Dostoevsky as a Translator of Balzac by Julia Titus book review The TLS (original) (raw)

Women Translators Outside the Canon : On a Forgotten Translation of Dostoevsky ' S the Devils

2012

In 1928, two translations of Dostoevsky’s The Devils were published: one by Tadeusz Zagórski, another by an unknown woman signed as J.B. This article analyses both translations to understand why Zagórski’s version has become canonical. It seems that the main reasons for the privileged status of Zagórski’s translation are, on the one hand, its publisher’s strong position, and on the other – the visual aspect of the J.B. version. The J.B. edition was illustrated: the drawings depict the female characters of the novel. The illustrated plates present also excerpts selected from the novel, which are frequently amorous in tone. Most probably because of its distinctly feminine look, the J.B. translation of The Devils was superseded by Zagórski’s version.

ON CHARACTERS OF DOSTOEVSKY: PROTAGONISTS IN THE POLYPHONIC NOVEL (In Russian)

New Philological Bulletin , 2024

The article covers some issues of how Dostoevsky incarnates protagonists and constructs a plot in his “polyphonic” (M.M. Bakhtin) novels. I show that the writer rejects a character as a focal point in the aesthetic representation of a person as well as in plot building. Indeed, emotions and passions still engulf protagonists of Dostoevsky but never constitute them. Because Dostoevsky is more interested in protagonists’ life and progress, his vision and writing is concentrated rather on an ever continuing process than on a result. Thus, a protagonist’s character is never a permanent masque which petrifies the personality but a nomination, persistently questioned and doomed to fail at one moment. In Dostoevsky prose, a literary tradition neither contains a protagonist’s identity nor facilitates the incarnation of a traditional fabula. As S.S. Averintsev stressed, the Near-Eastern aesthetics differs from the European (i.e. post-Aristotelian) one in that the first doesn’t use characters. Dostoevsky was an attentive reader of the Bible and he transferred some biblical features into his prose. Dostoevsky’s protagonists are incarnated co-soundly with the Bible. The commonality doesn’t lead to a situation where the sacral stories become precedents predetermining choices and actions of Dostoevsky’s protagonists. His prose shows an inevitably multiversal mode where biblical and secular stories hint on a possible precedent but the precedent is no more than an option. Obviously, polyphonic poetics is the most relevant form for such aesthetic vision.

Polish Women Translators Outside the Canon. On a Forgotten Translation of Dostoyevsky’s The Devils

2012

In 1928, two translations of Dostoevsky’s The Devils were published: one by Tadeusz Zagorski, another by an unknown woman signed as J.B. This article analyses both translations to understand why Zagorski’s version has become canonical. It seems that the main reasons for the privileged status of Zagorski’s translation are, on the one hand, its publisher’s strong position, and on the other – the visual aspect of the J.B. version. The J.B. edition was illustrated: the drawings depict the female characters of the novel. The illustrated plates present also excerpts selected from the novel, which are frequently amorous in tone. Most probably because of its distinctly feminine look, the J.B. translation of The Devils was superseded by Zagorski’s version.

Dostoevsky in the Context of the Novel ‘ the Brothers Karamazov ’

2015

In this article the dichotomy of perception of the novel „Idiot‟ in the context of the last novel „Brothers Karamazov‟ by F. M. Dostoyevsky is discussed. The researchers define its nature and origins of the ambiguous reception. The alternative perception of the novel „Idiot‟ and its main hero are determined by the author. According to the perceptive point of view the writer‟s text is the „space of freedom‟ for a reader. This fact is also defined by the strategy of the author. Dostoyevsky uses the device of a reader‟s „failed expectations‟ associated with the miracle of Christ‟s resurrection.

Mikhail Bakhtin and Lev Shestov on Dostoevsky: the unfinalized dialogue

Studies in East European Thought, 2023

Bakhtin’s view of the history of the novel, through the lens of Dostoevsky’s writing in his famous study on Dostoevsky’s poetics (1963), has had a significant impact on the way we read Dostoevsky today. On the other hand, Shestov’s original explorations of the human soul, which were drawn on his reading of Dostoevsky and made a lasting impression on his contemporaries, are still relatively unknown to the English-speaking reader. Having traced the history of the regenerations of Dostoevsky’s convictions in his earlier works, in his mature writings Shestov proposed that at a time of deep crisis the human mind may acquire a new dimension, which lies beyond the limits of the comprehensible and the explicable. Building on his analysis of Dostoevsky’s life and work, a transformative shift in Shestov’s own worldview, led to significant alterations in his reading of Dostoevsky in the final years of his life. In this essay, as I draw the two thinkers into a dialogue, I try to look beyond the obvious differences in the two philosophers’ views (though I acknowledge them) and, with respect to both thinkers’ outstanding contributions to twentieth-century Euro- pean culture, I attempt to discover a number of key developing points in their views derived from their shared love of Dostoevsky’s art. Contrasting Shestov’s interpretation of Dostoevsky to that of Bakhtin’s, I argue that despite their different methods, standpoints, and philosophical views, and despite the seemingly antagonizing nature of their observations, Bakhtin and Shestov arrived at a number of conclusions, which contributed to our present understanding of Dostoevsky’s worldview.

Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics

The Slavic and East European Journal, 1974

Regard to the Hero, in Dostoevsky's Art The Idea in Dostoevsky 78 Characteristics of Genre and Plot Composition in Dostoevsky's Works 101 Discourse in Dostoevsky 181 i. Types of prose discourse. Discourse in Dostoevsky 181; ii. The hero's monologic discourse and narrational discourse in Dostoevsky's short novels 204; iii. The hero's discourse and narrative discourse in Dostoevsky 237; Conclusion Appendix I. Appendix II. iv. Dialogue in Dostoevsky 2 51 270 Three Fragments from the 1929 Edition Problems of Dostoevsky's Art 275 "Toward a Reworking of the Dostoevsky Book" (1961)