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Edward Balcerzan

Poetic translation and the system of

literary culture

Literary Studies in Poland 13, 7-22

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Articles

E dw ard B alcerzan

Poetic Translation

and the System of Literary Culture

A m ong the m any expectations th a t the subject o f this session* arouses it seems to m e th a t one is the m ost in siste n t: the expectation o f a judg em en t o f m odern-day tran slatio n . We w ant to know w hether our present-day a rt o f tran slatio n can b o ast glories th a t do n o t fade w hen set beside the original, th a t bear co m p ariso n w ith the m asterpieces o f Polish tran slatio n achieved in past epochs. We w ant to know which schools o f tran slatio n are in the ascendant, which m odes o f rendering foreign verse are irredeem ably com prom ised. Irrespective o f which p a rt o f this field one m ay choose to scrutinize— be it the habits o f the individual tran slato r, the subtleties o f the tra n sla tio n process, the tra n s la to r’s ethical stan d ard s o r the p u b lish er’s projects, an d so on — in the end all the roads converge on a single p o in t; th a t o f the reco nstru ction o f values. A nd this p articu lar ro a d is the m ost arduous. F o r the m om ent we attem p t an honest assessm ent o f the achievem ents o f tran slatio n in the present day we en c o u n te r a h ost o f w eighty obstacles. They are all the m ore u n ­ pleasant fo r no t having been brought to heel — and this is because they

do no t arise when one deals w ith original works.

T h e basic principle o f evaluations o f original w orks in th e Polish language is the existence o f a certain com petence — b o th in the critic an d in the literary com m unity as a whole. I f in practice d istinction s are draw n betw een the capabilities o f p artic u la r recei­ vers, they are d eterm ined by subjective factors such as: taste, * T h is is the text o f a p ap er d elivered at the 12th p oetry festival in Ł ó d ź (in M a y 1978).

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8 E d w a rd B alcerzan

in dustry , ro utine o r talent, b u t a t the basic level o f literary ed u cation the point o f d ep a rtu re is one and the same. O ne has the sam e Polish language, the sam e cultural heritage. T he shared rules th a t govern artistic com m unication in the present create the p r o b a ­ bility o f all critical opinions com ing together in a u n itary value system th a t a t least u n d erstan d s itself and can explain to itself its own internal dissensions. A n d if criticism of original w orks offers the public the sight o f an aren a o f caprice which a t tim es is a sw arm w ith strange creatures an d tends to breed h allu cin atio n s and delusions, it defines itself in the last instance as answ erable to the public. M isprision, twisted n o tio n s an d dem agogic rh eto ric m ay feature in it — agreed, b u t everyone as it were is able to perceive the m isdeeds or m istakes o f the reviewer an d can hope th a t in the end justice will prevail. T he reflections o f critics are condem ned to be provisional, an d yet they are accepted: accepted on the basis o f the p ro b ab le co rrection o f th eir m isjudgem ents. This is the p arad o x o f the reception o f criticism . O ne does n o t believe the individual p ra ctitio n er b u t trusts instead in the evolution o f criticism . A n d if th a t fails, then one believes in the future, which will w rite the axiological tru th a b o u t o u r poetry in its historical stu d ies—o f o u r­ selves.

T he situ ation is qu ite a different one when it com es to criticism o f translations.

N o stan d ard s crystallize here to identify com petence, for there is no such thing as universal m ultilingualism . The original w ork is an open bo ok to the public, bu t th e w ork in tran slatio n is sealed up in its relation w ith the foreign original. Its value, consequently, rem ains m ysterious an d unclear. A dm ittedly, a p erso n ’s activity as a tra n sla to r can be evaluated by a n arrow section o f the literary co m m unity : those w ho know the original language o r the literary trad itio n to which the. original belongs m ay jo in b attle over the value o f the translation. All the same, th eir controversy will un fo ld in an area unam enable to the inspection o f those critics an d readers with no access to the foreign culture in question.

Seweryn P oliak has described tw o types o f tran slatio n s o f K h leb n ik o v ’s poem s: th a t o f A n n a K am ieńska and th a t o f Leon Śpiewak. H e draw s up a final balance o f the debits and credits th at accrue to these tw o schools o f K hlebnikov tran slatio n. Jerzy

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Z iom ek pens an enthusiastic review o f Z yg m u nt K u b ia k ’s tran slatio n o f K lem ens Janicki. R o b ert Stiller polem icizes w ith M aciej Słom czyński over “D ż ab b ersm o k ”, a tran slatio n o f Lewis C a rro ll’s “Jab b e rw o ck y ”, and opposes to it his ow n tran slatio n an d version o f the title: “Ż a b ro ła k i”. Finally, E dw ard S tach u ra is very positive in his reco m ­ m en d atio n o f tran slatio n s o f B orges—by E dw ard S tachu ra! In each o f the critical texts I have m entioned the m ain thing in d ispute is value. A nd yet we can only fully en ter the dispute if we co n fro n t P o lia k ’s judgem en ts w ith the R ussian o f the C u bist-cu m -F u turist, if we place the ju d g em en ts o f Z iom ek beside the L atin w orks o f the Polish R enaissance poets. A nd so I t goes on.

F ro m the global perspective, the spheres o f com petence are in ­ finitely sm aller th a n the spheres o f ignorance. C om p ariso n o f average (or above-average) m ultilingualism with the totality o f the foreign literatures enterin g P olish culture in tran slated form com pels us to acknow ledge this disparity as the fu n dam en tal d eterm in an t o f criticism of tran slatio n s. O ne ca n n o t im agine a single consciousness in which the history o f all Polish tran slatio n s from all foreign tongues w ould be displayed, w ith m ore or less the sam e p oin ts o f reference. T h a t is why we have no history o f the literature tran slated in to Polish. Instead o f a synthesis w hat we have is an accu m ulation o f separate co n trib u tio n s, w hich for all their brilliance an d intelli­ gence do no t add u p to a whole.

W h at is the solution? The course of o u r century has th ro w n up tw o trends, each prop o sin g its own solution o f th e dilem m as depicted above.

T rend num ber one. R eflection on the a rt o f translatio n drew conclusions from the p articu larity o f its status and began to stress the featu res th a ^ distinguished it from know ledge o f o n e’s native literatu re: in the en d it thus co n stitu ted itself a separate b ran ch o f hum anistic study, a discipline with its own precise technical “a p p a ra tu s ” at its disposal, em ploying a specialist theoretical language, an d answ ering only to its ow n dem ands. This accen tuatio n o f the professional elem ent can be illustrated in P o land by successive studies by O lgierd W ojtasiew icz: from n otions th a t rem ain relatively acces­ sible to the hu m an ist w ith a general education (his W stęp do teorii

tłum aczenia— Introduction to the Theory o f Translation), to the in­

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10 E d w a rd B alcerzan

a perfect know ledge o f generative linguistics, sem antic logic, an d even m athem atical logic. It is no t th e m ode o f exposition th a t is at issue here but the fu ndam ental prem ise: tran slatio n theory, w hether m ore or less hospitable to the reader, is essentially integrative. Its aim is to renew th e —en d a n g ere d —o p p o rtu n ity for every p a rtic ip a n t in literary life to com e to an agreem ent on the subject o f tran slatio n . It m ay be difficult to m aster the language o f theo ry , b u t it is not im possible. Faced with the u n attain ab ility o f com plete m ultilingualism , let us rise above the ethnic fron tiers o f languages a n d co m p are o ur experiences by using universal codes! Such are the term s in which one. It fails to provide an answ er to the fu n dam ental questio n th at

But the ap p ro ach p ropo sed by the th eo retician s— th eoretician s o f the ran k o f R om an Ingarden, J in Levy, Isaak Rievzin, R o m an Jak o b so n , and A lexander L u d sk a n o v — is n o t after all the only valid one. It fails to provide an answ er to the fu n dam en tal q uestion th at prom pts our unease: how is one to evaluate the to tality o f tra n s ­ lations within the fram ew ork o f a single n atio n al literary cultu re? This is because the theories o f the 20th century flee the norm ativ e and privilege epistom ological interests instead. They list th e peculia­ rities of the p h enom enon an d bestow equal atten tio n on m aster­ pieces and kitsch, on high a rt and lo w ... A nd they fear the prescriptive as devils trem ble in the face o f the sign o f the cross: they are well aw are o f the speed w ith w hich the prescriptions a n d discreet advice o f their predecessors w as discredited by the “life” o f art itself. O f course there is one respect — the exception th a t proves the rule — in which m odern tran slatio n theory exercises judgem ent. It is the case o f m achine tran slatio n . But literary interests have reaped scant profit from this. T he tasks the tran slatin g m achine is set to perform represent a clear reversal o f the task o f the p oet-translator. U nified correct n o rm s are valued in the co m p u to r world, whilst in poetry it is ju s t the other way a ro u n d : values are constitued th ro u g h violations o f grey, hackneyed correctness.

T rend num ber two. This is a criticism o f tran slatio n s th a t does not fear to ju dge, th a t sets off a dialogue w ith b ro ad circles o f readers. W hilst carefully assim ilating theoretical concepts, it cherishes the m em ory o f the age-old trad itio n s o f tran slatio n . A m o d erate avant-gardism is w edded to a p ru d e n t conservatism o f language. Such criticism strives to preserve the sense o f a sphere o f com p e­

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tence. It wishes to discuss tran slatio n s in such a way th a t the reader o f the critical pap er is n o t frightened off by his ignorance o f the original language; at the sam e tim e it w ants the reader to have the chance to verify the critic’s opinion, even (let us stress) in cases in w hich the read er has no know ledge o f the original language. C an this be achieved? W ithin certain b o u n d s—yes it can.

T here are such things as bilingual dictionaries. Hence the critic co n c en trates on the m eanings o f p artic u la r w ords (in the original an d in the tran slation). The read er is able to confirm the lexical shortcom ings o f the tran slatio n , the verve o f its trium phs —o r at least he know s he is able to do so. A nd this yields the desired effect: a reading an d an assessm ent th a t have credibility. Texts possess statistical features one can perceive w ith the naked eye, features one can m easure. A nd so the critic hurls him self into to ttin g up the nu m ber o f lines, into m easuring their length and revealing the places where they have been expanded o r shortened. H e reveals w hat the tra n sla to r has left out and w hat he has added. T he credibility effect is enhanced. T here are types o f ord er present in a w ork w hich can be depicted d iag ra m atic ally : orders o f rhythm , in to n atio n , in stru m en tatio n , which p ro m p t one to h ear the verse or perceive its graphic lay-out. It is h ardly an accident th a t m etrics—a subject th a t seldom evokes any great passions, especially in P o la n d — has played a significant role in the history o f poetic translation. T he a ttra c tio n th a t a new verse-form exerts on th e tra n sla to r as he fulfils his ta sk had already been realized by P io tr K ochanow ski when, as he struggled with the ottava rima o f Tasso, he wrote th a t “this m etre, which is a m ost difficult one in o u r language and seems n o t to be to o u r taste, especially at a first read in g” is nevertheless w orth assim ilating “in o rd e r to d em o nstrate th at our tongue is n o less rich th an o th e rs.” M etrical inventiveness in the tra n sla to r here acquires an unexpected p atrio tic m otive. The form o f the p o e m —in b o th theoretical and practical senses—is a source o f p assio n ate interest at the present tim e too, as is show n by the essays o f A d a m W ażyk, A rtu r S andauer, and Jalu K urek, which, w hat is m ore, present a variety o f ap proaches to the subject. The m etrical passions o f the critic o f a tran slatio n also, to my m ind, possess an extra significance: th a t o f com petition. They enter the lists in th e jo u stin g m atch betw een the linguistic and the literary

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12 E d w a rd B a l cer zart

critical ap p ro ach to the text. If verbal analysis augm ents the au th o rity o f the linguist, m etrics becomes the resort o f specifically literary exegesis.

The criticism o f*translations prod uced in the 20th century has often been the w ork o f the tran slato rs them selves (K ornei C hukovsky, T adeusz Boy-Żeleński, Julian Tuwim , Czeslaw M ilosz). A cting, as I have said, u nd er a com pulsion to rescue the norm s o f a sphere o f com petence, it h as introduced a m ultitude o f valuable habits into the literary consciousness in general. T he light it casts on the w ork differs from th a t cast by criticism o f original poetry. It asserts the claim s o f the detail, o f the structures th at o perate a t the lowest levels o f the w ork, o f verbal colour, m etrical form , and the role o f ther 7 individual “g rain ” o f the w ork. These tiny details can pass u nnoticed in criticism of original works. But one ca n n o t overlook them when criticizing tra n sla tio n s— one cannot, for a p a rt from them th ere is 1 nothing, w ithout them there is no chance o f a credible judgem ent.

Let m e illustrate how this critical idea functions by using a single concrete exam ple. Let us take the “P o p ytk a rev n o sti” o f M arin a Tsvetayeva. (Of the tw o Polish versions I know I have chosen the one th a t is m ost suitable to illustrate the m etho d.)

The m onologue o f a w om an rejected by her lover: both the original an d the tran slatio n form a succession o f d ram atic questions, questions w ithout replies, variations on the them e o f the very first w ords o f the text: “ K ak zhivetsya s drugoyu — /P ro sh ch e?” T he literal m eaning is: ’’W hat is life like with an o th er w om an — /S o m e­ w hat sim p ler?” A t first sight there are no glaring discrepancies between the Polish and the Russian_ versions.

O ur reading has acquainted us with the scenario o f a love intrigue in which a p o o r wo'man is throw n over for a rich w om an. W ith Tsvetayeva it is the o th er way ro u n d : the m an rejects riches an d chooses poverty — in the psychological sense. T he w ealth o f em otional life h ad been im m ense: regal and refined, it had as it were gathered in to itself all the m ythological m agnificence o f the history o f the descent o f m an since A d am and Eve. T he m a n —as W itkacy w ould have p u t i t —was unable to bear this h orrible tension an d took refuge from com plication in the cheap an d sim ple-m inded. Both the original an d the tran slatio n depict the sam e conflict o f values.

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T he original: K a k zh iv etsa y a s p ro sto y u Z h e n sh c h in o y u ? B ez b o z h e stv ? G o su d a r y n y u s p resto la S vergshii (s o v o h o so s h e d ). T he tran slatio n :

Jak żyje się z tu zin k o w ą K o b ie tą ? B ez u czu ć w y ższy ch ? G d y strą ciłeś z tro n u k ró lo w ą I sam sp a d łeś (ją rzu ciw szy). T he original: “S u d o ro g d a p ereb oyev K h v a tit! D o m sebe n a im u .” K a k zh iv etsa y a s ly u b o y u — Iz b r a n n o m u m o y em u ! T he tran slatio n : ’’W strzą só w i n ie p o r o z u m ie ń — D o s y ć ! Sam so b ie ży cie w y p e łn ię ” . Jak żyje się z p ierw szą z tłu m u T o b ie — w yb ran em u przeze m n ie !

T he tran slatio n w ould seem to reproduce the general outline o f the th o u g h t of the original: the sam e conflict, the sam e o rd er o f m otifs, the sam e euphoria a n d bitterness. B ut the critical m ethod th a t pays atten tio n to detail dem ands o f us th a t we m easure w ord against w ord, rhythm against rh y th m , an d ton e against to n e — an d all in o u r good time. A n d such are the results. R hyth m : different in b o th o f the poem s. Tsvetayeva ad h eres to the canon o f toned syl­ lables, and uses trochees, b oth pure trochees and catalectic or hyper- -catalectic ones. T here are subtle variations in th e rhythm . Strict regularity prevails as regards the form o f the stanzas. This strictness com m unicates an essential fact: the a rt o f speaking in m etre bridles the em otions. The outrage expressed in the m onologue is com bined w ith a refined elegance o f style. O nly thus can the proud, rejected- w om an win a victory over sim ple-m indedness. T hus the rigour o f the versification expresses the psychological strategy o f the speaking subject. The greatest affective passiofi is m anifest in the closing

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14 E d w a rd B alcerzan

stroph es: the dam breaks, and regular q u atrain s are no longer able to rein in the tension. The sentence spills over the edge o f the strophe. E njam bem ents betw een the stropes a p p e a r:

R y n o c h o y u n o v izn o y u Sytyi li? K v o lsh b a m o styv. K ak zh iv etsy a vam s zem n o y u Z h en sh ch in o y u bez sh estykh

— and the strophe ends, b u t th at is n o t the end o f the sentence “ bez shestykh chuvstv” : the w ord chuvstv ju m ps over to the follow ing line. A n d in the tra n sla tio n ? T here is o f course enjam bem ent, b ut the rhythm — the regularity o f the rhythm — has been destroyed. N o t a trace rem ains o f the trochaic pattern. A lliteration s an d etym olo­ gical figures like “S poshlinoy bezsm ertnoy p o sh lo sti” have gone by the board. The P olish tra n sla to r w rites in his p ro se: “Z pod atk iem od tego ban al p ow odzi”. O ne m ight th in k one were reading an excerpt from a review, no t an actual poem . The difficult, strained sound- -p attern s o f the original, which resem ble runic speech and can even pose problem s o f enu nciation for R ussians them selves—

S v o istv en n ey e i s ’e d o b n e y e — S n e d ’? P reyestsya — nie p ie n ia j...

constitu te a m any-layered artistic tran sm u tatio n o f everyday speech. All th at rem ains in the tran slatio n is ju st th a t—the everyday. The sentences are clum ping, are even to o clum ping for everyday speech. They belong to the sam e species as the exchanges in a cookery b ook :

W ła śc iw sza , bardziej d o sm ak u p rzyp ad ła S traw a? G d y przeje się — nie o b w in ia j... T his is n either poetic n o r linguistically naturalistic.

The w ords th a t d isap p ear: one ought also to ask after them . T svetayeva w rites:

K ak zh iv etsy a vam s ch u zh o y u Z d esh n ey u ? R e b r o m — lyu b a?

Rebro is a rib. W h at rib can this be? E arlier Biblical m otifs

h ad ap p eared ; the contex t suggests the solution : it is A d a m ’s rib. D o you love her so m u c h —is she so close to y o u — th a t it seems

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G o d fashioned her for you from one o f y our ribs? W h at irony, w hat p a in —biological pain. A nd here is the Polish tran slatio n :

Jak żyje ci się z tą n ow ą, T u tejszą ? P asuje p ro sta ?

N ó, th a t certainly “does no t fit in w ith ” (nie pasuje) the poetics o f Tsvetayeva! This is how “the sim ple w om an ,” n o t the “ regal” one, m ight form ulate her questions.

G ra m m a r: the original uses im personal definitions o f actions. H ow does one live, how does one get up, how does one sing? The deserter, the tu rn co a t, the tra ito r —forfeits his person al traits, ceases to be a person, becom ing a thing instead. T he g ram m ar d eperson a­ lizes him. The Polish tran slatio n is quite sim ple-hearted. H ow are you living, how do you pass your tim e, are you n o t fretting, d o n ’t you see, d o you rise and shine? N o trace o f hu m iliation, no sign o f revenge. N o thing bu t pity an d sentim ental feeling. W here Tsvetayeva polem icizes with the m elodram atic trad itio n , the tran slatio n propels the verse back into th e arm s o f the m elodram atic.

As one can see, the m ethod applied above need n o t rest con ten t once it has listed the details, alth o u g h the details are its po in t o f d eparture. C hukovsky reiterated on m any occasions th a t a succession o f quite m arginal infringem ents is enough to destroy a style: a change in the m eaning o f a w ord h ere; an alteratio n in th e rhym e p attern th ere; and elsewhere, a refiguring o f the in to n a tio n —and a totally different world-view is the result. A s a rule this world-view is a ready-m ade one, a p refabricated cliche from the native trad ition . T he same is true o f poetic language. I have p ointed out the disinc­ lination in T svetayeva’s tra n s la to r fo r in strum ental experim ent. This glaring failure to hear the verse is the besetting sin o f o u r tra n s­ lators. C ould this p artly stem from our p o ets’ prevalent tendency to co nstruct poetic statem ents in the m ode o f con cep tual reflection, detracting from their phonetic expressivity? A n d yet tran slatio n ought to m ake good the shortcom ings o f Polish, to draw o u t its still untap p ed possibilities. A fter all, th at is the reason why one im po rts: not ju st im ports m arket goods, bu t p ro d u c ts o f verbal a rt too.

C riticism o f tran slatio n is unable to shake itself free o f the oldest controversy in the history o f the tra n s la to r’s a rt: th a t between a d a p ta tio n , which entails oblivion o f the alien, and th e use of

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16 E d w a rd B alcerzan

equivalents for the original, w hdse foreignness is em ployed to in tro ­ duce new elem ents into the dom estic poetic system. H istory is m oving tow ards the elim ination o f all form s o f offhand a d a p ta tio n and free-and-easy p arap h ra se o f w orks in foreign tongues — all form s o f d istortio n and tran sm u tatio n o f the style and poetics o f the p ro to ­ type. In the past o u r lite ra tu re —an d other literatures t o o —w as fed a rich diet o f parap h rase an d ad a p ta tio n . The foreign text w as treated as a pretext to speak u po n a them e o f o n e’s choice. N ow only those departures from the original th a t are objectively necessary are to lerated: the preference is fo r an optim um o f equivalence between texts: namely, for equivalents fo r its key structures, such as the conception o f the subject, the lyrical situation, the hierarchy o f values, the condition o f the language, the relations betw een the w ords and the tem poral and spatial param eters. T he critic says: yes, I know tran spositions are inevitable when it com es to recons­ tructing a text, but in a tran slatio n the m an who speaks, the w orld th a t exists, and the type o f artistry present m ust be the sam e— or as sim ilar as is possible in the Polish language.

W hy is this?

It can not be sim ply a m atter o f the pressure o f som e ab stractly conceived notion o f fidelity. T here m ust be forces at w ork in the local lite ratu re— forces th at a re n o t to be sneezed a t — helping to bring about this situation. T he system o f literary culture has doubtless created m echanism s— on the side o f both sender and receiv er— to p rom ote the em ergence o f the tru th a b o u t foreign literary doings, to com prom ise or rule o u t the pseudo-reconstruction s th a t w ould falsify the image o f an o th er literature. Is it simply a m atter o f a hung er for tru th and au th en ticity ? O f a highly developed sensitivity to messages th at lie beyond the control o f the generality a n d thus are particularly liable to m ystification? The tra n sla to r as foreign correspondent, passing on info rm atio n a b o u t anoth er, far-rem oved cultural space, w ould be a person whose credentials one w ould inspect (for this is at least possible in a world whose forces are hidden from the individual, evolving in a m an n er he does n o t co m ­ prehend)? I would not even rule out th at hypothesis. The successful career o f the literature o f fact, the cult o f the d o c u m e n t—those well-known and oft-discussed p h e n o m e n a —rem ain closely linked with the value attached to tran slatio n .

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I pro p o se nevertheless to review th e question in a perspective m ore closely related to literatu re an d the qualities peculiar to it.

In m any respects a poetic tran slatio n is like a q u o tatio n . The sim ilarity perm its one to explain the absolutely basic m eaning of the tra n sla to r’s efforts. T he circulation o f the q u o ta tio n an d the functioning of the tran slatio n m anifest one an d the sam e sem iotic m echanism : the m echanism o f the polyphonic. P erh ap s one ought to speak o f the self-regulating m echanism s o f a culture subject to polyphonic standards. It acts to co u n terb alan ce the process th a t melts original ideas in to b orrow ed ones with a n o th e r process th at serves to distinguish between th e native and the foreign. Let us note th at b o th the q u o tatio n and the tran slatio n com bine these tw o tendencies. They introduce foreign w ords into co n tem p o rary artistic p arla n ce— at the sam e tim e rem aining m indful o f their foreign, archaic or non-P olish origin. T ak en together, these tw o activities structure the p o lypho ny o f literary life, as well as th a t o f related areas, such as m usic o r film.

W ith regard to the q u o ta tio n : the act th a t annexes a pre-existent text and bends it to the purposes o f o u r poem , o u r critical paper, o u r film o r o u r m usical w ork is sharply co n tra ste d w ith the act o f revelation o f its foreign au th o rsh ip . T his revelation does not alw ays occur at fhe level o f the text, as is the case w ith the literary epigraph (the epigraph from Jan Lechoń in T eo d o r P arn ick i’s

T ylko Beatrycze, the epigraph “ Śniła się z im a ” in A d am W ażyk’s

“ S en”, an d so on). It is often left to the receiver to discover the a u th o r. A theatre audience m ay fail to discern the filmic q u o tatio n s in A dam H anuszkiew icz’s p ro d u c tio n o f Balladyna (the figure o f G o p lan a is m odelled on the film com ic strip figure o f B arbarella). W hen w atching a certain scene from K o n ra d S w inarski’s prod u ctio n o f Wyzwolenie, the spectato r m ay miss the q u o ta tio n from the version o f Kordian presented in O pole years ago by Jerzy G rotow ski (the m onologue from the hospital bed). T he p o in t is, however, th at according to the rules o f this p artic u la r gam e discovery o f the source o f the q u o tatio n does no t equal the u n m asking o f “plagiarism ” : qu ite the reverse— it is follow ing up the line o f in terp re tatio n wished fo r by b o th directors.

In a tran slatio n the ren d itio n into Polish o f a pre-existent struc­ tu r e —which is pressed into the service o f o u r native lite ra tu re —is

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18 E d w a rd B a lce rza n

accom panied by a m arking o f this structure as secondary to its foreign-language proto type.

“C u ltu re is collective m em ory,” U spensky an d L o tm an declare. T o m ake use o f the foreign w ord* is to renew the m em ory o f the system and is justified in a series o f ways from every p o in t o f view o f social understanding. F ro m the p o in t o f view o f the a u th o r, the foreign w ord is the preco n d itio n o f acceptance by the p ublic; in this case “foreign” is ta n ta m o u n t a t one an d the sam e tim e to “n o b o d y ’s” and “com m on to receiver an d send er.” In 1921 K aro l Irzykow ski w rote:

T h e p reco n d itio n for an y an d every a r t— but n o t its e s se n c e — is that a d ista n t e c h o travels d o w n a set o f g r o o v e s alread y in scrib ed in the so u l, g r o o v e s th at crea te the p o ssib ility o f rapid c o n n e c tio n s o f id ea s — e m o tio n a l sh ort-circu its b etw een d ista n t p o in ts.

T he idea is n o t a new one. W h at m akes one po nd er, how ever, is the fact th a t recent tim es—w hose m ost radical av ant-g ard e has, afte r all, opposed the rules o f dependence on a h erita g e—have succeeded neither in rem oving it from the cultural system n o r in invalidating it once and for all. W here is the critic w ho has no t sought to win public sup p o rt for inno vato ry w orks by^ u nearth in g the precedents th a t as it were foreshadow ed this very kind o f in n o ­ v a tio n —an innovation th a t proves to have been long know n to general experience? Passé literary p ro d u ctio n s are n o t the only ones to seek refuge in the nam eless com m on gro un d o f the trad itio n : w orks whose poetics are at the extrem e o f an ti-trad itio n alism do so to o. Let us tak e a look at a totally “extrem ist” av an t-garde: a t D adaism and ex tra-ratio n al poetry. D adaism quo ted the exam ple o f childh oo d gam es: they were its predecessors and “grooves already inscribed.” K h lebnikov and K ruchonykh, who launched the p ro ­ gram m e o f extra-ratio n al poetry, cited the exam ple o f the way m en behave in situations o f great em otion al tension, m ystical ecstasy an d ritual magic. The defenders o f M iro n B iałoszew ski—in the p erio d when Białoszewski was considered to be the begetter o f an ugly

* T h e P o lish cu d ze slo w o can a lso refer to the term for “q u o ta tio n ” or “in verted c o m m a s .” T h is o f co u rse en h a n ces th e v a lid ity in P o lish o f the c o m p a r iso n b etw een q u o ta tio n and tra n sla tio n [tra n sla to r’s note].

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g ib b erish —likewise said: well, w hat o f it? after all, you readers have also k n ow n your speech to be crippled when a privacy beyond con tro l subm erges it. Well, Białoszewski m akes p o etry o f these verbal lurchings which are n o t his alone b u t yours too : a new beauty, an d at the sam e tim e, a new ethics o f praise o f the everyday.

N evertheless, the au th o rity o f the com m on speech th at is no m a n ’s possession, an d w hich m ay be d istan t in tim e or currently developing, is lacking in suggestiveness. F o r it is totally anonym ous. H ence literary inn ov ations refer at the sam e tim e to the foreign w ord th a t assum es the form o f an entire foreign w ork, the specific achievem ent o f an individual w riter. T he native achievem ent is in­ serted into the new text by m eans o f various techniques o f q u o ta t­ ion, by the play o f allusion, rem iniscence and parap hrase. The achievem ent in a foreign language is ad a p te d by m eans o f the tra n s ­ la to r’s techniques. T he dram as and novels o f W itkacy, the novels o f Joyce, Bely’s S t. Petersburg, the “W ypraw y krzyżow e” o f Białoszewski represent en orm ous accum ulations o f techniques o f citation a n d tra n s­ lation o f this kind. D a d a ism —m entioned ab o v e—and its surrealist extension devised the rules o f collage. O ne notes th a t the poetics o f collage accord the q u o tatio n a privileged place. A longside the ready-m ade p ro d u c ts o f an anonym ous culture, q u o tatio n s th a t disclose the au th o rsh ip o f the borrow ed text can also feature in a collage. Sim ilarly, ex tra-ratio n al poetry, the secret tongue th a t ap p ears to m ake a m ockery o f all com prom ise an d to reach o ut beyond the b o rders o f h u m an c u ltu re — tow ards an o n o m ato p o eia th a t im itates the language o f landscapes, tow ard s the languages o f b ird s—c a n n o t co n tinue in th e long ru n w ithout m aking use o f qu o tatio n s. O ne o f its final m anifestoes is a peculiar anthology o f the foreign innovation s th a t anticip ated the “za u m ” . N o t only does K ruch o n y k h cite exam ples fro m situations in colloquial speech, he also refers to H am sun (Ylayali, the nam e o f an im aginary girl), quo tes Sologub, D ostoevsky an d G ogol, an d declares th a t the strange nam es they have th o u g h t u p for ch aracters an d places are ak in to the w ords devised by ex tra -ra tio n a l poetry.

I f a q u o ta tio n can provide an au th o rity th a t furth ers the accep­ tance o f new ideas, the sam e can apply to a q u o ta tio n from a foreign literatu re —presented in the form of a tran slatio n. A con s­

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20 E d w a rd B alcerzan

tru ctio n th at o ther societies have tried an d tested, a poetics app rov ed by a foreign com m unity, will interact w ith the developm ent o f the native poetry, stim ulating invention, m aking us blush to be behind the tim es, providing encou rag em ent w henever the dom estic public rejects form s o f speech or m odels o f ethical beh av io u r th a t surprise it. T he tran slatio n brings calm into the passions o f negation, silences the conservatism o f the backw ater, p ro m otes h u m an ist education. H ow vitalizing were the im pulses sent forth by the translatio ns o f P ablo N e ru d a or G a rcia L orca o f the m id-nineteen-fifties, im ­ pulses th a t co u n teracted an a tro p h y o f the im agin ation ! T ran slatio n s soon becam e an active p a rt o f the change o f aw areness: the w ord

thaw, in fact, the m etaphorical term fo r a storm y episode in our

m ost recent cu ltural history, derives from a tran slatio n (the O ttepel by Ilya E hrenburg). In 1956, 1957 an d 1958 a series o f new tran slatio n s o f V ladim ir M ayakovsky were published. Successive volum es o f his w orks appeared. T his created a p artic u la r kind o f literary co n­ figuration: the new M ayakovsky, w ho was only ju st beginning to address us w ith the full force o f his voice, w as co n trasted w ith the “M ayakovsky-speak ” o f the “p eriod o f schem atism .” (As in the

Obrona Grenady o f K azim ierz B randys.) T here ap p eared a p o e m —a

very sh o rt poem , in fa c t—which, read in isolation from th e situ atio n a t th a t tim e, w ould be sim ply like a fable by K rasicki o r La F ontaine. It was “A Verse a b o u t D iffering T astes” :

P o w ied zia ł k oń ,

sp ojrzaw szy na w ielb łą d a : „Jak śm ieszn ie

ten k oń garb aty w y g lą d a !” Z aś w ielb łą d z a w o ła ł:

„ T o k o ń ? ... K o c h a n y !... T o ż z cieb ie zw y k ły w ielb łą d n ie u fo r m o w a n y ” . I ty lk o B ó g siw o b ro d y p a m ię ta ł, że to ró żn y ch g a tu n k ó w zw ierzęta.

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[The h o rse said, h avin g lo o k e d at th e ca m el: “ h o w fu n n y that h u n ch b ack ed horse lo o k s ! ” T h e ca m el fo r its part cried : “T h a t’s a h o r s e ? ... M y dear m a n ! ... Y o u ’re an o rd in a ry m issh a p en c a m e l.” A n d o n ly G o d th e greyb eard rem em bered these b ea sts w ere o f different k inds.]

T he fact th a t this fable h ad been w ritten by M ayakovsky (and tran slate d on the o th er h an d by A n a to l S tem ) is the very thing th a t lends it its w eight o f significance. F o r here is M ayakovsky saying: N o! to the m onistic type o f agitational po etry th a t had cited M ayakovsky as its exem plar. He is co n tem p tu o u s o f blindness a n d fram es an ap ologia fo r the very p lu ralist ethics an d aesthetics the tim e so strongly desired.

I d o n o t wish to ascribe any dem onic qualities to the role o f the tran slatio n . W h at I am talking a b o u t is co-op eratio n, co m p an io n ­ ship, aid. The tran slatio n tends to furnish the acco m p anim en t to processes th a t are occurring in the native lite ra tu re —to the m ain m elodic line o f original w ork. The tran slatio n th a t acts as a q u o tatio n is the o p tim al case, and dovetails with the directives o f the original. (H ad Stern em ployed the form o f the ap ocryp hal verse, he w ould have been im posing his own ideas u p o n M ayakovsky and his tran s­ lation w ould have been a m isunderstanding.) A d a p ta tio n is the fruit o f reception: the read er always takes over the text, inserting it into the system o f his own experience. A n a d a p ta tio n by the tran slato r w ould be a “prep ared p ia n o ” playing an accom pan im ent o f false notes. The receiver w ould feel th a t his own place h ad been assum ed for him , p re m a tu rely —he w ould feel cheated. T h at is why the search for artistic equivalents is the tra n s la to r’s reply to the real needs o f his own culture.

A dm ittedly, there is an area in which the tra n sla to r has a time- -h o n o u red right to ad a p t: when tran slatin g ch ild ren ’s books. The im agination o f the child is synchronic and one-dim ensional. The child-addressee has no ear fo r the tensions betw een in novation and trad itio n , it does n o t keep abreast o f the tem po ral and spatial ebb an d flow o f the foreign word.

A n d po etry w ritten fo r ad u lts? I w ould no t say one ou ght to w age a blind, in quisitorial cam paign against the n o tio ns o f ad a p ta tio n th a t crop up again and again now adays in the a rt o f poetic tra n s­ lation. If these are fully fledged conceptions, w ith an internal coherence an d energy o f their own, then they can occupy the zone th a t lies

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22 E d w a rd B alcerzan

inbetween original w ork an d the w ork o f the tran slato r. They can

create values o f a tertiary nature. A dm ittedly, I do n o t perceive any particu larly strong influx o f such ideas (there have only been isolated attem pts,- such as those o f Jarosław M arek Rym kiewicz). But since, as I have already m entioned, ad a p ta tio n s in the 18th-century m ode o f intervention in the original text are proving so deep and aggressive in o th e r cultural fields—in the arts o f spectacle, o f th eatre and film —one ca n n o t preclude the possibility th at ultim ately the vortex o f a d a p ta tio n will suck poetry u nd er too. N evertheless, this vortex ou gh t n o t to d row n the au th en tic a rt o f tran slation . M eanw hile, w ithin the a r t o f tran slatio n frequent “leeway for a d a p ta tio n ” constitutes a h indrance. It increases the h azards o f the arbitary , which in tu rn m erely add to the confusion in which the translatio n p retend s to be a tran slatio n (though the pretence is an inconsistent one), pretend s to be a q u o ta tio n (though its re p ro d u ctio n of the p ro to ty p e is a shady one). B lithe unco ncern becom es the sin o f m any tra n s­ lations.

“P o k a zem lya yeshcho vertitsya, p o k a yeshche yarok svet” B ulat O k u d zh av a sings in his beautiful ballad entitled François Villon. The m easure of the w ords increases the clarity o f the images. “D o p ó k i ziem ia się jeszcze o b ra c a ” is an ab stra ct and n otio n al vision, cast in the form o f a proverb, devoid o f appeal to o u r sensual experience o f grasping the w orld. „D o p ó k i św iatło jest jeszcze jask ra w e” : the w ords present a m an who drinks in the sensuous beauty o f natu re, a beauty so intense as to cause one pain and to h u rt the eyes. The Polish tra n sla to r m akes quite a good fist o f th e first h alf o f the line. H e w rites: “ D o pó ki nam ziem ia kręci się.” The second h a lf o f the line how ever is given the “tre a tm e n t” o f ad a p tatio n . The tran slatio n reads: “do pó ki je st tak czy siak !” Q uite. F o r w henever a p o etic tran slatio n can go “eith er w ay” * — it is neither fish n o r flesh bu t m erely a red herring.

T ransi, by P a u l C o a te s

Cytaty

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