John Donne’s Devotions upon Emergent Occasions is a very difficult work to translate
because it is abundant in alchemical terms and imagery the contemporary reader may hardly
understand as alchemy is long a dead language code. Unfortunately, that imagery often
refers to a specific theological background and it should be elucidated either by means of
clever translation or by virtue of footnotes or commentary. Otherwise, grasping the proper
meaning of the entire Donne’s work may be impossible. Russian translation of Donne’s
Devotions by Anton Nesterov is perhaps the best existing attempt to render the original text
with all its intricacy into language other than English. However, there are some treacherous
and fascinating passages in Devotions upon Emergent Occasions Niestierow mistranslated
because he did not fully understand the alchemical background they refer to.
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No. 4 (2014)
Published: 2015-08-27
10.31261/pr
Język Polski
Русский
English