Prosaic works - UNIVERZITA KARLOVA V PRAZE

Let us turn the attention to prosaic works that were translated between the years 1945-1948. It may be useful to start with Jonathan Swift, the Irish writer and satirist, whose position of an assistant to Sir William Temple enabled him to publish his own essays and memoirs, as well as various political articles (e.g. “A Modest Proposal”). He is best known for his novel Gulliver’s Travels, written the year 1726. Its “storyline points to historical events that Swift had lived through years prior, during intense political turmoil.”⁴¹ In Great Britain it was a huge success since the novel has never run out of print. Moreover, Gulliver’s Travels found its readers even in Czechoslovakia. The first translation appeared already in 1852, under the title Gulliverovy cesty (translated by Karel Pichler, published by V. Hess, Praha). Other translations followed in the years 1882 (Gulliverovy cesty, published by Pichl, Praha, the translator is unknown), 1874 (Gulliverovy cesty do Liliputu a Brobdignaku, published by Mourek, Praha, in translation by J. V. Hlouška), 1894 (Gulliverova cestování do mnohých a vzdálených končin světa, published by A. Hynek, Praha, in translation by Jan Váňa), 1895 (the second edition of the former), 1896 (Gulliverovy cesty do Liliputu a Brobdignaku, published

39 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, RBS

40 Daniel Samek, "Databáze irských překladů,“ Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy – Katedra anglistika a amerikanistiky, 17^th November 2015 http://ualk.ff.cuni.cz/ibibliography/index.htm.

41 "Jonathan Swift,“ Bio, 2015, 23^rd July 2015 http://www.biography.com/people/jonathan-swift-9500342.

by A. Hynek, Praha, in translation by V.K.) and 1897 (the third edition of Váňa’s translation).⁴² The first post-war translation was made in 1946 by Arnošt Ondrůj and it was published by Státní nakladatelství. The second translation was made by František Marek-Müller in 1947 and it was published by F. Novák. The novel’s popularity was probably caused by the fact that it was usually not considered a political manifesto against the corrupted society – which it was – but a fairy-tale, or at most, a travelogue (which was partially true as well): for example, José Luis Chamosa Gonzáles claimed that “children enjoy the amusing plot of this charming tale without so much as suspecting the importance of its real meaning.”⁴³ However, it is necessary to say that the children’s versions differed significantly from what Swift wrote:

the reading of Gulliver’s Travels as a story of adventures, in which the amusement of a young audience is the only objective, requires a pruning of those episodes and/or passages that do not fit into the scheme.⁴⁴

It may be claimed that Gulliver’s Travels was so widely accepted because the political message was not recognized people read it rather as an adventurous story.

As to the problematics of the translations of Swift, according to Michael Düring, in the

“development of modern Czech language culture from its beginning in the nineteenth century [,] Jonathan Swift was neglected to the greatest possible extent,”⁴⁵ which may be correct, considering the date when the first translation of Swift appeared at the Czech market, but not

42 Samek, DIP

43 José Luis Chamosa Gonzáles, "Swift’s Horses in the Land of the Caballeros,“ Herman J. Real ed., The Reception of Jonathan Swift in Europe (Great Britain, A&C Black, 2005) 70.

44 Gonzáles 70.

45 Michael Düring, "Detecting Swift in the Czech Lands,“ Hermann J. Real ed., The Reception of Jonathan Swift in Europe (Great Britain, A&C Black, 2005) 214.

with regard to the actual extent of translated works by Swift (it is true that the first translations of Swift were published in the 19^th century, while in other Slavonic countries, such as Russia or Poland, the first translations appeared already in 18^th century).

The last pre-War translation was the re-edition of Hynek’s Gullivera cestování do mnohých a vzdálených končin světa, and it was published in 1920. It was closely followed by H.

Senický’s adaptation Gulliverovy cesty do země trpaslíků a do země obrů. Both translations

like almost all children’s versions in all European languages, [were] seriously curtailed, omitting all offensive (sexual and scatological) passages and eliminating Swift’s seemingly misanthropic satire.⁴⁶

Two years later the complete version of Gulliver’s Travels (including all four books) finally came out. Since then Gulliver’s Travels has been reprinted regularly, regardless on the current regime. The political message of the text was mostly omitted, misinterpreted or regarded unimportant.

Düring furthermore claims that the neglect of Swift in the Czech Lands before the 19th century may be explained by the fact that “Czech literary traditions set in not before the beginning of the nineteenth century, at a time, that is, when Swift had already lost a great deal of his regard.”⁴⁷ In other words, the Czech-Irish canon was not yet fully established, which

46 Düring, DSCL 215.

47 Düring, DSCL 223.

necessarily caused authorial omissions. Also, “critical reception did not take place before 1906.”⁴⁸ Last but not least,

since histories of English literature, which would have surveyed Swift’s life and work in Czech are not available from that time, the Dean never really stood a chance of being integrated into the national cultural context of Czechoslovakia […]”⁴⁹

Nevertheless, Düring’s claims may be questioned with regard to the amount of Swift’s work translated and published in the Czech Lands in the discussed period between 1945 and 2014;

it does not seem that the author would suffer from any neglect whatsoever.

Sean O’Faolain (the penname of John Francis Whelan), the 20^th-century Irish writer, was best known for his short story collections “about Ireland’s lower and middle classes [in which] he often examined the decline of the nationalist struggle of the failings of Irish Roman Catholicism.”⁵⁰ Around the year 1932 he started writing novels, short stories, and essays “that gave unflattering yet sympathetic and realistic portraits of modern Irish life.”⁵¹ The article that was translated and published in the Czech Lands was related to the political situation in the so called “Irish Free State” and it discussed “church-inspired censorship, the narrowness of the

48 Düring, DSCL 223.

49 Düring, DSCZ 223.

50 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Sean O‘Faolain,“ Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2015, 21^st July 2015 http://www.britannica.com/biography/Sean-OFaolain.

51 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, SOF

Irish clergy, and restrictive family traditions.”⁵² The article also considered the inadequate state of the Irish literary movement, the lack of Irish literary schools, forced emigration of Irish writers with lower-class background, and finally the anathema of Irish artists. O’Faolain even provided their list, which included Kate O’Brien, Sean O’Casey or Elisabeth Connor.

The list also contained the authors that were evaded regularly. The original was published in the magazine The Observer and the translation in the magazine Obzory in 1946. The translator is unfortunately unknown.

With regard to the fact that Sean O’Faoláin was a well-known prosaic writer in Ireland, it is rather surprising that only a minimum of his works was translated into Czech, and he is yet unknown at the Czech literary market. At the time of the translation of the article, almost no-one was probably aware of his other works.

Among female Irish prose writers that were translated in the Czech Lands in the post-War period, Elizabeth Bowen, a novelist and a short-story writer can be listed. In 1946 she wrote an essay called “English Fiction at Mid-Century” (originally published in People, Places, Things: Essays, a 2008 compilation that unified Bowen’s essays published in British, Irish and American periodicals in the first half of 20^th century, and some that were never published before⁵³), which was translated by Miroslav Berka as “Anglický román mezi dvěma válkami,” and it appeared in the magazine Obzory. The original was said to be “one of her most comprehensive statements about modern fiction – its chief practitioners and its social

52 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, SOF

53 The review upon People, Places, Things – Essays by Elizabeth Bowen (Alan Hepburn ed., Edinburgh University Press, 2008) https://books.google.cz/books?id=BQSrBgAAQBAJ&dq=english+fiction+at+mid-century+bowen&hl=cs&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

shortcomings.”⁵⁴ In 1947 another article followed, called “Panorama of the Novel,” which was translated by an unknown translator as “Panorama anglického románu” and it appeared in Britský magazín. The second part of the study was published under a different name,

“Panorama II.”⁵⁵ Both articles developed the problematic of the nature of British novel between WWI and WWII, and discussed it in considerable detail with regard to its political impact upon the public. It is also notable that in her papers Bowen “expresses her distaste for the psychological novel in 1920s and 1930s.”⁵⁶ More precisely, she claims that

for the greater part of the inter-war years, subjectivity hazed over the English novel;

there was disposition to follow the stream of consciousness ‘from caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea.’⁵⁷⁵⁸

Among others, in her article “English Fiction at Mid-Century” Bowen mentions Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf as the ambassadors of modern novel, or Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh.⁵⁹ Her papers may serve as useful compilations of main inter-bellum authors, pointing out their significance within the genre of modern British novel, but the Czech translations possibly brought only a little to the general understanding of the problematic, which was caused by the fact that they were mostly unknown to the readership.

54 Alan Hepburn, Listening In: Broadcasts, Speeches, and Interviews by Elizabeth Bowen (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1. 5. 2010) 358.

55 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Elizabeth Bowen,“ Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2015, 19^th July 2015 http://www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-Bowen.

56 Hepburn, LIBSIEB 358.

57 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Kubla Khan,“ The Literature Network, Jalic Inc. 2000 – 2015, 19^th July 2015 http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/640/.

58 Elizabeth Bowen, and Alan Hepburn ed., "English Fiction in Mid-Century,“ People, Places, Things: Essays (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008) 322.

59 Bowen, and Hepburn ed., EFMC 322 – 324.

Apart from the non-fiction work, one of Bowen’s short stories, “Sunday Afternoon,”⁶⁰ was translated in 1945/1946 as “Nedělní odpoledne” by the lyrical poet and short-story writer Jan Čep, and it was published in Kvart 4.

It is interesting that Elizabeth Bowen, as well as some other authors, mentioned in this chapter, was not considered an Irish author in the Czech Lands, because there was nothing specifically Irish in her works. Similarly, the poets Cecil Day-Lewis and Louis MacNeice, the prosaic writer Jonathan Swift or the dramatists Oscar Wilde and Richard Brinsley Sheridan suffered from the same problem. With regard to George Bernard Shaw, it is true that most of his readers knew him as an Irish author, though it did not play any significant role in his works. Of a few authors that were indubitably and inevitably considered Irish, John Millington Synge or William Butler Yeats can be named.

To continue with Irish female writers, it may be useful to mention Kate O’Brien, whose writing career began when she started working for Manchester Guardian, and soon she indulged in more elaborate novel writing. Her first novel, Without my Cloak won several literary prizes. The main theme of her writing

would be constant thorough her novels, namely the struggle (particularly the struggle of Irish women) for individual freedom and love against the constricting demands of family, bourgeois society and Catholic religion.⁶¹

60 Elizabeth Bowen, "Sunday Afternoon,“ The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen (UK: Anchor Books, 2006) 616.

61 "Kate O’Brien,“ Irelandseye.com 1999 – 2006, 21^st July 2015

http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/history/people/writers/kobrien.shtm.

Some of her works were banned from publishing when the Irish Free State’s censorship laws were established,⁶² to which she responded by two more novels, Pray for the Wanderer (1938) and The Last of Summer (1943), “both critical of the smug puritanism of the Free State under Eamon de Valera.”⁶³ Her most famous and most critically appraised work, though, is definitely That Lady⁶⁴ from 1946. The novel was translated in 1948 by Vojtěch Gaja as Ta dáma and it was published by Vyšehrad. Surprisingly enough, the novel was never re-translated, and only two new editions were published (in 1971 by Vyšehrad and in 2000 by Aurora).⁶⁵ The translator, Vojtěch Gaja, belongs to one of the most productive multi-language translators. His range was extraordinary: apart from English, he translated also from Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian, German and French, and he was also quite skilful in line translations from Latin and Greek. Except That Lady, he also translated O’Brien’s novel Without the Cloak (Bez pláště).⁶⁶

2.4. Poetry

Within the range of poetry, the most notable poet of the era between 1945 and 1948 was definitely the Nobel Prize poet, dramatist, prose writer and one of the founders of Irish Literary Theatre (1899, in 1904 re-named Abbey Theatre) William Butler Yeats.

62 Simon Lowe, "The Ten Commandments as Our Code: Media Censorship in 20^th-century Ireland,“ Socheolas – Limerick Student Journal of Sociology, vol. 3, issue 2, February 2012

63 "Kate O’Brien,“ Databáze překladů, 13^th June 2015, 21st July 2015 http://www.databaze-prekladu.cz/preklad/000094847-.

64 Kate O’Brien, That Lady (UK: Virago, 2004).

65 "Kate O’Brien“

66 "Vojtěch Gaja,“ Obec překladatelů, 21^st July 2015

http://www.obecprekladatelu.cz/_ftp/DUP/G/GajaVojtech.htm.

In 1945 the poem “The Fiddler of Dooney”⁶⁷ was translated by Karel Offer (he signed as Karel Sedlák) as “Šumař z Dooney” and it was published in Čechoslovák 7, no. 7. In the magazine Akord 12 in 1945/1946 the article related to the book of Lady Augusta Gregory Poets and Dreamers: Studies and Translations from the Irish⁶⁸ was published under the title

“Galwayské pláně” (from the original “The Galway Plains”⁶⁹ written in 1903). The author discussed mainly the harsh Irish nature and its inhabitants. In 1946 a translation of Yeats’

reflective essay “Ireland and the Arts” by the unknown translator appeared in the magazine Vyšehrad. Soon after that, a collection of essays in translation by Jaroslav Franke (signed as Jaroslav Skalický) under the title Essaye, was published by J. V. Pojer. Two other compilations were also published in 1947: an essay compilation Discoveries: a volume of essays⁷⁰ (Objevy) and a poem collection The Secret Rose⁷¹ (Tajemná růže; the first translation of this collection appeared already in 1914⁷²), both made by Franke / Skalický and published by J. V. Pojer. In 1947 an individual poem, “Down by the Salley Gardens,”⁷³ was translated by Jiří Levý as “U zahrad na stráni” and published in Svobodné noviny 3, no. 118. In 1948 a few poems translated by Karel Offer were published in Moderní anglická poesie (Nakladatelské družstvo Máje, Praha). The following poems were chosen for translation: “The Ballad of Father Giligan”⁷⁴ (“Balada o otci Giliganovi”), “Death”⁷⁵ (“Smrt”), “The Lake Isle

67 William Butler Yeats, "The Fiddler of Dooney,“ Poems of William Butler Yeats (UK: Hayes Barton Press, 1962) 351.

68 Lady Augusta Gregory, Poets and Dreamers: Studies and Translations from the Irish (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

69 William Butler Yeats and Alan Wade eds., The Collected Works of William Butler Yeats: Ideas of Good and Evil (UK: Chapman and Hall, limited, 1908) 259 – 262.

70 W. B. Yeats, Discoveries: a volume of essays (UK: Leopold Classic Library, May 15, 2014)

71 W. B. Yeats and Norman A. Jeffares ed., The Secret Rose: Love Poems by W. B. Yeats (UK: Robert Rinehart, 2001)

72 K. P. S. Jochum, "Timeline,“ The Reception of William Butler Yeats in Europe (UK: A&C Black, 2006) xxxiv.

73 Yeats, PWBY 303.

74 William Butler Yeats, "The Ballad of Father Giligan,“ Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (UK: Simon and Schuster, 2008).

of Innisfree”⁷⁶ (“Jezerní ostrůvek Innisfree”), “The Folly of Being Comforted”⁷⁷ (“Bláhovost útěchy”), “Politics”⁷⁸ (“Politika”), “Ephemera”⁷⁹ (Efemera”) and “The Fiddler of Dooney”

(“Šumař z Dooney”).

As to Yeats’ reception in Czech Lands, it is necessary to say that his works are “not always easy to understand, not did Yeats intend its full meaning to be immediately apparent to those unfamiliar with his thought and the tradition in which he worked,”⁸⁰ which might have had an influence on his reception in the Czech Lands. Moreover, the main themes of the poems are

“continually validated by their alignment with Yeats’ own personal experience”⁸¹ and therefore the reader is constantly urged to examine them from various angles.

The Irish poet Louis MacNeice gained significance worldwide especially when he became a member of a group of literates, “whose low-keyed, unpoetic, socially committed, and topical verse was the ‘new poetry’ of the 1930s”⁸² (other members were W. H. Auden, C.

75 Yeats, PWBY 111.

76 Yeats, PWBY 210.

77 Yeats, CPWBY

78 M. Keith Booker ed., "Yeats, William Butler,“ Encyclopaedia of Literature and Politics: S – Z (UK:

Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005) 774.

79 Yeats, PWBY 147.

80 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "William Butler Yeats,“ Encylopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2015, 20^th July 2015 http://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Butler-Yeats.

81 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica , WBY

82 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Louis MacNeice,“ Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2015, 20^th July 2015 http://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-MacNeice.

Day-Lewis or Stephen Spender). The main theme of his poems may explain his initial popularity within Czech literary circle:

An intellectual honesty, Celtic exuberance, and sardonic humour characterized his poetry, which combined a charming natural lyricism with the mundane patterns of colloquial speech [and] his most characteristic mood was that of the slightly detached, wryly observant, ironic and witty commentator.⁸³

Between 1945 and 1948 several of his poems and his radio plays Alexander Nevsky⁸⁴ (translated by Ota Ornest and broadcasted on 22^nd November 1945, though the translation was never published) and The Golden Ass (Zlatý osel, translated by Ornest and broadcasted in 1946) were translated. The radio plays inhibited similar strategies as those used in MacNeice’s poetry; as the author claims, the action “ranges from sudden death to slapstick, from the treadmill to the boudoir, from confidence tricks and fun-fair frolics to solemn religious ceremonies.”⁸⁵ Such balance was greatly needed in post-war era, because that was the time of recapitulation, reparation and reorganization. MacNeice’s writing and his kind humour, mixed with deep understanding, might have brought some comfort, which was way too necessary. As to the translations, MacNeice’s poetry was published abundantly in different periodicals, such as Kritický měsíčník, Obzory, Kvart, Svobodné noviny or Národní osvobození. The translators varied too: Karel Offer’s translations “Perseus” (“Perseus”⁸⁶),

83 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, LMN

84 The radio play Alexander Nevsky was written by Louis MacNeice in 1941, and it was broadcasted on 8^th December. It was produced by Dallas Bower. Scripts available in BBC WAC SL (1941, 1942 and 1944 productions) and BBC WAC LM (1944)

https://books.google.cz/books?id=FZYeAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA412&dq=louis+macneice+alexander+nevsky&hl=

cs&sa=X&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAGoVChMImKvdx8eayQIVSPRyCh3PcAnk#v=onepage&q=louis%20macneice

%20alexander%20nevsky&f=false,

85 Louis MacNeice and Amanda Wrigley, "MacNeice and the Development of the Radio Play,“ Louis MacNeice:

The Classical Radio Plays (Oxford: OUP Oxford 2013) 18.

86 Louis MacNeice, "Perseus,“ The Collected Poems of Louis MacNeice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967) 24.

“Červnová bouře” (“June Thunder”⁸⁷) and “Schůzka” (“Meeting Point”⁸⁸) were re-published in Mladá anglická poezie in 1948, for example. “Perseus” was also published in the magazine Blok in 1946/7 in translation by Ivan Jelínek, and “Meeting Point” appeared in Obzory in 1945 under the title “Setkání.” In 1946 the fragments from the long poem Autumn Journal⁸⁹ (VII., IX, and XXIV) were published under the title Z podzimního deníku in translation by Kamil Bednář in Národní osvobození 17, no. 282. Bednář also translated “Sunday Morning”⁹⁰ (“Nedělní ráno)” and the poem appeared in the anthology Mezi dvěma plameny (Between Two Fires)⁹¹. Two translations by Jaroslava Urbánková appeared in the anthology as well. Jiří Levý’s translation “Didymus” appeared in Svobodné noviny 3, no. 171 in 1947 and his translation of “Evening in Connecticut”⁹² (“Večer v Konnektikutu”) was published in Mladé archy 4, no. 4, in 1948. Finally, Karel Brušák translated the poem “Look into your heart, you

In document UNIVERZITA KARLOVA V PRAZE (Stránka 29-46)