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Between cosmopolitanism and hermeticism

Translating classical tragedy into Polish theater
  • Allen J. Kuharski
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Contexts, Subtexts and Pretexts
This chapter is in the book Contexts, Subtexts and Pretexts

Abstract

The contemporary stage director Michał Zadara (b. 1976) has specialized in productions of neglected Polish and foreign classics, such as Jan Kochanowski’s seminal neo-classical tragedy Dismissing the Greek Envoys (1578) and Jean Racine’s Iphigènie (1674). Zadara’s cosmopolitan contemporary approach to such plays raises what he calls “the Polish question”: what is the Polish theater’s distinct identity and significant contribution in the larger cultural context of the European Union and globalization? In challenging the tacit presumption of the hermetic and untranslatable character of the canon of Polish verse drama outside of Poland, as well of the translatability of canonical Western texts into Polish, Zadara’s theatrical project reveals and emphasizes the cosmopolitanism and potential contemporary relevance of these texts in performance. Zadara’s theatrical resuscitation of Kochanowski and Racine involves issues of translation in a variety of registers: literary, performative, and political. These issues of translation deeply inform the cultural politics in play between Poland and the rest of Europe, as well as the Polish theater’s relationship to the genre of classical tragedy.

Abstract

The contemporary stage director Michał Zadara (b. 1976) has specialized in productions of neglected Polish and foreign classics, such as Jan Kochanowski’s seminal neo-classical tragedy Dismissing the Greek Envoys (1578) and Jean Racine’s Iphigènie (1674). Zadara’s cosmopolitan contemporary approach to such plays raises what he calls “the Polish question”: what is the Polish theater’s distinct identity and significant contribution in the larger cultural context of the European Union and globalization? In challenging the tacit presumption of the hermetic and untranslatable character of the canon of Polish verse drama outside of Poland, as well of the translatability of canonical Western texts into Polish, Zadara’s theatrical project reveals and emphasizes the cosmopolitanism and potential contemporary relevance of these texts in performance. Zadara’s theatrical resuscitation of Kochanowski and Racine involves issues of translation in a variety of registers: literary, performative, and political. These issues of translation deeply inform the cultural politics in play between Poland and the rest of Europe, as well as the Polish theater’s relationship to the genre of classical tragedy.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgments vii
  4. Notes on contributors ix
  5. Introduction 1
  6. Part I. Contexts
  7. Shifting contexts 19
  8. Nation and translation 33
  9. Vasilii Zhukovskii as translator and the protean Russian nation 55
  10. Romania as Europe’s translator 79
  11. Translating India, constructing self 97
  12. The water of life 117
  13. Translation trouble 137
  14. Part II. Subtexts
  15. Between the lines 149
  16. Translation theory and cold war politics 171
  17. The poetics and politics of Joseph Brodsky as a Russian poet-translator 187
  18. Squandered opportunities 205
  19. Meaningful absences 219
  20. Part III. Pretexts
  21. Translated by Goblin 235
  22. “No text is an island” 249
  23. Russian dystopia in exile 265
  24. Between cosmopolitanism and hermeticism 277
  25. The other polysystem 295
  26. Translation as condition and theme in Milan Kundera’s novels 317
  27. Index 323
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.89.22kuh

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgments vii
  4. Notes on contributors ix
  5. Introduction 1
  6. Part I. Contexts
  7. Shifting contexts 19
  8. Nation and translation 33
  9. Vasilii Zhukovskii as translator and the protean Russian nation 55
  10. Romania as Europe’s translator 79
  11. Translating India, constructing self 97
  12. The water of life 117
  13. Translation trouble 137
  14. Part II. Subtexts
  15. Between the lines 149
  16. Translation theory and cold war politics 171
  17. The poetics and politics of Joseph Brodsky as a Russian poet-translator 187
  18. Squandered opportunities 205
  19. Meaningful absences 219
  20. Part III. Pretexts
  21. Translated by Goblin 235
  22. “No text is an island” 249
  23. Russian dystopia in exile 265
  24. Between cosmopolitanism and hermeticism 277
  25. The other polysystem 295
  26. Translation as condition and theme in Milan Kundera’s novels 317
  27. Index 323
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