Agata Hołobut

This article discusses selected “rewritings” of Edward Lear’s nonsense poem “The Akond of Swat”, focusing specifically on the translators’, illustrators’, adapters’ and editors’ attitudes towards the allusive nature of the poem – and specifically the reference it makes to the historical figure of the Pashtun religious leader Abdul Ghaffūr, also known as the Akond (or Wali) of Swat or Saidū Bābā, which may be viewed as orientalist or parodistic from a contemporary viewpoint. Recent translated and illustrated versions of the poem inscribe it with new aesthetic and ideological values. Two Polish translations considered in this article, produced by Andrzej Nowicki and Stanisław Barańczak respectively, demonstrate changing approaches to the nonsense genre evidenced in Polish literary circles (revealing a gradual transition from pure to parodistic nonsense). Graphic representations of the poem discussed in the article testify to the artists’ interpretive powers in redefining the genre of Lear’s poem, rebranding it as an infantile fairy tale on the one hand and a disturbing reflection on tyranny and “the war on terrorism” on the other.

Trans. by Agata Hołobut

* Originally published in Polish in “Przekładaniec” vol. 40/2020. Open access for this publication has been supported by a grant from the Priority Research Area Heritage under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at Jagiellonian University.
See: https://doi.org/10.4467/16891864PC.20.010.13173

Between the Verses

The article discusses a new critical approach to Stanisław Barańczak’s literary translation output, presented by the Polish scholar Monika Kaczorowska in her recent publication Przekład jako kontynuacja twórczości własnej. Na przykładzie wybranych translacji Stanisława Barańczaka [Translation as Continuation of Translator’s Own Work. Analysis of Chosen Translations by Stanisław Barańczak] (2011). It emphasises the adequacy of Kaczorowska’s decision to explore the symbiotic relationship between Barańczak’s original poetic oeuvre and his treatment of the foreign authors, such as E.E. Cummings, Emily Dickinson, Robert Herrick or G.M. Hopkins, whose works he attuned to his own aesthetic pursuits.

Images of Irreverence: Nonsense Poetry in Translation as Exemplified by Edward Lear’s Poem The Akond of Swat

The paper deals with selected “rewritings” of Edward Lear’s nonsense poem The Akond of Swat, focusing specifically on the translators’, illustrators’, adapters’ and editors’ attitudes towards the allusive nature of the poem – the reference it makes to the historical figure of the Pashtun religious leader Abdul Ghaffūr, also known as the Akond (or Wali) of Swat or Saidū Bābā, which may be viewed as problematic from a postcolonial viewpoint. Recent translated and illustrated versions of the poem inscribe it with new aesthetic and ideological values. Two Polish translations considered in the paper, produced by Andrzej Nowicki and Stanisław Barańczak respectively, demonstrate changing approaches to the nonsense genre displayed in Polish literary circles (gradual transition from pure to parodistic nonsense). Graphic representations of the poem discussed in the paper testify to the artists’ interpretive powers in redefining the genre of Lear’s poem: rebranding it as an infantile fairy tale on the one hand and a disturbing reflection on tyranny and “the war on terrorism” on the other.

Although Pablo Picasso claimed that people who want to translate painting tend to bark
at the wrong tree, the article is a discussion of one of such translations, E.E. Cummings’
poem xxvi (“Picasso”) from the volume Tulips and Chimneys (1923). The author analyses
Cummings’ text as an instance of intersemiotic translation and its potential renderings
into Polish as “second order” translations, entangled not only in the intricacies of
the original text but also the “original painting” behind it. The outcome is a series of
alternative versions of the poem in Polish, each elaborating on a different meaning of the
word “plane”, referring to visual design, woodwork and aviation respectively.

Sherry Simon 2020. Miasta w przekładzie. Skrzyżowania języka i pamięci, przeł. Justyna Arabska, Magdalena Brodacka, Melania Chotyńska, Magda Heydel, Ewelina Jurczenia, Karolina Koprowska, Agata Skrzypek, Martyna Szczepaniak i Sylwia Więcek, pod redakcją naukową Magdy Heydel, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.

City Communication Network: Sherry Simon’s Cities in Translation: Intersections of Language and Memory

The article reviews Sherry Simon’s seminal book Cities in Translation: Intersections of Language and Memory (Routledge, 2012) recently rendered into Polish. The Canadian scholar combines urban studies with comparative literature, translation, translator and memory studies to provide insight into linguistic and cultural interactions in the “dual cities” of Calcutta, Trieste, Barcelona and Montreal. An attempt has been made to present Simon’s research against the backdrop of Translational Turn in the study of culture and the Cultural Turn in the study of translation.