Dethroning Dante: Skopostheorie in Action

<p>Dante’s Commedia has been translated into English more than one hundred times. As a result, there are plenty of opposing opinions on how best to translate Dante’s masterwork. One can mimic Dante’s rhyme scheme (terza rima), utilize a more conventional English metre or rhyme scheme, or resort to a prose translation that abandons any attempt to reproduce Dante’s poetics. It is the purpose of this study to demonstrate that all of these are, in the right context, appropriate translation strategies; no platonic ideal translation strategy exists. To provide a more tolerant approach to translations of Dante’s poetry, I employ a translation theory called Skopostheorie (skopos theory). This theory argues that each translation has its own unique purpose (skopos); there are any number of (valid) strategies available to the translator. This theory is often seen as extreme, providing the translator with too much freedom to manipulate the text. Accordingly, this thesis first makes a case for the application of Skopostheorie in literary translation, attempting to defend it against its critics. Second, this essay exhibits how the theory may be applied in practice. To demonstrate its application, I look at three very different English translations of the first canto of Dante’s Inferno published during the 1990s. These translations are by Seamus Heaney (1993), Steve Ellis (1994), and Robert M. Durling (1996). In doing so, I hope to identify the various approaches of these translators, to demonstrate the breadth of options available to translators of Dante’s capolavoro, and to add to the discourse on the reception of Dante in the English-speaking world.</p>

Dethroning Dante: Skopostheorie in Action

<p>Dante’s Commedia has been translated into English more than one hundred times. As a result, there are plenty of opposing opinions on how best to translate Dante’s masterwork. One can mimic Dante’s rhyme scheme (terza rima), utilize a more conventional English metre or rhyme scheme, or resort to a prose translation that abandons any attempt to reproduce Dante’s poetics. It is the purpose of this study to demonstrate that all of these are, in the right context, appropriate translation strategies; no platonic ideal translation strategy exists. To provide a more tolerant approach to translations of Dante’s poetry, I employ a translation theory called Skopostheorie (skopos theory). This theory argues that each translation has its own unique purpose (skopos); there are any number of (valid) strategies available to the translator. This theory is often seen as extreme, providing the translator with too much freedom to manipulate the text. Accordingly, this thesis first makes a case for the application of Skopostheorie in literary translation, attempting to defend it against its critics. Second, this essay exhibits how the theory may be applied in practice. To demonstrate its application, I look at three very different English translations of the first canto of Dante’s Inferno published during the 1990s. These translations are by Seamus Heaney (1993), Steve Ellis (1994), and Robert M. Durling (1996). In doing so, I hope to identify the various approaches of these translators, to demonstrate the breadth of options available to translators of Dante’s capolavoro, and to add to the discourse on the reception of Dante in the English-speaking world.</p>

The Images of Nature in Wordsworth’s and Al-Bohtory’s Poetry: A Comparative Study of Selected Poems

This study tackles the representation of nature in poetry, mainly in Wordsworth’s and Al-Bohtory’s poems. This study is based on the theoretical and analytical approaches of Russian Formalism that focuses on studying the linguistic aspects of the literary texts. Russian Formalism studies texts through “structures, imagery, syntax, rhyme scheme, paradox, personification and other literary devices” (Bressler, 2011, p. 49). The significance of the study lies in its purpose to introduce a comparison between two different poets whose cultural backgrounds, languages, traditions and societies are different. Wordsworth sees nature as the perfect place for tranquility and pleasure. He emphasizes that man and nature as basically adapted to each other, and the mind of man as the machine of depicting nature. Wordsworth states that this pleasure comes from the human’s interaction with nature in its fascinating images of Spring, flowers, clouds, horses, rivers, castles, seas, gardens, and animals generally. Al-Bohtory also presents nature as a place of pleasure and peace; he accentuates the profound relationship between nature and man, and how nature is admired by humans in its beautiful views. He explains that the beautiful images of nature affect the human’s mind and soul. Al-Bohtory portrays most of his poems in marvelous images of nature, such as Spring, horses, clouds, rivers, animals, castles, seas, and flowers. These two poets seek to glorify nature and its magnificent impact on humans’ life and pleasure.

Decoding Religious Contents: A CDA of PTB and OUP at Primary Level in Punjab, Pakistan

Ideologies are constructed and propagated through the subtle use of language. Textbooks are designed deftly to propagate a desired version of social realities to the target reader ship. The present research decodes critically the religious contents present in PTB and OUP primary Urdu textbooks taught at Punjab Pakistan during 2021-2022. The data for the present research has been collected purposively from the chapters containing religious contents in different shad from the selected primary Urdu textbooks. The present research employs an integrated research approach by drawing upon Fairclough (2003, 2012) research models. The levels of analysis include representation, lexicalization, metaphor, rhyme scheme, in/ exclusion and normative critique of language. The findings of the research reveal that representation of religion in the selected data is polarized. The role of economy and class difference contribute a lot in the propagation of religious ideology to middle and elite classes. Besides, it contents that the frequency of occurrence of religious contents is higher in PTB, (book which is 26%) as compared to OUP book where this frequency is 12%. This is how the present study confirms that inclination of middle class towards religion is higher as compared to its counterpart.

"Vida Toda Linguagem" de Mário Faustino: um soneto (quase) soneto

This article discusses the formal elements (meter, a rhyme scheme, line breaks) of two different poems published, posthumously, in 1966 by the Brazilian poet Mário Faustino. The first, “Soneto”, presents a quite different design from the conventional graphic disposition of verses on the printed page. However, once visually rearranged according to the line breaks of a traditional sonnet, “Soneto” follows exactly its predetermined metric system. The second poem also expands this idea. Despite of seeming to be composed in free verse, “Vida toda linguagem” puts into practice several long-established metric variations.

Irregular stanzaic form in A.A. Grigoriev’s lyrics

The paper shows that Apollon Grigoryev’s lyrics is characterized by various deviations from the common stanza model. A typology of such deviations is suggested. They fall into three basic types. Type I, varying rhyme scheme, has several forms. In the first form, one or two stanzas do not fall in line with most others, which share a common structure. Stanza length is more often stable, but it may also vary. The graphic stanza break is not always present. In the second form, none of the stanza schemes is predominant; in addition, stanza length varies. Free rhyme may be viewed as the third form. In type II, metre varies, altering line length, anacrusis and adding hypercatalectic lines. In type III, rhyme scheme, stanza length and metre vary simultaneously. Perhaps Grigoryev associates this poetic device with heightened expression typical of his lyrics. At the same time, this feature of Grigoryev’s stanzaic form may be interpreted as one of the steps towards the renewal of Russian poetry in the Postromantic period.

Marginalia to the Qillirian Rhyme System

Michael Rand draws attention to some features in the so-called ‘Qillirian’ rhyme scheme, named after the great poet Eleazar be-Rabbi Qillir, who invented and introduced it into Hebrew piyyuṭ. In piyyuṭim with this type of rhyme, morphological elements, namely, two root consonants, form the basis of rhymes. Rand elucidates different ways in which this feature is implemented and how it may encompass both a linguistic reality and a poetic tool. Some rhymes reflect historical phonetic changes that took place in the pronunciation of Hebrew; others constitute poetic techniques. It is shown that in some cases /a/ rhymes with /e/, which is likely to reflect a phonetic reality rooted in the speech of the poets.

AN ICY FORCE BOTH FOUL AND FAIR: THE THEME OF LOVE VERSUS FEAR IN THE DUTCH DUBBED VERSION OF DISNEY’S FROZEN

This study compares the songs from the original, English-language version of the 2013 Disney film Frozen to those of the Dutch dubbed version, investigating how the thematic representation of love and fear differ between these versions. To support this inherently qualitative analysis, this study employs the triangle of aspects, an analytical model that identifies certain aspects and variables central to animated musical film dubbing, allowing a quantification of differences between dubbed versions. It is found that the dubbed songs differ most strongly from the original songs in the verbal code, which covers issues such as semantic sense and register, and least in the musical code, which concerns matters of rhyme scheme, rhythm, and singability. The effects of the changes are a slight backgrounding of the theme of love versus fear: whereas the source version presents and explores a clear dichotomy between love and fear, the dubbed version concentrates more on love as the ultimate goal of life, eliminating much of the importance of fear. These results show that quantitative data can be useful in qualitative analyses, presenting an important step in the development of the field of animated musical film dubbing within translation studies.

Following in Jakobson and Lévi-Strauss’ footsteps: A neurocognitive poetics investigation of eye movements during the reading of Baudelaire’s ‘Les Chats’

Following Jakobson and Levi-Strauss famous analysis of Baudelaire’s poem ‘Les Chats’ (‘The Cats’), in the present study we investigated the reading of French poetry from a Neurocognitive Poetics perspective. Our study is exploratory and a first attempt in French, most previous work having been done in either German or English (e.g., Jacobs, 2015a, 2018a, b; Müller et al., 2017; Xue et al., 2019). We varied the presentation mode of the poem Les Chats (verse vs. prose form) and measured the eye movements of our readers to test the hypothesis of an interaction between presentation mode and reading behavior. We specifically focussed on rhyme scheme effects on standard eye movement parameters. Our results replicate those from previous English poetry studies in that there is a specific pattern in poetry reading with longer gaze durations and more rereading in the verse than in the prose format. Moreover, presentation mode also matters for making salient the rhyme scheme. This first study generates interesting hypotheses for further research applying quantitative narrative analysis to French poetry and developing the Neurocognitive Poetics Model of literary reading (NCPM; Jacobs, 2015a) into a cross-linguistic model of poetry reading.

Form and/as Mode of Existence

This essay focuses on two of the modes of existence posited by AIME, a collaborative project comprising Bruno Latour’s monograph An Inquiry into Modes of Existence and a multiauthored website associated with it. I juxtapose the modes of reference [REF] and fiction [FIC] with a famous digression reflecting on historiographical practice in William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum. AIME offers analytical rigor to medievalists’ discussions of the notorious overlap between “history” and “fiction.” William’s bold use of [FIC] to advance [REF] is in the spirit of AIME’s project, though he goes further in trusting [FIC] than AIME is always willing to do. An instance of medieval historiography thus leads the way in overcoming a residual Modern suspicion of a nonreferential mode of existence and of knowledge. Additionally, although AIME’s restriction of crossings to two modes is useful for defining each, in practice more than two are often found “plaited.” I make this argument through a discussion of the use of brackets to mark verse form and rhyme scheme in medieval manuscripts: an example of [TEC•FIC•REF] plaiting. Finally, I call for further development of the multimodal possibilities of “form,” which AIME flags but does not pursue, and for a new mode of existence to be added to Latour’s list: [FOR].