Cascando / Mancando: de la autotraducción como método, a la teoría de la despalabra

Abstract

This paper analyses Samuel Beckett’s self-translation of his poem Cascando, written in English, to Mancando, written in German, done by the author in 1936. The article proposes that said self-translation is the first among other ones in the author’s oeuvre. Furthermore, it highlights that this particular self-translation’s practice functions as a method towards the theory of the unword, proposed in Beckett’s German Letter of 1937, dedicated to the bookseller Axel Kaun. The paper points out that both texts in German language, Mancando, of 1936, and the German Letter of 1937, somehow, surround the German Diaries of 1936 and 1937, on what a bilingual exploration is anticipated.  As a central hypothesis I argue that the interlingual self-translation of Cascando / Mancando, and the intersemiotic mechanisms applied in the poem Cascando and the homonymous radio play, exhibit the theoretical principles of the German Letter about the poetics of the unword, the failure, and the lessness. In addition, the article compares Cascando and Mancando’s translations into Spanish, in order to affirm that these are two different poems given that, together with the idea of the unword, the English poem focusses on love as a theme, while the German poem, even with more verses and words, emphasises its absence. Finally, the article observes the importance of the cracked voice in the English radial version of Cascando, of 1964, after the initial radio play in French, of 1961.