Wariacje o prawie do zachowania milczenia
Variations on the Right to Remain Silent

Summary/Abstract: Anne Carson’s essay Variations on the Right to Remain Silent presents untranslatability in the context of literature, history and painting. Referring to Homer’s Odyssey, the author shows untranslatability as an impossibility of translating one language into another and in the big picture as sacred, inaccessible, silent knowledge of gods contained in a word, which cannot be translated. Bringing in the idea of cliché, loaned from French to English without any changes, she uses it as an image of stereotypical thinking and violence of, mainly institutional, convention. The inquisitorial process of Joan of Arc exemplifies the untranslatability of mystical experience. Bacon’s paintings, especially the series of portraits of the screaming Pope, expose another aspect of silence (which also means rejection of speech, cooperation and interpretation): scream painted without any sound. The methods of disturbing the narrative coherence of the painting: the randomness of the painter’s acts, white arrows which guide the spectator’s attention or splashes of paint, are also very important here. Translation projects of Hölderlin show the subject of translation in connection with madness. The figure of the German poet separated from the world, working on the translations of Sophocles and trying to find the words „living enough”, illustrates the impossible (and unacceptable) project of using the language unbounded by convention. All those figures, which Anne Carson describes in her variations inspired by music and painting, move against the violence of language, which is a cacophonous collection of cliché. The untranslatability of their works reflects their genius.

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