Errando com Prévert: Comentário às traduções de “Mea Culpa” de Silviano Santiago e Mário Laranjeira

The present article comments on two Brazilian Portuguese translations of French poet Jacques Prévert’s poem “Mea Culpa”, by Silviano Santiago and Mário Laranjeira; it also comments on Laranjeira’s criticism of Santiago’s translation. Both the commentary on their translations and the commentary on Laranjeira’s criticism draw upon Antoine Berman’s concepts of translation position and translation project (1995). In light of these concepts, it is possible to see that, apart from the analytical soundness of Laranjeira’s comment on the poem, his criticism of Santiago’s translation does not take the latter’s translation project into account, and therefore disregards his translation emphases and commitments. Finally, a third translation is proposed, not as substitute to its forerunners, but as their continuator, and as one more link in a continuous chain of retranslations