Original scientific paper
Two Tasso's Octaves Translated by Franatica Sorkočević and the relating Poetic Subjects
Zoran Kravar
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Franatica Sorkočević (1706-1771) was a Dubrovnik lawyer, politician, diplomat and s man of literature. He tried his skill in translating which proved to be the most successful especially of Ovid and melodramas of Pietro Matastasio and Scipion Maffei all still in manuscript. He also adapted Molier’s plays. Sorkočević’s translation of the first two cantos of Tasso’s epos La Gerussalemme liberata is of minor acknowledgement and preserved in patches. This article contributes to the study of Sorkočević’s versification in translating Tasso. It examines the metrical characteristics and the specific verse arrangement of his translations consisting of two quatrains followed by a cinquain (4+4+5). The examples of this verse pattern are to be found in the works of the Dubrovnik poets of the 16th, 17th and 18th 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
Torquato Tasso; Franatica Sorkočević; La Gerussalemme liberata
Hrčak ID:
239937
URI
Publication date:
20.6.1995.
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