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Worlding the National Poet in the World-System of Translation

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Worlding a Peripheral Literature

Part of the book series: Canon and World Literature ((CAWOLI))

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Abstract

Worlding includes practices by which agencies of particular literature, perceiving themselves within the global literary ecology, attempt to become universally visible. Coextensive with his canonization as the national poet, the imaginary worlding of Prešeren was successful. His external worlding began with Slavic interliterariness within the Austrian Empire. Even though German and Russian translations of the 1880s were promising, his actual presence in the translation world-system does not correspond to homegrown perceptions. Prešeren, a peripheral classic, lacked cosmopolitan networking and international presence during his lifetime. Written in a small language, his style resists translation, no major consecrator or global publisher has discovered him, and he has not suited global market demands. Hence, his peripherality has kept him from worldwide recognition as belonging to the Romantic hyper-canon.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In addition to translation, Ocvirk lists the following individuals, institutions, media, and localities functioning as literary mediators: cosmopolites, emigrants, students, scholars, writers, literary reviews, scholarly journals, newspapers, theaters, literary circles, scholarly societies, literary and theater criticism, salons, and metropolises (Ocvirk 1936: 231).

  2. 2.

    Similar clashes over grammar also occurred among the Czechs, for example between the supporters and opponents of the Old Brethren orthography around 1815 (Vodička 1960: 127–131).

  3. 3.

    For more see Prijatelj 1935: 142–149; Legiša 1959: 83–89; Paternu 1976: 232–242; Kos 1979: 144–177; Pogačnik 2002.

  4. 4.

    Among translations from other Slavic literatures and critical and historical essays on them regularly printed in the Journal of the Bohemian Museum, Pavel Josef Šafařik published in 1833 a detailed chapter on Slovenian literature after 1820 (“literatura vindických Slovenův”) in his Survey of recent literature by Illyrian Slavs, shedding light on its historical development (Časopis českého Museum 7.2 [1833]: 164–181).

  5. 5.

    “Byťby ostatně celá literatura jejich na prstech u jedné ruky vypočísti se dala—nic neškodí—Slovenci mají auplný ducet grammatik, a pročež dostatek utěšeného, ducha i srdce vzdělávajícího čtení!”

  6. 6.

    “ … po tomto kdákavém a s nechutnými rakouskými a německo-štyrskými písničkami sbratřeném rozměru až ke zhnusení se přemílají.”

  7. 7.

    “… výtečné práce zvláštní cenu a okrasu krajinské Včelce dávají …”

  8. 8.

    “Hodentě opravdu čestného uvítání v pořadí zpěvců slovanských tento hojnými dary od přírody nadaný mladý básník …”

  9. 9.

    Čop later elaborated Čelakovský’s arguments in his polemics with Kopitar and his Carniolan supporters.

  10. 10.

    “… aby hustěji překládáním z jinoslovanských nářečí, nežli odjinud, Slovenci se zanášeli, čímž by ne tak snadno octli se na bezcestí se svým jazykem.” Finally, he proposes that Slovenians adhere to Czech quantitative metrics instead of “being guided by the German usage” (Čelakovský 1832: 453–454).

  11. 11.

    “Netužte pro maločetnost čtenárstva a publikum svého; vaše publikum neybližší buďte vděčná srdce krajanů vašich, jichž přibývati bude den ke dni s přibýváním zdařilých plodů rozumu a obraznosti vaší; vaše pak druhé publikum—pomněte na to s radostnou myslí!—jest šedesáte a více milionův Slovanů, kteří s líbostí na vaši horlivost patří.”

  12. 12.

    Although Jonatan Vinkler enthusiastically claims that Čelakovský “permanently engraved [Prešeren] into Czech cultural consciousness” (2006: 214–215, 244), Prešeren’s work did not penetrate the broader public despite numerous translations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries because it was not included in the Czech school canon.

  13. 13.

    Jungmann recommended a somewhat different strategy to Czechs: following the examples of the Ancient Classics and the most accomplished works of early modern European literatures, national classics must mature on the bases of their folk tradition. A single genius does not yet constitute a national classic. Several excellent authors need to contribute many different genres and achieve stylistic perfection and harmony. National classic has to be accepted by all social strata, not only the educated—only in this way a “comprehensive national literature” can arise (Jungmann 1841: 176–185; see Vinkler 2006: 247–248).

  14. 14.

    “So bleibt es doch unsern Dichtern unbenommen, mit denen anderer Slawen rühmlich zu wetteifern.”

  15. 15.

    For instance, the niches of genres (Scandinavian crime fiction), identity politics (postcolonial, migrant, feminist, or LGBTQ literature), or topical issues (the breakthrough of Bartol’s Alamut due to the outbreak of Islamism or the success of Slavenka Drakulić in the light of the wars in the Balkans).

  16. 16.

    As a rule, these editions are anthologies of Slovenian, South Slavic, or Slavic literatures. They were printed in German, Italian, English, Spanish, French, Russian, Hungarian, and Serbian or Croatian.

  17. 17.

    The decision to translate Prešeren was, in the case of these seven editions, most likely motivated by non-market, personal engagement of translators or by sympathies and linguistic-ethnic or political alliances between the original literary system (Slovenian or Yugoslav) and target literature, such as the Slavic solidarity, Non-Aligned Movement, or international socialism.

  18. 18.

    At the conference Translating the Literature of Small European Nations (8–10 September 2015, University of Bristol), Ondřej Vimr presented his paper discussing this problem from the point of view of his concept of the “supply-driven translation.” Even literary systems of globally more influential states do not refrain from comparable strategies of seeking foreign recognition by subsidizing translations of their export writers. See, for example, the twentieth-century editions of the Moscow Gorky Institute or the Beijing Foreign Languages Press (Eoyang 2003: 22). Core literatures of the world-system, as well, use various promoting mechanisms to reproduce their cultural influence abroad (British Council, Institut français, Goethe Institut, etc.).

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    Marko Juvan

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Juvan, M. (2019). Worlding the National Poet in the World-System of Translation. In: Worlding a Peripheral Literature. Canon and World Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9405-9_7

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