O tradutor e os seus trebelhos: Fred P. Ellison and Translation

In Joaquim Machado de Assis’s novel Esau e Jacó, the narrator discusses, in typical self-conscious fashion, a (possible) epigraph for the book, which would serve as “um par de lunetas para que o leitor do livro penetre o que for menos claro” (18), and the relationship between author and characters, which he compares to that between a chess player and his pieces:

Há proveito em irem as pessoas da minha história colaborando nela, ajudando o autor, por uma lei de idariedade, espécie de troca de serviço entre o enxadrista e os seus trebelhos.

Se aceitas a comparação, distinguirás o rei e a dama, o bispo e o cavalo, sem que o cavalo possa fazer de torre, nem a torre de peão. Há ainda a diferença da cor, branca e preta, mas esta não tira o poder da marcha de cada peça, e afinal umas e outras podem ganhar a partida, e assim vai o mundo. Talvez conviesse pôr aqui, de quando em quando, como nas publicações do jogo, um diagrama das posições belas ou difíceis. Não havendo tabuleiro, é um grande auxílio este processo para acompanhar os lances, mas também pode ser que tenhas visão bastante para reproduzir na memória as situações diversas. Creio que sim. Fora com diagramas!

(18–19)

I believe this quote is a fitting springboard, and perhaps even epigraph, for this brief overview of Fred Ellison’s work in the field of literary translation, one that, I hope, will serve as a pair of collective spectacles as I attempt to outline his trajectory as a translator—a diagram of sorts, highlighting how his choices in this area of his scholarship fit into a broader, multipronged approach to the study and diffusion of the language, culture, and literature of Brazil in the United States. Hence the (playful) shift from “author” to “translator” in the title of this brief essay, hinting at the idea of translation as part of an overall strategy in which each work functions as a chess piece that contributes to the success of the game—in this case, an overarching scholarly project. As a pleasing, if marginal, additional resonance, I should also note that Fred—or “Fredgee,” as many fondly referred to him, pronouncing his name the Brazilian way—was a great admirer of Machado’s and regularly taught a popular graduate seminar on his works, where I was first introduced to Esau e Jacó sometime in the mid-eighties.

Although translation is getting better press these days than in the past, it is still viewed by many as a derivative and mechanical task anyone can do with the help of “a good dictionary.” Few universities in this country have acknowledged it as a legitimate field of study until recently, and the idea that translators must be subservient, dutiful, and stay out of sight remains strongly entrenched in Academia and elsewhere.

Fred Ellison was keenly aware of the value of translation practice as a form of scholarly understanding and of its pivotal role in promoting Luso-Brazilian language and literatures and in building new constituencies for them in an essentially monolingual culture such as the United States. In spite of his trademark blend of self-effacement and Old World courtesy, a form of noblesse oblige that led him to downplay his knowledge and accomplishments and treat everyone, including his students, with genuine respect and as intellectual equals, he was hardly invisible or subordinate as a translator. He not only tackled the multiple demands of translation fully and authoritatively, deploying the aesthetic sensibilities required to recreate a text in another language as well as the comprehensive scholarship necessary to introduce it to, and contextualize it for, a new, broader readership; but he also pursued a coherent, more ambitious vision in his selection of texts that became part of a larger translational-critical project.

Among these, Ellison’s translations of several authors from the Northeast of Brazil are perhaps the most clearly identifiable offshoot of his critical work. In 1954...