Tamara Brzostowska-Tereszkiewicz

The aim of the article is to introduce a new series of studies on theoretical, methodological, analytical, and interpretive issues concerning “translation anomalies”. Functioning as a medium of artistic innovation and creative cognition, experimental literary translation can be compared to a laboratory, both for translators as well as literary and cultural scholars. It enables us to highlight the fundamental problems of artistic creation, the theory of literature, the theory of artistic translation and the theory of intercultural communication. On the one hand, experiments in translation confirm the necessity of using interdisciplinary research instruments; on the other hand, they show translation as a fundamental metaphor that describes the innovative and dynamic nature of technology.

Borys Pasternak, 2021. Szkice, wybór i przeł. Seweryn Pollak, red. Katarzyna Gędas, Piotr Mitzner, Żaneta Nalewajk, Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.

Thousands of Other Secrets

The article discusses the first critical edition of Seweryn Pollak’s translations of Boris Pasternak’s essays (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego 2021). The collection prepared by Katarzyna Gędas, Piotr Mitzner, and Żaneta Nalewajk invites its readers to develop a multifocal reading that attends simultaneously to (1) the complex historical, social, political and economic factors involved in the production of translations and its relationship to reading communities (both in Soviet Russia and in the Polish People’s Republic), (2) Pasternak’s personal and creative biography, (3) Pasternak’s views on the tasks of art, literature and artistic translation, (4) the history of the Shakespearean translations in Russian, (5) modernist concepts of literary translation, (6) the essayistic and translational legacy of Seweryn Pollak, and, last but not least, (7) Pollak’s unpublished archives. Particularly the last of the mentioned research areas leaves a sense of insufficiency, incompleteness and regret in the reader’s mind. As sadly reported by the editors of the collection, Pollak’s archives have not yet been duly classified and examined, despite their compelling importance for the history of Polish literary translation and translation studies. The translator’s manuscripts remain scattered across various institutions and still await sustained scholarly attention and coordinated elaboration in a search for their secrets.

This article discusses the volume of essays Prismatic Translation, edited by Matthew Reynolds (Cambridge: Legenda, 2019) in light of the history of optical metaphors for translation and recent modernist studies. Tracing the conceptual genealogy of the term and the subtleties of its theoretical usage, the author argues that “prismatic translation” remains an impressive though still excessively ambiguous translation studies metaphor that has not yet solidified into a precise and operative theoretical tool. Notwithstanding these objections, Prismatic Translation can be considered an excellent reference volume for professionals and students engaged in literary and cultural translation studies, as well as comparative modernist studies.

Javier Franco Aixelá, Christian Olalla-Soler (red.). 2022. 50 Years Later: What Have We Learnt after Holmes (1972) and Where Are We Now?, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Uni- versidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Servicio de Publicaciones y Difusión Científica.

“The Great Cambrian Explosion”, or the True Origin of Translation Studies Diversity

The article discusses the collective book 50 Years Later: What Have We Learnt after Holmes (1972) and Where Are We Now? edited by Javier Franco Aixelá, Christian Olalla- Soler (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Servicio de Publicaciones y Difusión Científica 2022). The author of the review draws attention to the challenges and difficulties associated with writing the history of Translation Studies.

Jerzy Święch, 2021. Z historii i poetyki przekładu, Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej.

The article reviews the recent book of Jerzy Święch (Z historii i poetyki przekładu, 2021) as an excellent document of the history of Polish structuralist translation studies. Contrary to what the author modestly suggests, Święch’s theoretical statements and historical readings of artistic translations are of much more than solely archival or museal interest. The book contributes to ongoing debates about the ways of studying and writing the history of literary translation in necessary conjunction with, and at the same time independently of, the history of national literatures. Święch’s studies invariably serve as guidelines for analyses of artistic translations in the light of historical poetics and the sociology of literature. Many of the biographical and sociological issues raised by the Lublin scholar resonate with recent research tendencies in Translator Studies.

All Colours of Translation

The article discusses the collective book Prismatic Translation edited by Matthew Reynolds (Cambridge: Legenda, 2019) in the light of the history of optical metaphors for translation and recent modernism studies. Tracing the conceptual genealogy of the term and the subtleties of its theoretical usage, the reviewer argues that “prismatic translation” remains an impressive though still excessively ambiguous translation studies metaphor that has not yet solidified into a precise and operative theoretical tool. Notwithstanding these objections, Prismatic Translation can be considered an excellent reference for professionals and students engaged in literary and cultural translation studies as well as comparative modernism studies.

Experimental Translation: Techniques, Forms, Metalanguages

The aim of the article is to introduce a new series of studies on theoretical, methodological, analytical, and interpretive problems of “translation anomalies”. Functioning as a medium of artistic innovation and creative cognition, experimental literary translation has a laboratory meaning both for translators and translation, literary and cultural scholars. It allows to highlight the fundamental problems of artistic creation, the theory of literature, the theory of artistic translation and the theory of intercultural communication. On the one hand, translation experiments confirm the necessity of using interdisciplinary research instruments; on the other hand, they show translation as a fundamental metaphor that describes the innovative and dynamic nature of technology.