Translation as archaeological practice A holistic study of four Spanish translations of Moby-Dick

This article deals with retranslation, both theoretically and practically. The study proposes a holistic approach to retranslation, using for the analysis two essential factors in the retranslating process: first, the frequency of the publication of the retranslations of some works, and, second, the testimonies of the retranslators themselves in relation to the translation of that particular work. We analyze four retranslations of Moby-Dick (Melville 1851) published in Spain in an eight-year period (2007-2014); we have direct testimonies of those retranslations from the retranslators, found in introductions, academic and divulgative essays, and from personal correspondence. The matching of the frequency of those retranslations with the evidence of the retranslators and the results of the analysis of the three examples selected from those versions helps to conclude and emphasize both the importance and the necessity of producing retranslation studies beyond the usual comparative case studies.