Gradationing Gombrowicz. Remarks on Second-Hand Translations

Abstract

This article demonstrates the dependency on the French translation of the Italian and English translations of Witold Gombrowicz’s 1966 drama entitled Operetta and discusses the relationship between these three translations and the Polish original. This has been conducted in terms of the author’s literary and dramatic style peculiarities, as well as his ideological and artistic orientation. It proves that, paradoxically, a translation – even a second-hand one – does not always imply major detachment from the author’s intention and vision. The comparative study of the four linguistic versions of the drama reveals that most of the original Polish text’s dominants were significantly extended and enhanced in the French translation. These amplifications were subsequently adopted by both Italian and English translators, even though the English translator does not acknowledge the use of French text in any of his notes. The article focuses on two main aspects of Operetta’s translations: indirectness (in the case of the Italian and partly of the English translation) and authorial control over the translation process (in the case of the French translation), in order to determine their influence on Gombrowicz’s individual voice.