Traduzir um texto inacabado

: O Livro do Desassossego em Portugal e na Alemanha

Abstract

Although the Livro do Desassossego has never been published in an authorized version by the author, it has had an important impact on the reception of Fernando Pessoa’s work both in Portugal and abroad. Pessoa published only twelve of the over five hundred fragments of the first edition which appeared in 1982. Therefore, all existing Portuguese editions are based on a process of transcription, selection and organization of the otherwise unorganized and unpublished texts, an organization performed not by the author, but by several editors. Consequently, it seems possible to argue that the editors intervene in a co-authorial way, creating different versions of the text, which are the result of different theoretical and editorial schools and approaches. The Livro do Desassossego gains a particular relevance when one considers its translations because they challenge the notion of a stable source text. In the case of the German translations, for instance, there are two translations, each with a very different approach to the Portuguese editions. The first translator, Georg Rudolf Lind, proposes a new organization and selection, instead of following the source text of the first Portuguese edition. In the second translation, the translator respects the organization proposed by Richard Zenith’s Portuguese edition, while wishing to revise the first translation at the same time, even if it differs significantly from it in terms of selection and order. Due to the inexistence of a definite version, the Livro do Desassossego challenges the romantic notion of authorship and allows for new perspectives on the relationship between authorship and text circulation. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation is to study the different Portuguese editions and the German translations, suggesting that they may represent different versions, which offer different interpretations of the text. The work does not seem to be a stable object, but rather an unfinished signifying process in which several individuals participate. In this perspective, the borders between edition and translation, between source and target texts tend to be erased, and the author is not conceptualized as a historical figure, but rather as a cultural construct which classifies and characterizes discursive realities. Therefore, despite its textual plurality, the names of the work and author unify different versions in a joint project and condition the circulation of the Livro in Portugal and abroad.

Date of Award	17 Jan 2014
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Maria Alexandra Ambrósio Lopes (Supervisor)