A New Approach to Retranslating: (Re)Translations of the Chronicles of the Discovery and Conquest of the Canary Islands

Abstract

Expeditions throughout the Atlantic Ocean in the Middle Ages gave rise to numerous chronicles narrating the discovery and conquest of the Canary Islands, by direct or indirect witnesses of the events and in different languages. The brief accounts accredited to the Italians Niccoloso da Recco and Alvise Cadamosto and to the Normans Gadifer de La Salle and Jean de Béthencourt are likewise essential to the broader historiography of the European advances into Africa and America. These chronicles have been translated and retranslated into Spanish in multiple occasions practically from their appearance up to present times. The incessant translational activity linked to these chronicles gave rise to a tangle of versions, translations, retranslations and revisions stemming from a variety of diverging source texts. The aim of this study is thus to discuss the multiple (re)translations practices of these chronicles (translations from original or pseudo-original or from complete or partial source texts, existence of diverging source texts, translations in very short periods, etc.), which reveal multiple motives beyond those currently identified by retranslation theory (revisions, a lack of awareness of previous versions, the desire to distinguish a translation from previous ones, etc.). The study thus offers a new way to analyse the causality and circumstances for retranslating texts and challenges the traditional retranslation model.