„Spark and Sparkle” – on translating absurd poems, illustrated by an example of a poem by Ogden Nash
PDF (Język Polski)

Keywords

poetry
translation
sense of humour
semantic dominant
analogy
mind

How to Cite

Skrzypecki, M. . (2019). „Spark and Sparkle” – on translating absurd poems, illustrated by an example of a poem by Ogden Nash. Poznań Polish Studies. Literary Series, (36), 213–226. https://doi.org/10.14746/pspsl.2019.36.13

Abstract

The article is a short presentation of a translation concept created by an American cognitivist and physicist Douglas Hofstadter included in his book Le Ton beau de Marot. The principles of the concept are presented by means of a metaphor. Translation is a game of, only partially conscious, participation in an infinite loop: words evoke images and images – words. The contact with the original text creates images in the translator’s mind that he or she translates by means of language structures into sentences/verses of the target language. This cognitive intuition is paired with a structural category of Stanisław Barańczak’s semantic dominant. This methodological, structural-cognitive pair is a starting point for the analysis of Barańczak’s translation of Ogden Nash’s The Dog. The stylistic and formal solutions (especially rhymes) used by the translator are analysed, but the main goal of the text is to capture the elusive, i.e. the analysis of the interlinguistic and
‘inter-mental’ translation of the absurd sense of humour.

https://doi.org/10.14746/pspsl.2019.36.13
PDF (Język Polski)

References

Barańczak Stanisław (1993), O niepowadze z całą powagą, rozm. przepr. Bogusława Latawiec, w: Zaufać nieufności. Osiem rozmów o sensie poezji, red. Krzysztof Biedrzycki, M, Kraków. s. 91-98.

Barańczak Stanisław (2004), Mały, lecz maksymalistyczny manifest translatologiczny, w: tegoż, Ocalone w tłumaczeniu, a5, Kraków. s. 13-62.

Hofstadter Douglas (1997), Le Ton beau de Marot. In Praise of the Music of Language, Basic Books, New York [USA].

Hofstadter Douglas (2009), Translator, Trader. An Essay on the Pleasantly Pervasive Paradoxes of Translation, w: Françoise Sagan, That Mad Ache, przeł. Douglas R. Hofstadter, Basic Books, New York [USA], s. 3-100.

Nash Ogden (1962), The Pocket Book of Ogden Nash, Pocket Books, New York [USA].

Nash Ogden (1987), The Dog, w: tegoż, Zoo, Abrams Books, New York [USA], s. 11.

Nash Ogden (2007), Pies, w: tegoż, W świecie mułów nie ma regułów. 111 wierszy, przeł. Stanisław Barańczak, Media Rodzina, Poznań, s. 55.