Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Slovene Translation of Janez Menart

Abstract

The poet Janez Menart was a major figure in the postwar Slovene literary milieu. As such, his complete translation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets is of great interest in its own right. When placed in the broad framework of Skopos theory, the translation and the critical argument surrounding it also illuminate the irreconcilable nature of certain divergent approaches to literary translation. The chief point my remarks here will attempt to add to the discussion is that, notwithstanding the licence Menart occasionally permitted himself, his rendering of the work as a whole displays an uncanny sense of the logic and cohesion of the overall sequence the Sonnets comprise. His practical handling of the poems anticipated later trends in Anglo-American editorial scholarship; his translation manages to be both a classic in its own language and to offer a significant, if internationally overlooked reading of the original text.