BABEL-AFIAL Nº 18

Artículos Bárbara Arizti Martín Ethics and the Gothic in Jean Rhys s Wide Sargasso Sea

7

Benigno del Río Molina Not a Bloody Bit Like the Man : Uncanny Substrata in James Joyce's Hades

27

Amaia Ibarraran Bigalondo Yxta Maya Murray s Locas (1997): and What about Chicana Barrio Adolescents?

37

Jesús Ángel Marín Calvarro I am not Mad, not Horn-mad : Sentido recto y sentido figurado en el discurso dramático de Ben Jonson. Notas para su traducción.

51

Paula Martín Salván A Language not Quite of this World : Transcendence and Counter-lingüistic Turns in Don Delillo's fiction

73

Christopher Rollason The Task of Walter Benjamin's Translators: Reflections on the Different Language Versions of Das Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project)

95

Ángeles Tomé Rosales Challenging Gender Hierarchy through Humour in Aphra Behn s the Rover I & II

107

Rubén Valdés Miyares Towards an Anatomy of 21st-Century British Culture: Case Studies from the Newspapers

127

Mª Luisa Carrió Pastor y Eva Mª Mestre Mestre Translation Patterns of English Terms into Spanish

143

Regina Gutiérrez Pérez Estudio cognitivo-contrastivo de las metáforas del corazón en inglés y alemán

161

Hildegard Resinger Estudio contrastivo de las aclaraciones en la comunicación científica, ejemplificada en artículos de ecología en castellano, inglés y alemán

197

Mª José Corvo Sánchez Historia y tradición en la enseñanza y aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras en Europa (VI): Edad Moderna La Reforma Humanística de la lengua latina y de su enseñanza

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B A B E L 18 2009 A F I

Nº 18 - Ano 2009

18

A ISSN

1132-7332

L

SERVIZO DE PUBLICACIÓNS

UNIVERSIDADE DE VIGO

A.F.I_A.L

COMITÉ EDITORIAL Elena de Prada Creo (Universidad de Vigo) Beatriz Figueroa Revilla (Universidad de Vigo) Cristina Larkin Galiñanes (Universidad de Vigo) COMITÉ DE REDACCIÓN Carlos Buján López (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) José Luis Chamoso González (Universidad de León) Mª Ángeles de la Concha Muñoz (UNED Madrid) Jorge Figueroa Dorrego (Universidade de Vigo) Francisco Garrudo Carabias (Universidad de Sevilla) Constante González Groba (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) Manuel González Piñeiro (Universidade de Vigo) Pedro Guardia Masó (Universidad de Barcelona) Mª José López Couso (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) Ramón López Ortega (Universidad de Extremadura) Félix Martín Gutiérrez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) Manuel Míguez Ben (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) Jacqueline Minett Wilkinson (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona) Rafael Monroy Casas (Universidad de Murcia) Catalina Montes Mozo (Universidad de Salamanca) Manuela Palacios González (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) Javier Pérez Guerra (Universidade de Vigo) José Siles Artés (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) Eduardo Varela Bravo (Universidade de Vigo)

Este volume publícase cunha subvención da DIRECCIÓN XERAL DE INVESTIGACIÓN, DESENVOLVEMENTO E INNOVACIÓN DA XUNTA DE GALICIA BABEL-AFIAL Nº 18; Ano 2009 EDITA Servizo de Publicacións da Universidade de Vigo Campus das Lagoas - Marcosende 36310 VIGO, España IMPRIME Oficode, S.L. ISSN 1132 - 7332 DEP. LEGAL PO - 603 - 02 © Servizo de Publicacións da Universidade de Vigo, 2009

Índice Artículos Bárbara Arizti Martín Ethics and the Gothic in Jean Rhys s Wide Sargasso Sea

5

Benigno del Río Molina Not a Bloody Bit Like the Man : Uncanny Substrata in James Joyce's Hades

25

Amaia Ibarraran Bigalondo Yxta Maya Murray s Locas (1997): and What about Chicana Barrio Adolescents?

35

Jesús Ángel Marín Calvarro I am not Mad, not Horn-mad : Sentido recto y sentido figurado en el discurso dramático de Ben Jonson. Notas para su traducción.

49

Paula Martín Salván A Language not Quite of this World : Transcendence and Counter-Lingüistic Turns in Don Delillo's fiction

71

Christopher Rollason The Task of Walter Benjamin's Translators: Reflections on the Different Language Versions of Das Passagen-werk (The Arcades Project)

93

Ángeles Tomé Rosales Challenging Gender Hierarchy through Humour in Aphra Behn s The Rover I & II

105

Rubén Valdés Miyares Towards an Anatomy of 21st-Century British Culture: Case Studies from the Newspapers

125

Mª Luisa Carrió Pastor y Eva Mª Mestre Mestre Translation Patterns of English Terms into Spanish

141

Regina Gutiérrez Pérez Estudio cognitivo-contrastivo de las metáforas del corazón en inglés y alemán

159

Hildegard Resinger Estudio contrastivo de las aclaraciones en la comunicación científica, ejemplificada en artículos de ecología en castellano, inglés y alemán

195

Mª José Corvo Sánchez Historia y tradición en la enseñanza y aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras en Europa (VI): Edad Moderna La Reforma Humanística de la lengua latina y de su enseñanza

207

Bárbara Arizti Martín Ethics and the Gothic in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea

5

ETHICS AND THE GOTHIC IN JEAN RHYS’S WIDE SARGASSO SEA*1 Bárbara Arizti Martín Universidad de Zaragoza barizti@unizar.es This article revisits Wide Sargasso Sea as a Gothic text focusing on two of the main structuring principles of the novel —excess and in-betweenness. Rhys’s rereading of Jane Eyre in terms of the excessive and the liminal admits of a double interpretation. Firstly, from an ideological perspective, her gesture has valuable implications for feminist and postcolonial agendas.

Complementarily, this opens up the text to an ethical mode of reading. By drawing on Andrew Gibson’s ethics of sensibility and on Homi Bhabha’s mimicry and hybridity, I intend to read Wide Sargasso Sea as representative of a post-foundational form of ethics with which the Gothic shares an emphasis on indeterminacy and an aversion to universals and fixed moral categories.

Keywords: postcolonial Caribbean Gothic, postmodern ethics, ethics of sensibility, in-betweeness, excess.

El artículo se aproxima a Wide Sargasso Sea como novela gótica mediante el análisis de dos de sus principios estructurales más relevantes: lo liminal y el exceso. La relectura que hace Rhys de Jane Eyre desde lo liminal y lo excesivo puede interpretarse desde dos perspectivas complementarias. En primer lugar, desde un punto de vista ideológico, su gesto tiene importantes implicaciones para las agendas feminista y postcolonial. En segundo lugar, este tipo de análisis abre el texto a una lectura desde la crítica ética. Recurriendo a la ética de la sensibilidad de Andrew Gibson y los conceptos de mímica e hibridación de Homi Bhabha, pretendo leer Wide Sargasso Sea como ejemplo de la ética post-fundacional con la que el modo gótico comparte el interés por la Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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indeterminación y la aversión a los universales y las categorías morales.

Palabras clave: Gótico caribeño postcolonial, ética postmoderna, ética de la sensibilidad, lo liminal, el exceso.

The Caribbean ‘learned to “read” itself in literature through Gothic fiction’, states Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert (2002:333) in her chapter on (post)colonial Caribbean Gothic for The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction. Jean Rhys, born in Dominica of a Welshman and a white Creole mother, experienced her own identity in similarly textualised terms. As is well known by any reader acquainted with Rhys’s biography and work, her reaction when she first read Jane Eyre was one of rage at the description of Rochester’s white Creole wife.

Bertha Mason, who bears most of the burden of the Gothic mode in Brontë’s novel, is depicted as wild, beast-like, mad and unruly. The character is further alienated by the fact that, but for a few growls, we never hear her speak directly. It is Rochester that tells horrified Jane the story of his first wife after the famous attic scene. Fortunately, Rhys’s rage was productive as she decided to put this archetypal ‘madwoman-in-the-attic’ right ‘on-stage’, providing her with a more amiable human appearance, a voice and the opportunity of telling the story of her childhood and early womanhood in her Caribbean island.

But rather than break the Gothic spell cast on the first Mrs Rochester, Rhys draws upon much of the paraphernalia of the subgenre in order to fill in what her own Creole sensitivity revealed as unpardonable Eurocentric gaps. The Gothic explodes in Wide Sargasso Sea into a myriad of possibilities that go beyond the conventional list of images and motifs, affecting the very structure of the novel and promoting excess and in-betweenness. Since its origins in the late eighteenth century, the Gothic has revelled in the blurring of distinctions and the overflowing of conventional forms of restraint, be it generic, textual, psychological or moral.2 Rhys’s re-reading of the Gothic in terms of the excessive and the liminal in Wide Sargasso Sea admits of a double interpretation. Firstly, from an ideological perspective, her gesture has valuable implications for feminist and postcolonial agendas since it confirms the novel’s contestation to Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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patriarchal and imperial values and practices. Secondly, this opens up the text to an ethical mode of reading. Rhys’s questioning of Rochester’s one-sided account aligns her novel with a form of postfoundational ethics with which it shares a common emphasis on indeterminacy and an aversion to universals and fixed moral categories.

This article intends to offer a fresh reading of Wide Sargasso Sea by approaching it through the lens of ethical criticism as an instance of post-colonial Gothic. In particular, I will draw on Andrew Gibson’s ethics of sensibility or affect, a strand of the contemporary turn to ethics in its postmodern post-foundational form, and on Homi Bhabha’s mimicry and hybridity in order to cast extra light on Rhys’s attempt to unmask bourgeois limitations by rejecting clear-cut moral divisions between right and wrong.

Critics like Allan Lloyd Smith and Susanne Becker have drawn attention to the striking parallels between the Gothic tradition and postmodernism. The strategies both Gothic fiction and postmodernist fiction deploy encourage, as Becker (1999: 1) puts it, ‘a radical scepticism concerning the universalising humanist assumptions of modern thought and of classic realism’. It is precisely from postmodernism, and its critical associates post-structuralism and deconstruction, that a new ethical mode of reading stems. The ethical criticism of J. Hillis Miller, Andrew Gibson, Geoffrey Harpham and Christopher Falzon, to name but a few, proves that a post-foundational ethics is viable and that an ethical reading of texts is perfectly and fruitfully compatible with an interest in Literary Theory. This is only a sketch of the ongoing debate between neo-humanist and deconstructive ethical critics that characterises the current turn to ethics in the literary panorama. The neo-humanists blame the relativism promoted by the Theoretical Era for the disappearance of ethical criticism of the literary agenda from the 1950s to the late 1980s and advocate a return to an ethical reading of texts. The deconstructive critics interpret this move as a revival of F. R. Leavis and the values of liberal humanism and suggest instead an ethical approach to literature informed by the insights of critical theory.

Drawing upon the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, they try to demonstrate that some forms of deconstruction and post-structuralism blend well with an ethical reading of texts.3

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One of the first to read Wide Sargasso Sea from a Gothic perspective was Anthony E. Luengo in “Wide Sargasso Sea and the Gothic Mode”. Luengo considers the novel a Gothic, or rather, ‘neoGothic’ work, in line with Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Although he puts forward the label Caribbean Gothic, he questions its validity because, in his opinion, there were not at this early stage enough representatives to constitute a separate category. Luengo tackles two elements that clearly situate Wide Sargasso Sea within the Gothic mode: its evocation of landscape and the portrayal of its main characters, for which Rhys draws on such stock types as the Gothic villain, the Byronic hero, the persecuted woman and the femme fatale.

More than twenty-five years later, Sylvie Maurel retakes the issue in “Across the ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’: Jean Rhys’s Revision of Charlotte Brontë’s Eurocentric Gothic”, and offers a more sophisticated analysis from a postcolonial perspective. Her contention is that the novel ‘makes the most of the Gothic destabilizing machinery’ in order to disclose ‘the hidden mechanisms of colonial history’ and undermine ‘the naturalized representations circulated by the metropolis’ (109).

She bases her argument on the presence of uncanny phenomena articulated around ‘the colonial arbitrary’ and on ‘a rhetoric of haunting’, two characteristic features of postcolonial writing, according to David Punter. Interestingly for the present study, Maurel argues that Jean Rhys ‘exploits the affinity of the Gothic with epistemological uncertainty to disrupt normative discourses, whose stable identifications prove inadequate in the colony’ (2002: 117).

According to Nicola Nixon, Wide Sargasso Sea gives vent to all that goes unsaid in Brontë’s Jane Eyre, a novel which represses female sexuality and racial difference and where Jane, the ‘natural’ English woman, is presented as the paradigmatic woman. Similarly, for Sylvie Maurel, Rhys’s novel recommends excess where Jane Eyre advocates temperance and self-control. The hyperbolic, Maurel states (1998: 153, 154) is ‘“naturally” indigenous to the universe of the novel’.

Although excess has traditionally been used pejoratively in order to downgrade the Gothic as a ‘feminine form’, I will here, as Becker does in Gothic Forms of Feminine Fictions (1999: 11), highlight its liberating potential for both cultural and narrative structures. I intend to explore the workings of excess in Wide Sargasso Sea on three interrelated planes: the sensual, the moral and the textual.

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As Sylvie Maurel (154) has noted, and as is the case with much postcolonial Gothic literature, in Wide Sargasso Sea nature takes the place of architecture. The landscape of the Caribbean islands where parts one and two of the novel are set, is a very obvious symptom of excess. In Wide Sargasso Sea, the occulocentrism characteristic of much of Western culture, with its emphasis on the visual, is abandoned in favour of a more complete sensory experience. Jean Rhys has the ability to evoke a sensuous picture of the tropical landscape of Jamaica and Dominica, a picture that demands ‘to be smelt, seen, tasted, heard and felt’ (Hemmerechts, 1987: 422). Rhys complicates the monological description of West Indian nature, filtered by Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre, by offering two opposed perspectives. Rhys’s Rochester,4 the male imperialistic voice in the novel, undergoes a kind of sensory shock in this alien environment as he is overpowered by the blazing sun, the bright colours, the oppressive heat, the heavy scent of flowers, the too highly seasoned food and the deafening noise: ‘Everything is too much, I felt as I rode wearily after her. Too much blue, too much purple, too much green. The flowers too red, the mountains too high, the hills too near’.5 But the vision of the islands Rhys privileges is that of Antoinette, the name Bertha Mason receives in the novel. Her perception of West Indian nature counteracts her husband’s negative image. Born and brought up there, Antoinette pictures the lush tropical landscape as comforting, life giving and empowering, in contrast to England, which is ‘like a cold dark dream’ (47) to her. This physical landscape is also an emotional landscape, as nature expresses Antoinette’s and Rochester’s moods throughout the novel. Rochester is perfectly aware of the intimate connection between his wife and her natural surroundings – ‘I feel that this place is my enemy and on your side’ (82)– and finds both the exotic tropical forest and Antoinette, excessive and unnerving: ‘At least it shadowed her eyes which are too large and can be disconcerting’ (37). With this move, Rhys translates the ‘late Romantic opposition of wild, free nature with corrupt and oppressive civilisation’ (Savory, 2000: 174). into a postcolonial scenario and resorts to it as a way to empower the colonized other.

It is not only as a colonial subject that Antoinette is empowered in Wide Sargasso Sea. She also resists her husband as a woman.

According to Sue Spaull (1989:105), in the West Indies, ‘Rochester comes face to face with the “wild zone” of female experience’. This Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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anthropological concept, borrowed by Elaine Showalter, refers to women’s culture as ‘a zone spatially, experientially and metaphysically outside the dominant boundaries.’ (93) Antoinette’s refusal to being renamed Bertha, her wild temper, her self-imposed silence which strategically undoes Spivak’s tenet that the subaltern cannot speak, neutralise Rochester’s attempts to civilise his wife. In line with many a writer of recent instances of women’s Gothic, Jean Rhys produces ‘an image of woman as blank, as impossible of inscription’ (Punter, 1996:192). Antoinette’s resistance to inscription answers not only literary generic reasons but also cultural ones. With the intention of offering a more complex and accurate image of the Caribbean woman’s experience, Alison Donnell (2006: 8) has contested the term ‘double colonisation’, which has traditionally ‘doubly’ disempowered the female colonial subject by fixing her in the role of passive victim both of patriarchy and the empire. For Donnell, Caribbean women are rather ‘double agents’ able to mobilise gender as ‘a site of resistance, affirmation and oppositional agency.’

The luxuriance of the tropical landscape reflects Antoinette’s sexuality. Unlike Radcliffe’s heroines, who ‘turn with disgust from any suggestion of sexuality even when shown by the hero’ (Howells, 1995: 11), Antoinette is portrayed as a passionate woman. Early in their honeymoon, Rochester seems to enjoy his wife’s sexual openness: ‘Very soon she was as eager for what’s called loving as I was – more lost and drowned afterwards. She said, “Here I can do as I like,” not I, and then I said it too. It seemed right in that lonely place. “Here I can do as I like”’ (55-56). But soon Antoinette’s search for unrestrained sexual fulfilment exceeds Rochester’s principles of right and wrong. Her sensuality transgresses Victorian moral codes, which dictate that the bourgeois woman is immune to sexual appetite and that sex is primarily oriented to procreation. English bourgeois conventions draw a strict line between wife and whore: ‘The nineteenth-century loose woman might have sexual feelings, but the nineteenth-century wife did not and must not’ (A. Rich in Horner and Slosnik, 1990:164).6 Elaine Savory (2000: 65) adds a new twist by introducing the colonial question: ‘English middle- and upper-class Victorian culture had already split the sexual from the ideal in women, constructing prostitutes or lower class women or, in this case, perhaps Creoles, as available and the mother/wife as the asexual, pure madonna.’ That the Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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Creoles might share with the black a stronger sexual impulse was then considered a symptom of their moral degeneration.

Antoinette does not fit into the conventional mould of the Victorian wife. For Rochester, her interest in sexuality is improper of a woman of her class and condition. He even comes to believe Daniel Cosway –Antoinette’s black half-brother– who insinuates that she is promiscuous: ‘You are not the first to kiss her pretty face. Pretty face, soft skin, pretty colour – not yellow like me. But my sister just the same…’ (79). Daniel hints at an extramarital affair between Rochester’s wife and her cousin Sandi, an affair that seems to be confirmed by Antoinette herself in the last part of the novel. Confined in Thornfield’s attic, she asks her keeper for her red dress, ‘the colour of fire and sunset’ (119), the colour and the smell of West Indian flowers and spices: ‘The smell of vetiver and frangipani, of cinnamon and dust and lime trees when they are flowering […] I was wearing a dress of that colour when Sandi came to see me for the last time’ (120). Rhys, who has a flair for the symbolism of colours, conflates in Antoinette’s red dress her Caribbean identity, her powerful sexual instinct that cannot be contained by marriage, and a hint at the novel’s intertextual connection with Jane Eyre. Paraphrasing Rochester’s words in Brontë’s novel, Antoinette asks Grace Poole: ‘Does it make me look intemperate and unchaste? […] That man told me so’ (120).

But, what then is the difference between Brontë’s first Mrs Rochester and Rhys’s Antoinette if both are portrayed in similar terms as highly sexualised women? Does this fact detract from Rhys’s project to rescue Rocherster’s West Indian wife from Euro-centrism? Bertha Mason’s moral excess serves, I believe, as an excuse to confine her in Thornfield’s attic and as a forceful justification for Rochester’s new interest in Jane. The novel relies on her disappearance in order to promote the much more suitable Jane to the status of Mrs Rochester.

It is my contention that Jean Rhys highlights Antoinette’s sexuality with a different end in mind. Excess in Wide Sargasso Sea turns into a liberating strategy that finds in the Gothic a powerful ally when it comes to undermining bourgeois conventions.

The figure of the monster suits both Gothic and postcolonial contexts. In Postcolonial Imaginings: Fictions of a New World Order, David

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Punter (2000: 110) explores questions of ‘rage, hatred and haunting by showing some ways in which the postcolonial has an implicit connection with the construction and representation of monsters’.

The monstrous body, he states, escapes standardisation and control, two of the main processes by which power is exercised (120). Edward Rochester, on the point of embarking on the ship that will take them to England, describes his wife as part of a long breed of freaks: “They can be recognized. White faces, dazed eyes, aimless gestures, highpitched laughter. The way they walk and talk and scream or try to kill (themselves or you) if you laugh back at them. Yes, they’ve got to be watched. For the time comes when they try to kill, then disappear. But others are waiting to take their places, it’s a long, long line. She’s one of them”. (113). Antoinette’s sexual assertiveness, her capacity to show anger7 and her madness align her with the monstrous-feminine as theorised by Barbara Creed. Following Susan Lurie, Creed asserts that man fears woman not because she has been castrated, as Freud believed, but because she has the power to castrate. The concept ‘monstrous-feminine’ highlights the role of gender in the construction of female monstrosity: ‘As with all other stereotypes of the feminine, from virgin to whore, she is defined in terms of her sexuality’ (1993:3).

For Susanne Becker, woman as monster ‘exceeds her “proper” gender role’ since ‘it posits a radical attack on the constraints of ‘Woman’: the feminine ideal in a specific cultural historical context’. In her opinion, female subjectivity, ‘[l]ike the metaphors of experience, excess and escape, and in relation to them […] becomes a strong thematical and formal […] challenge to textual and ideological orders’ (1999: 58, 41).

Borrowing Ann Williams’ phrasing (1995:xi), the monstrous-feminine, ‘like the Gothic tradition as a whole, expresses the dangerous, the awefull power of the “female”’. Antoinette’s madness, either true or constructed by Rochester, can also be explained in terms of her sexuality. Elaine Showalter (in Horner and Slosnik, 1990: 171-172) has investigated into British nineteenth-century attitudes to nymphomania: Psychiatrists wrote frequently about the problem of nymphomania. John Millar, the medical superintendent at Bethnal House Asylum in London, observed that nymphomaniac symptoms were 'constantly present' when young women were insane

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[…] The most extreme and nightmarish effort to manage women's minds by regulating their bodies was Dr Isaac Baker Brown's surgical practice of clitoridectomy as a cure for female insanity […]

Clitoridectomy is the surgical enforcement of an ideology that restricts female sexuality to reproduction.

The removal of the clitoris eliminates the woman's sexual pleasure, and is indeed this autonomous sexual pleasure that Brown defined as the symptom, perhaps the essence, of female malady.

In the person of Antoinette, Wide Sargasso Sea rejects normalising models while privileging moral excess and ambiguity. It is the institution of marriage that gets the worst of it. Traditionally presented as the definite solution to the heroine’s troubles in female Gothic, marriage is the source of all evils in Wide Sargasso Sea. The ignorance of Mr Mason, Annette’s new husband, brings about the burning of Coulibri by the ex-slaves, the death of Antoinette’s young brother, Pierre, and the confinement of her mother, who is deprived of her wits in consequence. Antoinette’s marriage to Rochester echoes her mother’s in its disastrous ending. Like her, Antoinette loses both her property and her mind and ends up being confined to the attic of Thornfield Hall. Interestingly, Michelle A. Massé (1992:7) has analysed Wide Sargasso Sea as an example of ‘Marital Gothic’, a category of ‘texts that begin, rather than end, with marriage, in which the husband becomes the revenant of the very horror his presence was supposed to banish.’

Andrew Gibson’s ethics of sensibility or affect, a strand of the contemporary turn to ethics in its postmodern post-foundational form, casts extra light on Rhys’s attempt to unmask bourgeois limitations by rejecting clear-cut moral divisions between right and wrong. The ethics of affect, which Gibson bases on the eighteenth-century concept of sensibility and on Levinas’s philosophy of alterity, is simply defined as ‘the power of being affected rather than affecting’ (1999:161). For Gibson, as for Levinas, the decisive ethical moment is the encounter with the singular, irreducible other (Kotte, 2001: 71), an encounter that makes fixed categories and universal moral norms redundant. The other is always already radically different and resists Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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‘being dominated by or reduced to whatever interests or assumptions condition my understanding’(Sim, 1995:263). In approaching the other, Levinas insists, we should confidently open ourselves to the experience of alterity and avoid subsuming the other into the same.

The eighteenth-century concept of sensibility, from which the Gothic stems, is defined by Andrew Gibson in the following terms: ‘quickness and acuteness in emotional apprehension, a particularly keen susceptibility to emotional influence, indicating a specific kind or quality of emotional capacity, “the soft sense of the mind” that Mackenzie regarded as feminine or feminising’. Sensibility is also an ethical faculty characterised by openness and attentiveness. In Gibson’s words, it ‘does not direct itself at an object with the intention of mastering it’ (1999:162). Levinas associates sensibility with ‘“uncovering” […], exposure to wounds, vulnerability […], not as a passive reception of stimuli, but as a positive “aptitude”’. In this sense, sensibility cannot be distinguished from the power of suffering: it is ‘the nakedness of a skin presented to contact, to the caress, which always […] is suffering for the suffering of the other’ (165). Drawing upon Bataille’s concept of ‘expenditure without reserve’, Gibson (166) equates sensibility to exuberance and excess. Significantly enough, he finds in the Rhys universe a clear example of his ethics of affect. Her heroines, Gibson affirms, are characterised ‘by their power of constant involvement, of gratuitous disinterest, their disposition to selfexpenditure’ (168).

There is also a textual side to the ethics of affect propounded

by Gibson. In this second sense, sensibility is a way of narrating characterised by indeterminacy and instability, which calls into question ‘the particularity of its cultural construction, of its place in a given web of social relations’ (168). Jean Rhys’s (post)modernist poetics in Wide Sargasso Sea and, above all, its strongly intertextual nature, expose the novel to the ethics of affect on this further textual level. The following quotation from Susanne Becker’s Gothic Forms of Feminine Fiction (1999: 66-67) serves to illustrate the point: The web of feminine gothic writing has prompted contemporary critics to revise traditional concepts of literary influence. […] feminine gothics are haunted houses, not only in the contextual sense of

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‘experience’ but also in the intertextual sense of continuation and deconstruction of feminine textuality. […] Filliation ‘exceeds’ and decentres the idea of linear development and opens up different interdependences of texts. It is a new theory of origins that revises and feminises Harold Bloom’s influential theory of the ‘anxiety of influence’. (Godard 1984, 50)

As an example of feminine intertextualisation, Wide Sargasso Sea exceeds linear development; as a prequel to Brontë’s Jane Eyre, it challenges origin; and as a polyphonic narrative artifact, the novel gives voice to ‘the other side’ thus avoiding monologism. Similarly, its open ending exceeds the traditional ending of female Gothic and empowers Antoinette, who rehearses her death in a dream but finally escapes it by waking up just before her famous leap off Thornfield’s roof in Jane Eyre.

Following Geoffrey Harpham, Gibson (1999:15) defines ethics as ‘the strictly undecidable’, that which holds morality open, counteracts its will to domination and unsettles ‘the compromised binary’ of the moral paradigm. Many instances of the Gothic inhabit a similar hinterland that resists borders and encourages indeterminacy and transgression.8 This is especially the case with postcolonial Gothic identities, which encapsulate the tensions between different peoples and worldviews and reveal the horrors of colonial domination.

Wide Sargasso Sea is written in the spirit of the liminal. As Mary Lou Emery (1990: 48) puts it, ‘[t]he dichotomous oppositions of madness/reason, sexuality/control, black/white, and […] nature/culture, through which Rochester thinks and attempts to maintain his own place in the system, are […] continually threatened’.

But the liminal is no easy space. Those living on the threshold are usually powerless and prone to suffering from the ‘anxiety of never again belonging’ (Burrows, 2004:25). In-betweenness is a position Jean Rhys –an expatriate white Creole– knew well. Many a critic has seen her as trapped between the ideologies of coloniser and colonized, occupying ‘the ambiguous position of being part of colonialism and of the resistance to it’ (Burrows, 27). Proof of this is Rhys’s problematic relationship with the Caribbean literary canon. Her status as a Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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postcolonial West-Indian writer has been questioned by critics such as Edward Brathwaite, Gayatri Spivak, and Veronica Marie Greg, who consider her nearer the colonial elite. According to Brathwaite, Rhys’s origins make it impossible for her to understand the experience of the primarily poor ex-African majority: ‘White Creoles […] have separated themselves by too wide a gulf, and have contributed too little culturally, as a group, to give credence to the notion that they can […] meaningfully identify or be identified with the spiritual world on this side of the Sargasso Sea’ (1974:38). Similarly, in the opinion of Spivak and Greg, Wide Sargasso Sea privileges the white Creole over and above the black characters, who, Greg maintains (1995: 114-115), are portrayed in a very stereotypical way. The Indo-Caribbean writer V.S. Naipaul was, on the other hand, one of the first to speak in favour of including Rhys in the West-Indian canon, since there is no doubt, he contends, that her Caribbean background shaped her sensibility and informed most of her work. This is also the opinion of Elaine Savory (2000: x), who in her monograph on Rhys insists on the need for a Caribbean-centred approach to her fiction. ‘Like Caribbean culture’, Savory asserts, ‘her writing is both metropolitan and anti-metropolitan, both colonial and anti-colonial, both racist and anti-racist, both conventional and subversive’. It is precisely her in-betweenness that marks Rhys as a post-colonial West-Indian writer. Despite the fact that she was a member of the colonial elite and that her primary allegiance in Wide Sargasso Sea is to the planter class ruined by emancipation, Rhys always defined herself in opposition to the metropolis.

Racial in-betweenness characterises Wide Sargasso Sea from its very opening: ‘They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. But we were not in their ranks’ (Rhys, 2001: 3).

Antoinette’s oxymoronic nature and the fact that she belongs neither to the white nor to the black community is revealed in the way she is often referred to as a ‘white nigger’ or a ‘white cockroach’: “It was a song about a white cockroach. That's me. That's what they call all of us who were here before their own people in Africa sold them to the slave traders. And I've heard English women call us white niggers. 'So between you I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong and why was I ever born at all” (63). The allusions to the figures of the zombie and the revenant, which together with obeah, are a trademark of post-colonial Caribbean Gothic, are also Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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symptomatic of the ambivalence that pervades Rhys’s novel. ‘A zombie’, Rochester reads, ‘is a dead person who seems to be alive or a living person who is dead.’ (66). Both Annette and Antoinette are portrayed as living dead in the last stages of their degeneration. In fact, Rochester accuses Christophine, Antoinette’s black nanny, of turning his wife into a zombie: ‘You haven’t yet told me exactly what you did with my – with Antoinette.’

‘Yes I tell you. I make her sleep.’

‘What? All the time?’

‘No, no. I wake her up to sit in the sun, bathe in the cool river. Even is she dropping with sleep […]’

‘Unfortunately your cure was not successful. You didn’t make her well. You made her worse.’

‘Yes I succeed,’ she said angrily. ‘I succeed. But I get frightened that she sleeps too much, too long’. (100)

This conversation between the black servant and the imperial male takes place in the second part of the novel, narrated, but for a few pages, by Rochester himself. The fact that he is allowed to give his own version of his marriage to Antoinette has been interpreted by some critics as an act of tremendous ethical proportion (Davies and Womack, 1999: 65). What seems to escape Antoinette’s husband is his own contribution to her zombification. ‘The effect of the empire’, Punter and Byron state (2004-58), ‘has been the dematerialization of whole cultures’. For them, ‘the Gothic tropes of the ghost, the phantom, the revenant, gain curious new life from the need to assert continuity where the lessons of conventional history and geography would claim that all continuity has been broken by the imperial trauma’.

Racial in-betweenness not only disturbs those who suffer it directly but also becomes a concern for those, like Rochester, who come in close contact with it. The second part of the novel is pervaded

by Rochester’s anxiety about miscegenation and contamination, both provoked by Antoinette’s unclear racial background: ‘Long, sad, dark alien eyes. Creole of pure English descent she may be, but they are not English or European either’ (37). He even believes she has poisoned Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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him when she mixes into his wine Christophine’s remedy to cure his disaffection: “She poured wine into two glasses and handed me one […] I woke in the dark after dreaming that I was buried alive and when I was awake the feeling of suffocation persisted. […] I was cold too, deathly cold and sick and in pain. […] I could not vomit. I only retched painfully. I thought, I have been poisoned” (87-88). Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abject, enunciated in Powers of Horror, becomes most useful on this point. The process of individualisation, both on a personal and on a cultural level, implies throwing off everything that threatens integrity. The abject appears as a by-product of the entrance into the symbolic order, which demands a clear-cut opposition between I and not-I. Abjection, Kristeva affirms (1982:232), is caused by what ‘disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite’. The feminine in general and the maternal in particular, are often associated with it. Like Antoinette, the abject is at the same time ‘something to be scared of ’ and yet infinitely desirable (32). The dynamic of abjection lays bare ‘the ambiguous opposition I/Other, Inside/Outside’ (7) and disturbs in Wide Sargasso Sea Rochester’s solid positioning as “I” in Jane Eyre. Sue Thomas offers a socio-historical explanation of Rochester’s fear of pollution and racial mixing. In The Worlding of Jean Rhys (1999:32), she reads Wide Sargasso Sea against nineteenth-century ethnographic discourses of white Creole degeneracy and the degeneracy of the English abroad: “During the nineteenth century […] the white Creole became the object of a European ethnographic discourse about tropical degeneration: white Creoles were seen to risk in ‘the physical and social climate of the tropics’ and proximity to racial others, a degeneration apparent in disease, sickliness, and excessive appetites”, hence the need to keep them at a physical, social and, above all, sexual distance from the Anglo-Saxons, who might otherwise ‘go native’. The fear of the physical and moral vulnerability of the British in touch with the colonial natives is coetaneous with the birth of the Gothic (ParavinsiniGebert, 2002: 230). David Punter (1996: 183) lists racial degeneration as a source of the barbaric, which he considers one of the three pillars of the Gothic, together with paranoia and taboo: ‘Gothic […] is intimately to do with the notion of the barbaric. This emerges in a number of forms: as the fear of the past which is the motivating force of the subgenre of the ‘historical Gothic’, as the fear of the aristocracy Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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which provides the basis for vampire legendry, as the fear of racial degeneracy, which permeates Stevenson, Wells, Stoker and others.’

In-betweenness in Wide Sargasso Sea has been analysed so far as a distinct source of anxiety for the main characters: Antoinette does not feel at ease with either black or white and Rochester fears his own racial and moral degeneration through contact with her. Threshold states, however, can also grant a special position to those who inhabit them. In what remains of this paper I intend to explore the tactical side of in-betweenness. By drawing on Homi Bhabha’s concepts of mimicry and hybridity I will demonstrate how the liminal turns out to be a powerful weapon against sexual and colonial domination.

In "Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse", Bhabha (1994:89) defines mimicry as ‘a process by which the look of surveillance returns as the displacing gaze of the disciplined, where the observer becomes the observed and "partial" representation rearticulates the whole notion of identity and alienates it from essence’. Mimicry, for him, connotes both resemblance and menace. Colonial subjects are expected to learn and imitate the ways of the white colonizers in order to become civilized. But, as Angela Smith (1997:xviii) has noted, ‘when the colonial subjects, including the Creoles, play the parts assigned to them a strange slippage occurs, like the slippage from a European language to Creole patois.’ The attempts on the part of the colonized to imitate the language and customs of the colonizer undermine the latter’s authority and show imperialism as a preposterous enterprise. There are several instances of mimicry in Wide Sargasso Sea. Coco, the family parrot, which speaks French and Creole patois, but not English, is one of them. But perhaps the most potent example of mimicry is that performed by Antoinnette in part two of the novel, narrated by Rochester: 'She won't stay here very much longer.'

'She won't stay here very much longer,' she mimicked me, 'and nor will you, nor will you. I thought you liked the black people so much,' she said, still in that mincing voice, 'but that's just a lie like everything else. You like the light brown girls better, don't you? You abused the planters and made up stories about them, but you do the

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same thing. […]'

'Slavery was not a matter of liking or disliking,' I said, trying to speak calmly. 'It was a question of justice.'

'Justice,' she said, 'I've heard that word. It's a cold word.

I tried it out […] I wrote it down. I wrote it down several times and always it looked like a damn cold lie to me.

There is no justice.' (94)

In echoing Rochester’s words, Antoinette empties them of meaning. Her in-betweenness is revealed as strategical in dismantling the duplicities of colonial discourse.

Mimicry is combined with hybridity in Wide Sargasso Sea. Originally coined to refer to a physiological phenomenon –a cross between two species (Young, 1995: 8)–, hybridity has been reconceptualised by Homi Bhabha in cultural terms. In an interview

by Jonathan Rutherford, Bhabha asserts that ‘the importance of hybridity is not to be able to trace two original moments from which the third emerges, rather hybridity to me is the “third space” which enables other positions to emerge’. The effect of this third space, which ‘bears the traces of those feelings and practices which inform it’, is to displace the histories that constitute it, and set up ‘new structures of authority, new political initiatives, which are inadequately understood through received wisdom’ (1990:212). The hybrid in Wide Sargasso Sea is best represented by Sandi, Antoinette’s cousin, described by Daniel Cosway as ‘white, but not quite’: ‘Sandi is like a white man, but more handsome than any white man, and received by many white people they say’ (79).

Daniel also informs Rochester of Sandi’s special relationship with his wife: ‘I hear one time that Miss Antoinette and […] Mr Sandi get married, but that all foolishness. Miss Antoinette a white girl with a lot of money, she won’t marry with a coloured man even though he don’t look like a coloured man’ (76). The difficulty of pinpointing Sandi’s racial traits reveals the absurdity of categorisation and contributes to blurring the clear-cut oppositions on which the colonial enterprise rests.

Not only the colonial, but also the sexual, the textual and the moral, lose their contours in a novel that questions rigid Western binarisms by promoting an ethics of in-betweenness and excess. The strategic use of such Gothic props as the wild threatening landscape Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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of the Caribbean, the she-monster, the zombie, and the racial-other, enable Rhys to lay bare the Eurocentric imperialistic agenda of Jane Eyre and the Victorian values on which Brontë’s text was built. Read against Andrew Gibson’s ethics of sensibility, Wide Sargasso Sea emerges as a house haunted by the voices of past inhabitants, all claiming their position as legitimate others. The border between victims and victimisers grows thin as both the hero-villain and the heroine recount their versions of their unhappy marriage. It is Antoinette’s story, however, that the novel eventually sides with. Rhys’s text rejects narrative closure and allows Antoinette to escape a fate planned for her by an English writer. The subversive qualities of mimicry and hybridity, as conceived by Homi Bhabha, further contribute to reinforcing a brand of ethics that defies the fixed and the ready-made.

NOTES

The research carried out for the writing of this article has been financed by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER), in collaboration with the Aragonese Governement (no.

HUM2007-61035/FIL. Proyecto Eje C-Consolider).

2 The centrality of the categories of excess and in-betweenness for the Gothic mode has been noted by Jerrold E. Hogle, David Punter (2001), Susanne Becker and Victor Sage and Allan Lloyd Smith, amongst others.

3 For further information on this debate see Gibson, Kotte and Craps (5-9).

4 To be precise, Antoinette’s husband is never referred to by his name.

Only those readers aware of the intertextual nature of Wide Sargasso Sea will recognise him as Brontë’s Edward Rochester.

5 Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, [2001] (Harmondsworth: Penguin.

1966. Edited by Hilary Jenkins), p. 39. All subsequent quotations are taken from this edition.

6 For an in-depth sociological study of nineteenth-century sexual mores see Seidman.

7 Another remarkable example of an angry female in a West Indian postcolonial context is Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy, for whom anger is instrumental as a resistance strategy. Notice her answer to 1

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Mariah, her employer: ‘“You are a very angry person, aren’t you?” and her [Mariah’s] voice was filled with alarm and pity.

Perhaps I should have said something reassuring; perhaps I should have denied it. But I did not. I said, “Of course I am.

What do you expect”’(2002: 96). Lucy also shares with Antoinette Cosway an unconventional attitude to sex, which she openly publicises in order to shock her mother and her employer. In the opinion of Alison Donnell ‘Lucy’s sexual empowerment can be read as a form of subversive resistance within the broad social and political context of the Caribbean in which the sexual subjection of women to men remains normative’. However, Donnell doubts its liberating effect on a more personal ground, since Lucy ‘is not able to arrive at any lasting or meaningful sense of fulfilment through her chosen forms of sexual contact’ (p. 198).

Jesús Benito and Ana Mª Manzanas’s (eds) The Dynamics of the Threshold, Studies in Liminality and Literature 5, includes several articles that explore the importance of border states to Gothic fiction.

WORKS CITED

Becker, S. 1999. Gothic Forms of Feminine Fiction. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.

Benito, J. and A. Mª Manzanas, eds. 2006. The Dynamics of the Threshold, Studies in Liminality and Literature 5. Madrid: The Gateway Press.

Bhabha, H. 1994. The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge.

Brathwaite, E. 1974. Contradictory Omens: Cultural Diversity and Integration in the Caribbean. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou Publications, 1974.

Burrows, V. 2004. Whiteness and Trauma: The Mother-Daughter Knot in the Fiction of Jean Rhys, Jamaica Kincaid and Toni Morrison. Basingstoke and New York: Macmillan Palgrave.

Craps, S. 2005. Trauma and Ethics in the Novels of Graham Swift: No ShortCuts to Salvation. Brighton and Portland: Sussex Academic Press.

Creed, B. 1993. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis.

London and New York: Routledge.

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Davies, Todd F. and Kenneth Womack. 1999. “Reclaiming the Particular: The Ethics of Self and Sexuality in Wide Sargasso Sea”. Jean Rhys Review 11, 1 (Autumn 1999): 63-78.

Donnell, A. 2006. Twentieth-Century Caribbean Literature: Critical Moments in Anglophone Gibson, A. 1999. Postmodernity, Ethics and the Novel: form Leavis to Levinas. London and New York: Routledge.

Emery, M.L. 1990. Jean Rhys at “World’s End”: Novels of Colonial and Sexual Exile”. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press.

Gregg, V.M. 1995. Jean Rhys’s Historical Imagination: Reading and Writing the Creole. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Hemmerechts, K. 1987. A Plausible Story and a Plausible Way of Telling it: A Structuralist Analysis of Jean Rhys’s Novels. Frankfurt am Maim: Peter Lang.

Hogle, J. E. ed. 2002. The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Horner, A. and S. Zlosnik. 1990. Landscapes of Desire: Metaphors in Modern Women’s Fiction. New York and London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Howells, C.A. 1995 (1978). Love, Mistery and Misery. London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Atholone.

Kincaid, J. 2002 (1990). Lucy: A Novel. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.

Kotte, C. 2001. Ethical Dimensions in British Historiographic Metafiction: Julian Barnes, Graham Swift, Penelope Lively. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.

Kristeva, J. 1982 (1980). Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press.

Lloyd Smith, A. 1996 “Postmodernism/Gothicism”, in V. Sage and A. Lloyd Smith, eds. Modern Gothic: A Reader. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.

Massé, M. A. 1992. In the Name of Love: Women, Masochism and the Gothic.

Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

Maurel, S. 1998. Jean Rhys. London: Macmillan.

Maurel, S. 2002 “Across the ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’: Jean Rhys’s Revision of Charlotte Brontë’s Eurocentric Gothic”. Commonwealth Essays and Studies, 24:2, 107-118.

Newman, J. in Sage & Smith (eds.), 1996, Modern Gothic: A Reader.

Nixon, N. 1994 Fall “Wide Sargasso Sea and Jean Rhys’s Interrogation of the ‘nature wholly alien’ in Jane Eyre”. Essays in Literature, 21:2, 267–284.

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Paravisini-Gebert, L. 2002 “Colonial and Postcolonial Gothic: the Caribbean” in J. E. Hogle, ed, The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Punter, D. 1996. The Literature of Terror: A History of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the Present Day. Volume 2: The Modern Gothic. London and New York: Longman, 1996.

Punter, D. 2000. Postcolonial Imaginings: Fictions of a New World Order.

Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Punter, D. ed. 2000. A Companion to the Gothic. Oxford: Blackwell.

Punter D. and G. Byron. 2004. The Gothic. Malden, Oxford and Victoria: Blackwell Publishing.

Rhys, J. 1997 (1996). Wide Sargasso Sea. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966), p. xviii. Ed. and intro. by Angela Smith.

Rhys, J. 2001 (1966). Wide Sargasso Sea. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Ed. and intro. by Hilary Jenkins.

Rutherford, J. ed. 1990. Identity, Community, Culture, Difference. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

Sage, V. and A. Lloyd Smith, eds. 1996. Modern Gothic: A Reader.

Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1996.

Savory, E. 2000 (1998). Jean Rhys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Seidman, S. 1991. Romantic Longings: Love in America, 1830-1980. New York and London: Routledge.

Sim, S. ed. 1995. The A-Z Guide to Modern Literary and Cultural Theorists.

London and New York: Prentice Hall, Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Spaull, S. 1989 “Gynocriticism” in S. Mills, L. Pearce, S. Spaull and E. Millard Feminist Readings/Feminists Reading. New York and London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Thomas, S. 1999. The Worlding of Jean Rhys. Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press.

Williams, A. 1995. The Art of Darkness: A Poetics of Gothic. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Young, R. J.C. 1995. Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Space.

London and New York: Routledge.

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“NOT A BLOODY BIT L IKE TH E MAN”: UNCANNY SUBSTRATA IN JAMES JOYCE’S HADES* Benigno del Río Molina Universidad de Sevilla debenigno40@yahoo.es In the Joycean “Hades”, under a surface of a certain naturalistic, grotesque beauty, a few dark elements are hidden. During the funeral in Glasnevin, the caretaker tells the story of two drunkards who went to visit a friends’ tomb during the evening. This comic anecdote hides a whole phantom narrative underneath.

This story alludes to the too-frequent custom of those body-snatchers who went to the cemetery to loot tombs.

The main reason for this macabre and horrendous practice was the enormous difficulties the medical profession had in obtaining bodies for anatomical dissection. The dead bodies that invaded a public space produce uncanny feelings in readers, feelings that Freud related in 1919 with the return of the familiar and the repressed. Therefore, under the beautiful veil of “Hades’” verbal fabric, whole uncanny narratives are hidden, infusing the episode with an extra, disturbing dimension and embuing it with an unexpected vitality.

Keywords: the uncanny, Joyce, Ulysses, “Hades”, bodysnatchers, Freud.

En el “Hades” Joyceano, bajo una superficie de cierta belleza naturalista, aunque no carente de elementos grotescos o expresionistas, se esconde grandes estratos siniestros. Durante el funeral, el encargado del cementerio relata la historia de dos borrachos que fueron a visitar la tumba de un amigo durante la noche. Esta anécdota cómica esconde toda una narrativa fantasma: las acostumbradas visitas nocturnas de los ladrones de cadáveres al cementerio de Glasnevin con el objeto de vender los cuerpos para la Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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disección anatómica. Las figuras de los muertos que, arrastrados por los ladrones, invadían en la noche los espacios públicos, pertenecen a uno de los aspectos de lo siniestro, y tal como lo definiera Freud en 1919: el retorno inquietante de lo que antaño fuera familiar y que ha estado reprimido. Así, bajo un velo verbal de ordenada belleza, relatos o mitos terribles, como ocurriera en El nacimiento de Venus de Botticelli, donde se escondía el mito de la castración de Urano, laten ocultos en el “Hades” Joyceano narrativas oscuras que infunden al episodio de una dimensión inquietante, aunque sólo entrevista y aludida.

Palabras claves: lo siniestro, Joyce, Ulysses, los ladrones de cadáveres, Freud.

1. INTRODUCTION

The beautiful painting “The Birth of Venus” by Sandro Botticelli conceals one of the most sinister myths ever told. Cronos castrated his father, Uranus, and threw his genitals into the Mediterranean Sea. From the spilt semen of the god Uranus, Aphrodite, Goddess of Desire, was born. This sinister act of generation, however, is only hinted at in the canvas in the form of tiny insects and splashes of yellow foam scattered among the waves. Taking this pictorial version of the myth as his starting point, Eugenio Trías (1982) developed a theory of aesthetics concerning the beautiful and the uncanny. He argued that the sinister is a condition inherent in most classic works of art; it must be present somewhere to give the work an unexpected and disturbing quality. At the same time, it must only be alluded to, hinted at, since to reveal it overtly would destroy the aesthetic effect that the work seeks to communicate. In this way, the sinister both darkly enhances and limits the work of art.

The writer of our present concern, James Joyce (1882-1941) would seem to fulfill the above premises in his naturalistic collection of short stories, Dubliners (1914). This is apparent, above all, in his novella “The Dead”, where under the beautiful scene “Distant

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Music”, in which Gabriel Conroy imagines himself to be painting his wife, is “buried” the dark story of Michael Furey, who died for love for Gretta. Years later, moving away from a classical, naturalistic conception of beauty, Joyce enters, mainly in the second part of the sixth episode of Ulysses, “Hades”, into the realm of expressionism and the grotesque. The author, as he had previously done in “The Dead”, not only imbues this episode with dark aspects related to death, but also with bold expressionist effects dragged from many different sources. In doing so, he not only produces a great variety of unusual effects, but also hidden layers of the sinister which create unexpected connections and implications enriching the narrative with mysterious and disturbing second meanings. And precisely what I want to explore in this essay is the way in which Joyce conceals a sinister substratum under subtle lexical veils, covert references, or metonymic or metaphoric workings. According to our previous premises, the dark layers are not only hidden in order to avoid destroying the aesthetic effect, but also to create multi-faceted connections that enrich the text with many unexpected meanings. Dark substrata will, multum in parvo, be well buried within the verbal fabric of “Hades”.

2. FREUD’S “THE UNCANNY”

Sigmund Freud, in his famous essay “The Uncanny” (1919), thought that many people considered the epitome of uncanniness to be in relation to corpses, ghosts, spectres and death. Even languages seem to avoid the sinister. Freud, for instance, complained that the German expression “ein unheimliches Haus” (an uncanny house) was rendered into other languages by a circumlocution or a more diluted coinage such as “a haunted house” in English (133). Also in relation to the subject of death, Freud claimed that many scholars thought the idea of being buried alive was the height of uncanniness, although, from a psychoanalytical point of view, he considered this a self-indulgent fantasy: going back to live in the mother’s womb. Nevertheless, we have to accept that our relationship with death has not changed much since ancient times. There are, for Freud, two crucial reasons for this: firstly, our attitude to death has been so deep-rooted since prehistoric times that it has resisted any attempt to change it, and secondly, we lack scientific knowledge about death and what happens after it. It Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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seems that the central fact of disappearing forever from the world, leaving life behind and entering an unknown reality, tinges everything related to death with horror. Coffins, corpses, candles, the gloomy coldness of rigid limbs, all clearly create uncanny feelings. Furthermore, there are other important aspects of the uncanny. As “The Sandman”

by E.T.A. Hoffmann well illustrates, an encounter with an automaton or a mechanical or wax doll also stirs up strange feelings. Freud argues that in some way these feelings stem from our uncertainty as to whether an apparently live being is really dead or, conversely, whether a lifeless object is, somehow, alive. It is the way the human and the non-human, living and non-living matter are inextricably and inexplicably mixed up with each other that clearly induces the unease.

The most eloquent example is the eerie doll Olympia that Nathaniel peeped at with his pocket-telescope. Borges, for example, experienced precisely an uncanny feeling while reading Dante’s Inferno. In the first circle, Virgil and Dante, the character, arrive at a noble castle (a “nobile castello”) surrounded by seven city walls. And Borges comments: “se habla asimismo de un arroyo que desaparece y de un fresco prado, que también desaparece. Cuando se acercan, lo que ven es esmalte. Ven, no el pasto, que es una cosa viva, sino una cosa muerta” (Siete Noches 49).1 In the opposite process, uncanny emotions may surface when something we are convinced is inorganic or inert is suddenly perceived as animate, or alive. In mythological tales and paintings such as Goya’s “Saturn Devouring his Children” (1819-1823), for example, sinister effects are often achieved through shocking images of horrific injuries or amputations. Cannibalism, dismemberment, especially of precious body parts such as the eyes or the penis, fit into this category. An illustration of this is the dismemberment of Olympia by the two men in “The Sandman”. One man kept the mechanical body and the other, the bleeding eyes of the doll. And, finally, the most powerful kind of uncanniness takes place when we realise that bodies and members we thought dead suddenly become alive in our daily environment as happens in the Joycean “Hades”.

3. NOT A BLOODY BIT LIKE THE MAN

In James Joyce’s “Hades”, Paddy Dignam, who died three days before of a heart attack due partly to his incurable vice (alcoholism),, Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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pays his last visit to the cemetery on the 16th of June in order to remain in consecrated soil forever. But other less-decent visitors also frequented Glasnevin in an intoxicated state, searching the site for sheer entertainment. John O’Connell, Prospect Cemetery caretaker, tells the audience of mourners the story of two drunks who went to the cemetery on a foggy evening to look for the tomb of their friend Mulcahy from the Coombe. When they eventually managed to find the tomb, they had a good look at the statue of Christ that the widow of the deceased had put up. And then, after blinking up at the sacred figure, one of the drunks commented: “Not a bloody bit like the man, says he. That’s not Mulcahy, says he, whoever done it” (U 6.107).

The caretaker’s joke is, to begin with, a drunken men’s comedy, as Robert H. Bell comments: “Yes, along with a laugh at the expense of sacred figures comes a kind of stubborn faith in banal, mundane life as we ordinarily live it…Even Joyce’s drunks play their positive role in the casual comedy” (82-83). But other deeper issues emerge from this apparently inconsequential passage. It shows us the gap that exists between art (Jesus’ sculpture) and the banal, human reality that is not portrayed by it. It also shows the enormous abyss opened between the divine and the twentieth century man. How little comfort can be found in spiritual forms when the secular man is finally left to be only food for worms. However, by applying the similarity of a human being, like Bloom, for example, and Christ, further implications appear. As Sicari commented:

Brook Thomas has noted that Joyce includes in ‘Hades’ a warning to those who seek a facile identification of Bloom with other figures, especially Christ…the resemblance between Bloom and Christ is not difficult to discern –“not a bloody bit like the man”, we might wish to say; yes, Stephen will see it, and we will learn to see it through Stephen’s eyes. (59-60)

Sicari, however, also notices that Bloom may not agree with certain Christian principles, but through Joyce’s art, he will become, to a certain extent, a model of Christian behaviour. On the other hand, the drunks of the caretaker’s anecdote behaved in an irreverent and appalling way, creating a space of spectrality. A cemetery on a foggy evening is eerie enough: the half-glimpsed stone forms, the oppressive Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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silence, the loneliness of the place must infuse more than one strange sensation. But the sacrilegious, intoxicated, loud presence of the drunkards, tramping and stumbling among the tombs, further increases the uncanny feelings. And like that terrible myth that was hidden under the beauty of “The Birth of Venus” by Sandro Botticelli, here, under the naturalistic, comic-macabre textual reality of the former passage, a truly uncanny and nocturnal practice is hidden, yet hinted at, adding an unexpectedly sinister dimension to the text.

The drunkards who wander around the cemetery at night allude to the body-snatchers’ custom of heavy drinking before looting a tomb.

Night robberies at Glasnevin were so frequent and offensive that Dublin’s authorities had to build high watchtowers to defend the dead from bold incursions. The main reason for this macabre and horrendous practice was the enormous difficulties the medical profession had in obtaining bodies for anatomical dissection. Surgeons kept resorting to executed criminal bodies, but these never fully supplied the high demand. Professional body-snatchers, popularly called “Sack-‘em-Ups” and “Resurrectionists”, had to be hired. As the Holy Office in May 1886 opposed cremation, all the bodies of Catholics had to be buried uncremated. So, the supply at Glasnevin was never short. The robbers acted promptly, when the earth was still soft and the corpse was easy to remove. It also helped when the coffin was a pauper’s coffin, like Dignam’s, made of the cheapest and the thinnest timber. A customary way of getting the body out was burrowing at an angle towards the coffin, in such a way that the visible and superficial earth over the tomb was left intact. Thus, on consecutive visits, mourners and family wouldn’t know the place was empty. Occasionally, after being dressed up and prepared, the raised corpse, disguised as a drunkard, would be dragged along the streets held by the body-snatchers (Ito 10).

The night incursions at Glasnevin open up not only a scenery of spectrality, but a Bahktinian carnavalesque inversion where comedy, alcohol and jokes take the place of the solemnity of funeral rites. In this phantom narrative, the almost universal taboo concerning the disturbance of the dead is violated. This transgression is a serious offence against civil law; it is a supreme irreverence against the deceased’s family and, above all, a religious profanation. Even the

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popular name of “Resurrectionists” given to the body-snatchers is a collective mockery, however minor, of Christ’s, or indeed, of any religious resurrection. Furthermore: all the religious and social rituals are inverted. A violent unburial (it was customary to pull the corpse out by tying ropes to the body’s members) inverts the burial service.

The drunkards’ swearing and shouting take the place of sacred prayers.

The transmitted, jerky movements of the corpse take the place of that promised undisturbed, eternal peace. The company of uncouth and noisy strangers substitutes the caring proximity of family and friends.

Even the ritual journey to the cemetery is inverted: instead of heading in a ceremonial procession to a sacred place, the corpse is dragged away from it in a rough manner to an unrestful destination: the operating table where it will be endlessly dissected.

4. CONCLUSIONS

Some aspects of Freud’s classification of the uncanny inevitably emerge from this phantom narrative. His first category states that something lifeless, a dead man in this case, appearing to be alive, often produces a feeling of uncanniness. The snatched body dragged along back alley ways, must inevitably produce in our imagination a feeling of unease. In the same way, the invasion of a public place by a corpse tidied and ready, must produce a very strange and grotesque sensation in the reader. In a second category, the uncanny is generated through repetition, duplication and parody, as in this case. In the first instance, the body crosses the city in a funeral procession; in the second, an unintentional parody, the decomposing and unburied bodies are dragged along the streets at night. The uncanny not only has its origin in that strange parallelism between both “processions”, but mainly in the horrific, nightmarish quality of the latter scene. Also a primitive terror reaches us when we imagine the living dead invading familiar surroundings. A third category emerges when the body is being dissected on the operating table, the uncanny feeling being generated by dismembered limbs, a severed hand or head. Finally, if we imagine the scenes of Glasnevin cemetery at night, and the corpse that begins moving like a living being along the Dublin streets, the uncanny must reach us with all its mighty power.

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However, of the sinister ghost story of the body-snatchers only an allusive, metonymic presence remains in “Hades”: the traditional drunkards’ night visits to Glasnevin. This irreverent practice is only glimpsed at without destroying with its sinister aspects the aesthetic effect that the text may produce. Going back to our foundational hypothesis, beauty, made of whatever materials are required, is an appearance and a veil that conceals a dark layer where any effect of beauty vanishes; when the sinister material is openly made visible, it cancels most of the reader’s aesthetic apprehensions.2 Thus, the dark bottom is the body-snatchers’ narrative that is hidden under the textual surface of the passage dealing with the drunkards’ night visits.

It creates a disturbing, uncanny substratum in the same way as the story of Uranus’ castration remained hidden under the beauty of “The Birth of Venus”, vaguely alluded to by little animals and insects in the foam of the sea.

However, a coda must be added to the conclusion in order to round off our topic. The dubious, promiscuous veil of “Hades”, splashed by occasional lyrical beauty, gains extra and uncanny dimensions with the episode’s allusions to the transgression of taboos, mainly dealing with the handling of the dead. And precisely, one of the main sources of uncanniness in “Hades” is produced by the defamiliarization of the human body. Joyce offers us a vision of the body that moves far away from those images propagated by philosophies, Catholic schools, traditional paintings and previous literature. The human body will never be again that harmonious machine, a perfect mirror of the cosmos, that Leonardo devoutly painted and that Hamlet praised with irony and wonder. After Descartes’ philosophy and especially after the Darwinian revolution, the body in “Hades” will be a higher version of the beast in the scale of animal evolution. Almost like Frankenstein’s body, the human organism will be rendered as a gathering of different organs that can be cut, dismembered or drained of fluids. The body is often represented as too close to the eye, too realistic, appearing blurred, or as a torn issue. Other times, viewed from too far a (psychological) distance, it will appear in a cynical or humorous manner in the form of distorted caricatures or with animal features. The body is also made equal to any mechanical item invented since the Industrial Revolution.

Viscera and entrails are displayed as belonging to a working machine Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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that once it breaks down, is dumped like a piece of scrap iron in any wasteyard. But when the body reaches a higher degree of uncanniness, displaying all its decay and mechanical symptoms, is when it is “resurrected”.

NOTES

And Borges comments: ” They also speak about a stream which vanishes and about a fresh meadow which also vanishes. As they come closer, they only see enamel. They do not see the pasture, which is something alive, but something which is dead.” (Siete Noches 49; my translation) 2 See Eugenio Trías’s explanation, especially pages 8-22.

1

WORKS CITED

Bell, Robert H. 2001. “’Preparatory to anything else’: Introduction to Joyce’s ‘Hades’”. “Journal of Modern Literature XXIV, ¾ Summer.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 363-499.

Borges, Jorge Luís. 1980. Siete noches. Mexico D.C.: Fondo de cultura económica.

Ito, Eshiro. 2004. “’I am the insurrection and the life’: Reading Irish Nationalism in the 6th Episode of Ulysses”. 12-06-2004. http://A:/I%20am%20the%20insurrection%20and%20the%20lif e.htm Joyce, James. 2002. Ulysses. 1922. New York: Ramdon House.

Freud, Sigmund. 2003. “The Uncanny”.1919. The Uncanny. Trans.

David Mclintock. New York and London: Penguin Books.

Sicari, Stephen. 2001. Joyce’s Modernist Allegory: Ulysses and the History of the Novel. Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press.

Trías, Eugenio. 1982. Lo bello y lo siniestro. Barcelona: Seix Barral.

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YXTA MAYA MURRAY ’S LOCAS (1997): AND WHAT AB OUT CHICANA BARRIO ADOLESCENTS?1 Amaia Ibarraran Bigalondo Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea amaia.ibarraran@ehu.es The Chicano Movement that emerged in the decade of the sixties and continued in the subsequent years, served as an incredibly effective means to proclaim and demand the rights of this silenced community in the eyes of mainstream, accommodated U.S. society, and, most importantly, to raise the social, cultural and ethnic consciousness of those who shaped the group that had been labelled as “Mexican-American”. Subsequently, the feminist Chicana Movement fought for the recognition of the silent existence of the female community within the group and mainstream society. However, at the advent of the 21st century, there exists a group of young women who still experience the difficult social and personal situation that living in a marginal position provokes. Some young women in the barrios, such as the ones portrayed in Yxta Maya Murray’s Locas (1997), opt for joining the “wild life”, in an attempt to survive and exist in the face of adversity.

Keywords: Chicana feminism, adolescence, barrio, gangs, violence.

El Movimiento Chicano que se creó y se desarrolló a partir de la década de los sesenta, sirvió como herramienta para proclamar y publicar los derechos de la comunidad chicana, que hasta el momento se encontraba en una clara situación de discriminación en el engranaje social de los E.E.U.U.. Del mismo modo, el Movimiento favoreció el nacimiento de una “conciencia chicana” entre aquellos ciudadanos norteamericanos que habían sido denominados y etiquetados como “mejicanoamericanos”. Posteriormente, el Movimiento Chicano Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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feminista luchó para que la comunidad femenina chicana tuviera una voz dentro de su propio colectivo y la comunidad norteamericana en general. Sin embargo, existe todavía hoy en día, a comienzos del siglo XXI, un colectivo de mujeres cuya realidad social y personal se caracteriza por una clara situación de marginalidad. Es el caso de algunas mujeres de los barrios, tales como las que se presentan en la novela de Yxta Maya Murray Locas (1997), que optan por asumir la “vida loca”, en un intento de sobrevivir en una situación vital de obvia adversidad.

Palabras clave: feminismo chicano, adolescencia, barrio, pandillas, violencia.

The Chicano Movement that emerged in the decade of the sixties and continued in the subsequent years, served as an exceptionally effective means to proclaim and demand the rights of this silenced community in the eyes of mainstream, accommodated U.S. society, and, most importantly, to raise the social, cultural and ethnic consciousness of those who shaped the group that had been labelled as “Mexican-American”. In this sense, the Movement contributed to the publication of the dates and historical references that had marked the reality of the citizens of Mexican descent who had inhabited the United States long before the first Anglo settlers arrived in the territories of the South West. It concomitantly served to vindicate the rich and culturally amalgamated nature of the mestizo race, La Raza, a symbol of the power of interculturalism and mestizaje.

The literary works of the members an emerging literary group, such as Rudolfo Anaya, Alurista, Miguel Méndez, Tino Villanueva and Luis Valdez, amongst others, served as a means of publication of the history of the community, as well as a mechanism for the public condemnation of its social and economic depravation within the intricate U.S. social network.

The Movimiento, committed as it was to the changing of the power relationships within the country, however, did somehow fail to consider its own boundaries and scrutinize its internal hierarchical Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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organization, based primarily on parameters of gender division. In this context, the situation of Chicana women inside the community was akin to the position of the Chicano community within the overall U.S. distribution of social hierarchies. Chicanas were forced to fulfil a set of strongly established roles and norms that had been perpetuated and transmitted within and without the group through centuries of an overtly patriarchal system. The rights of Chicanas, thus, were different and fewer than those of their male counterparts, and their capacity to dismantle such a constraining situation, very limited. Some years after the emergence of the Movimiento Chicano, the women of the community started to define and subsequently develop their own struggle which endeavoured to open up the internal boundaries the community relied upon, and to bring about the ensuing emergence of these women into the realm of society. In this context, the utilization of diverse literary means for the publication of their identity and the thorough redescription and re-definition of the myths that had kept them perpetually subjugated and silenced, was essential, as it had been for their male counterparts. From a contemporary viewpoint, the social and cultural achievements of the Movimiento in general, and the vindications of the female movement in particular, are undeniable. Yet, the advance of a fiercely capitalist society which disregards those who do not fit into the regular, mainstream system, still marks the reality of many of the citizens of the lower income brackets and underprivileged echelons of society, as is the case of many members of the present-day Chicano community. In the light of this, a widely known and recognized community of Chicano writers and artists continue to pursue the equality of the members of their community through the publication of their works.

The social situation of both U.S. society in general, and the Chicano community in particular, as well as the overall organization of the world with its increasingly stronger boundaries which are wittingly ill-defined and concealed in the name of a more globalized, democratic and universally shared humanity, have proposed new ways of understanding social, economic and cultural demands. This new structure of the world and the different social organization of societies are the cause of a veiled, more subtle source of hierarchy and discrimination within said societies, as is the case of the U.S., a society, where, theoretically, people of different ethnic, gender and religious

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circumstances share equal rights in all public and private spheres and are eligible to be part of a regularized, mainstream social group. The recent presidential elections have undoubtedly marked the beginning of a new era in the understanding of social relationships within the country, some say. In this same context, the preceding dispute for the democrat leadership in the run-up to the elections for the eventual proclamation of either a woman or an African-American as President of the most powerful and socially, economically and culturally influential country in the world, has been construed as the accomplishment of the utmost heights of equality among the citizens of the country, as well as the worldwide manifestation of the idea that the universally exported American Dream does exist. The plight of women and people of different ethnic and economic minorities has proved effective in the eyes of the majority of U.S. citizens and the rest of the western countries throughout the world. Nonetheless, regardless of the symbolic significance of the facts, one should not forget that the situation of many U.S. citizens is far from being close to the ideals of the American Dream, and even to basic human rights and necessities, as there are still many communities and groups that live within the strongly established physical and socio-economical boundaries that exist within the country.

The configuration of space within cities in the United States, for example, is an interesting phenomenon which promotes said existing internal social boundaries. Cities have been planned, drawn up and distributed to hypothetically facilitate human life in perfectly angled squares, and organized in different areas or quarters. However, this apparent humanization of urban space is far from being true. The geometric distribution of cities and their internal subdivision is directly linked to a stratified, hierarchical organization of human existence. Thus, neighborhoods have been designed and in a way “fenced” according to parameters that do not always respond to the most democratic principles of human interaction. In this context, any big metropolis in the United States has districts that are organized in terms of the ethnic origin of its inhabitants.

Thus, the barrio, or the area in the city where citizens and immigrants of “Latin” origin reside is common in almost all big North American cities. These areas, generally separated from the downtown

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areas of the cities, become safe havens in which the population of an ethnic and social origin other than the ruling one feels protected and “at home”, as observed in the following words by Richard Griswold del Castillo, collected by Raúl Homero Villa: Whatever its implications for the socioeconomic fortunes of Mexican-Americans, the creation of the barrio was a positive accomplishment. The barrio gave a geographical identity, a feeling of being at home, to the dispossessed and the poor. It was a place, a traditional place that offered some security in the midst of the city’s social and economic turmoil (1979: 150).

Concomitantly, barrios have also become ghettoized areas which promote the exclusion of their inhabitants from mainstream society, and respond to particular parameters of social organization and internal hierarchization. Thus most barrios in the United States experience difficult sanitary and educational conditions and high rates of youth unemployment and violence, for the “economic restructuring of postindustrial cities has left urban communities bereft of stable employment opportunities. Consequently, urban residents experience severe social isolation that produces self-destructive behaviors and reproduces values that foster helplessness (Ginwright, Cammarota and Noguera 2005: 27).

The case of Los Angeles’ Echo Park, portrayed in Yxta Maya Murray’s novel Locas is no different from other barrios throughout the nation, and corresponds perfectly to the following depiction of the impact of the present-day socio-political global situation: Over the past decade, urban communities have experienced unprecedented social, economic, and political transformation. Global capitalism has contributed to the exodus of jobs, higher levels of inequality, and the marginalization of the urban poor.

Urban youth have been particularly affected by this transformation and the concomitant social and economic conditions. The failure of so many urban school districts to prepare young people academically, the absence of

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early-childhood education, and the removal of afterschool opportunities have combined with a growing fear of crime to shape a national consciousness that is complacent to the injustices that negatively affect urban communities and the youth who live in them (Ginwright, Cammarota and Noguera 2005: 27).

The main aim of this essay is, accordingly, to portray the harsh situation Chicana women experience in the barrios as depicted in Yxta Maya Murray’s Locas and to observe whether the demands of the first Chicana feminists have been completely achieved by all women of the Chicana community, in an attempt to raise the question of whether these young women are proposing a new way of understanding feminism and female liberation.

A great many of the vindications of first generation Chicanas conveyed their need for social, economic and personal emancipation from their male counterparts, a demand for the right to education and a public voice, as well as an individual, conscious development of their sexuality, and as a consequence, of maternity. Their achievements were many and they transformed positively the Chicana’s position within and without the community. However, the work that is the core of this essay proves that there is still a substantial group of Chicanas whose hard living and social conditions prevent them from acquiring their personal freedom and choice of individual identity as it was understood by preceding Chicana activists. Yxta Maya Murray’s Locas, first published in 1997, portrays the situation of some of these young women who live in Echo Park, and who have to overcome their difficult life situation by different, and sometimes questionable, means. Lucía and Cecilia, residents of Echo Park, an East L.A barrio and protagonists of a two-narrator novel which provides the reader with two different perspectives of one same life situation, personify the quest for a place within a society that has already chosen their place and destiny for them. Poverty, an uneducated young population and an obvious lack of cultural and economic resources, define the lives of youngsters in the barrio, who opt for joining the vida loca and gang life, as a source of economic income, power and respectability. However, gang life, markedly masculine, relegates women to a position of sexual companions to the men, whose masculinity is proven by “having” a

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silent woman next to them, who is eager to become a mother at a very early age and accept her role submissively.

One of the most essential demands of second-wave feminists in the sixties and seventies was that of the right of women to be economically independent from their male counterparts, as well as to vindicate education as the only means of acquiring such independence.

The two protagonists of the novel, Lucía and Cecilia, are presented from the outset of the work as women whose existence revolves around a central male figure, Manny. Manny, leader of Los Lobos gang, is Cecilia’s brother and Lucía’s boyfriend and becomes the essential figure in the process of acquisition of an identity for these two women within the strongly hierarchical internal organization of the barrio and the gang system. However, being related to Manny does not provide them entirely with a different status from the rest of the women in the barrio, whose main role is to accompany the boys, as observed in the following extract from the novel: With all those boys came the women. Hustler girls like me with our sprayed-out hair and our faces painted up glamour shiny, dark red and frosty brown on the eyes and cheeks, mouths like stoplights. The deals we made was to sex the boys hard, any time they wanted, and in return they’d take good are of us on the money end.

They called us sheep, “good for fucking”, was what they said. The more the money came rolling in, the tougher the vatos got, and you had to make like you love begging or else you wouldn’t get a dime (Murray 1997: 31).

Within this context, Lucía and Cecilia present two different ways of facing this reality and “making their most” out of it. Cecilia, Manny’s sister, admits her fate and desires to be a gang member’s girl and attain her dream of being a mother, and thus, a “real woman” soon.

Her acquired status in the barrio as the leader’s sister, will facilitate her quest and she will soon start a relationship with Beto, one of the gang’s leading members, who will rapidly get her pregnant. Cecilia, thus, embodies the stereotype of the accompanying, silent “sheep” (term used throughout the novel to define women) and opts for, in the eyes of Lucía, the “easy, passive life”. Lucía, on the contrary, stands Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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out from the female community in the barrio and is presented as a “vocal” woman, who despises the rest of the women and rejects her socially constructed fate. She discreetly starts introducing herself in the organization of Los Lobos, by means of helping Manny deal with the accounts of the group, which come from the drug dealing that the gang is involved in. Her access to information will soon nurture the girl’s desire for power and a self-constructed identity, and she will rapidly acquire the “masculine” traits that are common to gang members. She organizes her own female gang, which she designs as a mirror-image of the male gangs, and establishes a strong hierarchical arrangement of the girls who work for her, and whom she selects from the flock of sheep in the neighborhood.

These sheep-like women, the majority of the young adolescents who inhabit Echo Park as portrayed by Murray, at least at first sight share many of the traits through which the traditional female stereotype of the silent woman, which the first Chicana feminists fought so fiercely against, was constructed. Passivity, silence, submission, endurance and the acceptance of maternity as the unique female contribution to the community are presented as intrinsic to the lives of the women personified in the character of Cecilia.

However, the situation portrayed in the text differs considerably from the one denounced by the first Chicana writers and activists, as the position of these contemporary young women is described as a “voluntary” one, which these women adopt willingly in order to make the most of their men and acquire economic stability. In this sense, Cecilia overtly affirms that the fact of being a man’s girl and his babies’ mother is her own personal choice. Furthermore, Cecilia’s status within the barrio as the sister of the leader is consciously used by her as a way of overcoming her naturally accepted and assimilated ugliness in terms of the community’s standards of beauty, as she knows that being her partners can help the boys obtain upward mobility within the hierarchical network of the gang. She says: So I had my use, but the best part was still getting all that attention from Manny’s boys even though I never had the feel for sex much. (…). I loved being Manny’s princess. All those gangsters came calling on me even though I look like a ditch-digging bracero. But that’s the

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kind of power a woman has. Not like Lucía thinks, her head ticking with all her money thoughts, thinking she is the real driver. No, a woman can only make men do what she wants with the sex. Even if she doesn’t like some of that little price so much (Murray 1997: 60).

Cecilia, thus, rationally and deliberately chooses her destiny and is able to utilize what she considers to be her female attributes and power to consciously decide about her life. In this same sense, she continues describing that “I picked Beto because he looked like he would be going somewhere” (Murray 1997: 61). The implications of this statement convey a standpoint in a woman’s situation which depicts female agency and a voluntary choice over her life and destiny and moreover, a mindful, utilitarian approach towards males, who are presented as unconsciously relegated to female desire and power. In this context, she describes her relationship with Beto and her wish to be a mother in the following terms: What I wanted the whole time was to be looked at that way, to have someone get real still and quiet when they saw me, like I was the most beautiful thing.

And Beto would do that, he would see in me what he wanted, a girl wearing a skirt with her hair down, hands folded and modest, patient and willing just like any other girl, and he’d reach over to me soft and serious (Murray 1997: 61).

Following this line, the description of female sexuality differs from its portrayal in the texts by the first Chicana writers and intellectuals, who denounced the total personal annihilation and subjugation of women in this sphere. Cecilia’s narration, conversely, depicts the control of these women over their bodies and sexuality, and the use they wish to make of it, even though the eventual goal she herself strives for is that of being a mother as the only means to achieve personal and social fulfilment. The young girls depicted in the novel make a conscious, personal use of their sexuality, which they intentionally utilize as an exchange product for their economic stability. The controversy proposed by the text, thus, arises when one looks at the possible moral implications that the choice of the girls Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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may provoke. Their supposedly silent and submissive role may be understood as no different from the one their predecessors, the first Chicana feminists, denounced and fought to change. However, on the other hand, the idea of the conscious, free exploitation of their body and sexuality may undermine the previous assumption, and, at the same time, could be criticized and interpreted as an obvious example of female subjugation which perpetuates the most traditional and constraining forms of male dominance.

Motherhood, moreover, also seems a controversial issue according to the parameters proposed above. Considered as the basis of the perpetuation of the Chicano community within the framework of an inhospitable society, motherhood, symbolized in the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe, has been described for centuries as the only personal and social function of women within the group. In this sense, the reproductive function of the female community has been submissively assimilated by the women of the community as their duty and the only form of productive contribution to the group. On the contrary, even though they still consider motherhood as the only means of personal fulfilment and social survival, most of the girls presented in the text are adolescents who have “chosen” to be mothers at a very early age and become “real persons”, as Cecilia explains: In this town a woman doesn’t have a hundred choices. Can’t make yourself into a man, right? Can’t even pick up and cruise on out of here because you get some itch. And even though people talk all a out doing college, that’s just some dream they got from watching too much afternoon TV. No. A woman’s got her place if she’s a mama. That makes her a real person, where before she was just some skinny or fat little girl with skin like brown dirt, not worth a dime, not anybody to tip your hat to (Murray 1997: 62).

The above words, which portray the conscious acceptance of maternity as the only way to be someone in the barrio, may lead to differing interpretations and imply distinct moral connotations.

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rational use of this uniquely female attribute. Nonetheless, the notion of teen pregnancy, and the economic intentionality that the girls provide maternity with, may be regarded by many as contradictory to the essential values of female integrity and freedom. A study proposed

by Geoffrey Hunt about Chicana teen pregnancy shows, as is depicted in the novel, the fact that motherhood helps these girls fulfill themselves as individuals, and distance themselves from the risks of gang life.

In spite of the strains of motherhood, almost every mother agreed that having children had changed their lives in very positive ways. They found that they had much more stability in their lives, that they had calmed down, and that they were now able to set goals for themselves and look on themselves as the role mothers for their children, a responsibility that they were willing to assume.

Motherhood facilitated their negotiating a new identity as more capable, more confident, more responsible, and more mature people.

They had a new focus and purpose in their lives (2005: 369).

In contrast to Cecilia, the character of Lucia, the main protagonist of Locas, is aware of the aforementioned female fate and despises the rest of the women in the barrio, who have submitted to male supremacy, becoming mothers, and thus, dependent on males for personal and economic stability. A woman of strong ambitions, Lucía will fight ferociously to become an independent woman, and becomes the symbol of the utmost rejection of the deeply-rooted patriarchal system that the barrio in general, and the gang system, in particular, relies upon. Furthermore, her aim is to surpass male power and become not only personally and economically independent from men, but to be respected and feared by the whole community. In her quest for power and recognition, her first decision will be to avoid at all costs reproducing the submissive female mother role that the rest of the girls in the neighborhood docilely, sheepishly, adopt. She says: There was maybe fifteen girls hanging around the Lobos, stuffing their chi-chis into tight dresses and making tamale dinners and keeping their vatos happy in bed, trying to get knocked up. Most of them was worthless lazy-brains. Milkmakers. There’s Rafa’s girl

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Monica, who gave him a little Paco, and of Popeye’s sheep gave him another boy. You couldn’t walk half a block without seeing some fifteen- year-old mamacita dragging a kid by the hand and lugging another one in her belly. That mess ain’t for me. I saw them baby faces crying and Lobos all smoking cigars like high-rollers, but it didn’t make me moony or jealous. When I’m around babies I get cold and skittish like a racehorse who sees a deer mouse. But I guess Manny liked the way it looked.

Whenever he’d hear about a new baby, he’d flick me a look like he’s getting his own ideas. (…) The next day I went to Family Planning and got on the pill nice and quick and didn’t tell a soul (Murray 1997: 40-41).

The above words clearly show that she acts in a totally rational, greedy, “bloodthirsty, wolf-like” manner, abandoning for good her fate of becoming a sheep, like the rest of the women in her community.

The creation of her own female gang, shows that her main aim is to prove her total independence from men, as well as the fact she does not have to sell herself for economic and personal survival. The moral debate surrounding Lucía’s choice of life arises from the means she uses to achieve such emancipation, for she takes up violence and criminality in order to become economically independent, and thus, reproduces and tries to surpass all male attitudes. Lucía not only wants to be strong and free like the men of her community, but she wants to be stronger and more powerful, if possible. This attitude is not an isolated one, as we may infer from the following words by Taylor, transcribed by Isela Alexandra García, who explains that female gang members are, Just as cutthroat in business practices as any male, and will be just as aggressive as any male to protect [their] commodity and territory. These females see the only way out of ghetto life, while keeping their selfrespect, is through the creation of their own crews, with their own rules and values (1993: 44).

This overacting of female freedom is, however, a fervent rejection and denial of the blatant discrimination that women have Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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endured in the Chicano community in general, and the gang system in particular. In the case of Lucía, the figure of her mother, whom she absolutely despises, depicts complete female subjugation, as she has been brutally abused by her father, abandoned, and has had to turn to prostitution to survive. Lucía, in an attempt to escape such a destiny, fights for the contrary, and, as explained before, ends up going to the opposite extreme. Lucia’s attitude, in this sense, may be criticised as totally individualistic and personal, since it does not call for the liberation of the women in her community in general, but only takes into account her own. She despises the rest of the women of her group and treats the girls in her clicka as inferior to her, thus, subordinate to her will, by means of the creation of a totally hierarchical structure, in which she is the absolute leader. Lucía, thus, reproduces the worst attitudes of male gang activity, and does not offer any overall, positive solution to the situation of the girls around her, which is the following: Like young males, many female youths are subjected to: culture conflict, poverty, and associated family and school problems. In addition, they are apt to undergo personal devaluation, stricter childrearing experiences, tension-filled gender role expectations, and problems with self-esteem stemming from all these forces. Sexual abuse and exploitation experiences, initially with male relatives and later male street peers, can lead to pent-up rage. Not surprising, some young females are now channelling that rage into holding their own in the violence of the street gang world (Vigil 2003: 227).

Murray’s portrayal of life in the barrio, in summary, responds to the previous words and opens up a deep debate about contemporary working-class Chicana adolescents’ personal identities and social position. The fact that the only way out for many young women is through joining the gang world and assuming violence as a necessary means of survival, or as a means of economic stability within the framework of violence and criminality, proves the harsh certainty that the situation of this community is still far from ideal. In this context, the characters of the novel represent the urgent need for survival within a hostile reality, and show two contrasting escape routes, regardless of the moral implications of each of the two girls’s choices.

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achievements of Chicana feminists within such a hard life situation. In this sense, the implications of the two girls’ choices may lead the reader to think about whether their acts may be understood as a new way of interpreting the right of women to be free and independent or as a step back in women’s quest for total equality and emancipation.

WORKS CITED

Campbell, A. 1991. 2nd ed. The Girls in the Gang. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.

García, I. A. 1999. “Yxta Maya Murray’s Locas: A Failed Vision of Cholas”. The Berkeley McNair Journal. 59-69.

Ginwright, S., Cammarota, J. and Noguera, P. 2005. “Youth, Social JU.S.tice and Communities: Toward a Theory of Urban Youth Policy”. Social Justice. Vol 32, 3: 24-40.

Griswold del Castillo, R. 1979. The Los Angeles Barrio, 1850-1890: A Social History. Berkeley: University of California Press in Homero Villa, R. 2000. Barrio-logos: Space and Place in Urban Chicano Literature and Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Harris, M., ed. 1998. Cholas. Latino Girls and Gangs. New York: AMS Press.

Hunt, G., Joe-Laidler, K. and McKenzie, K. March 2005. “Moving into Motherhood: Gang Girls and Controlled Risk”, Youth Society. Vol 36, nº 3 :333-373.

Taylor, C. 1993. Girls, Gangs, Women and Drugs. East Lansing: Michigan University Press.

Moore, J.W. 1991. Going Down to the Barrio. Homeboys and Homegirls in Change. Philadelphia. Temple University Press.

Murray, Y.M.1997. Locas. New York: Grove Press.

Vigil, J.D. 2003.”Urban violence and street gangs”. Annual Review of Anthropology. 32: 225-242.

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‘I AM NOT MAD, NOT HORN-MAD’: SENTIDO RECTO Y SENTIDO FIGURADO EN EL DISCURSO DRAMÁTICO DE BEN JONSON. NOTAS PARA SU TRADUCCIÓN* Jesús Ángel Marín Calvarro Universidad de Extremadura jesusmar@unex.es The language used by Ben Jonson in Volpone or The Fox comprises a great number of different elements which add towards the ornament and enrichment of this dramatic text. Among them, wordplay has a prominent place in this text making it not only richer in meaning but, also, much more difficult for translation. In this paper, scene five of act one has been chosen to demonstrate not only that particular richness of meaning coming from the use of wordplay but also the problems it poses to translators of this text into Spanish.

Jonson.

Keywords: wordplay, literary analysis, translation, Ben

Ben Jonson utiliza con gran maestría la lengua inglesa en sus numerosos trabajos. En todos ellos este autor da muestras de un estilo peculiar donde abundan, entre otros, muchos elementos que los adornan y enriquecen. Entre ellos cabe destacar el uso polisémico de términos y expresiones que enriquecen sobremanera el discurso y, a la vez, lo hacen más refractario a la traducción. En este trabajo se tratará, por una parte, de mostrar precisamente ese rasgo del estilo de este autor inglés y, por otra, confirmar la gran dificultad que ese aspecto de su estilo supone para el traductor. En este caso concreto, los ejemplos aquí analizados provienen de la escena séptima del acto tercero de la obra Volpone, or the Fox mientras que para el cotejo traductológico se han utilizado las dos traducciones más recientes de esta obra al español.

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Palabras clave: Juegos verbales, análisis literario, traducción, Ben Jonson.

1. INTRODUCCIÓN

El estilo literario de los autores de principios del siglo diecisiete, es decir tanto los que se enmarcan dentro de la denominación de isabelinos como aquellos que viven en el reinado de James I y se les conoce como jacobeos, se distingue especialmente por el uso abudante de retruécanos, ambigüedades, dilogías y, en definitiva, por el juego verbal en general1. Así pues, tanto en sus obras poéticas como en las dramáticas destaca con fuerza el uso sutil de un vocabulario marcado profundamente por su carácter polisémico2. Este elemento, es decir, esa multiplicidad de matices3que esos términos proyectan en el discurso literario, se revela no sólo como fundamental a la hora de obtener una visión cabal del sentido del texto original sino que además plantea considerables problemas de traducción. Esto no quiere decir que no haya otros elementos que el traductor debería también tener en cuenta a la hora de trasladar el texto a otra lengua. Sin embargo, este aspecto concreto parece tan esencial que sin su recreación en la lengua de llegada cualquier otro acierto traductológico se antoja insuficiente. El camino a seguir para solventar estas dificultades pasa, en primer lugar, por la localización y fijación de todos aquellos términos marcados por la ambigüedad y el doble sentido. Para ello las herramientas utilizadas deberán ser ineludiblemente tanto las ediciones más fiables de los trabajos objeto de la investigación como la crítica especializada en la obra y el autor y, por supuesto, el aparato lexicográfico más autorizado en el inglés isabelino. Posteriormente, y una vez que se ha completado el proceso anterior, se llevará a cabo un cotejo (de los escollos comentados) entre el texto original y todas las traducciones de la obra inglesa al español.

La escena séptima del acto tercero de la comedia de Ben Jonson, Volpone, or The Fox contiene numerosos ejemplos de esa riqueza significativa mencionada. En este caso concreto, se han elegido exclusivamente unos cuantos términos para ilustrar tanto la riqueza significativa que impregna el discurso de Ben Jonson en esta obra de teatro como las dificultades que plantean dichas formas a la hora de

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verterlas al español. Para comprobar este último supuesto se han elegido dos de las más recientes traducciones de esta obra a nuestra lengua, la de Sarabia Santander4 y la de Purificación Ribes5.

2. HORN-MAD

En el verso treinta de la escena séptima del acto tercero, la forma ‘horn-mad’ se presta a una doble lectura que permite profundizar más si cabe en el carácter violento y celoso de Corvino. En efecto, en este término confluyen en el inglés isabelino tanto esa acepción de la persona que sufría un acceso de furor como ese otro sentido del marido a quien su mujer había faltado a la fidelidad conyugal (Partridge: 123; Webb: 26; Williams 1997: 163). El OED recoge, en la entrada correspondiente, la vigencia de ambas connotaciones en la época y las ilustra con citas de obras de autores isabelinos. En concreto, el primer sentido del término se define como ‘stark mad; mad with rage; furious’ y se ilustra con una frase de la obra Saffron Walden de Nashe publicada en Londres por John Danter en 1596: ‘A Bulls_bellowing and running horne mad at euery one in his way’. El segundo de esos sentidos se explica ese mismo léxico como ‘mad with rage at having been made a cuckold’ y se ejemplifica dicho sentido con una obra de Shakespeare en la que se puede apreciar claramente ese significado que esta palabra poseía en el inglés isabelino: ‘1590 Shakes. Com. Err. ii. i. 57 E. Dro. Why Mistresse, sure my Master is horne mad. Adri. Horne mad, thou villaine? E. Dro. I meane not Cuckold mad, But sure he is starke mad’. Por otro lado, la crítica más autorizada en esta obra de Jonson advierte de modo inequívoco la duplicidad de sentidos que se conjugan en el mencionado sintagma. Así, por ejemplo, Halio, en su edición de Volpone, percibe claramente ambas lecturas que explica con estas palabras: ‘(a) [of anyone] stark mad, (b) [of husbands] enraged at fact or threat of being cuckolded’ (Halio: 161). Henke, en su glosario sobre el inglés del Renacimiento en el teatro, incluye una anotación en la que no sólo se pueden apreciar los sentidos mencionados —especialmente el segundo— sino que, además, los ilustra precisamente con este pasaje de la obra de Jonson: ‘Stark mad (like an enraged horned beast), with

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the usual pun on the horns of the cuckold’ (Spenser).

‘Passionately angry at having been cuckolded’ (PSB).

Corvino to his wife, ‘...yet I am not mad; / Not horn-mad, see you?’ Vol. III. vii. 29-30. Here the actor playing Corvino probably point to his head to demonstrate the absence of horns (Henke: 129).

En las ediciones de Brockbank, Creaser y Hollindale, por el contrario, se resalta de modo específico el sentido marcado del término, es decir, ese contenido de carácter eminentemente sicalíptico que el adjetivo irradia en este contexto y que los autores mencionados glosan en términos muy parecidos: ‘mad at being cuckolded, mad at the prospect, or mad to be so’ (Brockbank: 81), ‘mad (with rage) at being, or fearing to be, a cuckold’ (Creaser: 252) y ‘maddened by fear of being cuckolded’ (Hollindale: 150). También Colman en su obra The Dramatic Use of Bawdy in Shakespeare y Webb en su glosario reconocen el uso frecuente de ambos sentidos del término en el inglés de la época si bien no mencionan en ningún caso a la obra que nos ocupa. El primero de ellos se expresa de este modo: ‘(a) stark mad, (b) mad with rage at being made a cuckold’ (Colman: 1974). En cuanto a Webb interpreta la doble función de ‘horn-mad’ de esta manera: ‘enraged like a horned beast, ready for a clash. Prov: Tilley, H628. The distinction between pugnacious anger (non-sexual) and jealousy is made in Err.: “Horn-mad, thou villain!” “ I mean not cuckold-mad” II.i.58-9’ (Webb: 26). Por otro lado, tanto Partridge como Williams en sus respectivos trabajos lexicográficos sobre el inglés isabelino registran y documentan esa acepción de marcado corte erótico que la forma ‘horn-mad’ destila en este caso concreto si bien entre los ejemplos con los que ilustran este sentido no se halla el que nos atañe. En concreto, en la obra de Partridge se hace la siguiente interpretación de la mencionada expresión: Passionately angry at having been cuckolded.

‘Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad. —Adriana.

Horn-mad, thou villain! —Dromio. I mean not cuckoldmad’, Com. of Errors, II.i.57-8. —In Claudio’s ‘If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad’ (to Benedick scorning marriage), there may be further implication, ‘extremely amorous’, with an allusion to the

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‘penis’ sense of horn. —Merry Wives, I.iv.49; cf. III.v.148 (Partridge: 123).

También en la glosa de Williams se aclara e ilustra profusamente ese sentido: mad with sexual jealousy. An early c 15 proverbial expression (Tilley H628), suggestive of an angry bull.

The cuckold sense, which therafter became dominant, is first used in CE II.i.56: ‘sure my master is horn-mad’; though the servant carefully qualifies in response to the wife’s expostulation: ‘I mean not cuckold-mad, but sure he is stark mad’ [...]. In Ado I.i.251, it is suggested that marriage will make Benedick ‘horn-mad’; see also MWW I.iv.46, III.v.140 (Williams 1997: 163).

Mención aparte merecen los comentarios de Parker y Procter ya que en ambos casos se añade una nueva lectura a las interpretaciones de la crítica apuntadas con anterioridad. Así pues, para estos dos editores en la forma ‘horn-mad’ confluyen, además de los significados ya citados, otro de signo muy particular por cuanto supone una clara contradicción con respecto al segundo de los sentidos enumerados por la crítica; o, dicho de otro modo, el enojo de Corvino ante la posible infidelidad de su mujer Celia se transforma en las explicaciones de Parker (‘Horn-mad. (a) sexually jealous, (b) eager to be cuckolded’) (Parker: 198) y Procter (‘stark mad; also, “mad with rage at being made a cuckold”’ [or perhaps, mad with a desire to be cukolded —Corvino believes that Volpone is impotent])’ (Procter: 222) en un deseo irrefrenable de que ella le engañe.

Veamos cuál ha sido la respuesta de Sarabia Santander ante esta polivalencia significativa del término ‘horn-mad’. En la expresión ‘loco de celos’ con la que este autor vierte la forma inglesa al español parece asomarse únicamente esa referencia a la infidelidad conyugal presente en el término original. Por lo que, tanto el significado superficial del término, es decir, la alusión al estado de furor de Corvino por la negativa de su mujer a obedecerle, como ese otro apuntado por Parker y Procter pasan totalmente desapercibidos con lo que ello supone de merma para una comprensión cabal del texto original. Tampoco en la Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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expresión ‘loco por lucir los cuernos’, con la que Ribes vierte la forma inglesa al español, se asoman todos los sentidos que críticos y editores de esta obra de Jonson han reconocido y explicado. De hecho, tan sólo se aprecia la mencionada alusión a la infidelidad conyugal con lo que la valoración de la traducción corre paralela a la de Sarabia Santander.

3. PROSTITUTE

El término ‘prostitute’, utilizado por Mosca en el verso setenta y cinco de esta misma escena, da lugar a un curioso equívoco que debería permanecer también en el texto de llegada. En concreto, en esta forma verbal convergen tanto esa acción de mantener relaciones sexuales a cambio de una compensación económica6 como la de ofrecerse o consagrarse a alguien. El OED recoge e ilustra con diversos ejemplos la vigencia de ambos significados en el inglés isabelino. Así, este léxico define el primero de ellos como ‘To offer (oneself, or another) to unlawful, esp. Indiscriminate, sexual intercourse’ y entre las diversas citas que utiliza para demostrar dicha imagen se recurre a la obra de Ben Jonson, Sejanus, I. i7; en cuanto al segundo sentido lo desarrolla del siguiente modo: ‘To offer with complete devotion or selfnegation; to devote’8. La crítica especializada en esta obra de Jonson no ha pasado por alto este interesante equívoco como se puede ver en las interpretaciones que de este término o del pasaje hacen críticos tan autorizados como Sale, Halio, Creaser, Henke, Parker, Hollindale, Andrews o Procter. Sale es el primero de ellos que trata de esclarecer en una sustanciosa glosa el uso sutil que Mosca hace de la forma ‘prostitute’: Corvino’s approval of the legalistic turn of phrase no doubt explains his admiring preference of prostitute in l. 75 to the innocuous offer of l. 74. Corvino certainly belongs to pathology. Does gold insulate him from sex so completely, or is there a masochistic prickling inside?

His images both before what Celia seems to think of as the Fall, and after her intransigeance, hardly suggest the atrophy of all but one lust (Sale: 152).

En el comentario de Halio se advierte con mayor nitidez si cabe la doble lectura mencionada: ‘(a) [without pejorative implication] to offer, place before (cp. Lat. prōstituĕre), (b) [with pejorative implication] to offer for lewd purposes’ (Halio: 165). En la glosa de Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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Creaser además de recogerse también ambas ideas se señala el sentido por el que se decanta en particular el celoso marido de Celia, Corvino, en esta escena: prostitute. Corvino gratefully understands this word in its secondary, rare and now obsolete sense, ‘offer with complete devotion’; for the others, of course, the word has its primary meaning (Creaser: 253).

Henke, por su parte, insiste en esa doble imagen que se desprende del uso del sintagma verbal ‘prostitute’ en este pasaje: Play on (1) to offer (OED); (2) to offer a person (or oneself) for ‘unlawful’ sexual intercourse (OED). Mosca to Volpone, as the former ushers in Corvino, who has brought his wife to serve as Volpones’s mistress, ‘Sir, signior Corvino, here, is come to see you...to offer, / Or rather, sir, to prostitute—’ Vol. III. vii. 72-5 (Henke: 207).

También en los textos de Parker y Hollindale hallamos referencias precisas y concretas al tono dilógico de esta palabra así como a esas dos lecturas que de él emanan. Parker, en concreto, la interpreta como: ‘ “To offer with complete devotion or self-negation, to devote” (OED, 3 a): with an obvious ironic play on the more usual meaning’ (Parker: 201). Hollindale, por otro lado, aclara y sitúa ambos significados del término en el contexto que les corresponde: Corvino is usually able to cast himself in a favourable light despite evidence, and expert in self-deception. He undesrtands ‘prostitute’ to mean ‘offer in devoted sacrifice’. Mosca, of course, intends it to be understood in its more usual sense: Corvino is forcing his helpless wife to become a whore (Hollindale: 154).

Por último, Andrews y Procter también se suman a ese grupo de críticos para quienes la ambivalencia de ‘prostitute’ enriquece sobremanera el texto original. El primero, que se apoya en la explicación ofrecida por Parker, glosa el término del modo siguiente: Parker observes that prostitue, as used here by Mosca, means ‘to offer with complete devotion or selfnegation, to devote’ (OED 3a), in addition to ‘the ironic play on the more usual meaning’ (201 n). The word, in short, is equally applicable both to what Corvino thinks he is doing and to what Mosca and Volpone have in mind (Andrews: 147).

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En cuanto al comentario de Procter se limita a reproducir los sentidos ya mencionados: ‘Prostitute. offer with complete devotion (a rare, now obsolete meaning, which Corvino takes); but Mosca is really using the word in its usual sense’ (Procter: 223).

Tampoco en el caso de la forma verbal ‘prostitute’ ha sabido el traductor conservar en el texto de llegada ese sutil retruécano que, fruto de la dilogía, orna y enriquece el texto original. En efecto, al decantarse por la palabra española ‘prostituir’ Sarabia Santander destruye el juego verbal del texto de partida pues en este término no se contiene esa idea de ofrecer algo o a alguien con absoluta devoción que es, precisamente, el sentido que interesa y entiende Corvino. Por el contrario, sí está presente ese significado más común del término, es decir, el que hace referencia a la acción de corromper a una mujer induciéndola a vender su cuerpo con fines sexuales y que es, por otro lado, el que insinúa el servil y astuto parásito, Mosca. En cuanto a la solución propuesta por Ribes, ‘entregar’, se puede vislumbrar en ella parte de ese primer sentido que la crítica explicaba como ‘to offer with complete devotion or self-negation, to devote’ y que ya ha desaparecido de la forma inglesa. Por lo que respecta al segundo de los significados que posee el término inglés no se halla en la forma española. Tal vez sea esta la razón de que la traductora haya incluido una nota a pie de página en la que especifica el doble sentido del término en este caso concreto y para ello repite las palabras del OED relativas a ese término. Esta solución, siempre que el traductor echa mano de ella, supone para el lector una inestimable ayuda en la correcta comprensión del texto mas, por otro lado, no deja de ser sino un remiendo en el texto traducido al español. Así pues, en ninguna de las dos soluciones parece hallarse la respuesta exacta al problema que suscita la dilogía presente en la palabra inglesa9.

4. BUT

La forma adverbial ‘but’, en el verso ciento doce, podría suponer un serio escollo para el traductor si se considera acertada la curiosa interpretación que de ella hace Henke en su conocido glosario. Para este autor el sentido adverbial del término, que se percibe fácilmente en una lectura primaria o superficial, se vería enriquecido por un Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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logrado equívoco de marcado tono obsceno. Esta afirmación se basa en la semejanza de tipo homofónico e incluso gráfico que en el inglés de la época existía entre la forma adverbial ‘but’ y el sustantivo ‘butt’ palabra que, como se sabe, denota el trasero o nalgas10. Esa fluctuación de las grafías de ambos términos aparece recogida y documentada en el OED y más exactamente en la entrada que corresponde a la forma ‘butt’11. En cuanto al resto de la crítica ninguno de los autores más autorizados ha reconocido el retruécano aquí presente y los que optan por algún tipo de aclaración se decantan sencillamente por el sentido adverbial de esta palabra12.

El término ‘sólo’, fórmula empleada por Sarabia Santander para trasladar ‘but’ al español, refleja únicamente, como se puede apreciar a simple vista, ese uso adverbial del original. Esto supone, sin duda alguna, o bien que el traductor no se ha percatado del juego homofónico entre esta palabra y el sustantivo ‘butt’ o, tal vez, que no ha sido capaz de encontrar una solución con la que resolver este problema en la lengua de llegada. Sea como fuere, la calificación que nos merece su elección no puede ser positiva ya que al omitir el mencionado juego no sólo se elimina otro de esos elementos esenciales para un mejor entendimiento del carácter voluble de Corvino sino que además se empobrece gravemente el texto de partida. En la versión de Ribes, por otro lado, ni siquiera se vierte al español la forma adverbial por lo que, en este caso concreto, su versión se aleja aún más del texto inglés.

5. LOCUST

La furia de Corvino ante la negativa de su mujer de yacer con Volpone se transforma finalmente en un torrente de imprecaciones en el que los términos insultantes de claro tono obsceno se combinan con otros que, en su uso común, no poseen ese tipo de connotaciones pero que, debido al contexto en el que se hallan, se contagian de él por pura simpatía. Así sucede, por ejemplo, con el sustantivo ‘locust’ que Corvino utiliza en el verso ciento dieciocho para denostar a su mujer Celia y que, en palabras de Henke, puede indicar ‘a sexually rapacious woman’13. De forma similar se expresa Williams en su obra lexicográfica si bien partiendo de la forma caterpillar. En concreto, este autor Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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manifiesta lo siguiente a este respecto:

Caterpillar. Simile for the devouring whore. The word was assimilated to piller = pillager, one who feeds rapaciously on society, by 1541. [...]. Caterpillar is used as a variant of locust, another devouring and destructive creature, in biblical translation (OED). [...]. In Jonson, Volpone (1605-6) III. vii. 118, the morally warped Corvino abuses his wife as ‘An errant locust, by heaven, a locust.

Whore’ precisely because she refuses to prostitute herself (Williams, 1994: 218-9).

En el resto de los trabajos críticos más autorizados no se aprecia el mencionado sentido metafórico de ‘locust’ limitándose, en general, a recoger su significado más obvio14.

En este caso concreto Sarabia Santander ha encontrado una fórmula que refleja fielmente los diversos matices que se conjugan en el término original. En efecto, en el sustantivo ‘devoradora’ se incluye no sólo esa imagen de la langosta como insecto destructivo y voraz sino también ese otro aspecto, muy característico de cierto tipo de mujer, con el que se sugiere una actividad sexual desenfrenada. También este sentido obsceno del término, empleado por Corvino como expresión de ofensa contra su mujer, ilustra, una vez más, la manera de ser de este personaje que antepone su ansia de riquezas a la salvaguarda de su propio honor y el de su esposa. Por otro lado, Ribes opta por el sustantivo español ‘langosta’ con lo que reproduce fielmente la lectura literal del término inglés. Sin embargo, en esa palabra no se halla ese otro sentido de ‘sexually rapacious woman’al que hacían referencia tanto Henke como Williams y, por lo tanto, el texto original se ve disminuido en una de las imágenes que atesora la forma inglesa.

6. COMING, UNDERTAKE, WHAT WOMAN CAN, BEFORE HER HUSBAND?

En la intervención de Mosca, entre los versos ciento veinticinco y ciento treinta, se puede apreciar de nuevo el dominio sutil del lenguaje del que este personaje hace gala en la obra. En efecto, para el Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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parásito, que trata de convencer a Corvino para que deje a su mujer a solas con Volpone, la relación que pretende mantener este último con Celia va más allá de lo puramente idílico como lo demuestran las insinuaciones y los sentidos escondidos de marcado carácter procaz de algunos de los términos que utiliza en este pasaje. En concreto, se pueden percibir connotaciones del tipo indicado en las formas ‘coming’, ‘undertake’ y en la frase ‘What woman can, before her husband?’. El texto al que se hace referencia dice así: MOSCA. Ay, now you’ve put your fortune in her hands.

Why i’faith, it is her modesty, I must quit her; If you were absent, she would be more coming; I know it: and dare undertake for her.

What woman can, before her husband? Pray you, Let us depart, and leave her, here.

En cuanto al término ‘coming’, cargado de ironía y doble intención, y que Mosca utiliza en el verso ciento veintisiete, puede suponer un serio escollo para el traductor. En efecto, Corvino, que procura por todos los medios que su mujer se aproxime al lecho de Volpone, es aconsejado por el parásito para que abandone la estancia y, así, aquella se mostrará, tal vez, más complaciente con el rijoso magnífico. Esa imagen de complacencia es la única que percibe Corvino en la mencionada forma verbal y por ello acepta dejar a Celia a solas con Volpone. Sin embargo, esta forma, y en este contexto, permite una lectura mucho más sutil y menos inocente ya que podría interpretarse, en palabras de Henke, como ‘to experience a sexual orgasm’15. Posteriormente, Parker atribuye también a este término en este contexto un carácter dilógico e insinúa que el matiz escondido podría ser de tipo sexual16. Esta acepción del verbo come tenía plena validez en el inglés de la época como así lo atestigua el Oxford English Dictionary que, en el artículo correspondiente, reza del modo siguiente: ‘To experience sexual orgasm’17. Este significado de la palabra se hallaría en perfecta sintonía con ese subtexto de tintes obscenos que, tanto en algunas de las formas empleadas por Mosca como en las que utilizará más adelante Volpone, corre paralelo y complementa al significado más superficial del texto. La crítica en general, con las notables excepciones de los mencionados Henke y Parker, reconoce aquí, sin embargo, tan solo el sentido más usual de ‘coming’, o dicho Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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de otro modo, todos ellos aceptan como única lectura de la palabra esa alusión a una actitud permisiva y complaciente de Celia. Así puede verse en las glosas de los autores más representativos: ‘forthcoming, responsive’ (Brockbank: 85 y Creaser: 254), ‘forthcoming’ (Adams: 52), ‘yielding’ (Wilkes: 62), ‘acquiescent’ (Donaldson: 624) y ‘responsive’ (Hollindale: 158).

Sarabia Santander vierte el término inglés por el adjetivo español ‘accesible’ forma en la que se encierra únicamente el significado literal de la palabra inglesa. Del mismo modo hay que entender la solución propuesta por Ribes pues el adjetivo ‘complaciente’ se entiende aquí de forma similar al utilizado por el profesor Sarabia Santander. Así pues, y aunque ambos adjetivos en el contexto en el que se hallan se ven levemente teñidos de un ténue matiz de corte sexual éste no reviste el grosor necesario para trasmitir fielmente las imágenes presentes en la forma inglesa ‘coming’ y sugeridas por la crítica especializada en esta obra de Ben Jonson.

En cuanto a la forma ‘undertake’ y a la frase ‘What woman can, before her husband?’ en ambos casos, según Henke, habría una alusión intencionada al acto sexual. En la forma verbal ‘undertake’, el sentido superficial de ‘to defend, to justify’ que esta palabra posee en el texto se vería completado, como se ha dicho, con ese otro significado del término que hace referencia al acto carnal.

En lo que concierne a la frase ‘What woman can, before her husband?’, y también según el mismo autor, podría incluirse asimismo una sugerencia a la cópula. He aquí la interesante glosa de Henke: Can. Mosca explaining to Corvino why Celia refuses to make love to Volpone, ‘If you were absent, she would be more comiong; / I know it, and dare undertake for her. / What woman can, before her husband?’ Vol. III. vii. 127-29. ‘Can’ alludes elliptically to the sexual act.

Some such sense as ‘can make love’ or ‘can commit adultery’ is understood. ‘Undertake’ = to defend or justify, with a ribald innuendo of to copulate with (Henke: 33).

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Tanto Sarabia Santander como Ribes no han sabido encontrar una solución que permitiese la doble lectura presente en la forma verbal ‘undertake’. Sarabia Santander ha vertido la palabra inglesa por la forma española ‘apoyarla’ mientras que Ribes lo ha hecho con el término ‘respondería’. En cuanto a la expresión ‘What woman can, before her husband?’ y, en concreto, a esa insinuación de Mosca al acto carnal tanto uno como otro traductor parecen haber encontrado la manera de conservarla en sus respectivas versiones. En efecto, al decantarse ambos por la forma hacerlo detrás del verbo poder, y por supuesto en el contexto en el que se utiliza, se hace un claro guiño al lector en el sentido sexual comentado. Así pues, tanto la frase ‘¿Qué mujer puede hacerlo delante de su marido?’ de Sarabia Santander, como la de Ribes ‘¿Qué mujer podría hacerlo delante de su marido?’ mantienen claramente la fidelidad al texto original.

7. RAISED

Volpone, a solas por fin con la mujer de Corvino, se las promete muy felices creyendo que Celia se prestará a sus deseos con la misma facilidad que lo han hecho Voltore, Corbaccio y el propio Corvino18.

Para ello utiliza un discurso plagado de requiebros y halagos, salpicado de algunos lugares que, debido a su polivalencia semántica, nos permiten apreciar con claridad meridiana las intenciones ocultas de marcado tono sexual del magnífico. Así se puede ver, y con bastante claridad, en el participio pasado ‘raised’. En efecto, en esta palabra, en el verso ciento cuarenta y ocho de esta escena, la crítica en general aprecia además de su sentido más común de alzarse, levantarse o erguirse otro con connotaciones de claro tono obsceno. Volpone no sólo atribuye a la belleza de Celia el que se haya levantado de la cama en la que se encontraba postrado o que haya actuado para ella debajo de su balcón disfrazado de “mountebank” sino que también su hermosura ha ejercido como un poderoso hechizo para despertar su adormecido deseo sexual. Es a este último sentido, sin duda alguna, al que hace referencia Hallett en su parca explicación del segmento ‘rays’d me’ cuando lo interpreta como ‘beyond its obvious sexual overtones’ (Hallett: 1961). Mucho más concreta y explícita resulta la glosa que hace Henke al comentar este mismo término:

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(1) an allusion to the conjuration of spirits; (2) ‘raise’ = an innuendo of the erected penis. Volpone to Celia, as he rises from his invalid’s bed, ‘Why art thou maz’d to see me thus reviv’d? / Rather applaud thy beauty’s miracle; / ‘T is thy great work, that hath, rais’d me, in several shapes... ’ Vol. III. vii. 145-8. On a literal level, Volpone is referring to his sudden recovery, his ability to leave his bed and to his mountebank disguise that first enabled him to see Celia (Henke: 215).

Este uso procaz de la forma verbal raise no era, como se puede ver fácilmente, ni mucho menos ajeno al inglés de la época. Así, por ejemplo, ese es el sentido escondido que posee esta misma palabra en el pasaje de Romeo and Juliet, II. I. 23-9 y que tanto Partridge como Colman y Williams recogen en sus respectivos glosarios (Partridge: 171, Colman: 211 y Williams 1997, 254). Rubinstein, por su parte, ilustra este mismo significado con una cita de otra obra de William Shakespeare, en concreto All’s Well That Ends Well II. iii. 118, en la que también se aprecia esa alusión de tipo obsceno y que esta autora describe como ‘erect phallicly’ (Rubinstein: 213). Así pues, este interesante matiz sexual de ‘raised’, que confiere al texto original una especial riqueza significativa, no debería perderse en el texto de llegada pues su no inclusión en el mismo supondría, sin duda alguna, una importante merma de la riqueza significativa del texto de partida.

En este caso no se puede hablar de merma alguna en la traducción pues en las dos versiones que se están cotejando sus autores han hallado una solución muy válida a este problema. En efecto, tanto Sarabia Santander como Ribes utilizan la forma verbal española ‘levantar’ en la que, como se sabe, se incluye la misma imagen sexual que en el término original19.

8. CONCLUSIONES

Así pues, y como se decía al comienzo de esta exposición, en esta obra de Ben Jonson (y también en el resto de sus obras dramáticas así como en la mayoría, si no en todas, las de sus contemporáneos) proliferan términos y expresiones con más de una lectura debido al Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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carácter polisémico de muchos de ellos. En unos casos el juego verbal será de origen semántico; en otros la procedencia es claramente homofónica. Sea como fuere, este gusto desmedido por el retruécano, la ambigüedad, el calambur, el equívoco, etc., se revela como una de las señas de identidad del lenguaje literario de los autores de aquel periodo de las letras inglesas. Por otro lado, este aspecto particular de la lengua enriquece sobremanera los textos de esos autores aportando nuevas posibilidades interpretativas que unas veces esclarecen y otras completan su significado literal. Esa abundancia de sentidos, producto del sabio empleo de un léxico polivalente, aumenta en gran medida el caudal significativo del texto y, como se ha visto, plantea una seria dificultad a la hora de verterlo a otras lenguas y, por supuesto, al español. En el caso que nos ocupa, los traductores han logrado trasladar fielmente a nuestra lengua tres de los ocho escollos (Sarabia Santander) y dos de los ocho problemas traductológicos (Ribes) aquí analizados. A primera vista este resultado no parece muy alentador mas si tenemos en cuenta las múltiples dificultades que plantean los textos ingleses de aquella época y, en especial, ese aspecto concreto del juego verbal, la valoración del trabajo realizado por ambos, incluso cuando se trata un solo acierto, debe ser siempre positiva. Así pues, esta contribución de ambos en el traslado del juego verbal presente en el Volpone, or the Fox de Ben Jonson se debe valorar como lo que en realidad representa, es decir, como un firme paso hacia adelante en la, a veces, ingrata labor de traducción20.

NOTAS

Esta notable inclinación de los autores isabelinos y jacobeos por el juego verbal tiene su origen, según apunta Ellis en la instrucción clásica (gramática y retórica) que muchos de ellos recibieron en las escuelas (Ellis: 13). Frankie Rubinstein abunda en este mismo sentido si bien refiriéndose, en particular, a los juegos de palabras de carácter sexual y escatológico: ‘Juvenal, Vergil, Ovid, Greek and Roman playwrights whom Shakespeare read and drew on, wrote of and punned on farting, defecation, dildoes and pederasty. So did Shakespeare’s contemporaries’ (Rubinstein: xiii).

2 Chaucer es uno de los primeros autores ingleses que utiliza con cierta 1

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profusión en su obra la ambigüedad y el juego verbal con lo que, según Ellis, este elemento ‘has some claim to be native to the language’; y añade que ‘the fondness of Chaucer for wordplay is now being increasingly recognized, and extended flights of humorous ambiguity are to be found in English writings from his time forward’ (Ellis: 10-1) [Sobre el uso del juego verbal en la obra de G. Chaucer véanse, por ejemplo, las obras de T. Ross, 1972; Paull F. Baum, 1956 y 1958; Norman D. Hinton, 1964 y H. Kökeritz, 1954]. Posteriormente, a finales del siglo XVI y principios del XVII la preocupación por este aspecto concreto alcanza niveles insospechados. Así, Ellis manifiesta que en la época de William Shakespeare el interés nacional por un lenguaje ingenioso había alcanzado tal grado que el juego verbal ‘was almost de rigueur in the conversation of English courtly society, in the jest-books, balladas, and broadsides of popular literature’ (Ellis: 12).

3 Dan fe de esa característica del lenguaje isabelino y jacobeo, es decir, de su gran riqueza dilógíca así como de los numerosos dobles sentidos y del uso de abundantes términos ambiguos autores tales como Samuel Jonson, 1765; Leopold Wurth, 1895; William Empson, 1950; L.C. Knights, 1964; A.L. Rowse, 1963; Marchette Chute, 1956; Sister Miriam Joseph, 1966; H. Kökeritz, 1960 y M.M. Mahood. 1957.

4 A. Sarabia Santander, 1980.

5 Purificación Ribes, 2002.

6 En los glosarios de Partridge, Colman y Williams se pueden encontrar diversas anotaciones en las que, además de reconocerle a la forma ‘prostitute’ el sentido indicado, se ilustra dicho significado con diversos pasajes de obras de la época. Así, por ejemplo, la glosa de Partridge reza del modo siguiente: ‘Prove that I cannot, take me home again, And prostitute me to the basest groom That doth frequent your house, Pericles, IV.v.18991’ (Partridge: 169). El escueto pero acertado comentario de Colman incide también en ese mismo aspecto del término: ‘To hire out as a prostitute’ (Colman: 210). Williams, por último, no sólo abunda en esa misma lectura sino que además reproduce el mismo ejemplo de Partridge: ‘Make a whore of. This vbl form occurs in Per XIX.213 (IV.vi.189): “prostitute me to the basest groom That doth frequent your house” (q.v.)’ (Williams: 248).

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He aquí la cita de Sejanus que se propone: ‘He prostituted his abused body To that great gourmond, fat Apicius; And was the noted pathic of the time’.

8 OED, 3 a ‘1611 Rich Honest. Age (Percy Soc) 12. I doe honour them, and I doe prostitute my selfe for ever to doe them humble service’.

9 En este caso, tal vez Ribes hubiese podido conseguir una mayor cercanía con el texto original si hubiera empleado la forma pronominal de este verbo pues, en español, la expresión ‘entregarse una mujer a alguien’ posee claras connotaciones sexuales (y si se hubiera decantado por la forma ‘entregársela’, tal vez la distancia con el original hubiera sido incluso más corta).

10 Partridge y Rubinstein reconocen el uso frecuente de ‘butt’ en lugar de ‘buttock’ en el inglés isabelino (Partridge: 75 y Rubinstein: 322).

11 OED, 3,3. 1601 Holland Pliny I. 344 ‘A Lion likewise hath but very little [marrow], to wit, in some few bones of his thighes & buts behind’.

12 Este es el caso, por ejemplo, de Sale y Hollindale que glosan el término como ‘only (that)’ y ‘merely’, respectivamente (Sale: 153 y Hollindale: 156).

13 Así reza la cita completa de este autor: ‘locust. Here, apparently, the term is intended to = a sexually rapacious woman. Corvino, infuriated because his wife Celia refuses to sleep with Volpone, “an errant locust —by Heaven, a locust!— Whore” Vol. III.vii.118. The moral inversion is obvious. Because Celia refuses to prostitute herself, in her husband’s eyes she becomes a whore. The term, “locust”, may receive its bawdy significance from the fact that locusts reproduce at an alarming rate and migrate in vast numbers, swarming numbers faintly suggestive of intense sexual activity, and from the locust’s reputedly voracious appettite?’. (Henke: 158).

14 A continuación se recogen las glosas de algunos de los autores más representativos: ‘a plague destroying his sustenance’ (Creaser: 254); ‘a destructive plague’ (Adams: 52); ‘consuming plague’ (Wilkes: 61); ‘Corvino seems to think of Celia here as some one “eating up” his fortune while refusing to contribute to it.

Upton’s suggestion of the Roman poisoner Locusta is over7

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ingenious’ (Parker: 203); y ‘locust because, like a plague of locusts, she is destroying his expectations of wealth’ (Hollindale: 156).

15 La glosa completa que este autor hace del término ‘coming’ dice así: ‘Coming. Play on (1) “complaisant, forward” (OED); (2) “to come” = to experience a sexual orgasm. Mosca to Corvino, who is attempting to force his reluctant wife Celia into the “impotent” Volpone’s bed, “If you were absent, she would be more coming”. Vol. III. vii. 127’ (Henke: 46).

16 ‘(a) forthcoming, responsive, yielding; cf. II.vi.74; (b) sexual pun?’

(Parker: 204).

17 Este uso del término en el inglés isabelino aparece también documentado en los trabajos lexicográficos de Partridge y Williams. En concreto, el primero de ellos dice lo siguiente: ‘To experience sexual emission’ y aporta un pasaje de Much Ado V.ii.

18-24 y otro de Twelfth Night III. iv. 31-2 para ilustrar ese significado (Partridge: 81); Williams, por su parte, explica este término como ‘experience orgasm’ y documenta su glosa con la misma cita de Much Ado que ya utilizara Partridge (Williams, 1997: 75).

18 Tanto Voltore como Corbaccio y Corvino pretenden heredar las riquezas de Volpone y para ello visitan a menudo al Magnífico llevándole numerosos regalos. Volpone aprovecha esta situación para mofarse de todos ellos y obligarles a satisfacer todos sus caprichos.

19 ‘sino muchas veces, me ha levantado en diversas formas’ (Sarabia Santander) y ‘—y hoy también—hacer que me levantara, bajo diversa apariencia’ (Ribes).

20 Según Ellis, ya a finales del siglo XIX Leopold Wurth manifiesta la importancia de traducir, en la medida de lo posible, el juego verbal de los trabajos objeto de traducción. Ese deseo de Wurth seguramente lo comparta buena parte, si no todos, de los traductores de las obras isabelinas y jacobeas (y por qué no, también de todas aquellas en las que el juego verbal se halle presente). Sin embargo, dice Ellis que pocos traductores tratan de solventar estos obstáculos y muy pocos consiguen resultados aceptables. Habría que añadir, no obstante, que todos los aciertos en este terreno resultan invaluables y que los futuros traductores de cualquier obra deberían contar con ellos.

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OBRAS CITADAS

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Adams, Robert M. ed. 1979. Ben Jonson’s Plays and Masques, New York: Norton.

Andrews, Michael Cameron, 1994. “Jonson’s Volpone”. The Explicator 52, 3: 145-7.

Barbour, Richmond. 1995 “When I Acted Young Antinous?: Boy Actors and the Erotics of Jonsonian Theatre”. Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 110, 5: 1006-22.

Baum, Paull F. 1956. "Chaucer's Puns". Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 71: 225-46.

——1958. "Chaucer's Puns: A Supplementary List". Publications of the Modern Language Association of America. 73: 167-70.

Bergeron, David M. 1986.“‘Lend me Your Dwarf ’: Romance in Volpone”. Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England III: 99-113.

Brockbank, Philip. ed. 1968. Volpone. London: Ernest Benn Limited.

Chute, Marchette. 1956. Shakespeare of London. New York: E.P. Dutton y Company Inc. Publishers.

Colman, E.A.M. 1974. The Dramatic Use of Bawdy in Shakespeare. London: Longman.

Creaser, John. ed. 1978. Volpone, or The Fox. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

Donaldson, Ian. ed. 1985. Ben Jonson. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Ellis, H. A. 1973. Shakespeare's Lusty Punning in ‘Love's Labour's Lost’ With Contemporary Analogues. Paris: Mouton, The Hague.

Empson, William. 1950. Seven Types of Ambiguity. London: Chatto & Windus.

Halio, Jay L. ed. 1968. Volpone. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd.

Hallett, C. A. 1971. “Jonson’s Celia: A Reinterpretation of Volpone”.

Studies in Philology 68: 50-69.

Henke, J.T. 1979. Courtesans and Cuckolds. A Glossary of Renaissance Dramatic Bawdy (Exclusive of Shakespeare). New York: Garland Publishers.

Hinton, Norman D. 1964. "More Puns in Chaucer". American Notes and Queries 2, 115-6.

Hollindale, P. ed. 1985. Volpone. Hong Kong: Longman.

Johnson, Samuel. 1765. The Plays of William Shakespeare. London: J. & R. Jonson, H. Woodfall, et al.

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Joseph, Sister Miriam. 1966. Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language.

New York; London: Hafner.

Kökeritz, H. 1954. "Rhetorical Word Play in Chaucer". Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 69, 937-52.

—— 1960. Shakespeare's Pronunciation. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.

Knights, L.C. 1964. Explorations: Essays in Criticism Mainly on the Literature of the 17th Century. New York: New York University Press.

Mahood, M.M. 1957. Shakespeare's Wordplay. London: Methuen.

Marín Calvarro, J. 2004. “Polisemia e interpretación en el soneto IV de William Shakespeare”. Anuario de Estudios Filológicos.

XXVII:147-156.

——“El entramado dilógico del discurso poético de William Shakespeare y su adaptación al español”. Hermeneus. 9:163-178.

Parker, R. B. ed. 1983. Volpone or, The Fox. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Partridge, Eric. 1968. Shakespeare's Bawdy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Procter, Johanna, ed. 1989. The Selected Plays of Ben Jonson. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P. Ribes, Purificación. tr. 2002. Ben Jonson. Volpone. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra.

Ross, Thomas. 1979. " ‘The Safety of a Pure Blush’: Shakespeare's Bawdy Clusters". Shakespeare's Studies XII: 267-80.

——. 1972. Chaucer's Bawdy. NewYork: Dutton.

Rowse, A.L. 1963. William Shakespeare: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row. Rubinstein, F. 1984. A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns and Their Significance, London: Macmillan; Salem, N.J.: Salem House.

Sale, A. ed. 1951. Volpone or The Fox, London: U. Tutorial P. Ltd. Sarabia Santander, A. tr. 1980. Volpone o el Zorro. Barcelona: Bosch.

Webb, J.Barry. 1989. Shakespeare's Erotic Word Usage. Hastings: The Cornwallis Press.

Wilkes, G. A. ed. 1982. The Complete Plays of Ben Jonson. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Williams, Gordon. 1994. A Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature. London: The Athlone Press.

Williams, Gordon. 1997. A Glossary of Shakespeare’s Sexual Language.

London: The Athlone Press.

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Wurth, Leopold. 1895. Das Wortspiel bei Shakespeare. Wien und Leipzig: Wilhelm Braumüller.

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“A LANGUAGE NOT QUITE OF THIS WORLD”: TRANSCENDENCE AND COUNTER-LINGUISTIC TURNS IN DON DELILLO’S FICTION* Paula Martín Salván University of Córdoba paula.martin@uco.es The aim of this article is to examine Don DeLillo’s “visionary concern with language” (Weinstein 1993: 289). I will focus on conceptions about language specifically related to ideas of transcendence, epiphany and purity in DeLillo’s novels, and I will analyze the rhetorical patterns in which those conceptions are usually articulated. I will search for recurrent motifs that contribute to a discursive and rhetorical model for the analysis of DeLillo’s work and I will try to offer an interpretative frame that may throw some light on the literary and cultural ascendancy of DeLillo’s ideas about language, tentatively proposing that the rhetorical matrix from which he draws many of his articulations on language may be located in literary models from medieval mysticism, romanticism and modernism.

Keywords: language, ineffability, revelation.

Romanticism,

Mysticism,

Este artículo propone examinar lo que Arnold Weinstein ha denominado “Visionary concern with language” (1993: 289) en la narrativa de Don DeLillo.

Mi intención es centrarme en concepciones acerca del lenguaje específicamente relacionadas con ideas de trascendencia, epifanía y pureza en las novelas de DeLillo, y analizar los patrones retóricos en los que tales concepciones suelen articularse. Buscaré motivos recurrentes que contribuyan a un modelo discursivo y retórico de análisis de la obra de DeLillo, e intentaré ofrecer un marco interpretativo que pueda arrojar luz sobre la ascendencia literaria y cultural de sus ideas sobre Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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el lenguaje, proponiendo a modo de hipótesis que la matriz retórica de la que toma muchas de sus articulaciones acerca del lenguaje podría localizarse en modelos literarios provenientes del misticismo medieval, romanticismo y modernismo.

Palabras Clave: lenguaje, romanticismo, misticismo, inefabilidad, revelación.

In this article, I would like to examine what Arnold Weinstein called Don DeLillo’s “visionary concern with language” (Weinstein 1993: 289). In a 1983 interview with Tom LeClair, Don DeLillo acknowledged that “language was a subject as well as an instrument in my work” (LeClair, 1983: 81). As scholars such as Arnold Weinstein (1993) or David Cowart (2002) have noted, language is “the cornerstone of DeLillo’s work” (Weinstein 1993: 289). Uses of language in his work include explicit theorizations on linguistic issues in a poststructuralist key, postmodern metaliterary games or parodies of vernacular conversation, professional jargons and specialized discourses (Cowart 2002: 2).

DeLillo’s ideas about language, nevertheless, tend to be formulated in similar terms in many of his novels, suggesting recurrent rhetorical patterns and particular views on linguistic issues that point toward the “visionary”. DeLillo, in Cowart’s words, “does not defer to the poststructuralist view of language […] Fully aware that language is maddeningly circular, maddeningly subversive of its own supposed referentiality, the author nonetheless affirms something numinous in its mysterious properties” (2002: 5).

I would like to examine the recurrence of specific conceptions about language related to ideas of transcendence, epiphany and purity in DeLillo’s work, and to analyze the rhetorical patterns in which those conceptions are articulated. Although it would not be accurate to talk about a consistent “theory of language” in DeLillo (Bonca 1996: 25), I contend that the pattern I will focus on has remained quite regular for most of his career. For this reason, I will read from the different novels in search of common motifs that contribute to a consistent

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discursive and rhetorical model, often juxtaposing their formulations in order to illustrate the recurrence of this pattern. I will try to offer an interpretative frame that may throw some light on the literary and cultural ascendancy of DeLillo’s ideas about language, tentatively proposing that the rhetorical matrix from which he draws many of his articulations on language may be located in literary models from medieval mysticism, romanticism and modernism.

In my reading, I will draw on previous academic work on this topic, particularly on those analyses that have highlighted the “visionary” overtones in DeLillo’s treatment of linguistic issues.

Although many critics have dealt tangentially with this aspect of his work, only a few of them have analyzed in depth the recurrence of rhetorical and narrative patterns associated to its explicit thematic representation. David Cowart’s The Physics of Language (2002) is the only book-length study on language in DeLillo’s fiction, but authors such as James Berger (2005), Cornel Bonca (1996), Arthur M. Saltzman (1994) or the already mentioned Arnold Weinstein (1993) have produced illuminating examinations of some of DeLillo’s novels.

It is necessary to mention that, although most of them have focused on the separate analysis of individual novels, many of their insights may have further application to DeLillo’s work in general, as I will try to illustrate.

DeLillo tends to emphasize those aspects of human language— and those behaviors regarding language—that can be said to be abnormal in one way or another, “anti-languages” to some extent.

Weinstein’s remarkable analysis of thematic uses of language in DeLillo’s fiction begins with the notion that “DeLillo is out to guide his readers into verbal precincts they have never entered before” (Weinstein 1993: 289). He points to the recurrence of abnormal linguistic behaviors, pathological or not, in DeLillo’s novels, which is particularly remarkable. As Cornel Bonca has noted, “from the beginning DeLillo has been fascinated by the kinds of language that elude systems, classification, or semiotic analysis” (1996: 25): In Ratner’s Star (1976), a character known as “the scream lady” suffers attacks of what appears to be a combination of logorrhea, coprolalia and verbigeration (DeLillo 1976: 249). In The Body Artist (2001) a stranger with his linguistic skills severely damaged appears at the Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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protagonist’s door. DeLillo’s portrayal of Lee Harvey Oswald in Libra (1988) emphasizes the character’s dyslexia or “word-blindness” (DeLillo 1988: 166), which is diagnosed by KGB recruitment agents when he passes the tests in order to become a spy for the Soviet Union. In White Noise (1985), Wilder, the youngest child of the Gladney family, suffers from either autism or selective mutism.

Other cases, not necessarily pathological, may be mentioned as well: the episode of glossolalia or “speaking in tongues” narrated at the end of The Names (1982), the fascination with infant babbling in White Noise or the different attempts on the part of several characters in End Zone (1972) or Underworld (1997) to attain states of quasimystical speechlessness. An extreme version of the same tendency would be the plain and direct rejection of language, that is to say, the quest for silence undertaken by several characters as part of a general “pattern of withdrawal” (Osteen 2000: 450) that includes other antisocial behaviors such as extreme isolation or the recurrence to violence against any aspect of the character’s “old life”. The best example of this tendency would be Bucky Wunderlick, protagonist of Great Jones Street (1973).

The final aim for the characters following this pattern in DeLillo’s fiction seems to be the attainment of what Arnold Weinstein has called “epiphanic, almost nuclear clarity” (1993: 296). All the linguistic phenomena aforementioned imply a manipulation of the common uses of language, a challenge to normal communicative skills or even the utter obliteration of any form of language at all. They are usually presented in DeLillo’s novels as the mechanisms through which revelation can be achieved. In what follows, I will try to illustrate this narrative pattern through the analysis of several passages from DeLillo’s novels in which the topic of language has an explicit thematic representation.

James Berger describes linguistic behaviors in DeLillo’s fiction as “turns against language” (2005: 341) and he talks about a general “counter-linguistic turn” in the humanities that would account for the idea, often expressed in novels such as White Noise (1985) or The Names (1982), that “there is an other of language, whether or not this other can be conceptualized” (2005: 344). I share Berger’s assumption that Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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DeLillo’s reflections on language tend to be codified in terms of the desire to escape from the symbolic-linguistic order in search of some form of transcendence. In order to illustrate this idea, and as the departing point for a preliminary schematization of the pattern I will be analyzing, I would like to quote one of DeLillo’s most celebrated passages. In what has come to be known as the “Toyota Celica episode” in White Noise, DeLillo gives expression to the “counterlinguistic turn” in Jack Gladney’s quasi-mystical experience: She uttered two clearly audible words, familiar and elusive at the same time, words that seemed to have a ritual meaning, part of a verbal spell or ecstatic chant.

Toyota Celica.

A long moment passed before I realized this was the name of an automobile. The truth only amazed me more. The utterance was beautiful and mysterious, goldshot with looming wonder […] Whatever its source, the utterance struck me with the impact of a moment of splendid transcendence. (DeLillo 1985: 155)

This fragment can be used as corollary of the narrative and rhetorical pattern I will try to synthesize in this article. The scene takes place when the Gladney family has been evacuated from their home after a toxic spillage in their town, Blacksmith, and taken to some public facility to spend the night. While everyone else sleeps, Jack Gladney wanders among the cots and sleeping bags in search of existential comfort, watching his children sleep and wondering: “There must be something, somewhere, large and grand and redoubtable enough to justify this shining reliance and implicit belief ” (DeLillo 1985: 154).

Jack incarnates here the recurrent quest for transcendence undertaken by characters in most of DeLillo’s novels, a quest permeated by romantic imagery: from the wandering hero in search of a meaning to his life to the wise child knowing secrets inaccessible to adults. Jack searches for clues to guide him towards a transcendental revelation, expressed in terms that echo William Wordsworth’s in “Intimations of Immortality”: “I was ready to search anywhere for signs and hints, intimations of odd comfort” (154; emphasis added). As critics

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have repeatedly pointed out, Jack’s existential crisis is inevitably related to the obsessive thought about his own mortality. It is in this context when Steffie, one of his daughters, starts speaking in dreams.

The growing intensity of the language used in this fragment leads to a moment of revelation, described as a truth previously known but forgotten, “familiar and elusive at the same time” (155). The description of Steffie’s utterance is full of religious and magical overtones, as illustrated by expressions such as “ritual meaning”, “verbal spell” or “ecstatic chant”, and the utterance itself is delayed, increasing the narrative tension and producing the delay of the moment of revelation itself. Revelation, moreover, will be possible only after Steffie’s utterance is stripped of its referential meaning, that is, only after Jack overcomes the idea that “Toyota Celica” is just the name of a car. That is when the “moment of splendid transcendence” takes place.

From this brief analysis the basic features of a recurrent pattern in DeLillo’s fiction may be sketched, built around a character in search of some form of transcendence: 1) The recognition of a kind of transcendental truth or meaning of indeterminate nature that is not accessible through common language, that is, the experience of the ineffable; 2) The need to challenge the limits of common language in order to access revelation of that truth; 3) The emphasis on the magical, ritualized, even pathological elements of language, transcending its basic communicative, referential functions; 4) Revelation is achieved when language has been completely stripped of its usual referential bondage or literally obliterated.

Through this mechanism, DeLillo’s novels open a view into a non-referential verbal space comparatively described as original, profound and pure, often using a romantic and modernist rhetoric of mystic ascendancy in which the veil of language is torn to allow for epiphany. The nature of the epiphany itself remains, in most cases, undisclosed. In the above quoted passage, readers are never assured whether Jack’s “moment of splendid transcendence” has to do with his fear of death or his sense of purpose in life. This recurrent imprecision as to the kind of revelation achieved by DeLillo’s characters has lead critics such as Pifer or Osteen to an ironic reading of passages such as the “Toyota Celica” episode. According to them, DeLillo would be

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ironically appropriating a transcendental discourse devoid of its object, thus underlining the constructiveness of this kind of rhetoric.

The way of transcendental revelation encompasses several stages in DeLillo’s fiction. The first of these steps would be the acknowledgement of the inadequacy of common language to express transcendental experience. As David Cowart has noted, “the author shows particular sensitivity to whatever resists naming or goes unnamed” (2002: 182). In the Western tradition, the ascendancy of this rhetoric of the ineffable can be said to span from medieval mysticism to modernism. Saint John of the Cross, T.S. Eliot or William Faulkner could be mentioned as significant referents for DeLillo’s fiction in this sense (Cowart 2002: 185-186; Berger 2005: 351). In White Noise, Jack Gladney undergoes serious expressive difficulties when trying to narrate his nearly mystical experiences: “The spirit of these warm evenings is hard to describe” (DeLillo 1985: 324). The contradiction between wanting to tell and being unable to do it is underlined by some of these characters’ statements: “People come and don’t know what to say or think, where to look or what to believe” (DeLillo 1997: 824). The moment when a character feels for the first time the intuition that there is some truth or meaning hidden inside or beneath the surface of common experience is referred to in Ratner’s Star as “the screech and claw of the inexpressible” (DeLillo 1976: 22).

In End Zone, Gary Harkness faces this experience of the ineffable in the desert, trying to access a mental state beyond consciousness: But in some form of void, freed from consciousness, the mind remakes itself. What we must know must be learned from blanked-out pages. To begin to reword the overflowing world. To subtract and disjoin.

To re-recite the alphabet. To make elemental lists.

(DeLillo 1972: 89)

If common language is not the appropriate vehicle to access transcendence, this language needs to be stripped off its mundane qualities; it has to be reshaped in order to accommodate new mental states. All the terms used in this passage point to a two-step process.

First, language has to be unmade—negative prefixes such as “sub-” and “dis-” indicate this—and then remade—“remakes”, “reword”, “reBabel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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recite”—in a new form. The mental state from which new knowledge is to be achieved is associated to the act of cleaning the slate of language, so to say: “it must be learned from blanked-out pages”. The conventional act of naming the world, which has become excessive (“overflowing”), has to stop and restart: “reword the overflowing world”. Gary Harkness expresses in this passage a recurrent obsession for many of DeLillo’s characters, that of stripping language of all its referential meanings. In White Noise, J. Murray Siskind uses similar imagery when he talks about the need to perceive reality beyond “veils of mystery and layers of cultural material” (DeLillo 1985: 37): “It is just a question of deciphering, rearranging, peeling off the layers of unspeakability” (1985: 38). As in the aforementioned passage, the use of prefixes in this fragment (de-ciphering, re-arranging, un-speakability) contribute to a reactive or negative rhetoric, implying a reaction or counter-movement against a previous situation. A dialectic relationship is implied in this rhetorical via negativa, which may be tentatively conceptualized in James Berger’s terms, as a tension between language and “the other of language” (Berger 2005: 344).

The same contrast between a view of consciousness being determined by language and the possibility of a mental state external to it is established in The Body Artist, one of DeLillo’s most recent novels and, according to some, his most openly modernist text to date (Nel 2002: 736, Bonca 2002: 62). In this novel we read the following statement about one of the characters, Mr. Tuttle: “He hasn’t learned the language. There has to be an imaginary point, a nonplace where language intersects with our perceptions of time and space, and he is a stranger at this crossing, without words or bearings” (DeLillo 2001: 99). Living without language makes Mr. Tuttle a stranger in the world, without means to interact with it. In this passage, the linguistic order is metaphorically described as a grid—suggested by terms as “imaginary point,” “intersect,” “crossing”—intended to contain reality.

DeLillo’s narrator in The Body Artist hints at the possibility of reaching this pre-verbal space occupied by aphasic characters such as Mr. Tuttle. As Arnold Weinstein has pointed out, “DeLillo reveres that ultimate opaque language that is prior to all codes and grammars” (1993: 306). Most of DeLillo’s characters, somehow trapped in that intersection of language in the epistemological ordering of reality, long

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to reach that space. In the above quoted passage from The Body Artist, Mr. Tuttle is said to inhabit a place whose coordinates are external or previous to the linguistic and temporal ordering of reality. According to Lauren Hartke, the character from whose perspective we learn about Mr. Tuttle, this is precisely what grants him access to a level of understanding she can only hint at. In the rest of DeLillo’s fiction the same logic is repeatedly articulated: transcendence, meaningfulness or simply truth lie hidden in common language. Characters will look for it either spatially, underneath the surface of common words, or temporally, at some point in the past.

In order to understand this articulation, the rhetorical mechanisms on which it is founded should be examined. The first of these mechanisms is based upon the opposition between surface and depth, truth lying always underneath visible, external reality. This could be considered a mechanism of excavation, for it helps to codify metaphorically an underground truth that needs to be dug up. This idea is constant in DeLillo’s work, in which the frequent topic of conspiracy is usually expressed in terms of a subterranean truth hiding beneath the surface of things: “The true underground is where power flows. That’s the best secret of our time…” (DeLillo 1973: 231); “the pulse of history is always underground” (DeLillo 1977: 89); “the wellsprings […] deeper and less detectable” (DeLillo 1997: 319).1

The second mechanism is related to a temporal sequence according to which truth has been lost in time and needs to be recuperated. It could be considered a mechanism of regression, best exemplified in the movement towards infancy—meaning “speechlessness” etymologically—as the original point from which truth emerges. In Arnold Weinstein’s words: “To see like a child again is to see dimensions, to perceive auras, to grasp the connectedness of what is discrete, the particulars of what seems joined, the odd magic of the material world we have made (1993: 299). This rhetoric connects with romantic and transcendentalist conceptions of childhood as a prelapsarian stage during which human beings have access to a kind of knowledge that adults are doomed to forget.2 In both mechanisms, access to truth has been lost and needs to be recuperated. A sequential pattern is established, then, triggered by

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the wish to return to that prelapsarian state in which some form of language could actually be the means toward truth and not an obstacle to it. In The Names, the narrator describes common language as “the fallen wonder of the world” (DeLillo 1982: 339), illustrating the sequential pattern I have just sketched. This novel deals explicitly with the issue of referential meaning, turning it into the triggering element of the plot: “The search for ancient inscriptions reveals itself to be a quest for originary language, language that is immediate and immanent” (Weinstein 1993: 293). In the novel, thematic concerns about language are illustrated by the activities and theories of a secret cult denominated “the Names” or “the Abecedarians” (DeLillo 1982: 210). Their name, meaning “learners of the alphabet. Beginners” (1982: 210), points to a movement of return towards linguistic origins.

According to the members of this sect, the relationship between an object and its name should tend towards the elimination of the limit that marks the conventional relationship between signified and signifier. The Abecedarians’ aim can be described as the search for a purely iconic language in which the word is the thing represented.

They assume the existence of a natural relationship between signifier and signified, preexisting the conventional relationship, the imposition of which implies a fall regarding this previous, purer language in which meaning is not “added” to the word, but it is created in it as “pure presence”. As Arnold Weinstein has noted (1993: 293), the novel echoes the logocentric workings exposed by Jacques Derrida in De la grammatologie (1967), according to which writing is chiefly perceived in Western thought as derived from spoken language, as a byproduct of this, as part of an epistemological chain in which truth is identified with the spoken word understood as “presence”: “All the metaphysical determinations of truth […] are more or less immediately inseparable from the instance of the logos, or of a reason thought within the lineage of logos, in whatever sense it is understood […] Within this logos, the original and essential link to the phonè has never been broken” (Derrida 1976: 10-11).

These characters’ intention is to fully obliterate the gap or differánce between signifier and signified. In order to fulfill their aim, the Abecedarians will use a sharp object to stab people whose initials coincide with those of the place where they are assassinated.3 Derrida’s Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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notion of the “violence of the letter” is to be understood literally in this novel, for the etymological meaning of “writing” as “engraving” is here enacted in the sharp objects used by the assassins but also in their method, which includes engraving their victims’ initials in stones to be left near the dead bodies.

The method is described by one of its members in terms of the feeling of agnitio or recognition provoked by their crimes: Something in our method finds a home in your unconscious mind. A recognition. This curious recognition is not subject to a conscious scrutiny. Our program evokes something that you seem to understand and find familiar, something you cannot analyze. We are working at a preverbal level, although we use words, of course, we use them all the time. This is a mystery.

(DeLillo 1982: 208)

The ritual involved in the assassinations is described as an attempt to reach a pre-referential level—“we are working at a preverbal level”— in which the distance between signifier and signified is dissolved. The notions of regression and excavation are repeatedly used in the novel to express the way back to “natural language”, indicated in the terms “home” and “familiar”. On the one hand, the notion of “recognition” (etymologically, “to know again”) implies the recovery of something known but forgotten, a movement back to some place of origin. On the other hand, the mention of the unconscious opens the way for a recurrent rhetoric in the field of psychoanalysis, according to which the unconscious lies at the deepest bottom of the mind. Notions of depth abound in this passage—“I cannot describe how fully and deeply it reached me” (1982: 209), “how deep we are in” (1982: 210)—and the conversation itself takes place inside a cave, thus reinforcing the idea of hidden knowledge.

The same movement towards interiority and regression to a speechless state will articulate the narrative development of Great Jones Street. In this novel, Bucky Wunderlick, a rock star, abandons his group in the middle of a national tour and retreats to a decrepit apartment in an obscure New York City suburb. Bucky is exemplary of the

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recurrent “pattern of withdrawal” in DeLillo’s fiction of the 70s (Dewey 2006: 41; Osteen 2000: 450), and akin to the already mentioned Gary Harkness from End Zone. In reference to the latter, though it could be equally applied to the former, David Cowart recalls Wittgenstein’s affirmation “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent” (qtd. in Cowart 2002: 27). Wunderlick’s personal crisis will end in physical reclusion, associated in the novel to his will to abandon articulated language: “The room’s tensions were suitable to few enterprises besides my own, that of testing the depths of silence. Or one’s willingness to be silent. Or one’s fear of this willingness” (DeLillo 1973: 25). Absence of language is associated to depth—“the depths of silence”—and to the regression to a pre-referential verbal state. Long before taking the drug that will temporarily deprive him of the capacity to speak, Bucky explores through his lyrics the idea of babbling: “I was born with all the languages in my mouth […] Baby god” (1973: 205-206). His last edited record, entitled “Pee Pee Maw Maw”, represents the wish to return to infant language that culminates in his last, unreleased recording, “Baba Baba Baba” (204205). Wunderlick refers to these recordings as “the mountain tapes” and describes them as “genuinely infantile” (148). Retrospectively, he perceives the songs as announcements of his future muteness: “I had no idea whether this was good or bad. I didn’t know whether the songs were supposed to be redemptive, sardonic or something completely different. Tributes to my own mute following” (148).

Wunderlick’s speechlessness will take place after the intake of an experimental drug that will provoke a brief episode of aphasia. His disorder is explained by another character in the following terms: “You’ll be perfectly healthy. You won’t be able to make words, that’s all.

They just won’t come into your mind the way they normally do and the way we all take for granted they will. Sounds yes. Sounds galore. But no words” (DeLillo 1973: 255). While he is completely unable to produce any words, he is still able to emit inarticulate sounds: “I made interesting and original sounds. I looked out of the window and moaned (quietly) at the lumbering trucks…” (1973: 264). Through aphasia, Bucky attains “permanent withdrawal to that unimprinted level where all sound is silken and nothing erodes in the mad weather of language” (1973: 265). Afterwards, Bucky will remember his aphasic period as one of absolute happiness: “I was unreasonably happy, Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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subsisting in blessed circumstance, thinking of myself as a kind of living chant” (264).

This “living chant”, that is, the prelapsarian—“unimprinted”— verbal state made of inarticulate sounds, brings Wunderlick the kind of transcendental experience many of DeLillo’s characters are looking for. It should be noted that this kind of language, in DeLillo’s fiction, tends to be described as sound devoid of any referential connection.

It seems as if, in order to grant access to meaningful knowledge, language should first have to refer back to its own materiality, denying its primary referential function. However, as Arthur M. Saltzman has noted, the paradoxical turn of this mechanism of access to transcendence makes the epiphany inevitably dependent on language itself. Revelation can come only through language; it can never strip itself completely of it: “Whatever transcendence he pretends to is derivative, obligated to the medium whose undertow he means to supervene” (Saltzman 1994: 808).

In connection to this, I would like to go back for a moment to the “Toyota Celica” episode quoted at the beginning, in order to point to one word which is repeated three times in the passage: “Utterance”.

The “moment of splendid transcendence” experienced by Jack Gladney in this passage is explicitly associated to Steffie’s utterance, to the oral quality of her words, and not to the referential meaning of those words.4 While the utterance itself is described in positive terms evoking transcendence—“beautiful”, “mysterious”, “wonder”, “amazed”—the realization of its referential bondage is rejected as “simple”, “ordinary”, “near-nonsense”, “brain noise”. It is the material aspect of the utterance and not its referent what provokes revelation in this passage: The sonic quality of the words “Toyota Celica” provoke Jack Gladney’s awe, and not the car referred to by that name. As Cornel Bonca indicates, the passage points to the paradoxical notion that a transcendental non-linguistic knowledge is “hidden though immanent in its very sound” (1996: 27).

In DeLillo’s fiction, characters devise different techniques in order to denude utterance from its referential meaning, in order to reach “what language ‘really means’” (Bonca 1996: 27). The two most recurrent mechanisms are these: First, the repetition of a word or Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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phrase until its conventional meaning recedes. Second, the constant wailing or crying, or listening to it as a means to enter an abstract level of utterance. It should be noted that both are common practices in different forms of religious mysticism (in Sufism, Buddhism or Christian medieval mysticism, for instance). Explicit examples of the first are found in End Zone and Underworld, and instance of the second kind are present in White Noise or Great Jones Street.

In End Zone, Gary Harkness locks himself in his room and stares at a poster on the wall for hours, until words start to lose their meaning: I looked at this sign for three years (roughly from ages fourteen to seventeen) before I began to perceive a certain beauty in it. The sentiment of course had small appeal but it seemed that beauty flew from the words themselves, the letters, consonants swallowing vowels, aggression and tenderness, a semi-self-re-creation from line to line, word to word, letter to letter. All meaning faded. The words became pictures. It was a sinister thing to discover at such an age that words can escape their meanings. A strange beauty that sign began to express. (DeLillo 1972: 17).

Similarly, in Underworld, the protagonist-narrator Nick Shay explicitly links this conception of a reference-free language to mysticism: “I need to change languages, find a word that is pure word, without a lifetime of connotation and shading” (DeLillo 1997: 296).

Shay develops his mystical theory of language around this idea: “We try to develop a naked intent that fixes us to the idea of God. The Cloud recommends that we develop this intent around a single word. Even better, a single word or a single syllable” (1997: 295). The character describes his search for that word or syllable in terms of romanticism— “It was romantic. The mystery of God was romantic” (1997: 296)—but he is actually echoing the purifying and cleansing rhetoric of The Cloud of Unknowing, a medieval text that he had mentioned previously in the passage.5 References to nakedness and purity abound in the passage: “With this word I would eliminate distraction and edge closer to God’s unknowable self ” (1997: 296); “and finally I came upon a phrase that seemed alive with naked intent” (292). Nick Shay will call the result Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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of this process “a word that is pure chant” (292), a phrase DeLillo would recycle for The Body Artist to describe how Lauren sees Mr. Tuttle’s speech: “It was pure chant, transparent, or was he saying something to her?” (2001: 75).6

The search for the mystical word in this passage is articulated, again, in terms of depth, as the advance towards hidden, profound God/truth: “A word to penetrate the darkness” (DeLillo 1997: 296); “a great and profound word” (1997: 296). Nick Shay will finally find inspiration in one of the Christian medieval mystics, Saint John of the Cross: “Three words and five syllables but I knew I’d found the phrase.

It came from another mystic, a Spaniard, John of the Cross, and for that one winter this phrase was my naked edge, my edging into darkness, into the secret of God. And I repeated it, repeated it, repeated it. Todo y nada” (297). The phrase “todo y nada”—“everything and nothing”—is taken from chapter thirteen of Noche oscura del alma (San Juan 1999: 162). By endlessly repeating it, Nick reaches the transcendental state he is looking for.

In White Noise, Jack Gladney reaches a similar state in quite a different way. As in the “Toyota Celica” episode, the possibility of revelation is related here as well to proximity to children. In one of the first chapters of the novel, Jack is depicted holding his disconsolate two year old child, Wilder, trying to make him stop crying: The huge lament continued, wave on wave. It was a sound so large and pure I could almost listen to it, try consciously to apprehend it, as one sets up a mental register in a concert hall or theater. He was not sniveling or blubbering. He was crying out, saying nameless things in a way that touched me with its depth and richness.

(DeLillo 1985: 78).

As in previously analyzed passages, both the purity of Wilder’s cry as well as the deep levels of understanding it is able to provoke are highlighted. Wilder’s name recalls the primitive dimension of DeLillo’s concern with language (Saltzman 1994: 809), which is confirmed in the text by the description of his cry as “an ancient dirge” (DeLillo 1985: 78). Wilder, who can be considered the incarnation of Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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the romantic wise child in DeLillo’s fiction, is here attributed “a complex intelligence” (1985: 78), responsible for Jack’s entrance into the counter-linguistic realm. The kind of communication established between Jack and Wilder in the passage, moreover, is said to take place beyond or below the level of reference: Wilder is communicating, he is “saying things”, but those things are “nameless”, they belong to the realm of the ineffable, what cannot be said through common language.

Through his contact with Wilder, Jack Gladney is one of the few characters in DeLillo’s fiction that actually fulfills the process I have tried to outline. The narrative voice describes his experience as “some reckless wonder of intelligibility” (DeLillo 1985: 78), and it is articulated in rhetorical terms as the act of entering a space dominated by the material quality of language, pure sound: “I entered it, in a sense. I let it fall and tumble across my face and chest. I began to think if I could join him in his lost and suspended place we might together perform some reckless wonder of intelligibility […] I entered it, fell into it, letting it enfold and cover me” (1985: 78).

The “suspended place” mentioned by Jack Gladney can be said to match the realm of Mr. Tuttle’s experience of reality in The Body Artist. In this novel, Lauren Hartke will experience the same kind of transcendental revelation by sharing Mr. Tuttle’s chant: She didn’t know what to call this. She called it singing. He kept it going a while, ongoing, oncoming, and it was a song, it was chant. She leaned into him. This was a level that demonstrated he was not closed to inspiration […] She wanted to chant with him, to fall in and out of time, or words, or things, whatever he was doing. (DeLillo 2001: 74)

Lauren Hartke identifies Mr. Tuttle’s unintelligible utterances as songs, echoing another Romantic topos: the idea of Ursprache or pure, poetic original language present in the works of Fichte, Novalis or Schlegel. When she joins Mr. Tuttle in his chant, Lauren will experience transcendence as quasi-mystical ecstasy: “This is the point, yes, this is the stir of the amazement. And some terror at the edge, or fear of believing, some displacement of self, but this is the point, this Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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is the wedge into ecstasy, the old deep meaning of the word, your eyes rolling upward in your skull” (DeLillo 2001: 75).

Like many of the characters in DeLillo’s early novels, Lauren Hartke and Jack Gladney perceive “the beauty and horror of wordless things” (DeLillo 1973: 52). The kind of experience undergone by both characters is described in terms of the Romantic sublime as defined by Edmund Burke. The utterance triggering this kind of experience is described as having some formal beauty, but it is mainly associated to concepts such as “inspiration” and “amazement”. It is also pervaded by fear, “some terror at the edge”. This combination of feelings, according to Burke, distinguishes the beautiful from the sublime: “The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature is Astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other” (Burke 1937: 49). Lauren’s experience seems to fit perfectly well into Burke’s description of the sublime, implying the falling out of the conventional parameters of time and language, and the “displacement of the self ” in favor of the transcendental thought that overwhelms the subject.

As a conclusion, I would like to return to James Berger’s idea that the thematic expression of linguistic concerns in DeLillo’s novels may be considered “as the origin of a poetics” (2005: 354), suggesting that the frequent explicit reflections on language that can be found in his work might be used as a sort of theoretical framework for the analysis of aspects such as narrative structure or style. This notion may lead to two separate lines of analysis, which I would like to propose for further examination in the future.

On the one hand, the rhetoric of revelation that permeates ideas about language in DeLillo’s fiction may be said to have a correspondence in the narrative structure of many of his novels. As Arthur Saltzman has mentioned in connection to White Noise: “the novel is filled with disappointed verges—DeLillo builds to the point of revelation, only to resubmerge into the usual blather” (1994: 811).

Saltzman’s observation can be equally applied to other novels by DeLillo, in which the nature of the truth or secret meaning characters Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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look for tends to remain concealed from the reader. It may be claimed that, as long as this transcendental truth belongs to the realm of the inexpressible, it cannot be narrated, it cannot enter the shape of common language and therefore, it cannot be communicated to the reader. Its alterity, in DeLillo’s novels, remains intact and inassimilable till the end. By engaging in this rhetoric of transcendental revelation and its ineffable character, DeLillo partakes of a literary milieu that brings together many authors who have turned revelation into a narrative device.7 Texts such as The Body Artist, The Names or Ratner’s Star may be said to share a narrative structure that could be called “apocalyptic”, built around the imminent revelation of a final truth that is endlessly deferred, displaced beyond the scope of the books themselves, as it cannot be expressed through human language.

On the other hand, Berger’s statement may be interpreted as an invitation to consider that DeLillo’s own writing tends, at some moments, to embody the kind of linguistic ideal he describes in his novels. In this sense, it may be claimed that DeLillo’s fiction follows what he declared to be his intention regarding Ratner’s Star: “I wanted the book to become what it was about” (LeClair, 1983: 86). In End Zone, Gary’s attempt at obliterating language is followed by the growing “nakedness” of his narration: “The sun. The desert. The sky.

The silence. The flat stones. The insects. The wind and the clouds.

The moon. The stars. The west and east. The song, the color, the smell of the earth.” (DeLillo 1972: 89-90). The novel is thus reduced to the sort of “elemental list” mentioned by Gary in the aforementioned passage, bringing it close to the mental state he described as outside the discursive ordering of consciousness.

This tendency may be identified in specific passages of novels such as Players or Underworld, but The Body Artist is undoubtedly the novel in which DeLillo has devoted all his effort to the creation of a narrative that follows, in the language that constitutes the text, “the concept of a primal or original language so directly connected to things that it remains unintelligible to any but the speaker” (Nel 2002: 739).

As Philip Nel has noted, DeLillo reverts to modernism, creating a novel that “holds out the possibility of pure speech and then withdraws again” (746).

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The Body Artist, DeLillo’s homage to imagistic poetry (Nel 2002: 738) may be seen as the author’s most explicit attempt to date to practice the counter-linguistic turn he has repeatedly thematized in his novels. DeLillo’s writing seems in those “moments of clarity” (Nel 2002: 742) to assume his characters’ quest for transcendence, echoing their concerns in his own statements about the creative process. This poetics of transcendental revelation may become the leading impulse for his writing, commented on by the author himself:

There’s a zone I aspire to. Finding it is another question. It’s a state of automatic writing, and it represents the paradox that’s at the center of a writer’s consciousness—this writer’s anyway. First you look for discipline and control. You want to exercise your will, bend the language your way. You want to control the flow of impulses, images, words, faces, ideas. But there’s a higher place, a secret aspiration. You want to let go. You want to lose yourself in language, become a carrier or messenger. The best moments involve a loss of control. It’s a kind of rapture, and it can happen with words and phrases fairly often— completely surprising combinations that make a higher kind of sense, that come to you out of nowhere. (Begley 1993: 282) NOTES

As Cornel Bonca has noted, this articulation of “unconcealment” as excavation can be related to the one formulated in the writings of Martin Heidegger (1996: 40; 2002: 60).

2 For a detailed analysis of the romantic resonance of this motif in DeLillo’s fiction, see Pifer 2000. James Berger reformulates the idea in his conception of the “postmodern wild child” (2005: 347), while Weinstein’s seems to spring from an Emersonian notion of childhood as it is expressed, for instance, in “Nature” (1836).

3 The motif echoes Jorge Luis Borges’ celebrated story “The Garden of Forking Paths”: “Mi problema era indicar la ciudad que se llama Albert y no hallé otro medio que matar a una persona de ese nombre” (Borges 1997: 118).

4 One of the aspects on which critical debate has focused when analyzing this passage is the issue of whether Jack’s revelation 1

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should be read ironically, that is, whether readers should consider his experience as real transcendence or as a parody of it. Cowart gives a brief summary of critical positions around this issue (2002: 73). I would like to state, however, that I agree with Arnold Weinstein (1993: 306) and Cornel Bonca (1996: 30) rather than with Cowart in this matter. In my opinion, the rhetorical articulation in the passage links it to a literary tradition of (mystic, romantic, modernist) epiphanic transcendentalism independently of whether it is read ironically or not.

5 The character’s reflection on The Cloud of Unknowing connects this passage with a similar one from White Noise where the same mystical text is mentioned (DeLillo 1985: 280). It may also recall another passage from J. D. Salinger’s Franny & Zooey, with which it shares its mystical concerns: “If you keep saying that prayer over and over again—you only have to just do it with your lips at first—the eventually what happens, the prayer becomes self-active. Something happens after a while […] The same thing happens in The Cloud of Unknowing, too. Just with the word ‘God’. I mean you just keep saying the word ‘God’” (Salinger 1964: 37-38).

6 It should be noted that DeLillo had already used the same phrase in an interview, commenting on the “Toyota Celica” passage in White Noise: “When you detach one of these words from the product it was designed to serve, the word acquires a chantlike quality […] If you concentrate on the sound, if you disassociate the words from the object they denote, and if you say the words over and over, they become a sort of higher Esperanto. This is how Toyota Celica began its life. It was pure chant at the beginning. Then they had to find an object to accommodate the words” (Begley 1993: 291; emphasis added).

7 With no pretensions to offering a comprehensive list at all, the names of Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness), Edgar Allan Poe (The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym), James Joyce (The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) or Samuel Beckett (Worstward Ho) may be mentioned as practitioners of this kind of rhetorical construction also found in DeLillo’s fiction. St. John of the Cross may be called forth as well: The sudden ending of Ascent of Mount Carmel is justified in terms of the ineffable nature of Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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the direct experience of the divine. Assuming this rhetoric of ineffability, the author creates a structural pattern in which the writing itself suffers the consequences of trying to narrate an experience outside the symbolic-linguistic realm. In this case, as in most of the above-mentioned works, the experience of ineffable revelation is conveyed through narrative mechanisms.

WORKS CITED

Begley, A. 1993. “The Art of Fiction CXXXV”. Paris Review 128: 275306.

Berger, J. 2005. “Falling Towers and Postmodern Wild Children: Oliver Sacks, Don DeLillo, and Turns against Language”. PMLA 120.2: 341-61.

Bonca, C. 1996. “Don DeLillo’s White Noise: The Natural Language of the Species”. College Literature 23.2: 25-44.

---. 2002. “Being, Time, and Death in DeLillo’s The Body Artist”. Pacific Coast Philology 37: 58-68.

Borges, J. L. 1997 (1944). Ficciones. Madrid: Alianza.

Burke, E. 1965 (1757). On the Sublime and Beautiful. Ed. Charles W. Eliot.

New York: P.F. Collier and Son. Cowart, D. 2002. Don DeLillo. The Physics of Language. Athens & London: Georgia UP. DeLillo, D. 1972. End Zone. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

---. 1973. Great Jones Street. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

---. 1976. Ratner’s Star. New York: Knopf.

---. 1978. Running Dog. New York: Knopf.

---. 1982. The Names. New York: Knopf.

---. 1985. White Noise. New York: Viking.

---. 1988. Libra. New York: Viking.

---. 1997. Underworld. New York: Scribner.

---. 2001. The Body Artist. New York: Scribner.

Derrida, J. 1976 (1967). Of Grammatology. Translated by G.C. Spivak.

Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Dewey, J. 2006. Beyond Grief and Nothing: A Reading of Don DeLillo.

Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

Juan de la Cruz, S. 1999. Obra Completa. Vol. 1. Ed. López-Baralt, Luce and Eulogio Pacho. Madrid: Alianza.

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LeClair, T. 1983. “An Interview with Don DeLillo”. LeClair, Tom & McCaffery, Larry, eds. Anything Can Happen. Interviews with Contemporary American Novelists. Urbana, IL: U. of Illinois P: 7990.

Nel, P. 2002. “Don DeLillo’s return to form: The modernist poetics of The Body Artist”. Contemporary Literature 43.4: 736-59.

Osteen, M. 2000. American Magic and Dread: Don DeLillo’s Dialogue with Culture. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P. Pifer, E. 2000. “The Child as Mysterious Agent: DeLillo’s White Noise”.

Demon or Doll: Images of the Child in Contemporary Writing and Culture. Charlottesville, VA: UP of Virginia. 212-32.

Salinger, J.D. 1964. Franny & Zooey. New York, etc.: Bantam Books.

Saltzman, A. M. 1994. “The figure in the static: White Noise”. Modern Fiction Studies 40.4: 807-826.

Weinstein, A. 1993. Nobody’s Home: Speech, Self and Place in American Fiction from Hawthorne to DeLillo. New York: Oxford University Press.

Wordsworth, W. 1947 (1804). “Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”. The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. Ed. E. De Selincourt and H. Darbishire. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. 279-285.

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THE TASK OF WALTER B ENJAMIN'S TRANSLATORS: REFLECTIONS ON THE DIFFERENT LANGUAGE VERSIONS OF DAS PASSAGEN-WERK (THE ARCADES PROJECT)* Christopher Rollason Metz, Francia christopher.rollason@europarl.europa.eu This article offers an overview of the various language versions of Walter Benjamin's epic work Das Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project) and draws a number of conclusions in relation to the theory and practice of translation and to Benjamin's own writings on the subject, notably 'The Task of the Translator'.

Keywords: Walter Benjamin, translation

Este artículo ofrece una vista panorámica de las varias versiones lingüísticas de la obra maestra de Walter Benjamin Das Passagen-Werk (Libro de los pasajes), sacando a continuación algunas conclusiones relativas a la teoría y práctica de la traducción y a los escritos traductológicos del propio Benjamin, en particular 'La tarea del traductor'.

Palabras Clave: Walter Benjamin, traducción

I

It is somewhat paradoxical that Walter Benjamin, who is by now all but universally recognised as one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century, is also a name cited with reverence in the academic field of Translation Studies - even though he produced only a sliver of reflections on the subject. There are, indeed, only two frequently cited texts in which Benjamin considers the subject: the early, esoteric essay 'On Language as Such and on the Language of Man' ('Über die Sprache überhaupt und über die Sprache des Menschen', 1916), and the very well-known piece 'The Task of the Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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Translator' ('Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers', 1923). From these two slim texts comes Benjamin's surprising fame as a theorist of translation, concerning which we may note two interesting points: first, that the later essay is actually linked to the practice of translation, since it was originally published as Benjamin's preface to his own translation into German of Charles Baudelaire's poem-sequence Tableaux Parisiens1); and second, that since by no means all those who write on Walter Benjamin know his native language, German, his writings on translation are more often than not quoted in translation (English, Spanish, Italian or whatever). All this may usefully alert the readers of his work to the importance of translation, as an indispensable means of communication of ideas, and, at the same time, to the need for theoretical reflection on what is in no sense an unproblematic or valuefree activity. In this brief study, we shall first examine the key elements of Benjamin's concept of translation, and then look in detail at certain aspects of the different language versions of his posthumous masterpiece, the study of nineteenth-century Paris centring on the arcades that is Das Passagen-Werk.

II

In 'On Language as Such and on the Language of Man', Benjamin argues, as a philosopher, in favour of an ontological equality of source and translated texts. As one commentator, Diego Fernández, puts it, 'human languages, in Benjamin's conception of language, maintain a relationship of affinity - not through being like each other or similar to each other, but through kinship'2. Translation thus becomes a matter not of similarity or identity (translated text copies source text) but of affinity in difference (translated text and source text are two objects, separate yet akin and equal in value). The 1916 essay affirms: 'Translation attains its full meaning in the realisation that every evolved language … can be considered as a translation of all the others'3, perceiving translation as a succession not of similarities but of transformations, and thus pointing towards a vision of source and translated text as ontological equals. Benjamin here argues against the idea of a translation as a mere simulacrum of the original, adumbrating a counter-model of difference in equality: 'a translation, instead of resembling the meaning of the original, must lovingly and in detail incorporate the original's mode of signification, thus making Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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both the original and the translation recognizable as fragments of a greater language, just as fragments are part of a vessel'4.

Benjamin's vision of equality between source and translated texts is closely bound up with an antithesis which, though hardly a new invention, has received crucial attention in Translation Studies in our day, namely that between the domestic and the foreign, or, to use the somewhat inelegant prevailing terms, 'domestication' and 'foreignisation'. In 'The Task of the Translator', Benjamin endorses the views of an earlier commentator, Rudolf Pannwitz, who, writing in 1917, declared: 'Our translations, even the best ones, proceed from a wrong premise. They want to turn Hindi, Greek, English into German instead of turning German into Greek, Hindi, English. (…) The basic error of the translator is that he preserves the state in which his own language happens to be instead of allowing his language to be profoundly affected by the foreign tongue. (….) [Rather], he must expand and deepen his language by means of the foreign language'5. In this context, Benjamin especially applauds Friedrich Hölderlin's German translations of Sophocles, as being exemplary of Pannwitz's recommended method.

This Benjamin-Pannwitz position looks both forwards and backwards, to Friedrich Schleiermacher in the early nineteenth century and Lawrence Venuti in our day. In his 1813 essay 'On the Different Methods of Translating', Schleiermacher, the translator into German of the complete works of Plato, argued that as far as translation strategy is concerned 'there are only two possibilities.

Either the translator leaves the author in peace as much as possible and moves the reader toward him; or he leaves the reader in peace as much as possible and moves the writer toward him'6. He strongly preferred the former option - i.e. the translator highlights the otherness of the translated text, by 'striving to adhere so closely to the foreign text as his own language allows'7. Schleiermacher argues that if this method forces the reader to make more effort and may yield translations that appear 'harsh and stiff'8, it is far superior to the other, less demanding approach. The latter, aiming at 'lightness and naturalness of style'9 and seeking to 'spare its reader all exertion and toil'10, smooths over the alien features of the foreign-language text, insouciantly omits or replaces whole passages, and risks occluding the Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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differences between what we would now call source and target languages (and the cultures behind them). Today, Schleiermacher's notion of the 'two methods' has been taken up by a whole school of latter-day translation theorists who have named them, respectively, 'foreignisation' (seen as good) and 'domestication' (seen as bad). The high priest here is the Italian-American translator and translation scholar Lawrence Venuti, who is famously fierce in his opposition to what Schleiermacher termed 'lightness and naturalness' and Venuti himself calls 'fluency'. Venuti has, indeed, linked Benjamin to the earlier German writer, seeing him as 'reviving Schleiermacher's notion of foreignising translating'11. For Venuti, a translation should not read as if it were an original, but should bear the visible signs of its translatedness. In a text of 2004, he defines the bipolar terms as follows: 'Fluency masks a domestication of the foreign text that is appropriative and potentially imperialistic … It can be countered by "foreignising" translation that registers the irreducible differences of the foreign text'.12 Venuti's aim - to denaturalise translation and ensure it does not become a mere act of textual appropriation - may be seen, controversial as it is, as a means of seeking that equality between original and translation to which Benjamin aspired.

III

It should, certainly, be of interest to both Benjamin students and translation scholars to consider what links may emerge from examining his masterpiece, Das Passagen-Werk, and his ideas concerning translation, in the context of both his original text and its various other language versions. Drafted between 1927 and 1940 and left incomplete (and long undiscovered) after its author's tragic death, Das Passagen-Werk finally saw publication in Benjamin's native Germany only in 1982. The manuscripts that became the published book are the collected fruit of his painstaking investigations in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and consist of a long sequence of fragments, albeit interrelated and organised according to a master plan. The volume as we have it appears as a compromise between two opposite concepts of writing - the finished work and the discrete fragment – mediated by the key image of the constellation, which for Benjamin signifies interconnectedness as a ruling principle13. A large part of Benjamin's text actually consists of blocks of quotations from other writers, mostly Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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nineteenth-century, in either German or French (the French extracts, which are very numerous, are left in the original and not translated); these quotations, generally brief, are arranged in sections, and are interspersed throughout with segments of critical commentary, again for the most part brief, by Benjamin himself. This practice is respected in the published German version, and the result is what might be called a linguistically bi-coloured or piebald text, with abundant passages in French interleaved with others in German. Benjamin's original is, then, not a bilingual text, even if some have called it so. It should, rather, be called a macaronic text - that is, one which operates on the lines of the medieval carols which alternate Latin and English (as in the well-known 'In Dulci Jubilo': 'Ubi sunt gaudia/If that they be not there?', etc). We do not know, of course, exactly what the finished book would have looked like, nor whether Benjamin would have supplied German translations for his French quotations or preferred to assume a bilingual reader.

The original text of Das Passagen-Werk is, then, in reality not so much German as German/French. Meanwhile and as things stand, there exist, to the present writer's knowledge, seven other language versions of the book apart from the original. One, the French version (1989, reissued 2002), bears, as we shall stress below, a relationship to the original which is not entirely that of a translation. The remaining five can all be considered translations proper. Chronologically, the first - interestingly enough, preceding the French and English versions - is the Italian rendition, first published in 1986 and reissued in revised form in 2000. In its footsteps have followed translations into Japanese (1993), English (1999 and a shade belatedly), and Spanish, Portuguese and Korean (all 2005). The titles chosen for Benjamin's work vary, and none of the European ones literally translates Das Passagen-Werk14. The Spanish and Portuguese titles make the volume a book, the English, more tentatively, a project; the French version calls it a book but adds the explicatory "Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century" (a title originating in that of one of Benjamin's own "exposés" for the project15, as included in the various editions of Das Passagen-Werk). The two Italian editions have different titles, the first being, again, "Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century", but with the subtitle: 'Projects, notes and materials 1937-1949', thus pointing up the manuscript's work-in-progress character, while the second is "The "Passages" of Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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Paris", the word 'passages' being retained in French. The evident uncertainty over how to title the book reflects the complex and genreproblematic nature of Benjamin's investigations.

IV

How should these different language versions of Benjamin's work be placed in relation to the author's own views on translation?

Here one needs to note the, certainly, peculiar textual nature of the original text of Das Passagen-Werk. Since Benjamin's German editors chose not to translate the French passages, the notion of a "German original" or "German edition" is something of a misnomer. The text of Das Passagen-Werk as it stands can only be understand in full by a reader equally conversant with German and French - as if, provocatively, arguing the impossibility of translation by refusing it. To the present writer's knowledge, no-one has yet undertaken a rendition of the French passages into German, an act which would, though, at last produce a full German version of Benjamin's masterpiece, and one may wonder whether since 1999 some German readers may not actually preferred to consult and use the English version, at least for the quotations from French. It is if, provocatively, Benjamin's text were arguing the impossibility of translation by refusing it. As it stands, Das Passagen-Werk is an unintended but eloquent graphic illustration on Benjamin's part of the ontological equality of translation (French) and original (German), as argued in "On Language as Such and On the Language of Man". At the same time, the notion of bringing reader closer to text rather than text closer to reader - the Benjamin-Pannwitz concept of "deepen[ing one's] language by means of the foreign language", corresponding to Schleiermacher's "mov[ing] the reader toward [the author]", is, for the French extracts, pushed to the extreme of bringing the reader so close to the original that the original is, quite simply, not translated at all.

Problems of a different nature are posed by the French edition (translator: Jean Lacoste), which officially bills itself as a translated text in the conventional sense, even though swathes of it, interleaved with the translated material, in reality form a kind of discontinuous French-language original within the text. The title-page declares the book to be "traduit de l'allemand" ("translated from the German"), but

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the "avertissement du traducteur" (translator's note) admits that "un grand nombre" ("a great number") of Benjamin's original quotations are in French. The relationship between these two statements is not explored anywhere in the volume's critical apparatus. It is, though, to be hoped that French readers will be aware that in the quotations from Baudelaire, Hugo, Fourier et al. they are in all cases reading the original texts and not retro-translations from the German. From the viewpoint of translation theory, the book's French passages certainly bring the text as close as possible to the reader, and the domestication issue can hardly be said to arise for those passages at all (they do not need to be adapted to "home", since they come from home already), only to the parts translated from German. If the German/French original is a visible hybrid or macaronic original, the French version of Das Passagen-Werk is an invisible hybrid, a collage of translation and original.

In contrast to both the German and French editions, the English (or American) version (translators: Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin) is an ontologically straightforward, non-hybrid, homogeneous textual phenomenon. In the conventional way, it translates everything, from both German and French, into English: the same is of course the case for the Spanish, Portuguese, Italian Japanese and Korean editions, but it is the English one that most needs distinguishing from the German and French editions, since inevitably it will also be read, quoted and taken as a reference point by native speakers of other languages, especially those which the book is not yet translated into. As regards matters of translation technique, the "Translators' Foreword" states that the task was divided between the two translators on a language basis, Eiland taking the German and McLaughlin the French, and that for the literary extracts previously existing translations were used wherever possible16. Here this version may stand as a model for future translations into other languages. In terms of translation theory, the English version is fully open to the domestication/foreignisation debate, though with the proviso that the text has been transferred not from one other culture but from two, and translation thus becomes not so much a dialogue as a trialogue.

Similar considerations apply, for the most part, to the five other existing translations, which will not be discussed in detail here. We may, though, note that 2005 saw, with both the Spanish and Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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Portuguese versions seeing the light of day, a major extension of the accessibility of Benjamin's book, which is now, notably, available in their country's main official language to virtually all the inhabitants of both Americas, North and South; and that with the Korean edition appearing in the same year to join the Japanese version, a significant part of East Asia is now also open to the ideas of Das Passagen-Werk.

Translation thus facilitates the very necessary globalisation of Benjamin's ideas.

V

Concerning future translations into new languages (Russian?

Chinese? Hindi? Bengali?), one may wonder what strategies are likely to be followed by those confided with the Herculean task of rendering the entirety of Das Passagen-Werk. As with many though not all of the existing versions, there is a good cause for having it done by two translators, or by a team (the Italian translation, in particular, is the product of a complex exercise in teamwork). After all, not all Germanists are French scholars, and vice versa. Understanding Benjamin's study in all its detail calls for an expert knowledge of nineteenth-century history (social and political), literature and philosophy, as well of technical areas such as architecture and engineering, not to mention the topography of Paris, and here recourse to specialists is vital and, indeed, the team method may very likely prove preferable. A further question remains in the air: as has happened in the past with, for example, the translation of Freud into Portuguese, will some publishers of future translations opt for the indirect method and propose working from the English version, rather than taking the more rigorous but more difficult route of seeking out parallel experts in French and German? If that happens, how far will the gain in accessibility from the existence of new translations be vitiated by the departure, inevitable in an indirect translation, from Benjamin's own principle of the ontological equality of languages?

Das Passagen-Werk is one of the great books of the twentieth century, and its message of interrelatedness, relayed through Benjamin's crucial image of the constellation, speaks eloquently to our own, networked century. It is crucial that Benjamin's text be made available in as many languages as possible. At the same time, given the importance and influence of Benjamin's own writings (brief though Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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they are) on translation, it seems desirable that his translators should be aware of his theoretical postulates and the relation to them of the text of Das Passagen-Werk itself. The present essay is offered as an initial contribution to a debate which, it is hoped, will be enriched in the future by further translations, into more languages, of Walter Benjamin's vital, eloquent and constellar masterpiece.

APPENDIX: EDITIONS AND TRANSLATIONS OF DAS PASSAGEN-WERK

A. Versions - GERMAN VERSION – MACARONIC ORIGINAL GERMAN/FRENCH

Das Passagen-Werk [written 1927-40, published 1982]. Edited by Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1982.

- FRENCH ORIGINAL

VERSION:

PART-TRANSLATION/PART-

Paris, Capitale du XIXe siècle: Le Livre des passages. Translated by Jean Lacoste. 1989. Reissued, Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2002.

B. Translations

- ENGLISH

The Arcades Project. Translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999.

- ITALIAN

1) Parigi, capitale del XIX secolo. Progetti, appunti e materiali 19271940. Translated by: Renato Solmi, Antonella Moscati, Massimo De Carolis, Giuseppe Russo, Gianni Carchia and Francesco Porzio. Edited

by Giorgio Agamben. Turin: Einaudi, 1986.

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2) I 'passages' di Parigi. Revised version of the earlier translation.

Revised by Hellmut Riediger and edited by Daniele La Rosa. Vol. IX of Benjamin, Opere complete (general editor, Enrico Ganni). Turin: Einaudi, 2000.

- JAPANESE

Translated by Imamura Hitoshi and others. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishing, 1993.

- KOREAN

Translated by Hyung Jun Cho. Seoul: Saemulgyul Publishing House, 2005.

- PORTUGUESE

O livro das passagens. Translated by Irene Aron. Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Editora da UFMG (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais), 2005.

- SPANISH

Libro de los pasajes. Translated by Isidro Herrera, Luis Fernández and Fernando Guerrero. Madrid: Akal, 2005.

NOTES

It may be added that the version of 'The Task of the Translator' generally used by English-speaking readers (that translated by Harry Zohn) is, as Stephen Rendall ('A Note on Harry Zohn's Translation') has shown, not entirely error-free (although the errors are not so great as to affect the text's general theoretical drift).

2 Fernández, Informe del tiempo. Original: 'las lenguas humanas, bajo una concepción benjaminiana de la lengua, guardan una relación de parentesco … no por su parecido, por su semejanza, sino por una familiaridad'.

1

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Benjamin, ''On Language as Such and on the Language of Man', 117.

Benjamin, 'The Task of the Translator', 78.

5 Rudolf Pannwitz, Die Krisis der Europäischen Kultur (The Crisis of European Culture, 1917), quoted in Benjamin, 'The Task of the Translator', 80-81. Benjamin praises Pannwitz's remarks as being, ex æquo with certain observations of Goethe, 'the best comment on the theory of translation that has been published in Germany' (80). Pannwitz (1881-1969), philosopher and poet, was himself a translator of Baudelaire. He is also credited with being one of the first to use the term 'postmodern'.

6 Schleiermacher, 'On the Different Methods of Translating', 49.

7 Ibid., 53.

8 Ibid., 53.

9 Ibid., 54.

10 Ibid., 55.

11 See Venuti's commentary in The Translation Studies Reader, 72.

12 Venuti, '1990s and Beyond', 334.

13 For a more general discussion and interpretation of The Arcades Project, see my own study of 2002 (Rollason, 'The Passageways of Paris').

14 I have no information on the Japanese and Korean titles.

15 See Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 14-27.

16 Benjamin, The Arcades Project, xiii-xiv.

3 4

WORKS CITED

Benjamin, W. 1979 (written 1916, first published 1955). 'On Language as Such and on the Language of Man' [written 1916]. Trans.

Edmund Jephcott. In Benjamin, One-Way Street and Other Writings. London: New Left Books, 107-123.

Benjamin, W. 1973 (first published 1923). 'The Task of the Translator' [introduction to Charles Baudelaire, Tableaux Parisiens, trans.

Benjamin]. Trans. Harry Zohn. In Benjamin, Illuminations.

London: Collins (Fontana), 69-82.

Fernández, D. 2005. Informe del Tiempo: Sobre la temporalidad de la cita en Walter Benjamin y la (in)temporalidad de lo inconsciente en Sigmund Freud. Thesis. Santiago (Chile): Universidad Diego Portales.

On-line at: <www.wbenjamin.org/fernandez.html>.

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Rendall, S. 2004. 'A Note on Harry Zohn's Translation [of Benjamin's "The Task of the Translator"]'. In Venuti, Lawrence, ed, The Translation Studies Reader, 2nd ed. New York and London: Routledge, 83-85.

Rollason, C. 2002. 'The Passageways of Paris: Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project and Contemporary Cultural Debate in the West'. In Christopher Rollason and Rajeshwar Mittapalli, eds., Modern Criticism. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 262296; rev. version on-line at: www.wbenjamin.org/passageways.html.

Schleiermacher, F. 2004 (first published 1813). 'On the Different Methods of Translating'. Trans. Susan Bernofsky. In Venuti, Lawrence, ed.. The Translation Studies Reader. 2nd ed., New York and London: Routledge. 43-63.

Venuti, L. ed. 2004. Translation Studies Reader. 2nd ed., New York and London: Routledge.

Venuti, L. '1990s and Beyond'. In Venuti, Lawrence (ed.), The Translation Studies Reader, 2nd ed. New York and London: Routledge, 2004. 325-335.

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CHALLENGING GENDER HIERARCHY THROUGH HUMOUR IN APHRA BEHN’S THE ROVER I & II.* Ángeles Tomé Rosales Universidade de Vigo angelestome@uvigo.es This paper deals with the way Aphra Behn challenges gender hierarchy through humour in two of her best-known comedies, The Rover I & II. Twentiethcentury criticism has extensively argued that gender is not biological but cultural. Women are not considered inferior beings who must remain subordinated to men, at least, in western culture. However, as early as the seventeenth-century, Behn was challenging gender hierarchy through her comedies and her personal experience. She was a woman who was able to write comedies to be performed and, through these comedies, she dared to expose her ideas publicly, in spite of accusations of prostitution. Moreover, through humour, Behn’s female characters become superior to male ones in laughter-raising situations.

Keywords: comedy, gender, humour, Aphra Behn.

Este artigo trata sobre o desafío á xerarquía de xénero a través do humor en dúas das comedias máis coñecidas de Aphra Behn, The Rover I e II. No século XX, a crítica defendeu que o xénero non é biolóxico mais si cultural. As mulleres xa non se consideran seres inferiores que deben permanecer subordinadas aos homes, polo menos, na cultura ocidental. Nembargantes, no século XVII, Behn xa desafiaba a xerarquía de xénero a través das súas comedias e da súa experiencia persoal.

Tratábase dunha muller que podía escribir comedias para seren representadas e, nelas, atrevíase a expor as súas ideas publicamente, a pesar das acusacións de prostitución. Ademais, a través do humor, as personaxes femininas de Behn vólvense superiores ás masculinas nas Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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situacións cómicas.

Palabras chave: comedia, xénero, humor, Aphra Behn.

1. INTRODUCTION

“What a Pox art thou afraid of a Woman–––[?]” (3.1.22) is the question the innocent Blunt, one of the characters in The Rover II (1681), asks his friend Fetherfool. As the question suggests, it is assumed that a man should not be frightened by a woman, whom the patriarchal society of the time deemed his inferior. However, despite what it may seem, the meaning of this question is largely clarified in Behn’s comedies. Patriarchy justifies women’s subordination due to their supposed mental and physical inferiority. Nevertheless, in her comedies, Behn introduces strong female characters in order to prove that a patriarchal society such as the one in the seventeenth century has the wrong idea about women. Behn’s female characters manage to turn the gender hierarchy which comes from women’s subordination upside down through humour, the most powerful weapon female characters use. So, in Behn’s comedies, men are ridiculed by women and, therefore, the privileges the patriarchal society in the seventeenth century granted men are challenged. Precisely because of that, Blunt and his friend are actually afraid of women.

During the twentieth century, many critics and scientists showed that gender is a cultural and, therefore, changeable concept.

This changeability becomes such an important feature with respect to gender identities that it helps to transform the ideas about women which have been maintained since the beginning of Western culture.

Yet, as early as the seventeenth century Behn challenged gender hierarchy not only in her comedies but also through her labour as a female playwright whose plays were performed publicly. Behn “emerged as the first British woman to make a living as a creative writer” (Hughes 2004: 29) in a period when women’s public speaking was forbidden (cf. Mourón Figueroa 1998: 120) and, therefore, as Lowenthal (2001: 397) points out, she was also “the first woman to endure some of the harshest criticism ever levelled against a writer – because she was a woman”. Meira Serras (2000: 263) indicates that Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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(…) all over the seventeenth century, some women contributed to the reshaping of the female identity. By means of literary and debating skills, they drew attention to their intellectual richness, in spite of their obvious lack of preparation in many fields.

Behn was one of these women. In her own works, she shows how difficult it was for her to write plays to be performed. In many of her first prologues or epilogues, Behn concealed her authorship of plays through the employment of masculine pronouns because the ideas displayed in them would be unacceptable if they were known to come from a woman. Then, she resolved to complain about misogyny, one of the trends in her society (cf. Altaba-Artal 1999: 67). In the preface to The Lucky Chance (1686), Behn (1996: 215) deals with the reception of her plays and notices that “Right or Wrong they must be Criminal because a Woman’s; condemning them without having the Christian Charity, to examine whether it be guilty or not, with reading, comparing, or thinking” and she “appeal[s] to all unbyast Judges of Sense, if they had not said that Person had made as many good Comedies, as any one Man that has writ in our Age; but a Devil on’t the Woman damns the Poet” (1996: 217). In the epistle to The Dutch Lover (1673), Behn (1996: 162) reports that “they were to expect a woful Play, God damn him, for it was a womans” but, on the contrary, “a woman may well hope to reach their greatest hights”. So, this epistle must be considered a vindication of the rights of women in the field of writing.

Apart from her direct references to women’s unjust situation in her prologues and epilogues, Behn also fought against women’s subordination in patriarchal society through the plots of her comedies: she either makes her male characters ridiculous or makes her female characters ridicule the male ones in order to challenge gender hierarchy, which totters when either the characters themselves or the audience and the readers laugh at the male characters.

Laughter is the essence of comedy and humour. Since the beginning of Western civilisation, many have tried to define humour yet, although they have achieved some important definitions, no one has been able to explain the whole phenomenon. In spite of this

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absence of a completely satisfactory definition, I would like to make reference to the three theories relevant scholars have developed to explain laughter-raising situations: the incongruity theory, the superiority theory and the relief theory. In my opinion, the incongruity theory is the most useful for my analysis because the vast majority of comic situations in Behn’s comedies depend on this. According to incongruity theory, humour is produced by the experience of an incongruity between what is expected and what actually happens.

Among the scholars who have developed this theory, the most relevant are Kant, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard or Koestler. In the nineteenth century Schopenhauer (1957: 271) asserted that “the phenomenon of laughter always signifies the sudden apprehension of an incongruity between such a conception and the real object thought under it, thus between the abstract and the concrete object of perception”. With reference to the incongruity theory, Koestler (1994: 682) alleges that the “bisociation” of a situation or idea with two mutually incompatible contexts in a person’s mind and the resulting abrupt transfer of his train of thought from one context to another put a sudden end to his “tense expectations”; the accumulated emotion, deprived of its object, is left hanging in the air and is discharged in laughter.

Apart from the incongruity theory, the other two theories of humour will also be present in this analysis of the humorous situations in Behn’s comedies. Until the eighteenth century, the superiority theory, mainly represented by Plato, Aristotle, Quintilian and Hobbes, had dominated the philosophical tradition. For Hobbes (1994: 54-55), “the passion of laughter is nothing else but a sudden glory arising from sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmities of others, or with our own formerly”. The relief theory emerges in the nineteenth century in the work of Herbert Spencer, although it is better known thanks to Sigmund Freud’s work Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905). In this work, Freud pointed out that the energy relieved and discharged in laughter provides pleasure because it allegedly economises upon energy which would be used to contain and repress psychic activity (cf. Critchley 2002: 2-3). Although a comic situation may usually be explained by one of these theories, Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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sometimes two or even the three of them are necessary to give an unabridged explanation.

My goal is to analyse the way in which the male characters in Behn’s The Rover I and II are ridiculed and the effect this has within the patriarchal society these comedies represent. I have chosen these texts because of their popularity. The Rover I was presented at Dorset Garden Theatre in 1677 for the first time and, from then on, “it was continuously acted until the turn of the century and became part of the repertoire until 1798” (cf. Altaba-Artal 1999: 74-77). Although The Rover II (1681) is considered inferior to the first part, it is also remarkable. According to Tomlinson (2002: 328), “[t]he fact that Behn wrote a sequel to her most popular comedy The Rover, or The Banished Cavaliers (1677) indicates the extent to which she was guided by the barometer of audience opinion”. So, my aim is to study how a female playwright challenges gender hierarchy through humour in two of her best-known plays. Behn mocks her male characters, above all, by means of mistaken identities, whereas her female characters do so by means of deception, witticisms and the grotesque. Because of this mockery, women place themselves in a position of superiority, at least momentarily. I will show the different ways in which Behn and her female characters sneer at male characters and I will illustrate them through the analysis of the most relevant situations in The Rover I and II. 2. MISTAKEN IDENTITIES

In Behn’s comedies, there are always a large number of disguises and night scenes in darkness and, particularly in The Rover I and II, these two features cause many cases of mistaken identity. The author is responsible for these situations in which the male characters fail to identify the women who they are talking to. Behn took such great advantage of the new spatial and visual possibilities of the Restoration theatre that she wrote her three-dimensional comedies thanks to the visual opportunities the stage offered during the Restoration. The new spatial and visual possibilities Restoration stages offered together with disguises and night scenes in darkness helped to enhance the plots, as we will see through the analysis of The Rover I and Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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II. Through the introduction of disguises and night scenes in darkness, Behn makes her male characters ridiculous and their authority is questioned. So, disguises and night scenes in darkness are frequently a plot device and a source of comic confusion.

In The Rover I, a boy tells Willmore that a lady would like to talk to him and, as the libertine he is, Willmore asks the boy to “[c]onduct her in, I dare not quit my Post” (5.1.186). Willmore longs to talk to Hellena because he has found out that she is “worth Two Hundred Thousand Crowns!” (4.1.271) and, therefore, he guesses: “This can be none but my pretty Gipsie–––” (5.1.189) because the woman who wants to talk to him is in a masquing habit and a vizard. So, Willmore tells the supposed Hellena: “Oh, I see you can follow as well as fly–– – Come, confess thy self the most malicious Devil in Nature, you think you have done my bus’ness with Angellica–––”. Having heard her own name, Angellica, who is the woman in front of Willmore, orders him to “[s]tand off ” (5.1.192) and draws a pistol which she holds to Willmore’s breast. Behn shows this woman drawing a pistol against Willmore, who has previously offended her, in order to effect a sense of gender reversal. In fact, while Angellica is holding the pistol, she shows courage and determination. According to Pearson (1988: 158), in patriarchal society male sexuality is often “an instrument of power” and, therefore, in her comedies Behn “allows women to compete for this by allowing them to share the phallic power of swords, daggers and pistols”.1 Willmore realises that the woman opposite him is not Hellena: “Hah, ’tis not she, who art thou? and what’s thy business?”

(5.1.193). As Willmore does not recognise her, Angellica is forced to take off the vizard she is wearing while she says: “Behold this face!–– –so lost to thy remembrance, / And then call all thy sins about thy Soul, / And let’em dye with thee” (5.1.198-200). Willmore is really frightened because he fears that Angellica will kill him: “Hold, dear Virago! hold thy hand a little, / I am not now at leasure to be kill’d––– hold and hear me––– / –––Death, I think she’s in earnest (Aside)” (5.1.210-212). As fear of a woman is not the expected attitude in a man, Willmore is ridiculed and the supposedly feeble woman becomes superior to him in this scene.

In The Rover II, Beaumond is also derided when he mistakes La Nuche for Ariadne. He is sure that the woman he has met is Ariadne

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because of her jewels, which override and determine the perception of the body in The Rover II (Hughes 2001: 129): “Hah–––a Woman! and by these Jewels–––should be Ariadne” (4.1.27). As he is going to marry her, he thinks that she will get embarrassed if he holds her and scolds her for being out at night. So, he does it: “–––Oh, ’tis in vain thou fly’st, thy Infamy will stay behind thee still” (4.1.29). La Nuche realises Beaumond’s mistake but, as she was trying to make Willmore jealous, she plays the part of Ariadne for Beaumond. Thus, he goes on talking to his supposed wife-to-be: “by Heaven, I scorn to marry thee, unless thou cou’dst convince me thou wer’t honest–––a Whore!––– Death how it cools my Blood–––” (4.1.53-55). The woman listening to him is La Nuche, a real prostitute Beaumond has met before. So, La Nuche, who is getting very shocked while she is listening to him, asks him: “is a Whore–––a thing so much despis’d?” (4.1.58). At that moment, Beaumond finds out that the person he is talking to is La Nuche and, consequently, he is shocked too. It must have been a very embarrassing situation for a man who is in love with this prostitute.

Through the whole meeting, La Nuche dominates the situation and, therefore, she plays the part of a man in a patriarchal society. In both situations, the women who threaten gender hierarchy are, surprisingly, prostitutes. Among women, patriarchy despises them more than anyone else and, therefore, this fact makes Willmore’s and Beaumond’s ridiculous position much more outstanding.

3. DECEIT

Until now, we have been analysing comic situations in which the ridicule of male characters is the result of their own behaviour but, in Behn’s The Rover I and II, there are also situations in which the female characters mock men. In my opinion, these situations are the funniest because women become dominant over men and they are completely conscious of that. Moreover, the mockery of male characters is more significant because it is not due to their own behaviour but because of the greater intellectual ability of women. In fact, Castelvetro (1984: 214) claims that “[d]eceptions, as when a person is made to say, do, or suffer what he would not say, do, or suffer unless he were deceived” are “a source of very great pleasure to us and move us to laughter”. One of the four kinds of deceptions Castelvetro Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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takes into account is the most prominent in Behn’s comedies: “Some […] are deceived by the machinations of men […]”, although in these comedies women, not men, are responsible for the machinations.

According to Lowenthal (2001: 403-404), Behn’s heroines are the best dissemblers and, for that purpose, they don disguises, which do not have to be physical. In this theatrical world of illusion, if women make use of disguises, that is, if they represent themselves to the world through a creative act, it “produces power because it cultivates a desire, a fact Behn not only recognises but exploits”. In The Rover I and II, Behn exploits female self-representation and disguises in order to deceive men. It is also necessary to highlight that whereas “male honesty depended upon more than just sex, (…) female reputation rested solely on sexual chastity” (Foyster 1999: 77). So, deceit does not have the same consequences with respect to women’s reputation as with men’s.

In The Rover I, Lucetta manages to deceive Blunt in order to get his clothes and jewelry. Blunt falls in love with Lucetta when he meets her for the first time: she was passing by Blunt and gazed on him.2 Then, he even wants to leave England for this woman: “How have I laught at the Colonel, when he sigh’d for Love! but now the little Archer has reveng’d him! and by this one Dart, I can guess at all his joys, which then I took for Fancies, meer Dreams and Fables” (2.1.34-37), although he does not know her name: “Her name? No, ’sheartlikins what care I for Names.–––She’s fair! young! brisk and kind! even to ravishment! and what a Pox care I for knowing her by any other Title”. (2.1.43-45). So, Lucetta invites him to her house and, obviously, Blunt accepts. He believes that Lucetta is also in love with him and she starts to think about their life together: “Egad I’ll shew her Husband a Spanish trick; send him out of the World and Marry her: she’s damnably in Love with me, and will ne’re mind Settlements, and so there’s that saved” (3.2.12-15). He is not as rational as the ideal man in a patriarchal society because he does not realise that everything forms part of a trick. Moreover, the humour of this situation comes from the anxiety Blunt shows: “I had but some fine things to say to her, such as Lovers use,–––I was a Fool not to learn of Fred. a little by heart before I came” (3.2.4-6). In spite of this wonderful situation, after Blunt takes off all his clothes and jewels, the bed descends and, while he is groping about to find it, he asks: “–––Whe––whe–where am I Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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got? what not yet?–where are you sweetest?–ah, the Rogue’s silent now–a pretty Love-trick this–how she’l laugh at me anon!–––you need not, my dear Rogue! you need not!–––I’m all on fire already–come, come, now call me in pity” (3.2.48-51). At the end, Blunt realises that he has been deceived: “what a Dog was I to believe in Woman? (3.2.9091). Obviously, Lucetta laughs at him: “Now, Sir, had I been Coy, we had mist of this Booty” (3.2.58) but, due to Lucetta’s duping of Blunt, his friends also subject him to collective derision. In fact, Belvile, one of his friends, enjoys seeing Blunt reduced to poverty: [H]e yet ne’er knew the want of money, and ’twill be a great jest to see how simply he will look without it; for my part I’ll lend him none, and the rogue knows not how to put on a borrowing face, and ask first; I’ll let him see how good ’tis to play our parts whilst I play his (4.1.544-547).

By laughing at Blunt because of his masculine failure, his friends assert their masculine superiority. They need to distinguish between winners and losers in the contest for honor, which shows the internal instability of early modern patriarchy (cf. Pacheco 2002: 209).

Although they seem to forget that the origin of Blunt’s humiliation is a woman, she manages to do what they have never dared to do and, therefore, that woman should be at the top of their pecking order.

In The Rover II, there is a similar comic situation when Ariadne is wearing men’s clothes.3 Ariadne manages to deceive Willmore and he thinks that she is really a boy. His only aim is La Nuche and, therefore, at the beginning, he does not take Ariadne into account. However, when she touches his sword, Willmore reacts: “go home, and do not walk the Streets so much: that tempting face of thine will debauch the grave men of business, and make the Magistrates Lust after wickedness” (3.1. 387-389). As she did not expect this reaction from Willmore, Ariadne tries to attract Willmore’s attention and she is resolved to draw the sword. However, Willmore stops her, believing the person opposite him is a young boy: “Keep in your Sword, for fear it cut your Fingers, Child” (3.1.391). In spite of what is expected, Ariadne answers sagaciously: “So ’twill your Throat, Sir–––here’s Company coming that will part us, and I’le venture to Draw” (3.1.392Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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393). So, Ariadne proves to be a brave woman who achieves her aims because, at the end, Willmore gives her an appointment at night in the Piazza: “I have an assignation with a Woman, that once dispatch’d, I will not fail ye, Sir” (3.1.415-416). Willmore arranges an appointment but he does not know that he is going to meet a woman who is dressed up as a man. So, it is obvious that Ariadne has managed to deceive him and, therefore, the woman proves to be more intelligent than Willmore, although in the seventeenth-century men were supposed to be the only rational beings. Both Lucetta and Ariadne deceive Blunt and Willmore respectively, which illustrates extensively the superiority of women over men in those particular situations.

4. WITTICISMS

As Altaba-Artal (1999: 77) indicates, The Rover I and II’s “outstanding value is their language”. I think that the witty repartee is one of the most relevant procedures used in order to challenge gender hierarchy because the female characters manage to mock the male ones by making a masterly and ingenious use of speech. As the male characters are conscious of their mockery but are not able to fight back against women, their mockery is even greater. The introduction of actresses in the Restoration stage helped Behn to improve comedy.

Tomlinson (2002: 329) points out that “Behn’s particular innovation in her comedies was to amplify and elaborate sexual tension between men and women as a source of theatrical pleasure”. In my opinion, the witty repartee is a way of creating sexual tension between male and female characters, above all, when women are subverting the masculine pecking order through the mockery of men.

In The Rover I, Willmore suggests having “the pleasure of working that great Miracle of making a Maid a Mother, if you durst venture; ’tis upse Gipsie that, and if I miss, I’l lose my Labour” (5.1.427-429) but Hellena does not want a baby: “And if you do not lose, what shall I get? a cradle full of noise and mischief, with a pack of repentance at my back? can you teach me to weave Incle to pass my time with? ’tis upse Gipsie that too” (5.1.430-432). As Anderson (2002: 80) emphasizes, “Hellena is hardly the first character on the Restoration stage to mention the consequences of sexual intercourse,

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but her response does the work of comic truth-telling” because of the audience or the readers’ release after following the joke of a sexually aware young woman. In order to persuade Hellena, Willmore tells her that “I can teach thee to Weave a true loves knot better” (5.1.433) and Hellena answers sagaciously: “So can my dog” (5.1.434). Then, Willmore asks Hellena “one kiss and I am thine” (5.1.437) but Hellena thinks that [o]ne kiss! how like my Page he speaks; I am resolv’d you shall have none, for asking such a sneaking sum,–––he that will be satisfied with one kiss, will never dye of that longing; good Friend, single kiss, is all your talking come to this?–––a kiss, a caudle! farewel Captain, single kiss (5.1.438-442).

Hellena does not want to follow Willmore’s projects and she wittily tells him so. First, she degrades Willmore by comparing him to a dog and, then, she tells him that his goal is insignificant. Obviously, Hellena’s attitude does not correspond to the ideal of femininity typical of contemporary patriarchal society. She may be chaste but she is not exactly modest.

In The Rover II, there is another comic situation in which two women reject the men who wanted to marry them in order to get their vast fortunes. Fetherfool and Blunt choose Giant and Dwarf as wives before having met them. They neither love these women nor do they have any respect for them. So, when Fetherfool sees Giant for the first time, he tells Blunt: “Ah Ned, my Monster as big as the Whore of Babylon–––Oh I’me in a cold sweat–––” (3.1.14-15). Fetherfool identifies Giant with a woman who is described in the Bible, specifically, in the Book of Revelations. Among her features, the most relevant are her seven heads and her ten horns. On the one hand, her seven heads are a symbol of a wise mind and, on the other hand, her ten horns make reference to power, to the royal power that ten kings have not yet received but are going to receive, together with the beast.

As wisdom and power are not part of the definition of women in the seventeenth-century, through his comparison, Fetherfool shows that Giant is not a woman but a monster. However, Blunt, who has not seen Giant yet, doesn’t believe in Fetherfool’s perception. He thinks that Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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men are superior beings and, therefore, he asks Fetherfool: “What a Pox art thou afraid of a Woman–––[?]” (3.1.22). However, Fetherfool is so frightened that he considers Giant “a She Gargantua” (3.1.23-24) because of the largeness of her body, which is transgressive and, therefore, frightening (cf. Russo 1994: 60). Obviously, in this situation, men make themselves ridiculous because of their fear of these two women. However, this is not the end of this humorous situation because, then, Fetherfool and Blunt meet Giant and Dwarf. In spite of his aversion to Giant, Fetherfool asks her: “–––Madam,–––has your Greatness any mind to marry–––” (3.1.65-66). Then, Giant asks him: “What if I have?” (3.1.67) and Fetherfool boasts about his generosity: “Whe then, Madam, without inchanted Sword or Buckler, I am your Man” (3.1.68-69). However, Giant, who thinks that Fetherfool is not a suitable man to marry, answers: “My Man! my Mouse. I’le marry none whose Person and Courage shall not bear some proportion to mine” (3.1.70-71). So, through her witty remark, Giant makes Fetherfool ridiculous because of the incongruity between what he thought might happen and what really happened at the end. I would like to highlight this woman’s agency when she is rejecting Fetherfool and also after having opposed his preconceived plan in order to get her money. In both cases, women break down men’s preconceived plans about their own lives, although they live in a period when men are supposed to control women’s lives.

5. THE GROTESQUE

The grotesque is a very useful literary device that Behn uses to challenge gender hierarchy. On the one hand, through grotesque descriptions her female characters highlight the most contemptible features of their male counterparts. Curiously enough, the men who are described so grotesquely are often old suitors whom the young heroines are expected to marry. Thus the grotesque is used by Behn’s heroines to voice their contempt towards unwanted prospective spouses, as part of the author’s recurrent critique of arranged marriage in her drama. So, by despising and debasing male figures, gender hierarchy becomes destabilised. On the other hand, there are also female characters grotesquely described in Behn’s comedies. This is interesting too, because “women and their bodies, certain bodies, in Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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certain public framings, in certain public spaces, are always already transgressive–dangerous” (Russo 1994: 60). So, if men are afraid of female bodies, this fear empowers women, and this leads to a sense of gender reversal.

In The Rover I, Pedro encourages Florinda to consider rich old Don Vincentio as a suitable husband, although she is really in love with a young Englishman called Belvile. However, as Florinda is not brave enough to say so to her brother, Hellena sets out to prove that Don Vincentio is not the best option for a young woman like Florinda to marry. First, Hellena indicates that Don Vincentio “may perhaps encrease her Baggs, but not her Family” (1.1.83), making reference to his manifest sexual disability. Then, Hellena describes the place where her sister Florinda would have to live after her marriage. Although Pedro thinks that Don Vincentio’s house is the most wonderful place, where Florinda “may walk and gather Flowers” (1.1.93), Hellena’s perception is very different: When by Moon Light? For I am sure she dares not encounter with the heat of the Sun, that were a task only for Don Vincentio and his Indian breeding, who loves it in the Dog dayes. ––– and if these be her daily diversitsements, what are those of the Night, to lye in a wide Moth-eaten Bed Chamber, with furniture in Fashion in the Reign of King Sancho the First; The Bed, that which his Fore-fathers liv’d and dy’d in (1.1.94-99).

Finally, Hellena specifies what Florinda would find every night when she had to go to bed: [T]he Gyant stretches it self; yawns and sighs a Belch or two, loud as a Musket, throws himself into Bed, and expects you in his foul sheets, and e’re you can get yourself undrest, call’s you with a snore or Two–––and are not these fine Blessings to a young Lady? (1.1.107111).

Obviously, through this grotesque description, Hellena is laughing at Don Vincentio, who thus loses the hegemonic position Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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patriarchal society grants him because he is an old man. Moreover, Hellena points out that marrying Don Vincentio “would be worse than Adultery with another Man. I had rather see her in the Hostel de Dieu, to wast her Youth there in Vowes, and be a hand-Maid to Lazers and Cripples, than lose it in such a Marriage” (1.1.118-121). Her preference shows that she deems Don Vincentio the most horrible man in the world. According to Aughterson (2003: 13), “[t]he energy of [Hellena’s] account (which is both witty and horrific) dominates the scene and her brother inverting the norm of hierarchical gendered relations”.

In The Rover II, Fetherfool makes reference to Giant and Dwarf in the following way: [T]wo Monsters arriv’d from Mexico, Jews of vast fortunes, with an old Jew Uncle their Guardian; they are worth a hundred thousand pounds a piece, ––– Marcy upon’s, whe’tis a sum able to purchase all Flanders again from his most Christian Majesty (1.1.169-173).

Fetherfool starts calling them “Monsters” and, then, makes reference to the vast fortune each “piece”, that is, each woman, is going to receive. So, he identifies a woman and a piece of something, a word often used to name objects. However, Fetherfool is not the only one who describes these women in a grotesque way because Beaumond explains that he admires Fetherfool and Blunt, who want to marry these women, “one of them is so Little, and so deform’d, ’tis thought she is no capable of Marriage” (1.1.184-185) and “the other is so huge an overgrown Gyant, no man dares venture on her” (1.1.185186). Through the whole comedy, they are never called by their own names, the other characters call them “the Dwarf ” and “the Giant” and Beaumond even uses denominations such as “the Elephant and the Mouse” (1.1.193). Their size is always present when they are named and, therefore, they are objectified or animalised. The worst part comes when the four characters meet because Fetherfool remarks: My heart begins to fail me plaguily ––– would I could see’em a little at a distance before they come slap dash upon a man, ––– hah! ––– Mercy upon us! –––

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what’s yonder! ––– Ah Ned, my Monster as big as the Whore of Babylon ––– Oh I’me in a cold sweet ––– Blunt pulls him to peep, and both do so.

––– Oh Lord! she’s as Tall as the St. Christopher in Notre dam at Paris, and the little one looks like the Christo upon his Shoulders ––– I shall ne’re be able to stand the first brunt (3.1.11-17).

Fetherfool emphasises how tall Giant is when he says she is as tall as one of the sculptures in Notre Dame and Blunt makes a connection between Dwarf and the “Christo” who is on the shoulders of the abovementioned sculpture.

Fetherfool is obviously afraid of Giant and, in order to justify his fear, he asserts that Giant’s body is “[n]ot of a Woman, Ned, but of a She Gargantua. I am a Hercules in Petticoats” (3.1.22-23). So, Fetherfool is making a connection between Giant and the giant in the work by Rabelais which Bakhtin (1984) has analysed so extensively.

He sees himself as ridiculous as Hercules dancing in women’s clothes at Omphale’s command.4 After seeing Dwarf, Blunt points out: “I’de rather mine were a Centaure than a Woman” (3.1.24-25) which insists on the dehumanisation of that extraordinary woman. Despite the difference between the grotesque descriptions in the two parts of The Rover, in both cases, the mockery of male characters means challenging the masculine pecking order.

6. CONCLUSIONS

Seventeenth-century culture measures manliness to a large extent by power over women (cf. Pacheco 2002: 207). So, if men are not able to control women’s lives, their manliness will be at risk.

Through the analysis of all the situations I have analysed before, it is possible to realise that the masculine pecking order was challenged by women as early as the seventeenth century. In the plays I have just analysed, women are generally empowered: on the one hand, the female author manages to have these two plays performed and published when it was supposed that women were not expected to do so, since they would thus make their ideas, perceptions or sensations Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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public; on the other hand, most of her female characters face up to men who try to impose the patriarchal order. Behn and her heroines’ ability consists in turning gender hierarchy upside down. To achieve their goal, they use a very powerful weapon: humour. They laugh at the male characters and, what is more important, they make the public or the readers laugh at them because they manage to ridicule them through the introduction of mistaken identities, deceit, witticisms, or the grotesque. In one way or another, the male characters in The Rover I and II become the butt in all the humorous situations. These two plays reached great popularity at the end of the seventeenth century and, therefore, a lot of people attended their performances and read their printed versions. So, the concept of gender Behn displays in her comedies became a real danger to that seventeenth-century society.

Having challenged the gender hierarchy in a patriarchal society, it is understandable that Behn’s works were silenced during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the exceptional freedom typical of the seventeenth century no longer existed.

NOTES

Apart from pistols, Behn also allows her women to draw swords and daggers. For example, in The Amorous Prince (1671), Ismena draws a poniard and runs at Antonio, who steps back in order to avoid Ismena’s weapon (4.1.) and, in The Dutch Lover (1673), Hippolyta draws a dagger in order to kill Antonio (3.3.). In both cases, the men get frightened when the women acquire the phallic power, creating a sense of gender reversal.

2 According to Hughes (2001: 87), “Lucetta’s sizing up of the foolish Blunt is an expression of female power. (…) The male gaze is not, however, primarily an expression of power, for it is frequently at images, or at absent or departing forms, and its main function is to split the socially perceived self from the personal self ”. So, from the beginning, Lucetta challenges the masculine pecking order through her gaze but, on the contrary, Blunt misreads Lucetta’s goals, which proves that the idea of women men have is frequently false.

3 As Kavenik (1991: 180-181) points out, the girl dressed as a boy derives from the Plautine and Italian Renaissance comedy and 1

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it was very popular in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama.

However, during the Restoration period, the introduction of actresses in the Restoration stage enhances the popularity of the “breeches part”, whose aims have always been the following: “First, the disguised heroine seeks her husband or lover; second, she serves this man unrecognised; third, she acts as love messenger to a rival mistress; and fourth, some lady who believes that the disguised person really is a man becomes the victim of a mistaken wooing”. In this scene, Ariadne endeavours to seek Willmore and, moreover, she manages to deceive La Nuche, who thinks that Ariadne is really a man, and therefore Ariadne gains access to Willmore.

4 This is a reference to Hercules’ infatuation with Omphale, Queen of Lidia, which made him perform several laughable actions. This episode seems to have fascinated many writers and artists of the Early Modern period as a comic inversion of gender roles. In An Apology for Poetry (1595), Philip Sidney explains that the picture of Hercules dressed in women’s clothes dancing to Omphale’s orders can produce both delight and laughter, being a beautiful representation of a scornful situation (Sidney 2002: 112).

WORKS CITED

Altaba-Artal, D. 1999. Aphra Behn’s English Feminism. Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press.

Anderson, M. G. 2002. Female Playwrights and Eighteenth-Century Comedy.

New York: Palgrave.

Aughterson, K. 2003. Aphra Behn. The Comedies. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Bakhtin, M. 1984. Rabelais and His World. Tr. by Helene Iswolsky.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Behn, A. 1996. “The Amorous Prince, Or, The Curious Husband” in J. Todd, ed. The Works of Aphra Behn. Vol. V. London: William Pickering. 83-155.

Behn, A. 1996. “The Dutch Lover” in J. Todd, ed. The Works of Aphra Behn. Vol. V. London: William Pickering. 157-238.

Behn, A. 1996. “The Rover. Or, The Banish’t Cavaliers” in J. Todd, ed. The Works of Aphra Behn. Vol. V. London: William Pickering. 445-521.

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Behn, A. 1996. “The Second Part of The Rover” in J. Todd, ed. The Works of Aphra Behn. Vol. V. London: William Pickering. 223-298.

Behn, A. 1996. “The Luckey Chance, or an Alderman’s Bargain” in J. Todd, ed. The Works of Aphra Behn. London: William Pickering.

209-284.

Castelvetro, L. 1984. Castelvetro on the Art of Poetry. An Abridged Translation of Lodorico Castelvetro’s Poetica d’ Aristotele Vulgarizzata et Sposta. Tr. by A. Bongiorno. Bughamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts & Studies.

Critchley, S. 2002. On Humour. London: Routledge.

Foyster, E. A. 1999. Manhood in Early Modern England. Honour, Sex and Marriage. London: Longman.

Hobbes, T. 1994. Human Nature and De Corpore Politico. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hughes, D. 2001. The Theatre of Aphra Behn. Basingtoke: Palgrave.

Hughes, D. 2004. “Aphra Behn and the Restoration theatre” in D. Hughes & J. Todd, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kavenik, F. M. 1991. “Aphra Behn: The Playwright as “Breeches Part” in M. A. Schofield & C. Macheski, eds. Curtain Calls. British and American Women and the Theater, 1660-1820. Athens: Ohio University Press. 177-192.

Koestler, A. 1994. “Humour and Wit” in P. B. Norton, ed. The New Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica. 682-688.

Lowenthal, C. 2001. “Two Female Playwrights of the Restoration: Aphra Behn and Susanna Centlivre” in S. J. Owen, ed. A Companion to Restoration Drama. Oxford: Blackwell. 396-411.

Meira Serras, A. 2000. “Towards a Female Identity”. SEDERI. 11: 263270.

Mourón Figueroa, C. 1998. “An Approach To Women’s Social Situation in Seventeenth-Century England”. Babel-Afial. 7: 111-122.

Owen, Susan J. 1996. Restoration Theatre and Crisis. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Pacheco, A. 2002. “Aphra Behn, The Rover, Part One” in A. Pacheco, ed.

A Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing. Oxford: Blackwell.

Pearson, J. 1988. The Prostituted Muse. Images of Women & Women Dramatists 1642-1737. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

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Russo, M. 1994. The Female Grotesque. Risk, excess and modernity. London: Routledge.

Schopenhauer, A. 1957. The World as Will and Idea. Eds. R. B. Haldane and J. Kamp. London: Routledge.

Sidney, P. 2002. An Apology for Poetry (or The Defence of Poesy). Ed. Geoffrey Shepherd. 3rd ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Tomlinson, S. 2002. “Drama” in A. Pacheco, ed. A Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing. Oxford: Blackwell.

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TOWARDS AN ANATOMY OF 21ST -CENTURY BRITIS H CULTURE: CASE STUDIES FROM THE NEWSPAPERS1 Rubén Valdés Miyares Universidad de Oviedo rvaldes@uniovi.es This paper offers a framework of analysis to encompass the variety of contemporary British culture in newspapers, drawing attention upon its “order of discourse” within the history of the present.

Ten often overlapping categories are proposed: British national identity; local identities; ethnicity and religion; social classes; war and peace; work; leisure trends; the body; gender; home and family. These combine variously and change across the periods 19011945, 1946-1964, 1965-1979, and 1980-2000.

The resulting grid, applied to news case studies, suggests the warps and wefts within the fabric of British culture, and a blueprint upon which 21st-century paradigms may rest.

Keywords: cultural studies, media studies, British history, critical discourse analysis.

Este trabajo sugiere un marco de análisis que abarca la gran variedad de la cultura británica contemporánea plasmada en la prensa, sugirendo algunas de las líneas maestras del orden del discurso (en el sentido Foucaultiano) para una “historia del presente.”

Se proponen diez categorías a menudo solapadas: la identidad nacional británica; las identidades locales; etnicidad y religión; clases sociales; guerra y paz; trabajo; actividades de ocio; el cuerpo; género; hogares y familias.

Estas se combinan y cambian a través de los periodos 1901-1945, 1946-1964, 1965-1979, and 1980-2000.

La cuadrícula resultante, aplicada al estudio de noticias concretas, sugieren la trama y urdimbre del “tejido” de la cultura británica, así como un esquema Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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sobre el que bien podrían reposar los paradigmas del siglo XXI.

Palabras clave: estudios culturales, estudios de los medios de comunicación, historia de Gran Bretaña, análisis crítico del discurso.

1. CULTURAL STUDIES AS A HISTORY OF THE PRESENT

This paper puts forward a general framework of analysis which may encompass the variety of contemporary British culture as it is found in newspapers.i It understands culture primarily as concerned with the production and exchange of meanings (Hall 1997: 2), and therefore it looks at the ways it is represented through media discourse. Rather than attempting an in-depth critical news analysis along the clear-cut lines developed from functional linguistics (Fowler 2004: 222-23), it aims to offer the student of history a previous instrument to localize culture in the news. Its critical approach to discourse analysis focuses its attention upon “discourse within the history of the present – changing discursive practices as part of wider processes of social and cultural change” (Fairclough 1995: 19). Thus it 2 draws on 20th-century histories (e.g. Morley, Robins 2001), in order to elucidate the various directions in which present culture is moving.

1901-1945 British identity

Ethnicity

Social classes

War and peace

Home Rule Imperialism The role of media The 3 Englands

Church decline Aliens Acts

Rich and poor Class conflict

Hero’s war People's war

Work

Leisure trends

The body

Gender

Home & family

Dilution The great slump A ‘living wage’

Rise of 'English' Mass culture Paid holidays

Taboos Permissiveness Sex experience

View of women Masculinity Homosexuality

Smaller families Garden cities Allotments

1945-1964 British identity

Local identities

Ethnicity

Social classes

War and peace

USA ‘over here’ Commonwealth

Less nationalism Council housing

New immigrants Race riots

School reforms Welfare State

Guns or butter Suez crisis

Work

Leisure trends

The body

Gender

Home & family

Full employment Dead-end-jobs Wives at work

Angry YoungMen Age of affluence Juvenile gangs

Contraceptives Sex education

Housewifery Domestic men Ignored others

Town planning Consumerism

Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16 1964-1980

Local identities

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British identity

Local identities

Ethnicity

Social classes

War and peace

Joining the EEC

Ulster troubles

Halt immigration

Class persistence

The Cold War

British identity

Local identities

Ethnicity

Social classes

War and peace

USA ‘over here’ Commonwealth

Less nationalism Council housing

New immigrants Race riots

School reforms Welfare State

Guns or butter Suez crisis

Full employment Dead-end-jobs Wives at work

Angry YoungMen Age of affluence Juvenile gangs

Contraceptives Sex education

Housewifery Domestic men Ignored others

Town planning Consumerism

1964-1980 British identity

Local identities

Ethnicity

Social classes

War and peace

Joining the EEC Economic crisis

Ulster troubles 'Scotland's oil'

Halt immigration 'Mugging'

Class persistence The Cold War Higher Education Nuclear power

Work

Leisure trends

The body

Gender

Home & family

Structural crisis Trade-unionism

Pop Subcultures Obscenity trials New technologies Jeans and pills Legal abortion

Discrimination Feminism Gay movements

High rise blocks New patterns

Rubén Valdés Miyares he body Gende Work Home & family Leisure trends Towards an Anatomy of 21st-Century British Culture: Case Studies...

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1980-2000 British identity

Local identities

Ethnicity

Neo-Liberalism The Third Way The Millennium

Devolution English regions Peace for Ulster

Ethnic Minorities Monetarism Multiculturalism Differences New Age religion No class voting

Falklands War The Gulf War The NATO

Work

Leisure trends

The body

Gender

Home & family

Stratification McJobs ‘Pink collar’ jobs

‘heritage’ films Globalization The risk society

AIDS Body-building Male beauties

Gay/Lesbian pride Less polarity Still inequality

Family values Home ownership The homeless

Social classes

War and peace

Figure 1: a grid of 20th-century British cultural trends and changes.

2. THE OVERLAPPING CATEGORIES OF CULTURE

The identification of the various cultural trends involves the use of a limited number of headings under which every aspect may be considered critically. Such a classification may allow students to read the papers from an analytical point of view, and to relate every news item to the general development of British culture and its ordre du discourse (Foucault 1971).

It is convenient to start with a limited number of thematic categories, therefore we propose ten: 1) British national identity; 2) 2 local identities; 3) ethnicity and religion; 4) social classes; 5) war and peace; 6) work; 7) leisure trends; 8) the body; 9) gender; 10) home and family. Figure 1 gives some examples of two or three topics which may th be 1901-1945 representative within each category and period ofWar20and -century British identity Ethnicity Social classes peace Local identities British culture.

Home Rule Imperialism The role of media The 3 Englands

Church decline Aliens Acts

Rich and poor Class conflict

Hero’s war People's war

Taboos

View of women

Sex experience

Homosexuality

Smaller families Garden cities Allotments

It will be immediately noticed that these subjects are Home & family Gende he body Work interrelated andLeisure tendtrends to overlap and combine in different ways. For Dilution

Rise of 'English'

A ‘living wage’

Paid holidays

The great slump Mass culture Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16 14/12/2009 1945-1964

Permissiveness 16:03 PÆginaMasculinity 127

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example, British identity is always influenced by regional locality and many other factors such as ethnicity and religion, while the latter obviously affect social class, and social class is largely dependent on work, just as leisure is often seen to correlate with work; on the other hand, attitudes to the body and sexuality may respond to questions of gender and family background, and so forth. It can also be argued that some fields such as education and schooling, or the world of art, are omitted from the general classification, but this is because they are usually implicit in other categories, such as social class or leisure.

Notwithstanding reasonable objections, we believe the topics to be broad and representative enough as a blueprint for cultural analysis.

3. CHANGING PERIODS

In order to learn how the classification may be applied to present day history, the student needs to sift twentieth-century news through it. In understanding cultural change different periods should be distinguished, and the simplest division is into four (see figure 1): 1901-1945: from the end of Victorianism to the end of the World Wars, when many nineteenth-century attitudes lingered in British society, and ideas of Empire still counted largely in politics and popular patriotism.

Further subdivisions may be considered, such as Edwardian, pre-World War I, inter-war, and so on.

1946-1964: from post-imperial and post-war Britain to the age of affluence. British people come to terms with a new world dominated by US culture.

1965-1979: industrial decline and cultural revolutions. While British governments and people face a structural economic crisis, many aspects of culture, including ethnicity, undergo a radical evolution epitomized by the success of British pop.

While Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

Since 1980: from “New Right” to New Labour. governments make various attempts to

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reconstruct national pride, devolution makes Britain more plural, the process of European integration continues, and so does British subservience to American global interests and problems.

Each of the ten categories mentioned earlier undergo at least a sea change (more often two or more significant changes) as we move from one period to the next. For example, attitudes to the body can be seen to evolve in the first period from an initial modesty and national concern with healthy bodies to more open-mindedness and reactions against “permissiveness”; then in post-war society chastity returned along with a revival of “domestic ideology” or family values, only to be challenged again by the constant use of increasingly explicit sexuality as a commodity in consumer society; the nineteen-sixties and seventies saw the nominal (and legal) culmination of a “sexual revolution”, though some of the daring measures proposed (such as “sexual education” at schools) were not uniformly implemented, and finally, in the last decades of the century, an ongoing hedonistic body culture coincided with the AIDS crisis, and a “moral panic” involving setbacks in previous developments. Any history of the body in early twenty-first century Britain must feed into those previous changes, as can most easily be noticed in the world of fashion, which to a very large extent continues to base its new senses of what is “sexy” on successive revivals of roaring-twenties looks, swinging-sixties looks, or technoeighties looks. It is thus necessary for a study of contemporary British culture to have some knowledge of the development of the various cultural aspects along the twentieth century.

4. THE ETON SCHOOLB OY WHO ATTACKED MCDONALD’S

It remains to show how the grid of thematic categories and cultural periods can be applied to current news items. An article which lends itself to interesting discourse analysis appeared on the front page of The Mirror (Spanish edition) on May 4 2000 (Jones 2000: 1). The headline reads “Top schoolboy, 17, arrested in May Day violence shame”, and there is a photo with the caption: “DAMAGE: A masked rioter, believed to be Eton schoolboy Matthew MacDonald, outside the McDonald’s restaurant in Whitehall which was wrecked by Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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anarchists”. The picture shows a masked rioter about to smash with a chair the shop window of premises whose façade is smeared with graffiti. Much can be made of it even before reading the article, by Gary Jones, which also informs us that MacDonald, the rioter, “is in the same year as Prince William.” The student who is expected to analyse the article should be informed of the tabloid’s conservative tendency, and of what Eton, and the public school system, represents. The paper’s discourse not only constructs the identity of its subject, Matthew MacDonald, in terms of higher social class (“top schoolboy”, “Eton”, “same year as Prince William”), but also suggests a worrying contradiction between the schoolboy who should be counted among the future rulers of the country, along with Prince William, and “anarchists.” The “violent shame” may also seem to involve a sense of class betrayal in the coincidence of surname MacDonald / McDonald’s, as if the boy were turning on his own corporate family interests, actually the ruling economic classes for which a public school boy is supposed to be destined. From here the analysis would move beyond this particular discourse and look at the significance of May Day as workers’ day, and then broach the issue of “the MacDonaldization of Britain” in terms of Englishness versus Americanisation / globalization.

This would go a long way to account for the words of “his dad Professor Theodore MacDonald” which the article cites: “What is the big deal?

He is a young man who goes to Eton and he was demonstrating his beliefs” (Jones 2000: 7). Understanding such a statement in turn demands some knowledge of the continuing role of public schools as the bastions of British patriotism, and also of their links with radicalism, whose origin may be traced at least as far back as the Communist intellectuals of Oxford in the nineteen-thirties.

Our example from The Mirror illustrates the warps and the wefts woven into the fabric of British culture in a newspaper article.

Fowler’s distinction of stories, topics and paradigms may be of some use (Fowler 2004: 224). A story such as that of Matthew MacDonald, the Eton schoolboy who was caught out rioting, is of contemporary import; but its topic, working-class reaction against McDonaldization, branching off late twentieth-century anti-globalization activism, looks back on the establishment of MacDonald’s in Britain and certain popular reactions to what they have represented since the first one opened in 1974; finally, the paradigms which the case falls within are

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even more deeply rooted in British history: complaint about the Americanization of modern Britain could already be found at the time of J.B. Priestley’s English Journey (1934), while the combination of working-class protest and bourgeois radicalism could be said to begin with Chartism in 1838. In sum, a full understanding of a British news text, which should be prior to, and part of, its critical discourse analysis, involves placing it within its cultural topics and histories. Until twenty-first-century paradigms emerge, our stories will rest on the past century.

How do we go about analysing a news item? The case of the Eton schoolboy shows how it should be first located within its historical period, 1980-2000, when the dilution of national identity in the global economy became of some concern to Britons. Secondly, it may be helpful to identify its main topic(s), which, in an act of public violence like this, might be the broad category of war and peace, in this case an anti-globalisation attack. Needless to say, other categories are also involved, particularly national identity (anti-Americanism), work (May Day riots) and social class (public schools like Eton). In the third place, once the article has been located within the overall grid of periods/categories, we may proceed to analyse in greater detail by applying some key subject identified by cultural studies, such as the concept of “McJobs.” Last, but by no means least, it is useful to trace the nature and ideology of the paper publishing the article: in this case the popular tabloid The Sun, which accounts for the mild sense of outrage reflected in expressions such as “violent shame”, in the peculiar language which has done so much to shape modern British culture (Conboy 2005).

5. BROACHING OTHER CASE STUDIES

A few other cases, all from end-of-the-twentieth-century British papers, may illustrate the method. A front page article in The Weekly Telegraph, 21 July 1999 (Harnden, Newton, Jones) brings into sharp focus the issue of British national identity in Northern Ireland. A defeatist headline, “Blair admits defeat on Ulster”, suggesting that the Prime Minister was failing to make the Northern Ireland Assembly work, contrasts with an idyllic colour picture captioned “A peaceful Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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process in Northern Ireland”, showing a horse-drawn carriage driven by a lady wearing a red jockey jacket accompanied by a man in a bowler hat in a lush green landscape. The caption reads: If it was all discord and despair in Stormont, it was the very opposite in a lush corner of Northern Ireland 80 miles west of Belfast (…). British royalty, Irish housewives, English farmlands and every strand of local life were in Co Tyrone enjoying a peaceful summer gathering devoid of politics.

The text thus establishes a marked duality between contemporary Irish politics and idyllic rural life, suggesting that the latter is the “right” Ireland. The colours on this front page speak for themselves: the conservative protestant “true blue” in the name of the weekly, and the red of British imperialism set against the mythical greenness of Ireland in the photo. But for a full appreciation of such ideological contents students need a grasp of two key cultural areas: that of Anglo-Irish political relations, as well as that of the deeply rooted rift between country and city images in British culture (Williams 1973).

The article in the Telegraph, which imposes a kind of British national identity on Ireland, may be complemented by another which expresses an Anglo-Irish conflict from a more local perspective: when the Scottish tabloid Daily Record reported the Drumcree March (McColm 1999) it did not doubt where its loyalty lay. The article begins by pointing out that the Royal Ulster Constabulary chief “Mervyn Waddell must have felt like the loneliest man in Ulster yesterday as he stood before thousands of Orangemen who see him as a symbol of the destruction of their culture.” The accompanying photograph shows Waddell in a big close-up —a shot which, according to a TV-study manual (Selby, Cowdery 1995: 51), “you will see […] used frequently in melodrama to reveal the inner states of characters to us”— standing in front of two Orangemen whose backs are turned on the readers as if we were all behind them on the Drumcree march.

The blaming finger points at Waddell as a traitor as sure as if he were inside a Presbyterian church. Thus the paper declares its sympathy for the radical Protestant cause in Northern Ireland, revealing its Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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popularity among its target readership in Scotland. The study of the article could be complemented by some knowledge of the close historical ties between Northern-Irish and Scottish Protestant communities, and their stout defence of their own identity within the larger nations of Britain and Ireland.

Another article in the same issue of The Weekly Telegraph referred to above (Combe 1999), also showing a coloured picture, touches very different cultural strands, and points to another deep rift within British culture, without being so obviously affected by the weekly’s ideology, except in its interest in religious news. In the picture we see Rt. Rev. John Sentamu, bishop of the Church of England, wearing a traditional African shirt and a large crucifix over it. He is sitting by Neville Lawrence, the father of Stephen, the black teenager who was the victim of a racist murder. Both look concerned. The bishop was a member of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry team. A headline under the photo sums up Sentamu´s accusation at a recent General Synod in York: “Bishop claims Church is guilty of “institutional racism.” The article elaborates on the bishop of Stepney’s views that the Church “favoured a white educated elite”, and represented a “monochrome culture” which failed to “reflect the ethnic mix in congregations.” As a member of the Lawrence enquiry he is also entitled to accuse the police force and the magistrates, arguing that more members of Asian and black communities should join such institutions. He even calls on his superiors, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, to ensure that “ethnic Anglicans are ‘more visible within the life of the Church’”, and more generally demands that “we must be converted into a Church which celebrates diversity …” These declarations are very illustrative in themselves. Students may just need to find out more about the institutional struggle against racism since the Race Acts of the 1960s, and also, on the other hand, about the Church of England’s decline and its attempts to modernize and become tuned in to new cultural trends. The latter is exemplified by another article which appears on the very same page, under the headline “Atheists will be offered a ‘baby blessing’ service.” Some sceptical white readers of this conservative paper who find an incongruity in the Church’s accepting to bless the children of atheists might relate this to that of the bishop’s cross over his colourful ethnic shirt. But to the general student of British culture the key point lies in the difficulties had by various Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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British institutions in adapting to the idea of multicultural Britain, an idea which would be noisily proclaimed a few months after the publication of these articles at the Millennium Dome.

Moving into a very different cultural sphere, that of leisure and lifestyles, the Obsever article “Pop out of the closet / Boys and boys come out to play” (Thorpe 1999) offers a perspective on the world of teenage pop and on newspapers’ homophobic panic-mongering. The article focuses on the exposed homosexuality of the pop group Boyzone, illustrated with a colour photo of the them in concert with an audience of girl teenagers, and stating the supposedly scandalous fact that “Baby-faced, commercially packaged homo-eroticism is now being explicitly sold to young girls.” This statement appears in large print under a photo of the front page of The Sun making the revelation (“Boyzone Stephen: I’m gay and I’m in love”). The remarkable similarity between some sections in so-called quality papers and the “gutter press” is evident in the fact that The Observer gives full credit to The Sun as its source, though the article in the former paper is developed in a more learned fashion: “Could it be that the attraction to a more feminine type of man is a developmental phase, as girls learn about their sexuality – a phase which the best pop managers know how to actively exploit?” This paper even concedes, however, that “It [the provocation] is a long way from the threatening, transgressive androgyny of early rock’n’roll and those unsettling themes first forced on teenagers in this country by Mick Jagger and David Bowie.” The tone of the article implies that pop music has been “forcing” an “unsettling” sexuality on adolescents “in this country” since the 1960s.

The influence of pop culture on teenagers’ identity has been a (mostly worrying) key cultural topic in Britain particularly since the period in which Hall and Whannel published their study on The Popular Arts (1964). Even though the article quotes the Boyzone singer saying that “the Sun ‘had been really sensitive’ in the way it dealt with his personal life” (Thorpe 1999), it is well known that this tabloid is not usually a champion of gay rights. For example, the Sun agony aunt (Dear Sun 2000) protested against “government plans to allow gays in the armed forces” by publishing letters of readers from various parts of Britain mostly against it, under the headline “Trust is first casualty of letting gays in the Army.” From such articles students may learn about homophobic attitudes in the press which contradict existing legislation Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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protecting the rights of individuals regardless of sexual preferences.

Such study may be enhanced by some notion of gender as a social construct, and on the other hand by a historical knowledge of the evolution of official attitudes to homosexuality, from the sixties to the popular mobilisation against the Clause aka section 28 threatening gay lifestyles in the 1987 Local Government Bill, and beyond.

Some news reports are self-explanatory enough as to their main topic, like Thorpe’s (1999) on the historical connections between homosexuality and the British pop industry, though it does not account for its own homophobic stand. Others are explicitly critical towards the topic they report. Take, for example, Johnson’s commentary on the Government’s official redefinition of British social classes in 1998, the most significant, as the article itself points out, since the 1911 census.

Despite its misleading, but eye-catching headline “Teachers climb the social classes” accompanied by photos of sex-symbols David Beckham and It girl Tara-Tomkinson, the report provides clear information on how the social standing of different occupations has changed over 90 years. The article explains, for instance, how the reclassification includes an eighth social category, in addition to the seven classes distinguished by occupation, designed to place “people who wish to work but never have”, while “the pre-occupations of the British aristocracy for nearly two centuries, have been swept aside”, as is illustrated by the case of the late Lord Moynihan, brothel owner (therefore probably Class 4, “small employers and own account workers”), who used to describe his occupation on his passport as “Peer of the Realm.” Though the ideology of the Telegraph, which published the article, did not usually coincide with the New Labour government producing the reclassification, the report does justice to its subject, and offers a relatively transparent critical analysis to students, who may, afterwards, expand their knowledge by reading the corresponding statistical sources and alternative analyses of them.

Other articles, however, may need more immediate background information in order to identify their cultural significance. This is the case of a front-page item in The Sun entitled “Sophie, you’re gone too fur”, reporting (or rather, reproducing) popular “Fury at her [the Countess of Wessex’s] fox hat.” A reader who is foreign to British culture may at first be somewhat puzzled at the Sun Royal Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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Correspondent’s self-righteous satirical tone, and wonder what the fuss is about. The key cultural notion the student needs is undoubtedly the importance of animal rights in Britain, and the whole debate about fox-hunting and its ban. A sense of confrontation between the Sun’s populist viewpoint and the lifestyle of the royals may also be discovered in the article. When their life appears to be sufficiently “common”, “familiar” and “homely”, like Princess Diana’s (and, in her own time, Queen Victoria’s), they gain popular sympathies. Prince Edward’s “high-living” wife Sophie Wessex, however, exposes herself to tabloid censure by making a trip to Switzerland by private jet and Rolls-Royce, and visiting the show of a German firm specialising in furs (Rae 2000: 5). Students may need to turn to the various studies which analyse the celebrity status of the royals in the British media (Nairn 1988; Billig 1992). Following an altogether different trail, they could consider the Sun’s adoption of a morality based on animal rights activism (Garner 1993), and trace the genealogy of animal rights back to pacifist movements since the late 1950s (and further back to the nineteenth-century Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, mentioned in the article) and green politics since the late sixties. It would even be possible to argue the issue under the broad category of attitudes to War and Peace in our general grid, in the light of other shocking news such as the armament in possession of an animal rights activist (Brown 2006).

The popular tabloids are indeed excellent guides to contemporary British culture. Our two final examples may drive the point home. In one of them, The Sun’s “The Sex Nations” (Hendry 2000) we may discern how the meaning of masculinity had evolved by the end of the century, while The Daily Record’s “Doing the housework makes you live longer (… at least it feels that way)” (Frew 1999) shows, conversely, how little roles within the family seemed to reflect that evolution. The Sun Woman supplement playfully objectifies the bodies of the Six Nations rugby players, displaying their masculine torsos almost like the feminine nudes tabloids like to include in their pages, and invites (female) readers to “Line up for a quick scrum down with rugby’s all-action pack.” The report turns the tables on both the all-male character of usual sports news, and on the ways the male gaze reifies women’s bodies, a point which feminist studies have duly tackled (e.g. Butler 1993; Grotz 1994).

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The Daily Record, on the other hand, adopted a very different approach to attracting the interest of its feminine readership, though also half-jokingly. However, they based their argument that “Women may be fitter and live longer than men because they do more housework” on research by a team of “scientists” from Adelaide University. The accompanying photo is of a smiling 1950s-housewife holding a vacuum cleaner. The fifties were, in a sense, the golden age of revived housewifery, when many women who had been in jobs during the war had retired into the home, benefiting from the relative cheapness of electrical appliances. Thus the headline and the photo, however ironical, may be seen to endorse full-time housewifery as the “natural” occupation for women. This impression is confirmed by a chart showing the results of a survey of British women choosing the man (and another chart choosing the woman) they would most like to do the housework for them “in the Millennium home.” The “toppers” are three male sex symbols: Tom Cruise, Pierce Brosnan, and David Beckham. This suggests that women are not thought to be likely to enjoy a role reversal in their chores - except perhaps in dreams. The tabloid article thus intimates that some aspects of British culture will remain trapped within images and categories of the twentieth century.

6. TOWARDS AN ANATOMY OF THIRD -MILL ENNIUM BRITISH CULTURE

All in all, the case studies we have briefly sketched have tried to illustrate how a few newspaper articles, if carefully selected, may throw light on the various aspects of British culture, including national and local identities, ethnicity and religion, social class and education, war and peace, work and leisure, bodies, gender and family life. In combination with a chronology, they expose the warps and wefts, even the woofs too, within the fabric of British culture. These categories probably shape British life at deeper levels than the purely political anatomy which has been defined elsewhere (Sampson 2005). They help students identify significant topics before getting down to doing more detailed critical discourse analysis.

The sources we have used are taken from the end of the twentieth-century in order to offer some insights into how, on the one

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hand, their topics are rooted in cultural aspects which go back into British history for decades (like housewifery), in some cases (like Anglo-Irish relations) for centuries; on the other hand, the topics are also meant to suggest how they are still relevant to the present age.

New key notions modifying existing categories in definite ways, are already emerging. For instance, traumatic events like the London attacks of 7 July 2005 and everything related to them, including British involvement in George W. Bush’s “War on Terror” and the increasing interest in education for citizenship, necessarily affect our views of national identity, of ethnicity and religion, of war and peace. The basic paradigms, however, still stand in place. History evolves in a continuous British present.

NOTES 1

The presentation of this paper at the Eighth Conference of the European Society for the Study of English, 1 September 2006 (Seminar 46: Teaching British (Area) Studies through Analysis of Media Discourses) in London, coincided with the exhibition “Front Page: Celebrating 100 Years of the British Newspaper 1906-2006” at the British Library, which offered an excellent overview of the development of the press in roughly the same period covered here. Our samples are all from recent newspapers. We believe it is possible, however, to apply similar methods to older issues, which are becoming increasingly accessible through the electronic archives offered by the internet editions of various newspapers, for example The Scotsman.

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as Sophie lives the high life”. The Sun. February 2: 1, 5.

Sampson, A. 2005. Who Runs this Place? The Political Anatomy of Britain in the 21st-Century. London: John Murray.

Selby, K. and R. Cowdery. 1995. How to Study Television. London: Macmillan.

Thorpe, V. 1999. “Pop out of the closet / Boys and boys come out to play”. The Observer. June 20: 20.

Williams, R. 1973. The Country and the City. London: Chatto & Windus.

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TRANSLATION PATTERNS OF ENGLISH TERMS INTO SPANISH1 María Luisa Carrió Pastor y Eva María Mestre Mestre Universidad Politécnica de Valencia lcarrio@idm.upv.es As new concepts, objects or ideas are conceived in the field of scientific knowledge, so new terms appear to accommodate them. These terms are adapted to other languages in order to gain worldwide recognition.

However, the procedure followed to transmit this terminology varies depending on the specificity of the field and on the richness of the target language.

Sometimes, the target language has a similar term or phrase, which may be used to transmit the concept; i.e. an existing term can be adapted to convey the same idea.

If this is not the case, a new term is introduced in the target language to express the concept or the term is literarily copied from the original language. In this paper, we intend to analyse the different procedures followed to adapt English terms to the Spanish language. The objectives of this paper are to observe and classify the different translation patterns of English terms into Spanish and to determine whether a procedure or standard organization exists which is taken into consideration when a new term is introduced to the Spanish lexicon. To date, we have not unveiled a standardised procedure for adapting an English term into Spanish. Hence, the need for standardised procedure to be followed when adapting new English terminology into Spanish will be proven.

Keywords: translation patterns, Spanish, English, lexical standardization.

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adaptan a otras lenguas para poder ser conocidos internacionalmente, sin embargo el procedimiento que se sigue para transmitir esta terminología varía según la especificidad del campo y la riqueza de la lengua meta.

En ocasiones la lengua meta posee un término o expresión similar, que puede utilizarse para transmitir el concepto, es decir, un término existente que se adapta para transmitir la misma idea. Si este no es el caso, se introduce un nuevo término o se copia literalmente el término de la lengua original. En este artículo, vamos a analizar los distintos procedimientos que se siguen para adaptar términos ingleses al español. Los objetivos de este trabajo son observar y clasificar los diferentes modelos de traducción que se siguen al adaptar términos ingleses al español, y determinar si existe un procedimiento u organización que se considera referente cuando se adapta un nuevo vocablo al español. Hasta este momento no se ha observado un procedimiento aceptado por todos que logre adaptar de forma estandarizada un término ingles al español. En este artículo se demuestra la necesidad de un procedimiento estandarizado que se pueda seguir para adaptar la terminología inglesa a la española.

Palabras clave: modelos de traducción, español, inglés, estandarización léxica.

1. INTRODUCTION

In the field of applied linguistics, several approaches have been documented for the study of the influences between languages in contact. For instance, the behaviourist approach stated that transfer between the first and the second language will always exist, and that this is always negative because old habits deter the formation of new ones. For behaviourists, any influence of the mother tongue (L1) on the acquisition of the second language (L2) was negative and had to be eliminated, as described by Ellis (1985: 20).

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This idea has been reviewed by several authors (Ellis 1985, Odlin 1989) who consider it to be over-pessimistic. There is a certain degree of consensus about the movement or translation of elements between different languages used by the same individual. Indeed, this phenomenon cannot be qualified simply in positive or negative terms.

However, some authors (e.g. Odlin 1989) have highlighted the fact that interference has always been examined with reference to the negative meaning of transfer between two languages. These authors point out that in some situations this need not be the case, and that there can be a positive influence derived from the command of a given language (for instance the cases of language, context or cultural proximity).

However, although interference is a term used by other schools (contrastive analysis, error analysis, etc.), the negative behaviourist view prevails. L1 interference is mainly considered to be a negative type of transfer in L2 output. In attempting to avoid this perception, some scholars (Odlin 1989) affirm that transfer includes some aspects that interference tends to omit.

Transfer has mainly been viewed in terms of the interference of L1 with L2 (Carrió Pastor 2002, 2003 & 2004). Since most scientific production is conducted in English either by native speakers or by nonnative speakers, most scientific production written in other languages tends to be translated, derived, related, transformed, etc. from English.

In this study we will not only be looking at L1 transfer to L2, but also at the reversal of this process, that is, the existing transfer from L2 (English) to L1 (Spanish). This is most likely to be found in L1 translations from L2. In addition, attention has been given to the possible traces of L1 that can be identified in the choices made in the translations from L2 (Chung & Nation 2003, Elorza 2002, Montalt 2005).

Particularly in the field of scientific language, barbarisms have always been a matter of concern in Spanish. That is, the danger of foreign words (words which initially could not be found to be part of the language) entering through the floodgate of scientific language has been long established and studied.

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into which terms are being translated. This can range from direct incorporations into the language to literal adaptations. These mechanisms have been widely studied in the literature, and general, long-established classifications were drawn up to identify these, as outlined by Fernández & Montero (2003) and Spasic (2004).

With regards to this, in order to establish some sort of method, general regulations were designed to control and monitor this process of incorporating new words into language. Despite this, it is notable that the speed at which science unfolds and requires the coinage of new terms cannot keep up with the speed at which these words are studied, agreed upon, accepted and incorporated into the language, as pointed out by Cabré (2007). These processes are not always identical and only in very few cases can the existing mechanisms meet the requirements created by the scientist.

In addition to the use of language, its establishment and standardization has benefited the entire scientific community as stated by Kachru (2003), who points out that native speakers no longer control the standardisation of English terms.

There are some institutions responsible for regulating the use and coinage of terminology. In this context, the European Association for Terminology (EAFT) deserves to be mentioned in that it is one of the most important bodies. It is designed to provide a platform for promoting and professionalizing terminological activities and raising public awareness of this process. It is also committed to furthering plurilingualism within Europe.

Also worth mentioning is the International Organisation for Standardization, ISO, which, according to its own definition is the world's largest developer of standards1. Among the different standards they develop in relation to technical appliances, etc., they highlight the importance of terminology, which for this organization is the first step in any standardization process, particularly in international standardization. The ISO is a network of national standard institutes belonging to a set of countries, based on one member per country, with a Central Secretariat coordinating the system.

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AENOR is the Spanish Standards Institute belonging to this network. It was created in 1986 and has been active since 1992. This institute carries out standardization audits and courses. It also has a documentation service to support its activities. These tasks are carried out by subcommittees which meet to work on one or more subjects.

For instance, Subcommittee 1 of the CTN50 is integrated by different working groups, one of which (GT3) is dedicated to deciding upon terminology.

In Spain, other centres exist which are dedicated to the development of terminology, such as the Termcat in Catalonia, EuskalTerm in the Basque Country or Termigal in Galicia, each operating for the different official languages spoken in those regions.

As observed, substantial worldwide consensus has been reached with regards to the need for an institution capable of governing and regulating terms, which should be considered as part of the development of technology and the research process. However, the existing institutions in charge of this are non-governmental, and depend on the consensus and interest of the parties involved to take these into consideration and to enforce them when necessary.

Cabré (2007) highlights the fact that the standardization of terminology is more strongly related to the development of industry than to scientific use. On the one hand, industry needs specific terms to be translated in order to communicate with potential costumers, so they try to standardise terms. On the other hand, scientists, who use terms related to specific areas of knowledge in their studies and linguists, who study those terms, are sometimes responsible for coining them, depending on their areas of expertise. Scientists and linguists do not always coincide in the coinage they provide but once the process of adaptation of the new term is completed, standardised lists of terms are numbered and offered for use. However, these are neither public nor free of charge.

United Nations documents provide another source of terminology. This organization publishes official documents in a set of languages, used by many as referential documentation since these are parallel documents. In addition, occasional glossaries appear in Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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relation to a set of specific subjects, which are of interest for the agencies developing the lists. Again, these are not freely available.

Scientists can also obtain terms from the on-line dictionary of the European Union2, in which references to the terms, the glossaries and the corresponding terms for many subject matters (politics, finance, education, applied sciences, humanities, etc.) are listed.

Specific online dictionaries supported by professional schools (medicine, law, etc.) are other sources from which terms or terminology can be obtained.

As indicated, several possible access routes to reasonably reliable terminology exist, all of which require a certain degree of research and prior knowledge. In some cases, prepayment and knowledge of how the institutions function and how they elaborate their resource documentation is also required. This restricts individual access. Most scientists find the terms in articles with the same or a related subject matter, or read directly from English and approximate a translation, which they find appropriate for the term they are using within the context they wish to use it.

Sometimes the different translation processes related to the world of science and research are conducted in such a way as to almost ignore the stipulations set out for this particular kind of specific production. In some cases, the scientists themselves translate their own texts, or the sources they are reading from. These, in turn, become the sources for the terms and vocabulary they use in their own written production. With reference to this, Crystal (2001) mentions the existence of many Englishes and of many varieties with different levels of standardization. Although this author mainly refers to the English of existing English-speaking communities, this could probably be extended to other types of communities where English is also used as the everyday language of communication, such as the language used by scientists to publish their findings.

Indeed, this means that, in practice, the field of scientific language and terminology can often differ considerably from its theoretical description. If scientific language needs to be one-sided, direct, objective, and the scientists translate their own terms, individually, and according to their own criteria, then the results can

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sometimes be a far cry from the objectives and the rules established for translation. Two scholars can translate and use two terms in different ways at the same time, resulting in a set of variations, which conflict with the principles of mono-referentiality and univocal interpretation (Freixa, 2002).

In other cases, this type of translation results in the use of synonyms, contrary to the recommendations of scientific language.

These are used to obtain a greater degree of specificity and rigour and, according to some authors are very much dependent upon the degree of specialisation within the texts; that is, the more specialised the text, the lower the use of synonyms, as explained by Freixa (2002).

Additionally, there are times in which the use of synonyms is even justified depending on the type of audience they are directed at.

The context and the addressees change and in turn, some variations must occur in the text. Therefore, according to Suarez (2004), it depends very much on the degree of knowledge of the matter shared by the audience.

In some situations, L1 plays a significant role in the choices made. It should be remembered that translations are made to facilitate an understanding of the subject matter in the mother tongue. That is to say, translations are made by agents belonging to one specific scientific community and directed at that specific scientific community, which differs from the scientific community producing the original text.

For this reason, traces of L1 can be detected in some of the choices made when translating from L2. In other cases, English influences translations made by scholars. It is normal to find examples where the choice has even been made to retain the English word, ignoring any attempt to find an equivalent in the target language.

2. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

By considering the translation process, our study attempts to establish whether any transfer actually occurs, and, if so, in which direction.

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The first objective of this study is to revise the way in which words are translated from English (L2) into Spanish (L1). The second objective is to assess whether the existing mechanisms used to create and distribute terms are useful in guaranteeing a univocal use of terms.

Although some institutions exist, as previously mentioned, access to these is neither free nor direct. Furthermore, they produce terms at a much slower speed than is required by science. Therefore, we intend to demonstrate the adequacy of the existing organisms that register new words into Spanish, avoiding barbarisms.

3. METHODOLOGY 3.1. Corpus

A set of articles written in English by native speakers of English and a set of articles written by Spanish-speaking authors were selected to be our corpus. These articles were published in international journals in order to ensure their acceptance by the research community.

The field of Computer Science, which is constantly evolving, and more specifically the discipline of Artificial Intelligence, was deliberately selected in order to find words that could be open to different interpretations. We collected 21 articles in English and 27 articles in Spanish. 8,373 keywords were found in English and 13,871 in Spanish. Of these, 300 were considered adequate terms for our corpus in the English texts and 360 in the Spanish texts.

The articles were randomly selected with only one proviso: that they be as recent as possible. All articles have been published or are accepted for publication in Revista Iberoamericana de Inteligencia Artificial, a journal distributed by the Spanish Association for Artificial Intelligence (AEPIA). In this manner, we ensured that they were scientific articles accepted by and aimed at the scientific community.

3.2. Study design

First, as outlined above, a corpus that could help to prove our hypothesis was chosen. As suggested by McEnery & Wilson (2001), Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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the articles were randomly selected to ensure that the sampling could be as varied and unbound as possible. The following step involved the sampling of the corpus. Here, in accordance with Sinclair (2005), some considerations were taken into account, such as the variety of language, the selection criteria used for the samples and their nature and dimensions. Our sampling policy centred on the fact that our corpus was based on written texts, in particular scientific articles published in scientific journals. Since the idea was to study a constantly evolving discipline, in which the need to translate new terms was essential, the date on which the articles were published or accepted for publication had to also be taken into account. It was important that the articles had undergone the previously mentioned selection process, and that they had been accepted for publication, since this would imply that the writing contained therein had been accepted by the scientific community at which they were aimed.

We obtained a corpus to contrast the terms used in the articles written in English and in the articles written in Spanish in order to study what types of translations are made when writing scientific texts.

A contrast was established between the texts taking into account the concepts used throughout these papers.

In order to identify the terms, the Simple Concordance Program3 was used. The intention was to be able to identify the terms in English from the very outset, then to compare these to the texts in Spanish.

First of all, the texts were analysed individually, considering keywords to be those words with a frequency of use above 4 and below 15. This range was considered approximate, since a term which occurred under 4 times could not be considered of interest within a text, and a term which occurred more than 15 times risked being a word from the common language. Next, all the texts were cleansed of wrong entries or defective identifications. Defective identifications were deemed to be words either which had not been correctly identified or any word which could be identified as ordinary (non specific) words. We included in this category adverbs, prepositions or pronouns (e.g. with, which, likely, etc.), also general words as external, response, formal, etc., or too common names as algebra, algorithm, bytes, Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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etc. All numbers (e.g. three, six, etc.), and units (e.g. milliseconds, etc.) were also eliminated from the corpus. Finally, an analysis was completed with all the remaining terms from the total number of texts considered as a whole.

After the texts had been searched through and words belonging to the aforementioned categories had been eliminated, three hundred terms were identified in the English articles, and three hundred and sixty terms in the Spanish ones. Of the group of terms obtained from the Spanish articles, approximately 25% (90 occurrences) were English words.

The results from both languages were contrasted, and all types of correspondences were identified and classified. For each term identified in English, the corresponding terms in Spanish were located.

Where more than one possibility existed, these were classified.

Subsequently, the most common patterns were extracted, and analysed.

Once the results had been provided, the translations were evaluated and some concluding remarks based on these were made.

4. RESULTS

An example of the way in which the results are classified is given in Table 1 below. The different columns show the different Spanish translations found for the English terms.

ORIGINAL TERMS ENGLISH Class Classes Comparing Complex Computational Computer Concurrence Concept Connections Consistency Enghsh terms.

TRANSLATED TERMS SPANISH (1) SPANISH (2) Clase Clases Comparing Complejos Computational Computables Computation Concurrencia Concurrent Concept Conceptuales Conexionistas Consistencia Consistency

Table 1. Sample of term translation.

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SPANISH (3)

Concurrente

Consistente

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All occurrences that did not appear as part of sentences were removed from the corpus as several interpretations could be offered.

Some examples of this can be seen in Table 2.

TERM

Computational

OCCURRENCES

EXAMPLES

77

we consider the computational complcxity approach in which computationaJ use is What should we do?: t-'Umputational repre~entation the /WorkshoD 011 COIIIDutntional Modcls

Computcr

71

Conccpt

45

Consistcncy

18

sho\V tile results of computer simuJations Certain problems in compute.' nctworks constitute especially for compute.. scientists who are eX3mples where compute.. calculatioo as a predictive cancept of social Nash equililniulII cancept is such that as lhe driving concept in complcx This canollieal conccDt avoids thase of moral consistency on the reasoners A standard consistcncJ requirement names of univenmJ consistency, no-rcgrct

Table 2. English terms in context.

The following step in the analysis was the identification of terms and translation. Examples of this are shown in Table 3. As can be seen, in many cases, the authors did not translate the original English words into Spanish.

ENGLlSH Comparing Complex Computer Concurrence Concept CorUlective Consistency

SPANISH (1) Comparing Complejos Computation Concurrencia Concept Conexionistas Consistencia

SPANISH (2)

SPANISH (3)

Computacional Concurrent Conceptuales

Concurrente

Consistency

Consistente

Table 3. Term translations into Spanish.

In order to obtain the different translations of the English terms into Spanish, we contrasted the words in context, as shown in Table 4.

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Has the conceptual advantage that of entities/The conceptual model contains the the conceptual framework, will be tested level bridges the conceptual gap between the agent establishes a connection to the computational represented by this connection. In general, will focus on the connection to the prescriptive Conorms/that model fuzzy connectives, Connectedness of each ofthe N

of moral consistency on the reasoners A standard consistency requirement names of universal consistency, no-regret

Los Mapas Conceptuales Como Estrategia las conexiones conceptuales que deben texto y árboles conceptuales basados la utilización de grafos conceptuales.

Automática, Modelos Conexionistas.

Introducción mediante técnicas conexionistas, como arquitecturas conexionistas en herramientas en modelos conexionistas, para obtener condición de consistencia: si considerarse Las técnicas de consistencia de los sistemas chequeo de la/consistencia de las variables el enfoque de consistencia/lo, uno casco (i.e., hull consistency) está de caja/(i.e., box consistency) está una aproximación consistente en la enfoque alternativo consistente en

Table 4. Term translations in context.

The following translation patterns were obtained: a) New word formation

In some cases, the Spanish term chosen is not an entry in the Real Academia Española (RAE) dictionary, and therefore, has clearly been invented to match the English term. As this word is incorporated into the Spanish language, it assumes the necessary variations. This can be observed in Table 5: Behavioral Behavioral research suggests that the main behavioral trends. implications ofthe behavioral research general behavioral tendencies. We are behavioral strategy : H Ai, where behavioral strategies ./We note max-Iength behavioral experts. This a set of simple behavioral rules, behavioral, perceptual, and world

Comportamental geométrico, un modelo comportamental punto de vista comportamental, a ser dinamismo comportamental, plataforma comportamental (explosión) sugieren comportamentales carencias comportamentales de los aspectos comportamentales en claros problemas comportamentales, ya modelos comportamentales y de

Table 5. Translations of a term.

b) Original terms

Here, the choice was not to translate the terms used. We found Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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two sets of terms under this category. In some cases, the word is used in English or in Spanish indiscriminately. Examples of this are given in Table 6: Argumentation framework in which relating to the/extended framework Dung's framework will be recapitulated a formal dialogue/framework that we abstract framework./Another important agent learning framework multi-agent framework./The operations extensions to the CASE framework.

Probabilistic framework, and the learnt detection framework on videos in regret minimization framework enables regret framework deals with reactive simulation framework for this dynamic framework? where agents may compliant agent framework. In BDI-POMDP framework for multiagent

Frame/frames ocupar uno o varios frames. frames que permite del diálogo recibe los frames si en almacenamiento de frames. Esta estructura Framework uno de los pasos de un framework de cuadro enmarcar en un cuadro un fragmento del Cuadro: Estructura del caso/ Cuadro: Comparación de los m marco un marco de adquisición del conocimiento mapas conceptuales en el marco de los nuevo marco de simulación para aplicaciones tarea del Marco Lógico para hacerla

Table 6. Original terms.

In other cases, the English word is even used to reinforce the Spanish term. Thus, the Spanish word appears with its English original term as a reference for other scholars as can be seen in Table 7: Consistency of moral consistency on the reasoners. standard consistency requirement which universal consistency, no-regret leaming define universal/consistency as the requirement of universal consistency universal consistency or no-regret hulls Marking hulls is one example of this, hulls. The hull of an AGV is the physical A series/of hulls then describes the physical Box Subject been the subject of detailed analysis the subject of learning algorithms Concurrent Concept map Taskwork

Table 7. Double translation.

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Consistencia/Consistente siguiente condición de consistencia: Las técnicas de consistencia de los sistemas el enfoque de consistencia/lo, uno Consistency Consistencia de caja/(i.e., box consistency) constistencia de casco (i.e., hull consistency) hull de casco (i.e., hull consistency) está /de casco (hull consistency) Consistencia de casco caja consistencia de caja/(i.e., box consistency) subject cada usuario participante (Subject), Subject Object Alumno Objetivo (CCP, concurrent constraint programming Mapa Conceptual del Estudiante (Student Concept Map, SCM) Trabajo de Tarea (taskwork)

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c) Partial translation

In this case, one of the terms of a compound noun is translated whereas the other remains in the original form, as can be observed in Table 8. de árboles de features, admitiéndose establece lllla interface única enseñanza asistida por ordenador, (. .. ) e-learning y al CSCL.

Feature trees Sin le interface Learnin

Table 8. Partial translation of terms.

The author does not write the Spanish word and then offer an explanation in English, but chooses to mix both languages, as though they were part of the same paradigm. d) Coining of terms

The terms did not previously exist in the Spanish language but they become a part of the Spanish language. These have been literally translated from English texts without taking into account possible existing terms in Spanish or even morpho-syntactic recommendations, as can be observed in Table 9.

Collaborative

Multi-word

Multi-paradigm

ColaborativEntornos colaborativos educacionales de aprendizaje colaborativo, sistemas Aprendizaje colaborativos en /modelos o la autoria colaborativa de sitios multipalabra multipalabra se identificaron términos multipalabra que definan expresiones multipalabra, que pueden si una expresión multipalabra está en Multiparadigmlenguaje multiparadigmático que programación multiparadigmática enfoque declarativo multiparadigmático in the context ofmultiparadigm

Table 9. Coining new terms.

For instance, we can cite the case of Collaborative (Virtual) Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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Environments which in Spanish becomes “entornos colaborativos”.

However, the correct word in Spanish grammar is “colaboradores” or “de colaboración”. There is no such entry as “colaborativo” in the Dictionary of Real Academia Española. e) Different translations for the same word

One term produces different translations depending on the text, as seen in Table 10: Instantiation describing instantiations yielding dialogue has a/satisfying instantiation with z=since an actual instantiation of any of them. various possible instantiations of the term high

Particulariz ar y particularizar importantes obtenidas particularizar y ensamblar con Instanciación a IInstanciación de Componentes y La instanciación de los conceptos error de instanciación en cualquier lenguaje

Table 10. Different translations for the same word.

5. CONCLUSIONS

Despite the fact that there are some institutions allegedly in charge of the translations and regularization of English words into Spanish, we have unveiled five different procedures required to complete this process. On the one hand, these institutions (ISO, AENOR, etc.) are not exclusive in their area of influence. On the other hand, they work at a different speed than is needed by the scholars who are producing the texts. In addition, the lists of terms agreed and certified are not accessible to all the scientific community, since these lists are not free, and access to them is, at times, restricted. Finally, the work, which supports the certification of the terms used and accepted on the list, is not usually philological. Indeed, these studies are much more industry-oriented than language-oriented. All these circumstances result in the uncontrolled use of new (or even erroneous) terms taken from the literature in English language.

In the results, it has been observed that authors act quite freely when translating and coining terms. They use five different strategies

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to transfer information that they are familiarized with in English. The constant reference to English words in order to express concepts using the Spanish language should prove that accessible information is not available for writers when they wish to write in Spanish or even for translators when coming across a new term. Five different translation patterns were used by the authors to adapt the English terms into Spanish: new word formation; original terms; partial translation; Coining of terms and different translations for the same words. These different patterns show us clearly that authors use the communication strategies they consider most adequate and that they are not conscious of the existence of a standardised norm.

In order to guarantee that all scholars use the same words when referring to the same concepts, it would be advisable to make these lists of terms more readily accessible, and thereby, achieve a univocal interpretation of terms.

NOTES

ISO is described in the documents published by the institution as such.

See, for instance http://www.portofoakland.com/newsroom/pressrel/view.asp?id =51 2 Available at: http://iate.europa.eu/ 3 Simple Concordance Program 4.09. Build 8 (2007). Alan Reed 19972007.

1

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Carrió, M. L. 2002. The use of phrasal verbs by native and non-native writers in technical articles. Linguistic insights. Studies in language and communication, 2.

Carrió, M. L. 2003. Análisis contrastivo del discurso científico-técnico: errores y variaciones comunes en la escritura del inglés como segunda lengua.

Valencia: Universitat Politècnica de València.

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Carrió, M. L. 2004. Las implicaciones de los errores léxicos en los artículos en inglés científico-técnico, RAEL, 3.

Chung, T. M. & Nation, P. 2003. Technical vocabulary in specialised texts. Reading in a Foreign Language, 15-2. Available at http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/October2003 /chung/chung.pdf.

(Retrieved March 20, 2006) Elorza, I. 2002. Assessing Translation in Domain-specific Learning Environments. Linguistic insights. Studies in language and communication, 2.

Ellis, R. 1985. Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fernández F., Montero B. (2003). La premodificación nominal en el ámbito de la informática: estudio contrastivo inglés-español.

Valencia: Publicacions Universitat de València.

Freixa, J. 2002. La variació terminològica. anàlisi de la variació denominativa en textos de diferent grau d’especialització de l’àrea de medi ambient.

Barcelona: IULA. McEnery & Wilson 2001. Corpus Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University. Web pages to be used to supplement the book. Available at http://bowlandfiles.lancs.ac.uk/monkey/ihe/linguistics/contents.htm (Retrieved November 13, 2006).

McKay, S. 2003. Teaching English as an International Language: Rethinking Goals and Approaches. Oxford: Oxford Handbooks for Language Teachers.

Montalt, V. 2005. Manual de traducció científicotècnica. Vic: Eumo Editorial.

Odlin, T. 1989. Language Transfer. Cross-linguistic influence in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sinclair, J. 2005. Corpus and Text - Basic Principles in Developing Linguistic Corpora: a Guide to Good Practice, ed. M. Wynne. Oxford: Oxbow Books: 1-16. Available at http://ahds.ac.uk/linguisticcorpora/ (Retrieved March 26, 2007).

Spasic, I. 2004. A machine learning approach to term classification. PhD Thesis. Salford: The University of Salford.

Suárez, M. 2004. Análisis contrastivo de la variación denominativa en textos especializados: del texto original al texto meta. PhD Thesis.

Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Barcelona.

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ESTUDIO COGNITIVO -CONTRASTIVO DE LAS METÁFORAS DEL CORAZÓN EN INGLÉS Y ALEMÁN.* Regina Gutiérrez Pérez Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla rgutper@upo.es In the field of Cognitive Linguistics, the most rapidly expanding school in modern linguistics, a great deal of attention has been paid to identifying and describing the metaphors used by different social groups, in everyday and specific discourse contexts.

Although certain “conceptual metaphors” are shared by different cultures, linguistic metaphors may differ across languages.

This paper explores the conceptualizations of the heart in two Germanic languages, English and German.

We will show these conceptualizations (container for emotions, as an object of value, as central and innermost part, etc.) trying to establish a pattern of similarities and differences among those cultures.

Most of the similarities derive from universal aspects of the human body, what supports the idea of embodiment claimed by the cognitive theory (Lakoff, 1990, 1994). However, the cultural diversity provides different linguistic expressions which postulate that experiential universals are to be situated at a more abstract, cultural determined, level of thought.

Keywords: embodiment, conceptualization, conceptual metaphor, idealized cognitive model.

En el campo de la Lingüística Cognitiva, la escuela de mayor auge en la lingüística moderna, se ha prestado una gran atención a identificar y describir las metáforas que utilizan diferentes grupos sociales, tanto en el discurso cotidiano como en determinados contextos discursivos. Aunque algunas metáforas “conceptuales” son compartidas por diferentes culturas,

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las metáforas lingüísticas pueden variar de una lengua a otra.

Este artículo examina las conceptualizaciones del corazón en dos lenguas Germánicas, inglés y alemán.

Mostraremos esas conceptualizaciones (recipiente de las emociones, objeto de valor, parte central y más importante) estableciendo un patrón de semejanzas y diferencias entre esas culturas.

La mayoría de las similitudes derivan de aspectos universales del cuerpo humano, lo que apoya la idea de corporeidad que defiende la teoría cognitiva (Lakoff, 1990, 1994). Sin embargo, la diversidad cultural proporciona diferentes expresiones lingüísticas que postulan que los universales experienciales tienen que situarse en un nivel de pensamiento más abstracto y culturalmente determinado.

Palabras clave: corporeidad, conceptualización, metáfora conceptual, modelo cognitivo idealizado.

1- INTRODUCCIÓN

En este artículo proponemos un modelo cognitivo que resulta de la recogida de material lingüístico y su posterior examen, agrupación y clasificación. Partimos de operaciones conceptuales básicas, como son la reificación y la personificación, para llegar a metáforas cada vez más complejas que forman el “Modelo Cognitivo Idealizado”.

2- METODOLOGÍA

Para llevar a cabo el análisis sistemático partimos del material documentado en diccionarios y otras obras lexicográficas como tesauros, pues en ellas encontramos una descripción detallada de los sistemas metafóricos de las lenguas en cuestión. Resulta imprescindible tanto el manejo de diccionarios monolingües, como bilingües y diccionarios de expresiones idiomáticas. Como apunta Deignan (1999: 197): Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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... the investigation of a particular semantic field can be made more systematic with the use of a comprehensive thesaurus. It is conceivable that in the future linguistic metaphor databases based on concordance data might be set up along lines of on-line thesauri or dictionaries.

Dado que la mayoría de la información proviene de diccionarios y otras obras de referencia, se deduce que son expresiones convencionalizadas y forman parte de la manera en la que los hablantes piensan y se expresan diariamente. Como dice Kövecses (1991: 30) respecto a su metodología en la clasificación de metáforas conceptuales de la felicidad: …in order to be able to arrive at [the] metaphors, metonymies, and inherent concepts, and, eventually, [the] prototypical cognitive models, one needs to study the conventionalized linguistic expressions that are related to a given notion.

Esto nos servirá como fundamento para explicar algunas expresiones metafóricas novedosas.

Frente a la poco fiable base empírica de Lakoff y Johnson, pues, a veces, ellos mismos han elaborado los ejemplos en que se basan para demostrar sus tesis1, queremos justificar nuestra opción de haber optado por un corpus basado, principalmente, en el material que nos ha proporcionado una serie de diccionarios. En realidad, pensamos que todo depende de la finalidad de cada estudio. El nuestro tiene como meta demostrar la existencia de conceptos y modelos metafóricos en dos lenguas. Por ello, se trata de reunir el máximo de expresiones metafóricas en esas lenguas con el fin de encontrar realmente la evidencia lingüística necesaria para postular la existencia de metáforas conceptuales.

Una vez justificada nuestra elección de un corpus basado, principalmente, en el material proporcionado por diccionarios, es necesario explicar nuestro enfoque dentro de las dos posibilidades que existen en la descripción semántica de las lenguas en general.

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Por una parte, se puede partir de la forma o signifiànt en la terminología saussuriana, y preguntarse por su(s) significado(s), lo que tradicionalmente se ha conocido como el enfoque semasiológico. La otra opción sería partir del significado o signifié, e intentar averiguar las formas que lo expresan, el llamado enfoque onomasiológico (del griego ónoma, nombre). En el caso de la comparación interlingual de metáforas y dentro del paradigma de la Lingüística Cognitiva, encontramos ambas posibilidades. Desde una perspectiva semasiológica, se constatan significados básicos como prototipo y los significados derivados metafóricamente. Un ejemplo es el estudio llevado a cabo por Lakoff (1987: 416-461) sobre la preposición over. Desde la perspectiva onomasiológica, se parte de un dominio meta y se averigua qué metáforas se emplean para referirse a ese dominio y de qué dominio(s) fuente están tomadas. En esta línea se encuentran los numerosos estudios de emociones, tales como el de la felicidad (Kövecses, 1991), el amor (Barcelona 1992, 1995; Kövecses, 1990), el enfado (Lakoff y Kövecses, 1987; Barcelona, 1989a; King, 1989; Munro, 1991; Kövecses 1995a, 1995b, 2000; Yu, 1995; Matsuki, 1995; Taylor y Mbense, 1998; Mikolajczuk, 1998; Soriano, 2003), la lujuria (Csábi, 1999), la tristeza (Barcelona 1986, 1989b; Kövecses, 1990), el miedo (Kövecses, 1990), etc.

Nuestro estudio sigue por tanto el método semasiológico. Una vez establecido un dominio fuente como tertium comparationis, en nuestro caso “el corazón”, se trata de averiguar qué expresiones existen en una determinada lengua con ese dominio con el fin de filtrar las metáforas conceptuales subyacentes y detectar los modelos metafóricos.

En primer lugar, coleccionamos simplemente el máximo de expresiones metafóricas con el corazón en cada una de las lenguas. A continuación, intentamos averiguar la existencia o no de cierta sistematicidad en el material lingüístico reunido, agrupando las expresiones bajo metáforas conceptuales. No incluimos todas las expresiones metafóricas con la parte corporal en cuestión, cuyo número es enorme, sino que presentamos aquellas más representativas de la metáfora conceptual acuñada.

Para llevar a cabo nuestro propósito de comparar metáforas en dos lenguas, decidimos partir de la metodología que propone Barcelona

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(2001) en cuanto a la identificación y descripción de la metáfora conceptual. Para ello seguimos una serie de parámetros que este autor establece: 1. Existencia o ausencia de la proyección conceptual.

Barcelona (2001: 137) lo define de la siguiente manera:

The same metaphor may be said to exist in both languages if approximately the same conceptual source and the target can be metaphorically associated in the two languages.

2. Grado de elaboración conceptual.

El segundo tipo de contraste que podemos encontrar cuando comparamos metáforas conceptuales en dos o más lenguas es el grado de elaboración de las proyecciones conceptuales de una determinada metáfora conceptual, como define Barcelona (2001: 137): “differences between both languages owning to the existence of a version of the metaphor in one language and its absence, or limited use, in the other”.

3. Grado de convencionalidad lingüística.

Se entiende en el sentido de que una expresión está convencionalizada en una lengua, es de uso común entre los hablantes y, por tanto, se opone a aquellas metáforas creativas o novedosas. El objeto de nuestro estudio ha sido un conjunto de expresiones de uso cotidiano.

Soriano (2003: 109) añade otro parámetro (si bien señala que Barcelona (2001) no lo margina explícitamente), que denomina “grado de explotación lingüística”, que hace referencia a la productividad de la proyección en una lengua determinada. Esta productividad se mide por el número de expresiones que son fruto de esa proyección.

Llegamos a la conclusión de que existe una misma metáfora en dos o más lenguas cuando hemos podido reunir un cierto número de expresiones que la ilustren en esas lenguas. Si las expresiones Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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concretas que encontramos son iguales o muy similares, entonces, el nivel superior, es decir, la metáfora conceptual, es equivalente, pues obedecen a una misma conceptualización de la realidad. Lo realmente interesante y novedoso en este campo es comprobar que algunas expresiones, que no son completamente iguales en su estructura o significado, en dos o más idiomas, se basan en la misma metáfora, pues son reflejo de esa instancia superior. Como señala Barcelona (2001: 137), nos encontramos ante la misma metáfora: even though the elaborations, the specifications and corresponding linguistic expressions of the metaphor are not exactly the same, or equally conventionalized, in both of them.

El concepto de “Modelo Cognitivo Idealizado” se entiende como una estructura compleja que puede, como veremos, componerse de varias metáforas y metonimias que pueden estar relacionadas y que pueden constituir teorías populares sobre determinados campos abstractos.

No nos centraremos en la descripción de las propiedades formales de cada lexema simple, palabra compuesta o modismo que encontramos como perteneciente a un determinado concepto metafórico. La idea es llamar la atención sobre la semejanza o identidad de los conceptos metafóricos en las lenguas que nos ocupan.

A lo largo de nuestra investigación nos hemos hallado ante el problema de la adjudicación de los dominios meta, pues la asignación de una expresión a un dominio meta concreto puede ser subjetiva, lo que corresponde a la formulación de las metáforas (cf. Baldauf, 1996, 1997). Pensamos que, en realidad, la determinación de un dominio meta concreto depende del investigador que realiza el análisis. Hasta ahora, no parece que se pueda prescindir completamente de la intuición personal a la hora de formular las metáforas conceptuales.

Queremos enfatizar que nuestras formulaciones deben entenderse como propuestas, y que existe la posibilidad de llegar a interpretaciones diferentes. No obstante, nos dejamos guiar por el procedimiento de Dobrovol´skij (1995), quien propone utilizar categorías básicas (taxa, en su terminología), lo que equivale en

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nuestro estudio a los dominios meta de “amor”, “bondad”, “generosidad”, “pena”, “preocupación”, “inteligencia”, etc., pues son conceptos de nivel básico, en el sentido de Rosch (1973, 1975, 1977, 1978; Rosch y Mervis, 1975; Rosch et al., 1976). Los taxa constituyen campos semánticos que pueden solaparse, esto es, un modismo concreto puede pertenecer a varias categorías, sobre todo aquellos que son miembros periféricos. Para evitar esto, hemos decidido presentar una expresión (en algunos casos, dos o tres) como miembro prototípico de cada categoría.

ANÁLISIS

3.1. El corazón es amor

En el seno de la Lingüística Cognitiva la metáfora se concibe como una herramienta que permite entender un dominio de la experiencia en términos de otro2. La relación entre dos dominios es unidireccional, pues normalmente se concibe un dominio abstracto en términos de uno concreto, y no al revés.

Esta concepción de la metáfora incide en su función cognitiva para entender y estructurar la experiencia. La metáfora sobrepasa lo meramente lingüístico, pues es el mecanismo principal a través del que comprendemos conceptos abstractos.

Las metáforas lingüísticas, o expresiones lingüísticas metafóricas, son manifestaciones de metáforas conceptuales. Así pues, el punto de partida de esta perspectiva es que la metáfora es conceptual y no simplemente lingüística: Metaphor is for most people a device of poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish – a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action.

For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not

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just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. (Lakoff, 1980: 3).

De acuerdo con la Lingüística Cognitiva, existe, por un lado, la metáfora conceptual, por ejemplo la conocida “EL AMOR ES UN VIAJE” (Lakoff y Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1993), y, por otro lado, expresiones lingüísticas metafóricas. Estas expresiones lingüísticas no son más que manifestaciones de esa metáfora conceptual, como podemos observar a continuación: 3.2 El amor es un viaje

• Mira qué lejos hemos llegado.

• Estamos en una encrucijada.

• Tendremos que emprender caminos separados.

• Ahora no podemos volver atrás.

• No creo que esta relación vaya a ninguna parte.

• ¿Dónde estamos?

• Estamos atascados.

• Es un largo camino, lleno de baches.

• Esta relación es un callejón sin salida.

• Simplemente estamos haciendo girar la rueda.

• Nuestro matrimonio encuentra innumerables escollos.

• Estamos fuera de la vía (Hemos perdido la ruta).

• Esta relación está yéndose a pique.

• [Nuestro matrimonio hace aguas.]

Veámos también sus correspondencias en inglés y alemán: Love is a journey

• Look how far we´ve come.

• We´re at a crossroads.

• We´ll just have to go our separate ways.

• We can´t turn back now.

• I don´t think this relationship is going anywhere.

• Where are we?

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• We´re stuck.

• It´s been a long, bumpy road.

• This relationship is a dead-end street.

• We´re just spinning our wheels.

• Our marriage is on the rocks.

• We´ve gotten off the track.

• This relationship is foundering.

Liebe ist eine Reise

• Schau doch, wie weit wir miteinander gekommen sind.

• Wir sind nun am Scheideweg.

• Wir müssen jetzt einfach getrennte Wege gehen.

• Wir können jetzt nicht mehr umkehren.

• I ch glaube, dab diese Beziehung nirgendwohin führt.

• Wo stehen wir in unserer Beziehung?

• Wir sitzen fest.

• Es ist ein langer, steiniger Weg gewesen.

• Diese Beziehung ist eine Sackgasse.

• Bei uns ist im Moment Leerlauf.

• Unsere Ehe ist auf Grund gelaufen.

• Wir sind aufs falsche Gleis geraten.

• Unsere Beziehung ist im Begriff unterzugehen.

Podemos observar que la conceptualización del amor como viaje es común en las lenguas que estudiamos, como podemos comprobar a través de las traducciones de los ejemplos originales de Lakoff y Johnson (1980). El viaje puede realizarse en coche (“Nuestra relación está atravesando un bache”, “Estamos en un callejón sin salida”), en tren (“Estamos descarrilados”), en barco (“Su relación encuentra innumerables escollos”, “Nos estamos hundiendo”), en avión (“Estamos sólo despegando”), etc.

La teoría tradicional denominaba metáforas a cada una de esas expresiones, puesto que las metáforas eran consideradas lingüísticas por naturaleza, no conceptuales. A diferencia de esto, Lakoff (1993: 207) argumenta que se dan una serie de correspondencias sistemáticas que permiten entender el concepto de amor en términos del concepto viaje: Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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Los amantes se corresponden con los viajeros.

La relación amorosa con el vehículo en el que viajan.

Los objetivos de los amantes con su(s) destino(s) en el viaje.

Las dificultades de la relación con los obstáculos del viaje.

Nuestro conocimiento acerca de los viajes nos permite entender estas correspondencias en el amor. Asimismo, se dan una serie de implicaciones conceptuales (entailments), que vienen dadas por esas correspondencias básicas. Así, si el amor se conceptualiza como un viaje y el vehículo se corresponde con la relación, entonces nuestro conocimiento acerca del vehículo puede ayudarnos a entender las relaciones amorosas. De manera que, como ejemplifica Kövecses (2005: 7): If the vehicle breaks down, we have three choices: (1) we get out and try to reach our destination by some other means; (2) we try to fix the vehicle; or (3) we stay in the vehicle and do nothing.

Correspondingly, if a love relationship does not work, we can (1) leave the relationship; (2) try to make it work; or (3) stay in it (and suffer).

El concepto “amor” puede entenderse de muchísimas maneras: como una fuerza física (electromagnética, gravitacional, etc.), magia, enfermedad, locura, guerra, etc. (Cf. Lakoff y Johnson, 1980).

El corazón está esencialmente asociado al amor. Relacionado con esta emoción, el número de metáforas empleadas parece superar a todas las emociones (Martín Morillas, 1998)3. Igualmente Kövecses (2000b) señala que el concepto de amor es quizás el concepto emocional más “metaforizado”, probablemente debido al hecho de que no se trata simplemente de una emoción, sino también de una relación.

Como tal, comparte dominios fuente que caracterizan relaciones humanas. Las metáforas conceptuales de amor que se manifiestan en el lenguaje cotidiano, según este autor, son las siguientes (2000b: 26): LOVE IS A NUTRIENT:

I am starved for love.

It´s been a long, bumpy road.

LOVE IS A UNITY OF PARTS: We are as one. We fused together.

LOVE IS A JOURNEY:

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We´re inseparable.

LOVE IS CLOSENESS:

They´re very close.

There is a close tie between them.

LOVE IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER: She was overflowing with love.

LOVE IS FIRE: I am burning with love.

LOVE IS AN ECONOMIC EXCHANGE: I´m putting more into this than you are.

LOVE IS A NATURAL FORCE: She swept me off my feet.

LOVE IS A PHYSICAL FORCE: I was magnetically drawn to her.

LOVE IS AN OPPONENT: She tried to fight her feelings of love.

LOVE IS A CAPTIVE ANIMAL: She let go of her feelings.

LOVE IS WAR: She conquered him.

LOVE IS SPORT/ A GAME: He made a play for her.

LOVE IS A DISEASE/ AN ILLNESS: I am heart-sick.

LOVE IS MAGIC: He was enchanted.

LOVE IS INSANITY: I am crazy about you.

LOVE IS A SOCIAL SUPERIOR: She is completely ruled by love.

LOVE IS RAPTURE/ A HIGH: I have been high on love for weeks.

THE OBJECT OF LOVE IS APPETIZING FOOD: Hi, sweet-pie.

THE OBJECT OF LOVE IS A SMALL CHILD: Well, baby, what are we gonna do?

THE OBJECT OF LOVE IS A DEITY: Don´t put her on a pedestal. He worships her.

THE OBJECT OF LOVE IS A VALUABLE OBJECT: You´re my treasure!

LOVE IS A BOND:

Más adelante, Kövecses (2000: 123) añade que el amor abunda también en un gran número de metonimias. Las expresiones lingüísticas que describen reacciones fisiológicas, expresivas y comportamentales pueden considerarse metonimias, en el sentido de que se da una relación de representación entre éstas y el concepto de amor como un todo (relación parte-todo). Si se describe a alguien con tales expresiones, podemos inferir que esa persona está enamorada.

Kövecses enumera las siguientes:

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when I saw her.

BLUSHING STANDS FOR LOVE:

him.

DIZZINESS STANDS FOR LOVE:

She blushed when she saw

She´s in a daze over him. I feel dizzy every time I see her.

PHYSICAL WEAKNESS STANDS FOR LOVE: She makes me weak in the knees.

SWEATY PALMS STAND FOR LOVE: His palms became sweaty when he looked at her.

INABILITY TO BREATHE STANDS FOR LOVE: You take my breath away.

INTERFERENCE WITH ACCURATE PERCEPTION STANDS FOR LOVE:

He saw nothing but her.

INABILITY TO THINK STANDS FOR LOVE:

He can´t think

straight when he is around her.

PREOCCUPATION WITH ANOTHER STANDS FOR LOVE:

spent hours mooning over her.

PHYSICAL CLOSENESS STANDS FOR LOVE:

together.

He

They are always

INTIMATE SEXUAL BEHAVIOR STANDS FOR LOVE:

She showered him with kisses. He caressed her gently.

SEX STANDS FOR LOVE: They made love.

LOVING VISUAL BEHAVIOR STANDS FOR LOVE: He can´t take his eyes off of her. She´s starry-eyed.

JOYFUL (VISUAL) BEHAVIOR STANDS FOR LOVE: Her eyes light up when she sees him. He smiled at her and the world stood still.

INCREASE IN HEART RATE STANDS FOR LOVE: He´s a heartthrob.

El amor es una emoción que afecta tan profundamente al ser humano que se ha desarrollado un sinfín de metáforas de las que es imposible dar cuenta aquí, bastaría con echar un vistazo a la literatura o incluso simplemente a las letras de canciones. Las metáforas que recogemos en este apartado son las que muestran una gran sistematicidad y forman un modelo metafórico complejo.

La primera metáfora imprescindible para poder referirnos a un

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concepto abstracto es la reificación. Ésta consiste en atribuir características propias de los objetos a los conceptos una vez convertidos en entidades discretas. En este sentido, el amor, simbolizado en el corazón, se toma como un objeto valioso. Como tal es delicado y frágil y, como consecuencia, es susceptible de quebrarse.

Por ello, como todos sabemos, en un desengaño amoroso una persona tiene “el corazón roto”, que se traduce en inglés y alemán como: Ing. To be heartbroken Al. Das Herz gebrochen haben

Por tanto, podemos acuñar la metáfora “EL

CORAZÓN ES UN

OBJETO DE VALOR SUSCEPTIBLE DE ROMPERSE”. Al conferirle la condición

de objeto, el corazón puede poseer características típicas de ellos y ser tratado como tal. En este último sentido, en una relación amorosa es posible “poseer” el corazón de alguien o “entregarlo”.

Aparte del amor, se pueden expresar otros sentimientos menos prototípicos con el corazón, como veremos a continuación.

3.2. El corazón es bondad o generosidad

Constituye un lugar común en nuestra cultura asociar el corazón a diversos materiales. Por ejemplo, relacionado con el oro simboliza las virtudes que pueden encontrarse en nuestro interior, como la bondad, y tales virtudes se conceptualizan como riquezas. Esta reificación está presente en las dos lenguas objeto de estudio: Ing. To have a heart of gold Al. Ein goldenes Herz haben/ ein Herz aus Gold haben

Las connotaciones negativas son más numerosas. Encontramos expresiones como: Ing. To have a heart of stone Al. Ein Herz aus Stein haben

Existe una equivalencia exacta en las dos lenguas con otros materiales, tales como el hierro, el acero, el mármol, etc. Asociamos Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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estos materiales metafóricamente al corazón cuando nos referimos a sentimientos negativos. Una persona que tiene un corazón de piedra, hierro, acero, mármol, etc., es una persona fría, que no se conmueve o emociona fácilmente y que probablemente no alberga sentimientos como la sensibilidad, la compasión, la piedad o el interés hacia otros. La dureza del material se corresponde con la dureza o frialdad en la actitud, como también podemos observar en las siguientes expresiones: Ing. To be hardhearted Al. Hartherzig sein Lo opuesto es: Ing. To be soft/ tenderhearted Al. Weichherzig sein/ ein weiches Herz haben

Una persona que tiene un corazón así posee cualidades como la bondad o la generosidad.

Otra reificación básica consiste en otorgarle al corazón un determinado tamaño. Ruiz de Mendoza (1999: 19) ofrece una descripción del modelo cognitivo de tamaño, que consta de las siguientes características: (a) Los objetos varían en tamaño, abarcando éste desde dimensiones muy pequeñas a muy grandes. (b) Un objeto pequeño puede parecer más controlable que uno grande. (c) Un objeto pequeño puede parecer potencialmente menos dañino que uno grande. (d) Un objeto pequeño suele parecer potencialmente menos importante que uno grande.

Según este autor, este modelo tiene un fundamento experiencial que surge de nuestra interacción con objetos grandes y pequeños que nos hacen adoptar diversas perspectivas sobre los mismos y que pueden producir diversas generalizaciones, entre ellas que los objetos pequeños son controlables y poco importantes y que los grandes son poco controlables e importantes.

De este modelo cognitivo se deduce que la grandeza del

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corazón tenga connotaciones positivas, como son la bondad o la generosidad, ilustrado en los siguientes ejemplos de nuestro corpus: Ing. To have a big heart Al. Ein grosses Herz haben

Pensamos que esta metáfora posee una evidente base metonímica, pero lo importante no es que se utilice una parte (el corazón) para significar un todo (una persona), sino más bien la concepción metafórica en la elección de una característica particular de la persona (la bondad, sensibilidad) que se asocia con una parte de ese todo. A este respecto Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano (1999: 34) habla de los “Property Selection Processes” (PSPs): i.e. the selection in the target domain of only some of those prototypical properties that characterize the physical source domain.

Más adelante añade (1999: 38):

It is precisely by this selection of properties from the source domain in the target domain that metaphorical mappings are constrained. The properties selected in the target domain must be part of the properties identified in the source domain and no others.

El corazón se conceptualiza como un recipiente, a mayor tamaño, más sentimientos. En español encontramos incluso la expresión hiperbólica “No caberle a alguien el corazón en el pecho”.

Aquí, no obstante, el corazón sería el contenido del recipiente “pecho”, que lo alberga. La alegría, la bondad o generosidad de esa persona es tan grande que su corazón no encuentra espacio suficiente en el pecho.

Por el contrario, la pequeñez o, incluso, la ausencia de corazón tiene connotaciones negativas. De ahí se deduce el significado de expresiones como: Ing. He has no heart Al. Er hat kein Herz

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Relacionado también con el modelo cognitivo de tamaño, en inglés el corazón puede incluso hincharse. Lo más frecuente es que el corazón se hinche de orgullo: “My heart swelled with pride”.

Por el contario, el corazón puede encogerse. En español, como recoge el Diccionario fraseológico del español moderno (1996), tiene el significado de “experimentar lástima o compasión por alguien o algo”: “Se nos encogía el corazón al ver el reportaje sobre las víctimas de la droga”.

También significa “sentir miedo”:

“Se le encoge a uno el corazón al ver de tan cerca el precipicio”.

Por tanto, cuando algo se dilata o se expande tiene connotaciones positivas, mientras que cuando se encoge las tiene negativas. Lo pequeño se conceptualiza como algo negativo, mientras que lo grande como positivo.

La temperatura es otro factor que debemos señalar, pues tiene repercusiones en los usos figurados del corazón. La dualidad frío-calor tiene connotaciones negativas y positivas respectivamente, motivadas por el efecto que esas sensaciones provocan en el cuerpo, como muestran las siguientes expresiones inglesas: “Heart-warming: alentador, reconfortante”.

“It was heart-warming to see how pleased the child was: daba gusto ver lo contento que estaba el niño”.

“To be warm-hearted: ser afectuoso, cariñoso”.

A este respecto Deignan (1995: 161) subraya:

“Whereas heat is usually used to talk about emotions which are strong and often negative, warm is used to describe emotions that are friendly, caring, and

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positive”.

El inglés se corresponde con el alemán “warmherzig sein”. No hay equivalente figurado en las lenguas romances, en español se traduciría como “Ser afectuoso, cordial”.

Por otra parte, las expresiones relacionadas con el frío tienen connotaciones negativas, como en: Ing. To have a cold heart/ to be coldhearted4

De nuevo, la expresión inglesa tiene parangón con la alemana “kaltherzig sein”. En español se traduciría como “Ser frío, insensible”.

Éstas tienen una fácil explicación pues el frío es algo que combatimos por el malestar que provoca5.

En inglés el calor incluso ablanda el corazón:

“It has warmed the cockles of my heart: eso me ha enternecido”.

Como sabemos, el corazón se opone a la cabeza, al ser ésta la sede de la razón y aquél la de los sentimientos. En relación a la temperatura también se da el contraste. Por ello, resulta sencillo deducir el significado de expresiones como “mantener la cabeza fría: to keep one´s head cool”. El uso de metáforas térmicas para referirse al carácter de las personas es, de hecho, uno de los más extendidos (Escandell Vidal, 1993: 228).

Si las emociones son “calientes” y su ausencia se interpreta como frialdad, se podría argumentar una base metonímica de las metáforas señaladas, de acuerdo con el principio metonímico “LOS EFECTOS FISIOLÓGICOS DE UNA EMOCIÓN REPRESENTAN A ESA EMOCIÓN”, dado que la temperatura corporal sube cuando nos emocionamos.

3.3. El corazón es sinceridad

En relación con este sentimiento encontramos las expresiones:

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Ing. From the bottom of one´s heart Al. Aus tiefstem Herzen/ im Grunde seines Herzens

Los sentimientos asociados con las expresiones anteriores son sinceros e intensos. En inglés, encontramos incluso un uso que podríamos considerar hiperbólico: “In one´s heart of hearts: en lo más profundo de su corazón, en su fuero interno”.

Aquí el corazón se conceptualiza una vez más como un recipiente del que emanan en este caso sentimientos sinceros que normalmente están ocultos.

Otra expresión asociada al concepto de sinceridad es:

Ing. To speak from the heart Al. Von Herzen/ aus dem Herz sprechen

En español también se utiliza la expresión “hablar con el corazón en la mano”. Tal imagen podría atribuirse a que la persona, para evidenciar claramente sus sentimientos, saca su corazón del pecho y lo muestra en la mano, más claramente perceptible. Lo mismo ocurre en inglés con la expresión “To wear one's heart on one's sleeve”6, que encuentra su explicación en la tradición caballeresca de la Edad Media, cuando en la corte del rey tenían lugar las justas y un caballero dedicaba su combate a una mujer. Ésta le daba una prenda suya, normalmente un pañuelo o un lazo, como muestra de su afecto, y él la ataba al brazo y de esa manera mostraba que él la amaba o defendía su honor. De ahí que hoy día se utilice esa expresión con el significado de mostar las emociones o sentimientos abiertamente. Por tanto, una perspectiva diacrónica puede ayudarnos, sin duda, a averiguar el significado de algunas expresiones que surgieron en un momento sincrónico determinado como resultado de su literatura, historia, creencias, etc.

3.4. El corazón es un organismo viviente

Ungerer y Schmid (1996: 140), basándose en las distintas publicaciones de Kövecses, establecen una serie de metáforas y una Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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metonimia en relación con la categoría emoción que a continuación detallamos: Metonimia:

UNA AGITACIÓN FÍSICA REPRESENTA LA EMOCIÓN

Metáforas:

LA EMOCIÓN LLEGA DE REPENTE DEL EXTERIOR:

impacta.

golpea,

LA EMOCIÓN ES UNA FUERZA NATURAL: sobrecoge, derriba.

LA EMOCIÓN ES UN ORGANISMO VIVIENTE:

marchita, muere.

crece, se

LA PRESENCIA ES LA EXISTENCIA DE LA EMOCIÓN:

permanece, se va, regresa.

LA EMOCIÓN ES UN FLUIDO EN UN RECIPIENTE

EL CUERPO/ LOS OJOS/ EL CORAZÓN/ OTROS ÓRGANOS SON RECIPIENTES DE LA EMOCIÓN

Si las analizamos detalladamente, podemos observar que la emoción atraviesa una serie de fases: su llegada, que normalmente sobrecoge, el efecto que tiene en la persona mientras que está presente y su desaparición. Este hallazgo ha llevado a psicólogos y lingüistas cognitivistas a desarrollar lo que se denomina “escenarios de la emoción”. Según Ungerer y Schmid (1996: 140-142), el principio que gobierna estos escenarios es que existe una secuencia de diferentes fases que la emoción sigue. Éstas son: la causa, la emoción en sí, el (intento de) control, la pérdida de control y la acción resultante. Sin embargo, las distintas fases no pueden aplicarse por igual a las seis categorías de emociones que se consideran básicas (tristeza, enfado, odio, miedo, alegría/ felicidad, deseo/ amor). Ellos argumentan que puede aplicarse perfectamente al enfado y quizás a otras emociones negativas, pero no a otras positivas como la alegría y el amor. En lo que sigue mostraremos cuáles son las fases que pueden aplicarse a la categoría que nos concierne.

Como veremos a lo largo de nuestro análisis, el corazón, en tanto que representa la emoción, se conceptualiza como un organismo viviente. Por tanto, podemos establecer la metáfora “EL CORAZÓN ES UN ORGANISMO VIVIENTE”. Estamos ante el segundo tipo de operación

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cognitiva básica, la personificación. Nos encontramos, pues, ante una metáfora ontológica, ya que se personifica una entidad que carece de tal condición. El más claro ejemplo de personificación del corazón sería su capacidad para hablar, como muestran las siguientes expresiones: Ing. My heart tells me Al. Mein Herz sagt es mir

Podríamos afirmar, con las mismas palabras de María Zambrano en Claros del bosque (2002 [1977]: 66), que el corazón es incluso profeta y que lo que profiere se convierte en una especie de fórmula sacra:

Es profeta el corazón, como aquello que siendo centro está en un confín, al borde siempre de ir todavía más allá de lo que ha ido. Está a punto de romper a hablar, de que su reiterado sonido se articule en esos instantes en que casi se detiene para cobrar aliento. Lo nuevo que en el hombre habita, la palabra, mas no las que decimos, o al menos como las decimos, sino una palabra que sería nueva solamente por brotar ella, porque nos sorprendería como el albor de la palabra.... Y es la voz que se infiltra en ciertas palabras de uso cotidiano y mayormente todavía en las más simples, que dan certeza. Y no se hacen por ello inextinguibles, tienen una suerte de firmeza y hasta de fórmula sacra.

Y de ello se deduce el significado de la expresión española “Tener una corazonada”, que traduciríamos de la siguiente manera: Ing. To have a feeling/ a hunch (colloq)/ a presentiment (frml) Al. Ein Vorgefühl/ eine (Vor)ahnung haben

De acuerdo a este segundo tipo de metáfora ontológica, “EL encontramos determinadas submetáforas que a continuación detallamos.

CORAZÓN ES UN ORGANISMO VIVIENTE”,

3.4.1. El corazón es preocupación

El corazón puede experimentar preocupaciones, inquietudes o incluso interés, como bien muestran las expresiones:

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Ing. To have something at heart Al. Etwas am Herzen liegen

No existe equivalencia de tal expresión en español, la traduciríamos como “preocuparse por algo”.

En inglés, incluso, “one´s heart goes out to someone”. Deignan (1995: 8) explica que “If your heart goes out to someone, you sympathize very deeply with their problems”, y cita como ejemplos: “My heart goes out to this compassionate man.

How could anyone see him as a criminal?”.

“Her sincerity and her unhappiness were clear and his heart went out to her”.

3.4.2. El corazón es pena Como hemos puesto de manifiesto anteriormente, las emociones nutren un gran número de metáforas. Los sentimientos de pena o de rabia (entre otros) pueden manifestarse con: Ing. To take something to heart Al. Sich etwas zu Herzen nehmen

La sensación de algo que nos oprime o presiona y que se manifiesta en la dificultad de respirar es la misma en ambas lenguas.

El locus emocional se localiza en el corazón en alemán e inglés, mientras que en español es en el pecho: “Tomarse algo muy a pecho”.

Como podemos observar puede darse el caso de que algunas lenguas compartan la misma metáfora conceptual pero que después ésta se elabore de forma diferente en los distintos códigos, es decir, que nos encontremos ante diferentes extensiones lingüísticas, como ocurre en el caso anterior con el español. No existe el equivalente de la expresión lingüística pero sí hay una misma proyección convencional en las distintas lenguas.

En inglés y alemán, el corazón, alcanzado por las flechas de Cupido, es susceptible de ser herido y, como consecuencia, puede llegar al extremo de sangrar:

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Ing. It makes my heart bleed Al. Mein Herz blutet

La metáfora de la herida se encuentra, en general, en aquellos casos cuando algo nos causa una fuerte impresión. Está entonces relacionada con la metáfora del golpe, que pertenece a la primera fase de la clasificación de Urgerer y Schmid: “LA EMOCIÓN LLEGA DE REPENTE DEL EXTERIOR”, y como tal se conceptualiza como un golpe.

3.4.3. El corazón es deseo.

Como organismo viviente, en inglés y alemán el corazón puede incluso tener deseos: Ing. To a heart´s desire; To one´s heart´s content/ delight7 Al. Nach Herzenslust

En español la traduciríamos como “hasta saciarse, a discreción, a placer, a su antojo”.

3.5. El corazón es valor.

El corazón se utiliza en expresiones convencionales para simbolizar el valor y el estado de ánimo. En inglés se conceptualiza el desánimo con la pérdida del corazón: To lose heart

En cambio, en alemán se expresa con la palabra valor:

Den Mut verlieren De lo contrario, para animarse el inglés y el alemán “toman” corazón: Ing. To take heart Al. Sich ein Herz fassen/ nehmen (Mut fassen/ schöpfen)

Podemos observar que la palabra inglesa “courage” procede etimológicamente del latín cor, corazón. La explicación deriva de que Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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antiguamente, sobre todo en la Edad Media, se ubicaba la valentía en el corazón, símbolo de virtud guerrera. De ahí se deduce el significado de expresiones tales como la inglesa “to pluck up courage: hacer de tripas corazón”8.

El valor simbólico del corazón como sede de la valentía aún pervive. Así, en español una persona que “tiene el corazón pequeño” es alguien que se asusta con facilidad. Otro ejemplo sería la expresión inglesa “Not to have the heart to do something”, como en: “I didn´t have the heart to tell him: no tuve el valor de decírselo”.

De acuerdo con la metáfora “TRISTE ES ABAJO”, la falta de ánimo se conceptualiza como una proyección hacia abajo. Esta metáfora da sentido a expresiones como “Her heart sank”. Esta expresión es similar a la española “se le cayó el alma a los pies”, y a la alemana “Ihr Mut sank”, en las que igualmente encontramos una proyección hacia abajo, como resultado de la falta de ánimo. Asimismo explica el significado del proverbio inglés “Faint heart never won fair lady”.

Esta carencia de ánimo puede incluso proyectarse en prendas corporales, como en alemán “Das Herz fiel/ rutschte ihm in die Hosen” o en inglés “His heart was in his boots”. Ambas prendas (“pantalones” en alemán y “botas” en inglés) se colocan en la parte inferior del cuerpo, de ahí la conceptualización del movimiento hacia abajo debido a la falta de ánimo.

Finalmente, debemos señalar que el corazón asociado a ciertos animales simboliza la presencia o ausencia de valor. Huelga decir que nos es lo mismo “tener un corazón de león”, animal feroz y valiente por antonomasia, que “tener un corazón de gallina”, animal comúnmente asociado a la cobardía.

3.6. El corazón es inteligencia.

El corazón puede llevar a cabo actividades que requieren algún tipo de habilidad o capacidad mental. Claro ejemplo de ello es la expresión inglesa “to learn by heart”. Esta expresión se traduce en Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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alemán como “auswendig lernen”. Aquí la cabeza se conceptualiza como el recipiente de la memoria, donde colocamos una información para hacer uso de ella cuando la necesitamos. En otros casos como “recitar, saber, conocer, etc., de memoria” podría asociarse esta capacidad con la afectividad, en el sentido de que se recuerda lo que importa o se ama, aquello que “toca el corazón”.

La creencia, existente ya en la Antigüedad, de la capacidad “mental” del corazón, que hemos visto en inglés, encuentra asimismo correspondencia en alemán “Im Herzen bewahren” (literalmente: “retener algo en el corazón”), que se traduce como “retener, no olvidar”.

El hecho de que el intelecto se represente metonímicamente por la cabeza (EL TODO POR LA PARTE) tiene un fundamento fisiológico evidente, pues el cerebro se halla en la cabeza, y entonces puede verse objetivamente como el lugar donde se encuentran habilidades como la imaginación, la percepción, la creatividad, la lógica, etc. No resulta tan claro, sin embargo, el hecho de que se haya considerado el corazón la sede de ciertas facultades intelectuales, como acabamos de ver. La psicología popular ha localizado en esta parte corporal principalmente las emociones (en las culturas occidentales) y en el hígado (en otras)9, fruto asimismo de una convención social.

Hoy día sabemos que la psicología moderna localiza tanto las funciones intelectuales y las emocionales en el cerebro. La razón y el lenguaje se hallan en el hemisferio izquierdo, mientras que las emociones se encuentran en el derecho y en la amígdala.

3.7. El corazón es el núcleo o centro de algo.

El corazón es un órgano que está situado en el pecho y se halla casi en el centro del cuerpo. Además, la función que este órgano desempeña es vital para la supervivencia humana. Por ello, nos referimos a un lugar que consideramos céntrico como su “corazón”, sobre todo si ese lugar es muy importante o tiene mucha actividad.

Encontramos una equivalencia exacta en inglés y alemán en lo que se refiere a la conceptualización del corazón como núcleo o centro, por ejemplo:

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Ing. The heart of the city Al. Das Herz der Stadt

También se denomina corazón al centro o cogollo de determinados frutos, como los “corazones de alcachofas”: Ing. Artichoke hearts Al. Artischockenherzen

3.8. Metonimia “El corazón por la persona”.

La metonimia “EL CORAZÓN POR LA PERSONA” pertenece al modelo metonímico “LA PARTE DEL CUERPO POR LA PERSONA”. Claro ejemplo de ello es la expresión inglesa para expresar sinceridad “Heart to heart” (“ganz ehrlich”, en alemán).

Otro ejemplo evidente de metonimia es cuando el corazón se utiliza como apelativo cariñoso: “¡Corazón mío!”. Ésta se corresponde con el alemán “mein Herz” y el inglés, idioma en el que el corazón se conceptualiza incluso como algo dulce: “sweetheart”.

En relación a la distinción entre metáfora y metonimia y, sobre todo, en lo que concierne a la base metonímica de la metáfora, debemos señalar que no todas las partes del cuerpo pueden analizarse por igual a este respecto. Martin Hilpert (2006), en su artículo “Keeping an eye on the data: Metonymies and their Patterns”, en el que lleva a cabo un estudio minucioso del lexema eye en el British National Corpus, señala que solamente 2.7 % de los ejemplos encontrados con el ojo son metáforas; el resto son metonimias. Según él, esto se debe a que algunas partes corporales, tales como ojo, son más susceptibles de ser objeto de proyecciones metonímicas al estar conceptualizadas como instrumentos. En relación con el estudio que nos ocupa, pensamos que si tenemos en cuenta la metonimia “LA PARTE CORPORAL REPRESENTA LA ACCIÓN LLEVADA A CABO POR ELLA”, podemos entender por qué algunas partes corporales, tales como la mano, la cabeza, la pierna, etc., se toman más en sentido metonímico que otras como el corazón, al tratarse ésta de una entidad interna y en la que se ve de forma menos clara un sentido instrumental.

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En las expresiones objeto de análisis encontramos, por una parte, la metonimia “LA PARTE POR EL TODO” del corazón por la persona, como acabamos de ver. Otras veces resulta más complejo establecer una demarcación clara entre metáfora y metonimia, como mostramos a continuación: Ing. To win somebody´s heart Al. Jemandes Herz gewinnen

Pensamos que hay una base metonímica en esta expresión, en la que el corazón simboliza a la persona. Se conquista a la persona “completa”, pero es el corazón lo que “se entrega” en una relación amorosa, al ser éste el lugar en el que convencionalmente ubicamos el amor. Podríamos argumentar que aunque el resultado es una metáfora, si analizamos detalladamente qué ha llevado a esa conceptualización final, descubriríamos que en la mayoría de las metáforas hay una base metonímica.

Kövecses (1986, 1988, 1990, 1991), Barcelona (1986, 2000), Lakoff (1987) y otros lingüistas han escrito sobre la motivación metonímica de las metáforas que expresan emociones como la ira, el amor, el miedo, la felicidad, el orgullo, la tristeza, etc., en base a las reacciones fisiológicas y al comportamiento que éstas ocasionan. Por ejemplo, una reacción típica es el cambio en el ritmo cardiaco, que puede acelerarse como consecuencia de un fuerte impacto emocional (“Su corazón se disparó cuando la vio”) o incluso pararse (“Se me paró el corazón cuando me lo dijeron”). En el primer caso, la expresión metafórica estaría basada en la metonimia (fisiológica) “EL AUMENTO DEL RITMO CARDIACO EQUIVALE A LA INTENSIDAD DE LA EMOCIÓN”, por lo que el ritmo cardiaco será más elevado cuanto mayor sea la intensidad de la emoción. En el segundo caso, la metonimia podría ser “UNA PARADA CARDIACA EQUIVALE A UN IMPACTO EMOCIONAL”. A diferencia del ejemplo anterior, aquí se trataría sólo de una expresión, pues, en realidad, no se produce la reacción fisiológica en cuestión.

Kövecses (2005: 42) establece la metáfora “UNA PERSONA EN UN (“A PERSON IN AN INTENSE EMOTIONAL STATE IS A PRESSURIZED CONTAINER”). El foco de significado principal de la metáfora (main meaning focus) lo constituye ESTADO EMOCIONAL INTENSO ES UN RECIPIENTE A PRESIÓN”

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la dificultad en controlar un proceso, que a su vez deriva de la proyección “la dificultad en controlar un proceso (emocional) se proyecta en la dificultad en guardar una sustancia en un recipiente a presión”.

La intensidad del ritmo cardiaco puede ser ocasionada por una reacción imprevista o por un susto, por ejemplo. Así muestra el uso hiperbólico “Tener el corazón en la boca”: Ing. To have one´s heart in one´s mouth Al. Das Herz bis zum Hals schlagen

Mientras que el español y el inglés proyectan el corazón en la boca (la expresión “Parecía que se me iba a salir el corazón por la boca” constituye otra muestra de ello), el alemán lo hace en la garganta. En español se dice incluso “Tener el corazón en un puño”, aunque el significado es algo diverso. En este caso indica un estado de angustia, aflicción o depresión.

A veces simplemente el hecho de latir tiene sentido figurado.

En un artículo titulado “Miento, luego existo”10, la autora narra una conversación que tuvo en Nueva York con un camarero “que habla tres palabras en mexicano y tres en inglés”, y nos cuenta: “El otro día me contó que su novia le había plantado. Y yo, en un arranque de solidaridad femenina inaudito en mí, le dije: algo habrás hecho. Y mi camarero simplón me dijo malicioso: “Nada, sólo le dije que su hermana me late”. Yo le reñí, le dije que es horrible que tu novio te diga que tu hermana le gusta, o que le late, que es supergráfico”.

El Oxford Spanish Dictionary (2001: 438) recoge tal acepción del verbo latir, propia del argot mexicano, con el significado de “parecer bien, gustar”, con ejemplos como: “Te llamo mañana ¿te late?”. “¿Te late ir al cine?”.

“Me late el vestido que te compraste”.

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También en Chile se usa este verbo con el significado de “intuir”, como en:

“Me late que no lo va a traer” (Oxford Spanish Dictionary, 2001: 438).

Por otro lado, el movimiento del corazón se asocia a la intensidad de la emoción, como en: “My heart was thumping with happiness: mi corazón latía (con fuerza) de felicidad”.

4. CONCLUSIONES

Nuestras reflexiones determinan el concepto de “Modelo Cognitivo Idealizado” del corazón como sede de los sentimientos, principalmente. Este modelo se compone de varias metáforas (y las submetáforas que derivan de ellas) y metonimias, que están muchas veces relacionadas, y conforma el modelo cognitivo popular del corazón como sede de los sentimientos.

Hemos observado que las conceptualizaciones del corazón son muy similares en las lenguas objeto de estudio. Así hemos visto que el corazón puede conceptualizarse de las siguientes maneras: Sede de los sentimientos, especialmente el amor.

como:

El corazón designa otras cualidades (aparte del amor) tales

Preocupación Sinceridad Pena o lástima Compasión Afecto o cariño Bondad o generosidad Deseo El corazón como objeto de valor El corazón como sede de la inteligencia El corazón como parte central El corazón como metonimia por la persona

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Por tanto, en relación con los distintos dominios meta a los que podemos aplicar el dominio fuente del corazón, podemos establecer las siguientes metáforas y metonimias en nuestro corpus: METÁFORAS:

EL CORAZÓN ES UN RECIPIENTE DE EMOCIONES

Ésta se divide en las siguientes submetáforas: EL CORAZÓN ES AMOR

EL CORAZÓN ES BONDAD O GENEROSIDAD EL CORAZÓN ES SINCERIDAD

EL CORAZÓN ES AFECTO O CARIÑO

EL CORAZÓN ES UN ORGANISMO VIVIENTE

Ésta se divide en las siguientes submetáforas: EL CORAZÓN ES PREOCUPACIÓN O INTERÉS EL CORAZÓN ES PENA O LÁSTIMA EL CORAZÓN ES COMPASIÓN EL CORAZÓN ES DESEO

EL CORAZÓN ES EL RECIPIENTE DE LA INTELIGENCIA EL CORAZÓN ES LA PARTE CENTRAL DE ALGO

EL CORAZÓN ES UN OBJETO DE VALOR SUSCEPTIBLE DE ROMPERSE

EL CORAZÓN ES VALOR O CORAJE

METONIMIA:

EL CORAZÓN REPRESENTA A LA PERSONA

Las diferencias pueden establecerse por una parte en base a los diferentes dominios meta a los que el dominio fuente “corazón” puede aplicarse. En este sentido, hemos visto que no existe equivalencia de la metáfora “EL CORAZÓN ES EL ESTÓMAGO”, en la que el dominio meta “estómago” se da sólo en francés hoy día.

Por otra parte, las diferencias pueden también establecerse respecto a las determinadas elaboraciones lingüísticas, es decir, existe la posibilidad de que la metáfora conceptual sea la misma pero ésta se elabore de forma diferente en los distintos códigos. Puede darse el caso de que haya coincidencias en varias lenguas, pero no en todas, bien porque no exista proyección metafórica, como en español “aprender de memoria” y en alemán “auswendig lernen”, frente al inglés “learn by heart”, en la que sí hay proyección metafórica; o la expresión Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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metafórica española “dedo corazón”, frente al inglés “Middlefinger” y al alemán “Mittelfinger”, donde no hay proyección metafórica; bien porque la proyección se dé con otra parte corporal: “tener el corazón en la boca”, que coincide con el inglés “To have one´s heart in one´s mouth”, frente al alemán “Das Herz bis zum Hals schlagen”, que lo proyecta en la “garganta”; o bien porque la expresión sea única en una determinada lengua. En lo que concierne a este último caso, hemos encontrado una serie de expresiones características de las lenguas analizadas que a continuación mostramos: Expresiones idiosincrásicas alemanas: Seinem Herzen Luft machen.

Ein Herz und eine Seele sein.

Seinem Herzen einen Stob geben.

Dem Zuge seines Herzens folgen.

Sein Herz in die Hand/ in beide Hände nehmen.

Jemandem ans Herz gewachsen sein.

Ein Kind unter dem Herzen tragen.

Das Herz auf der Zunge tragen.

Das Herz fiel/ rutschte ihm in die Hosen.

Expresiones idiosincrásicas inglesas: Change of heart.

Cross my heart.

In my heart of hearts.

I couldn´t find it in my heart (to forgive him, for instance).

To wear one´s heart on one´s sleeve.

His heart was in his boots.

To cry one´s heart out.

To pour one´s heart out.

At heart´s ease.

Nuestro estudio demuestra que, en la mayoría de los casos, existen paralelismos en las lenguas estudiadas. Las expresiones idiomáticas reflejan una forma particular de pensar, de comportarse y de conceptualizar la realidad y la experiencia. En las lenguas que nos ocupan en esta investigación, hemos señalado que existen curiosas coincidencias en los usos metafóricos. Por ello, cabe preguntarse por qué se da este fenómeno y por qué encontramos las mismas metáforas Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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en diferentes lenguas y culturas. Hemos comprobado que existe una motivación universal para su origen que puede atribuirse a una serie de estereotipos interlingüísticos universales relativos al cuerpo humano.

Las diferencias dependen de la idiosincrasia de cada país y de la propia lengua, lo que constituye la base de una idiomaticidad determinada.

Si la metáfora se fundamenta en la forma en que funcionan nuestro cuerpo y nuestra mente, y nosotros, como seres humanos, somos iguales a este respecto, entonces la mayoría de las metáforas que utilizamos deberían ser bastante similares, por tanto, universales, al menos a nivel conceptual. No obstante, hemos visto que esta figura recoge también aspectos culturales idiosincrásicos, lo que hace que debamos estudiarla teniendo en cuenta tanto el aspecto cognitivo como el cultural.

NOTAS

Sobre todo en lo referente a las primeras investigaciones sobre la metáfora conceptual de Lakoff y Johnson (1980) y a los estudios sobre over de Brugman (1988 [1981]), Brugman y Lakoff (1988) y Lakoff (1987). Para una crítica detallada véase Sandra (1998) y Sandra y Rice (1995).

2“ Devices that allow us to understand one domain of experience in terms of another” (Lakoff y Johnson, 1980:117).

3 El número de metáforas conceptuales usadas para la emoción “ALEGRÍA” también es muy amplio. En otras como el “ENFADO” parece que existe un equilibrio entre el número de metonimias y de metáforas empleadas. En cambio, en la categoría del “MIEDO” predominan las metonimias sobre las metáforas.

4 También encontramos las mismas connotaciones negativas asociadas al frío con otras partes del cuerpo, por ejemplo en inglés “To give someone the cold shoulder (treat someone with contempt or neglect): hacerle el vacío a alguien”.

5 Cf. Searle (1995: 324) sobre la metaforización emocional como calor y no emocional como frío, donde demuestra el origen cultural de estas metáforas.

6 Aquí nos hallaríamos ante una metonimia, en la que “heart” 1

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representaría a “lover”.

Incluso sentirse a gusto: “At heart´s ease”.

8 Los alemanes la traducen como “den Kopf oben halten” (“mantener la cabeza alta”). Covarrubias (1993[1611]), en el Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, señala que “hacer de tripas corazón” significa “mostrar uno mucho ánimo, siendo interiormente cobarde”. En el Diccionario de dichos y frases hechas (1997: 197), Buitrago sostiene que cuando el corazón está roto y no es capaz de superar una situación difícil, las tripas, o sea, otras vísceras, han de ocupar su lugar y cumplir su función. Según este autor, la expresión significa esforzarse por disimular el miedo, el cansancio o el sentimiento de tristeza para seguir actuando con normalidad. De manera similar, Candón y Bonnet (2000: 177) afirman que esta expresión equivale a esforzarse en disimular el miedo, la timidez o el sentimiento. Aparentar ánimo por fuera a pesar de que en el interior podamos estar muertos de miedo.

9 Así sucede en turco, que las ubica en el hígado y por eso nos resulta llamativa la expresión “Mi alma, mi hígado” (Robin Turner, comunicación personal (16 febrero de 2003)).

10 Lindo, E. El País, domingo 13 de marzo de 2005.

7

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ES TUDIO CONTRAS TIVO DE LAS ACLARACIONES EN LA COMUNICACIÓN CIENTÍFICA, EJEMPLIFICADA EN ARTÍCUL OS DE ECOLOGÍA EN CASTELLANO, INGLÉS Y ALEMÁN 1 Hildegard Resinger Universitat Pompeu Fabra hildegard.resinger@upf.edu In research articles, the authors and their readers share essentially the same baggage of technical and scientific knowledge. Therefore, definitions and explanations are generally limited to the introduction of new concepts or terms or to new definitions of a concept already existing. By doing so, the authors seek a more efficient communication, getting implied as well in the use of concepts and terms for their discipline. This article take its starting point from the defining or explanatory microcontexts registered in a trilingual corpus of original research articles in Spanish, English and German (135.000 words overall). It presents a proposal of classification of these comprehension aids by constellations and categories and analyses their characteristics and frequency of use in the corpus, especially from a cross-cultural point of view of scientific communication. The differences encountered are exposed and the implications for writing and translating such specialized texts are highlighted in the conclusions.

Keywords: research articles, comprehension aids, translation.

En los artículos científicos, las definiciones y explicaciones se limitan generalmente a la introducción de nuevos conceptos o términos, o cuando se da una nueva definición a un concepto ya existente. Con ello, los autores y autoras persiguen una comunicación más eficaz y se implican en el uso de conceptos y términos para su especialidad. El presente trabajo parte de los Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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microcontextos definitorios o explicativos que se han registrado en un corpus trilingüe de artículos científicos originales en castellano, inglés y alemán, con un total de 135.000 palabras, presentando una propuesta de clasificación por constelaciones y categorías. Sobre esta base se analizan sus características y frecuencia de uso, especialmente desde el punto de vista de la comunicación científica y la perspectiva de la interculturalidad, haciendo hincapié en las diferencias encontradas y las implicaciones para la redacción y traducción de estos textos especializados.

Palabras clave: artículos científicos, ayudas a la comprensión, traducción.

1. INTRODUCCIÓN

En el caso de los artículos de investigación como vehículo de comunicación académica, autoras como Pearson (1998: 36) y Gläser (1998: 484) asumen que las dos partes que intervienen en esta comunicación (autor/a y lector/a) comparten esencialmente el mismo bagaje de conocimientos técnicos y científicos, incluyendo la terminología correspondiente, por lo que las definiciones y explicaciones se limitan a aquellos casos en los que se introducen nuevos conceptos o términos, o cuando se da una nueva definición a un concepto ya existente.

En este contexto, Candel (2000: 54) remarca que las autoras y autores, en cuanto miembros de la comunidad científica, son conscientes del uso específico que hacen de ciertos elementos lingüísticos y de la necesidad de explicarlos o definirlos para hacerlos más accesibles a su público lector. Asimismo, Mortureux (1991: 71; citada en Candel, 2000: 54) apunta que, con ello, adoptan una actitud de implicación personal en el uso de conceptos y términos en su disciplina, a la vez que persiguen una comunicación más eficaz.

El presente trabajo trata de estas aclaraciones en los artículos científicos, enfocando el tema desde la perspectiva de la traducción

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de esos artículos. Para ello, se basa en el análisis de un corpus de textos originales en tres lenguas diferentes –castellano, inglés y alemán– con un tema común, que es la ecología acuática.

2. CORPUS DE ESTUDIO

El corpus que sirve de base para el presente artículo consta de treinta artículos científicos del campo de la ecología acuática, redactados a partes iguales (diez por lengua) por personas nativas en castellano, inglés –ambos en su modalidad europea– y alemán, y publicados en formato papel en Europa en los años noventa. Estos textos se seleccionaron sobre una base temática entre un total de 279 referencias pertinentes de 24 revistas especializadas disponibles en las universidades de Barcelona y Viena. Las treinta muestras que conforman el corpus se escanearon, se unificaron en cuanto a formato y contenido, eliminando aquellas partes que no corresponden al texto principal de cada artículo, como pueden ser los títulos traducidos, afiliaciones y direcciones, palabras clave, resúmenes y traducciones de los mismos, tablas y figuras y sus leyendas respectivas, fórmulas (que se sustituyeron por la marca "[form]"), agradecimientos, notas y otra información anexa, así como la bibliografía. A continuación, se les asignó un código alfanumérico.1 La investigación cualitativa de los contextos aclaratorios se realizó manualmente a lo largo de todo el corpus, antes de proceder a su agrupamiento y estudio cuantitativo.

3. LAS ACLARACIONES

Podemos dar por supuesto que una persona que escribe un artículo científico normalmente no piensa en las dificultades que su redacción pueda causar a quien lo traduzca, pero sí tiene en mente a sus colegas de la misma disciplina o de otras similares, cuando introduce elementos que, en sentido estricto, son redundantes, pero que facilitan o garantizan la correcta comprensión de lo escrito. Estas aclaraciones, que también podemos llamar definiciones en sentido amplio (Candel, 2000: 54) o ayudas a la comprensión (Resinger, 2006: 336ss), tienen las siguientes características en común:

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Pueden ser de naturaleza metatextual, metalingüística, y a menudo extralingüística. Se trata de aclaraciones sinonímicas, antonímicas, paradigmáticas, datos de tipo frecuencial, indicaciones sobre el grado de especialización, datos de tipo diastrático, sociolingüístico, sociocultural, o incluso fonético (Candel 2000: 55; la traducción es nuestra).

Un ejemplo extraído de uno de los textos del corpus nos lo ilustra: "Su comunidad de aves acuáticas no es tampoco muy rica en especies ni abundante en individuos (Ballarín, 1985) aunque cabe destacar la presencia de una pequeña población de tarro blanco [...]".

En este punto de la lectura o traducción, quizás nos aborde la pregunta de cómo debe de ser un tarro blanco. El contexto nos informa de que se trata de "aves acuáticas", pero en el Diccionario de la lengua española (Real Academia Española, 2001), la entrada tarro no incluye ninguna referencia a la avifauna. Donde sí se encuentra es en la segunda edición –no en la primera– del Diccionario de uso del español (Moliner, 2001).

También es irregular su presencia en los diccionarios bilingües. Ahora bien, salimos de dudas respecto a la traducción cuando, a continuación, leemos el nombre científico latinizado2 Tadorna tadorna en el texto que corresponde al ejemplo arriba citado "[...] una pequeña población de tarro blanco (Tadorna tadorna)". Con esta aclaración, y gracias al carácter universal de la nomenclatura biológica, no tardaremos en saber que se trata de un animal que en inglés llaman common shelduck y en alemán, Brandgans.

Con frecuencia, las aclaraciones van acompañadas de algún elemento que las identifica como tales. En nuestro ejemplo son paréntesis, pero también pueden ser expresiones como llamado, es decir u otras. Estos marcadores se pueden agrupar convenientemente en diferentes categorías o tipos (Tabla 1). Seguimos aquí la clasificación propuesta por Candel (2000: 56), aunque con algunas variaciones que se imponen debido a las diferencias entre los corpus estudiados (el corpus de Candel abarca libros de texto de los ámbitos de la Física, Química y Biología, mientras que el nuestro se ciñe a artículos científicos) y la finalidad de su estudio, que, en nuestro caso, no es lexicográfica sino comunicativa y traductológica.

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Tabla 1. Tipos de marcadores de aclaración identificados en el

Tipo de marcador marcadores -< léxicos

Ejemplo

marcadores explícitos

conocido como

marcadores de equivalencia

o

\... marcadores de ejemplificación signos gráficos

p. ej. ( )

sin marcador

En el microcontexto de la aclaración, estos marcadores preceden normalmente a la aclaración correspondiente (en el caso de los signos gráficos, también la pueden encerrar).

4. CONSTELACIONES DE CONTEXTOS ACLARATORIOS

Las aclaraciones se combinan con su referente (el término o hecho al que se refiere) y el marcador de aclaración en contextos aclaratorios. Estos, a su vez, se pueden agrupar en diversas categorías según las características de los elementos que los componen (Tabla 2).

Para sistematizar estas categorías de contextos aclaratorios con sus rasgos característicos, les he asignado un número y/o una letra como código identificador. En las categorías 1, 2 y 3, la aclaración y su referente pueden estar secuenciados de tal forma que el grado de especificidad entre los elementos consecutivos aumenta, disminuye o bien se mantiene igual, mientras que para la categoría 4 (ejemplos en la misma lengua del texto) esperamos razonablemente una disminución del grado de especificidad.

Tabla 2. Categorización según los elementos constituyentes de los contextos aclaratorios

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Código de Características categoría

Ejemplo

ambos elementos en la lengua del texto

1

2

pequeñas borrascas locales de tipo convectivo más conocidas como tormentas de verano

elemento en otra lengua:

«bloom» o crecimiento explosivo

(E)

inglés

(L)

latín

crustáceos decápodos (Brachyura)

(X)

otra lengua extranjera

rough track (piste)

3

siglas o acrónimos implicados

materia orgánica disuelta (DOM)

4

ejemplo en la lengua del texto

a more fragmented substratum (e.g. cobbles, pebbles, gravel and sand. .. )

Según la orientación del gradiente de especificidad –subiendo, bajando o horizontal–, podemos distinguir tres configuraciones o constelaciones en las que se situarían los contextos aclaratorios. Estas son: a) la generalización, por ejemplo en "región preorbital (morro)", se da cuando el término más específico va en primer lugar, seguido de otro más general, b) la especificación, como en "materia orgánica transportada o del seston", describe la situación en la que el término más general precede al más específico, b) la sinonimia, como, por ejemplo, en "diversidad específica [...] máxima o teórica", existe cuando no se aprecia ningún gradiente entre ambos elementos.

De esta manera, damos cabida a las diferentes posibilidades combinatorias de las aclaraciones y sus referentes, tal como muestra la Tabla 3 de un modo descriptivo (LT = lengua del texto).

Tabla 3. Codificación de las constelaciones de contextos aclaratorios (pág siguiente)

De una forma más gráfica, la Figura 1 nos muestra las categorías 1-4 y su agrupamiento en las constelaciones a, b y c. Obsérvese que las cuatro categorías participan en las constelaciones a (generalización) y b (especificación), mientras que en la constelación c (sinonimia) solamente participan las categorías 1 y 2, produciendo sinonimias Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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Constelación

201

Código

Contexto aclaratorio

Generalización

a Generalización monolingüe (LT)

al

Traducción directa, inglés-LT

a 2 (E)

Traducción directa, latin-LT

a 2 (L)

Traducción directa, otra lengua-LT

a 2 (X)

Explicación de siglas/acrónimos

a3

Ejemplificación

a4

Especificación

b Especificación monolingüe (LT)

b 1

Traducción inversa, LT-inglés

b 2 (E)

Traducción inversa, LT-Iatin

b 2 (L)

Traducción inversa, LT-otra lengua

b 2 (X)

Introducción de siglas/acrónimos

b3

Ejemplos

b4

Sinonimia

c Sinonimia monolingüe (LT) Variaciones denominativas en lengua

c l extral~era

c2

monolingües en la misma lengua del texto y variaciones denominativas en lengua extranjera, respectivamente.

Figura 1. Las constelaciones de los contextos aclaratorios

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5. RESULTADOS EMPÍRICOS

Para saber con qué frecuencia aparecen las aclaraciones en los artículos del corpus trilingüe, he tomado mil caracteres sin espacio como unidad de referencia, neutralizando, de esta manera, la diferente longitud media de las palabras en las tres lenguas y la mayor extensión media de los artículos en inglés. Así, en un texto medio de 20.000 caracteres, que corresponden a unas 3.000 palabras en alemán, y entre 3.700 y 3.800 en castellano e inglés, podemos esperar unas 6 aclaraciones en castellano, 7 en inglés, y 10 en alemán. A continuación, analizaremos esas aclaraciones tanto de acuerdo con los tipos de marcadores (véase la Tabla 1) como en su distribución en las constelaciones arriba mencionadas. En la práctica totalidad de los casos, el contexto aclaratorio no sobrepasa los limites de una sola frase (contada desde el inicio hasta el punto final), por lo que podemos decir que aquí se trata de definiciones simples en el sentido de la clasificación de Trimble (1985; citado en Pearson, 1998: 98).

5.1. Los marcadores de aclaración

La manera más fácil de percibir la presencia de una aclaración es la existencia de algún elemento marcador, pero también encontraremos aclaraciones sin marcador alguno (véase también Candel, 2001: 56).

Tabla 4. Marcadores presentes en los textos del corpus

Marcadores léxicos

Castellano

Inglés

Alemán

27%

7%

16%

M. explícitos M. de equivalencia M. de ejemplificación

8%

0%

18%

6%

2% 9%

0%

1%

4%

Signos gráficos

69%

81%

83%

Sin marcador

4%

12%

1%

La Tabla 4 muestra la relevancia de los diferentes tipos de marcadores en el corpus de textos analizado: En los artículos en Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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castellano encontramos que un 27% de los marcadores son léxicos, especialmente marcadores de equivalencia (en primer lugar, o, que se ha registrado diez veces), muy por encima del 7% en inglés (sobre todo i.e., cuatro veces) y el 16% en alemán (especialmente, also, das heißt, d.h., con un total de once registros). Los artículos en inglés tienen la particularidad de prescindir del marcador más a menudo que los otros, en un 12% de los casos. No obstante, en los tres grupos de textos predominan claramente los signos gráficos (sobre todo los paréntesis), con un 69, un 81 y un 83%, respectivamente.

5.2. L as constelaciones de los contextos aclaratorios

La Figura 2 presenta un cuadro desglosado por la lengua de los textos del corpus y las constelaciones y categorías de los contextos aclaratorios, el cual nos permite observar que, en cuanto al castellano, el recurso más utilizado en nuestro corpus de estudio es la generalización monolingüe (a 1) con 2,4 apariciones por texto medio, frente a 1,7 en alemán y solo 0,8 en inglés. Por el contrario, el inglés y el alemán destacan en la categoría de traducción al latín (b 2 (L)), con 3 y 2,7 apariciones, respectivamente, por texto medio. Donde el alemán alcanza su máximo es en la especificación monolingüe (b 1), con un valor de 3 apariciones por texto medio de 20.000 caracteres.

Figura 2. Distribución de las aclaraciones por texto medio

al a2 a2 a2 a3 a4 bl b2 b2 b2 b3 b4 el e2 (E) (L) (X)

(E) (L) (X)

rn Castellano Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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En su conjunto, las constelaciones a, b y c también reflejan estas diferencias: en castellano, los valores medios correspondientes a las constelaciones a y b son muy similares (2,5 y 2,9, respectivamente), a diferencia de lo que sucede en las otras dos lenguas, en las que predomina claramente la constelación b con valores de 5,7 apariciones por texto medio para el inglés y 7,3, para el alemán. En los textos en castellano es donde se usan más expresiones sinónimas, aunque dentro de unos valores generalmente muy reducidos.

6. CONCLUSIONES Y RECOMENDACIONES TRADUCCIÓN

PARA LA

A partir de los resultados del análisis de nuestro corpus de estudio, podemos concluir:

• En su gran mayoría, la información aclaratoria se marca solamente con signos gráficos, especialmente mediante paréntesis.

• En inglés, los marcadores léxicos escasean aún más que en alemán y castellano.

• En alemán, las aclaraciones son más frecuentes que en inglés y castellano, especialmente las especificaciones monolingües.

• En castellano, se prescinde muy a menudo del nombre común de los organismos, indicando solamente su nombre científico.

De los resultados del análisis también podemos derivar algunas recomendaciones para la traducción de los artículos científicos, tanto para la traducción directa como la inversa: • Si traducimos del alemán o inglés al castellano, no hace falta traducir los nombres comunes de los organismos biológicos (muchas veces ni los hay).

• Si la traducción se hace del castellano al inglés, habría que incluir los nombres comunes existentes, y omitir los marcadores léxicos donde sea posible.

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• Y en caso de traducir del castellano al alemán, también se deberían incluir los nombres comunes usados en esta lengua, así como aumentar la frecuencia de la especificación usando simultáneamente las expresiones existentes con diferente nivel de especialización.

NOTAS 1

2

Las fuentes, los principios de selección y los procedimientos se encuentran descritos exhaustivamente en Resinger (2006: 134161).

A efectos del análisis de las aclaraciones, agrupo los nombres científicos de los organismos bajo la etiqueta lingüística de latín.

OBRAS CITADAS

Candel, Danielle 2000. "La définition chez les scientifiques".

Terminologies nouvelles. 21:52-57.

Gläser, Rosemarie 1998. "Fachtextsorten der Wissenschaftssprachen I: der wissenschaftliche Zeitschriftenaufsatz" en Hoffmann, L., Kalverkämper, H., Wiegand, H.E., eds. Fachsprachen: ein internationales Handbuch zur Fachsprachenforschung und Terminologiewissenschaft. Languages for Special Purposes: An International Handbook of Special-Language and Terminology Research.

Berlin y New York: Walter de Gruyter. 482-488.

Laca, Brenda 2001. "Las reformulaciones" en Vázquez, G., ed. Guía didáctica del discurso académico escrito. ¿Cómo se escribe una monografía? Madrid: Edinumen. 149-163.

Moliner, María 2001. Diccionario de uso del español. 2.ª ed., versión 2.0 Madrid: Gredos. (CD) Mortureux, Marie-Françoise 1991. "Néologie lexicale et énonciation personnelle dans le discours scientifique". Linx. (ed. especial).

71-83.

Pearson, Jennifer 1998. Terms in Context. Amsterdam y Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Real Academia Española (2001). Diccionario de la lengua española. 22.ª ed.

Madrid: Espasa Calpe. <http://www.rae.es>.

Resinger, Hildegard 2006. Lengua, ecología e interculturalidad: el papel de la Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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persona entre las convenciones y la concienciación. Bellaterra, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (tesis doctoral). <http://www.tesisenxarxa.net/TESIS_UAB/AVAILABLE/TDX -1213107-113112//hr1de1.pdf>.

Rigo, Antònia y Genescà, Gabriel 2000. Tesis i treballs. Aspectes formals.

Vic: Eumo.

Trimble, Louis 1985. English for Science end Technology: A Discourse Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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HISTORIA Y TRADICIÓN EN LA ENSEÑANZA Y APRENDIZAJE DE LENGUAS EXTRANJERAS EN EUROPA (VI): EDAD MODERNA – LA REFORMA HUMANÍSTICA DE L A LENGUA LATINA Y DE SU ENSEÑANZA1 Mª José Corvo Sánchez Universidad de Vigo mcorvo@uvigo.es The fifteenth century is the starting point of a period of change and of the discovery of, among others, new geographical, social, ideological, and cultural worlds.

It is the beginning of the Early Modern Period for Western Europe, and of a period full of novelties of the utmost importance for the history of foreign language teaching, essentially as a consequence of the loss of the linguistic–educational monopoly sustained hitherto by the Latin language Within the field of foreign language teaching the first great innovation is to be found in the rejection and the shifting away from medieval Latin and a concern about the classical knowledge and the elegant Latin language of the Golden Age. The second innovation is a general change in attitude towards languages, both the classical ones and the new modern national languages, which leads to a reformation in the educational system and to a significative change in the teaching of these languages within this system.

The current article deals with the Latin language learning process, which, more specifically, leads us to the following two aspects: on the one hand, humanistic Latin and grammar, on the other, the books and textbooks used in Latin classes.

Keywords: teaching and learning, foreign languages, history and tradition, Early Modern Period.

A partir del siglo XV se abre una etapa de cambios y de descubrimientos de nuevos mundos, geográficos,

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sociales, ideológicos, culturales, etc., en la que se inaugura la Edad Moderna para el Occidente europeo y con ella un periodo cargado de novedades importantísimas para la Historia de la Didáctica de Lenguas Extranjeras, a raíz fundamentalmente de la ruptura del monopolio lingüístico-educacional sustentado por el latín hasta este momento.

El interés por el saber clásico y por la elegante lengua latina de la época dorada romana encuentra en el rechazo y abandono del latín medieval por parte de los estudiosos del Renacimiento la primera gran innovación de este periodo en el ámbito de la enseñanza de lenguas extranjeras; la segunda la constituye el cambio generalizado de actitud hacia las lenguas, tanto las clásicas, como las nuevas lenguas nacionales modernas, que conduce a una reforma en el sistema educativo y a una modificación significativa de su enseñanza dentro de él.

En este artículo nos ocuparemos del proceso de aprendizaje de la lengua latina, lo que de modo concreto nos llevará a tratar las dos cuestiones siguientes: el latín humanista y la gramática, por un lado, y los libros y textos escolares empleados en las clases de latín, por otro.

Palabras clave: enseñanza y aprendizaje, lenguas extranjeras, historia y tradición, Edad Moderna.

1. INTRODUCCIÓN: LAS LENGUAS Y SU CONTEXTO

La ruptura del monopolio lingüístico-educacional sustentado por el latín hasta el inicio de este periodo, de acuerdo con Cipolla, “se halla estrechamente ligado a la difusión de la instrucción entre grandes masas de población” (1970: 54), algo a su vez sólo posible gracias a una serie de circunstancias que favorecen la unificación cultural y lingüística, independientemente y por separado, en cada una de las partes del Occidente europeo, determinando con ello el reconocimiento oficial de sus respectivas lenguas como lenguas de cultura.1 Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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Cabe mencionar en primer lugar la invención de la imprenta, llevada a cabo por el orfebre Johannes Gensfleisch Gutenberg hacia 1440 en la ciudad renana de Maguncia. La consecuencia más inmediata fue la posibilidad de difusión rápida y masiva de las obras y el acceso de un mayor número de personas a ellas, una situación impensable en la época medieval, cuando los copistas —nombre con el que se conocía en la Edad Media al escriba— componían su códices paciente y manualmente en pergamino en los scriptoria de los monasterios y de las catedrales, procediendo de memoria o al dictado y, por ello, con un gran número de errores generalmente. El destino de éstos, además, se limitaba principalmente a ocupar un lugar en la biblioteca, donde se conservaban, sirviendo sólo a un reducido grupo de miembros dentro de la comunidad religiosa.

Otras circunstancias relevantes fueron la consolidación de los gobiernos seculares, el fortalecimiento de los gobiernos centrales de los estados, los nacionalismos, el sentimiento patriótico, la defensa de la autonomía de las literaturas nacionales respecto al latín – primeramente en Italia, con Bembo y su Prose della volgare lingua de 1525– y la aceptación de la Biblia en vernácula.2 Así, es en las zonas de mayor auge económico, como Italia, el nordeste de Francia y los Países Bajos3, donde de manera particular comienza a despuntar un mayor interés cultural y se dan mayores avances en la educación, que son continuados de manera general en el siglo XVI en todas las demás zonas del espacio cultural de los humanistas y de los hombres del Renacimiento.

Éstos se consideran los herederos de los siglos precedentes y se erigen como los representantes de una cultura común extendida por todo el Occidente europeo a través de la lengua latina. A los humanistas, por su parte, les mueve la búsqueda de la pureza de la lengua latina y su interés por todas las lenguas clásicas: de hecho, más adelante el despertar del saber clásico vuelve también su atención sobre el mundo helénico y el humanismo se hace helenófilo (cf. Robins 1987: 113) para acceder al conocimiento de la parte del mundo antiguo menos conocida en el Occidente europeo a través de la lengua griega.

Esta actitud hace de ellos que se sientan los continuadores de la obra de la civilización antigua y su interés por ella les lleva al acceso de la obra original de los autores griegos y latinos a través de su lectura Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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directa y dejando a un lado las traducciones y las interpretaciones oficiales de los teólogos escolásticos.4 En este nuevo espacio cultural, en primer lugar, aparecen nuevas ocupaciones –artilleros, navegantes, ejércitos permanentes y mercenarios, mercaderes, etc.5– que requieren una formación distinta, que implique la reorganización del uso y de la enseñanza de lenguas.

Y, en segundo lugar, se produce la recuperación del control educacional por parte de la Iglesia en las dos zonas en las que Europa se hallaba dividida: la protestante y la católica, resultando de todo ello que nos sea lícito hablar de una unidad en las enseñanzas en todo el territorio o, lo que es lo mismo, de una enseñanza común en el territorio occidental en manos, como en la Edad Media, de los maestros privados entre las clases poderosas, por un lado, y de las escuelas —religiosas y estatales— y universidades, por otro, a las que a finales del siglo XVI se unieron los nuevos centros de formación para los jóvenes de la nobleza.6 En el ámbito de la enseñanza de lenguas extranjeras, la defensa del latín clásico y el cambio de actitud general hacia las lenguas son las dos grandes innovaciones que se dan en este periodo. La primera de ellas supone el rechazo y abandono del latín medieval por parte de los estudiosos del Renacimiento; la segunda, que engloba tanto a las lenguas clásicas, como a las nuevas lenguas nacionales modernas, conduce a una reforma en el sistema educativo y a una modificación significativa de su enseñanza dentro de él.

En cuanto a las lenguas clásicas, junto al latín y al griego, también el hebreo cobra interés: “El carácter de lengua bíblica le confirió un lugar relevante, como lengua merecedora de especial atención, junto al latín y al griego. San Isidoro, en el siglo VII y muchos otros la veneraron como lengua divina, y por tanto, como la primera que se habló sobre la Tierra. Pero con el relajamiento de los vínculos clericales durante el Renacimiento, el hebreo fue objeto de estudio más amplio y más profundo. El griego, el latín y el hebreo eran las tres lenguas de las que se jactaba el homo trilinguis del Renacimiento.”

(Robins 1987: 102) Las modernas, si bien en una primera fase de este periodo siguen siendo las lenguas de uso cotidiano y se mantienen relegadas a un segundo plano, más adelante y coincidiendo con la renovación de los

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estudios de latín, también son tomadas en consideración como lenguas dignas de un estudio serio y de una descripción sistemática: dentro del aula, en manos de los latinistas, se convierten en herramientas indispensables; fuera de ellas, además, su dominio es marca social de distinción y educación, pues son las nuevas lenguas nacionales, las que comienzan a ocupar parcelas cuyas funciones hasta ahora sólo se desempeñaban en latín.

En las páginas siguientes de este artículo que, tal como quiere expresar su título, forma parte de una serie de trabajos aparecidos en números precedentes de esta revista, nos ocuparemos del proceso de aprendizaje del latín, la lengua sobre la que se sustenta el sistema educativo en el Occidente europeo, lo que justifica la relevancia de su estudio como parte esencial de una instrucción, que si bien no está sistematizada, está fuertemente mediatizada por la Iglesia, pues continua insertada en la tradición anterior y en una estructura medieval de los estudios.

Para su aprendizaje, como pasamos a explicar a continuación, la instrucción y la metodología medievales resultan ya inapropiadas y el estudio de la gramática, glorificada dentro de las siete artes liberales como instrumento de análisis del conocimiento aportado por los autores clásicos, se convierte en este momento en un fin en sí mismo, en el que el interés por la retórica en detrimento de la dialéctica y las nuevas formas de la gramática humanista, basada en el latín clásico y escrita bajo la idea humanista de la restauratio linguae Latinae, juegan un papel determinante.7

2. LA REFORMA HUMANÍSTICA DE LA LENGUA LATINA Y DE SU ENSEÑANZA

La pretensión del hombre culto del Renacimiento es hablar latín como Cicerón y Terencio, principalmente, y la mejor forma para conseguirlo, como hicieran los romanos para aprender el griego, es estudiando su propia lengua y creando un entorno apropiado para ello, en el que el estudio de la gramática debe enseñar el manejo del latín, identificado con la lengua de los autores antiguos y el uso clásico, que es el que dicta la norma.

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Su aprendizaje como lengua extranjera se desarrolla sobre la reforma de su enseñanza en las escuelas –en la variopinta serie de instituciones intermedias donde eran impartidos los niveles de educación primaria y secundaria y la formación superior, entre colegios religiosos y Escuelas de Latinidad y Gramática municipales, por lo general–, donde el objetivo principal de los maestros eclesiásticos y laicos es convertir al latín en la primera lengua estándar de comunicación, para lo que se requiere su “reavivación” (Watson 1968: 5) tanto en el ámbito hablado como escrito.

La primera gran innovación metodológica la constituye la inclusión de la lengua vernácula en las clases de latín para la comprensión de su gramática, originando que el proceso de formación se desarrolle dentro de los marcos de una enseñanza bilingüe latínvernácula, donde, además, ante la pérdida del monopolio latino, su aprendizaje como lengua de los autores clásicos corre paralelo en muchos casos desde la enseñanza primaria al de las otras lenguas clásicas: el griego, la lengua de los grandes maestros, y el hebreo, la lengua bíblica.

Como consecuencia de esta enseñanza bilingüe, no sólo asistimos a la evolución de los libros de gramática, sino también a la aparición de otros libros y textos escolares de nuevo cuño que pasan a sustituir a las gramáticas medievales y que conoceremos en las siguientes páginas a través de una selección del material lingüísticodidáctico más representativo confeccionado para enseñar y aprender latín.

2.1. EL LATÍN HUMANISTA Y LA GRAMÁTICA

El latín humanista, “esencialmente, un desarrollo de las formas y las aplicaciones del latín medieval” (Jensen 1998: 93), surge entre los altos cargos de la administración civil y eclesiástica de la Italia del siglo XIV y principios del siglo XV, quienes recurren a él como lengua internacional para el desempeño, por correspondencia o mediante emisarios, de las funciones diplomáticas y las negociaciones con los demás países.

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Las raíces de la gramática humanista se encuentran, pues, en el Renacimiento Italiano y dentro de una tradición heredada del periodo anterior: “Renaissance linguistic theory had its origins in a tradition of lexicographic and grammatical writing which emerged in northern Italy and Provence in about the eleventh century and developed to some degree independently of the familiar northern tradition represented by the modistic treatises and the verse grammars (the Doctrinale of Alexandre de Villedieu and the Graecismus of Evrard de Béthune).

The peculiarity of this southern tradition was that it was oriented towards rhetoric rather than dialectic, rhetoric in this instance being not the art of forensic eloquence but the technique of written composition, or the ars dictandi, as it was called in those days.”

(Percivall 1975: 233)

Respondiendo a una tradición enmarcada en las necesidades de la sociedad italiana, como decimos, la obra Elegantiae linguae Latinae libri sex de Lorenzo Valla8 (en torno a 1444) es aceptada como la primera del gran número de gramáticas concebidas retóricamente con la que se inaugura la nueva evolución seguida por el latín humanístico y la renovada tradición gramatical representada por la gramática humanista, que contempla los preceptos antiguos sobre la base de las variaciones y la corrección del uso.

Cabe recordar que con anterioridad al año 1418 Guarino Veronese había compuesto ya sus Regulae gramaticales, una gramática latina para estudiantes con conocimientos básicos de la lengua —la declinación de los nombres y la conjugación de los verbos— continuadora de las enseñanzas de fines del Medievo, pero con un marcado carácter humanístico que la convierte en el primer tratado gramatical humanístico y en el “prototipo sobre el que se basó la gramática humanista latina” (Percivall 1975: 238, Padley 1985: 3).

Guarino enseñaba gramática y retórica en una escuela pública de Verona y a él y a sus discípulos se les atribuye el haber difundido “la esencia de la educación humanista por los países de Europa.” (BrevaClaramonte 1994: 28) Valla, por su parte, propugna el establecimiento del latín humanístico como lengua internacional (cf. Jensen 1998: 95) y su influencia en el latín escrito se evidencia primero en Italia en el siglo

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XV y continúa extendiéndose por el resto de los países fundamentalmente durante el siglo siguiente, contándose a Erasmo, Nebrija y Vives9 entre los principales impulsores de la renovación pedagógica por toda Europa, encaminada a la consecución de un dominio de la lengua latina comparable al alcanzado en Italia.

La obra de Valla es un manual a medio camino entre la gramática y la retórica que aúna el doble objetivo de aprender el latín clásico y posclásico y la riqueza de sus posibilidades comunicativas. Se halla estructurado en seis libros, en los que respectivamente se ocupa de los siguientes aspectos: morfemas, desinencias y sufijos, en el área de los nombres y de los verbos; otras partes del discurso; variaciones e implicaciones semánticas en los diferentes comportamientos sintácticos y gramaticales de los grupos de palabras; distinción de sinónimos nominales y verbales —libros IV y V—; y revisión crítica de juicios equivocados y repetidos en la tradición gramatical.10 Entre los primeros gramáticos seguidores de sus enseñanzas y restauradores de la unidad de la instrucción latina más conocidos en Italia figuran Niccolò Perotti, con su obra Rudimenta grammatices de 1468 —“the first complete Latin grammar in the new humanistic style […] consists of three parts: an elementary morphology, a syntax in the style of Guarino’s Regulae, and a treatise on epistolary composition” (Percivall 1975: 238)— y Giovanni Sulpicio Verulano, con su Grammatica (c. 1470). Como ellos, otros muchos coinciden en creer que el latín puro solo puede encontrarse en las obras de los autores clásicos y que éste, válido para la literatura, es el más adecuado también para la gramática.11

La introducción de los textos de los autores clásicos en el aula y en los libros de texto permite constatar y rechazar el conocimiento limitado e imperfecto que de la lengua latina poseyeron los maestros medievales, formados a través más de fuentes orales que escritas, debido a la ausencia de libros de texto estándares impresos y a la metodología seguida por éstos en sus gramáticas para su enseñanza.

La actitud antiescolástica y los ataques de los maestros humanistas al sistema medieval de la descripción de su gramática, sustentada sobre unas bases “filosóficamente ostentosas, indeseables desde un punto de vista educativo, y por estar encubiertas en una

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bárbara degeneración del latín” (Robins 1987: 114), conducen a la sustitución de las gramáticas didácticas medievales por las nuevas gramáticas humanistas, originando como primera y más inmediata consecuencia la reconstrucción renacentista de los estudios del latín y su reformulación dentro del currículo escolar, dentro del cual se desecha el dominio ejercido por la dialéctica sobre la gramática y la retórica en el último tramo del periodo anterior en las universidades, de tal modo que la lógica dialéctica medieval se reduce teóricamente a la dialéctica y vuelve a contemplarse como el arte de razonar bien o ars bene disserere; la retórica, relegada a un segundo plano y casi inexistente dentro de la jerarquía interna de las artes del trivium medieval, recupera igualmente su dominio como arte de hablar bien o ars bene dicendi con la pedagogía humanística; y la gramática, que se había convertido en una ciencia especulativa, recupera su lugar preferente y su propósito original: el arte de hablar correctamente o ars bene loquendi, volviéndose a contemplar el curso de gramática como estudio de primer orden e importancia.12 Su enfoque, primordialmente lingüístico, es muy práctico, pues su finalidad es la de aprender el latín, la lengua clásica. Y el estudio de la literatura romana deja de ser un fin en sí mismo relegado a los más grandes intelectuales y se pone a su servicio, ya que en las principales obras de sus autores se conservan todos los recursos y expresiones lingüísticas que garantizan el discurso correcto.

Fuera de Italia, entre los principales humanistas, en primer lugar, debemos recordar a Antonio de Nebrija con su obra Introductiones latinae, impresa en 1481, y su labor reformadora en el sistema universitario del Estado español, dentro de la corriente de renovación gramatical y filológica introducida por él en España a su vuelta de Italia.

La naturaleza innovadora de esta obra radica en que en ella Nebrija rompe con la tradición anterior fijada por Quintiliano, al no incluir la parte histórica y al centrarse en la parte metódica de la morfología y de la sintaxis, reflejando los nuevos cánones pedagógicos renacentistas defensores de la sencillez y de la brevedad.

Disfrutó de un enorme éxito y de una gran acogida tanto en España, donde fue reimpresa en diversas ocasiones en los años

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siguientes, como internacionalmente13. La tercera edición de Salamanca de 1495 es conocida como Recognitio y constituye su redacción definitiva; sólo de ella son innumerables las reimpresiones y ediciones, tanto extensas como abreviadas, que se hicieron. (cf. Esparza 1995: 58-59)

Interesa también recordar en este contexto la aportación de Erasmo de Rotterdam en relación con su preocupación por la enseñanza de lenguas, recogida en su obra De rations Studii de 1511 y que resume así: “La lengua exige el primer puesto en el curriculum y debe incluir desde el principio tanto el latín como el griego […] aunque el conocimiento de las reglas de morfología y sintaxis es necesario al estudiante, las reglas deben ser pocas, sencillas y claras. Me impaciento con la estupidez de profesores mediocres que malgastan unos años preciosos martilleando las cabezas de los niños con reglas. Pues no es aprendiendo reglas como adquirimos la capacidad de hablar una lengua, sino mediante la intercomunicación diaria con aquellos que la hablan adecuadamente.” (apud Sánchez 1995: 490)

Junto a Nebrija, otra figura que debemos destacar en España es la de Pedro Simón Abril. Como consecuencia lógica de su profesión docente14, su preocupación por la gramática —que incluye en el tratamiento de la gramática histórica— y por su enseñanza se halla representada en su extensa producción, la cual, de acuerdo con BrevaClaramonte (cf. 1994: 149), se puede dividir en cinco apartados: obras gramaticales, traducciones de otras obras, cartillas para aprender a leer y escribir, notas sobre la reforma de la enseñanza y, finalmente, libros de carácter filosófico y traducciones de Aristóteles.

Desde el punto de vista de la didáctica de lenguas, Abril ocupa un lugar destacado en la metodología bilingüe y trilingüe. En su primera gramática, Latini idiomatis docendi, ac discendi methodus de 1561, presenta glosas castellanas de los tiempos verbales —su segunda edición, con el título Methodus Latinae linguae decendae atque ediscendae, contiene el texto latino y castellano en páginas contrapuestas—; en su trabajo de 1583, titulado Los dos libros de la gramática latina escritos en lengua castellana, las reglas de morfología y sintaxis latinas son explicadas íntegramente en castellano, para que: “[…] sirva de libro de lectura en las escuelas, para que cuando los niños comiencen a estudiar latín se Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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encuentren medio instruidos en los preceptos” (apud BrevaClaramonte 1994: 131); y su obra La gramática griega escrita en lengua castellana, publicada en 1586, está concebida como una gramática trilingüe para que los estudiantes aprendan al mismo tiempo el griego y el latín ayudados por la lengua castellana: “Esta obra es un introducción a la morfología y sintaxis griega comparada con la latina.

Abril contrasta estructuras que se dicen de maneras parecidas o distintas en esas dos lenguas, con traducciones en castellano” (BrevaClaramonte 1994: 131) y de tal forma que las explicaciones son presentadas en castellano y los ejemplos en griego y latín.

Junto a los autores españoles citados, la labor humanista en la Península Ibérica en la vertiente didáctica se halla también representada por la gramática latina del jesuita portugués Manoel Alvares o Immnauel Alvarus, publicada por João de Barreira por primera vez en 1572.

Es una gramática descriptiva tradicional que cubre todo el campo gramatical tal como es entendido en esta época: rudimenta, morfología, sintáxis y métrica (cf. Percivall 1975: 242) y que acaba convirtiéndose en el único manual empleado para la enseñanza del latín en todos los colegios de la orden durante las siguientes dos centurias y tanto en Europa como en otras partes del mundo. (cf.

Tavoni 1998: 14)

En Alemania es en torno a 1570 cuando realmente podemos decir que comienza un nuevo periodo en el ámbito escolar de la gramática. Ising (cf. 1970: 89) habla de Späthumanismus en Alemania y de una sistematización de los niveles de enseñanza llevada a cabo sobre una metodología basada en la aplicación práctica de reglas y definiciones y la inclusión del alemán o Hochdeutsch en las clases de latín para la comprensión de su gramática.

Esta innovación metodológica, consistente en la inclusión de la lengua vernácula en el sistema educativo, originaría la aceptación de la lengua vernácula en la escuela en el siglo XVII y la aparición, como una nueva tendencia muy extendida, de los manuales bilingües latino-alemanes derivados de la gramática de Donato, entre cuyos autores destacan Georg Rollenhagen, con su Deutscher Donat- Aelii

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Donati declinandi coniugandique paradigmata latino-germanica, pro schola Magdeburgensi de 1586 y Johannes Rhenius, con sus nuevos cursos de latín: Donatus latino-gemanicus, aparecido en Leipzig en 1611 para los principiantes —“Hier geht es ihm also nicht mehr nur um das Wortverständnis, dem alle früheren Verdeutschungen des Donat dienten, sondern die deutsche Grammatik steht erklärend und vermittelnd neben der lateinischen” (Ising 1970: 107)—; Compendium latinae y la Grammatica latina, del mismo año que el anterior, para los alumnos de los niveles intermedio y superior respectivamente; su Nomenclator grammaticus de 1612, para el aprendizaje del vocabulario latino; su glosario de la gramática latina de Donato Vocabula latino-germanica de 1615; y, finalmente y de éste mismo año, su trabajo metodológico-lingüístico más importante, su Tirocinium linguae latinae.

Si bien todos los cursos de latín de Rhenius disfrutaron de una muy buena acogida, su primer tirocinio o método, su Donatus latinogermanicus es, sin duda, el más conocido en toda Alemania, siendo reimpreso en numerosísimos lugares y ocasiones y permaneciendo como libro escolar en el Condado de Mansfeld y en algunas ciudades de Prusia hasta 1730, como nos informa Ising, quien de su difusión por otras partes del este y del sur de Alemania afirma: “Unter anderen Aspekten vollzig sich die Überlieferungsgeschichte dieses Schulbuches in Ost- und Südosteuropa. Während in Preußen bereits in der Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts Ausgaben des Donats mit deutscher und polnischer Glossierung entstanden, erschienen im Königreich Ungarn (Ungarn, Slowakei, Slowenien) mit Beginn des 18.

Jahrhunderts Übersetzungen in die Nationalsprachen, die teilweise bis ins 19. Jahrhundert vielbenutzte Schulbücher blieben. Ähnlich wie in Preußen entstanden auch in diesen Ländern mehrsprachige Drucke.

Diese Ausgaben stellen einen Entwicklungszweig der Donattradition dar, die sich bereits im Zeichen der sprachlichen Toleranz der Humanismus herausgebildet hatte: den Typus der polyglotten Grammatik.“ (1970: 109) Con anterioridad a todos ellos, entre los primeros gramáticos humanistas en Alemania figuran los siguientes autores: Bernard Perger, rector de la Universidad de Viena y autor de Grammatica Nova, una adaptación de la obra de Perotti publicada entre los años 1479 y 1482;

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Alexander Hegius, quien en 1486 publicó su obra Invectiva contra modos significandi; Jacob Wimpfeling, con su Isidoneus germanicus de 1497; Heinrich Bebel, autor de Commentaria epistolarum conficiendarum de 1503; Jacob Heinrichmann, con sus Grammaticae institutiones de 1506; Johannes Brassicanus y sus Institutiones grammaticae de 1508; Johannes Turmair, autor de Grammatica omnium utilissima de 1512 y de Rudimenta grammaticae de 1517; y Philipp Melanchthon, con su Grammatica latina –dividida en Ortographia y Etymologia, publicadas en 1525, y en Syntaxis y Prosodia, aparecidas un año después–, que se convertiría en el manual de trabajo de gramática en todo el territorio protestante.15

En Los Países Bajos, Jan de Spouter —o Joannes Despauterius— escribe varias gramáticas latinas a principios del siglo XVI con el claro objetivo, expreso en nota preliminar a su Grammaticae institutiones pars prima (1512), de “restaurar la unidad en la educación.” (apud Dibbets 1992: 41)

Con el título Commentarii grammatici es publicada su obra en 1537 por su compatriota Robert Estienne —quien ya en 1530 también había publicado una adaptación de ésta realizada por Jean Pellisson titulada Contextus universae grammaticae Despauterianae— y a partir de 1550 su Latina grammatica es incluida en el catálogo estándar de libros de la Universidad de Lovaina.16

De este modo, la obra de Spouter comienza a experimentar una aceptación que se mantiene durante siglos. Debemos mencionar al respecto su enorme influencia en la obra de Lancelot Nouvelle Méthode pour apprendre facilement, et en peu de temps la langue latine […], editada por primera vez en 1644, y en la de Simon Verepaeus o Verr(e)pt (1522-1598), titulada Grammatices Despauterianae epitomes novae y llevada a la imprenta por Plantin en Amberes en torno a 1577 y que se convirtió en el manual clásico de gramática latina en el sur de los Países Bajos durante tres largos siglos, apareciendo su última edición escolar en 1864. (cf. Dibbets 1992: 41) En el norte y principalmente en Holanda, los libros que disfrutan de mayor aceptación, puesto que se convirtieron en los libros de gramática de la universidad de Leyden, son la Grammaticarum institutionum libri IV de Cornelius Valerius (1512-1578) y la Grammatica

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Latina de Ludolfus Lithocomus, publicada por primera vez en Düsseldorf y reeditada en Leyden por Plantin —impresor oficial de la universidad de esta ciudad— en 1584.

En Inglaterra destacan John Colet; John Anwykyll, con Compendium totius grammaticae de 1483; Wynkyn de Worde, con su obra Introductorium linguae latinae de 1495; Thomas Linacre, autor de De emendata structura latini sermonis, publicada en Londres en 1524; y William Lily con su Absolutissimus de octo orationis partium constructione libellus. Ésta última, publicada en 1513, acabó convirtiéndose en la gramática de uso obligado en las escuelas de gramática por orden real.

Y como tal, incluyendo dicha proclamación real, se publicaría posteriormente a partir de 1542 con el siguiente título: An Introduction of the eyght partes of speche, and the Construction of the same, compiled and sette forthe by the commaundement of our most gracious soverayne lorde the king, constando además de un alfabeto latín-inglés y de las principales oraciones de la Iglesia. (cf. Watson 1968: 252)

En realidad y a pesar de que siguió siendo conocida como la gramática latina de Lily, se trata más bien de un trabajo de compilación: “A combination of a syntax by Lili in Latin and a morphology by Colet in English, which started to spread in the late 1520s, in 1540 became the official Latin grammar of the Kingdom of England, and remained so for more than two centuries.” (Tavoni 1998: 10)17 2.2. LIBROS Y TEXTOS ESCOLARES EN LAS CLASES DE LATÍN

Siguiendo con el modelo formativo religioso medieval, consistente en unir la alfabetización y la catequesis, los maestros emprenden la tarea de enseñar a leer y a pronunciar latín a los niños en las escuelas valiéndose de las cartillas-catecismo, “el primer libro escolar por excelencia en Occidente hasta el siglo XIX o incluso fechas posteriores” (Viñao 1999: 64). Contienen por lo general un abecedario elemental, un silabario, las oraciones más básicas, tales como el persignarse, el Padre Nuestro, el Ave María, el Credo, los Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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mandamientos, los sacramentos, y demás artículos de fe, pecados y virtudes teologales y cardinales y una tabla de multiplicar; en conjunto, se trata del primer libro de lectura que se ponía en las manos del niño con un doble propósito, lingüístico y religioso —pues persigue el objetivo de enseñar los rudimentos de la doctrina cristiana, que incluye el orden para ayudar en la Misa, en latín y la instrucción elemental de la lengua—, para iniciarse en el latín y en otras gramáticas, la griega o la hebrea.18

En el aprendizaje de la lectura, que solía durar de uno a dos años y precedía al de la escritura, se perseguía mejorar la fonética del latín y para ello, además de la consulta de los tratados de ortografía —en los que se distorsionaba la ortografía para utilizarla como símbolo de pronunciación—, se empleaba una metodología basada fundamentalmente en la práctica oral, asegurada a través del canto y la recitación de los artículos de fe, previamente memorizados y de la lectura en voz alta.19

El estudio de la gramática se iniciaba tras el aprendizaje de la lectura y la escritura en latín y vernácula y se impartía en una edad comprendida entre los ocho y los doce años del alumno, siendo completado en los dos últimos años por la lectura de unos cuantos textos de Cicerón, Virgilio y Horacio principalmente, y por el aprendizaje de la retórica.

Lo primero que debían aprender los alumnos era la declinación, la conjugación y el vocabulario básico de las palabras latinas. En esta clase elemental, de manera general, se empleaba medio año para aprender los accidentes y otro medio año para aprender las reglas de los géneros y los tiempos verbales en latín y vernácula y para ello resultaba imprescindible el apoyo del libro de texto y la dirección del maestro, quien primero leía y llevaba a cabo la expositio o explicación del texto latino en lengua vernácula y después hacía participar a los alumnos para que respondieran a las diferentes preguntas formuladas por él sobre cada elemento.

En cuanto al modo de estudio, se defendía el aprendizaje de las reglas en verso y se recurría constantemente a la repetitio, a la ejemplificación y memorización de modelos correctos y a la comprobación de la comprensión y del conocimiento adquirido antes Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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de continuar a través del método de pregunta y respuesta, debiendo contestar el alumno, por lo general, en la misma lengua en la que le fuera formulada la pregunta.

El librito de morfología empleado es básicamente una adaptación del Ars minor de Donato20 con algunos elementos de las Institutiones de Prisciano. Convertido en libro de lectura y en modelo de metodología gramatical, como aplicación práctica de la gramática, desempeña un importante papel de intermediario entre la lengua extraña y la vernácula y a partir de él comienzan a aparecer las primeras gramáticas latinas impresas en los diferentes estados, que con el tiempo acaban siendo concebidas como versiones bilingües latínvernácula para los primeros pasos, pues en ellas ya no sólo se recurre a la vernácula a modo de glosas didácticas de la gramática latina, sino que también se usan para explicar los fundamentos de la gramática y el vocabulario más común y para ejemplificar las reglas de concordancia y construcción.

En España, por ejemplo, ya en 1485 Andrés Gutiérrez de Cerezono no solo incluyó glosas en su Grammatica Brevis, sino también un breve capítulo redactado en castellano (cf. Niederehe 1993: 276).

En 1488 Nebrija publicó la versión bilingüe latín-castellana de sus Introductiones latinae persiguiendo un doble fin: “[…] por una parte, para superar la situación de incomprensión por la cual todos los libros en que estan escriptas las artes dignas de todo ombre libre yazen en tinieblas sepultados. Y, por otra, para algun remedio de tanta falta que aquellas Introduciones dela lengua latina, que yo auia publicadoi se leyan ya por todos vuestros reynos, porque aun que por aquellas puedan mucho aprouechar a los que tuuieren buenos preceptores; esta igual mente se offrece a los que saben i a los que quieren saber, a los que enseñan i deprenden, a los que han oluidado lo que en algun tiempo supieron i a los que de nueuo quieren deprender: i a todos essos no con mucha conuersación de maestros.” (apud Esparza 1995: 92). Y en 1573 Pedro Simón Abril redactó su De lingua latina en dos columnas: la izquierda en español y la derecha en latín.

Como consecuencia de esta tendencia enmarcada dentro de la concepción renacentista de valorar el conocimiento de la lengua vernácula antes de entrar en el estudio del latín, el paso siguiente con que nos encontramos en la evolución de estas gramáticas latinas son las Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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versiones vernáculas monolingües y las ediciones conteniendo la latina junto a otras lenguas.

En relación con las primeras, debemos distinguir entre las originales redactadas por un autor nacional –en España, por ejemplo, en 1533 Bernabé del Busto redacta sus Introductiones grammaticas: breues & conpendiosas: Compuestas por el doctor Busto. Maestro de los pajes de su Majestad […] totalmente en castellano; en 1583 Pedro Simón Abril publica los dos libros de su Gramática latina en romance21 y Juan Sánchez en 1586 publica igualmente en Sevilla sus Principios de la gramática latina– y las traducciones de otras anteriores redactadas por un autor extranjero. En este segundo caso hablamos de gramáticas latinas que disfrutaron de circulación internacional, como le sucedió a la de Nebrija en Inglaterra, por ejemplo, y de la que ya hemos tenido ocasión de hablar más arriba.

Y en cuanto a las ediciones que contenían la latina junto a otras lenguas, debemos saber que este recurso se filtraría explícitamente en muchas gramáticas de las lenguas vulgares, como en la anónima Vtil y breve Institution para aprender los principios y fundamentos de la lengua española, aparecida en Lovaina en 1555, en la que la redacción trilingüe en castellano, francés y latín permitía que sirviera a un tiempo para las tres lenguas (cf. Taboada 1984: 56). Y así lo encontramos casi un siglo después de la mano de figuras tan ilustres como, por ejemplo, el catedrático de hebreo, caldeo y griego de la Universidad de Salamanca Gonzalo Correas, quien recoge esta misma finalidad tanto en su Arte dela lengua española castellana de 1625, como en su Arte Kastellana, publicada en su Trilingve de las tres lengvas Castellana, Latina, i Griega, todas en Romanze de 1627. En esta última nos dice: “[…] para que los niños en sus escuelas despues de la cartilla aprendan a leer y escriuir por ella, y no por coplas fabulosas, conoziendo de camino sin tanto afan, que cosa es Gramatica: y para que pasen despues a la del Latin mas advertidos.” (apud Sánchez 1992: 85) Con estas nuevas gramáticas se perpetúa la noción medieval de la instrucción gramatical, según la cual la gramática es un estudio separado de la lectura de los autores y en cierto modo independiente: “Con la vuelta a una concepción quintiliana de la gramática, la

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corriente que fue secundaria en la Edad Media se impone de nuevo y se hace primaria relegando la gramática general a un segundo plano.”

(Niederehe 1993: 289)

Aunque no pretendemos ser exhaustivos, no obstante, debemos mencionar dos gramáticas que, a nuestro modo de ver, resultan altamente ilustrativas del quehacer didáctico-gramatical de este periodo; nos referimos a la Ianua linguarum, publicada en Salamanca en 1611 y redactada por el irlandés William Bathe (1564-1614) y su grupo de colaboradores —todos ellos jesuitas irlandeses— y a la Nouvelle methode pour apprendre facilement et en peu de temps la langue latine, contenant les règles de genres, des declinaisons, des préterits, de la syntaxe, de la quantité & des accents Latins de Claude Lancelot, gramático muy reconocido de Port-Royal, que vio la luz en París en 1644.

La primera, según lo anuncia su autor en el prólogo, es un manual dirigido a un público muy amplio de receptores —“famuli nobilium, variis negotiis implicati […] qui necessitatis aut honestae recreationis causa linguas vulgares addiscer cupiunt” (apud SarmientoNiederehe 1992: 184) — que, cada vez más en el siglo XVII, demandarían libros similares para aprender las lenguas en las diferentes cortes de Europa. No debemos olvidar que desde la Edad Media es frecuente que sobre todo los hijos de las familias acomodadas estudien en las grandes universidades europeas, desplazándose con frecuencia de un país a otro y de una universidad a otra. Salamanca, por ejemplo, era la universidad preferida por los irlandeses, por el hecho de hallarse en país católico.

Como explica Sánchez (1992: 132), Bathe propone como metodología una “vía media” que aúna el método “regular”, basado “en el análisis de la gramática, en el aprendizaje y la memorización del vocabulario y en la construcción de oraciones mediante la aplicación de las reglas gramaticales explicitadas” y el “irregular”, “seguido por quienes aprenden una lengua leyendo y hablando, prescindiendo del aprendizaje de la gramática y de sus reglas” para aprender cualquier lengua y, de acuerdo con ello, elabora su Ianua en torno a 1.200 frases latinas con sus correspondientes traducciones en español, agrupadas en torno a los siguientes doce temas o centurias:

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1- De las virtudes y los vicios en común.

2- De la prudencia y la imprudencia.

3- De la templanza y la destemplanza.

4- De la justicia y la injusticia.

5- De la fortaleza y la flaqueza.

6- De las acciones humanas.

7- De cosas que se hacen con ímpetu y sosiego.

8- De vivientes y no vivientes.

9- De cosas pertenecientes a artificio.

10 y 11- De cosas indiferentes.

12- Siguesse un discurso compuesto de las palabras dexadas despues de las sentencias, en el qual ni aun una palabra se repite dos vezes, ni ay algun vocablo, que en las mil y cien sentencias precedentes se pueda encontrar.

(Sánchez 1995: 497)

Dichas centurias se hallan seguidas de un apéndice de palabras equívocas y de todos los vocablos empleados, los cuales, a su vez, remiten numéricamente a la frase en la que aparece.

Fue éste un libro que experimentó una enorme aceptación en el ámbito internacional, pues fue plagiado y traducido a casi todas las lenguas europeas y de él se conoce más de una treintena de ediciones diferentes a lo largo del siglo XVII. Algunas de ellas son las siguientes: la de William Welde de 1615, en latín e inglés; la del francés Jean Barbier, publicada en Londres en 1617 en latín, español, inglés y francés; la del portugués Amaro de Roboredo de 1623, en latín y portugués; la de I. Habrecht, publicada en Estrasburgo en 1629 en seis lenguas: latín, alemán, francés, italiano, español e inglés; las versiones que sobre esta obra hizo G. Sciopio en sus Mercuris Bilinguis de 1629 y su Mercuris Quadrilinguis de 1637, presentándola en esta última en latín, hebreo, griego e italiano; o la obra de Comenio, uno de los didactas y profesores de lenguas más innovadores —con su Orbis sensualium Pictus inicia en 1658 el método gráfico visual en la enseñanza de idiomas, asociando los significados de las palabras con los dibujos— e importantes de todo el siglo, publicada en 1631 con el título Ianua linguarum reserata aurea y a partir de la cual la mención del Ianua es asociada directamente a él, dejando a Bathe muy olvidado.22

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Lancelot, por su parte, aboga en su obra por el conocimiento previo de la gramática, cuyas reglas debe memorizar el niño en la lengua francesa. Por ello las redacta en francés en su gramática, en la que recurre a la forma rimada en su exposición. De igual modo, estudiará el vocabulario. Y a ambas tareas debe ligarse posteriormente la familiarización con la construcción de la oración. De esta manera, sólo necesitará hacer uso de lo memorizado tanto para poder interpretar lo que le sea comunicado, como para poder comunicar lo que sea necesario.

Se trató de una obra muy difundida y su ‘nuevo método’ llegaría a ser muy conocido23, pues Lancelot lo aplicaría también a otras lenguas: griego, francés, italiano y español, asegurando, igualmente, un aprendizaje fácil y rápido.

En el prólogo a su Nouvelle Méthode para enseñar griego expresa los fundamentos de su metodología del siguiente modo: “Son tres los hechos que contribuyen al conocimiento de la lengua: la primera es un adecuado conocimiento de la gramática; la segunda el aprendizaje de las palabras. Y la tercera, estar familiarizado con la construcción de la oración; sin estos requisitos es imposible lograr un buen dominio de cualquier lengua.” (apud Sánchez 1992: 111)

Al finalizar los estudios de gramática el paso siguiente para el estudiante era iniciar los estudios de la facultad de Artes y Filosofía24, para después, con una edad entre quince y diecisiete años, continuar su formación en las facultades superiores de Derecho, Medicina o Teología. De manera general podemos creer que estos estudios de gramática constituían una fase de preparación de cuatro años: la superación del tercer año suponía la concesión de grado de Bachiller, la del último año de Licenciado y un examen final posibilitaba el acceso al Magisterio de Artes y Filosofía. No ahondamos más en estas etapas preuniversitaria y universitaria, pues nuestro interés no debe alejarse del estudio de la lengua.

Volviendo a la progresión del estudio gramatical, dependiendo de los centros, a continuación se explicaba la prosodia y la métrica y se comenzaba también con los primeros elementos del griego. El objetivo general de la gramática era conseguir hablar y escribir latín al finalizar

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este periodo de formación elemental, indispensable tanto como paso previo a la universidad, donde el latín es la lengua de la lectura y del examen y el medio de comunicación en el ámbito universitario internacional25, como a modo de entrenamiento básico para todos los caballeros, comerciantes y demás viajeros que necesitaran desplazarse a otros países y comunicarse con los extranjeros.

Por esta razón, para conseguir la producción del discurso oral, se hace necesario introducir otros métodos orales. Lo cual, junto a las gramáticas, encuentra su expresión en la producción de un material eminentemente práctico: los vocabularios y diccionarios y los libros de frases y diálogos.

El primer colloquia del Renacimiento es el Manuale Scholarium; fue compuesto entre los años 1476 y 1481 y contiene diálogos entre los estudiantes universitarios de Heidelberg (cf. Watson 1968: 327)26. Son muchas las colecciones de diálogos que empiezan a publicarse para enseñar latín y entre sus autores no debemos dejar de mencionar la aportación hecha a este género por los dos grandes eruditos del Renacimiento y defensores de la promoción del aprendizaje de las lenguas clásicas más conocidos internacionalmente: Erasmo, con sus Colloquia puerilia, publicados en 1518, y Luis Vives con su libro de diálogos Exercitatio linguae latinae, del que desconocemos la fecha exacta de su publicación, si bien sabemos que fue el libro más traducido y editado a lo largo de los siglos XVI y XVII.

La obra de Vives, gran pedagogo español formado en París, en los Países Bajos y en Inglaterra, llegó a convertirse en un manual clásico y de él se conocen más de cien ediciones impresas prácticamente en todo el territorio europeo occidental: Francia, Suiza, Alemania, Italia y España27. Recoge temas que tratan tanto de la vida diaria del escolar, tales como levantarse y saludar por la mañana, vestirse, ir a la escuela, lo que sucede en el camino a la escuela, la lectura, la escritura, la vuelta a casa o el juego entre niños, como cuestiones relacionadas con la vida en general: la casa, el cuerpo humano, preceptos educativos, etc. (cf.

Watson 1968: 331-5; Sánchez 1997: 54) El uso del coloquio, que contaba con Cicerón, Terencio y Plauto

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entre sus mejores representantes clásicos, constituyó el método escolar más generalizado durante los siglos XVI y XVII para ejercitar la práctica oral del latín y debe subrayarse su enorme valor como documento que nos informa de manera real y fiel de una gran variedad de cuestiones de aquel tiempo: escenas de la vida de los escolares, costumbres, ropa, comportamiento correcto, métodos escolares, etc.

Como en épocas anteriores, los vocabularios bilingües siguen siendo necesarios para el aprendizaje de las palabras latinas y en muchas ocasiones se generaliza su publicación acompañando a los diálogos. Entre los vocabularios más tempranos impresos figura el Vocabula de Winkyn de Worde, publicado en Londres en 1507, que Watson describe del siguiente modo: “The words given in the early part of the vocabulary are those which describe the various parts of a man’s body and their functions, and his senses. Then follow a number of verbs and descriptive adjectives. The English is given in black letter and the Latin in Roman type. Then follow words connected with corngrowing, winnowing, husbandry, dairying, animals, birds, the table and things connected with it, a mill and its equipment, money-coining, goldsmith, smith, iron-smith, plumber, and paver, carpentry and its equipment, tailor and supplementary workers, fishing, trees and fruits, together with things connected, herbs, ‘the appendices of ships‘, spectators of war, musical instruments.” (1968: 385) Muy importante es el paso dado a partir de ellos al formato diccionario, que encuentra en el latino de Ambrosio Calepino o Ambrosius Calepino a su más importante representante28, pues se convertiría en el más conocido internacionalmente en el Renacimiento y en el modelo que siguieron muchos otros diccionarios plurilingües hasta bien entrado el siglo XVIII, siendo la obra que experimentó mayor número de ampliaciones, en ediciones que llegaron a incluir de cuatro a once lenguas: “Insgesamt erfuhr der Calepinus neben den zahlreichen Ausgaben in Lat. (teilweise mit Altgr. und Ital.) 1 viersprachige, 24 fünfsprachige, 5 sechssprachige, 42 siebensprachige, 21 achtsprachige, 7 neunsprachige, 5 zehnsprachige und 9 elfsprachige Ausgaben bzw. Auflagen.” (Haensch 1991: 2911) La primera edición del Calepino, como acabó siendo conocido este diccionario, según el nombre de su autor, vio la luz en Reggio

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Emilia en 1502 como diccionario latino, ordenado alfabéticamente según la raíz del término y en el que las explicaciones latinas sólo ocasionalmente aparecen acompañadas por equivalencias en griego antiguo.

Al igual que sucedió con él, muchos vocabularios y diccionarios que siguieron publicándose en cada país europeo, combinando generalmente el latín y la lengua respectiva, aparecieron mejorados en ediciones posteriores e incluyendo un mayor número de combinaciones de lenguas, tanto clásicas como modernas, como veremos más adelante.

Si bien los comienzos de esta labor lexicográfica los encontramos en los glosarios y vocabularios latín-vernácula, con el tiempo la combinación contraria se hizo complementaria a la anterior: confeccionados y utilizados por los maestros de latinidad para la explicación de los textos latinos, están basados en los latinos y aúnan en su conjunto la herencia de la actividad lexicográfica medieval y la corriente humanista.

Dentro de todos ellos, los compendios de vocabulario más antiguos son, además, los primeros testimonios lexicográficos en las lenguas europeas y los modelos de los primeros diccionarios monolingües de las lenguas modernas de Europa29. Conozcamos brevemente más de cerca algunos de ellos a través de la siguiente tabla, que nos permitirá recogerlos de modo esquemático según los diferentes países: (Página siguiente)

Tabla: Primeros testimonios lexicográficos de las lenguas modernas

No nos detenemos más en este tema y para concluir nuestro repaso al conjunto formado por el material léxico destinado a la

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Obra España Glosario de Toledo Glosario de Palacio Glosario del Escorial Universal Vocabulario en latin y romance eollegido por el cronista Alfonso de Palencia El Lexieon hoe est Dietionarium ex sermone latino in hispaniensem o Diccionario latino español y el Dietionarium ex hispaniensi in latinum sermonen o Vocabulario español latino de Antonio de Nebrija Italia Codiee B.56 de la Biblioteca Comunal de Perugia y Codiee Magliabeehiano 1. 72 de

la Biblioteca Nacional de Florencia

Il Dittionario di Ambrogio Calepino dalla lingua Latina nella volgare brevemente ridotto de Lucio Minerbi Francia Thesaurus linguae latinae (1531) y Dietionaire Franeoislatin (1539) de Robert Estienne Alemania

Aparecido en Sevilla en 1490. Distribuido en dos colunmas, en la izquierda a modo de diccionario latino monlingüe y en la derecha como vocabulario latin-español. (e! Alvar 1991: 8) Aparecidos en Salamanca a partir de 1492. De ellos se hicieron muchisimas ediciones en los diferentes paises de Europa y se convirtieron en el fundamento y modelo de gran parte de los vocabularios plurilingües aparecidos después en Europa. (e!

Viñaza 1893: 732) Ambos de los primeros decenios del siglo xv. El primero es un vocabulario latin-vulgar carente de orden, en el que en algunos casos se recogen las correspondencias en las dos lenguas y en otros junto a la entrada se presenta su defmición; el segundo, que es además el primer vocabulario en toscano, en cambio, es un vocabulario metódicamente organizado por temas. (e! Gallina 1959: 11) Publicado en Venecia en 1553 y conocido como el primer diccionario italiano-latino (e! Lope 1990: 116). Constituye un trabajo comparable al Vocabulario de Nebrija en España.

Confeccionados con la intención de corregir el latin de los diccionarios medievales; con ellos su autor ofrece a los estudiantes franceses un material apropiado para escribir bien o, lo que es lo mismo, escribir latin clásico. (e! Kibbee 1986: 137) Editado por primera vez en 1467.

Voeabularius ex quo Voeabularius qui intitulatur Teuthonista vulgariter dieendo der Duytsehlender, de Gerard van der Schueren, Vocabularius Rusticanus terminorum, Vocabularius incipiens teuthonicum ante latinum, Voeabularius in quo y Voeabularius primo ponens dietiones theutonieas Inglaterra Hortus voeabulorum de 1500 y Bibliotheea Eliotae de Sir Thomas Elyot de 1538.

Promptorium parvulorum

Observaciones Copias de otros más antiguos que no han llegado a ser conocidos; los dos primeros de fmales del siglo XIV y el tercero del siglo Xv.

Aparecidos, respectivamente, en Colonia en 1477, en Núremberg en 1482, en Spira en tomo a 1483, en MÜllster aproximadamente en 1509 y en Estrasburgo en 1515.

Son los primeros y más antiguos vocabularios conocidos que parten de la lengua alemana. (e! Claes 1977: X)

Son las primeras versiones latino-inglesas conocidas; el primero consiste en una colección de glosas temáticas. (e! Landau 1991: 38) El más conocido presentando la combinación de lenguas ingléslatino Fue escrito por Galfridus en 1440 e impreso en 1499, caracterizándose por ser uno de los primeros libros impresos en Inglaterra.

enseñanza del latín, pasamos a hablar ahora de otros tipos de compendios lexicográficos de naturaleza fraseológica, concebidos también como material escolar para la práctica de la traducción directa e inversa y para el ejercicio de la composición escrita en latín: los vulgaria o colecciones de frases de temática diversa –gramaticales, literarias, morales, políticas, etc.– de los autores más reconocidos.

Los libros de frases son el resultado de la práctica humanística de utilizar el cuaderno de notas a la hora de leer a los autores, lo que, a juzgar por el número de impresiones conocidas, encuentra una clara preferencia por las Epistolae de Cicerón y las comedias de Terencio para Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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la ejercitación oral del latín y la declamación: sus frases fueron especialmente valoradas y, por ello, recopiladas en colecciones a modo de catálogos de frases, expresiones y modos de decir de los autores. Si bien en una fase preparatoria anterior éstas servían para ejercitar la lectura –al igual que los coloquios bilingües, confeccionados para aprender las frases más familiares, y las versiones latinas y vernáculas de los distintos tipos de libros empleados, como el Testamento, los soliloquios de San Agustín, las fábulas de Esopo, etc.–, más adelante se utilizaron junto a nuevos textos y nuevos ejemplos para la práctica oral de las explicaciones gramaticales y de los conocimientos adquiridos.

Eran memorizadas y posteriormente empleadas también en las clases de composición, concepto muy ligado al de traducción en el nivel intermedio en la tradición gramatical, pues, una vez adquiridos los conocimientos básicos de sintaxis y de vocabulario, en estas clases se ejercitaba la redacción latina con pequeñas oraciones que se vertían de la lengua vulgar a la latina, traduciéndose éstas a continuación, a su vez, nuevamente a la vulgar.30 La imitación de la elegancia fraseológica de los modelos clásicos llevó a Erasmo a componer sus Adagia con ochocientos proverbios en griego y en latín en su primera edición de París de 1500 y cuatro mil quinientos once en su siguiente aparición en Venecia en 1508, así como su tratado sobre estilo en la composición basado en las reglas de los más reconocidos retóricos clásicos, como Aristóteles, Hermógenes o Quintiliano, publicado por primera vez en 1511 como de duplici copia verborum et rerum y más conocido como de Copia.

Por último, y en relación con estos compendios fraseológicos, debemos hablar de otro tipo de manuales escolares inspirados principalmente en las cartas de Cicerón: los elaborados para enseñar el arte de escribir cartas a estudiantes principiantes, avanzados o intermedios, entre los que destacamos para ejemplificar este epígrafe el De conscribendis epistolis libellus vere aureus de Luis Vives, publicado en Basilea y en Wittenberg a un mismo tiempo en 1536.

De su influencia en el ámbito europeo nos informa BrevaClaramonte del siguiente modo: “La portada señala que es un compendio de la obra de Erasmo que llevaba el mismo título. Este tratado se publicó junto con dos Methodi o preceptivas literario-

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epistolares de Conrado Celtes (1459-1508) y Cristóbal Hegendorff (1500-1540), respectivamente. A la edición de Colonia de 1537, se le añade Compendiosae instituitiones artis oratoriae o pequeña arte oratoria de Adriano Barlando (1487-1539). Estas publicaciones conjuntas son una muestra más del uso escolar que se hacía del manual de Vives. Esta idea queda reforzada si observamos que esta obra (Wittenberg, 1536) también aparece encuadernada con el De duplici copia verborum ac rerum de Erasmo de 1535. En la edición de Basilea (1541) se añade el Exercitatio linguae Latinae del propio Vives, mientras que la de Colonia (1548) va encuadernada con el De conscribendis epistolis (1554) de Erasmo.” (1994: 24) 3. CONCLUSIONES

Hemos partido en nuestra exposición explicando cómo la ruptura del monopolio lingüístico educacional sustentado por el latín hasta los primeros años de este periodo se traduce en una modificación radical de la enseñanza de las lenguas clásicas, dentro de la cual el estudio de la gramática se convierte en un fin en sí mismo para el que la instrucción y la metodología medievales resultan ya inapropiadas y en el que el interés por la retórica en detrimento de la dialéctica y las nuevas formas de la gramática humanista juegan una papel determinante.

A continuación nos hemos centrado en conocer las más importantes y conocidas gramáticas humanistas, lo que nos ha permitido obtener una visión de conjunto en el plano internacional del surgimiento de estas nuevas gramáticas en Europa y conocer cómo muchas de ellas gozaron de proyección internacional, convirtiéndose en manuales básicos en las aulas occidentales.

Todas estas obras, citadas si bien de forma escueta, por un lado testimonian la gran resonancia que tuvo la obra humanista originada en Italia en todo el territorio europeo occidental; por otro lado además, contempladas desde la actualidad, constituyen un testimonio importantísimo del desarrollo del proceso de enseñanza de la lengua latina por parte de los maestros en las escuelas a partir del siglo XV.

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No todas ellas, sin embargo, disfrutaron de una misma aceptación como gramáticas escolares. De manera concluyente, es destacable la gran acogida internacional que tuvo la obra de Nebrija, la de Despauterius en Francia y Bélgica, la de Melanchthon en toda la zona protestante alemana, la de Lily en Inglaterra y en los Países Bajos y la de Manoel Alvares en todas las provincias con colegios de la orden de los jesuitas.

De forma concreta hemos prestado atención al modo de estudio seguido en las clases de latín, así como a otros diferentes libros y textos escolares empleados en las mismas, en las que se combinaba el estudio de la gramática con el de otros elementos lingüísticos de naturaleza léxica y fraseológica y para lo que resultaba esencial el conocimiento y manejo de las lenguas vernáculas.

El proceso de la enseñanza de la lengua latina en las aulas, en definitiva, refleja la realidad dominante fuera de ellas: la pérdida del estatus social de la lengua latina, anunciada ya desde finales de la Edad Media ante la influencia creciente ejercida por las lenguas nacionales en el camino hacia su consideración oficial como las nuevas lenguas modernas de Europea, termina haciendo de ella una lengua cada vez menos hablada. Y, por ello, la metodología empleada en el mismo en este gran periodo de la Historia de la Didáctica de Lenguas Extranjeras solo es explicable desde la perspectiva de la necesidad de su enseñanza y aprendizaje como una lengua hablada.

NOTAS 1

Resulta de máximo interés conocer cómo se llevó a cabo este desarrollo, así como los diferentes factores que, de modo particular, lo generaron en las diferentes partes de Europa. No nos extendemos en este punto para no alejarnos del tema que nos ocupa; no obstante, conviene recordar que entre los posibles antecedentes cuenta la labor desarrollada ya en el siglo XIII por Alfonso X El Sabio en España, otorgando por primera vez un estatus ‘distinguido’ a una lengua vulgar europea solo sustentado hasta entonces por la lengua latina. En Italia había ocurrido algo similar con los poetas del dolce stil nuovo y las obras

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de Dante, Petrarca y Boccaccio, llegándose aún más lejos, pues con ellos el florentino no sólo se convirtió en una lengua distinguida y apta para la poesía, sino que también se erigió como modelo impulsor de la questione della lingua y, por consiguiente, de la legitimidad lingüística que debían perseguir los demás países europeos.

2 La Vulgata, el primer libro impreso en Maguncia entre 1454-1455, fue reconocida en el Concilio de Trento como el texto oficial de la Iglesia Católica; el impulso de los estudios humanísticos condujo al conocimiento de los libros sagrados y en el siglo XVI se editan distintas versiones políglotas: la primera, aprobada en 1520 por el Papa León X, es la conocida como Complutense de la Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, con textos en hebreo, latín y griego y le sigueron la de Amberes en 1571, en cinco lenguas e impulsada por Felipe II, y las de París y Londres ya en el siglo XVII. Alemania constituye un caso especialmente particular este contexto, por ser un territorio fragmentado políticamente en el que el alemán, y no el latín, se convirtió en la lengua de la Iglesia Protestante, en cuyos dominios y principalmente a través de la instrucción religiosa y de la lectura diaria de la Biblia – traducida por Lutero adoptando la variante sajona– se llegó a una cierta unidad social.

3 Erasmo llegó a decir en 1525: “Cualquiera puede encontrar aquí un gran número de personas con una educación de nivel medio” y parece ser que la mayor parte de los habitantes de esta zona poseían ya “los rudimentos de la gramática” y que hasta los campesinos sabían leer y escribir. (apud Cipolla 1970: 52) 4 Este interés indudablemente se vió favorecido con la caída de Constantinopla en 1453, hecho que provocó que la capital del Imperio de Oriente pasara a manos de los turcos, originando la huída hacia Italia de un buen número de sabios griegos y, con ello, la llegada de manuscritos de textos clásicos a Occidente.

5 El descubrimiento de América y el paso a la India a través del Cabo de Buena Esperanza promovieron el auge de la burguesía y el impulso del comercio tanto en el interior como en el exterior del continente europeo, llegándose también después a China y a otras colonias más alejadas.

6 Como las Ritterakademien en Alemania. Entre las asignaturas específicas impartidas en estas academias se encontraban las Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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siguientes: Diplomacia, Historia, Geografía, Heráldica, Genealogía, Derecho privado y estatal, Servicio militar – Militaria–, Francés y la clase de baile, equitación, esgrima y tiro. (cf. Müller 1974: 52) 7 Queda fuera de nuestro estudio profundizar en la relevancia del estudio de las otras lenguas clásicas o en sus gramáticas, de proyección desigual y menor que la latina y, en su conjunto, concebidas atendiendo a una misma metodología. Nos basta con saber que su enseñanza, paralela a la latina, sigue el modelo instaurado por ella.

8 Sobre el autor y su obra resulta interesante conocer la siguiente caracterización resumida: “[…] un hombre que estuvo vinculado al poder político –Alfonso el Magnánimo–, eclesial – Nicolas V–, que fue historiador, traductor, autor en suma de una densa obra. Baste decir que convencido de la fuerza de la lengua latina como vehículo de expresión científica, instrumento de renovación cultural y lenguaje-objeto en el que pueden analizarse los fenómenos más complejos de la estructura racional del hombre, dedica varios textos a la recuperación de la latinidad, bajo el modelo de Cicerón y Quintiliano, destacando Elegantiae de lingua latina, libri sex, una de las gramáticas más perfectas de las escritas sobre el latín.” (Seisdedos 1998: 632) 9 La crítica de Erasmo al sistema de los modistas se refleja en su propia producción gramatical –su tratado sobre sintaxis, Libellus de octo orationis partium constructione; un diálogo sobre la correcta pronunciación del griego y del latín, De recta latini graecique sermonis pronunciatione dialogus; y sus Epitome in elegantiarum libros Laurentii Vallae, un resumen organizado alfabéticamente de las Elegantiace de Lorenzo Valla– y en su mayor aportación lingüística, su manual de estilo De copia verborum ac rerum libri duo. Véase Percivall 1975: 241. De Nebrija y Vives hablaremos más adelante.

10 Recogemos y traducimos la estructura aportada por Tavoni, quien la explica del siguiente modo: “It is a clear, but wholly unusual, structure. If we take as reference the distinction, derived from Quintilian, which Valla takes as his banner, between grammatice loqui (i.e. the simple respect of grammatical ratio) and latine loqui (i.e. the more mature ability to conform to the latinitas found in the writers’ consuetudo), we can say that the way the subject Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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matter is organized in the Elegantie reflects the ambitious attempt to describe and teach latine loqui; to try to extract from a systematic (comparative, open and non-Ciceronian) examination of prose writers the rationality inherent in usus.

This rationality is wholly outside the patterns of a grammar that depends on logic.” (1998: 5) 11 En este sentido, sin embargo, son diferentes las preferencias propuestas: Sulpitius Verulanus, por ejemplo, consideraba a Varrón, César y Quintiliano como los más importantes gramáticos junto a Donato; Lorenzo Valla, por su parte, había ensalzado principalmente a Donato, Servio y Prisciano, nombrándolos como “Triumvirat unter den Gelehrten.” (Ising 1970: 53) 12 La gramática teórica queda fuera de nuestro estudio en la medida en que discrepa de la concepción didáctica humanista gramatical, interesada fundamentalmente en la morfología.

13 Como, por ejemplo, en Inglaterra, donde se publicaría en 1631 como A briefe introduction to Syntax […] Collected out of Nebrissa […] With the concordance supplyed by J(ohn) H(awkings), M.D., etc., (cf. Watson 1968: 273). Para una consulta sobre las ediciones de la obra de Nebrija en general, tanto de ésta como de otras gramáticas y de sus diccionarios, de los que hablaremos más adelante, remitimos a Niederehe 1994.

14 En Zaragoza llegó a ser catedrático de gramática y lenguas, enseñando latín, griego y retórica.

15 Una exposición más extensa y detallada sobre todos ellos, así como de sus obras, puede consultarse en Ising 1970.

16 El Cataloge van den boucken die men in de particuliere scholen den jongens sal mogen lezen ende leren. (cf. Dibbets 1992: 41) 17 Pues con el paso del tiempo, esta gramática impuesta o autorizada como gramática estándar, con una primera intención uniformadora desde el punto de vista educativo, seguiría siendo aceptada e interpretada, de acuerdo con las nuevas necesidades, en lengua inglesa. Watson recoge en su obra un epígrafe con todas las traducciones inglesas de las partes latinas de Lily, mencionando la siguiente como la primera aparecida: The Treatise of the Figures At the end of the Rules of Construction in the Latin Grammar, Construed with every Example applyed and fitted to his Rule, for the help of the weaker sort in the Grammar Schools. By John Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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Stockwood sometime Schoolmaster of Tunbridg, 1609. (cf. 1968: 266) En este sentido fue primordial el impulso dado por los reformadores protestantes en el terreno educativo: con ellos la religión se convierte en el objetivo de todas las enseñanzas y los libros de texto comienzan a elaborarse con esta intención; su protesta contra la formación clásica de la Iglesia Católica lleva a la inclusión de pasajes de otros autores de la Antigüedad en sus manuales y la teoría general de que el latín, el griego y el hebreo, como las lenguas sagradas, permiten un mejor acercamiento a la Biblia y a la primitiva Iglesia Cristiana se refleja en la introducción del Nuevo Testamento griego y latino como libro de texto básico para ejercitar la lectura en estas lenguas (cf.

Watson 1968: 536). Sin pretender extendernos en el estudio de estas otras lenguas clásicas o en sus gramáticas, conviene saber, no obstante, que para la enseñanza del griego los humanistas se sirvieron de los Erotemata de Manuel Cryosoloras –como ya se hiciera en la Edad Media; es una gramática que emplea el sistema de preguntas y respuestas para aprender la flexión– y que gran parte de ellos aprendieron el griego por cuenta propia ayudándose de textos bilingües en griego y latín, como el Alphabetum Graecum de 1553, por ejemplo. También se emplean textos bilingües en griego y en hebreo para el estudio de estas lenguas. De rudimentis Hebraicis del alemán Reuchlin es una de las gramáticas hebreas más destacadas de toda la época (cf.

Robins 1987: 102). Una esclarecedora exposición sintética de la tradición y la evolución de las gramáticas griegas la encontramos, por ejemplo, en Percivall 1975: 245-7. Y sobre la importancia de incluir en este conjunto de lenguas clásicas a las gramáticas de la lengua árabe, además, puede consultarse Bobzin 1992.

19 Se trataba éste de un aprendizaje personal –a diferencia del memorístico medieval, que se valía del método gráfico de presentación a través de ceremonias, pinturas, etc.–, en el que la Reforma protestante jugó un papel decisivo, exigiendo la responsabilidad individual de cada uno ante la comprensión de los textos aristotélicos y de la Biblia. En este sentido a Lutero se le conoce como el profeta de la democratización de la educación elemental, al instaurar la lectura como derecho de nacimiento de todas las personas. (cf. Watson 1968:173) 18

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La obra de Donato fue la primera gramática latina llevada a la imprenta por Gutenberg: apareció impresa por primera vez en Maguncia en 1452 y conoció veinticuatro ediciones (cf. Collison 1982: 55). Su influencia en la enseñanza elemental fue enorme hasta finales del siglo XVII. 21 En cuyo prólogo advertía de la necesidad de aprender la grammatica en lengua vulgar del siguiente modo: “Error común nuestro es, por no dezir necedad, a los que vienen a apprender el latín, dalles la Grammatica, con que an de apprender el Latín, escripta en el mismo Latín, porque si ellos supiessen aquel Latín, ¿qué necesidad ternían de la Grammatica? ¿No será pues más útil con la luz de la lengua que saben, dalles noticia de la que van a apprender, que no enseñarles el latín en el latín, que es alumbrar la escuridad con las tinieblas?” (apud Esparza 1996: 64) 22 Sobre el primero puede consultarse Sánchez 1992: 129-30 y 1995: 136-9 y 485-6 y sobre la figura y la obra de Comenio véase Sánchez 1997: 67-71.

23 De su contenido, influencias y posteriores ediciones trata el trabajo de Colombat de 1996.

24 La fundación de los Colegios Trilingües modificó en parte este esquema, como nos informa Antonio Alvar al hablarnos del de San Jerónimo en España, fundado en 1528, pues en ellos comenzaron a ser impartidas las clases de griego, posibilitando otra continuidad formativa: “Los estudiantes de latín, alcanzado el nivel superior en los Colegios Menores de gramática, se dedicaban al estudio de la retórica y de la elocuencia y solían ocuparse en la preparación de declamaciones; los estudiantes de griego se ejercitan en la traducción de obras al latín; y los de hebreo traducían a esa misma lengua los textos sagrados; además, existía la obligación de representar en el teatro de la Universidad una comedia o una tragedia cada año […] concluidos los tres años de dedicación a una lengua, el colegial podía optar por iniciar estudios en cualquiera de las otras dos, con lo que era posible mantenerse en el colegio nueve años.”

(Alvar 1998: 211) 25 Y como prueba de su prevalencia como tal, tanto en el plano oral como en el escrito, se dejan sentir las opiniones de figuras tan eruditas como Erasmo o Juan Luis Vives, quienes resaltan la 20

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necesidad de su conocimiento como vehículo de comunicación internacional; Erasmo vivió en Inglaterra, Francia, Alemania e Italia y Juan Luis Vives en Valencia, París, Lyon, Lovaina, Brujas y Oxford. Igualmente recordemos la importancia internacional del uso del latín en manos de los reformadores protestantes, quienes enfrentándose a la escuela cristiana y a su ideal de formación clásica marcaron toda una época en el campo educacional. (cf. Watson 1968: 535-6) 26 Quien a su vez se apoya en Bömer 1897.

27 Más específicamente sobre las diferentes ediciones de esta obra Breva-Claramonte expresa lo siguiente: “Es posible que hubiera existido una edición en Basilea en 1537 y se cree que en 1538 apareció una edición en Amberes […]. Lo que sí se sabe con seguridad es que en 1539 esta obra salió a la luz en París y en Basilea con un mismo título Linguae Latinae exercitatio. Libellus valde doctus & elegans, nuncque primum in lucem editus […]. Hacia 1544, comenzaron a aparecer las ediciones con notas de Pedro Mota, un discípulo de Nebrija, para explicar palabras y frases oscuras, y un índice latino-hispano de voces difíciles, compilado por un tal Juan Ramírez. El número de anotaciones, comentarios y traducciones en las distintas lenguas europeas creció rápidamente a medida que aumentaba la popularidad de los Diálogos. En la edición de Amberes de 1552, encontramos un vocabulario trilingüe en francés, alemán y español. En la edición de Florencia de 1568, dicho vocabulario aparece en italiano. […] Fue traducido al francés, italiano, español, alemán, polaco, inglés y catalán, siendo impreso muchas veces en versiones bilingües para facilitar el aprendizaje del latín a través de la traducción.” (1994: 24-5) 28 Al que él llama Dictionarium, como apunta Claes, “vermutlich gerade weil er so ausgiebig dictiones oder Redensarten aus klassischen Autoren aufgenommen hatte.” (1977: XIII). El primer diccionario impreso, sin embargo, fue el Summa grammaticalis valde notabilis, quae Catholicon nominatur de Juan de Génova o Joannes Balbus Januensis del año 1286 (cf. Corvo 2007: 169), publicado probablemente por Gutenberg en Maguncia en 1460 por primera vez y reeditado con posterioridad por otros impresores en Francia, Alemania e Italia. (cf. Collison 1986: 55) 29 Landau (cf. 1991: 38-41) describe, por ejemplo, el camino que llevó Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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al primer diccionario inglés: A Table Alphabeticall de Robert Cawdrey, publicado en 1604. En otras partes de Europa, la producción lexicográfica siguió los modelos de Italia, Francia y sobre todo de Alemania. Así, en el norte, por ejemplo, los primeros diccionarios conteniendo el danés y el sueco fueron, respectivamente, de acuerdo con Haugen (cf. 1986: 101), el Dictionarium Herlovianum (1626) de Povl Colding y el anónimo conocido como Linkopensen de 1640, ambos bilingües y dirigidos a los latinistas. Y en relación con otras lenguas, recordamos, por ejemplo, el primer diccionario húngaro-latino: el Dictionarium ungaro-latinum de Albert Szenczi Molnár, publicado en 1604.

Con ello ponemos punto final a esta ejemplificación para no ofrecer una tediosa enumeración de obras que podemos encontrar en muchas de las referencias bibliografías publicadas con las que contamos en la actualidad.

30 A falta de testimonios anteriores y de acuerdo con Watson (cf. 1968: 401), los primeros ejercicios del tipo vulgaria con la lengua inglesa fueron impresos en 1483 con el título: Vulgaria quaedam abs Terentio in Anglicam linguam traducta. Se trata de un conjunto de sentencias latinas coloquiales e idiomáticas de Terencio, traducidas al inglés y presentadas sin conexión alguna, es decir, no dispuestas por temas, como era habitual.

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Sánchez Pérez, A. 1997. Los métodos en la enseñanza de idiomas.

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PRESENTACIÓN DE COLABORACIONES

BABEL a.f.i.a.l. es una revista anual de filología inglesa y alemana que publica trabajos, previo informe positivo del Comité de Redacción, sobre la siguiente temática: lengua inglesa y alemana literatura inglesa y alemana lingüística aplicada teoría literaria traducción metodología lexicología, lexicografía

Las colaboraciones se enviarán antes de finales del mes de marzo de cada año a nombre de la Prof. Cristina Larkin Galiñanes a la siguiente dirección: BABEL a.f.i.a.l Facultade de Ciencias da Educación As Lagoas s/n 32004 Ourense (e-mail: larkin@uvigo.es)

NORMAS PARA LA REDACCIÓN DE ORIGINALES:

Se enviarán por correo ordinario 3 copias en papel del artículo, sin datos referentes al autor, y una hoja aparte con el título del artículo y los siguientes datos del autor: centro de trabajo, dirección, número de teléfono y dirección de correo electrónico.

El artículo ha de estar precedido por dos resúmenes: el primero en inglés y el segundo en español o gallego. No debe exceder las 150 palabras.

Cada resumen debe ir seguido de las palabras clave en las que se enmarca la investigación del artículo en los dos idiomas escogidos.

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Si el artículo resultase aceptado, se enviará por correo electrónico en un solo archivo a la dirección arriba indicada. Este archivo debe contener: el título del artículo, el nombre del autor, la institución a la que pertenece, el correo electrónico, el resumen en inglés, las palabras clave en inglés, el resumen en español/ gallego, las palabras clave en este idioma y finalmente el texto del artículo, seguido de las notas y las obras citadas.

Las lenguas admitidas para la publicación de los artículos son: alemán, español, gallego e inglés.

La extensión de los artículos no debe superar las 20 páginas, incluyendo en ellas notas y bibliografía.

Tamaño de letra: 12 en todo el artículo, incluidas las notas.

Interlineado: doble espacio, a excepción de los resúmenes y las notas que han de ser presentados a espacio sencillo.

Tipo de letra: Times New Roman en todo el artículo Titulo del artículo: Mayúsculas y negrilla

Encabezamientos de las secciones del artículo: Mayúscula, negrilla y numerados (1., 2., 3., etc) Subencabezamientos de las secciones: Minúscula, negrilla y numerados (1.1, 1.2., 1.3., etc)

Las notas a pie de página deberán figurar inmediatamente al NOTAS/ NOTES/ FUßNOTEN) y, a continuación, final del artículo (N la bibliografía en orden alfabético, bajo el encabezamiento OBRAS CITADAS/ WORKS CITED/ ZITIERTE WERKE. Las referencias bibliográficas serán elaboradas de acuerdo con los ejemplos siguientes:

Culler, J. 1975. Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Babel n” 18:Babel n” 16

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Graham, J.W. 1975. “Point of view in The Waves: Some services of the style en S. Lewis, ed. Virginia Woolf. A Collection of Criticism. New York: McGraw-Hill Guiora, A., R. Brannon y C.Dull. 1972 “Empathy and second language learning”. Language Learning. 22:111-130

Cuando se cita algún texto, trabajo o artículo consultado en internet, ha de indicarse el día, el mes y el año en los que se accedió a la página web correspondiente. Por ejemplo:

Dahlgren, M. 1993 “From Narratology to Pragmatics: Narrators, Focalizers and Reflectors in Some Works by William Faulkner”, BABEL a.f.i.a.l. Consultado 20 de Octubre 2009 http://webs.uvigo.es/babelafial/number2.html

Más información en nuestra página web http://webs.uvigo.es/babelafial

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