Traduzindo Primitivo Americano: tradução comentada de poemas de temática indígena de Mary Oliver

Abstract

This undergraduate thesis presents the annotated translation of two poems by American author Mary Oliver, practically unknown to Portuguese-speaking readers. For this work, we chose to look into the themes of indigenous history and historical memory as a section within her award-winning poetry collection American Primitive (1983). We present here translations for the poems "Tecumseh" and "Ghosts". Our work was based on Ana Cristina Cesar's annotated translation of Emily Dickinson's poems, as well as Paulo Henriques Britto's conceptions of poetry translation. This allowed for a translation free of rigid theoretical ties, but attentive to the rhythmic and sound characteristics of the poems, given that Mary Oliver built her poetics without fixed forms or regular rhyme systems. The comments were divided into five main categories: prepositions associated with verbs of movement; toponyms and anthroponyms; fauna and flora; culturally marked items; and problems of form. The annotated translation of these poems thus aims to illustrate a translation project that can contribute to new translations of an author whose extensive work is able to touch on fundamental contemporary themes, such as critical dialogue with poetic tradition (especially transcendentalism), spirituality, historical memory and indigenous themes, ecology and matters of gender and queer experience.