Czy potrzebny był nowy przekład baśni Andersena?
Was a New Polish Translation of Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales and Stories Necessary?

Summary/Abstract: A positive answer to the above question seems obvious after a critical analysis of the history of the reception of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales and stories in Poland in the second part of the 19th century and in the fi rst part of the 20th century. On the one hand, over a hundred years ago the writer was classifi ed as an author of exclusively children’s literature due to intended or unintended misinterpretations of the spirit of his prose. This classifi cation was then inherited by next generations of readers and translators. On the other hand, a huge number of various kinds of mistakes in translation depleted Andersen’s unique style. The analysis shows how Andersen’s narration was changed to traditional literary style (especially when it came to dialogues); how humour and irony were either overlooked, misunderstood or judged improper for children; how translators miscomprehended Danish grammar and vocabulary; and how little attention was paid to the consistency of the text. The effect is a narration which is “too sweet,” often lengthy, boring, and at times illogical. The analysis compares selected examples from the most recent complete edition of 167 fairy tales and stories translated from Danish by Boguslawa Sochanska (2006) with the previous complete edition (of 155 fairytales and stories) translated from German by Stefania Beylin and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, whose work has enjoyed high recognition for 50 years. The detailed discussion of mistakes and misunderstandings in Polish translations done from German also illustrates typical diffi culties that appear when translating Andersen’s prose. Therefore, the article points out similar problems with giving Andersen’s prose its proper shape in the most recent Polish edition.

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