The Misery and Splendour of Translation: a Classic in Translation Studies

In 1937, José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) wrote The Misery and Splendour of Translation, an essay that contains his views about translation. A cursory review of translation literature is enough to appreciate the wide-spread personal mark that Ortega –who is considered ‘the most influential figure in Spanish Thought’- seems to have imprinted on comtemporary Translation Studies. Nevertheless, the influence of his essay on translation studies is an issue that has not been investigated thoroughly yet. This work is a succint summary of the research carried out for my PhD thesis. In this article, I intend to provide a global integrative vision of Ortega’s concept of translation as well as an objective and dynamic evaluation of his contribution to contemporary translation studies, through an in-depth intertextual analysis of the essay and a study of its disemination and influence on contemporary translation scholars. Furthermore, this work is aimed to contribute to the reconstruction of one of the most emblemetic stages in the history of our discipline