engleski

Delusive Allusions: Literary Intertext in Croatian Translations of Joyce's Ulysses

Rendering James Joyce's Ulysses into another language is in itself a cultural accomplishment. Various aspects of Joyce's allusiveness raise different problems. The novel is a coherent text built upon literary intertext which must remain transparent in translation, otherwise reader's actualisation of the evoked texts will be frustrated. The choice of a literal or an equivalent approach in translating Ulysses does not always depend on translator's language competence and this dilemma is complicated by problems of cultural reception. When it comes to literary intertexts in the novel, an important question is how to trigger reader's responses by giving a particular literary intertext its adequate cultural marker in the target text. In my paper I consider how those texts which Joyce incorporated in his novel which are already translated in the target culture have been dealt with and how this has led to modifications and changes in the target text. I briefly outline these problems and then focus on the discussion of selected examples from the 1957 and 1991 Croatian translations of Ulysses limiting myself to instances where the reception of literary intertexts is clearly obstructed and explain the consequences this may have for the interpretation of the novel. Since I address the translator in his role as Ideal Reader (in U. Eco's sense of the term), I also illustrate some reading strategies for Ulysses which sometimes, in the cognitive process of reading, may prevent that Joyce's language, pregnant with ambivalence, becomes devoid of meaning.

translation; reception; literary intertext

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