Brigitte Schultze

This article discusses Czesław Miłosz as a poet-translator of the poetry of
his younger colleagues: Herbert, Różewicz and Szymborska. The comparative analysis
focuses on features largely neglected in translation studies, such as Polish-English
linguistic asymmetries and the poetics of grammar, that is, the functions of defi nite,
indefi nite and zero articles, verbs and their aspects, personal pronouns as well as the
auxiliary verb jest/is. Whereas some of these items cannot be translated adequately
because they cause aesthetic loss in any translation, others allow for adequate,
sometimes even “optimal” translation.

CZESŁAW MIŁOSZ AS A TRANSLATOR OF THE POETICS OF GRAMMAR AND LANGUAGE ASYMMETRIES IN THE WRITINGS OF ZBIGNIEW HERBERT, TADEUSZ RÓŻEWICZ AND WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA

This article discusses Czesław Miłosz as a poet-translator of the poetry of his younger colleagues: Herbert, Różewicz and Szymborska. The comparative analysis focuses on such features largely neglected in translation studies as Polish-English linguistic asymmetries and the poetics of grammar, that is, the functions of definite, indefinite and zero articles, verbs and their aspects, personal pronouns as well as the auxiliary verb jest/is. Whereas some of these items cannot be translated adequately, because they cause an aesthetic loss in any translation, others allow for adequate, sometimes even “optimal,” translation.

The possibility of finding general premises for a theory of drama translation has been dismissed long ago (Schultze 2015b). It is, however, still feasible to consider single structural elements (deixis, forms of address) in translational transfer. Reduction and expansion deserve permanent attention, be it as aesthetic devices in source texts or as translational solutions – between gain and loss – in target texts. This article discusses reduction and expansion in two Polish theatre classics of the international repertory: Mrożek’s Tango and Głowacki’s Antygona w Nowym Jorku. The target texts are English, French, German and Russian translations, partly also theatre scripts. The authors argue that theatre translation has a chance to overcome drawbacks of linguistic asymmetries.