The voices of John Phillips and John Stevens through the paratexts of the translations of Don Quijote and of Spanish chronicles of the conquest

Abstract

This article studies the paratexts of the translations of Don Quijote into English by John Stevens and John Phillips, and of the translations of Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias by John Phillips and Crónica del Perú by John Stevens. It draws on the work of Gérard Genette, who discussed the use of paratexts in literary studies, and applies it to the translations covered here in order to discuss the concepts of "voice" and "translatorial identity", as used by translation scholars. After introducing the relevance of paratexts in Translation Studies research, the article studies the titles, the dedications and the prefaces of the four translations, and argues that these texts showed that the two translators had different aims in mind: while John PhillipsÕs agenda was first and foremost ideological, John Stevens was particularly interested in producing faithful renditions of the original works.