Metamorfozy Pigmaliona: przekład w serii transformacji tekstu archetypu (Rousseau, Baudouin, Węgierski)
Pygmalion’s Metamorphoses: Translation and the Transformations of the Text-Archetype (Rousseau, Baudouin, Węgierski)

Summary/Abstract: The article touches upon new threads as regards the Polish reception of J.J. Rousseau’s melodrama Pygmalion so as to settle a few debatable issues. For that purpose, the author ventures to study a broader array of source texts: apart from the well-known translation by T.K. Węgierski, J. Baudouin’s prose rendering and the French edition of the work published by Piotr Dufour are also discussed. This allows both for the formulation of a number of hypotheses on the influence of particular French editions on the translated versions of Rousseau’s work (e.g. making redundant a number of stage directions, planning to create a prospective bilingual edition) and ascertaining the exact sources of Węgierski’s adaptation; a difficult task, given the traditional dichotomy between the original and its translation. Approaching the translation as but a hub on the way towards the target text seems promising though, the more so that such an approach has already been tested with regard to the French culture. Considering the above, Rousseau’s Pygmalion should not be viewed merely as a source text, but rather a textual archetype evolving in course of its reception, both in France and in Europe.

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