Filologija, No. 29, 1997.
Original scientific paper
On Ujević's translations of Shakespeare's sonnets
Nevenka Košutić-Brozović
; Filozofski fakultet u Zadru
Abstract
First, the author gives a short informative survey of Tin Ujević's translations, both published and unpublished, comprising about 15000 pages of prose and 20000 pages of poetry. The diversity of his translations is presented, both regarding the languages from which he translated (ten), and the literary genres of the translated texts, ranging from lyric to epic poetry, and from detective novels to the best modernist prose. Ujević's views on translation and his methods are also discussed, along with different evaluations of his translations, ranging from panegyrics to completely negative views.
In the second part of the article, the author presents her findings concerning Ujević's unpublished works, where she came across his translation drafts for 54 sonnets which can be identified as Shakespeare's. The manuscript is described, with an attempt to date the translations (1949-1951) and find Ujević' s motives for translating the sonnets (his dissatisfaction with recently published translations by D. Anđelinović). The author also tries to find the sources of Ujević's translations and literature he used in his work. Since the Croatian poet did not translate all of Shakespeare's sonnets, a thesis is put forward concerning his selection. Since Ujević believed that translation is an act of recreation which is possible only if there is an affinity between the author and the translator, it is possible that in translating “Young Will”, aging Tin tried to do what Shakespeare did not accomplish, i.e., create a consistent, carefully conceived collection dedicated to a beloved woman, showing man's emotions from the youthful exaltation to the resignation of the old age.
Finally, the author discusses the act of translation, providing a contrastive analysis between Ujević's translation of Shakespeare's sonnet no. XX (the first in Ujević's collection), and translations by other authors, both Croatian (Anđelinović, Paljetak, Čorak-Mrkonjić, Maras) and from other countries (Gautier, George, Kraus).
Keywords
Tin Ujević; translations, William Shakespeare, sonnets
Hrčak ID:
157457
URI
Publication date:
6.4.1998.
Visits: 2.791 *