(tłum. Agnieszka Bukowczan i Joanna Cieślar) I. Prijatelj and A. Nowaczyński: the informative and the corrective function of translation (Wilde’s aphorisms rendered into Slovene via Polish) The ...Slavic scholar Ivan Prijatelj (1875—1937), who received his university education in Vienna and was a contemporary and collaborator of the group of Slovene writers known as the »Slovene Modernists« (slovenska moderna), established himself primarily as an influential literary historian. Apart from that, he developed his interests in literature as an essayist and translator, being eager to become familiar with important authors and literary currents, especially modern European ones, and to make them accessible to Slovene readers. He succinctly presented the English writer, who at the time garnered attention in Eastern and in Western Europe, in the journal article Oskar Wilde (1907), which is a translation of Wilde’s aphorisms on art and on criticism. They were translated into Slovene from Polish, on the basis of Oskar Wilde. Studjum. Aforyzmy. Nowele, a book by Adolf Nowaczyński (1906), in which Wilde is dealt with in a more extensive and multi‑faceted manner. Prijatelj’s version, which is thematically homogeneous, is the only one among his translations that is not based directly on the source text. It does not always follow Nowaczyński’s translation, but is consistent with the poetics of translation sketched out by Prijatelj in the introductory chapter to his study on Pushkin in Slovene translations (1901). The study presupposes that for the literature of a small nation such as Slovenia, translation is indispensable in as far as it enables that literature to become connected to other national literatures; in actual fact, translations are considered as a means of informing and educating target readers as well as of correcting local literary standards. In order to perform these functions in a satisfactory way, a translation must preserve the original’s authenticity, while at the same time adapting to the target culture and naturally integrating into it. Accordingly, a translated text does not only bear a mark of the author’s creative genius, but, to an extent, also of that of the translator. Some minor shifts with respect to the English original are observable in Prijatelj’s and Nowaczyński’s translations, which in some points differ also from each other, and remain within the recommended middle way, which makes it possible for the translator to take into account the author’s intentions, while allowing himself the necessary freedom, so as to produce an effective and convincing target text. Key words: translation function, aphorism, I. Prijatelj, O. Wilde, A. Nowaczyński
Ivan Prijatelj, a literary historian and essayist, was a contemporary and collaborator of the group of Slovene writers known as the “Slovene Modernists” (slovenska moderna). Having obtained a sound ...training in Slavic philology, he was well able to translate modern poetry and prose directly from Russian, Polish and Czech, whereas in 1907 he made an indirect translation of Oscar Wilde’s aphorisms on the basis of the Polish version by A. Nowaczyński. The paper seeks to relate the characteristics of Prijatelj’s translation and the motives for its production to what is stated by the translator in an earlier essay on the art of translation which appeared in the introductory part of his study on Pushkin in Slovene translation (1901).
On its surface, Dominik Smole's play Antigone is an imitation of Sophocles' tragedy because it takes place at the same time and place and features characters with the same names and the same family ...and hierarchical relationships. However, the playwright relativizes this appearance by using diverse physical and verbal anachronisms, altering the personalities of the majority of the characters, modifying the course and duration of the plot, and adding intertextual links. In addition to the points of contact recorded so far, especially those with Anouilh's Antigone, this article also establishes reminiscences of Shakespeare's plays, which Smole undoubtedly knew, and especially Hamlet. What is reminiscent of these plays is the analogue design of the entire text uncharacteristic of Smole--up to that time a prose writer--using distinctly rhythmized verse lines of varying lengths, continuous transitions from the poetically elevated "high" style into the banally "low" jargon style, and distinct aphorisms combined with irony and paradoxes. Even some of Smole's characters resemble Shakespeare's: the Theban "princess" Antigone, who is guided by her moral commitment to her dead brother just as Hamlet is guided by his commitment to his murdered father, is characterized with insanity just like the Danish prince; the court councilor Teiresias and his impersonator, Creon's son and Antigone's fiancée Haemon, are faithful students of Lord Chamberlain Polonius in word and deed; Ismene oscillates between loyalty to and betrayal of her sister Antigone just like Queen Gertrude oscillates between betrayal and love of her son Hamlet; and here and there Smole's Creon and Shakespeare's Claudius share the same thoughts about the king's status and responsibility. All of this confirms the multifaceted intertextual inclusion of Smole's Antigone within classic European literature as well as its simultaneous completion of the mission that Shakespeare defines through Hamlet's words--namely, that as a metaphorical mirror, a play should remind contemporaries of current social and moral issues. Thus regardless of its manifest antiquity, from its very beginning it has functioned as a play on contemporary moral issues; it has been especially effective because of its unconventional artistic perfection. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
The following pattern is suggested by a survey of the changing position and reputation of Slovenian literary translation alongside native Slovenian literature during their coexistence from their ...beginnings in the mid-16th century to the end of the 20th century:
Slovenian literary translation is strongly developed and in constant interaction with domestic literary production. Literary history partly takes translation into account for pragmatic reasons, but ...at the same time it also selectively takes into account the premise about its categorical non-originality without expressing a direct opinion about this nonoriginality. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
