Epic Poem or Adaptation to Catholic Doctrine? Two Polish Versions of Paradise Lost

Abstract

The history of Milton's reception in Poland suggests that he was mainly seen as a model practitioner of epic poetry, rather than as a political or religious thinker. This conclusion is borne out by comparing two of the three complete translations of Paradise Lost into Polish—the first by Jacek Przybylski (1791), the second by Władysław Bartkiewicz (1902) (the third being Maciej Słomczyński's 1974 translation). The examination of a few crucial passages demonstrates that the earlier translation, Przybylski's, is more successful in representing Milton's linguistic sophistication, theology, and attitude to the Roman Church, than Bartkiewicz's later translation, which, characterized above all by a concern with Catholic correctness, includes many omissions and distortions. Słomczyński's translation, criticized for its theological inaccuracies, is only briefly discussed, as are a few fragments of Milton's work that were translated by other Polish poets.

Notes

1. The only Polish monograph on Milton's literary works is Roman Dyboski, Milton i jego wiek [Milton and his age] (Kraków: Nakładem S. A. Krzyżanowskiego, 1909), based on a series of lectures (1908), which draw partly on Thomas Macauley and David Masson, and which were delivered to celebrate the tercentenary of Milton's birth. Dyboski mentions Milton's licensing of the Racovian Catechism and his translation (1674) of the letter announcing the election of King John III Sobieski; see Gordon Campbell, A Milton Chronology (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1997), 135, 216, 252; Gordon Campbell and Thomas N. Corns, John Milton: Life, Work, and Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 244–45, 248, 370, 383; and Barbara Kiefer Lewalski, The Life of John Milton: A Critical Biography, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 253, 284–85, 317, 507. As far as I can ascertain, the only monograph ever published in Poland on Milton's thought is the recent prize-winning work on Areopagitica: Wiesław Wacławczyk, Idea wolności słowa Johna Miltona (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2008). On the translations of Milton's Paradise Lost and other poetical works, there are the articles by Stanisław Helsztyński: “English Literature in 18th-Century Poland,” Slavonic Review 16 (1927): 142–49; “Polskie przekłady Miltona i Pope’a,” Pamiętnik Literacki 25.2–3 (1928): 5–29; “Milton in Poland,” Studies in Philology 26 (1929): 145–54; and the monograph on his reception by the eighteenth century Enlightenment by Zofia Sinko, Twórczość Johna Miltona w Oświeceniu polskim (Warsaw: Instytut Badań Literackich PAN, 1992), which contains a good summary in English (136–41). Milton is barely mentioned in the works and letters of the Polish Romantic poets Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855), Juliusz Słowacki (1809–49) and Zygmunt Krasiński (1812–59); there is a direct reference to a nine-day “Miltonian” fall into Hell, however, in the novel The Heathen Woman (Poganka, 1846) by Narcyza Żmichowska (1819–76). More research is clearly needed on Milton's reception in the Romantic period. This is perhaps the place to thank all those who made helpful comments in the writing of the current essay: Maria Błaszkiewicz, Richard Butterwick, Grażyna Bystydzieńska, Krzysztof Fordoński, Dorota Hołowiak, Wojciech Janik, Jerzy Łukowski, Joseph Shub, and Piotr Urbański.

2. John Milton, Miltona Ray Utracony. Ksiąg dwanaście z angielskiego przekładania Jacka Przybylskiego (Kraków: Drukarnia Antoniego Grebla, 1791).

3. From 1572 onwards Polish kings were elected by members of the nobility, a point not lost on Milton in his political writings, though he had a more positive perception of elective monarchy than the writers of the Polish Constitution. See Lewalski, The Life of John Milton, 507; Campbell and Corns, John Milton, 370; and Nicholas von Maltzahn, “The Whig Milton, 1667–1700,” in Milton and Republicanism, ed. David Armitage, Armand Hirny, and Quentin Skinner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 231, and note n.5. For general histories of Poland in English, including coverage of the reign of Stanisław August and of the Constitution of May 3, 1971, see Jerzy Lukowski and Hubert Zawadzki, A Concise History of Poland, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), and Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981). The text of the Constitution may be found online in English translation by Christopher Kasparek at: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution of_May_3,_1791 [accessed 21 June 2011].

4. Poniatowski knew Paradise Lost in the Latin and French translations. His interest in Milton appears to have been primarily literary, although through his acquaintance with Sir Charles Hanbury Williams he knew of Milton's role in Cromwell's government and of his written defence of the execution of Charles I; see Richard Butterwick, Poland's Last King and English Culture: Stanisław August Poniatowski, 1732–1798 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 98, 178, 182–83, 315. According to Adam Zamoyski's biography, at the age of 19 Poniatowski could “quote Shakespeare and Milton at the drop of a hat” (The Last King of Poland [London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997], 32).

5. It should be remembered, however, that until the first partition of Poland in 1772, there was still a substantial number of Protestants (mostly Lutherans) living within the borders of the Commonwealth; in 1772 most were lost to Prussia. The first clause of the Polish Constitution of May 3, 1791 declared Catholicism to be the dominant national religion and prohibited the conversion to other faiths, “under penalties of apostasy”; however, it did guarantee the freedom of other religions in accordance with the laws of the land.

6. In 1791 both Kraków and Warsaw were still in the Commonwealth, i.e. not yet under the political jurisdiction of Austria and Prussia respectively, and were therefore subject to potential censorship from the Catholic bishops, who followed the Roman Index (there being no separate Polish index), but this was not very effective in practice. See Józef Szczepaniec, “Z zagadnień cenzury w Polsce po 3 maja 1791 roku,” in Autor, tekst, cenzura. Prace na Kongres Slawistów w Krakowie w roku 1998, ed. Janusz Pelc and Marek Prejs (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 1998), 203–22; which includes a summary in English. I am grateful to Richard Butterwick for alerting me to this and other sources on censorship.

7. Biographical details are taken from the article by Renata Dutkowa in the standard Polish biographical dictionary, Polski Słownik Biograficzny (1986), vol. 31, 98–102, which is regarded by scholars as a reliable source.

8. A version of Paradise Lost was later translated by Josef Jungmann from English into Czech (1811), but with considerable debt to Przybylski's version; see Sinko, Twórczość Johna Miltona w oświeceniu polskim, 51.

9. Józef Muszyński to Ignacy Potocki, quoted in Dutkowa, in Polski Słownik Biograficzny.

10. John Milton, Jana Miltona Raj utracony. W przekładzie Władysława Bartkiewicza (Warsaw: Druk Piotra Laskauera i S-ki, 1902).

11. C. S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost (London: Oxford University Press, 1942); Peter A. Fiore, Milton and Augustine: Patterns of Augustinian Thought in ‘Paradise Lost’ (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1981).

12. Bartkiewicz does not specify what he means by “Puritan”; he seems to be appealing to some stereotypical idea in the minds of his readers, like the tendency of certain Polish Catholics to lump all Protestants together. Similarly, Dyboski, in Milton i jego wiek, describes Paradise Lost as an “epic of Puritanism,” though a distinction is made between “Calvinism” and Milton's belief in free will (127).

13. Neither translator translates “The Verse,” though Bartkiewicz makes reference to it. Bartkiewicz does not translate “The Argument” at the beginning of each Book at all; Przybylski does, but in abbreviated form (he heads it “Osnowa,” meaning a summary of the main thread).

14. For more on this point and how it affects Polish and English, see Jerzy Peterkiewicz and Burns Singer, Five Centuries of Polish Poetry, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), xxii–xxviii; and Czesław Miłosz, The History of Polish Literature, 2nd ed. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983), 541–43.

15. The reception of both translations is discussed briefly in Helsztyński, “Polskie przekłady Miltona i Pope’a,” 5–13. In Twórczość Johna Miltona w oświeceniu polskim, Sinko discusses the reception of Przybylski's version in greater detail (103–35). She also discusses a translation into Polish by Piotr Czajkowski (1809) of E. D. Parny's “parodistic and libertine paraphrase [into French] of Milton's poem” (39–45, 137).

16. Helsztyński 1928, 5–7.

17. Sinko, Twórczość Johna Miltona w oświeceniu polskim, 14.

18. Helsztyński, “Polskie przekłady Miltona i Pope’a,” 13. The review by Ignacy Chrzanowski, cited by Helsztyński, appeared in the journal Książka (1903).

19. All quotations from the Polish translations will state the year followed by page number. The lines are not numbered in either publication, and it is not possible to align them precisely with the original, as both translated texts grow in length. “Book” is translated by Przybylski as just that (“Księga”), by Bartkiewicz as “Song” or “Canto” (“Pieśń”). The literal translations back into English are my own, and are included by way of explanation for readers who do not read Polish. I have left the 1791 and 1902 Polish orthography and spelling (including typographical inconsistencies, such as the use of capitalization, and occasional errors); no adjustments have been made to make the texts conform to contemporary Polish. In the earlier, less consistent orthography, for example, certain diacritics were omitted in printing. I have not quoted all the equivalent passages in Milton's original out of consideration for space and on the assumption that most readers will be familiar with or at least have easy access to it. The line references are from John Milton, Complete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (Indianapolis, IN: Odyssey Press, 1957).

20. Neil Forsyth, John Milton: A Biography (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2008), 54.

21. Forsyth, John Milton, 172.

22. Sąd ostateczny. Poema Edwarda Yunga Anglika. Z przydaniem Pierwszey jego Nocy, i kilku ułomków Miltona. Przez Franciszka Dmochowskiego. Edycya druga (Warsaw: w Drukarni Xięży Piiarów, 1803), 178–79. Dmochowski's version was published as the second item in a volume that also contained translations of Edward Young: It is described as a second edition because the pieces initially appeared in 1801–2 in the Warsaw journal Nowy Pamiętnik Warszawski.

23. Helsztyński: “English Literature in 18th-Century Poland,” 148; Helsztyński, “Polskie przekłady Miltona i Pope’a, 7. The Ossolineum Library is now located in Wrocław.

24. Bartkiewicz's translation, published in 1902 in Warsaw, then part of the Russian Empire, has the official (i.e., the political, not ecclesiastical) censor's stamp, “Passed by the Censor,” printed in Russian on the verso of the title-page.

25. John Milton, Raj utracony. Przełożył Maciej Słomczyński; wstęp Jerzy Strzetelski (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1974). Originally released in the year of the tercentenary of Milton's death, a second edition appeared in 1986 (published by Wydawnictwo Literackie in Kraków).

26. Those who read Polish may be interested in an article by a former collaborator of Słomczyński: Anna Staniewska, “Maciej Słomczyński vs. William Shakespeare,” http://serwistlumacza.com/content/view/25/32/ [accessed 17 May 2011]. The publication of a memoir by his daughter in 2003 caused something of a stir in the Polish press; see Małgorzata Słomczyńska-Pierzchalska, Nie mogłem być inny. Zagadka Macieja Słomczyńskiego (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2003). For a more scientific assessment of Słomczyński's Shakespeare translations (but not sadly of his Paradise Lost), see Stanisław Barańczak, Ocalone w tłumaczeniu. Szkice o warsztacie tłumacza poezji z dodatiem małej antologii przekładów-problemów (Kraków: Wydawnictwo a5, 2007), 203–14, 271–74.

27. Sinko, Twórczość Johna Miltona w oświeceniu polskim, 13–26.

28. I doubt whether in the years 1974–86 the Communist censors would have cared about this aspect anyway. I am most grateful to Maria Błaszkiewicz for our exchange of emails on this question in April and September 2011, and her sending me a list of inaccuracies in Słomczyński's translation specifically related to Milton's Christology and soteriology.

29. Stanisław Helsztyński briefly discusses in his 1928 and 1929 articles, translations of Milton's shorter poetical works by Enlightenment and late Enlightenment figures (from 1786–1830, and one from 1850); the article entitled “Polskie przekłady Miltona i Pope’a,” includes a short bibliography (1928, 27), which Helsztyński appears to consider to be exhaustive (it lists 18 poems by Milton including the Paradises); he notes three translations of “L’Allegro and Il Penseroso”—by Leon Borowski (1819), Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz (1820), and Benedykt Lenartowicz (1830), and one of “Lycidas” by Benedykt Lenartowicz (1830), the translator of most of the shorter poems, but no translations of Milton's political or religious tracts (the same material is reproduced in a different format in the English language article of 1929). Jerzy Peterkiewicz [as Pietrkiewicz] includes translations of “At a Solemn Music” and Sonnet XVI “When I consider how my light is spent,” in his bilingual anthology: Jerzy Pietrkiewicz, Antologia liryki angielskiej, 1300–1950 (Warsaw: Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, 1987), 110–13. According to Jerzy Strzetelski's introduction to Słomczyński's translation (both editions), Peterkiewicz also translated fragments of Paradise Lost, as did the poets Jan Kasprowicz (1860–1926) and Konstanty Idlefons Gałczyński (1905–53); however, I have been unable to trace these in standard bibliographical sources or in editions of these poets’ collected works. I am grateful to Grażyna Bystydzieńska for drawing my attention to her article and those by Maria Wójcicka, and Bartłomiej Błaszkiewicz on Paradise Lost, in Approaches to Literature (Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 2002), and to Bartłomiej Błaszkiewicz, “The Function of Time and Space in John Milton's Paradise Lost” (PhD diss., University of Warsaw, 2000).

30. Czesław Miłosz, Przekłady poetyckie, zebrała i opracowała Magda Heydel (Kraków: Znak, 2005), 628.

31. I have not discussed Milton's possible reception, if there was any, in the former Commonwealth's German-speaking, Ukrainian, Belarusian or Jewish circles.