Jessie L. Christensen and Dr. Valerie Hegstrom, Spanish and Portuguese

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Spain have come to be known as the “Golden Age”, due to the incredible flowering of art and literature that took place during that time. Among the greatest accomplishments of the era was prolific growth in both the writing and performance of plays. The works of such playwrights as Calderón de la Barca, Tirso de Molina, and Lope de Vega are already well-known and have been translated into English numerous times. However, many other authors have been forgotten during the last three hundred years. One such author is Angela de Azevedo, a woman whose works have been recently rediscovered in the National Library in Madrid. Several of her plays have been published in their original Spanish, but they remain practically unknown and unstudied, and they have not been translated into English. Because an English translation will facilitate both criticism and performance of the work of Angela de Azevedo, I have been working on producing a version of the play in English that will be used to aid in an upcoming BYU production of El Muerto Dissimulado.

The first act of the play was submitted during Winter semester as my final project for my degree in Spanish Translation. I am currently in the middle of the second act, or about halfway through the play. The work has progressed more slowly than I anticipated at the beginning of the project. I have found that it is challenging to translate seventeenth-century Spanish into English for several reasons. First, the play is written in verse, and much of the dialogue is composed of lengthy passages with erratic punctuation. I have had to reconstruct entire monologues to create natural sounding phrases that adhere to the standards of English grammar. I chose to do a prose translation because recreating the verse would be impossible for a translator of my ability. A second difficulty I found was in word choice. Not only does the play employ many archaic Spanish words and phrases, but also, as a comedy, it is written in a hyperbolic style. I have had some difficulty in choosing the correct words that would most accurately preserve the register and style of the language of the original without sounding unnatural in English. A third problem that presented itself was the fact that the play is set in Portugal, and uses some Portuguese words as part of the dialogue. I decided not to translate these instances, but instead kept them in Portuguese and provided footnotes. My overall goal for the translation is to render an accurate representation of the plot, while preserving the general tone of the original. The translation is not necessarily intended to stand on its own, but rather as an accompaniment to study of the original and will be best understood by those familiar with Golden Age drama.

The work of translating the play has not only improved my language skills, but has allowed me to closely study the writing of Angela de Azevedo. She was a very sophisticated writer, who was familiar enough with the conventions of comedias to parody them. Her writing is witty and polished, and each character speaks with a distinct voice. I have had difficulty translating the monologues of Jacinta, because she employs many asides and circumlocutions. On the other hand, Lisarda is clear and direct in both her speech and her actions. I admire de Azevedo’s skill in writing and her ability to create believable, distinct characters.

This project has been a valuable experience for me, both as a translator and a student of Spanish literature. I have improved my translation skills and learned more about the realities of literary translation. Also, I have learned more about the language, culture, and history of seventeenthcentury Spain. More than anything, I admire the writing of a woman whose plays are still relevant and funny three hundred years after they were written. Hopefully the work of Angela de Azevedo will someday become as well-known as that of her more famous peers