(Mis)translation and (Mis)interpretation: Polish Literature in the Context of Cross-Cultural Communication by Piotr s> Wilczek (review)

Abstract

i36 SEER, 85, I, 2007 consisting of ready-made sequences with real meanings divergingfrom ostensible meanings may be uncertain. First and foremost they belong, under the appropriate keywords, in a comprehensive defining dictionary. But of the practicaladvantagesof having them, in addition, in a separatephraseological dictionary, there is no doubt. Anatolij lv'cenko and Sonja Wolke may be congratulated on their remarkable achievement. The book's production matches up to the Domowina Press'susual high standards. HerlfordCollege, Oxford GERALDSTONE Wilczek, Piotr. (Mis)translation and(Mis)interpretation: PolishLiterature intheContext of Cross-Cultural Communication. Literary and Cultural Theory, 22. Peter Lang, Frankfurtam Main, 2005. I64 pp. Notes. Bibliography.SFR5o.oo: ?34.00: f22.30: $37.95 (paperback). PIOTR WILCZEK, Associate Professorof Polish Literatureat the University of Silesia (Poland),here presentsa collection of essayson a varietyof topicsbearing on the relationshipbetween Polish and Anglophone literatureand culture from the sixteenth century to the present. Some essaysare presented here for the first time; others appeared in earlier versions between I998 and 2004. Wilczek draws together a number of areas of study:the poetry of the Polish and EnglishRenaissance, Reformationstudies,translationtheory and cultural studies. He even ventures sideways into issues of musical performance practice , where questions of archaism, 'authenticity'and aesthetics are also hotly debated. Despite the theoretical sophisticationof his work, Wilczek eschews jargon, and is reluctant to tie himself too firmly to any one theoretical position. All along, Wilczek's work is informed by his conviction that the past has more than antiquarianinterest;it has the power to illuminate the present in often surprisingways. His fascinationfor the presence (or absence) of Polish culture in America is born from his own experiences there (I998-200I), to which he briefly adverts in the epigraph, and more expansively in the final chapter. The firstessay deals with a conflict of approach between two Polish translatorsofJohn Donne's Sonnet X,J. S. Sito (I963)and S. Baraniczak (2000).Sito, convinced that translating 'archaic' English into 'new' Polish would be an anachronism,approximatedthe tone of Donne's poetry with patternsof lexis and syntax derived from Polish poetry roughly contemporary with Donne. Baraniczakrejected Sito's approach as a fake. While Wilczek commends Baraniczakfor highlightingsome of the problems underlyingSito's approach, he also showsthat the groundson which Baraniczak criticizesSito'stranslation betray an insufficiently comprehensive grasp of the corpus of early Polish poetry. The second essay deals with a complex of related questionsthrough a case study, Adam Mickiewicz's translationsof Byron. Here Wilczek deals with a number of pertinent questions: when does a translationstart to become an independent work?What is the position of a translationin the corpus of the target language and culture? Finally, should a comparative approach take REVIEWS 137 equal account of the culture of the original literary work and that of the translation? The next section of the book deals with translationsof Polish poetry into English, beginning with an incisive review of the English translationsof the magnificent Laments (Treny)of Kochanowski, one of the few world-famous Polish poets before Milosz. Another chapter deals with more theoreticalideas in the context of translatingSzarzyn'ski's poetry. A third chapter deals with Czerniawski'stranslations of Rozewicz which, Wilczek argues, are of such quality and resonance as to qualify equally as part of the English and Polish literary canons (another controversial subject Wilczek tackles later in the book). Part Two of the book comprises three essays on the place of Polish literature in earlymodern Europeanculture,and five on the place of Polish culture within American culture. These essays are also crammed with fascinating observations. For example, in his article on 'hate speech' in the polemics betweenJesuits and 'heretics'in the sixteenthcentury,Wilczekpoints out that the invective often employed by Reformation controversialistshad a long and distinguishedhistory in Christiandiscourse,from the time of the church fathers onwards. When aJesuit polemicist describes Socinian doctrine as 'an old and rotting cabbage', he is not merely being gross, but is attempting to show how offensivehe finds his heretical opponent's belief. He is also following Quintilian's advice to present the images of things vividly before our mind's eye. Reformation writers thus employed various modes of argument to appeal to the various faculties of the soul: logic to appeal...