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English Translations of Ribanje i Ribarsko prigovaranje
Kristina Grgić
orcid.org/0000-0003-1767-651X
; Filozofski fakultet, Zagreb
Sažetak
The four hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Hektorović’s Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje is an appropriate occasion not only for confirmation of its canonical importance in Croatian literary culture but also for consideration of the extent to which, and the manner in which, this value is recognised internationally. From this point of view, special attention should go to translations into foreign languages, particularly into English, today one of the leading media of international literary communication.
According to available information, currently accessible are two integral translations of Hektorović’s text: that of the Anglo-American teacher and translator Gertrud Graubart Champe (who rendered the title as Fishing and Fishermen’s Talk, 1974) and that of the distinguished British Slavonic studies expert and translator Edward Dennis Goy (Fishing and Fishermen’s Conversation, 1979, alternately, in 1997, Fishing and Fishermen’s Conversations). Then there are translations of selected fragments of the poem published in two recent bilingual anthologies of Croatian literature (both from 2015): The Glory and Fame: Croatian Renaissance Reader / Dike ter hvaljen’ja: Hrvatska renesansna čitanka (translated by Katia Grubisic as Fishing and Fishermen’s Conversation or Fishing and Fishermen’s Dialogue in an earlier edition, of 2004-2005) as well as in the anthology The Canon of Croatian Poetry, 1450-2000 of Ivo and Vinka Šoljan (Fishing and Fishermen’s Conversation). Apart from that there are freestanding translations of the interpolated oral poems, the bugarštica Prince Marko and His Brother Andrijaš, translated by Thomas Butler (in the anthology Monumenta Serbocroatica, 1980) and Vladimir Bubrin (a revised version in The Glory and Fame anthology) and the počasnice (versified compliments) from The First Day translated by Antun Bonifačić (The Anthology of Croat Verse 1450-1950, 1981).
The translations of Hektorović’s poem put forward four different interpretations, both in conveying the text itself and in the accompanying explanations, which are more extensive in the case of the integral translations. In his comments, Goy places the emphasis on the realistic characteristics of Fishing, and specifies the genre as »a short novel in verse«, while Champe sees the fundamental key to the interpretation of Fishing in the mode of pastoral and the genre of the pastoral epistle, which opens up the possibility of meta-textual allegoresis.
Each translator has chosen a different form for his or her translation. Goy uses blank verse, the form that has a status in English literature similar to that of Hektorović’s double-rhymed dodecasyllabics in the Croatian early modern period. I. and V. Šoljan on the other hand, retain the rhymed dodecasyllabics couplets, without, however, the half-line rhyme and the firm caesura. In the translation of Katia Grubisic, Hektorovic’s verses are conveyed in graphically broken prose that approximately tracks the original lines. Only Gertrud Graubart Champe opted for prose, assuming that in English translation it is impossible to convey the literary historical meaning of Hektorović’s verse form. Still, she does introduce, graphically at least, verses in some parts of the text (the interpolated poems, riddles and sayings).
The similarities and differences among the four translatorly approaches are in great part dependent on the selected key features and effects of the original that the individual authors have endeavoured to reproduce and by the function they intended for their texts in the target culture. E. D. Goy alone has resorted to partial archaism, in order to indicate to the Anglophone public the original literary historical context of Hektorović’s work and suggest something of the probable effect it has on the contemporary Croatian reading public. The other translations are written in modern standard language, which brings them close to the contemporary Anglophone public. Champe at the same time endeavours to conjure up the »sober simplicity« of Hektorović’s style and language, the way in which he innovatively modifies the high style of the dodecasyllabic tradition.
In the two versified translations, the selected verse form required occasional transformations of the original content, more pronounced in the revised version of the Goy text (in line with its aspiration to a more regular verse structure), and particularly in the version of the Šoljans, in which modifications of the content are additionally conditioned by the rhyme. Champe is in general inclined to abbreviation and simplification of the original content, not only in the central text, but in the translation of the oral verses. Goy’s reworking of the bugarštica is much more poeticised, making it similar to the translations of Bubrin and Butler; the expression in the latter is nevertheless simpler, but not as much so as in the translation of Champe. The shorter poems in the two integral translations differ less than the bugarštica, primarily because Champe has not to any great extent modified the content, while she has to some extent poeticised the expression. As for the versified compliments from First Day, both her and the Goy translation seem more successful than the version of Antun Bonifačić, whose relationship with the original is more relaxed.
All the translations analysed ultimately give particular ideas about the original text and its place in the Croatian and European literary traditions, taking into account the hypothesised horizon of expectations of the contemporary target reading public. Although the question of whether there has been any considerable inter-national response to these texts cannot for the moment be answered, it is beyond doubt that with their very existence they have enabled Hektorović’s Fishing to have a more visible place in Anglophone and world literary culture.
Ključne riječi
Petar Hektorović; Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje; translations; versification; English language
Hrčak ID:
219697
URI
Datum izdavanja:
22.4.2019.
Posjeta: 2.095 *