Date of Award
Spring 4-23-2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Modern Languages & Literature
First Advisor
Katherine Hedeen
Abstract
This is a three-part study and translation of the work of contemporary Colombian poet Raúl Gómez Jattin (Cartagena de Indias, 1945-1997). The first part serves as a critical introduction to his poetry and analyzes it from a framework based on postcolonial and queer theories. By using appropriation as a literary tactic, this poetry inserts the queer in dialogue with the colonizing normative as a way to legitimize difference and, ultimately, decolonize love. The second is a translator’s note in which I explain my strategies and perspectives based on contemporary translation theory and a recreation of the poet’s decolonizing poetics. The note offers insight into the role of the translator in choosing and working with texts that enrich and expand our scope of representations and experiences beyond our borders. The final part is a bilingual anthology which includes my selection and translation of Gómez Jattin’s poetry into English. A postcolonial perspective unifies each section since this work recognizes that both Gómez Jattin’s poetry and the political responsibility of the translator confront the same dialectical colonization of land and bodies – be it the human body, the literary body, or a body of people – and each aim to give difference a voice in opposition to the dominant discourses of love, poetry, or literary markets. For this reason, the thesis focuses on what is usually hidden behind dominant discourses and attempts to highlight those bodies and desires. Interrelated in both the process and product each express, this three-part study seeks to offer a multifaceted, reflective, and in-depth study of Gómez Jattin’s poetry and the translation process.
Recommended Citation
Lott, Olivia, ""Detrás de otros cuerpos y otros deseos": Estudio y traducción de la obra poética de Raúl Gómez Jattin" (2015). Honors Theses. 132.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/honorstheses/132
Rights Statement
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