Shelley traductor: Magia, prodigio y conocimiento

Abstract

It is my aim here to assess the role of Shelley as a translator. I focus especially on some light and shady areas in Shelley’s translation of a Calderón’s auto, which seemed to have haunted his mind and stirred his romantic inspiration. I assume that there is a subtle, mythical thread that led Shelley’s translation work from the classical play, Eurípides’ the Cyclops, through to Goethe’s Faust and Calderón’s auto, El mágico prodigioso. All the three seem to reflect some of his most relevant literary and psychic preoccupations. I share the view, expressed by some of his critics, that Shelley needed translation as a kind of exercise that was in fact a helping search for poetical inspiration.