%0 Journal Article
%T The Quest for the Golden Fleece: on Translating Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica
%A Żybert-Pruchnicka, Emilia
%J Przekładaniec
%V Numery anglojęzyczne
%R 10.4467/16891864ePC.13.037.1454
%N Special Issue 2013 – Selection from the Archives
%P 56-70
%K Apollonius Rhodius, epic poetry in translation, Polish translations of the Argonautica, translating dactylic hexameter
%@ 1425-6851
%D 2013
%U https://ejournals.eu/czasopismo/przekladaniec/artykul/the-quest-for-the-golden-fleece-on-translating-apollonius-rhodius-argonautica
%X 
	Before recently, there was no full Polish translation of Apollonius Rhodius’
	Argonautica. However, fi ve Polish classical scholars, W. Klinger, Z. Abramowiczówna,
	J. Łanowski, W. Steffen and W. Appel, have translated excerpts of this Hellenistic epic
	into Polish. A comparative analysis of these excerpts with the relevant passages from
	the fi rst complete Polish version of the Argonautica by E. Żybert-Pruchnicka makes it
	possible to trace the individual strategies of the translators. The most important decision
	which every translator of epic poetry has to take at the beginning of his or her work is
	to choose the form in which the poem will be rendered. In Polish there are three main
	traditions of translating epics: in thirteen-syllable meter, in prose, and in hexameter.
	The last type of versifi cation was chosen by fi ve out of six of the translators mentioned
	above; only Świderkówna decided to render the Apollonian poem in thirteen-syllable
	verse. There are also stylistic and language differences that occur in the passages, due to
	the individual preferences of the translators, as well as the writing style characteristic for
	the times in which they lived. Klinger, for instance, prefers modernist stylistics, while
	Steffen chooses to archaise the language of the poem. However, the aim of this article
	is not to evaluate the translations but to open a discussion on how poems written over
	two thousand years ago might be rendered in an adequate and contemporary fashion.