ABSTRACT
Bad translations can have an unanticipated pedagogical benefit: the very obtrusiveness of lexical or stylistic error forces students to read the translated work as a translation and to see the profound mediating influence of the translator in interpreting (or misinterpreting) the original work in a second language. I illustrate this process through my own practice of teaching the sole English translation of René Marqués’s 1952 play La carreta, a classic of Latinx and Puerto Rican literature, in an undergraduate course on Latinx literature in English. The 1969 translation, titled The Oxcart, is rife with error: false cognates, poorly rendered dialect, and, most alarmingly, widespread erasure of the Spanish play’s complex treatment of race and sexuality. In my course, we first discuss the play without reference to the translation’s shortcomings. Then, through a series of guided exercises, making use of side-by-side textual comparisons and archival materials, students discover an unexpurgated version of the play in which effaced elements of Latinx-African American solidarity and queer sexuality are restored. Students come away with a different view of The Oxcart and an indelible sense of the critical role of the translator in shaping the reception of foreign-language works, the translator’s ethical compact with the reader, and a greater appreciation for the constituents of good translation.
