights of a fluid and swallowing soul” (250). This is an important image from the point of view of the poem’s spiritual proposal, since as Welty states, “Whitman employs a variation on this theme by endowing the persona's soul with the ability to transmigrate temporarily into the body of others, and thus to attain complete empathic identification with those others” (26). Moga’s rendering, while also involving some compression and the loss of the alliterative effect, is considerably more literal (yet not necessarily less effective) than Borges’s: “mis vuelos son los de un alma fluida y voraz” (251). Moga’s extreme respect for the original words —those words that “itch at your ears till you understand them” (300) — does not make his translation slavish, and he often resorts to modulation. According to Vinay and Darbelnet, this is “a variation through a change of viewpoint, of perspective (eclairage) and very often of category of thought” (qtd. in Newmark A textbook 88). For example, “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you” (164) is translated by Moga as “porque no hay átomo en mí 36 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez que no te pertenezca” (165), thus negating the opposite of what is stated in the original version possibly in order to “be faithful to the intention of the author and the genius of the language” (Vinay & Darbelnet, qtd. in Pym 140). Another modulation takes place when Moga translates “Agonies are one of my changes of garments” (256) as “el sufrimiento es una de mis mudas” (257), a wording partly similar to Borges’s yet involving an even greater reduction. Other than this, Eduardo Moga’s thorough version does not particularly engage in free-reined recreation. Even so, there are occasional instances of a freer approach like for example in “I stand and look at them long and long” (238)/ “no me canso de mirarlos” (239). This kind of translation “reproduces the matter without the manner, or the content without the form of the original” (Newmark A textbook 46). Before closing this discussion of selected instances of figurative language in Moga’s translation, it is worth mentioning that Moga agrees with Borges in the translation of many verses. Leaving aside such cases where there is little or no room for motivated variation (e.g., “I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul” (212)/ “soy el poeta del Cuerpo y soy el poeta del Alma” (213))—the typically Whitmanesque statement that a union “of those dualities is necessary for the persona to achieve inner peace” (Welty 28)—, the original metaphor “loose the stop from your throat” (174) provides an interesting example, since Moga’s Spanish translation is curiously identical to Borges’s —“desembaraza tu garganta” (175)— and rather reads like a mere sanctioning of the Argentinian’s. In any case, it strikes us as a semantic translation that preserves and even enhances the aesthetic value of the verse: a translation that “is more flexible, admits the creative exception to 100% fidelity and allows for the translator's intuitive empathy with the original” (Newmark A Textbook 46), which in turn shows that Moga’s high fidelity standard admits of some exceptions. On the other hand, Moga translates some verses differently from Borges. For example, for “I harbor for good or bad” (166), Moga opts for “acojo el bien y el mal” (167). In this regard, while conducting our analysis of Borges’s version, we positively valued Borges’s verb>noun transposition as not simply legitimate and faithful enough, but also more impactful in figurative terms than preserving the original first person noun (see above, p.26). Strategically relevant, on the other hand, are their differences with regard to the translation of the line “And of these one and all I weave the song of myself” (202), which echoes the poem’s title and is rendered by Moga as “y con todos y 37 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez cada uno voy tejiendo el canto de mí mismo” (203). Borges, by contrast, favors the wording “canto a mi mismo”, while Moga chooses “canto de mí mismo”. While involving only a one-letter difference, this variation may have consequences in the sense that Borges’s preposition perhaps foregrounds the celebratory nature of the “Song”. To conclude, Eduardo Moga’s translation of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass shows a feeling for metaphor (no doubt enriched by his own experience as a poet) and a meticulous respect for their original wording which does not lead to stiff or unnatural renderings nor precludes his verbal creativity. To these merits, one must add the completeness of his edition and his input as editor and scholar. Whitman’s new conception of democratic love that requires a new attitude towards the body and sexuality (Navarro n.pag) is competently carried through in this 21st century translation, which, however, and according to Moga himself, will someday become outdated: “Traducir es fracasar, incluso cuando tu fracaso no es demasiado clamoroso, (…) esa traducción está condenada a caducar, es decir, al cabo del tiempo esa lengua evoluciona, las lenguas evolucionan y necesariamente esa traducción, como los organismos vivos, declinará, envejecerá y morirá” (Moga El Nacional 9) 44 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez Fernández Nistal, Purificación. "Problemática de la traducción de "Song of Myself" al castellano." ES Review. Spanish Journal of English Studies. Vol. 11, 1981: pp. 201-48. PDF File. Fondebrider, Jorge. Respuestas de Jorge Luis Borges. CATÁLOGO DE INTÉRPRETES E TRADUTORES. 2016. https://bit.ly/31dgIki Accessed. May 2019. 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Revista de Letras. 2 Feb. 2015: n.p. Web. Navarro, Miguel. “Una aproximación al pensamiento al pensamiento político de Walt Whitman.” Revista Lume. 2018: n.p. http://ypn1lmb.preview.s1.siweb.es/noticias/una-aproximacion-al-pensamiento- politico-de-walt-whitman/. Accessed 12 Mar. 2019. Newmark, Peter. About Translation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1991. Print. ---. A Textbook of Translation. s.l: SHANGHAI FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION PRESS, 1988. Print. Paden, Jeremy. “Whitman, Borges, and Ironic Detachment.” Spalding MFA. Spalding University, 22 Jul. 46 Universidad de Valladolid María del Carmen Nafría Sánchez 2018.https://spaldingmfablog.wordpress.com/2018/07/22/whitman-borges-and- ironic-detachment/ Accessed. 13 Mar. 2019. Park, Ocksue. “The issue of metaphor in literary translation: focusing on the analysis of a short story translation.” Journal of Universal Language Vol. 10, no.1, 2009: pp. 155-175. Yeungnam University. DOI: 10.22425/jul.2009.10.1.155 Pym, Anthony. “Translation solutions for many languages: Histories of a flawed dream”. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016. Google Books, https://bit.ly/2QSJJx3 Accessed. 13 Mar. 2019. Rodríguez, Emir. “Borges: teoría y práctica.” Número, Vol. 27: pp. 124-157. http://anaforas.fic.edu.uy/jspui/bitstream/123456789/26031/1/211.Borges- Teoria_y_practica.pdf Accessed. 14 Mar. 2019. Sangoor, Waseem. “El ultraísmo en la poesía española: su aparición y sus rasgos.” Journal of the College of Languages. no.34, 2016: pp. 253-285. https://www.iasj.net/iasj?func=fulltext&aId=111336 Accessed. 12 Mar. 2019. Smith, Marjorie. “El erotismo en Canto de mí mismo de Walt Whitman.” Revista Chilena de literatura. No. 66, 2005: pp. 85-96. Scielo, https://scielo.conicyt.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0718- 22952005000100005 Accessed. 13 Mar. 2019. Strong, Beret E. “The poetic avant-garde: the groups of Borges, Auden, and Breton”. Northwestern University Press, 1997. Print. 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