Slovene poetry in English : challenges and problems

Abstract

Perusing slim, often bilingual editions of Slovene poetry in English, published on both sides of the ocean between 1954 and 1993, one inevitably has to ask: who are these elegant books for, who will read them? Editors and translators seem to have anticipated this question, and some of them define the purpose of their endeavour in longer or shorter introductions to their selections and/or anthologies. The editors of the selection from Prešeren's poetry in 1954 clearly state:" ...until now only a few isolated poems by (Prešeren) have been accessible in English. Consequently, a publication of this kind may help to fill a distinct gap for lovers of poetry and for students of literature in general," thus defining their target audience as two distinct groups of readers: those who read poetry for nothing else but pleasure, and the scholars who would study Slovene poetry and assess it in the context of world literatures.