Poetics in Translation: Make It New by Ezra Pound and Transcreation by Haroldo de Campos

Abstract

The aim of this work is to present how translation became a poetics for the American poet Ezra Pound and the Brazilian Poet Haroldo de Campos. Both poets employed translation to expand their understandings about poetry but, at the same time, to create a new approach to the literary phenomenon by bringing together works of authors from many different geographies, epochs and languages. Pound started to write poetry following the rhythm of the Anglo-Saxon and then he took a different direction producing books with comments on his translations like Provençal troubadours and Chinese poetry. He spent almost 25 years translating the entire work of Confucius and after that period he published his last translations of Greek and Egyptian poems. Haroldo was an admirer of Pound and he shared his translation passion. He founded the Avant-garde movement of Concrete Poetry in Brazil and he did collective translations with the members of the movement. His specialization in languages prompted him to translate Avant-garde poetry from many different languages and then he moved to the classics like Dante, Goethe, Homer and the Bible. De Campos benefited from his academic position to obtain specialized advising for his translations. Furthermore, he elaborated a theory on translation following philosophical texts, that he called “transcreation.” He was convinced that the best poetry in all times is essentially Avant-garde.