Pegenaute, Luis (ed.). La traducción en la Edad de Plata, Barcelona, España, Promociones y Publicaciones Universitarias, S. A., 2001, 331 p.

This book comprises a group of nineteen papers presented at a symposium held at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in 2000. The main subject uniting them is the discussion of translation into and from Spanish during the Edad de Plata (Silver Age) in Spanish literature, a period that covers the first decades of the 20^th century.

These papers fall into six thematic categories. Two papers, those of Amparo Hurtado and Miguel Ángel Vega, deal with the relationship between translation and the cultural environment at that particular time in Spanish literature. Hurtado studies the role of translation and translators in the journal Residencia. Revista de la Residencia de Estudiantes, of which 20 issues were published in Madrid between 1926 and 1934. The aim is to compile information on the history of translation in Spain during the Edad de Plata, a period spanning from 1898 to 1936. The journal had an academic, multilingual, and multicultural character in the sense that it published mostly educational and cultural texts in an attempt to Europeanize, so to speak, the intellectual life in Spain at that time. About 40% of the contents of the journal were devoted to translations, mostly of international conferences. Translators provided an abstract in English of the text, along with the Spanish version in which the translator made some changes to preserve the oral style of the text. However, most of the translations in the journal were published anonymously. Miguel Ángel Vega’s paper explores how the philosophical ideas of a Hegelian thinker, Karl Krause, became known and popular in Spain. According to Vega, Krause’s ideas mark the beginning of a new era in Spanish culture, and at the origin of this pivotal moment we find Julián Sanz del Río’s Spanish translation of Krause’s Ideal de humanidad (1860). This influential translation went through several editions during the second half of the 19^th century; Sanz del Río’s Spanish version was criticized, but it undoubtedly helped to create a new trend of thought in Spain.

Next, a group of six papers are devoted to the study of translations into and from the Spanish tongue. Thus, four authors deal with the reception of translations into Spanish of such writers as Eça de Queiroz (Elena Losada); Edgar Allan Poe (Amalia Rodríguez); James Joyce (John Beattie); and Charles Dickens (Marcel Ortín). Elena Losada studies the influence of the Portuguese writer Eça de Queiroz in Spain between 1882 and 1915; this influence was a consequence of Queiroz being a famous anticlerical writer. A comparison of the Portuguese originals with the Spanish versions reveals that most of the latter lacked literary quality and were biased. Yet this comparative study casts some light on the editorial practices of the period. Amalia Rodríguez’ paper discusses the power of translation to transform a given cultural order and its symbolical parameters, a process the author calls transculturación. To exemplify this idea, the author studies the translations of Edgar Allan Poe carried out by such writers as Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Cortázar. In his study of James Joyce’s work and its early reception and translation in Catalonia from 1921 to 1936, J. Beattie shows how the aesthetic nature of Joyce’s art, and its relevance for the avant-garde aesthetics, were the focal points of Catalonian interest. Likewise, Marcel Ortín’s paper deals with the reception of Charles Dickens’ work in Catalonia from 1892–the year when the first translation into Catalonian was published–and the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. Ortín presents a list of Dicken’s works translated into Catalonian and explores their relevance in that culture, also taking into consideration G. K. Chesterton’s ideas on Dickens. The last two papers in this category are those of Martin Fischer and Luis Pegenaute. Fischer studies two translations of Juan Ramon Jimenez’ Platero y yo into German; in particular, he compares the source text with the versions made by D. Deinhard and F. Vogelgsang, examining the translation of formal, stylistic and cultural features. Finally, Pegenaute explores the reception in the United States of various authors of Spanish drama: during the first three decades of the 20^th century, at least 20 of such dramas were performed in the United States; these performances are proof of the interest those dramas aroused. The author concentrates on such writers as J. Echegaray, G. Martínez Sierra, and J. Benavente, analysing the translations into English, the performances in New York, and the response of the critics.

The third subject category includes four papers devoted to the translation of drama in Catalonia. First is Enric Gallén’s detailed studies of adaptations and translations into Catalonian of dramas published from 1898 to 1938, including a wide range of works from popular to strictly literary texts. Gallén surveys the links between drama and the social and cultural environments, showing how knowledge of the genre provides a better understanding of the Catalonian literature of the period. Second, Marta Giné’s paper deals with the translations of two works of Alexandre Dumas fils into Catalonian by Salvador Vilaregut, namely, La dama de les camèlies and L’amic de les dones. Giné pays close attention to the form and contents of the Catalonian versions and provides information on the circumstances of their performances. Third, Montse Guinovart studies a translation of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure by Salvador Vilaregut. This version was published in 1928 under the title La Novicia de Santa Clara. Guinovart surveys the life and work of Vilaregut as writer of dramas and translator, specifically, Vilaregut’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s work, as well as the mise en scène. Finally, Anna Soler explores the reception of G. B. Shaw’s dramas from 1908 to 1938 in a paper that contains detailed information about the different translations, settings of the dramas, and the critics’ opinions.

A fourth category comprises three papers devoted to the study of translations of the Symbolist writers. Included is a study by Pilar Gómez Bedate on an influential anthology of French poetry entitled La poesía francesa moderna (1913, 2^nd ed., 1945) by Enrique Díez Canedo and Fernando Fortún. The author reviews a series of studies dealing with the subject of French Symbolists in Spain, and then moves on to explain how the anthology was compiled and why it became a standard or canon for French poetry in Spain. Soledad González’ paper on Juan Ramón Jiménez’ translations of Paul Verlaine explores the role of the former in the introduction of Verlaine’s work in Spain; González studies Jiménez’ first translation, dated 1903, and then traces the evolution of Jimenez’ creative ideas and the way in which they influenced the changes he made to his translations. Francisco Ruiz Casanova examines the role of translation as presented in the journal La República de las letras of which 14 numbers appeared in 1905, and 15 in 1907. Originally committed to the publication of translations of poetry, the editors were later to reroute the journal to prose translations. Ruiz presents a series of hypotheses to explain such a radical change in editorial policy.

The fifth thematic category includes two papers by Miguel Gallego Roca and Alicia Piquer, respectively, dealing with the translation of avant-garde literature in Spain. Gallego Roca shows what he calls the “precarious” character of the translation of poetry in Spain during the first three decades of the 20^th century. This poetry is precarious because, according to Gallego, both journals and anthologies of poetry at that time contained translated poems of minor Symbolist and post-Symbolist writers, but not of avant-garde authors. Piquer’s study of the time Jorge Guillén spent in Paris (1917-1923) shows the genesis of Guillén’s admiration for the poems of J. Supervielle. Piquer studies Guillén’s remarkable translations of a series of Supervielle’s poems; these translations appeared for the first time in the anthology El bosque sin horas (1932).

The last subject dealt with in this volume is the role and figure of the translator, as presented in papers by Antonio Lafarga, and by Josep J. Ballbé and Jordi F. Fernandez. Lafarga’s paper provides a detailed analysis of how the anthology Poetas franceses del siglo XIX (1906) was compiled; in fact, Lafarga justifies the importance of the translations by Teodoro Llorente in the anthology, and elaborates on the reasons behind Llorente’s choice of poems and preparation of biographical and bibliographical notes. Finally, Ballbé and Fernandez offer a profile of Diego Ruiz (1881-1959), a prolific and multifaceted modernist translator.

In spite of such a variety of subjects in this book, the fact that it presents translation as a bridge between the literatures of different countries as well as a force that fosters the evolution of literature gives this volume unity and coherence. This compilation is an important contribution to the study of translation in Spain and, as such, it may prove interesting to researchers in the fields of comparative literature, history of translation, and literary translation in Spain and Catalonia.