Straile, Paula D. and Earl E. Fitz.

“Rebellion in the Backlands, by Samuel Putnam, and

Os Sertões, by Euclides da Cunha: A Comparative Translation Study.” TR 47.
45-51

REBELLION IN THE BACKLANDS, BY SAMUEL PUTNAM, AND OS SERTÕES, BY

EUCLIDES DA CUNHA: A COMPARATIVE TRANSLATION STUDY

BY PAULA D. STRAILE AND EARL E. FITZ

One can only feel a great indebtedness to Samuel Putnam for his superb English rendering
of Euclides da Cunha's Os Sertões, a work which Agrippino Grieco, speaking for the
majority of Brazilian commentators, believes is "a obra que melhor reflecte a nossa terra e a
nossa gente" ["the work which best reflects our land and our people"] (284). Putnam's
work, entitled Rebellion in the Backlands, has allowed English-speaking readers to
experience Brazil's most significant historical event via a text that vividly represents the
nation's complex cultural heritage. Putnam's translation, having remained in print for some
50 years in the English-speaking world and having influenced scholars in various academic
fields, is rightly considered as much a classic as da Cunha's original. Yet a close
comparative look at these two powerfully influential texts reveals significant differences in
the area of style, an issue which, perhaps the most difficult thing of all to translate, serves to
underscore the uniqueness of da Cunha's original version.
Speaking theoretically of this question, Jonathan Tittler explains the curious dialectic
that exists between the translation of a work and the original: "...nothing emerges quite so
clearly from the attempt to bridge the difference between the original and translated versions
as the difference itself" (241). Following Tittler's lead, the purpose of this study is to
comment on the stylistic differences in structure, punctuation, and diction between Os
Sertões and Rebellion in the Backlands and to speculate about why Putnam made the
stylistic decisions he did.1
There can be no doubt as to the literary value of da Cunha's historical scientific
treatise. Grieco describes Os Sertões as an "epic poem in prose" and holds that its singular
style is the author's own invention (258). He argues, for example, that da Cunha's
preoccupation with grammar inspired him to compose a truly Brazilian language. 2 Grieco
also cites the peninsular critic Bronco (who has never been suspected of a love for Brazilian
literature), when he claims that the first chapter of Os Sertões contains the 60 most beautiful
pages written in the Portuguese language thus far! (284) Another prominent Brazilian critic,
Afrânio Peixoto, says (in his preface to Putnam's translation) that da Cunha's style is highly
original and that the author's importance in Brazil's letters is "reflected not alone in the
content of his thought but in the very style in which it is clothed" (Putnam xix). Peixoto
agrees that this work of science is also a work of art and thus deserves to be translated to
reach a broader audience. A survey of the critical bibliography on this work reveals that
virtually all critics agree on the stylistic brilliance of Os Sertões and view it as a complex
and compelling work of art.3
A great admirer of Os Sertões, Putnam sees da Cunha as a symbol and inspiration to
creative writers because he has solved the common problem for Brazilian writers of "how to
achieve an artistic synthesis of the rich social content which his country affords him" (viii).
Comparing da Cunha's artful manipulation of style and structure to that of Walt Whitman,
Putnam also identifies the Brazilian master as a literary pathfinder and ranks him with
Machado de Assis as one of the two principal founts of Brazilian literature. Because he
highlights these merits, one can hardly accuse Putnam of being less than fully cognizant of
the stylistic artistry of Os Sertões.
Nevertheless, a close comparative reading of Os Sertões and Rebellion in the
Backlands suggests that he consistently altered its style--sometimes lightly, sometimes
greatly--in his own English language translation. Falling primarily into the areas of
structure, punctuation, and diction, these stylistic alterations, while not seriously harming the
sense of the original, did change it, especially in terms of the modern reader's response to it.
In his own evaluation of de Assis and da Cunha, Putnam claims, "In the one case (of de
Assis), the stress is on form; the other, content" (emphasis added, vii), an observation that
seems to illustrate the interpretive tack that Putnam followed when he translated Os Sertões
almost 50 years ago. We believe, moreover, that it is this emphasis on the content of Os
Sertões, and not its style, that is responsible for the less animated, less ironic, and less
dramatic effect of Rebellion in the Backlands. Alongside the translation, the original version
emerges as more densely interwoven, more ambiguous, and, at key times, more dramatic.
The most obvious structural changes in the translation are the subheadings that
Putnam chose to include within the narration. In concordance with the patterning of
Fernando Nery, who revised the twelfth edition in 1933 and added the subtitles, the editors
of the current 1992 Portuguese version present them at the beginning of each chapter and
indicate breaks within the narration, using spaces or asterisks in order to avoid violating the
text.4 For example, the subtitles for the first chapter of the Portuguese version precede the
narration in the following manner:

A Terra

I.Preliminares. A entrada do sertão. Terra ignota. Em caminho para

Monte Santo. Primeiras impressões. Um sonho de geólogo.

II.Golpe de vista do alto de Monte Santo. Do alto da Favela.

III.O clima. Higrômetros singulares.

IV.As secas. Hipótesis sobre a sua gênese. As caatingas.

V.Uma categoria geográfica que Hegal não citou. Como se faz um

deserto. Como se extingue o deserto. O martírio secular da
terra.

These listings serve as tables of contents, providing the reader with an idea of the subjects to
be discussed in the narration without interrupting it, an editorial decision that indicates a
conscious concern with the narration's natural flow and style. Putnam's translation,
however, not only adds a few new ones but converts these original subtitles into centered
subheadings that divide and fragment the text, often in locations where the original version
does not provide a natural break. While they are informative and help the reader to locate a
favorite section of the book, the subheadings of the translation give an encyclopedic,
textbook-like effect to the narration and interrupt its compelling, novel-like ebb and flow.
These structural ruptures not only create unintended pauses, but also distract the reader from
the mesmerizing style of the original because they excessively call attention to the content
by listing the various subjects discussed. To compartmentalize such a closely woven and
self-referentially sophisticated narrative as Os Sertões converts it (as occurs in its English
translation) into a powerful, but conventional, Brazilian history book. The translator's
decision to break up the narrative in this fashion supports our contention that his primary
goal was to emphasize the original's content rather than its style; this is a quite reasonable
decision in the light of Os Sertões's importance to Brazilian history and civilization, yet one
that prevents Rebellion in the Backlands from being as brilliant a translation as it might have
been.
Another crucial structural difference between the two versions appears in the
positioning of sentences and paragraphs. A significant and effective technique of da Cunha's
style is the way in which he separates important sentences and phrases from the rest of the
narration, utilizing the emphasis created by the blank space of the page. His paragraphs
vary greatly in length; at times he interpolates single or pairs of sentences or phrases
between long narrative sections. Putnam, on the other hand, tends with very few exceptions
to gather up these "loose" phrases or sentences and, compacting them into larger units, bury
them in lengthier paragraphs. For example, this kind of restructuring appears early on in the
Author's Note. The following "loose" sentences, each one standing alone (and thereby
generating its specific power and emphasis), follow a paragraph describing the cultural
significance of the Canudos campaign, about which da Cunha does not hide his feelings:

Aquela campanha lembra um refluxo para o passado.

E foi, na significação integral da palavra, um crime.
Denunciemo-lo. (8)

The translation, in contrast, presents a short, more condensed paragraph:

The campaign in question marked a backward step, an

ebb in the direction of the past. It was in the integral sense of
the word a crime, and as such, to be denounced. (xxx)

The dramatic positioning of the original's sentences is changed in a way that clearly lessens
their individual effect as well as the emphatic sequence of the decisive words: passado,
crime, and Denunciemo-lo [past, crime, Let us denounce it.] Set off as it is, da Cunha's final
phrase sets itself apart dramatically and leaves no doubt as to his feelings about the
campaign. Standing alone as it does, it permits the reader a moment to ponder the full
impact of the words. Finally, its first person diction is powerful and active, whereas the
translator has converted it into a more muted passive voice.
In the first pages of Putnam's translation, there are several similar illustrations of the
conversion of da Cunha's intensely dramatic structure into a more conventional one, a
translation strategy that sacrifices the potency that the style adds to the content in the
original version. For example, another set-off sentence in the original breaks the flow of a
description of the Brazilian geography by calling attention to itself: "Entretanto, para leste a
natureza é diversa" (11). This line, vital because it is the first mention of the region to the
east where Canudos is located, is combined with the paragraph that follows it in the
translation: "Meanwhile, to the east, Nature takes on a different aspect. Here, it is harshly
stereographed in the rigid folds of gneiss formations;...." (4) The dramatic effect, again, is
lost. Perhaps an even more revealing indication of the structural changes wrought by the
translator occurs in this sentence: "Esta é mais deprimida e mais revolta" (emphasis added,
13). Again, da Cunha has just spoken about the region east of the São Francisco River;
Canudos, not directly mentioned, is subtly implied (and emphasized) by its precarious
positioning. In the translation, however, we find this sentence couched mid-way through the
paragraph with no break before or after: "The region is here more depressed and rugged in
appearance" (emphasis added, 8). Beyond the loss of structural effect, the translation's
diction is also less effective. The selected word, "rugged," does not convey the politically
charged meaning that the word "revolta" provides in conjunction with the mention of the
eastern site, where the backlands rebellion will take place. Da Cunha would surely have
intended the word's more relevant and powerful meanings, such as revolt, revolution,
rebellion, or rebellious.
Frequently, too, da Cunha will set off more than one sentence to create the powerful
effect so characteristic of his dramatic structuring. For example, on the issue of race, so
fundamental to his text, he claims:

Não temos unidade de raça.

Não a teremos talvez, nunca. (42)

Putnam's translation combines the abrupt, hard hitting phrases and inters them in a
smoother, more integrated--though again less dramatic--paragraph:

We do not possess unity of race, and it is possible we shall never possess it. (54)

Shortly after these observations da Cunha presents his reaction to the racial situation in three
powerful lines that, if the kind of auto-extermination that occurred in Canudos is repeated,
ironically foretell the future of Brazil:

Estamos condenados a civilização.

Ou progredimos, ou desaparecemos.
A afirmativa é segura. (42)

Again, the translation has converted these riveting lines into a needlessly conventional
structure:

We are condemned to civilization. Either we shall progress or we shall

perish. So much is certain, and our choice is clear. (54)

These kinds of structural adjustments are repeated throughout the English translation
and, with the exception of a few transitional types of sentences that are set apart,
characterize the translation. Most frequently, the exceptional set-off sentences in the
translation are found at the end of a section or chapter where Putnam has included a
subheading to announce what is to come. For example, the translator places a subheading
before a line set apart in the narration:

THE BACKLANDS ARE A PARADISE

The backlands are now a paradise. (38)

On the other hand, da Cunha, allowing the style to create links between sections of
narration, relies on the structural breaks themselves. This technique instills both more irony
and a more subtle kind of transition by allowing the style to convey the full range of
intended meanings. The same statement in the original interrupts the narrative flow by
setting off the sentence and utilizing an ellipsis:

E o sertão é um paraíso... (33)

If Putnam had retained the original's stylistic techniques, there would have been no need for
the simplifying and redundant subheadings of his translated version. The decision to include
a subheading seems to imply that Putnam underestimated the powerful rhetorical effect of
the set-off positioning of statements which in the original serves the same function, that of
alerting the reader to a significant point by interrupting the narration.
The most unique and effectively employed of da Cunha's stylistic techniques,
especially in the scientific literary genre to which Os Sertões pertains, is the ellipsis (a form
of punctuation utilized to brilliant effect by one of da Cunha's great contemporaries,
Machado de Assis, whose narratives he likely would have known well). The ellipsis, found
so frequently in the original--usually at the end of especially significant (and often ironically
charged) lines--is almost entirely eliminated in Putnam's translation. The rare exceptions
will be discussed shortly. Apropos of this decisive choice is Hugo Friedrich's discussion of
Humboldt, who warns of the danger of underestimating the importance of unique stylistic
elements:

Ambiguities of the original that are part of the essential character of a work have to
be maintained....One can't afford to change something that is elevated,
exaggerated and unusual in the original to something light and easily
accessible in the translation. (16)

In much the same way as the blank spaces in the text add emphasis to statements that
precede them, the ellipsis creates a visual pause. It indicates the continuation of unspoken
thought...a continuum of the author's words and the reader's response. It is an invitation to
the reader to pause a moment and ponder a word, a phrase, a sentence or an idea that he or
she has just read. The ellipsis thus compels the reader to participate in the narration by
referring to knowledge or ideas that he or she already possesses in order to fill in the
strategically omitted words the ellipsis represents. This is evident, as we shall see, in one of
the earliest appearances of the technique in Os Sertões.
Da Cunha has just finished describing the Serra do Grão-Mogol, a mountain range
known as the Brazilian Himalayas, and the paragraph ends with the word "desabada..."
[fallen] followed by an ellipsis (12). He invokes the image of an ancient civilization in ruins
to describe the scene; indeed, the fall of Troy becomes a repeated reference that da Cunha
uses as a metaphor to describe the devastating effects of the Canudos rebellion. The last
word of the following paragraph, "vaqueiros," also precedes an ellipsis that leads the reader
to meditate on the nature of the northern cowboys who, later in the narrative, fight heroically
to defend the backlands from the Republican forces and are tragically slaughtered: "É a
paragem formosíssima dos campos gerais, expandida em chapadões ondulantes--grandes
tablados onde campeia a sociedade rude dos vaqueiros..." (12) This thematic link between
the land's ruinous appearance and the tragic figure of the vaqueiro is extremely significant,
for it is through these images that the text represents the state of national decline that forms
the central thesis of da Cunha's entire work. Neither ellipsis appears in the translation and
the word "vaqueiros" is buried, lessening the dramatic effect.
As a kind of environmental sociologist living at the turn of the century, da Cunha
had assimilated the deterministic ideas of Comte, Spencer, and Darwin concerning the
evolution of humanity. His feeling was that the Canudos war was evidence of the grand
drama of evolution and of the struggle between the stronger and weaker races, and that,
because of this "law," the inferior races of the backlands would necessarily perish by
evolution or the "sword of civilization." However, as a mulatto himself, da Cunha does not
accept this fate with the cold objectivity of a scientist; rather, he charges the Republic with
criminal neglect in not recognizing the northerners as part of the nation and helping them to
progress.
Da Cunha's crucial arguments are enhanced in the original by the elements of style
discussed thus far--the careful structural positioning and the ellipsis, which function as
markers in the text. For example, this description of the serpentine river, Vaza-Barris,
contains ellipses that point to the Canudos settlement:

Um único se distinguia, o Vaza-Barris. Atravessava-a, torcendo-se em

meandros. Presa numa dessas voltas via-se uma depressão maior,
circundada de colinas... E alulhando-a, enchendo-a toda de confusos tetos
incontáveis, um acervo enorme de casebres... (emphasis added, 22)

Here, the huts couched in a depression surrounded by hills obviously belong to Canudos,
yet, its name has not yet been mentioned. The ellipsis provides the reader with a pause and
an indication of the textual clues that imply what is to come later in the narration. The
translation, again by way of contrast, simply reads:

One alone stood out, the Vaza Barris. It was to be seen crossing the plain,
winding and twisting. At one of its turns there could be descried a major
depression, surrounded by hills. And filling this depression with a jumble of
innumerable rooftops, an enormous pile of huts. (emphasis added, 20)

Because the ellipses have been omitted, the same textual clues might well not be intuited by
the reader of the translation in spite of the emphasis created by the fact that these lines
terminate the section.
Another prominent illustration of how da Cunha uses the ellipsis, found at the end of
the first chapter, indicates the drama to come in the following chapter involving the figure of
Antônio Maciel, O Conselheiro [The Counselor]--the backlands leader and martyr of the
revolution:

O martírio do homem, ali, é o reflexo da tortura maior, mais ampla,

abrangendo a economia geral da Vida.

Nasce do martírio secular da Terra... (39)

The translation, leaving out the Euclidean ellipsis, reads:

The martyrdom of man is here reflective of a greater torture, more

widespread, one embracing the general economy of Life.
It arises from the age-old martyrdom of the Earth. (49)

Because the ellipsis is so rare in scientific writing, when used it calls special attention to
itself. It indicates that the author intends some sort of special emphasis on a particular
passage, and it provides a space for the reader to enter into the narrative and contemplate its
implications. Putnam's translation, however, does not allow the reader this space. As a
result, the statements put forth in the translation seem absolute, with no room for readerly
conjecture, ironic or otherwise. The reader of the original, on the other hand, responds more
instantly to da Cunha's arguments because the addition of the ellipsis compels the reader to
complete and even expand upon his thoughts, placing them in other contexts and speculating
about their larger implications.
Putnam's translation also contains a few notable exceptions to his general tendency
to eliminate the ellipsis, which suggests that this is not a case of an oversight on the part of
the translator, that, indeed, it was a deliberate decision on his part. There are instances of the
ellipsis in certain citations and in certain dialogues and there is one utilization of it in the
middle of a sentence where it seems to signify etceteras. 6 Only three characteristically
Euclidean end-of-the-line-ellipses can, however, be found in the translation, whereas the
original version contains almost 50 ellipses in the first chapter alone. One original ellipsis is
retained in a phrase that repeats the last line of a backlands song and implies the backlands
perspective regarding Republican laws and taxation: "The law of the hound..." (164) Here
Putnam retains da Cunha's original emphasis, which attempts to relate his agreement with
the view of the backlands people as to the harshness of the Republic's rule. Another instance
of this type of ellipsis appears at the end of a section dealing with a Friar who visits the
backlands and is frustrated by the Counselor's followers. The sentence, "But the Friar
uttered a curse..." (169), terminates Part I, "The Backlands," and leads into Part II, which is
entitled "Rebellion," by implying a connection between the church and the Canudos
campaign. These faithful translations of the text are so effective that one wonders why
Putnam hesitated to employ, as da Cunha did, such a powerful technique throughout.
Indeed, the most interesting illustration of the use of the ellipsis in the translation follows
and enhances the irony of the trenchant last line of both texts: "The trouble is that we do not
have today a Maudsley for acts of madness and crimes on the part of nations..." (476)/"É
que ainda não existe um Maudsley para as loucuras e os crimes das nacionalidades..." (293)
The use of the ellipsis in this situation leaves the reader of both Os Sertões and Rebellion in
the Backlands to contemplate the Republic's criminal campaign. Each text has come to an
end; however, the conflict remains unresolved, not only for da Cunha and Putnam but for
the reader as well.
Putnam's reluctance to faithfully replicate da Cunha's innovative use of the ellipsis
might imply that, like the set-off sentence positioning, the translator has underestimated the
effect of da Cunha's technique, or perhaps felt that it was too literary or overdone to be
successful in modern English. Because two of the three ellipses found at the end of a
sentence or phrase also end a section of the book--one follows Part I and the other is located
at the end of the book--we might also conclude that Putnam understood the technique as a
device that ought to be reserved for terminating longer sections of the narrative. Because, as
we have seen, Putnam created breaks in the work and eliminated many of those inherent in
the original, it seems reasonable that he did not fully recognize or appreciate the importance
of the often ironic pauses that the ellipses generate. The erasure of the Euclidian ellipsis is
perhaps the strongest indication that Putnam devalued style in favor of featuring the rich
content of da Cunha's masterpiece.
One possible explanation for Putnam's apparent stress on content, and for his failure
to reproduce the vital stylistic elements inherent in Os Sertões, is perhaps that he had in
mind a reader with little or no knowledge of Brazil or its backlands rebellion. Da Cunha's
readers, on the other hand, not only would have known the bloody and violent saga of the
Canudos campaign and its tragic results, they would have known it as their own recent
history. Thus, while the content is unquestionably central for da Cunha, its stylistic
presentation was of crucial concern as well. For, as da Cunha clearly understood, the
extraordinary events of Canudos demanded an equally extraordinary style, one, indeed, that
would express the full horror of Canudos while drawing the reader into a troubled--and
troubling--contemplation of its larger social-political ramifications (something Mario Vargas
Llosa would do in his great novelistic re-invention of Os Sertões, La guerra del fin del
mundo). Da Cunha wanted to present the history of the Canudos rebellion both historically
and poetically, utilizing all the rhetorical possibilities he could find in his idiom and style in
order to transmit his conviction that this criminal event should not be forgotten or allowed to
happen again. Where Putnam seems most concerned with relaying content, or factual
information, about Brazilian history and culture to his readers, da Cunha is manipulating his
readers, persuading them of the unseen and tragically misunderstood significance of the
Canudos episode to their sense of national identity, their sense of their own cultural heritage,
and their sense of the future of Brazil. Allowing us to understand this issue in more
theoretical terms, Friedrich Schleiermacher sees two paths for the translator: moving the
writer toward the reader or moving the reader toward the writer. He advocates the second
method because he believes that the original text generates the power of the translation (41-
42). Perhaps Putnam intended to move the writer toward the reader and thus downplayed
the style of the original in order to better communicate the content. In this case, Putnam's
translation, though generally successful, is less powerful than it might have been because he
fails to bring the reader to the original writer, which, according to Schleiermacher, ought to
be the translator's true labor. Da Cunha's original version, then, is both more rhetorically
powerful and more effective than Rebellion in the Backlands because the style itself not
only conveys information about an event of great national importance but draws the reader
into a closer, more visceral and, ultimately, more deeply disturbing confrontation with the
issues raised. If Rebellion in the Backlands allows us to understand what happened at
Canudos, Os Sertões, the original text, makes us feel the agony, confusion, and tragic
misunderstandings as well, and it is here that the chief difference between the two versions
lies.
In their introduction to Theories of Translation, Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet
identify two fundamental common points in their collection of essays: the new emotions
and concepts that foreign language translation allows us to experience and the resulting
expansion and enrichment of one's own language through the translation process (9). The
first feature mentioned here involves the enrichment of the reader through translated works.
The reader of Putnam's translation will surely learn and experience new emotions and
concepts in Rebellion in the Backlands, yet she or he will not reach the depths of
understanding or experience achieved by the reader of the original. The reason for this has
to do with the second common theoretical issue indicated by Schulte and Biguenet and the
theorists cited in their anthology--the expansion of the target language and its resources
through foreign language translation. Hugo Friedrich, for example, discusses the way in
which a translator can approach subtleties of a foreign language through attention to style:

The affinity between the internal structures of languages indeed makes it possible to
adapt linguistic subtleties of the target language to its foreign original. This
language adaption happens in the area of style, whereby style must be
understood, in the context of rhetoric, as the total art of language (elocutio),
but even more as the heights and depths of language (genera). (emphasis
added, Friedrich 15)

Not only does Putnam's translation fail to enrich the English language (which is a goal rarely
achieved by any translation), it fails, more surprisingly, to make use of the forms, structures,
and resources that both languages possess. Putnam's failure to cultivate the ellipsis as
assiduously as da Cunha does, for example, or his tendency to conflate several short,
dramatic and free-standing sentences into a single, long, smooth line are egregious examples
of the stylistic discrepancies between the original and the justly famous English translation.
Friedrich goes on to say that the translator's attitude toward elements of style in a work
indicates how it will be approached:

whether the translator will yield to the original text or conquer it, whether he will
stop at acknowledging the differences between languages or whether he will
move toward a possible rapprochement of styles between languages. (15)

As suggested throughout this study, Putnam does not reproduce the full stylistic
impact of the original version. Instead, by conventionalizing da Cunha's singular style, he
suppresses it, actually preventing his readers from experiencing the dramatic effect a reading
of the original unquestionably creates. However, one must consider that Rebellion in the
Backlands was written with a very different reader in mind, a fact which is of considerable
importance in a stylistic comparison of these two renowned texts. The modern reader will
be interested in the thematic unity of Os Sertões, which is clearly demonstrated via the
introduction of the work's central concepts from the first chapter on. These themes are most
effectively conveyed, however, not by the subheadings, but by the style, through techniques
such as set-off sentence positioning, syntax, and a liberal employment of ellipses. Due to
Putnam's stylistic alterations, the structural unity, stylistic effectiveness, and the ironic and
often metafictive play between style and content so powerfully at work in the original--and
so especially important for the modern reader--are not as readily perceived in the translation.
Yet despite the not incidental differences between Os Sertões and Rebellion in the
Backlands, the excellence of the English version, and the vast influence it has exerted, has
kept da Cunha and his great work alive in the English-speaking world for more than 50
years. For whatever its shortcomings as a translation may be (and all translations suffer
them), Putnam's Rebellion in the Backlands also deserves its status as a great translation,
one that, along with its stylistically more poignant progenitor, lives on through time, much
to the benefit of everyone involved.

NOTES

1.The editions employed in this comparison are Samuel Putnam's 1944 edition entitled
Rebellion in the Backlands; and the 1992 edition of Euclides da Cunha's Os Sertões,
first published in 1902. These particular versions have been chosen because they are
the editions that are currently available for comparative study. Scholars interested in
the works would, most likely, turn to these. Putnam lists 16 editions of Os Sertões,
from the first in 1902 to the 1942 edition, in his bibliography of da Cunha's works.
The 1992 edition offers no information as to the number of editions or printings of
the Portuguese version that have been produced.
2.Afrânio Coutinho, in his An Introduction to Literature in Brazil, names da Cunha as one of
the primary figures responsible for "the preoccupation with Brazilianness" that
characterizes a central theme in Brazilian literature since romanticism (171-254).
He says that the publication of Os Sertões was a cry for intellectual freedom from
European influence and that it inspired an entire tradition of literature that sought to
reveal Brazilian culture, people, and history to Brazilians, employing every known
scientific and literary field. The multifaceted genre generated by this tradition is
known as "Braziliana" (197-201).
3.In his História e Interpretacão de "Os Sertões," Olímpio de Sousa Andrade cites several
critics who see da Cunha's work as an artistic masterpiece: Mário Casanta,
Guilherme de Almeida, Jorge de Lima, and others. De Sousa Andrade raises the
theoretical issue of the unclassifiable genre of Os Sertões with the question of
whether it is a work of history in the scientific sense or a work of fiction. He
compares it to the romance for its imaginary elements and its intended veracity.
Like his fellow critics, de Sousa Andrade also concludes that it is a work of art:
"Nunca se volta de Euclides sem ter alguma coisa nas mãos, seja poesia, idéias, arte
de linguagem, história, algo de ciência, e até mesmo um pouco de ficção...." ["One
never returns from Euclides empty-handed, whether it be poetry, ideas, arte of
language, history, something of science, and even a little fiction...."] (340).
4.Os Sertões (Campana de Canudos). Twelfth edition, Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Francisco
Alves, 1933. With respect to this edition Putnam's annotation states, "This edition
was carefully revised by Fernando Nery, who added the marginal subtitles," and the
footnote regarding these subtitles reads, "These subtitles are centered subheadings in
the present translation" (485).
5.It is interesting to note here that the 1963 26th edition of the Portuguese version of Os
Sertões also includes these subheadings within the narration, perhaps indicating the
 influence of Putnam's translation with respect to this structural decision. This
edition curiously maintains the chapter subtitles found in earlier ones as well as
adding Putnam's centered subheadings, unlike Putnam's translation, which omits the
chapter subtitles in favor of the subheadings within the narration. The 1967 edition,
however, returns to the original positioning of subtitles alone heading each chapter.
6.E nada mais divisava recordando-lhe os cenários contemplados. Tinha na frente a antítese
do que vira. Ali estavam os mesmos acidentes e o mesmo chão, embaixo,
fundamente revolto, sob o indumento áspero dos pedregais e caatingas
estonadas...Mas a reunião de tantos incorretos e duros--arregoados divagantes de
algares, sulcos de despenhadeiros, socavas de bocainas, criava-lhe perspectiva
interamente nova. E quase compreendia que o matutos crendeiros, de imaginativa
ingênua, acreditassem que "ali era o céu..." (da Cunha 21-22)

[What he saw was nothing like the scenes he had previously contemplated. Here before him
was the antithesis of all that. Here were the same features, the same plain down
below with the same essential ruggedness, beneath its crude covering of stony bogs
and stripped caatingas...But the combination of so many harsh and irregular lines--
the roving cracks that show where the pits and caverns are, the furrows that mark the
precipices--created for him perspectives that were entirely new; and he almost began
to understand how the credulous woodsmen, gifted with a naïve imagination, should
have come to believe that "this was heaven" (Putnam 20).]

WORKS CITED

Coutinho, Afrânio. An Introduction to Literature in Brazil. Trans. Gregory Rabassa. New

York: Columbia University Press, 1969.

da Cunha, Euclides. Os Sertões. 1902. Rio de Janeiro: Ediouro S. A., 1992.

de Sousa Andrade, Olímpio. Historia e Interpretacão de "Os Sertões." Coleção Visão do

Brasil 2. 3rd. ed. São Paulo: Editôra Edart, 1966.

Friedrich, Hugo. "On the Art of Translation." Trans. Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet.
Schulte and Biguenet: 11-16.

Grieco, Agrippino. Evolução da Prosa Brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Editôra Ariel, 1933.

Putnam, Samuel. Trans. and Introduction. Rebellion in the Backlands. By Euclides da

Cunha. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944.

Schulte, Rainer and John Biguenet. Eds. and Introduction. Theories of Translation: An
Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Schleiermacher, Friedrich. "On the Methods of Translating." Trans. Waltraud Bartscht.

Schulte and Biguenet: 36-54.
Tittler, Jonathan. "Gringo viejo/The Old Gringo: `The Rest is Fiction.'" The Review of
Contemporary Fiction. 8 (1988): 241-48.