Dubrovnik annals, No. 3, 1999.
Original scientific paper
ON FRANATICA SORKOČEVIĆ’S TRANSLATION OF TWO OCTAVES OF TASSO, AND RELATED TOPICS
Zoran Kravar
Abstract
Franatica Sorkočević (1706-1771) was a Dubrovnik lawyer, politician, diplomat and man of literature. He tried his skill in translating Ovid and melodramas of Pietro Metastasio and Scipione Maffei, all still unpublished. He also rearranged Molière’s plays. Sorkočević’s translation of the first two cantos of Tasso’s epos Jerusalem Delivered is of minor acknowledgement and fragmentary preserved. This article contributes to the study of Sorkočević’s versification in translating Tasso. It examines the metrical characteristics and the specific choice of thirteen-syllable verse (4+4+5). The examples of this verse pattern are to be found in the works of the Dubrovnik poets of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century. Sorkočević’s motivation for the use of this verse is also studied here. As it is a verse of folk origin, Sorkočević’s translation of Tasso is a convenient subject for drawing a parallel between Croatian artistic and folk versification with which the last chapter of the article deals with.
Keywords
Dubrovnik; Italy; Torquato Tasso; Franatica Sorkočević; Jerusalem Delivered; translation; versification
Hrčak ID:
8338
URI
Publication date:
15.9.1999.
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