Original scientific paper
Job's Bestiary: From the Zoolexics of the Croatian Glagolitic Book of Job
Antonija Zaradija Kiš
orcid.org/0000-0002-2013-9398
; Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The basic premises of the Old Testament are presented both concretely and abstractly, as is also the case in the Book of Job. The philosophy of the early Orient was based on the relationship between those two concepts. The concrete was regularly marked with symbolism, while attempts were made to concretise the abstract by visualisation and a certain figurative quality. It is the animal world that is particularly interesting in the research of this issue, since, through its variety and unfamiliarity, it opened up many channels of literary expressiveness, which allow us to penetrate more deeply into the essential notions at the core of distant times.
The Croatian Glagolitic version was largely successful in solving the demanding literary interpretations, maintaining to the extent possible the abstract / concrete balance, by which it followed the Scriptural tradition of textual transmission. The major deviation from the original is seen when the mythological animals of the early Orient are in question, since they largely belong to an abstract category that, because of its notional elusiveness, is difficult to transpose to another environment. This is also one of the rare instances in which the biblical rule of the abstract and the concrete is not respected, since the laws of translation have not permitted this, back from the time of the Slavic Apostles. Interpretational licence and textual adaptations do not disrupt the meanings but merely confirm the finely honed skills as translators of the Mediaeval Croatian Glagolists (Zaradija Kiš 2003:129-142), and, particularly, their highly professional approach to the textual adaptation of the elements of early civilisations.
Keywords
Croatian Glagolitic breviaries; the Book of Job; animals; the concrete / the abstract
Hrčak ID:
23184
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2006.
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