Poezja i przekład przeciwko przemocy (Auden – Wittlin – Barańczak)
Poetry and Translation Against Violence (W.H. Auden – Józef Wittlin – Stanisław Barańczak)

Summary/Abstract: The article examines W.H. Auden’s poem “Refugee Blues” and its two Polish translations, by Józef Wittlin (“To miasto...”, dated ?, published 1958) and Stanisław Barańczak (“Blues uchodźców”, 1992). The poem has taken on a new relevance in the face of contemporary refugee crises, and the Polish translations – in view of the influx of refugees from war-ravaged Ukraine. Confronted with the two renditions, a group of young recipients agreed that Barańczak’s variant had a greater emotional impact, and therefore a greater capacity for persuading those whose empathy needs to be stimulated. This prompts the author of the article to try to identify the elements and qualities that give the more recent translation an advantage over Wittlin’s translation, which was held not only excellent, but also probably more poignant than the original by translator and insightful critic Zygmunt Kubiak. It is demonstrated how Barańczak enhances the drama of the text while at the same time inscribing in it a full awareness of the escalation of violence that followed Auden’s poem. Wittlin, on the other hand, although he generally takes the motifs of the original more literally and does not impose elements dictated retrospectively by historical knowledge, creates certain spaces of ambiguity which offer a potentially no less moving reading experience than that of Barańczak, who uses a more direct diction. Biblical echoes that appear in Wittlin’s rendition serve, it is argued, to point to hidden verbal violence underpinning the physical violence. Finally, a scarcity of reception facts connected to either Polish rendition is noted.

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