Poznámky ke kulturním dějinám literárního překladu
Notes on the Cultural History of Literary Translation

Summary/Abstract: Interweaving literary translation with cultural history, this study explores how metaphors—especially those drawn from textiles—shape our understanding of translation as both a craft and a conceptual act. Translation is not merely a linguistic exercise but a dynamic cultural process that reflects and influences national identity, aesthetics, and historical consciousness. Through metaphors like garments, carpets, and weaving, the translator’s role emerges as both artisan and interpreter, navigating between fidelity and creativity. These metaphors reveal tensions between visibility and invisibility, originality and adaptation, and highlight the translator’s subjective engagement with texts. The analysis draws on thinkers such as Erika Greber, Homi Bhabha, and Jaroslav Vrchlický to show how metaphorical language can illuminate or obscure the complexities of translation. By examining historical reception and metaphorical discourse, the study uncovers how translation has been perceived as both enriching and threatening to national literature. Ultimately, translation is portrayed as a transformative act, capable of reshaping cultural narratives and challenging epistemological boundaries. The metaphor of translation as texture or textile underscores its embeddedness in everyday life and its potential for aesthetic and political expression. This approach invites a reevaluation of translation not as a secondary act, but as a central force in literary and cultural development.

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