Gościńcem przekładu

Along the path of translation: Translation is a way of coming to terms with loss. In searching for words in our own language, we lose much of the richness with which their native language endowed them. Italo Calvino aptly observes that when we read, alongside satisfaction we also feel a sense of loss — the feeling that everything is slipping through our fingers, perhaps also because of translation itself, since translation, however faithful, certainly does not convey the actual content that these names possess in the original language, regardless of what that language may be. Translation treats thinking as a logomachy. In this conflict of languages, losses are unavoidable. As Krzysztof Bartnicki writes: “There is no way to win such a battle and have the opponent win as well. Translation must entail a loss of otherness.” This essay, reading the texts of Cezary Wodziński, attempts to come to terms with this economy of translation.