How to Translate“the Great”? Polish Translators and the Masters of French Classicism: A Review of Michał Bajer’s Klasycyzm. Przekład. Prestiż (2020)

Michał Bajer’s book offers an interesting approach to older translations. The author discusses Polish renderings of Corneille’s and Racine’s tragedies in the broadly defined Enlightenment (1740–1830). He looks at the translations from three perspectives: analysing changes at the level of rhetoric, at the level of poetics, and examining the paratextual influences, i.e., the critics’ statements with regard to both original texts and translations. The discourse is set in a historical, literary, and social context, in which the French playwrights appear as models of the classicist perfection of style, an object of imitation, which, however, undergoes constant negotiation on the part of the translators. The book proposes an interesting combination of literary, philological, and sociological tools to create a multi-layered picture of the Polish reception of the two authors.

Michał Bajer’s book offers an interesting approach to older translations. The author discusses Polish renderings of Corneille’s and Racine’s tragedies in the broadly defined Enlightenment (1740–1830). He looks at the translations from three perspectives: analysing changes at the level of rhetoric, at the level of poetics, and examining the paratextual influences, i.e., the critics’ statements with regard to both original texts and translations. The discourse is set in a historical, literary, and social context, in which the French playwrights appear as models of the classicist perfection of style, an object of imitation, which, however, undergoes constant negotiation on the part of the translators. The book proposes an interesting combination of literary, philological, and sociological tools to create a multi-layered picture of the Polish reception of the two authors.