Translating La Corona, by John Donne

Abstract

The work of English poet John Donne (1572-1631) is better known in Brazil through Augusto de Campos’s translation of his amorous poetry. Donne’s religious poetry, however, is still quite ignored in this country and has not been often translated. The seven religious sonnets which shape La Corona were translated by Afonso Félix de Sousa (1983). The aim of this article is to introduce a new translation strategy for this set of sonnets and to point out some of its formal translation obstacles. Among these formal diffi culties it must be mentioned the procedure by which the verse of each sonnet is repeated in the fi rst line of the following one, knitting the whole series of poems into an all signifying chain. This work also comprises a description of some peculiarities of Donne’s poetry and particularly of La Corona with the purpose of guiding the translation work and stressing formal and subject matters in the sonnets. Keywords: La Corona. Religious poetry. Translation. English poetry.