ABSTRACT
This chapter will analyse the style of a specific translator, in this case, sam- ples of the work of a major early translator, Harriet de Onís (1895–1969). Onís’s background is discussed in some detail in an article in the Americas magazine by Trudy Balch (1998): Harriet, née Wishnieff, was born in New York City, the daughter of Russian Jewish émigrés but she grew up in rural Illinois. She read English at Barnard College in New York, although her studies also encompassed other languages: Latin, French, German, and Ital- ian in common with other liberal arts students. She only learned Spanish after the First World War when she worked as a Spanish book importer; according to Balch (ibid.: 48), Onís seems to have picked up Portuguese later and mainly through reading. She therefore had no formal training in translation and her untheoretical approach is summed up in advice she gave to graduate student Gregory Rabassa when he began to translate for a new literary magazine Odyssey Review (see chapter 5): “Don’t stick too close to the text,” said Onís, “but at the same time don’t be too free and easy” (Balch ibid.: 48). This reflected the fuzzy parameters of ‘literal’ and ‘free’ translation that had dominated Western writing on translation. 1
