Tragicomedy, Translation, Commerce and Circulation of Books in Portugal in the Late Eighteenth Century: The Translation of the faithful shepherd, by Giovanni Guarini

Abstract

During the second half of the eighteenth century a large number of translations into Portuguese of all kinds of works published in other parts of Europe began to appear in Lusitanian book shops. This is the case of the translation of Giovanni Guarini's The Faithful Shepherd, by Tomé Joaquim Gonzaga. Il pastor fido is a pastoral drama composed in the late 1580s and first published in Venice and Ferrara in 1590. By the end of the 18th century, this work went through more than 150 editions, appearing in various other languages, but the only Portuguese translation was that of Tomé Joaquim Gonzaga. The translation of the Faithful Shepherd was presented to the Real Mesa Censória in 1788, approved by the censors, and went to print the following year, only to be prohibited later that same year. The sentence of prohibition made mention of various Italian editions and of French and Spanish translations suggesting just how widely the Faithful Shepard must have circulated in Portugal. Clearly, the work was very widely popular throughout Europe, and there are no official references to the prohibitions before this 1789 edict. The image emerging in this case is contrary to the notion of Portugal's isolation from northern European countries and reveals some of the tensions in play in the publishing business, tensions that went beyond issues of profit and the wider book trade.