The poetics of artistic translation

Edward Balcerzan

Translated by Soren Gauger

in: Edward Balcerzan, Stanisław Barańczak, Literature from literature, , sdvig press, 2020

Abstract

Edward Balcerzan’s seminal paper was originally published in 1968 in an issue of a literary journal devoted to the art of translation. Here, Balcerzan puts forward his conception of the “translation series”, namely, of the specific ontology of literary translation as a textual form. As opposed to its “original”, a translation always exists in a series. Even if there is only one translation of a text in a given language, it still constitutes the beginning of a potential series of translations: it inevitably opens up the original for further translations to come. Balcerzan discusses this concept examing the differences between renderings in two translation series that evolve from one original. The first one is an interlingual study of the title of Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye rendered in multiple possibilities across languages and the other one is a historical series of a passage from Hamlet in fifteen Polish translations. In placing the resulting translation variants among other existing versions and thus against the background of the target culture Balcerzan’s text marked a significant transition in translation thought.