The Crossover Poet Jan Zábrana: Translation as a Space for Authorial Self-Realization
ABSTRACT (en)
The aim of this study is to analyze the poetics of writer and translator Jan Zábrana. Zábrana’s life and literary career were profoundly shaped by the Czechoslovakian communist regime, which pre- vented him from attending university and publishing his own works. Consequently, he immersed himself in translation, making it his primary activity and a substitute for his career as a writer. In this article, I argue that Zábrana’s poetics and writing style were influenced by his work as a trans- lator. This influence manifests itself not only in his stylistic contributions to the poems he trans- lates but also in his tendency to draw characteristics from them that later became integral to his own writings. The study aims to demonstrate this by identifying traces of Zábrana’s voice in his translations of Sylvia Plath’s poems from the collection Ariel. Starting with an examination of the poetic and biographic affinities between Zábrana and Plath, these are then brought to bear on Zá- brana’s original writings as they appear in his diaries. The initial section of the article delves into Zábrana’s biography, providing insight into his role as a translator and elucidating his distinctive approach to the translated text. This biographical context sets the stage for the subsequent explora- tion of Sylvia Plath’s life, positioning her as Zábrana’s literary ‘alter-ego’ and underscoring the re- markable similarities between the two figures. The latter part of the article shifts to concrete exam- ples drawn from the poems, in which certain phenomena are identified that may be characterized as ‘aesthetic surpluses’, which are subsequently categorized into three distinct dimensions: verbal dynamism, concretization of poetic imagery, and emotional intensification. The analytical frame- work employed throughout this study draws on methodological aspects of the translation theories of Jiří Levý, Gideon Toury, and Marylin Gaddis Rose. In summary, the study unravels the intricate interplay between translation and creative expression within Jan Zábrana’s literary journey, shed- ding light on how the act of translation served as both a conduit and catalyst for the development of his unique poetics and writing style.
KEYWORDS (cz)
Jan Zábrana; Sylvia Plath; překlad; Ariel; hraniční; práh; alter ego
KEYWORDS (en)
Jan Zábrana; Sylvia Plathová; translation; Ariel; crossover; threshold; alter ego
DOI
https://doi.org/10.14712/23366680.2024.2.6
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