Manuscripting exercisies in translation of Stanisław Kostka Potocki. Editorial reconnaissance

Abstract

The article discusses three manuscripts of Count Stanisław Kostka Potocki. These texts are translation attempts from French to Polish of opening letters of Julie, or the New Heloise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, initial chapters of Sentimental Journey by Lawrence Sterne, and several fragments of Candide by Voltaire. Presentation of manuscripts is followed by the author’s hypotheses regarding the editions of the original works that could have been the source texts of translations in question. The author discusses the characteristic features of Potocki’s translation practice and aims to determine what the intended purpose and the goal of Potocki’s efforts could possibly be. The article reports the need to publish the manuscripts in a form that would allow historians of translation to gain a deep insight into Potocki’s style of literary translation. The author argues that such a publication would be a useful exemplification of a wider issue of Polish translations from French at the turn of the 19th century.