Translation as Gattopardismo: Or the Civilization of the Lettered

Abstract

This article seeks to rethink the role of translation in ‘letrado’ writing from the mid-nineteenth century. By
considering the transformative appropriations of the concept of ‘civilization’—likely originating in eighteenth
century France—in the canonical works of three notable Latin American intellectuals published between 1843
and 1845, the essay analyzes the common language that emerged around said concept as a translation, in order to shed light on how these letrados were able to reconfigure the idea of civilization for their own purposes of nation and institution building in the nascent Latin American republics. The article posits that translation —understood as a way of working with form that allows for certain things to remain—allowed these public intellectuals to establish a gattopardism, in terms of the vestiges from the colonial era, so that the power the of lettered could continue as a cornerstone of the ruling class in a resolutely republican era.