Cervantes’s "Don Quixote" translated into Latin by Antonio Peral Torres: Retro-translation and diastratic variation

Abstract

Except for isolated fragments, the translation of Don Quixote into the “queen of languages”, Latin, was not published until the end of the 20th century, when Latin had not only abandoned its status as lingua franca, but it was in serious danger of being definitively forgotten. For that reason, its translator, Antonio Peral Torres, attributes an almost salvific mission to this counter-current translation. This article analyses how Latin quotations that had been translated into Spanish by Cervantes have been retro-translated into Latin, and how they coexist with others originally formulated in Latin. Furthermore, the present paper explores how the translator confronts the fiction that all characters (including illiterate ones such as Sancho Panza) speak in Latin.