K dvom slovenským prekladom Aucassina a Nicoletty (2/2)
On two Slovak translations of Aucassin and Nicolette (2/2)

Summary/Abstract: Aucassin and Nicolette, an Old Picard chantefable from the turn of the 13th century, is notoriously known for its use of transtextual techniques (in the Genettian sense of the term). It contains a number of playful allusions on other contemporary literary works or genre patterns. The first part of this paper focuses on two elements borrowed from heroic epic poetry (the battle motive as well as the epithets ber and preus) and analyses their interlingual transposition in two existing Slovak translations of the corpus, published in 1947 and 1975 by V. Beniak and M. Pauliny-Danielisová (with the collaboration of G. Slavkovská). Although the level of the translators’ cultural competence is very high, all of them seem to underestimate the weight of the phenomenon and prefer the so-called semantic approach over the semiotic. The second part of the paper examines more closely the 1975 translation, authored during the normalization period characterised by a rather solid presence of editorial control and self-censorship in socialist Czechoslovakia. It draws attention to religious expressions in the work (both formulaic and significant) which – surprisingly – were carefully rendered into the target language by M. Pauliny-Danielisová and her co-worker. Additionally, the book’s epilogue is devoid of any form of paratextual camouflage. This unusually professional attitude may have a simple explanation. Either the translators used their habitus (as defined by Bourdieu) to ensure the smooth running of the literary import, or Aucassin and Nicolette, dealing with a relatively low number of aristocratic and essentially spiritual topics, posed no threat to the target field of cultural production. Unfortunately, despite their quality, none of the translations won the favour of readers or academics.

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