Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies

Adaption as Self-Representation: The Anthology of Influences in Eavan Boland’s The War Horse, Collected Poems and New Collected Poems

Jeremy Pomeroy — 2024-12-21

In The War Horse, Eavan Boland began to hone the distinctive perspective which would define her place in the history of Irish letters. The book is divided into three sections, the second of which consists entirely of translations. Turning to these, both Boland’s choice of poems to translate and practice as a translator are examined. In three cases, Boland so significantly alters the original poems that the term adaptation or transcreation is more precise. At a moment when the poet sought to break with the mainline of Irish poetic tradition, both the adapted and translated works can be viewed as integral to The War Horse, providing a foundation for Boland’s subsequent poetic evolution. In a subsequent version of Boland’s Collected Poems, the volume is reorganized so as to somewhat de-emphasize these pieces, yet two additional translations inserted in Against Love Poetry continue to highlight key facets of Boland’s mature poetic stance.

“[T]hese are my slave songs”: The Poetics of Transgression and Exorcising the Demon of Racism in Wanda Coleman’s Jazz Sonnets

Jerzy Kamionowski — 2024-12-21

The article focuses on Wanda Coleman’s protracted series of American Sonnets as a prime example of what I call the poetics of transgression, which the poet worked out and implemented in her “jazz sonnets.” The article discusses the reasons behind Coleman’s decision to turn towards formal poetry, and argues that her choice of the sonnet form is a transgressive gesture, which means a challenge to the white tradition whose limits are infringed by violating the convention, as Coleman approaches the sonnet as the entirely plastic form in the meaning that Catherine Malabou gives to the term. Through the formal transgression – i.e., breaking the rules and destruction of all the recognizable features of the sonnet, the poet demonstrates her refusal to be its slave, as she actively challenges and reshapes the old form by “jazzing it up.” Simultaneously, the formal choice of the sonnet allows her to extend her earlier subject matter concerning black women’s experience in the Los Angeles ghetto. Merging “integrity” with “extension” (the features of black writing identified by Craig Werner) provides Coleman with a foundation to discuss larger topics from a black perspective, such as history, identity, culture, and poetry itself. As a result, her American Sonnets series remains the poet’s most consistent and subtle strategy of tracing down and exorcising the demon of racism wherever it hides – i.e. in its manifestations in the acts of violence as well as its stubborn presence in American (sub)consciousness.

“What Kind of an Ending is That?” Adapting Shakespeare for a Young Audience: The Case of Gnomeo and Juliet (2011)

Elżbieta Rokosz — 2024-12-21

The article discusses adapting William Shakespeare’s plays for young viewers. It aims to present the adaptive strategies taken up by the creators of an animated feature film based on Romeo and Juliet and to discuss how the production engages its audience in a cultural dialogue. One of the main points of consideration is that adaptations of literary classics into film productions addressed to young audiences can be analyzed as enriching the source texts with new dimensions, which might shed a sometimes surprisingly new light on the source text. The genre-change-induced modifications and intertextuality of Gnomeo and Juliet (2011) are discussed, focusing on how the production maneuvers between the source text and requirements of the genre, on the dialogue it involves its viewers in, and on its possible cultural role.

“Hejwo”: Professor Krzysztof Hejwowski as a Translation Theorist and Practitioner

Krzysztof Puławski — 2024-12-21

Krzysztof Hejwowski: An Academic Biography

Weronika Sztorc — 2024-12-21

The aim of the paper is to discuss the research output of Krzysztof Hejwowski, as well as his academic activity, didactic work and translations. First, Hejwowski’s academic career is introduced with a focus on the main publications, his contribution to the development of the Institute of Applied Linguistics (University of Warsaw), and the functions he held there. The second section is dedicated to his cognitive communicative model of translation, presented in his first and second books. In the next part, other publications are discussed, including Hejwowski’s third book, shorter papers, and volumes he edited or co-edited. The fourth section focuses on Hejwowski’s translation practice and includes a presentation of his last book concerning his own translation of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. In the last part, Hejwowski’s didactic work is presented: his lectures and other classes, as well as the BA, MA, and PhD theses he supervised.

Nothing Sacred? Not Quite: Krzysztof Hejwowski as a Critic and Self-critic

Ewa Kujawska-Lis — 2024-12-21

Krzysztof Hejwowski was one of the most eminent translation studies scholars and translators in Poland. Working within the paradigm of cognitive linguistics, he left a legacy embracing a host of articles and three books in which he formulated his theory of translation based on a communicative and cognitive approach to language. While working on his theory, he both subscribed to and challenged the views of other scholars, depending on their theoretical validity, practical pertinence, and lucidity, thus demonstrating his theoretically and practically-oriented attitude to scholarship. Nevertheless, he was not a rebel in the field or an iconoclast who criticized other scholars for the sake of criticism. Rather, he was critical of the ways in which the discipline was developing at the turn of the twenty-first century and searched for a more balanced approach to the theory and practice of translation. Striving for clarity and applicability of his propositions, he also continuously developed his ideas. The aim of this essay it to present some of those theoretical approaches and formulations that he disagreed with as evidenced mostly in his 2004 book Translation: A Cognitive-Communicative Approach. Additionally, his 2015 book Iluzja przekładu. Przekładoznawstwo w ujęciu konstruktywnym will serve to demonstrate how he self-corrected some of his ideas.

Retranslations of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World in Poland

Agnieszka Adamowicz-Pośpiech — 2024-12-21

Retranslation is a well-established concept in translation studies. Beginning with Edward Balcerzan's text (1967; 1998), it has functioned as a theoretical basis but also as a method by which successive translations of a single text can be analysed, with the aim, for example, of determining the best of them. The paper analyses selected aspects of the retranslations of A. Huxley’s Brave New World in Poland. Significantly, G. Ojcewicz points to the possible networks of references between retranslations. In the essay, I apply this theoretical approach to retranslations to the new (unpublished) translation of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World by Krzysztof Hejwowski in the context of his earlier criticism of the translations by Stanisława Kuszelewska and Bogdan Baran, as well as his theoretical works on translation.