Zofia Ziemann

In this article, I reflect on the productivity of hermeneutic translation criticism, focusing on literary translation. I pose the question whether the hermeneutic mode of translation analysis and evaluation – largely based on the premises of Romantic art criticism – has the potential to make a significant contribution to contemporary discussions on the functional model of translation criticism. My argument is that the source of the productivity (and functionality) of translation criticism is dialogicity – a feature that can be considered fundamental in the case of hermeneutics. Following the dialogical hermeneutics of F. Schlegel, F. Schleiermacher and H.-G. Gadamer, as well as H.R. Jauß’s aesthetics of reception, I formulate some general postulates regarding a hermeneutic critique of literary translations. This critical mode is interrogative: it locates and poses questions that are answered by the examined texts. The critic’s questions include those about the original and for the original, about the translator and for the translator, as well as about the reader and for the reader. Finally, I demonstrate cases in which a critical dialogue crystallizes around literary translations. It is a dialogue that can be shaped and interpreted by the postulated hermeneutic translation criticism.

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: Zofia Ziemann.

The paper offers a review of Tomasz Swoboda’s 2014 book Powtórzenie i różnica [Repetition and difference] – a collection of nine essays in translation criticism, previously published in Literatura na Świecie monthly, in which the author discusses Polish translations of 20th-century francophone and hispanophone poetry, fiction, and philosophical writing. Swoboda’s collection is one of very few book-length pieces of translation criticism published in Poland, and hence it constitutes an important voice in this rather neglected and underdeveloped area. Apart from offering insightful analyses and compelling interpretations of the particular texts, original and translated, the book also has a meta-level merit: by presenting a particular, highly consistent way of criticizing translated texts, it invites reflection on how (else) translation criticism is, could, and should be practiced. With a focus on the opening piece entitled Mroczny Blanchot [Blanchot the Obscure], and brief references to other essays, the review discusses Swoboda’s critical method and rhetoric. What is found to be especially praiseworthy about the former is the author’s ability to maneuver between the micro- and macro level, combining meticulous linguistic observations with the broader context of literary traditions, canon formation, translation reception etc. One feature of Swoboda’s translation criticism that calls for a polemical stance is his distrust of or disregard for translation theory, openly voiced by the translator-cum-critic also on different occasions, and indeed characteristic of many contributors to Literatura na Świecie. It is argued that this attitude stems from the fact that Swoboda and his colleagues equal theory with academic jargon, rather than with thinking about or problematizing translation. On the other hand, in avoiding theoretical discussions, Swoboda makes his book appeal to readers otherwise concerned with “literature as such” rather than with translation studies, thus making them aware of the complexity of the phenomenon of translation. All in all, one can say without a shadow of a doubt Swoboda’s book is a highly inspiring and much-needed publication.

The main problem discussed in the paper is the authenticity of speech of the inhabitants of Chełmno in the sequence filmed outside the parish church in Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah. The authors analyze a number of characteristic features of the bystanders’ language vis a vis the French translation provided by the interpreter  Barbara Janicka, and the English subtitles. It is argued that the language of the bystanders carries important information on the speakers’ individual and collective identity, and gives clues on the construction of memory, not just on the level of meanings, but also in its materiality. The analysis focuses on four planes which were identified as important for the construction of the implicit messages: the semantic ambiguity of the utterances; the narrative techniques used by the speakers; verb forms, especially the impersonal use of verbs; and syntax. The specific linguistic traits testify to the fact that the speakers lack adequate tools to verbalize their traumatic memories and to reflect the reality that they were part of. The analysis of the linguistic landscape of the scene also leads to conclusions about the instrumentalization of speakers on the part of the film director. The French and English translation in and of the sequence – a summary rather than a rendition – clearly, albeit perhaps not intentionally, contributes to this effect. Through linguistic analysis and wide contextual interpretation, unpacking the way the bystanders speak creates a new, hitherto unacknowledged, source of knowledge on witnessing and trauma.

A Heretical and Sinful Experiment on the Authentic or a Praiseworthy Grassroot Promotional Initiative? John Curran Davis’s Online

This article presents a recent English translation of Bruno Schulz’s stories, which is almost entirely unknown within Polish academia. John Curran Davis has published his version on his website schulzian.net without the permission of the copyright holder. The infringement of copyright has doomed Davis’s translation to non-existence in the offi cial circulation system. Referring to Theo Hermans’s concept of equivalence, I argue that the lack of institutional sanctioning may lead to the questioning of the ontological status of Davis’s text. Davis’s version is not challenged on intratextual grounds, but rather due to contextual factors: laws regulating the circulation of texts and their place in culture. This fact is best illustrated by comparing the status of Davis’s illegal translation with that of the yet unpublished version by prof. Madeline Levine, backed up by her position, institutional patronage and the support of academic circles. Although Davis’s independent translation, not subject to the publisher’s control, can be treated as a wayward threat to the “truth” of Schulz’s original, one should also consider the role of his initiative in the promotion of the Polish writer’s output among readers who would not reach for Celina Wieniewska’s canonical translation or Levine’s new version. Available for free on the Internet, Davis’s texts colonise on behalf of Schulz areas of popular culture inaccessible to the offi cial translations. Regardless of ethical evaluations, Davis’s enterprise certainly constitutes an interesting cultural phenomenon and as such deserves the attention of both translation scholars and academics researching the foreign reception of Schulz’s oeuvre.

This article is a review of Jolanta Wawrzycka and Erika Mihálycsa’s edited volume Retranslating Joyce for the 21st Century (European Joyce Studies 30, Brill/ Rodopi, 2021). It discusses a number of core issues raised in the book, starting from the observation that 21st century translations of Joyce’s work are by necessity retranslations, and that this necessarily makes them qualitatively different from first translations. The chapters discuss many features of retranslation in the context of Ulysses in particular, ranging from the notion of retranslation hypothesis and comparisons between versions to issues of dealing with many voices and the creativity this requires; the necessity of contextualising the different versions; and the roles of the retranslator, reviser and editor. The review also makes some suggestions for future research on retranslating Joyce.

Article translated by: Zofia Ziemann

The aim of this article is to take a closer look at Polish press reviews of Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto, in order to study the novel’s reception. The reviews provide information not only about the assessment of translation quality, but also about the attitude of the target culture towards translated literature. In this case, a novel from a former  Portuguese colony, Mozambique, enters the Polish literary system via the ex-metropole, Portugal. The literary systems involved in the transfer are seen as peripheral, which makes the case interesting in the world of postcolonial order. To legitimise the conclusions, a wider context of Mozambican literature will be taken into consideration, as well as  the Polish context. Couto’s novel is accepted by the Polish audience as an example of exotic writing. The novel’s paratexts, its translator’s explanations, and the position of Mia Couto in the Polish literary system before the publication of Lunatyczna kraina will be considered as factors informing its reception.

Translated from Polish by Zofia Ziemann

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’

The poem Bobo’s Funeral (1972) is in such an encrypted form that its secret has still to be unraveled. Those who have written about it (Losev, Paramonov, Shraer) interpret it in a variety of ways, which testifies to the multi-layered nature of the text. My own view is that Bobo’s Funeral does not conform to any of the interpretations suggested, whether concrete or abstract. This paper provides analysis of the poem’s vocabulary, sounds, rhythm and imagery with references to Brodsky’s other poems and proves that Bobo’s Funeral is not about Akhmatova (Shraer) or the loss of fullness of being (Paramonov). My reading of Bobo’s Funeral can be summarized as follows: a highly personal biographical fact is incorporated into the poet’s world-view: nothingness, emptiness, hell, the word, language. For Brodsky, language was god and everything was sacrificed for it: personal life, health, love, children and fate itself. “Word swallows up the fate without a remnant”might serve as an epigraph to Brodsky’s works as a whole.

Based on an analysis of phonetic, lexical and pragmatic (linguistic politeness) aspects of the symbolic sequence outside the church in Chełmno-on-Ner in Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah, this article offers insights into the communicative situation portrayed in the film, which has not been discussed in existing interpretations. It addresses the relations between the participants of the exchange (the film director, Szymon Srebrnik, the interpreter, the inhabitants of Chełmno), the time and space (a religious service taking place in the church), and historical context: Poland under communist rule, where the Holocaust was not spoken about and/or was subject to manipulation.

The article examines Catherine Anyango’s and David Zane Mairowitz’s graphic novel Heart of Darkness as an illustration of the differences between the unique possibilities of verbal and visual media. Conrad’s metaphor of Marlow’s story as a misty halo, interpreted here as an autotelic commentary on the text’s elusive meaning, is the starting point for a discussion of visual representations of indeterminacy, which Conrad conceptualizes in visual terms, equating understanding with seeing. Another issue raised is the place of the narrator in visual arts, made problematic by Conrad’s use of two narrators and the story-within-a-story device. It is also argued that the graphic novel, though a sequential medium, makes use of spatial juxtaposition of images, which is not only a source of metaphors, but also creates the effect of simultaneity unavailable to verbal arts.

Alongside complex syntax, heterogeneous lexis rich in neologisms and loan words, usually of Latin origin, is the most salient feature of Bruno Schulz’s style. Moreover, it constitutes a meaningful creative strategy of writing about common things in an unusual manner, and thus endowing them with special significance. The paper examines the ways in which Schulz’s lexical multilinguality is treated by his translators. Schulz’s Latinate words usually lose their original foreignizing and “outlandish” character in translation into foreign languages due to the nature of target language systems. The paper draws on examples from a number of languages to demonstrate this process, yet rather than despairing over the loss of the author’s important signature, it argues that more often than not the treatment of Latinate loanwords results from the translator’s conscious choices and their dialogue with previous translations of Schulz into their languages. Factors such as the time of publication of a given translated text and its place in the reception of Schulz’s literary output are taken into consideration, and translators’ statements on their work are quoted in order to contextualize the changes which they introduce to Schulz’s texts. The point is made that in order to understand and appreciate the ever-growing body of translations of Schulz – an author seemingly untranslatable due to his stylistic ingenuity – one should regard them as products of their time and the translators’ creative minds, rather than limiting oneself to a comparative reading of the translated text against the Polish original. From this point of view, the absence of or change in Schulz’s multilinguality does not have to be seen as the translator’s defeat.
 

The paper presents the Polish circulation of Katherine Mansfield’s poem “To Stanislaw Wyspianski” – her only piece of poetry 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 readers and translators were more interested in Wyspiański – the figure 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 rather investigated the circumstances in which Mansfield encountered Polish culture in general and, in particular, learnt about Wyspiański, the great artist from Kraków. 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.

The article focuses on Kaytek the Wizard, the English translation of Janusz Korczak’s children’s classic Kajtuś czarodziej, originally published in Poland in 1933. Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, the book came out in English with the New York-based Penlight Publications in 2012, almost eighty years after the original publication. The article begins with an overview of the theoretical context of translating children’s literature, with regard to issues such as censorship, political correctness, and ideological manipulations. It demonstrates that contentious passages have often been mitigated, in order to create a commercially or ideologically “appropriate” text, for example in the former countries of the Eastern Bloc, in Spain, or in the contemporary United States. It then describes the context of the publication of the English version of Korczak’s novel, shedding light on the roles of the copyright holder and translation commissioner, the publisher and the translator, and also mentioning the English language reviews of the translation in literary journals. Following that, the article examines the translator’s treatment of the original expressions and passages concerning racial issues, which would be considered racist today. These include references to Africans as “savages,” “apes” or “cannibals,” a reflection of the European racial stereotypes of that period. It is demonstrated that, in her treatment of such lexical items, the translator adopted a middle course, retaining some of the contentious passages but also partly omitting and toning down other controversial examples in question. The article also reflects on the role of, and constraints on, the literary translator, who may be confronted with the ethical dilemma of either respecting the integrity of the original, and recreating the collective consciousness of a bygone era, or appropriating the original text, through eliminating passages which negatively portray blacks, so as to better adapt it to the target context of multicultural American society.

Drawing on the results of research into the scale and distribution of Polish translation activity with regard to the Shakespeare an canon in the 19th century, the article discusses the various roles assumed by both professional and informal 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 preconditions effective collaboration and longterm commitment. Finally, the article discusses the need for 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).