Collected Translations as Anthologies of World Literature

In semi-peripheral and peripheral cultures, where the status of literary translation tends to be high, respectable poets with significant institutional prestige produce many translations. The purpose can be twofold: to mediate foreign literature to a domestic audience, and to develop the vernacular poetic diction through experimenting with the various ways of expressing alien literariness. Both parts of this description of the purpose of translation are target oriented, but the selection of what to translate is also important. Hungarian modernist poets of the 20th century undertook several major translation projects, and also published collections of poetic translations. Volumes of translations by a single translator practically appear as world literature anthologies, even if the translators tend to deny such ambitions in paratexts. Most of the important Hungarian modernists published such volumes, displaying a rich variety of ideas about world literature.