One Hundred Frogs in Steve McCaffery’s The Basho Variations

• Authors: Monika Kocot

Abstracts

EN

The article discusses Steve McCaffery’s The Basho Variations with a focus on various modes of transtranslation/transcreation/transaption of Matsuo Bashō’s famous frog haiku. The emphasis is placed on the complexities (of the processuality) of transtranslation which deliberately alters, distorts and reimagines the source text. The intercultural and intertextual quality of McCaffery’s poems is discussed in the context of multilevel references to classical Japanese aesthetics of haiku writing. The comparative reading of McCaffery’s and Bashō’s texts foregrounds the issue of events, or “frogmentary events,” and the importance of the role of the reader in completing poetic messages.

Keywords

EN

haiku; frog; Steve McCaffery; Matsuo Bashō; translation; transcreation; transtranslation; event

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture
• Year: 2021
• Issue: 11
• Pages: 369-388

Dates

published

2021

Contributors

author

Monika Kocot

• University of Lodz

• https://orcid.org/0000000181114998

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Identifiers

DOI

10.18778/2083-2931.11.23

Biblioteka Nauki

2032692