Backwoods of Language. The Modernist Prose of Djuna Barnes in Polish Translation

Izabela Sobczak

Tytuły

Abstrakt

Only eighty years after the original publication of Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood was the Polish literary market enriched by a translation of one of the strangest novels of Euro- American modernism. Marcin Szuster’s translation, with the Polish title Ostępy nocy, has already garnered praise as well as prizes, leading to the first Polish discussion concerning the work of the eccentric American writer. The focus of this article is to analyze the Polish translation of Nightwood with a special interest in Barnes’s style, which itself becomes a central character in the novel and which connects, according to feminist critics (K. Kaivola, S. Benstock), to its emancipatory potential. In this article I discuss the claim that the complex style of such prose is the (conscious) manifestation of a woman’s voice (as an affect), behind which one can discover a body – one that experiences and is experienced (J. Taylor). The body, both a structural and a rhetorical category in feminist criticism, can be seen in Barnes’s prose as an element which organizes both time and space – therefore, the ambiguity of her terms and the complexity of style make for a real translation challenge. Marcin Szuster as a translator needs to follow Barnes’s “distinctive point of view,” which is a “feminine” one, distanced by gender, experience and time.

* Originally published in Polish in “Przekładaniec” vol. 42/2021. 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.

Translated by: Kamil Petryk

Only eighty years after the original publication of Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood was the Polish literary market enriched by a translation of one of the strangest novels of Euro- American modernism. Marcin Szuster’s translation, with the Polish title Ostępy nocy, has already garnered praise as well as prizes, leading to the first Polish discussion concerning the work of the eccentric American writer. The focus of this article is to analyze the Polish translation of Nightwood with a special interest in Barnes’s style, which itself becomes a central character in the novel and which connects, according to feminist critics (K. Kaivola, S. Benstock), to its emancipatory potential. In this article I discuss the claim that the complex style of such prose is the (conscious) manifestation of a woman’s voice (as an affect), behind which one can discover a body – one that experiences and is experienced (J. Taylor). The body, both a structural and a rhetorical category in feminist criticism, can be seen in Barnes’s prose as an element which organizes both time and space – therefore, the ambiguity of her terms and the complexity of style make for a real translation challenge. Marcin Szuster as a translator needs to follow Barnes’s “distinctive point of view,” which is a “feminine” one, distanced by gender, experience and time.

* Originally published in Polish in “Przekładaniec” vol. 42/2021. 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.

Translated by: Kamil Petryk

Słowa kluczowe

Nightwood, translation criticism, Djuna Barnes, body, text

Bibliografia

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Informacje

Informacje: Przekładaniec, Numery anglojęzyczne, Special Issue 1/2023 – Translation Criticism and Its Vicinity, s. 114 - 134

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4467/16891864ePC.23.006.17773

Typ artykułu: Oryginalny artykuł naukowy

Tytuły:

Polski:

Backwoods of Language. The Modernist Prose of Djuna Barnes in Polish Translation

Angielski:

Backwoods of Language. The Modernist Prose of Djuna Barnes in Polish Translation

Autorzy

Izabela Sobczak

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7167-5767

Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu

Publikacja: 05.09.2023

Status artykułu: Otwarte

Licencja: CC BY

Udział procentowy autorów:

Izabela Sobczak (Autor) - 100%

Kamil Petryk (Tłumacz) - 0%

Korekty artykułu:

-

Języki publikacji:

Angielski

Liczba wyświetleń: 510

Liczba pobrań: 285

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