UA TRANSLATOR EXAMINES HOW TO PORTRAY A HERO

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — What do you get when you take enthusiastic nationalism and transport it across an ocean to an undeveloped land: Exploration or exploitation? Heroism or imperialism? A war against terror or an epic tale? A University of Arkansas researcher’s study of heroic literature implies that the answer is usually "both."

John DuVal, professor of English and teacher in the UA creative writing program, recently examined two epic poems in which the portrayal of characters offers insight — and caution — about the way we idolize and memorialize the conquering hero. DuVal presented his findings at the recent Modern Language Association meeting in New Orleans.

"Look at Alexander the Great or Ulysses or Columbus. Many of the world’s timeless heroes have trampled all over people," DuVal said. "But Roberti makes the point that the world without heroes is an emasculated world. No one wants a world without courage and adventure and conquest, but there’s a lot of brutality that comes along with that."

DuVal refers to Giorgio Roberti, author of the epic comedy "A Stick in the Eye," which takes a fresh look at the meeting between Homer’s Ulysses and the monstrous Cyclops. In his MLA presentation, DuVal compared this work to Cesare Pascarella’s "The Discovery of America" — another epic poem that describes Columbus’ first encounter with the inhabitants of the New World.

Each epic comprises a series of 50 or more poems, written in sonnet form and linked by continuous narration. Both were originally written in Romanesco, an Italian dialect, from which DuVal translates. Both also depict the voyage of heroes to conquer unseen lands and spread the glory of their native countries.

However, Pascarella wrote his epic in 1894 while Roberti’s was written in 1980. The near-century that divides the works is what offers keenest insight into the portrayal of heroism, the politics of readers and the way these interpretations can change and conflict over time. It suggests caution to those who would deliver modern-day "heroes" into the hands of history.

Despite the "timelessness" of heroes, their stories remain susceptible to the corruption of time, DuVal said. In fact, both the stories and characters change with each telling, subtly adapted to the time and tone of the audience.

DuVal considers Ulysses the prime example of this phenomenon — representing the flawless epic adventurer in Homer’s "Odyssey", the calculating king in Sophocles’ "Philoctetes", the aging idealist in Tennyson’s "Ulysses", even the loquacious bumbler in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" Contemporary imagination continually reshapes the character. Roberti portrays him as a courageous scoundrel, a savvy and loveable cad.

A similar, though less flattering process has changed the portrayal of Columbus over time. Once a visionary explorer, he’s now more often characterized as an unscrupulous invader. Even in 1894, Pascarella seems to have sensed Columbus’ culpability.

"Pascarella absolves Columbus of the responsibility for the bullying, the cruelty and the cheating that accompany colonization by leaving him out of the sonnets where his men are on shore trading bits of broken glass for gold brooches and chasing women," DuVal explained.

One of the reasons that stories change over time is the fact that they have to keep pace with the audience, keep appealing to readers. A writer may succeed in creating a hero perfectly honorable and admirable, but as politics and ideals change over time, so can readers’ interpretation of character, of values and virtue.

According to DuVal, Pascarella originally wrote "The Discovery of America" to appeal to the nationalist and colonialist sentiments of his liberal readers. But a century later, the concept of liberalism has changed. Liberals now condemn the nationalism and colonialism that they used to embrace, and the heroes that embody these concepts are reviled.

Audiences have changed as well as opinions. "As Americans, we read Pascarella’s epic differently than those who read it when it first came out," DuVal said. "We’re the discovered. We probably respond more sympathetically to the interests of the Native Americans than the narrator does, and we react with more disfavor when they’re cheated."

In fact, the victims — be they Native Americans or one-eyed monsters — also figure into a reader’s perception of the hero. Pascarella depicts the natives of the New World as common and hospitable people, which makes the plundering done by Columbus’ crew all the more offensive. Their innocence underscores the explorers’ guilt.

Roberti learned from Pascarella’s mistake. He created a victim both savage and smart so that, in defeating the Cyclops, Ulysses proves himself courageous as well as intelligent. The readers know Ulysses is a rascal — they’ve seen how greed lured him and his men into the Cyclops’ cave. Nonetheless, they come away appreciating the hero’s admirable qualities.

Such appreciation is the best a conquering hero can expect, for the dichotomy of their personalities means that their good and admirable qualities will always be paired with the brutality of their actions.

"Roberti handles the contradiction well," DuVal said. "To the end, Pascarella acclaims Columbus’ actions. But Roberti gives the last word to the victim and to the tragedy of what has happened: 'Goodbye, ocean. Goodbye, sky. Goodbye, horizon./ Flower of the broom, strawberry, violet, goodbye,/ and all wild flowers, beautiful and shy/ growing among the droppings of the bison.’"

In 1992, DuVal’s translation of "The Discovery of America" won the Academy of American Poets’ Harold Morton Landon Translation prize. He’s currently working on a full translation of "A Stick in the Eye," with Louise Rozier, an instructor of foreign languages at the U of A.

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