Resumen de Drinking in the Dark, Imitating under Bright Lights: A Comparative Study of Herberto Helder's "O Bebedor"
In this article, I compare two anthologies of unconventional poetic translations and their respective authors' practices as translators: Robert Lowell's Imitations (1961) and Herberto Helder's O Bebedor Nocturno (1968). In both cases, a diversity of distinct poetic voices becomes homogenized under a process whereby a plurality of cultures and poets are filtered through one translator, who manipulates their sources for their own political ends. Whereas the poets selected for Imitations represent a literary in-club of Lowell's canonical influences, the variety of non-European and marginal cultures that feature in O Bebedor Nocturno stand as a counterpoint to the nationalist and isolationist culture of Portugal's dictatorship, the New State.
