Prosodic archaization in translation from the French and the cognitive problem of the interpreter

The article considers the problem of archaization and modernization in translations of poetic texts based on the material of French authors and literary scholars. The author examines the propositions of Henri Meschonnic and Emile Benveniste as applied to translations by Mikhail Gasparov, Efim Etkind, Igor Bulatovsky from French poets (Sainte-Beuve, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud). This concerns the sound organization of the text in that specific tradition of written European poetry, which, when read by eye, implies the simultaneous creation of a sound mental image of what is being read. For the interpreter (reader, critic, translator), the sense of rhythm and recognition of elements of the prosodic organization of the text is accompanied by the transcoding of signs of the visual representative system (letters) into auditory images based on linguistic competencies, on knowledge of reading rules, on memory of articulatory and acoustic characteristics of sounds, on familiarity with precedent texts. Due to the inevitable replacement of the material component of the message (physis-writing) and the loss of some of the information conveyed by the form of the poem, translators are looking for alternative ways of translation. Commentary is part of the triad of writing, reading, and translation, helping to preserve that part of the cultural heritage that may be lost when changing poetic practices.

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