Literary Translation

This course is devided in two parts which form a whole: 1) lectures and 2) seminar work.
The lectures follow the rich history of this precious activity with the special emphasis on the relation between the original text and its translation through centuries. Students learn about different theories which treat the phenomenon of the translation ranging from linguistic to aesthetic dimensions. It is important to distinguish criteria for translations of different genres (poetry, prose, drama – more precisely: metric poetry, free verse, novel, fairy tale,tragedy, comedy etc.). It is necessary to compare the characters of different languages and a great variety of styles used in different periods of the literary history since each one of them demands a special approach also in the process of the translation.
The students use the acquired knowledge writing their seminar papers and presenting them in the class. They treat a range of different themes and problems, literary texts translated from other languages to Slovene and vice versa, frequently comparing several translations of the same work in Slovene or in different languages. This course is, therefore, not just theoretical, but practical as well: it enables an insight into the multiple texture of a literary text (including its ties with the cultural and historical con-text) and confrontation with concrete linguistic problems.