Homophonic Translation from and into Latin in Comic Contexts: Some Passages from Plautus to Cervantes
Abstract
Homophonic translation has played a significant role since the very origins of Western Literature, especially as a source of humour in comedy and parodic texts. It is based on the use of similar sounding words or segments (parophony or homophony) from two different languages, which nevertheless have divergent and even contrasting meanings. In most cases, the author seeks a dynamic tension between signifier and meaning, resulting in a polyphonic and polysemic text with multiple resonances that hardly admits a single reading or, for that matter, translation.
This paper leads us through a series of homophonic translation scenes with Latin as source or target language, from the Roman playwright Plautus (ca. 254-184 B.C.) to Bartolomé de Torres Naharro (ca. 1485-1530) and Giovan Francesco Straparola (ca. 1480-1557), through to Cervantes’s Don Quixote (1605-1615). We will mention some of their translators too.
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