IN JUNE 2000 and 2001 the Institute of Polish Philology of the Catholic University of Lublin and the Slavic Research Group of the University of Ottawa organised, at the Catholic University of Lublin, two successive conferences devoted to literary translation.  Scholars from Poland, Canada, Russia, Bulgaria and Austria delivered papers in Polish, English, Russian and German.  Each conference also comprised a five-day intensive Workshop devoted to poetic translation from Polish into English; these sessions were directed by Prof. Richard Sokoloski of the University of Ottawa.
To exemplify the expanding nature of this annual scholarly initiative, it was decided to combine selected papers and poetic translations from both conferences into a single volume.  Treating language as knowledge, behaviour and art, the texts provide valuable insight into the complexities of the translation act.

IT BECAME CLEAR FROM THE OUTSET that translation was more than transposing words and ideas from one language into another, but as Ezra Pound stated: '... a complex, organic and multi-stage procedure in which first the original is disassembled and then, often more or less laboriously reassembled within the constraints of the host language'.
 
 

From Richard Sokoloski's article: "Workshop on poetic translation"

THE LITERATURE OF POLAND, in comparison to that of other countries, is under-represented in English, disproportionately so with respect to its relative merit.  It is hoped that the 1999 KUL-University of Ottawa Translation Workshop will act as a modest instrument of change, one that will continue and improve in its effort to disseminate the culture of the Polish written word to an English-speaking reader.
 
 

From Judith Rodriguez's article: "The Two-headed calf: Literary translation in Australia"

LITERARY TRANSLATION is both an art practised for pleasure and an industry feeding other industries.  The following paper seeks to examine the achievements and status in Australian culture of literary translation activity and its prospects.  Very early in the collection of materials for this paper the authro was forced into the working hypothesis that translators and their work are centrifugal by nature, and perhaps in Australia, nearly invisible as well.
 
 
  

back to top

back to Publications list

   .