DEVIATION FROM THE STANDARD IN THE LITERARY TRANSLATION OF THE NOVEL THE BRIDE OF THE MOUNTAINS BY FRANTIŠEK ŠVANTNER ACCORDING TO THE LANGUAGE MODEL OF THE NOVEL THE WRETCHED BY VIDOSAV STEVANOVIĆ

👤Author

Name: Zdenka Valent Belić
Affiliation: PhD, translator and independent researcher
Contact: zdenkavb@gmail.com

📄Article

Citation Recommendation: VALENT BELIĆ, Zdenka. “Deviation From the Standard in the Literary Translation of the Novel The Bride of the Mountains by František Švantner According to the Language Model of the Novel The Wretched by Vidosav Stevanović”. RITL, New Series, XVIII, 2024, p. 303–316. doi: 10.59277/ritl.2024.18.26
Title: DEVIATION FROM THE STANDARD IN THE LITERARY TRANSLATION OF THE NOVEL THE BRIDE OF THE MOUNTAINS BY FRANTIŠEK ŠVANTNER ACCORDING TO THE LANGUAGE MODEL OF THE NOVEL THE WRETCHED BY VIDOSAV STEVANOVIĆ
Pages: 303–316
Language: English
URL: https://ritl.ro/pdf/2024/26_Z_Valent_Belic.pdf
DOI: 10.59277/ritl.2024.18.26

Abstract: The leading work of Slovak literary naturism, the dominant movement in Slo­vak literature of the 1930s and 1940s, The Bride of the Mountains (Nevesta hôľ) by Fran­tišek Švantner, presents a complex, multi-layered, metonymic-metaphorical portrayal of the search for human essence. It represents an effort to understand the world through man’s struggle with himself and the world around him. The characters are strongly connected to nature, which serves as the foundation of the ancient spirit of humanity. They go through a gnoseological hell, recognizing the harmony between the deepest layers of existence and archaic-mythical patterns, as well as ancient and pagan customs. To depict the primal essence of man and to convey hallucinatory-delirious states of consciousness, the author employs a style rich in non-standard expressions, rare, archaic, regionally coloured words, through which he illustrates the colours, tastes, smells, sounds, and all other specific characteristics of the High Tatras and their inhabitants. The literary translation of such a work seems almost impossible without an adequate template in the target language, which would serve as a framework for re-encoding the text. The translation of The Bride of the Mountains requires a virtuoso handling of language, and translating it into Serbian is possible with the help of Vidosav Stevanović’s novel The Wretched (Nišči), as this author has spent many years engag­ing in linguistic archaeology, trying to reach the layer of language that existed even before Vuk’s reform. He studied old writers, folk songs, ethnographic works, and more. The result is a novel written in the original sounds of Serbian ethnicity, which activates in the reader a deep-seated psychological mentality layer and contributes to the revival of the rejected and discriminated parts of the language and the essence of this culture. Nišči are those who are outside or beneath society, the forgotten, neglected, rejected—the poor in spirit, and it is pre­cisely about them that both František Švantner and Vidosav Stevanović write. Furthermore, the works The Bride of the Mountains and The Wretched had a similar fate. For a time, they were taboo and caused socio-political discomfort for their authors. Although these works were later accepted by critics and readers, they remained poorly understood for a long time. Precisely because of their formal and gnoseological uniqueness, originality, and similarity, deviation from the language standard is necessary, and translating this work of the Slovak writer with the help of a template in the target language would need to be appropriate and a great aid in preserving the aesthetic functions of the original and achieving significant artistic qualities in the literary translation.

Keywords: non-standard language, archaic language, Slovak literature, Serbian literature, literary translation

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