Original scientific paper
The Translation of the Petrarch’s Sestina A Qualunque animale alberga in terra by Dinko Ranjina
Smiljka Malinar
Abstract
In this article we shall analyse the way in which the Dubrovnik poet Dinko Ranjina
translated Petrarch’s sestina A qualunque animale alberga in terra while adapting it to the
possibilities of Croatian versifi cation. The sestina, the highest formal achievement of
Provencal poetry, is based on a multiple combination of the number 6 (six stanzas of six
lines using six rhyme -words), with a strictly determined alternation of rhyme-words in
each stanza (according to the retrogradatio cruciata scheme) and a predetermined manner
of linking the stanzas (described by the term coblas capfi nidas). Ranjina retained the six
-line stanza, and the linking of the strophes according to the coblas capfi nidas system.
But the Croatian traditional line, the dodecasyllabic, which he uses instead of Petrarch’s
hendecasyllabic, is handled according to its own rules. Dodecasyllabics are regularly
used in pairs, and both verses are linked by rhyme. This automatically cancels out the
possibility of applying the scheme of the retrogradiato cruciata, which includes a reciprocal
relation of the rhyme-words of two neighbouring stanzas and is based on the division of
the sestina into two three-line sections. The dodecasyllabic verse scheme is the cause of
other formal deviations from the original; Ranjina’s composition is two stanzas shorter
than Petrarch’s and the fi nal three-line stanza is replaced by a couplet. In addition, it also
leads to a reduction of the range of the motifs of the original, simplifying and sometimes
trivialising its lexical and semantic components.
Keywords
Dinko Ranjina; Petrarca; sestina; dodecasyllabic line; chiasmus; remodulation
Hrčak ID:
112256
URI
Publication date:
9.5.2013.
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