The Presence of Swift in Slovene Translation and Commentary

John Stubbs

doi:10.4312/elope.21.2.33-48

Authors

John Stubbs University of Ljubljana

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.21.2.33-48

Keywords:

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, translation, Mladen Dolar, parallax, voice, A Modest Proposal, Tina Mahkota, Mladina

Abstract

Although the Slovene milieu has yet to afford Swift’s works a multi-volume critical translation of the kind available in other European languages, this paper argues that Slovene representations of Swift’s writings illuminate crucial aspects of his meaning. This can be seen especially in Mladen Dolar’s afterword to a new unabridged translation of Gulliver’s Travels, in which he approaches Swift through a versatile and profoundly contemporary – yet still accessible – conceptual vocabulary, and in the first Slovene translation of Swift’s Modest Proposal, which retains and transmits the original’s power as a political act. The essay surveys the enduring international presence of Swift in translation and translation studies, outlines aspects of translation theory that prove relevant to its own inquiry, and proceeds to consider the Slovene contribution to Swift’s legacy.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Berman, Antoine, 2009. Toward a Translation Criticism: John Donne. Translated by Françoise Massardier-Kenney. Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press.

Borovaia, Olga V. 2001. “Translation and Westernization: ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ in Ladino.” Jewish Social Studies 7 (2): 149–68. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4467605.

Chamosa González, José Luis, 2007. “Traducciones y ediciones españolas de Swift: primer Acercamiento.” In Swift en España, edited by Maria Pilar Navarro and Ana Maria Hornero, 11–43. Zaragoza: Anubar.

Damrosch, Leo. 2013. Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Dolar, Mladen. 2006. A Voice and Nothing More. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

—. 2020. “Paralaksa.” In Gulliverjeva Potovanja [Gulliver’s Travels], translated by Andrej E. Skubic, 318–34. Ljubljana: Beletrina.

Ehrenpreis, Irvin. 1983. Dean Swift [Volume Three of Swift: The Man, His Works, and the Age]. London: Methuen.

Ferguson, Oliver W. 1962. Jonathan Swift and Ireland. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Fortunato, Elisa. 2020. “Translating Swift: Censorship and self-censorship during fascism.” In Literary Translation, Reception and Transfer, volume 2, edited by Norbert Bachtleitner, 31–40. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Gilbert, Stuart. (1930) 1955. James Joyce’s Ulysses. New York: Vintage.

15 As per the Latin epitaph he composed for Swift’s memorial in St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin: on the wording of the epitaph see especially Rawson 2014, 262–64.

Goulding, Sybil. 1924. Swift en France. Paris: Librairie Ancienne Édouard Champion.

Just, Melanie Maria. 2002. “The reception of Gulliver’s Travels in Britain and Ireland, France and Germany.” In Les voyages de Gulliver: Mondes lointains ou mondes proches, edited by François Boulaire and Daniel Carey, 81–100. Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen.

Mahony, Robert. 1995. Jonathan Swift: The Irish Identity. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Moché, Dinah L. 1978, repr. 2009. Astronomy: A Self Teaching Guide. 7th ed. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley.

Navarro, Maria Pilar, and Ana Maria Hornero, eds. 2007. Swift en España. Zaragoza: Anubar.

Ožbot, Martina. 2021. Translation and Multi-Lingualism: A Dynamic Interaction. Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani.

Rawson, Claude. 2014. Swift’s Angers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

—. 2017. “Some Modest Proposals: Claude Rawson examines the political philosophy of Jonathan Swift.” The Times Literary Supplement 5946 (17 March 2017). Accessed November 26, 2024. https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/swift-modest-proposals/.

Real, Herman J., ed. 2013. The Reception of Jonathan Swift in Europe. New York: Bloomsbury.

Reiß, Katharina, and Hans Vermeer. 2014. Towards a General Theory of Translational Action: Skopos Theory Explained. Translated by Christine Nord. London: Routledge.

RSUS (Republika Slovenija, Ustavno Sodišče). “Odločba Št. U-I-418/20-20 U-I-847/21-21 z dne 16.10.2024. ” Accessed November 26, 2024. https://www.us-rs.si/odlocba-ustavnega-sodisca-st-u-i-418-20-u-i-847-21-z-dne-16-10-2024/.

Simoniti, Barbara, 1991. “Gulliverjeva potovanja v prevodu Izidorja Cankarja.” Slavistična revija 39 (3): 327–45.

Stubbs, John. 2017. Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel. London: Penguin and New York: Norton.

—. 2023. “Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Slovene translation of Janez Menart.” ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries 20 (2): 105–20. https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.20.2.105-120.

—. 2024. “John Donne in Slovenian and the “Reflexive” Translation Theory of Antoine Berman.” Primerjalna Književnost 47 (2): 197–217.

Swift, Jonathan. 1927. Gulliverjeva potovanja [Gulliver’s Travels]. Translated by Pavle Flerè. Ljubljana: Učiteljska Tiskarna.

—. 1939–74. Prose Writings, edited by Herbert Davis et al., 14 vols. Oxford: Blackwell.

—. 1951. Gulliverjeva potovanja [Gulliver’s Travels]. Translated by Izidor Cankar. Ljubljana: DZS.

—. 1953. Guliver med Pritlikavci in Velikani. Adapted by Izidor Cankar. Ljubljana: Mladinska Knjiga.

—. 1965. OEuvres. Translated by Emile Pons. Paris: Gallimard.

—. 1968. Guliverjeva potovanja [Gulliver’s Travels]. Adapted by Jože Zupančič from a Serbian translation by Slobodan Lazić. Ljubljana: Jugoreklam.

—. 1965–72. The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift. Edited by Sir Harold Williams and David Woolley. 5 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

—. 1967. Ausgewählte Werke. Translated by Gottfried Graustein et al. 3 vols. Berlin: Aufbau-Verl.

—. 2005. Gulliver’s Travels. Edited by Claude Rawson and Ian Higgins. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

—. 2013. Skromni predlog [A Modest Proposal]. Translated by Tina Mahkota. Mladina 7 (15 February): 48–51.

—. 2020. Gulliverjeva potovanja [Gulliver’s Travels]. Translated by Andrej Skubic, 318–34. Ljubljana: Beletrina.

Thomas, L.H.C. 1967. “Swift in German literature.” Hermathena 104: 67–77. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2304 0175.

Williams, Sir Harold. 2013. The Text of Gulliver’s Travels. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wilson, Edmund. 1940. “Karl Marx, poet of commodities.” New Republic 102: 46–47.

—. 2006. The Parallax View. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Yang, Xiao. 2021. “On the history of the Chinese translations of Gulliver’s Travels.” American Notes and Queries: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews 34 (1): 36–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/0895769X.2020.1859184.