Translated and non-translated spanish picaresque novels in defense of dominated languages

Abstract

This article aims to explore a historical example of how translated works can work in defense of a dominated target language. It first considers the role of literary products in the struggle between dominant and dominated languages in the world republic of letters, as argued by Pascale Casanova (2004). Then, it gives evidence that the Spanish picaresque novels took part in the struggle for the autonomy of the Spanish literary language against the dominant languages in the sixteenth century, Italian and Latin. It thereafter argues that the Spanish picaresque novels in translated version took part in the struggle for the autonomy of Portuguese literary language against francesismo, i.e., the dominance of French language and culture. Emphasis is placed on the fact that the same literary products, Lazarillo de Tormes and Guzmán de Alfarache, were used in the defense of two different dominated languages: the Spanish language in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the Portuguese language in the nineteenth century.