New translations of Zygmunt Krasiński’s French writings – a need, a necessity or boldness?

Abstract

Although Zygmunt Krasiński’s works were translated into Polish by novelists and publicists such as Wanda Dalecka (1862–1932) and Zuzanna Morawska (1844–1922), it is the name of Leopold Staff that intimidates a candidate for the next translator. Since it was said that a poet’s works can be translated only by another poet and since Staff himself claimed that a sort of “inspiration” is not necessarily needed to create one’s own poems, but it becomes essential to someone else’s translation, an important question has to be asked. Did Staff treat Krasiński as a “poet” in the first place and did he apply poetic criteria to his translations? If we understand that translations generally age faster than original works, the need of new translation attempts will be no longer questioned. More importantly, they are not frequently undertaken and do not have to mean that previous translations will be out of circulation – we will gain the opportunity to choose from many available Polish translations. Comparisons of several versions of translations usually ruin their readers’ world, making them aware of the fact that translations create only the illusion of contact with original works.