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Peculiarities of Ivan Franko’s poetics of translation (based on John Milton’s tragedy “Samson Agonistes”)
It’s rather complicated to analyze animal words in language corpus. The metaphorical sense based on the relationship of similarity (adjacency) is of particular interest here, i. e. ascription of anthropomorphic qualities to certain animals. English uses animal words in a dazzling array of idioms and metaphors, often nothing to do with actual animals. One should persistently consult to explore this rich figurative language.
Statistical analysis of similes involving animal words in English language corpus generates a detailed picture of the characteristics that English ascribes to animals: cat: nimble, curious, nervous, silent, comfortable, cool; dog: sick, loyal, friendly; horse: healthy, hungry; bull: strong, mad, angry; lion: brave, righteous, fierce, bold, protective, strong; pig: happy, foul, drunk, sick; fox: sly, smart. It is apparent that these characteristics are largely linguistic conventions and often have little to do with our understanding of real animals: horses are healthy, but dogs and pigs are sick [5].
Statistical analysis of verbs with roots, affiliated with names of animals in English indicates that only 13 % of all the verbs can be used in professionally specialized fields of life. Such spheres include finances, sports, agriculture, and transport. Other verbs are frequently used in everyday life. Moreover, 54 % of commonly used verbs belong to informal style. Such a widespread use of animal names for characteristic of a man and his actions can be easily explained with
extra linguistic factors. Habits and lifestyles of birds and fish, animals and insects arouse certain associations with the appearance and behavior of a person.
It may seem that verbs with roots, affiliated with names of animals, include mostly phrasal verbs. That is wrong. Only 31 % of all the verbs from the studied group (that includes all the verbs with animal names roots) tend to form phrasal verbs when used with preposition. Other 69 % include the verbs that are polysemantic or change their meaning being used in spoken language.
It is an interesting fact that 50 % of all the studied zoonyms attach negative meaning beyond their standard definition. Only 5 % have positive connotation with regards to their pleasing emotional connection, while 45 % of verbs do not possess any connotation and are neutral. These numbers show that the studied group includes the contrasts of a verb with its primary, literal meaning with what that verb specifically denotes. That shows the frequency of how anything may be associated with a zoonym beyond an implied value of judgment or feelings.
So, extra-linguistic reality is especially reflected in the group of verbs with roots, affiliated with names of animals, which is the object of our study. It is reflected brighter than in any other area of language comprehension. Images of animals are endowed, at first glance, by non-motivated properties and sometimes it is even contrary to the logic of things. These images trace back to the depths of the human mind, to its beliefs and mythology.
References:
1. Karimova N. Lexical-semantic classification of certain groups ofverbs in Russian and Tajik languages in comparative terms: the dissertation ... the candidate of philological sciences: 10.02.20. - Dushanbe, - 2006. - 218 p.
2. Gurevich T. Japanese: zoonyms translation problem/T. M. Gurevich//Comparative Linguistics. Typology of languages. Translation Theory: Issues of the 3rd International Conference. Moscow-Kazan, 2006-2008. - Moscow: Moscow State University, - 2008. - P. 47-56.
3. Oxford Dictionaries. [Electronic resource]/Online Oxford Dictionaries. - Mode of access: http://www.oxforddictionaries. com/. - Lang. Engl.
4. Linguistic portal ABBYY Lingvo-Online. [Electronic resource]/ABBYY Lingvo-Online. - Mode of access: http://www. lingvo-online.ru/ru. - Lang. Engl., Rus.
5. Using the Corpus. [Electronic resource]/Online Oxford Dictionaries. - Mode of access: http://www.oxforddictionaries. com/words/using-the-corpus?q=in+the+first+or+ second +etc.+instance/. - Lang. Engl.
Poriadna Olena Oleksandrivna, postgraduate, Kryvyi Rih National University E-mail: [email protected]
Peculiarities of Ivan Franko’s poetics of translation (based on John Milton’s tragedy “Samson Agonistes”)
Abstract: The article is devoted to the features of translational concept of I. Franko. The problems of translation are observed in the key of literary imagology, the question of artistic interpretation is justified by comparative analysis as a demonstration of individual mastership of I. Franko.
Keywords: intercultural dialogue, cultural-interpretative approach, linguistic approach, equivalence, adequate translation.
The relevance of this research includes I. Franko’s explora- Restoration age John Milton, however, this aspect has not re-
tions about life and works of an outstanding British poet of the ceived an appropriate examination. Although some scientists
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Section 10. Philology and linguistics
such as I. Zhuravska, S. Bortnyk, G. Kochur, R. Zorivchak have partly depicted this subject in their works. But the research of originative relationships between I. Franko and J. Milton is extremely important, because both of artists have many similarities as for their biographical facts (they had difficult life, due to their political position, revolutionary spirit and nationalist ideas, which were constantly promoted in their works, they were sent to prison by authorities) and as for originative work.
Therefore, I. Franko has chosen the works for his translations carefully, first of all he searched spiritual and mental affinity for creation, outlook, life position among outstanding English artists.
The main aim of the research is the analysis of contentformal and mental-ideological peculiarities of I. Franko’s poetics of translation.
J. Milton starts his dramatic poem “Samson Agonistes” with a preface to a reader “Of that sort of dramatic poem which is called tragedy", where the author is full of responsibility against the genre of tragedy, which appeared in ancient times, and distinguishes it among the other poetic genres, making accent on its high moral values and useful features: “Tragedy, as it was anciently composed, hath been ever held the gravest, morality, and most profitable of all other poem” [8, 2]. J. Milton prepares the readers beforehand that this dramatic poem will not become another theatrical performance with elements of comedy. The author emphasizes that while writing this work he followed the best traditions of the masters of drama in ancient times, such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Italians. As a result of following ancient traditions of writing drama J. Milton says to readers that dramatic poem is written by unstable Metre, the ancient Greeks called “Monostrophic”, or even “Apolelyme-non” — without division into strophes. The author also rejected the division into acts and scenes, because, according to him, all these are needed for the performance on the stage, and his work is not provided for the theater.
But in his translation I. Franco has omitted this preface and its concepts, instead of that he replaced it on his own preface, which consists of three parts.
In the first part “Life ofJ. Milton” I. Franko submits the biographical facts of the British poet, outlines the period in which the artist lived and worked, and, indeed, its impact on the literary work of the author. In an expanded preface we find out about the sad circumstances about J. Milton: from 1644 his eyesight began to spoil, and in 1652 he completely lost it. Thus, the dramatic poem “Samson Agonistes” was written in 1671, when the British poet has lost his eyesight.
In the second part “Literary Works of Milton”
I. Franko introduces to Ukrainian readers the literary heritage of the poet, where he gives a brief review to some of
J. Milton’s famous works.
In the third part, “Analysis of Milton’s drama” I. Franko depicts to the readers not just short content of the tragedy, but also he analyzes the composition, verification features and other details as a literary critic.
S o, all these prefaces are large single unit, in which I. Franko tried to create a two-level dialogue: firstly, as a mediator, accumulating his main concept of the Ukrainian nation formation, also he acquainted the readers with literary work of the fighter for national ideas — J. Milton. Secondly, I. Franko, finding parallels in spirituality, mentality, created an intercultural dialogue.
Let’s return to the comparative analysis of the tragedy. The title by itself is emotionally enough charged, it motivates to actions, fighting and freedom, of course, it shows all mood of the tragedy. J. Milton used the word of Greek origin in the title — “Agonistes”, which means “fighter”. Hypothetically, let’s say that the answer to the question: why J. Milton appealed to the Greek language in choosing the title’s name lies directly in his preface, where he took as an example the work of artists in writing tragedies in ancient times.
As we can see, I. Franko translated identically to the original title, which consists of a proper noun “Samson” and apposition, which gives a qualitative description of the main character: “fighter”.
I. Franko saved the genre according to all peculiarities of tragedy: translation conveys a sharp, irreconcilable conflict of the main hero, who is full of sorrow because he couldn’t cope with his mission, he couldn’t make free his people from the Philistines, and finally instead of hero he became a slave. In the text of translation the philosophical meaning of the conflict is shown. I. Franko, following by J. Milton, translated tragedy without the division into acts, actions or parts which are obviously specific to the genre of tragedy. The text of translation, same as the original, has a dynamic plot, relatively small amount of events, all the main characters are subordinated to the source text.
I. Franko in his translation could realize the main idea of J. Milton, compositional features of the translated text include the conceptual level of poetic drama (theme, issue, conflict), plot, chronological of events, dynamic presentation.
In his translation I. Franko without any violations of norms remained contents according to the original text, also he depicted the semantic capacity to readers (as a result, recipient in his text of translation can find clearly created characters and storyline), emotional side and expressiveness of the translation. As for the form, some differences are noticed here. Firstly, the original text has 1758 rows, every fifth row is enumerated by J. Milton, but the translation of I. Franko has 2478 rows which he did not enumerate at all and gave as a complete text. Consequently, I. Franko’s translation is 720 lines longer than the original text. But this fact does not mean that I. Franko has not followed the source text, conversely, he skillfully followed the sequence transcribed monologues and dialogues of actors.
At the beginning of translation I. Franko used one of the translational transformation — the addion (L. Barkhudarov in his researches distinguishes four types of transformations: change, substitution, omission, and, of course, addition is one of them [1, 190]). Translation begins with the addition of reinforcing particles “no” that changes the focus
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Peculiarities of Ivan Franko’s poetics of translation (based on John Milton’s tragedy “Samson Agonistes”)
while reading: “Ще трохи далi взич руки свой” — “A little onward lend thy guiding hand” As we can see, the translation has some differences in the use of verbal and noun structures, also I. Franko uses an inversion, but the meaning of the first line does not change. Besides the additions and lexical-semantic transformations it is evident that the leading factor of this is to preserve the stylistic identity.
In order to implement the translation of research
let’s turn to the analysis, which includes on the one hand, cultural-interpretive approach that examines the functioning of translation in the context of the target culture, preserves a creative individuality of an interpreter, on the other hand, linguistic approach which requires purely lingual interpretation of the text [4, 185].
Let’s illustrate the fragments of dialogue between Samson and Chorus, based on the example of the original text rows 187-218, where I. Franko achieved functional equivalency: “Now of my own experience, not by talk” — “Те-пер я знаю власним досвЦом”. So, the translation of I. Franko did not undergo any significant changes at the lexical-semantic level, he reproduced the unity of content with the help of lexical equivalents in the target language, so it caused some controversy in the verbal and noun structures because English and Ukrainian languages are quite different for stylistic resources. The next line of translation includes the previous line: “not by talk” — “не з наслуху лише” — it is his own creative solution where the translator uses to transformation and adds stylistically colored lexical unit. This fragment is observed individual features of style and idiolect of I. Franko, but the point is that linguistic closeness between translated text and original text is on the maximum level. Thus, he masterfully translated tropes of poetic speech: metaphor “counterfeit a coin” — “фальшивий гр1ш”, such a replacement should be considered as an investigation of Ukrainian translator while choosing an appropriate semantic and stylistic equivalence. In order to make an expressive effect I. Franko adds an epithet “други милТ, meanwhile the original text has just “friends” The phrase “many evils” translator replaces a bright metaphor “рознородне горе”, that performs clarifying and amplifying
function and fits to the language of the recipient. Another
example of translation mastership is the replacement of the metaphor “prosperous days” on “дш щастя”, so I. Franko achieved adequate translation by the remedy of compensation.
In the selected fragment objective and subjective factors are observed, which influence on the adoption of certain translation decisions. Therefore, I. Franko, following the direct objective dependency, adapts his text of translation to a different social environment — national. Achieving equivalency in translation reaches the level of lexeme, and application of phonics causes the poetic speech.
However, I. Franko usually made accent on the accuracy of translation, he said: “When the words of the first three categories are doing the main basis of literary work, giving to it meaning and action, the words of the second category — it is like making shadow in painting which enlivens and makes flexible a picture” [2, 20]. This statement explains a significant expansion to the form of translation, as I. Franko has repeatedly resorted to explanations, supplemented his translation of poetical details and components, refined verbal and noun constructions, finally, he tried to make perfect all these details in the correct construction of Ukrainian sentences.
In order to enhance the national cultural flavor, provide melody of speech, achieve lexical-semantic and expressive effect I. Franko used the conversion, which caused the appearing of ukrainization, such as “благовютив той ангел”, “мой' неньки”, “старшини краю нашого й князС, “священний за-повгг”, “божа заповЦь”, “божий дар таемний” etc.
On the basis of comparative analysis, we can say that I. Franko transfered all the poetic world of J. Milton’s tragedy successfully:
1) there is no any element of content which was not depicted by the translator;
2) semantic equivalents are found perfectly;
3) the text of translation conveys dynamism and expressiveness of the original text.
So, the reception of British poet J. Milton has opened a new link in establishing the intercultural dialogue in the main I. Franko’s concept of creation the nation.
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3. Швейцер А. Д. Теория перевода. Статус, проблемы, аспекты - М.: Наука, - 1988.
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5. Bell R. Translation and translating: theory and practice (applied linguistics and language studies) - London: Longman Group, - 1991.
6. Gutt E. Translation and relevance: cognition and text. - Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, - 2000.
7. Newmark P. Approaches to translation. - Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall, - 1988.
8. The Poetical Works ofJohn Milton. - Volume III. - London: William Pickering, - 1832.
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