Dísticos heroicos e “poemas científicos": questões de forma e conteúdo na tradução literária

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48075/rlhm.v19i33.30881

Abstract

Since Antiquity and up to the Modern Era, scientific discoveries have provided rich material for the poetic imagination. Poets such as Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), John Donne (1572-1631), John Milton (1608-1674) and others reacted to the transformations that took place in european cosmology and ontology during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. Specifically in England, one finds in the 18th century poets whose poetic work mainly aims to convey hypotheses and discussions about botany, natural history, electricity, etc. Among these poets, Erasmus Darwin, author of the poem The Temple of Nature, published posthumously in 1803, stands as one of the most proeminent; in it, Erasmus Darwin discusses hypotheses corcerning the origin of life, the gradual transformation of animals and plants, as well as the structural complexity of the human brain. Such a poem, rich in specialized terminology, poses interesting challenges to the translator: its vocabulary makes it difficult to handle certain formal elements, such as the number of syllables and the meter. Therefore, we discuss here the strategies adopted in our translation of an excerpt from Canto I of the poem The Temple of Nature. The aim is to show how, adopting solutions and suggestions from translators who previously worked with heroic couplets - a traditional verse in English poetry, and used by Erasmus Darwin in his poem - polysyllabic words could be incorporated within the metrical structure, resulting in a translation that preserves both the technical and “scientific” aspects as well as the most significant formal elements of heroic couplets.

Author Biography

Gabriel Vasto Laurindo de Masi de Masi, Universidade de São Paulo

Bacharel em Química pelo Instituto de Química da Universidade de São Paulo (2021). Mestrando no programa Letras Estrangeiras e Tradução da Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas da Universidade de São Paulo. 

Published

02-08-2023

How to Cite

DE MASI, G. V. L. de M. Dísticos heroicos e “poemas científicos": questões de forma e conteúdo na tradução literária . Journal of Literature, History and Memory, [S. l.], v. 19, n. 33, 2023. DOI: 10.48075/rlhm.v19i33.30881. Disponível em: https://e-revista.unioeste.br/index.php/rlhm/article/view/30881. Acesso em: 29 jul. 2025.

Issue

Section

DOSSIÊ TRADUÇÃO LITERÁRIA: REFLEXÕES TEÓRICAS, PRÁTICAS E ANALÍTICAS INSURGENTES