Recovering Linguistic Multiplicity in Nicanor Parra’s “Antipoetic” Translation of King Lear

Abstract

Nicanor Parra's translation of King Lear, staged in 1992 and published in 2004, challenged many of the norms that had traditionally guided Spanish translations of Shakespeare's works. Parra's interest in the collective nature of language led him to abandon the firmly established Romantic notion that Shakespeare was a universal genius, whose words should be translated in an elevated, uniform style. Instead, Parra seeks to reproduce the play's variety of registers and the instability of its characters linguistic identities. This essay explores some of the ways in which his translation achieves this effect in its published format. The analysis focuses on the text's combination of English and Spanish versions of some words and passages, a strategy that formalizes linguistic multiplicity and offers readers the possibility to identify with different linguistic identities and reading positions.