Translation and magic horses: Petre Ispirescu’s ‘Tinereţe fără bătrâneţe şi viaţă fără de moarte’ in Romanian and in English - Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3 Accéder directement au contenu
Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2019

Translation and magic horses: Petre Ispirescu’s ‘Tinereţe fără bătrâneţe şi viaţă fără de moarte’ in Romanian and in English

Adriana Serban

Résumé

Animals are a constant presence in Romanian fairy tales, and Petre Ispirescu’s “Tinereţe fără bătrâneţe şi viaţă fără de moarte” is no exception. Collected from the folklore in the second half of the 19th century by Ispirescu, the Romanian equivalent of the brothers Grimm, the tale stands apart due to its unusual treatment of the theme of the Hero and of the Hero’s Journey. According to Campbell ([1949] 2008), the Hero is usually expected to leave the known world for the unknown, to endure hardship and to fight for a just cause, be transformed, and finally attain the object of his or her quest. In this story, Prince Charming does indeed find what he was looking for, but loses it, causing considerable suffering to himself and others, and finally dies a lonely death. The main character in the fairy tale is the prince himself, but it could as well have been the horse, since the two always appear together once the quest has started, except at the very end, when Prince Charming chooses to not listen to the horse’s advice. Throughout their journey together, the winged horse has been the prince’s means of transportation — of trans-lation — as well as his advisor and only friend. In this paper, I propose to examine the way in which the relationship between the main human and the main non-human, magic animal in the fairy tale is represented in the Romanian text and two of its translations into English, “Youth Everlasting and Life without End” (1979, trans. Ana Cartianu) and “Eternal Life and Everlasting Youth” (2000, trans. Adrian Solomon), which target very different categories of readers. The comparison reveals that adjustments have been made in translation, in particular for the benefit of a younger audience. The transformations the story and, in particular, the relationship between the two characters have undergone in the process of linguistic transfer are uniquely interesting in that they bring to light attitudes, viewpoints and expectations, in different cultural environments, at different moments in time. References Campbell, Joseph. [1949] 2008. The Hero with a Thousand Faces (3rd ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ispirescu, Petre. [1882] 1984. “Tinereţe fără bătrâneţe şi viaţă fără de moarte”. In Petre Ispirescu, Legende sau basmele românilor. Timişoara: Editura Facla. 6-13. Ispirescu, Petre. 1979. Youth Everlasting and Life without End, trans. Ana Cartianu. Bucharest: Ion Creangă Publishing House. Ispirescu, Petre. 2000. “Eternal Life and Everlasting Youth”, trans. Adrian Solomon. In Aurora Fabritius & Adrian Solomon (eds), Taming Evil. Romanian Tales. Special issue of Plural. Culture and Civilisation. Bucharest: The Romanian Cultural Foundation Publishing House. n.p.
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hal-04406814 , version 1 (19-01-2024)

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  • HAL Id : hal-04406814 , version 1

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Adriana Serban. Translation and magic horses: Petre Ispirescu’s ‘Tinereţe fără bătrâneţe şi viaţă fără de moarte’ in Romanian and in English. Animal love / L’amour des animaux, Université Toulouse Jean-Jaurès, Mar 2019, Toulouse, France. ⟨hal-04406814⟩

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