Walking a Tightrope between Languages: Challenges in Translating Atwood’s Hag-Seed. A Case Study on the Romanian and Hungarian Translations - Acta Universitatis Sapientiae

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 16, 2 (2024) 225–244

DOI: 10.47745/ausp-2024-0026

Abstract. Literary translation, in general, has its own multiple difficulties; many of the challenges in translating Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed are due in particular to its transtextuality (juggling through a rhizomatic nexus of texts, eminently Shakespeare’s The Tempest, rewritten into a contemporary story) and its multilayered complexity (employing multiple voices and registers, mixing styles and genres, combining prose and verse) that make the novel an exquisite case of adaptation and recontextualization (Pál and Pieldner 2023). These peculiarities may be the source of several dilemmas of translators who have engaged in translating the novel. The aim of this research is to compare two translations of the novel in order to shed light on the possible options the translators had, as well as on their possible motivations when resorting to particular solutions in different situations. The comparative study of the translators’ choices encompasses the translation of intertextual elements (title, chapter titles, direct quotes, and covert references to Shakespeare and other authors), verse inserts that constitute a major originality of Atwood’s text as well as the stylistic chords it plays, in between the vernacular and the formal, the grave and the jocular. In doing so, we would focus on whether it is possible to delineate a certain “concept(ion)” of translation adopted by the Hungarian and the Romanian translators, whether there are any common solutions/techniques that correspond to certain translation traditions, and whether or to what extent each translator is free in choosing their path, resulting in disparate reading experiences.

Keywords: translation, intertextuality, shifting registers, Hag-Seed, The Tempest