The importance of a new translation of Karen Blixen’s The African Farm is based on two factors: the book has never been translated from Danish (although the Danish version differs from the English version), and existing translations of the English version contain a number of inaccuracies. Karen Blixen’s book The African Farm was published in English in the UK in 1937 under the title Out of Africa. In the same year, Karen Blixen published the Danish text of the book under the title Den afrikanske farm. This book is not the only example of Karen Blixen’s own translations from English into Danish, as she also translated some of her short stories after their first publication in English. It is still a controversial issue whether her translations may be considered “copies” of the original works or they should be regarded as recreations in Danish. This article presents a comparative analysis of the English and the Danish texts of The African Farm which confirms that we are talking about two different versions of the work, since while creating the Danish text, Karen Blixen used several transformations: transpositions, substitutions, additions and omissions. The notion of “transformation” in this article implies a very wide range of modifications. The author makes significant changes to the original text. The result is a new text with quite a number of differences from English; the text that awaits translation from Danish. Out of Africa has been translated from English into Russian twice. The translations by experienced translators make a significant contribution to the history of literary contacts between Denmark and Russia; however, they contain a number of errors due to misunderstanding of Danish and African realities, as well as disregard for the specific situation. Translation of the Danish version of The African Farm is necessary not only because the Danish version has never been translated into Russian, but also because it would allow for the explication of some themes important for Karen Blixen that were “lost” in the translations from English. The present study does not presuppose consideration of literary aspects. It involves only differences between the Danish and the English versions of the novel, as well as the analysis of existing translations from English
Статья посвящена теме экзистенциального одиночества как категории поэтики, которая находит свое отражение в творчестве датского философа С. Киркегора и русского писателя Ф. Достоевского. Вопрос о типологических схождениях в картине мира Киркегора и Достоевского неоднократно поднимался в философских трудах, но в данном случае исследуется именно художественное воплощение онтологической категории одиночества, которая для Киркегора становится одним из самых важных концептов для понимания эволюции человеческой души (стадий на жизненном пути). Тема одиночества развивается в романтической литературе, где является одной из центральных, но Киркегор предлагает новый взгляд на человека, для чего вводится понятие экзистенции, тем самым одиночество личности в этом мире становится и предметом изображения, и предметом анализа, что подразумевает экзистенциальная диалектика. Подобное воплощение темы одиночества характерно и для произведений Достоевского, где герой, находящийся в поиске себя, должен сделать свой экзистенциальный выбор: принять или не принять собственное одиночество, и от этого выбора зависит его дальнейшая судьба: путь духовного возрождения или гибель. Тема одиночества тесно связана с концептом отчаяния, введенным Киркегором, который проецируется на желание героя быть самим собой. В ранних произведениях Достоевского («Двойник», «Бедные люди») наблюдается стремление героев избежать одиночества, отказавшись от собственного «я», что приводит к трагедии. В сочинениях зрелого периода одиночество становится средством обретения себя, которое может привести к жизненному краху героев (Человек из подполья, Смердяков, Иван Карамазов) или, наоборот, к духовному возрождению (Раскольников, Смешной человек). Осознанное одиночество могло быть спасительным для князя Мышкина, но он делает выбор в пользу страсти. Достоевский не только изображает эмоциональное состояние своих одиноких героев, но анализирует феномен одиночества, в чем проявляется очевидное сходство с Киркегором
The paper analyses Karen Blixen’s short story “The Sailor-boy’s Tale”, which opens her collection “Winter’s Tales” (1942), in comparison with the Danish translation made by the author in the same year. The Danish text is considered the result of a process of auto-translation, recoding, and adaptation of the text for the Scandinavian reader. In the Danish version, the prose is more rhythmic and the descriptions are more vivid, which enhances the sensual authenticity. However, allusions to English and American authors and quotations are translated into Danish, which obscures their significance as markers of intertextual dialogue. Additionally, the dialogue with Scandinavian pretexts and paintings familiar to the Danish reader becomes more pronounced.
The article focuses on the specific type of literary hero that is common in the short stories of Holger Drachmann, who was considered the most prominent Danish writer in the early 20th century. His first books, “Poems” and a collection of short stories, “With Charcoal and Chalk”, were published in 1872. At the time, Drachmann belonged to the modernist movement and was one of Georg Brandes’ students, but later he changed his political and aesthetic preferences and moved away from the group of Brandes’ followers. Drachman’s artistic style is very special because it has features of Naturalism, Romanticism, Impressionism and Symbolism. But it is possible to conclude that his artistic manner can be called “neo-romantic” according to the contemporary terminology. The characters in his early collections of short stories are vivid, honest, and strong, and they represent the common type of neo-romantic hero that is inherent in other texts related to Neo-Romanticism. Very often Neo-Romanticism is seen as a “reaction” to Naturalism and a return to the principles of Romanticism, but it seems that Neo-Romanticism is much more like Naturalism than Romanticism. The type of neo-romantic hero is closer to naturalistic characters than to romantic characters, because it is a courageous and extraordinary person, an outsider and a rebel, his life is full of desire, risk and adventure, and it looks like a romantic hero, but a neo-romantic hero is a physically and mentally healthy person, and this character is determined by nature and genesis, which is the main feature of Naturalism. Drachman creates a new type of hero in Danish literature: the vital, strong character who struggles with nature and circumstances. His characters have the healthy genetics of ordinary people. Neo-Romanticism in Danish literature was strongly influenced by Naturalism and was the original phenomenon of national literature
Using the methodology of the “Hoffmann complex” the article investigates the influence of the romantic tradition on Danish prose of the second half of the 20th century using the example of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s works and V. Sørensen’s short story “A Tale of Glass”. It is claimed that the work reveals a layer of Hoffmann’s intertext from the short stories “The Sandman” and “Little Zaches”. The concept of the “Sandman complex” is introduced, which is a stable interweaving of problems, motifs and images characteristic of the Hoffmann novel by the same name, namely: optical symbolism (eyes, glass, spectacles), the principle of doubleness (“party of glasses” — “party against glasses”) and the problem of duality (Gert — the leader of the revolution, the brothers-opticians), the motive of blindness, the deconstruction of the features of a romantic hero, the motive of choosing between a “false” and a “true” beloved, the problem of spiritual death of man and the mechanization of society (elements from the short story “Little Zaches”), as well as the image system (Coppelius, Coppola, Olympia, Clara, Nathaniel) from the novel by E. T. A. Hoffman. The transformation of the “Sandman complex” in the short story by Sørensen is analyzed. The authors conclude that in the “Story with Glass” elements of Hoffmann’s poetics are refracted in order to reflect the beginnings of socio-political and philosophical conflicts (materialism and idealism) of the 20th century, which originated in the confrontation of philistine (everyday) and romantic worldviews