The Literary in History (and in the History of Translations)
The relationship between literature and history is complicated; so is that between literary translation and the history of translation. This essay begins by making some general theoretical assertions: texts known as literary do not inhabit chronology in the same way as other kinds of texts; translations, especially, disrupt historical timelines since they (almost always) arise from at least two different moments and locations. The essay then focuses on the work of John Dryden, referring also to the King James Bible and to Samuel Purchas’s translation of the Mexica Codex Mendoza, and asks what kind of historical contextualisation is necessary if these texts are to be situated, not in ‘history’ but in a ‘history of translations’.

Polish 17th-Century Translations of Jesuit Accounts from the Far East in the Context of Translation History

Right from the beginning of their missionary activity, the Jesuits painstakingly drafted and collected various documents. These accounts were printed in Latin or Italian, and soon translated into other languages. In Poland, in the first three decades of the 17th century, more than a dozen reports from China, Japan, Vietnam and Tibet were printed, constituting the first eye-witness accounts from these territories, not only in Poland, but in Europe at large. Polish translations offer material for various kinds of analysis. This article discusses the work of two Polish translators, members of Society of Jesus, who used different strategies depending on their intended target readership. Szymon Wysocki was interested mainly in religious aspects of the Far East missions and he got rid of most of culture-specific items as his writing was dedicated to young adepts of the Society. Fryderyk Szembek, on the other hand, paid attention also to cultural aspects of the accounts he translated. However, his attitude towards cultural otherness was less neutral than in the source texts. His translations constituted an important source of knowledge for the 17th century Polish reader. Both translators had to cope with difficulties such as proper names or culturally marked vocabulary and with the genre specifity of these texts, new to the Polish literary system. In my research I use the methodological framework of polysystem theory, Lefevere’s theory of rewriting and Pym’s concepts in the history of translation, referring also to translation sociology, theory of reportage, history of culture and history of languages.

Peritexts in Polish Translations from Italian in the 18th Century: Education or Manipulation?

The paper centres on peritexts (G. Genette) in Polish Enlightenment translations of three Italian texts: Francesco Algarotti’s novel Il congresso di Citera (1745, 1763; the Polish version ca. 1788), Cesare Beccaria’s treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764; the Polish version 1772) and Giovanni Barberi’s ideological text Compendio della vita, e delle gesta di Giuseppe Balsamo denominato il conte Cagliostro (1791; the Polish version 1793). Their translators, Marianna Maliszewska, Teodor Waga and Grzegorz Kniażewicz, added a significant amount of their own introductions and notes to the hypertexts, which reflected a widespread tendency in Polish literature, both original and translated, in that period. The information given in the translators’ peritexts is analysed here in order to trace manipulation within cultural mediation. The translators take different approaches. Maliszewska’s comments lack the exegetic function, while the observed elements of manipulation seem due to her deficiency in cultural competence and to her low status as a translator. Waga, who uses all kinds of translator’s notes, seems reliable and non-confrontational. His comments are mostly intended to make sure that the text is read according to the author’s intentions and to the Enlightenment outlook. Kniażewicz is the most polemical, partly towards the author of the peritexts in the French version  the translated text, which he abuses rather than uses. His peritexts definitely indoctrinate the reader and the extent of manipulation in them is the largest.

Translator’s Invisibility Revisited: The Case of Women Translators in Poland in 1697–1763

This paper analyses the impact of social trajectories of translators on their translatorial behaviour on the example of women translators in Poland in the years 1697–1763. My aim is to explain who they were, presents the circumstances in which they had to live and work and analyse how it impacted their translatorial behaviour. It is assumed that translatorial habitus makes translators invisible and submissive. In the article, I argue the contrary: in the case of early women translators in Poland, taking up this profession required high status and lead to increased visibility.

“It takes a genius to set the tune, and a poet to know how to play variations on it“: Some Remarks on the Irksome (Im)possibility of Editing Shakespeare in Translation

Drawing on the results of the research into the scale and distribution of Polish translation activity with regard to Shakespeare canon in the 19th century, the article offers a discussion of the various roles assumed by both professional and informal (befriended) editors working with Shakespeare translators over time. Understandably enough, the editorial efforts serve to ensure the quality and reception of the text, and range from publisher’s pressure and copyediting to aesthetic (or societal) patronage and complementary efforts to append the text with critical commentary. The article juxtaposes the intimacy of the translation process with the inherently intrusive role of an editor, foregrounding  the fragile psychological balance which pre-conditions effective collaboration and longterm commitment. Finally, the article discusses the need of editorial policies attuned to Shakespeare in translation, which would take into account both the literary intricacy of the original(s) and the specificity of retranslation dialectics, with the necessary positioning of new rewritings against past canon(s).

Polish Borderland Translations of Shakespeare in the 19th Century

Despite previous attempts of rendering William Shakespeare’s works into Polish or transposing them onto the Polish stage, the history of Polish Shakespeare translations started in the first decades of the 19th century. Significantly enough, the very first complete translations from the original emerged in the very specific area of Polish Borderlands (Kresy), which is no longer a part of the Polish territory. The aim of the paper is to present seven early Polish Shakespeare translators whose translation endeavours were closely connected with the Borderlands: Ignacy Hołowiński, Placyd Jankowski, Józef Korzeniowski, Julian Korsak, Adam Pajgert, Apollo Nałęcz Korzeniowski, and Antoni Pietkiewicz. The analysis of their efforts allows to view the parallels in translators’ motivations and strategies, explore the spatial distribution of their endeavors and thus to study the interconnections of creativity, political context and geographical space.

Between Fidelity and Freedom

Ancient playwrights created their plays to be performed on the Athenian stage in the 5th century BC. Within the ensuing centuries, though, their plays were regarded mainly as literary works. Such was the prevailing attitude in the 19th century, when first Polish translations of Greek tragedies were published; it was also very common in the 20th century. However, some translators were aware of the fact that what they translated was not only poetry, but also a material for the stage. Since the Polish theatrical stage differed from the ancient one, a translator of any drama found themselves not only between languages and cultures, but also between stage conventions. That is why their work was always interdisciplinary, it also required inventiveness. But their licence was usually constrained by contemporary literary and theatrical tendencies, and also by the current body of research on antiquity, which was constantly changing. We will never have access to the original idea of those works, but we may try to follow the translator’s work, and try to understand their decisions, their interpretation of a play and the staging potential designed in the final translation, which influences the imagination of readers or spectators. Making use of the necessarily interdisciplinary standpoints as well as selected examples of Polish translations, this paper considers the role of translators in rendering a play from a distant past into the modern world.

“A favour to Polish literature”. The Links Between Katherine Mansfield and Poland

The paper presents the Polish circulation of Katherine Mansfield’s poem To Stanislaw Wyspiański – the only piece of poetry written by Mansfield which was translated into Polish thus far. Written in 1910, the poem was translated three times: by Floryan Sobieniowski in 1910, by Beata Obertyńska in 1958 and by Zbigniew Lisowski in 1968. The analysis of contexts in which the Polish translations were created, published and republished, along with the interpretation of their paratexts, demonstrates that Polish recipients and the very translators were more interested in Wyspiański – the hero presented in the poem – than in Mansfield herself. Throughout decades, very little attention has been paid to the interpretation of the poem. Polish scholars and literary critics were interested in investigating the circumstances in which Mansfield encountered Polish culture in general and learnt about Wyspiański, the great artist from Kraków, in particular. Their convictions and beliefs can fruitfully be interpreted by the Translation History scholar as a sign of changes in the cultural and political situation in Poland. Moreover, the translators’ attitude – especially the one presented by Sobieniowski – can successfully be analyzed from the perspective of Translator Studies.