The article answers the questions about the existence and function of Czesław Miłosz’s poetry in German. It refers to the issue of untranslatability; it also reveals the complex process of transplantation of the lyric to other language and its introduction into German literature circulation. The considerations focus on translatological problems of Miłosz’s poetry composed in his youth and maturity (to the first part of 1960s). Chojnowski assumes a thesis that the poems make up a serious challenge for the translator, which results both from their prosody, rhythm, use of classical rhyme and Miłosz’s application of stylisation, hidden and revealed allusions and references to old and contemporary literary traditions. The article is based on the poet’s correspondence with Karl Dedecius, collected and prepared for publication by Przemysław Chojnowski, the author of the present paper.
This paper is an analysis of Hamlet gliwicki [eng. Gliwice Hamlet] (Messel 2008) by the Polish-German writer Peter Lachmann (b. 1935). The article presents the genesis of the drama inspired by the fate of a Wehrmacht soldier lost during the Battle of Stalingrad in January 1942. This is the writer’s father Ewald Lachmann. In addition to the parodic means used in the play, the intertextual links between Gliwice Hamlet and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet are discussed, as well as the topoi of Shakespearean tragedy interwoven with episodes from Lachmann’s biography and events from the history of Gliwice. The figure of Hamlet takes on the role of a mask and functions as a universal archetype behind which the play’s creator himself hides. The bilingualism of Peter - the play’s protagonist - and the overlapping of two identities, Polish and German, are examined in terms of a palimpsest. The analysis shows that Lachmann’s drama is characterised by the lack of a linear course of events and their anchoring in a fluid, liminal space-time. The protagonist’s identity transformations are accompanied by the transformation of his immediate environment, as the German city of Gleiwitz turns into the Polish city of Gliwice.
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