DOI: 10.18503/2658-3186-2023-7-4-63-68
Abstract. Th This article deals with the problem of translation of contemporary fiction, in particular, postmodernist neo-mythological prose. Postmodernism is defined as a movement characterized by a rather wide range of distinctive features, including heteroglossia, pastiche, intertextuality, mythology, metatext, fragmentation, deconstruction, etc. The postmodernist works are defined as the core of the narrative. In a number of postmodernist works, neomyth becomes the core of the narrative, defined as the result of the projection of mythological thinking on modern life and its author’s interpretation. Postmodern neomyth has become widespread for the last twenty years in the form of feminist interpretations of traditional mythological stories, some of which were published in the Canongate Myth Series, including the novel Penelopiad by a Canadian writer M. Atwood. The relevance of the study is due to the unique combination of postmodernism, neomythologism and feminism in the text of M. Atwood’s novel “The Penelopiad”, which presents a significant challenge for the translator who has set themselves the task of conveying the nuances of such a complex work as accurately as possible. The novelty of the study lies in the absence of studies focused on the rendering of anachronisms in the context of a postmodern neo-mythological work. The aim of this article is to study the peculiarities of translation of postmodern neomyth on the material of M. Atwood’s novel “The Penelopiad”. To achieve this goal the following tasks were set: to determine the artistic features of postmodern neomyth; to analyze and isolate the artistic features of the novel “The Penelopiad”; to analyze the anachronisms in the novel and to offer recommendations for the translation of this kind of fiction. The main method of research is comparative analysis of the texts of the original and the translation, as well as etymological analysis of anachronisms. The theoretical significance of the work consists in the systematization and analysis of the stylistic features of the postmodern neo-mythological novel. The practical significance of the work lies in the development of an approach to identifying and analyzing anachronisms in the postmodern neo-mythological work. The novel is an interpretation of the myth of Odysseus from the point of view of his wife Penelope. The traditionally flat image of the faithful wife is framed by its own myth, which discusses the relationship of the sexes, marital duty and fidelity, interpreted differently depending on to which spouse these virtues are attributed. A special role in the novel plays the position of the narrator, Penelope, outside of place and time, as an observer of human progress. Consequently, the text of the novel abounds with anachronisms necessary to pastiche the narrative and create intertext, which presents certain issues for translation into Russian. As a result, it was determined that in order to solve these problems, it is recommended to carry out a deep stylistic and etymological analysis in order to convey the speech of the novel’s characters in the most accurate way from the artistic point of view, as a rule by selecting appropriate equivalents and analogues, as well as likening and modulation.
Keywords: translation, neomyth, postmodernism, feminism, heteroglossia, metatext, intertext, idioms.
Author:
Maria V. Artamonova, Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor at the Department of Linguistics and Translation, Institute of Humanitarian Education, Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University (NMSTU), Magnitogorsk, Russia; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
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For citation
Artamonova M. V. On Translation of Neomythological Postmodern Prose (Based on “Penelopiad” by M. Atwood), Gumanitarno-pedagogicheskie issledovaniya [Humanitarian and pedagogical Research], 2023, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 63–68.