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Lost in Translation: The Gazeta de Literatura de México and the Epistemological Limitations of Colonial Travel Narratives

2008; Routledge; Volume: 85; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14753820701855216

1478-3428

Fiona Clark,

Travel Writing and Literature

Abstract This Article does not have an abstract. Notes I would like to thank the British Academy for their generous funding of the Overseas Conference Grant that first allowed me to present this paper at the Colonial Americas Studies Organization, II Simposio Interdisciplinario de Colonialistas de las Américas at the Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia. I also thank Giulio Napolitano and Barbara Renzi who provided so much help with the original Italian translation. 1Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, How to Write the History of the New World. Histories, Epistemologies, and Identities in the Eighteenth-century Atlantic World (Stanford: Stanford U. P., 2001); David Brading, The First America. The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State 1492–1867 (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1991); and Antonello Gerbi, The Dispute of the New World. The History of a Polemic, 1750–1900 (Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh, 1955). 2See particularly Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes, Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992). 3Filipo Salvatore Gilij, Saggio di Storia Americana, o sia Storia naturale, civile e sacra de’ regni e delle provincie Spagnuole di Terra-ferma nell'America meridionale (Rome: Luigi Perego Salvioni, 1780–1784). Where quotations appear in Italian, the original orthography is maintained. References follow the order of volume, book, chapter, part and page. For the purposes of this paper, as no English translation of the texts exists, I will use the following two translations: for Volumes I–III: F. S. Gilij, Ensayo de historia americana, trad. Antonio Tovar (Caracas: Fuentes para la Historia Colonial de Venezuela, 1965); for Volume IV: F. S. Gilij, Ensayo de historia americana o sea historia natural, civil y sacra de los reinos, y de las provincias de Tierra Firme en la América Meridional, trad. Mario Germán Romero and Carlo Bruscantini (Bogotá: Sucre, 1955). 4 Bibliothèque Physico-Économique, instructive et amusante, année 1788, ou 7e année; contenant des mémoirs, observations pratiques sur l’économie rurale; les nouvelles découvertes etc. T.I. (Paris, Buisson, Hôtel de Mesgrigny, 13 rue des Poitevins). 5 La Gazeta de Literatura de México, 3 vols (México: Imprenta de D. Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1788–1795). A later edition appeared in 1831 titled Las Gacetas de Literatura de México, ed. Manuel Buen Abad, 4 vols (Puebla: La Oficina del Hospital de San Pedro, 1831). Most research undertaken on Alzate's work tends to be based on this later Puebla edition. However, the format is problematic due to the omission of all details and formatting that provided the text with its original sense of periodicity. All references in this study are taken from the 1788–1795 edition, and will follow the format of Gazeta de Literatura de México (GLM), volume, issue, page number, then the date of publication. As the two print runs of Volume I are both numbered 1–24, I have chosen to number each issue of this second subscription as 1b, 2b etc. to 24b. For purposes of clarity I have also added the dates of the various articles concerned. The orthography of the original text is retained in the quotations. 6For more detail see Roberto Moreno's introduction to José Antonio Alzate y Ramírez, Memorias y ensayos, ed. Roberto Moreno (México: Univ. Nacional Autónoma de México, 1985), i–xiii. 7The Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País founded in 1763 was a precursor to many such societies across Spain and Spanish America in the eighteenth century. They were established to stimulate progress in agriculture, industry and commerce, also publishing a breadth of information on scientific, technological and economic topics. No society was established in Mexico City in the eighteenth century yet there were a considerable numbers of corresponding members, such as Alzate, across Mexico. Alzate's father had been a member of the same society. See Robert J. Schafer, The Economic Societies in the Spanish World (1763–1821) (Syracuse: Syracuse U. P., 1958). 8Regarding his role as corresponding member of the Parisian Royal Academy of Sciences, see also Patrice Bret, ‘Alzate y Ramírez et l'Académie Royale des Sciences de Paris: la réception des travaux d'un savant du Nouveau Monde’, in Periodismo científico en el siglo XVIII: José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez, ed. Patricia Aceves Pastrana (México: Univ. Autónoma de México, 2001), 123–206. For further information on his relationship with the Madrid Royal Botanical Garden, see Archivo del Real Jardín Botánico (ARJB), Legajo 20, 1, doc. 3, ‘Letter from Alzate to Casimiro Gómez Ortega, 16 July 1784’; ARJB, Legajo 20, 1, doc. 4, ‘Letter by Peris to Casimiro Gómez Ortega dated 15 January 1785’; and Antonio González Bueno, ‘Las relaciones de José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez con los Reales Gabinetes de la Metrópoli’, in Periodismo científico, 107–22. 9His initial periodical publications, the Diario Literario de México (March–May 1768), and the Asuntos Varios sobre Ciencias y Artes (November 1772–January 1773) were of very short duration. They were followed some fifteen years later by the Observaciones sobre la Física, Historia Natural y Artes Útiles (May–October, 1787), and finally the GLM, running from 1788 to 1795. The Diario Literario was discontinued by order of the then viceroy, Marqués de Croix, for including material that was ‘ofensiva a la ley y a la nación’ (Archivo General de la Nación, México [AGNM], Historia, t. 399, fol.1. 15/5/1768). There is no clear indication as to the cause of the termination of the Observaciones, yet in the ‘Prologue’ to the GLM he alludes to two possible reasons: a lack of necessary materials, or as the result of ‘involuntary’ obstacles (GLM, I, 1, 1 [15/1/1788]). 10See Rafael Moreno, ‘Alzate, educador ilustrado’, Historia Mexicana, 2 (1953), 371–89. From this point onward the Gazeta de Literatura de México will be referenced within the main body of the text simply as Gazeta as there are no further references to the Gazeta de México. 11For further discussion on the formation of the GLM, see Fiona Clark, ‘The Gazeta de Literatura de México (1788–1795): The Formation of a Literary-Scientific Periodical in Late-Viceregal Mexico’, Dieciocho. Hispanic Enlightenment, 28:1 (2005), 7–30. For further information on the Gazeta de Literatura as part of the scientific periodical press in Latin America, see Alberto Saladino García, Dos científicos de la Ilustración hispanoamericana: J. A. Alzate y F. J. de Caldas (México: Univ. Nacional Autónoma de México, 1990), and Ciencia y prensa durante la Ilustración latinoamericana (México: Univ. Autónoma del Estado de México, 1996). 12Anne Goldgar, Impoli te Learning. Conduct and Community in the Republic of Letters, 1680–1750 (New Haven: Yale U. P., 1995), and Françoise Waquet and Hans Bots, La République des Lettres (Berlin: De Boeck, 1997). 13Miguel Battlori, La cultura hispano-italiana de los jesuitas expulsos (Madrid: Gredos, 1966), 587, 589. 14Gerbi, The Dispute of the New World, 225. For fuller discussion of his Saggio, see the most recent study by A. León de d'Empaire, Felipe Salvador Gilij: nuevas perspectivas americanas en la crónica dieciochesca (Caracas, Univ. Católica Andrés Bello, 1993), and Abel Salazar, ‘El padre Gilij y su “Ensayo de Historia Americana” ’, Missionalia Hispanica, 4:11 (1947), 249–328. 15Gerbi points out that Gilij accepts the pension from Charles III for his work despite the fact that this was the monarch who had expelled the Jesuits from Spanish lands. See Gerbi, The Dispute of the New World, 224. 16‘Mui Señor mío S. M. (que Dios guarde) por su Real Orden comunicada a esta Dirección de Temporalidades, con fecha de 17 del corriente por el Exmo. Señor Conde de Floridablanca, del Consejo de Estado, y su primer Secretario, se ha dignado resolver, que por el fondo de Temporalidades se asista a V. M. con la pensión, que tenía suspensa, desde primero de Enero de este año, en atención a el loable empeño, que ha tomado de escribir en Italiano la Historia del Orinoco, de que ha publicado tres Tomos en 40 y está próximo a hacerlo del cuarto y último, vindicando a nuestra Nación, y su Gobierno de las calumnias, con que los Escritores Extranjeros procuran denigrarla […]’ (Gilij, Ensayo, IV, Prefacio, xxv). 17See Henri Duranton, ‘Bibliothéque Physico-Économique (1782–1826)’, in Dictionnaire des Journaux (1600–1789), ed. Jean Sgard, 2 vols (Paris: Universitas/Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1991), I, 193. This is only one of six articles published in the GLM that Alzate takes from the Bibliothèque from the years 1785 and 1788, three from each year respectively. For further discussion on links between the Gazeta de Literatura and other periodical publications, see Fiona Clark, ‘Read All About It: Science, Translation, Adaptation and Confrontation in the Gazeta de Literatura de México (1788–1795)’, in Science in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires (ca. 1500–1800), ed. Daniela Bleichmar, Paula De Vos, Kristin Huffine and Kevin Sheehan (Stanford: Stanford U. P., forthcoming). 18Although Alzate intimates that he was originally to be joined by ‘tres amantes de la literatura’ in undertaking the publication of the GLM this plan, for reasons he chooses not to disclose, failed to come to fruition (GLM, I, 15, 39 16/12/1788). During the publication of the first volume he was joined by José Mariano Mociño (1757–1820), who was later to gain fame in the botanical expeditions led by Martín de Sessé, and by a young lawyer, Mariano Castillejo. After 1789 it appears that Alzate was working alone in the preparation of the periodical, although there are infrequent articles by Mociño and Castillejo at later dates. The one exception to Alzate's treatment of ‘belles lettres’ lies in his polemical correspondence concerning the works of Bruno Francisco Larrañaga, La Eneida Apostólica, ó Margileida, and Fray Joaquín Bolaños, La portentosa vida de la muerte. For detailed treatment of this criticism see María Isabel Terán Elizondo, Orígenes de la crítica literaria en México (México: Colegio Michoacana, 2001). 19María Jesús García Garrosa and Francisco Lafarga, El discurso sobre la traducción en la España del siglo XVIII. Estudio y antología (Kassel: Edition Riechenberger, 2004), 3–91 (pp. 30–33). 20This fact runs contrary to the argument presented by García Garrosa and Lafarga. But it must be pointed out that their study centred primarily on translation in literary prose and poetry and not on the short, scientific-technological format of periodical publications such as those published in the GLM. 21For further discussion of these points see particularly Robert Moreno, Linneo en México (México: Univ. Nacional Autónoma de México, 1989), and Patricia Aceves Pastrana, Química, botánica y farmacia en la Nueva España a finales del siglo XVIII (México: Univ. Autónoma Metropolitana, 1993). 22See the aforementioned works by Cañizares-Esguerra, How to Write the History, and Gerbi, The Dispute of the New World for a detailed discussion of a topic that is too vast to be dealt with adequately in this article. 23Cañizares-Esguerra, How to Write the History, 11–59. 24Francisco Javier Clavijero, Historia antigua de México, ed. Mariano Cuevas (México: Editorial Porrúa, 2003), Libro X, 6a disertación, parte 6, 770. The Historia was first published in Italian while Clavijero was in exile in Italy after the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish domains: Storia antica Messico cavata da'migliori storici spagnuoli, e da'manoscritti e dalle pitture antiche degl'Indiani: divisa in dieci libri […] e dissertazioni sulla terra, sugli animali, e sugli abitatori del Mexxio (Cesena: G. Biasini, 1780–81). Alzate had also prepared notes to be added to the Spanish edition of the Storia under the Madrid publisher Antonio de Sancha, as stated in the GLM, I, 22, 104. 25/6/1789. This edition, however, did not come to fruition at the time envisaged. See also Roberto Moreno, ‘Las notas de Alzate a la Historia antigua de Clavijero’, Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl, 10 (1972), 359–92. 25Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, ‘Postcolonialism avant la lettre? Travellers and Clerics in Eighteenth-century Colonial Spanish America’, in After Spanish Rule. Postcolonial Predicaments of the Americas, ed. M. Thurner and A. Guerrero (Durham, NC: Duke U. P., 2003), 90–110 (p. 91). 26Gilij, Ensayo (Tovar), I, Prefacio, xi. ‘Qualunque volta io fra me stesso e la passione della nostra Italia per sapere nuove di America, e la facilità, onde poter saddisfarla colla lettura de'libri considero; non posso no sommamente maravigliarmi, che molti nulladimeno in parte contanto colta ci sieno, i qual o le ignorino totalmente, o in maniera almeno tale le sappiano, sicchè per l'ambiguità de'racconti, perl'alterazione, e contrassacimento de'falti, nulla loro giovi il saperle’ (Saggio, I, Prefazione, xiii). 27Gilij, Ensayo, I, Prefacio, xi. ‘Ed ecco la vera cagione dell'oscurità, in cui è tuttavia involta la storia Americana. Senza veruna scelta leggesi qualunque libro, che tratti di America. Non badasi, se di autore informato sia, o se di persona, che per ignoranza, o a bello studio sparga in un coll’ inchiostro le sole. Tutti sonbuo buoni, purchè. Ma questi libri, ottre al danno, che spesso apportano, l'ignoranza non tolgono de'leggitori, che pur dovrebbe aversi in mira da chi scrive storie; l'accrescon anzi, e la fomentano infinitamente’ (Saggio, I, Prefazione, xiii–xiv). 28Gilij, Ensayo, I, Prefacio, xxvi. ‘Son io stato missionario degli Orinochesi gran tempo; e ne ho osservato diligentemente per naturale inclinazione, e per genio a me particulare i costume. Ne son dunque un testimonio oculare, e per quanto mi lusingo, veritiere. Alcuni de'miei racconti sono appoggiati all'altrui fede, perchè tutto non vidi. Ma tali son elleno le persone, cui prestar dovrassi credenza, che testimonj an ch'esse oculari, e di certamente pi[ugrave] degni, la meritano’ (Saggio, I, Prefazione, xxxiv). 29The strident criticism of Volume 10 of Joseph de la Porte's Voyageur François ou la connoissance de l'ancien et du nouveau monde (1765–1795) forms the second issue of the Gazeta de Literatura (GLM, I, 2, 9–20. 31/11/1788). It was not until 1791 that the Inquisition issued a direct order denouncing this volume of de la Porte's work (AGNM, Inquisición, 1325, ff. 1–5, No. 1). 30Alzate's criticism centres on the geographical inaccuracy present in the French text not on the Italian as suggested by Cañizares-Esguerra (How to Write the History, 283). 31‘Así pensó Ulloa [...], así otros españoles de gran número. “Los indios son todos iguales” dijo el primero, después de haber visto detenidamente a cuantos hay desde el reino de Chile hasta la Luisiana. Pero esta expresión, aunque común en los libros y en boca de personas expertas en las cosas de América, no le pareció del todo adecuado al sagacísimo señor don Martín Enríquez, que con mucha honestidad fue primero virrey de México y luego del Perú. Él […] encontró otra expresión más significativa al decir “que no acertaban los que decían que todos los indios eran unos, porque todos eran uno” ’ (Ensayo, IV, II, 1, 1, 209). Any italics appearing in the Italian exist in the original version. 32‘Senza che, chi non sa, che il trito universale proverbio, veduto un Indiano son tutti insieme veduti chi non sa, che adattasi pur bene alle provincie tutte d'América’ (Saggio, I, Prefazione, xx). The statement is provided in Spanish in the footnotes and referenced as ‘Not. America. Entret. XVIII, pag. 308’. This quotation can be verified as taken directly from the 1772 edition of the Noticias Americanas. 33Gilij, Ensayo, IV, 210. Martín Enríquez de Alamansa (1525–1583) became Viceroy of New Spain in 1568, later becoming Viceroy of Peru in 1580. 34Gilj, Ensayo, IV, 210. Gilj writes: ‘Después de un consentimiento tan universal de los españoles acerca de la semejanza de los indios entre sí y que Enríquez con una graciosa e ingeniosa hipérbole estimaba no solo semejanza sino igualdad, parece muy extraño que un moderno y culto escritor diga cosas completamente diferentes de las que se habían dicho y escrito hasta ahora. Completamente diferentes? Es poco. Mas bien él se ríe al leer en algunos escritores modernos reputados como diligentes observadores, que todos los americanos tienen el mismo aspecto y que cuando se ha visto uno, se puede decir que se han visto todos’. For further comments on the nature of this dispute, see Gerbi, The Dispute of the New World, 222–33 (especially pp. 230–31); Gilij, Ensayo, IV, Introducción, xiii–xvii; Gilij, Ensayo, I, Introducción, xxii. 35Alzate entered a period of uneasy correspondence with the viceroy in 1791 due to revealing the fact that Almodovar was the individual behind the pseudonym Eduardo Malo de Luque (AGNM, México, Historia, t. 74, ff. 46–54, 120–21, 124–28, 132–33). For a period the publication of the GLM was put in doubt until Alzate eventually published a public apology (GLM, II, 32, 258. 19/12/91). Almodovar's translation, Historia política de los establecimientos ultramarinos de las naciones europeas, appeared in Madrid, 1784–1790. Alzate's comments first appeared in GLM, Suplemento, noviembre 1791. 38‘Y valga la verdad, si cada indio tuviera la cabeza en su puesto, con los bienes sacados del campo podría librarse de la miseria, pero esto no lo entiende sino en el momento en que vende a los españoles sus productos, para pedirles el justo precio. Con la plata en el bolsillo, se va derecho a la taberna donde venden chicha, bebida muy conocida por lo que de ella hemos dicho varias veces, y allá tomando con su mujer que lleva siempre consigo al mercado, gasta hasta el último centavo’ (Ensayo, IV, 2, 2, 3, 232). 36As León de d'Empaire has remarked: ‘La contribución del padre Gilij en el campo lingüístico es enorme. Se considera que sus estudios de dos lenguas orinoquenses: tamanaco y maipure; y la comparación con los demás dialectos de la región son la contribución jesuítica más valiosa a la filología de la Orinoquía’ (Felipe Salvador Gilij, 114). 37Clavijero, Historia antigua, Libro X, 6a disertación, parte 6, 771: ‘[…] pues se hallan en Italia personas experimentadas de aquel Nuevo Mundo y capaces de dar plena noticia de más de sesenta lenguas americanas […]’. 39‘El obispo de Santafé entre ingresos ciertos y eventuales, se dice que tiene cincuenta mil escudos; el de Caratagena de dieciocho a veinte mil; el de Santa Marta de ocho a diez mil […] la rama más fértil de tan copiosos proventos depende toda de las plantaciones más abundantes de cacao que hay en aquella provincia, de cuyas primicias, diezmos y cuartos pagados por los propietarios, se enriquece el obispado’ (Ensayo, IV, 2, 5, 8, 301). 40‘La ciudad de Caracas se dice que llega a treinta mil personas […] Maracaibo […] contaba […] de 13.000 a 13.313 almas […] La población de Cartagena […] se dice que llega a doce o catorce mil almas […] acerca del número de habitantes de Santafé oigo juicios muy diferentes. En la Historia seguí a los que los eleven a cuarenta mil almas, los muchísimos orejones que están disperses por la sabana y que con Buena razón parece que pertenecen a Santafé. Pero dejando a un lado esta controversia, es indudable que la capital tiene unas treinta mil almas’ (Ensayo, IV, Apéndice, 2, 337; 3, 343; 5, 351; 8, 382). See also Ensayo, IV, Apéndice, 2, 337; 3, 343; 5, 351; 8, 382. 41The correspondence between Alzate and Revillagigedo on this matter is collected in the AGNM, Historia, t. 74, ff. 1r–115r, 122r–123r, 129r–131r. 42When Alexander von Humboldt compiled an estimate of the population of Mexico in 1803 he used methods and reasoning almost identical to those employed by Alzate in regard to the census. 43Cañizares-Esguerra, ‘Postcolonialism avant la lettre?’, 103.