Cultural Assimilation, Foreignization, Fairytalization and Hyperbolization

Abstract

This chapter will initially focus on the strategies of cultural assimilation and foreignization, illustrating them with the first two American translations of Korczak’s classic tale—Matthew the Young King from 1945 and King Matt the First published in 1986. It will be demonstrated that in 1945 Edith and Sidney Sulkin created a version oriented towards American culture. Richard Lourie’s 1986 translation, on the other hand, is more source culture oriented, retaining some of the cultural references signalling Polishness, a strategy that to some extent exemplifies Venuti’s idea of foreignization. The chapter then focuses on the cultural specificity of the 1990 translation of Korczak’s novel, published in London under the title Little King Matty. Referring to Venuti’s (1995, 1998) concepts of domestication and foreignization, the chapter argues that its translator, Adam Czasak, prioritized the values of the target culture in his translation, though in a way that also problematizes the notion of domestication. The second part of the chapter illustrates the interrelated strategies of fairytalization, hyperbolization and sentimentalization. It is shown that in the first American translation the Sulkins included a number of motifs and expressions which may be associated with the fairy-tale convention, that they dramatized certain passages and that they wrote their own epilogue which refocuses the novel’s ending.