Strategie przekładowe czterech staropolskich longsellerów
Translation strategies in Old Polish Long-sellers

Polish Versions of the Stories About Melusine, Maguelone, Otto and Fortunatus in Comparison to Their German Originals

Author(s): Krystyna Wierzbicka-Trwoga
Subject(s): Cultural history, Studies of Literature, Polish Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Fortunatus; Melusine; Maguelonne; Otto; translation strategies
Summary/Abstract: The four Old Polish prose novels: "Historia wdzięczna o szlachetnej a pięknej Meluzynie", "Historia o Magielonie, krolewnie neapolitańskiej", "Historia piękna i krotochwilna o Otonie, cesarzu rzymskim" and Fortunat form a single and special group in the panorama of the16th century Polish prose. They were translated from German into Polish towards the end of the Jagiellonian period, and in literary history they are referred to as the first Polish chivalric romances; moreover, they have acquired the status of long-sellers in Polish literature. A comparison of the Polish texts with their German originals allows an insight into the translation strategies that contributed to the popularity of these texts with Polish audiences, and also opens up questions about their genre attribution. The paper compiles what has been established so far in Polish and German research on these four prose novels (the editorial work of Julian Krzyżanowski in the 1920s and 1930s made it possible for the two German Slavists, Jurij Striedter and Witold Kośny, to examine the Fortunatus and Octavianus stories in the 1960s), and extends their findings to include a comparative analysis of the Polish and German Melusine and Maguelone stories.

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