This contribution opens with a proposal to approach the concepts of “collection” and “anthology” from a generic viewpoint that includes a.o. features of editorial and translational genericity. Both concepts are then replaced in their historical context, i.e. the French 19th century. Definitions, descriptions, synonyms and similar terms are drawn from contemporary dictionaries and encyclopaedias, such as the Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle by Pierre Larousse. Viewed from a historical angle, the concepts of anthology and collection appear to have served as prototypes, more particularly as interdisciplinary and multifunctional categories covering a large array of conceptual and terminological variants applied to both original and translated groupings of texts. The last part of the paper gives a detailed account of French translation anthologies and collections during the period 1810–1840: it is shown that these forms adapt with great flexibility to the different disciplines, languages, genres and publishers that make use of them.
This paper aims to research how intercultural exchanges contributed for the development of the short story in Portugal, notably to consider interference especially by English-language literary systems through the indirect channel of translation. For this purpose, it focuses on the external history of the translation into Portuguese of the short story in English, taking its publication in anthologies as a form of creative rewriting, adaptation or manipulation, as André Lefevere put it. The purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, it provides answers to questions such as whose and which short stories, when, where, by whom, why and how short stories in English were selected, translated and presented to the Portuguese reader. The cartography of such a territory is based on the presentation and analysis of a selection of data (available at the Portuguese National Library archives) regarding the introduction of the short story in English through translations published in anthologies. Secondly, resorting to Gérard Genette’s definition of peritext, i.e. paratextual elements pertaining to the book, this paper analyses the role played by peritextual discourses in a selection of anthologies. This analysis is expected to yield insights into how such anthologies introduced the short story in English to a public reading it in Portuguese version.
Referred to as a collection of (indirect or mediated) translations or lyrical adaptations, António Feijó’s Cancioneiro chinez (1890), literally the Book of Chinese Songs, is the first anthology of classical Chinese poetry translated into Portuguese. It was translated from Judith Gautier’s Le Livre de jade, which, since its publication in 1867, has been reprinted five times (1902, 1908, 1928, 1933, and 2004) and extensively translated into several European languages. Widely popular among the late nineteenth-century French audience, Le Livre de jade, which recent research has shown to collect mostly mistranslations and pseudotranslations, combines a selection of what Judith Gautier considered to mirror China’s best poetry with her own notion of an oriental aesthetics. Briefly turning to the Orient in search of new poetic possibilities, António Feijó (1859–1917) had no knowledge of the Chinese language and was never in China, which did not prevent his Cancioneiro chinez from achieving national success. This collection allowed the poet to keep pace with French literary modernity and introduced Portuguese audience to new poetic material, thus allowing him enough leeway for poetic experimentation. Based on José Lambert’s and Van Gorp’s model for translation description, our study sets out from a two-tiered textual approach: one focused on metatextual information (front cover, collection title, and preface) and the other on a macro-level comparative analysis (special focus on text division and formal structure). Both analyses will permit us to understand not only the impact of Cancioneiro chinez on a socio-cultural context highly influenced by French culture and language, but also the poet’s approach to a mediated translation of an exotic language.
What are the excitement, burden and responsibilities of a postcolonial translator and/or translation scholar in an age of globalization? The excitement, I believe, lies in a heightened awareness of what we can do and achieve. We can play many more roles than the traditional one of an efficient cross-lingual cross-cultural communicator, or a dispassionate manufacturer of cultural products. We can choose to be a cultural mediator, an innovative image-maker, or an architect of a project of political and/or ideological import, to name but just a few of the new possibilities open to us. At the same time, we have to bear in mind that possibilities carry with them the burden of choice, even of divided loyalties. The agency of a translator entails responsibilities, the heaviest being the responsibility to know why one is doing certain things in the first place, and to be articulate about it. This essay analyzes how positionality and agency function in a translation project – the compilation of an anthology, in English translation, of texts registering the thoughts and ideas about translation in China, from ancient times to the early twentieth century. Volume one, entitled An Anthology of Chinese Discourse on Translation, Volume 1: From Earliest Times to the Buddhist Project, was published in 2006, and the sequel, which covers the period from the 13th century to the early 20th century, is under preparation. Attention is focused on a single project because it telescopes many of the ethical, ideological and political issues which a postcolonial scholar has to handle, especially those of identity and representation. The essay also discusses a topic which lies at the heart of all attempts at anthology-making – the construction of knowledge (of the Self or of the Other) and the importance of the personal, the experiential and the introspective in such a venture.
The objective of the present paper is to critically review the role played in Translation Studies by fourteen anthologies of texts on translation theory, published in the Iberian Peninsula between 1987 and 2009. After presenting the works themselves, I will try to answer the following questions: What types of anthologies have been produced? Which underlying historiographic positions are revealed as a function of the choice and presentation of the texts? Which canons of translation theory do the anthologies represent (which texts are repeated and, therefore, considered classics)? Do any obvious rivalries exist between different cultural systems (Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese)? What did the compilers intend to achieve by rewriting the texts in their anthologies? And finally, what role do these anthologies really play in Translation Studies today?
Following the cultural approach developed in Göttingen (1982–1995), four contemporary anthologies of world poetry, two Portuguese and two German, are analysed. The quantitative and qualitative parameters applied to the anthologies in question provide insights into the different concepts of world poetry underlying the many configurations of national and foreign literatures at a time when the literary canon is more or less stabilised and translation has assumed its invaluable role in the specific task of cultural transfer represented by world poetry anthologies.
Applying methodologies that bring together Translation Studies and the history of books and reading, catalogues by very prestigious editors of the period are analysed with a view to characterizing the circuit of translated (para)literatures, in the stages of production, distribution and consumption. By means of a case study, this paper attempts to understand how relations of offer and demand within the cultural market have contributed to conditioning the selection of authors, literary genres and forms, expected to be more successful and popular, and have imposed specific translational norms and adequate typographical configurations
In the 1940s and 1950s, Portugal saw an increase in the number of short story anthologies written by foreign authors and published by houses that played an important role in the popularization of translated literature, among which Portugália Editora stood out. Consistently with the approach typically used in translation descriptive studies, the aim of this paper is to focus on a case-study by analysing the series published by Portugália Editora during those twenty years, highlighting the following aspects: the existence of specific series of short story anthologies, the foreign literatures translated into Portuguese, the selection process, the direct or indirect translation from and into different languages, the presence of introductions or prefaces possibly written by the translators, any additional information given by the titles of the series, the presence of famous writers in the number of translators. Those elements can contribute to define the position of short story anthologies in the system of translated literature in Portugal and their possible implications in the formation of a literary canon.
This paper sets out to identify and analyse patterns in the external history of Portuguese collections with translations of Polish literature between 1855 and 2009. By doing so, it will provide preliminary insights into how these collections have presented Polish literature to the Portuguese readership and, ultimately, how they have contributed to the canonization of Polish authors/texts and the formation of cultural relations between the two (semi)peripheral languages/cultures concerned. To achieve these goals, in the first part relevant information regarding the corpus will be provided. Secondly, the methodology for analysing collections will be briefly elucidated. Thirdly, the results of the study will be presented. More specifically, the findings of preliminary analysis leading to statistical coding of peritextual elements will be described, six collection profiles will be examined and chronological patterns in the canonization of a given Polish author will be traced. Finally, the paper’s findings will be summarized and hypotheses to be tested in future research will be proposed.
During the right-wing dictatorship (Estado Novo) that governed Portugal from 1933 to 1974, collectionism (covering anthologies, collections and libraries) was the preferred way of organizing and divulging international literature in Portugal. This study looks at literary anthologies from outside the European space, namely from countries/cultures with which Portugal had developed a special relationship after the Discoveries. Indeed, in the light of the national identity adopted by the Estado Novo, the ideology of Empire generated expectations as to how the literary production of those countries would be accepted. As this corpus could not really include Brazil and Africa, the focus was on short story anthologies translated (mostly indirectly) from Indian, Chinese, Asian and Japanese literature. Drawing on historians such as António Hespanha, these anthologies are contextualized against the background of Orientalism in Portugal. Every anthology found is described and commented upon with regard to the selection of authors and texts as well as the image of the respective culture conveyed to the reader through the work. Judging by the small number of anthologies found, it appears that the interest shown by publishers in these cultures was no more than an afterthought and reflected a lack of demand on the part of the reading public. Nonetheless such anthologies accomplish an ideological function à contrecoeur because they de-historise literary history and follow a universalising trend, thus de-characterising or, in some cases, stereotyping, at times naively, what these respective cultures may give.
This paper considers an early international publishing franchise, in which titles published in French by Gautier-Languereau for their children’s Série 15 were purchased by foreign publishing houses, translated, then marketed in Portugal, Spain and Italy. The books contain short stories (15 in each) that may originally have been intended for adult readers but have now been appropriated by literary editors for a juvenile audience, thus moving into the category of ‘crossover’ fiction. In some cases, the original story was published in English, translated into French, then re-translated from French into Portuguese or Spanish, hence the term ‘double crossing’. This process raises a number of questions about the nature of intercultural transfer, children’s responses – or responsiveness – to foreign literature, and the status accorded to children’s literature in general. An examination of some of the Portuguese translations seems to corroborate Zohar Shavit’s view (1999) that translators working with a supposedly minor or peripheral genre do not hesitate to modify or adapt their source text. While purists might wish to accuse the translator of committing an act of betrayal, as in the time-honoured adage traduttore, traditore, there is no evidence to suggest that the youthful readers of the Portuguese Série 15 felt especially defrauded or cheated in their reading experience, a reaction which may bear out Paul Hazard’s (1960) belief in a universal republic of children. Nowadays there is a great deal of theorising of children’s literature, much of it by educationalists or ‘mediadores’, some from a feminist perspective, some from the perspective of translation and cultural studies. Scholars have made in-depth studies, written essays and monographs, contributed articles to encyclopaedias and histories of children’s literature, and tackled a broad range of issues
How should an anthology of texts written in the language of the occupier be compiled in an occupied country? Which political or ideological criteria should be used and for which readers? This paper will address the Anthologie de la poésie allemande des origines à nos jours [Anthology of German Poetry. From its beginnings to the present day], by René Lasne and Georg Rabuse, published in two volumes in Paris by Stock in 1943 and more specifically its paratexts: the editor’s foreword and the preface by Karl Epting (director of the Institut allemand de Paris and friend of Céline), which offers a very valuable account of the ambiguous Franco-German literary relations during the Occupation.
An official system of censorship was established during Franco’s dictatorship in Spain in order to control the cultural sphere in the country for the duration of the political regime. In the seventies, the publishing market consisted mainly of mass literature, and the translation of anthologies of science fiction narratives and horror stories from North America was an important part of this process. These stories originated as pulps, published with titles such as Weird Tales or Terror Tales, and it is a difficult task today to trace the English versions from which they were translated, mainly due to the fact that different tales by different authors are included in these magazines. The anthologies had to follow the same control procedures as other narrative material and were closely scrutinised regarding aspects such as sexual morals and language, two of the most controversial issues during the time of the dictatorship. Some of them encountered problems because of their depiction of sexually charged scenes or immoral attitudes. This article offers a brief depiction of the kind of anthologized material translated at the time, together with an examination of some of these files, with a descriptive aim in mind. Whether they were censored or authorised or not, the main objective of the publishers of these kinds of anthologies was achieved since, thanks to them, both genres became well known in the country and encouraged Spanish writers to engage in the production of similar material, in a process of pseudotranslation that confirms their importance in the recipient culture.
This paper explores Franco’s censorship of narratives of the Far West published in collections and anthologies. The study was based on a catalogue of 727 censorship files compiled for the Western genre, TRACEniO. 55% of the files corresponded to national popular Westerns (pseudotranslations) published in a standard format in mass-produced collections. The incidence of censorship of the collections was slightly lower than for the TRACEniO overall. Although anthologies of imported American Westerns translated into Spanish were not subjected to any form of cuts or modification under the official censorship procedure, a microtextual analysis of Haycox’s short story, Mrs. Benson, reveals that the translators and/or publishers resorted to self-censorship and applied similar techniques and criteria to those used by the official censors as revealed in the TRACEniO catalogue.
Translations played an important role in introducing new philosophical ideas into Spain from 1850 on, but modern secular philosophy was more often than not in conflict with Catholicism, the dominant power in the symbolic field. Since there was little chance of publishing and publicising such works in the established media, the patrons of these translations had to establish their own publishing houses and book collections. These were used as tools to fight against a system of structural censorship that gave priority to the dominant Catholic ideology. Patricio de Azcárate, who created the first Biblioteca collection, José Perojo, Antonio Zozaya, Ortega y Gasset and Juan Bergua among others organised important collections that were based mainly on translations. Their cultural efforts were driven by a political agenda that was progressive in nature, as they all wanted to modernise Spain economically, socially and politically. As a result, they all suffered different forms of censorship and persecution.
A comparison of translation anthologies published in Portugal and Hungary when both countries lived under differing forms of dictatorial rule reveals not only different attitudes towards British literary works, but also towards literature in general. The different role ascribed to literature in Estado Novo Portugal and Socialist Hungary is also well evidenced by their dissimilar approach towards the publishing industry. The total control over book publishing and distribution in Hungary appears to show that literature played a more significant role in the Hungarian propaganda machine than in Portugal. The dominance of crime fiction anthologies in the Portuguese book market, for example, may probably be explained by the fact that, due to the lack of adequate government funding, private publishing houses were obliged to rely mostly on profitable bestsellers. Conversely, the idealistic belief in the educational power of politically reliable classics in establishing Socialism might have had the effect of depriving Hungarian readers of light and entertaining literature, but also of providing them with thousands of remarkably low-priced high-quality books and anthologies. In fact, one of the main tenets behind the Hungarian cultural politics of this period was to re-educate society with the help of the “ideologically progressive” literary heritage of tried-and-true classic authors such as Shakespeare, Shelley, Dickens, or Hardy, while in Portugal, political control was principally based on a policy of keeping the population in relative ignorance with regard to social and cultural alternatives.
This contribution opens with a proposal to approach the concepts of “collection” and “anthology” from a generic viewpoint that includes a.o. features of editorial and translational genericity. Both concepts are then replaced in their historical context, i.e. the French 19th century. Definitions, descriptions, synonyms and similar terms are drawn from contemporary dictionaries and encyclopaedias, such as the Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle by Pierre Larousse. Viewed from a historical angle, the concepts of anthology and collection appear to have served as prototypes, more particularly as interdisciplinary and multifunctional categories covering a large array of conceptual and terminological variants applied to both original and translated groupings of texts. The last part of the paper gives a detailed account of French translation anthologies and collections during the period 1810–1840: it is shown that these forms adapt with great flexibility to the different disciplines, languages, genres and publishers that make use of them.
This paper aims to research how intercultural exchanges contributed for the development of the short story in Portugal, notably to consider interference especially by English-language literary systems through the indirect channel of translation. For this purpose, it focuses on the external history of the translation into Portuguese of the short story in English, taking its publication in anthologies as a form of creative rewriting, adaptation or manipulation, as André Lefevere put it. The purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, it provides answers to questions such as whose and which short stories, when, where, by whom, why and how short stories in English were selected, translated and presented to the Portuguese reader. The cartography of such a territory is based on the presentation and analysis of a selection of data (available at the Portuguese National Library archives) regarding the introduction of the short story in English through translations published in anthologies. Secondly, resorting to Gérard Genette’s definition of peritext, i.e. paratextual elements pertaining to the book, this paper analyses the role played by peritextual discourses in a selection of anthologies. This analysis is expected to yield insights into how such anthologies introduced the short story in English to a public reading it in Portuguese version.
Referred to as a collection of (indirect or mediated) translations or lyrical adaptations, António Feijó’s Cancioneiro chinez (1890), literally the Book of Chinese Songs, is the first anthology of classical Chinese poetry translated into Portuguese. It was translated from Judith Gautier’s Le Livre de jade, which, since its publication in 1867, has been reprinted five times (1902, 1908, 1928, 1933, and 2004) and extensively translated into several European languages. Widely popular among the late nineteenth-century French audience, Le Livre de jade, which recent research has shown to collect mostly mistranslations and pseudotranslations, combines a selection of what Judith Gautier considered to mirror China’s best poetry with her own notion of an oriental aesthetics. Briefly turning to the Orient in search of new poetic possibilities, António Feijó (1859–1917) had no knowledge of the Chinese language and was never in China, which did not prevent his Cancioneiro chinez from achieving national success. This collection allowed the poet to keep pace with French literary modernity and introduced Portuguese audience to new poetic material, thus allowing him enough leeway for poetic experimentation. Based on José Lambert’s and Van Gorp’s model for translation description, our study sets out from a two-tiered textual approach: one focused on metatextual information (front cover, collection title, and preface) and the other on a macro-level comparative analysis (special focus on text division and formal structure). Both analyses will permit us to understand not only the impact of Cancioneiro chinez on a socio-cultural context highly influenced by French culture and language, but also the poet’s approach to a mediated translation of an exotic language.
What are the excitement, burden and responsibilities of a postcolonial translator and/or translation scholar in an age of globalization? The excitement, I believe, lies in a heightened awareness of what we can do and achieve. We can play many more roles than the traditional one of an efficient cross-lingual cross-cultural communicator, or a dispassionate manufacturer of cultural products. We can choose to be a cultural mediator, an innovative image-maker, or an architect of a project of political and/or ideological import, to name but just a few of the new possibilities open to us. At the same time, we have to bear in mind that possibilities carry with them the burden of choice, even of divided loyalties. The agency of a translator entails responsibilities, the heaviest being the responsibility to know why one is doing certain things in the first place, and to be articulate about it. This essay analyzes how positionality and agency function in a translation project – the compilation of an anthology, in English translation, of texts registering the thoughts and ideas about translation in China, from ancient times to the early twentieth century. Volume one, entitled An Anthology of Chinese Discourse on Translation, Volume 1: From Earliest Times to the Buddhist Project, was published in 2006, and the sequel, which covers the period from the 13th century to the early 20th century, is under preparation. Attention is focused on a single project because it telescopes many of the ethical, ideological and political issues which a postcolonial scholar has to handle, especially those of identity and representation. The essay also discusses a topic which lies at the heart of all attempts at anthology-making – the construction of knowledge (of the Self or of the Other) and the importance of the personal, the experiential and the introspective in such a venture.
The objective of the present paper is to critically review the role played in Translation Studies by fourteen anthologies of texts on translation theory, published in the Iberian Peninsula between 1987 and 2009. After presenting the works themselves, I will try to answer the following questions: What types of anthologies have been produced? Which underlying historiographic positions are revealed as a function of the choice and presentation of the texts? Which canons of translation theory do the anthologies represent (which texts are repeated and, therefore, considered classics)? Do any obvious rivalries exist between different cultural systems (Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese)? What did the compilers intend to achieve by rewriting the texts in their anthologies? And finally, what role do these anthologies really play in Translation Studies today?
Following the cultural approach developed in Göttingen (1982–1995), four contemporary anthologies of world poetry, two Portuguese and two German, are analysed. The quantitative and qualitative parameters applied to the anthologies in question provide insights into the different concepts of world poetry underlying the many configurations of national and foreign literatures at a time when the literary canon is more or less stabilised and translation has assumed its invaluable role in the specific task of cultural transfer represented by world poetry anthologies.
Applying methodologies that bring together Translation Studies and the history of books and reading, catalogues by very prestigious editors of the period are analysed with a view to characterizing the circuit of translated (para)literatures, in the stages of production, distribution and consumption. By means of a case study, this paper attempts to understand how relations of offer and demand within the cultural market have contributed to conditioning the selection of authors, literary genres and forms, expected to be more successful and popular, and have imposed specific translational norms and adequate typographical configurations
In the 1940s and 1950s, Portugal saw an increase in the number of short story anthologies written by foreign authors and published by houses that played an important role in the popularization of translated literature, among which Portugália Editora stood out. Consistently with the approach typically used in translation descriptive studies, the aim of this paper is to focus on a case-study by analysing the series published by Portugália Editora during those twenty years, highlighting the following aspects: the existence of specific series of short story anthologies, the foreign literatures translated into Portuguese, the selection process, the direct or indirect translation from and into different languages, the presence of introductions or prefaces possibly written by the translators, any additional information given by the titles of the series, the presence of famous writers in the number of translators. Those elements can contribute to define the position of short story anthologies in the system of translated literature in Portugal and their possible implications in the formation of a literary canon.
This paper sets out to identify and analyse patterns in the external history of Portuguese collections with translations of Polish literature between 1855 and 2009. By doing so, it will provide preliminary insights into how these collections have presented Polish literature to the Portuguese readership and, ultimately, how they have contributed to the canonization of Polish authors/texts and the formation of cultural relations between the two (semi)peripheral languages/cultures concerned. To achieve these goals, in the first part relevant information regarding the corpus will be provided. Secondly, the methodology for analysing collections will be briefly elucidated. Thirdly, the results of the study will be presented. More specifically, the findings of preliminary analysis leading to statistical coding of peritextual elements will be described, six collection profiles will be examined and chronological patterns in the canonization of a given Polish author will be traced. Finally, the paper’s findings will be summarized and hypotheses to be tested in future research will be proposed.
During the right-wing dictatorship (Estado Novo) that governed Portugal from 1933 to 1974, collectionism (covering anthologies, collections and libraries) was the preferred way of organizing and divulging international literature in Portugal. This study looks at literary anthologies from outside the European space, namely from countries/cultures with which Portugal had developed a special relationship after the Discoveries. Indeed, in the light of the national identity adopted by the Estado Novo, the ideology of Empire generated expectations as to how the literary production of those countries would be accepted. As this corpus could not really include Brazil and Africa, the focus was on short story anthologies translated (mostly indirectly) from Indian, Chinese, Asian and Japanese literature. Drawing on historians such as António Hespanha, these anthologies are contextualized against the background of Orientalism in Portugal. Every anthology found is described and commented upon with regard to the selection of authors and texts as well as the image of the respective culture conveyed to the reader through the work. Judging by the small number of anthologies found, it appears that the interest shown by publishers in these cultures was no more than an afterthought and reflected a lack of demand on the part of the reading public. Nonetheless such anthologies accomplish an ideological function à contrecoeur because they de-historise literary history and follow a universalising trend, thus de-characterising or, in some cases, stereotyping, at times naively, what these respective cultures may give.
This paper considers an early international publishing franchise, in which titles published in French by Gautier-Languereau for their children’s Série 15 were purchased by foreign publishing houses, translated, then marketed in Portugal, Spain and Italy. The books contain short stories (15 in each) that may originally have been intended for adult readers but have now been appropriated by literary editors for a juvenile audience, thus moving into the category of ‘crossover’ fiction. In some cases, the original story was published in English, translated into French, then re-translated from French into Portuguese or Spanish, hence the term ‘double crossing’. This process raises a number of questions about the nature of intercultural transfer, children’s responses – or responsiveness – to foreign literature, and the status accorded to children’s literature in general. An examination of some of the Portuguese translations seems to corroborate Zohar Shavit’s view (1999) that translators working with a supposedly minor or peripheral genre do not hesitate to modify or adapt their source text. While purists might wish to accuse the translator of committing an act of betrayal, as in the time-honoured adage traduttore, traditore, there is no evidence to suggest that the youthful readers of the Portuguese Série 15 felt especially defrauded or cheated in their reading experience, a reaction which may bear out Paul Hazard’s (1960) belief in a universal republic of children. Nowadays there is a great deal of theorising of children’s literature, much of it by educationalists or ‘mediadores’, some from a feminist perspective, some from the perspective of translation and cultural studies. Scholars have made in-depth studies, written essays and monographs, contributed articles to encyclopaedias and histories of children’s literature, and tackled a broad range of issues
How should an anthology of texts written in the language of the occupier be compiled in an occupied country? Which political or ideological criteria should be used and for which readers? This paper will address the Anthologie de la poésie allemande des origines à nos jours [Anthology of German Poetry. From its beginnings to the present day], by René Lasne and Georg Rabuse, published in two volumes in Paris by Stock in 1943 and more specifically its paratexts: the editor’s foreword and the preface by Karl Epting (director of the Institut allemand de Paris and friend of Céline), which offers a very valuable account of the ambiguous Franco-German literary relations during the Occupation.
An official system of censorship was established during Franco’s dictatorship in Spain in order to control the cultural sphere in the country for the duration of the political regime. In the seventies, the publishing market consisted mainly of mass literature, and the translation of anthologies of science fiction narratives and horror stories from North America was an important part of this process. These stories originated as pulps, published with titles such as Weird Tales or Terror Tales, and it is a difficult task today to trace the English versions from which they were translated, mainly due to the fact that different tales by different authors are included in these magazines. The anthologies had to follow the same control procedures as other narrative material and were closely scrutinised regarding aspects such as sexual morals and language, two of the most controversial issues during the time of the dictatorship. Some of them encountered problems because of their depiction of sexually charged scenes or immoral attitudes. This article offers a brief depiction of the kind of anthologized material translated at the time, together with an examination of some of these files, with a descriptive aim in mind. Whether they were censored or authorised or not, the main objective of the publishers of these kinds of anthologies was achieved since, thanks to them, both genres became well known in the country and encouraged Spanish writers to engage in the production of similar material, in a process of pseudotranslation that confirms their importance in the recipient culture.
This paper explores Franco’s censorship of narratives of the Far West published in collections and anthologies. The study was based on a catalogue of 727 censorship files compiled for the Western genre, TRACEniO. 55% of the files corresponded to national popular Westerns (pseudotranslations) published in a standard format in mass-produced collections. The incidence of censorship of the collections was slightly lower than for the TRACEniO overall. Although anthologies of imported American Westerns translated into Spanish were not subjected to any form of cuts or modification under the official censorship procedure, a microtextual analysis of Haycox’s short story, Mrs. Benson, reveals that the translators and/or publishers resorted to self-censorship and applied similar techniques and criteria to those used by the official censors as revealed in the TRACEniO catalogue.
Translations played an important role in introducing new philosophical ideas into Spain from 1850 on, but modern secular philosophy was more often than not in conflict with Catholicism, the dominant power in the symbolic field. Since there was little chance of publishing and publicising such works in the established media, the patrons of these translations had to establish their own publishing houses and book collections. These were used as tools to fight against a system of structural censorship that gave priority to the dominant Catholic ideology. Patricio de Azcárate, who created the first Biblioteca collection, José Perojo, Antonio Zozaya, Ortega y Gasset and Juan Bergua among others organised important collections that were based mainly on translations. Their cultural efforts were driven by a political agenda that was progressive in nature, as they all wanted to modernise Spain economically, socially and politically. As a result, they all suffered different forms of censorship and persecution.
A comparison of translation anthologies published in Portugal and Hungary when both countries lived under differing forms of dictatorial rule reveals not only different attitudes towards British literary works, but also towards literature in general. The different role ascribed to literature in Estado Novo Portugal and Socialist Hungary is also well evidenced by their dissimilar approach towards the publishing industry. The total control over book publishing and distribution in Hungary appears to show that literature played a more significant role in the Hungarian propaganda machine than in Portugal. The dominance of crime fiction anthologies in the Portuguese book market, for example, may probably be explained by the fact that, due to the lack of adequate government funding, private publishing houses were obliged to rely mostly on profitable bestsellers. Conversely, the idealistic belief in the educational power of politically reliable classics in establishing Socialism might have had the effect of depriving Hungarian readers of light and entertaining literature, but also of providing them with thousands of remarkably low-priced high-quality books and anthologies. In fact, one of the main tenets behind the Hungarian cultural politics of this period was to re-educate society with the help of the “ideologically progressive” literary heritage of tried-and-true classic authors such as Shakespeare, Shelley, Dickens, or Hardy, while in Portugal, political control was principally based on a policy of keeping the population in relative ignorance with regard to social and cultural alternatives.