Translating Mickiewicz’s “Forefathers’ Eve” into Ukrainian, Wiktor Humeniuk had to resort to other than the Polish poet versification system, since syllabic verse, of which majority of the original ...text is build, in Ukrainian in 19th century was totally superceded by syllabic-accentual verse. The translator utilised the form being the closest to 13 (7 + 6) feet line, i.e. Ukrainian iambic 6 feet line. The latter, contrary to Mickiewicz’s 13 feet line, has no tradition in Ukrainian drama, and it came into use in lyrical and narrative pieces no sooner than in 20th century. As a result, the line in question could be used neither to mark the stylistic differenciations nor to settle such connotations and semantic associations that are introduced into the original text by the Polish line. In his rendering Humeniuk attempted to compensate this constraint with the change of rhyme types, and with almost equilinear translation of the stychic 13 feet verse which provided for preserving a specyfic type of corellation between verse and syntax. To continue, the translator changed the irregular syllabic verse with 8 syllables in its core present in some parts of “Forefathers’ Eve” into 4 feet trochaic line, and simultaneously omitted a vast number of repetitions and parallelisms which broke the connection of the original text in the whole “Part II” and in some fragments of “Part IV” with folk poetry style.
This article provides an outline of the history of the relationship between verse and fiction. From the thirteenth to the nineteenth century, verse held the foremost position in Polish literature. ...This was because of its connection with the language of the Roman Catholic Mass and Church ritual. The article focuses on the relationship between verse and fiction in the Romantic period, when the uniformity and regularity of verse was disrupted. It also considers Polish Romantic rhythmical prose, describing the changes that took place in the Modern period, a time when, among others things, irregular syllabic verse and experiments with vers libre developed. A further convergence between verse and rhythmicized prose occurred in the period when vers libre was developing and then became predominant.
The author who over 30 years has been leading the international team of the scholars investigating verse forms in various Slavic literatures, presents the results of the work, published till now in ...the eight volumes of the series Comparative Slavic Metrics. Each of these volumes contains the studies in the national languages of their authors as well as the chapter “Comparisons and conclusions”, written in two versions: Polish and English. First two volumes: I. Rhythmical Vocabulary and the Ways of Using it; and II. Syntactic Organization bring the results of work on the problems which have the fundamental meaning for versology, i.e. the relations between the verse system and the linguistic system. In the article the most important of the results are discussed (such practice is used in case of every subsequent volume). Beginning with volume III Semantics of the Verse Forms both the methods and aims of investigation changed to some extent. They concern analysis and interpretation of the sign functions fulfilled by the verse systems, in particular metres, types of rhyme, in the work of a given poet or in the framework of the whole period of the literary history. In volume IV. Verse of Translation one of the main problems is the search for the functional equivalent of the original form of verse. Volume V. Sonnet contains the characteristic of the prosodic and syntactic structure, the stylistic distribution and cultural connotations of the sonnet - the bort of stanza distinctly relating Slavic literatures with those of Western Europe. Volume VI. European Metres in Slavic Literatures can be regarded as the most recent development in the research o the main metres of given Slavic Literatures. The analyses of the metrical structures are accompanied there by the study of their origins and the role they play in the evolution of national poetry. In volume VII. Free Verse Its Origins and its Evolution up to the Year 1939 common and diverse features of this new verse form in various Slavic literatures are characterized, as well as the place of a free verse in most part of contemporary poetical programs and manifestos. Volume VIII. Short Native Metres contains the results of the work on the prosodic structure of these metres (including the analyses of their rhythmical variants) and on the aspects of their usage in poetry, both literary and popular. At present volume IX is in the process of preparation for publishing. Its topic is hexametre and other patterns of classical poetry in Slavic literatures. It comprises not only the results of the analyses of transformation of the classical verse forms into Slavic languages (together with their sign functions in literature and culture), but also the experiments with the imitation of the prosodic structures of ancient poetry in these languages.
This study deals with the mutual dependence of the history of verse and literary history, illustrated by works of Polish literature. The role of versification as a factor that takes part in forming ...historical poetics does not always appear in the same way and unambiguously. It is rare that a conception of verse structure as a whole is transformed (for instance, in Poland from the 13th through the 15th centuries), sometimes the break in literary history is a result of a set of factors - in early Renaissance verse, for example, a role was played by a change in the reception and dissemination of the poetic text. New kinds of literature are often connected with a fundamental change (e.g. Piotr Kochanowski’s translation of Tasso), innovation may also be connected with the adaptation of new literary patterns (for example, the Polish syllabotonic systém). Moreover, the transformations of poetics, which were brought about by changes in the functi on, role and character of literature, may account for certain forms of verse changing places with each other (for instance, trochee for iamb in the Młoda Polska movement); sometimes the break is not demonstrated at all by any change in versification (as in Polish Positivism).
PDF
