Translation As a Cultural and Literary Artefact Comparison of Two Czech Translations of the Poem Slovo od mladosti (Farewall to the Youth) by France Prešeren Translation As a Cultural and Literary Artefact Comparison of Two Czech Translations of the Poem Slovo od mladosti (Farewall to the Youth) by France Prešeren Comparison of Two Czech Translations of the Poem Slovo od mladosti (Farewall to the Youth) by France Prešeren Translation As a Cultural and Literary Artefact Comparison of Two Czech Translations of the Poem Slovo od mladosti (Farewall to the Youth) by France Prešeren
Abstract
In the paper we analyze and compare two translations of Prešeren's poem Slovo od mladosti (Farewell to youth) as cultural and literary artifacts. We focus on linguistic and stylistic solutions as well as decisions in the context of cultural transfer, which also depends on the context.
We research the translation by František Ladislav Čelakovski (1799-1852) from 1832 (published in the Časopis českého Muzea) and the translation of the same Prešeren poem by Josef Hiršal (1920-2003), published in the book Můj sen šel po hladině (My dream faded on the water surface, 1978). Hiršal's modern translation emerged from a certain development of Czech poetic norms in the 1960s and 1970s and is an example of a linguistic masterpiece by the famous poet of the experimental poetry and a well-known translator (due to political circumstances, the translation was signed by the book's editor Viktor Kudělka).