Herberto Helder and the Libertine Translator

Abstract

Translation is a disquieting task, as Walter Benjamin already believed in the famous essay “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers” (“The Task of the Translator”). Marked, on the one hand, by the alteration of the original language and, on the other hand, by the interference on the fi nal language, the act of translating will be, therefore, the bearer of a renovating force. The Portuguese poet Herberto Helder has dedicated several books to translations, in one of which there is a poem written originally in Portuguese but which presents a strong foreign diction, for it was written by an Italian poet. The so-called translation of this poem is considered, according to Herberto Helder, a libertine act, since what is at play is the confrontation between languages, making the poet identify with a specifi c language which will be modified by its contact with what is foreign. And it is through this intimate and “libertine” contact that poetry will have a lot to learn from the translation process. The promiscuity between native and foreign languages points towards a contamination, since the poetic language is constituted as an alteration and a celebration of the mother tongue.