The First Polish Translations of Pietro Bembo’s Italian Poetry Cover Image

Le prime traduzioni polacche delle poesie italiane di Pietro Bembo
The First Polish Translations of Pietro Bembo’s Italian Poetry

Author(s): Daria Kowalczyk-Cantoro
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek
Keywords: translation; Bembo; Renaissance; Dickstein-Wieleżyńska; Grossekowa

Summary/Abstract: The present article aims to analyse the 20 th -century Polish translations of Pietro Bembo’s work. Although Bembo was one of the main representatives of the Italian Renaissance and a prolific writer, of all his lyric poetry, only six songs from the collection "Rime", a short poem from the dialogue "Gli Asolani", and recently the "Stanze" have been fully translated. We owe most of the earlier translations to Julia Dickstein-Wieleżyńska, an important populariser of Italian culture in the interwar period. Two poems were translated by Maria Grossekowa, a poet, publicist, and feminist of the early 20 th century. The small fragments of Bembo’s sonnets translated by Edward Porębowicz are also worthy of mention. The article focuses on the metric-formal and semantic-lexical analysis of Dickstein- Wieleżyńska’s versions and examines the techniques used by the translator. Dickstein-Wieleżyńska’s translations are quite equivalent semantically, and although she introduces some reduction or amplification, she does so without upsetting the semantic dominant. Moreover, it has been noted that, in her translations, Dickstein-Wieleżyńska often uses terms that refer to an idea of brightness, which also characterises her own poetic writing. Since Bembo is considered the pioneer of Petrarchism, the analysis of the Polish translations of Bembo’s poems is deepened through comparisons with some versions of Petrarch’s poems translated by Felicjan Faleński and published in 1881.

  • Issue Year: 12/2021
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 111-128
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: Italian