LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
A – Ackroyd
AS – Anglo-Saxon
Bitt - Bittner
Bu – Burian
Cz - Czech
D – Defoe
Gr - Greene
Gs – Grossmith
F- Fielding
Pa - Payne
Pe – Peterová
SC – source culture
SL – source language
Š - Šiklová
TC – target culture
TL – target language
T - Townsend
Va – Vaculík
Vách – Váchal
Vie - Viewegh
W – Woolf
1 0. Introduction.
The genre of diary literature has established itself in the national literatures of both Czech and Anglo-Saxon literary traditions throughout the centuries. In the beginning, it was considered as appropriate only for strictly personal purposes, but gradually, the perception of the diary changed and finally it was considered as a legitimate literary genre. It may not be in the centre of interest for literary scholars, however, this is one of the reasons why I chose this topic for my thesis. A lot has been said about the translation of the other genres of prose, poetry or drama. Such a 'low' or marginal genre as diary literature deserves not to be overlooked.
The aim of my thesis is to provide a comparative analysis of Czech and Anglo-
Saxon diaries in order to find out what the specific features of the genre are in both traditions (with regard to the fact that the corpus is relatively small) and to see how those features are reflected in the translations of the particular Anglo-Saxon diaries into
Czech, e.g. if any differences in the features of diary literature in either group of diaries are recognized, I will try to find out what translation strategy the individual translators decided for in the process of translation and which tradition they tended to.
For this purpose, I created a corpus of seventeen books that are to be analysed in chapters four and five of the thesis. In chapter four, I will deal with the comparison of original versions of Anglo-Saxon and Czech diaries, while in chapter five, the original
Czech diaries and the translations of the Anglo-Saxon diaries into Czech will be compared. In chapter three, the corpus and the method for its analysis will be introduced. The first two chapters are devoted to the definition of the genre and its history, and chapter six will conclude the thesis and sum up the results of the analyses.
2 The last chapter of the thesis, chapter seven, is devoted to the bibliography.
Appendices to the thesis are placed on the CD attached to the thesis and they contain samples of analysed diaries – each sample covers several entries of the given diary. The samples run to approximately two or three pages depending on the length of each entry.
3 1. Definition of the Genre.
First, it is necessary to give a definition of the genre. According to The Concise
Oxford Companion to the English Literature, diary is “a day-by-day chronicle of events, a JOURNAL” (157) People writing diaries usually keep a record of personal and to some extent intimate events and thoughts, the diaries can be therefore divided into two categories: the intimate and the anecdotal. To this, Dr. Szladits adds a categorization according to gender as she argues that female authors “communicate more intimately in their diaries … [while] men concentrate on facts and subjects more than on themselves.”
(qtd in Mitgang 1)
Another division within diaries is that which takes into account the writer-reader relationship, in other words what the purpose of the author is, whether he wants his diary to be published and therefore writes for the reader or if he just keeps the record for himself. Vlašín, together with Lederbuchová, suggests the latter is called the authentic diary and the former takes on the form of books of travels, memoir literature and autobiographies which, according to Lederbuchová, are to be listed in the category of a stylized diary – a diary that is meant to be published.
The last division arises from the opposition of fictional versus non-fictional.
Authentic and stylized diaries represent a non-fictional part of the genre, while diary novels are its fictional counter-part. Among the fictional diaries, Peter Merton distinguishes pseudo-diary and mock-diary. He asserts that in the pseudo-diary, “every attempt is made to present fiction as a real diary, ostensibly written by protagonist “ and that “there is no ‘gap’ between the diarist-narrator and the reader.” (Morton 1) In mock- diary, according to Morton, “the diarist and the diary itself are handled
4 ironically.” (Morton 2) According to Morton, “the English mock-diary emerged definitively in the late-Victorian years, when a flood of pompous, self-regarding diaries and memoirs finally drew the attention of satirists.” (Morton 2)
Particular features of some of the abovementioned sub-genres are to be analysed in the following chapters of the thesis in terms of comparing Czech original diaries with
Anglo-Saxon originals, then the translations of the AS diaries in Czech with Czech original diaries.
5 2. History of the Genre of Diary Literature.
As for the history of the genre, The Concise Oxford Companion to the English
Literature says that keeping a diary became habitual in the 17th century, although there are some instances from the 16th century to be found. E. Jane Dickinson suggests that popularity of keeping diaries in this era was caused by “greater literacy, cheaper paper and a newly advanced awareness of the self.” (Dickinson 1)
Cynthia Griffin Wolff points out that in the 17th century, the spread of religious diaries became remarkable. According to her, “the Puritan's diary...was not to be the record of the events in his life...[or] the world about him;...it was a faithful, accurate mirror of himself.” (Wolff 6) Just to mention several significant authors, the two great diarists of the 17th century were John Evelyn (1620-1706) and Samuel Pepys
(1633-1703).
In the 18th and 19th centuries the diaries transformed into the “essentially ... personal political document, a chance for writers to reorder the universe according to their lights” (Dickinson 1), i.e. they ranked in the category of non-fictional and mostly autobiographical works. At the end of the 19th century, however, the fictional tendency became more common in diary literature than in previous centuries, i.e. writers use a form of diary for their novels – thus arose a new genre – a diary novel which was immensely popular and spread in the 20th century. Comic fictional diaries were popular in the 1880s, of which the most celebrated example is Grossmiths' The Diary of a
Nobody (1892), and was successfully revived by the end of the 20th century with The
Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend (1982; originally created for
BBC) and Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary (1996). Dickinson explains the
6 popularity of various diaries in the 20th century: “in our own, post-Freudian century, the diary was claimed, increasingly, as the arena of the imagination, a kind of 'safe house' for free expression” (Dickinson 1).
In the 21st century, the fast development of computer technologies and internet has brought yet another sub-genre of diary literature, a blog. The blog is a type of diary that is published online and as such is usually written with an audience or readership in mind, on the other hand, it does not undergo any professional proofreading or any kind of an (auto) censorship; therefore it represents a mix between an authentic and a stylized diary in terms of the genre definition. These days, almost every one has a blog, ranging from a teenage pupil to a politician with a heavy influence.
7 3. Analysed Diaries. The Corpus.
For my analysis, I created a corpus consisting of samples of the various diaries.
Actually, I chose the books for the corpus at random according to their forms and titles, i.e. I chose the books that had a word 'diary' or 'journal' in their title or were possible to be classified as diaries according to the extent to which they match what was presupposed to be a diary form – containing entries, dates etc.
The aim was to cover the genre with its various sub-genres as defined in the first chapter of the thesis, i.e. both non-fictional diaries (autobiographies, books of travels) - which are divided into authentic diaries and stylized diaries - and fictional diaries (diary novels). The opposition of intimate and anecdotal is also present in the corpus. The corpus will be analysed in terms of its “diariness”, i.e. as John Frow puts it “the structural dimensions that cluster together to constitute the specific configuration of a genre” and these are suggested by him to be formal organisation, rhetorical structure and thematic content. (Frow 74) The chapters dealing with each of the features are, however, sorted in the reversed order as the formal organisation seems to be the most relevant for the analysis. In this chapter, the analysis is devoted to the AS vs. Czech originals; in the following chapter the opposition of Czech originals vs. the translation of AS diaries into Czech will be analysed.
The corpus consists of nine English and eight Czech diaries, the length of each sample runs to approximately twenty pages. However, all the books are considered as a whole as well. The following list of the diaries in the corpus is meant to set the preliminary division of the sub-genres that is to be reflected mostly in the chapter concerning rhetorical structure and thematic content.
8 Non-fictional diary, a sub-genre of the authentic autobiographical diary, is represented by Josef Váchal's Deníky, Graham Greene's My Dream Diary: A World of
My Own and Virginia Woolf's The Diary of Virginia Woolf . Among the stylized autobiographical diaries Daniel Defoe's A Journal of a Plague Year, Michal Viewegh's
Báječný rok (Deník 2005), Ludvík Vaculík's Český snář, Zuzana Peterová's Deník alkoholičky and Jiřina Šiklová's Deník staré paní are listed. Jan Burian's Sága o cestě na Island is an example of an autobiographical book of travels and belongs among the stylized diaries as well.
The fictional diaries in the corpus are diary novels: pseudo-diaries - Peter Ackroyd's
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde and Jan Bittner's Deník kastelána; several mock- diaries - George Grossmith's The Diary of a Nobody, Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's
Diary, Susan Townsend's True Confessions of Adrian Mole, C. D. Payne's Youth in
Revolt: the Journals of Nick Twisp, a mock-book of travels Jerome Klapka Jerome's The
Diary of a Pilgrimage, and Irena Obermannová's Deník šílené milenky, an exception of the genre.
The following paragraphs will be devoted to the introduction of individual diaries.
Josef Váchal's Deníky provides a selection of everyday life records of a well-known
Czech writer. He notes mainly banal everyday events (e.g. the weather) as well as several comments on his writings. The diary covers the period of 1922-1964.
My Dream Diary: A World of My Own by Graham Greene is a dream journal. It gives a selection of Greene’s dreams between the years 1965 and 1989. The book was translated into Czech by Miroslav Soukup as Můj svět: deník snů.
The Diary of Virginia Woolf was published after Woolf's death in 1941 by her husband Leonard Woolf. He made a selection of his wife's voluminous records of
9 everyday life events as well as the background of her writings. The Diary of Virginia
Woolf was translated into Czech by Kateřina Hilská as Deníky.
Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year is an account of experiences of the protagonist during the Great Plague in London in 1665. František Frölich translated the journal into Czech as Deník morového roku.
Báječný rok (deník 2005), written by Michael Viewegh, is again a record of everyday events in the life of a writer. The diary covers a period of one year and provides the reader with the more or less banal actions of Viewegh's life – pleasures and troubles with his daughter, a background of his writings etc.
Český snář by Ludvík Vaculík covers the author's life between the years 1980-1979 when he was a political dissident under communism. As such, the book also provides a testimony of the given era in the society as whole.
Both Zuzana Peterová's Deník alkoholičky and Jiřina Šiklová's Deník staré paní are records of everyday events of women that find themselves in a somehow deteriorated life situation. The protagonist of the former is a woman addicted to alcohol, while in the latter, the heroine suffers the traumas of aging. Both of them record their efforts to cope with their perspectives to conditions.
Sága o cestě na Island by Jan Burian records the events of the author's journey to
Iceland and offers his experiences and impressions of meeting this beautiful country.
Peter's Ackroyd's The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde offers a fictional story of another famous writer. The book is based on known facts from the life of Oscar Wilde.
It was translated into Czech by Eva Veselá as Fiktivní deník Oscara Wildea.
Deník kastelána by Jan Bittner tells the story of a man who starts a new job as a castellan in an ancient castle.
10 The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith gives the reader the story of an insignificant clerk in 19th century England. It was translated into Czech by Antonín
Přidal under a pseudonym of Mirek Čejka.
Helen Fielding, in her book Bridget Jones's Diary, offers a story of a 30-year old single woman living in London who is searching for love, and a sense of life at the same time. The text was originally published in the form of weekly newspaper columns in
The Independent on Sunday. A Czech translation of the book was made by Barbora
Puchalská under the title of Deník Bridget Jonesové.
True Confessions of Adrian Mole, written by Sue Townsend, is the third volume of
Adrian Mole's diaries that began with The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13¾. In this third volume, Adrian reaches the age of adolescence and has to cope with the troubles that come after he fails his A levels and is therefore not allowed to enter a university. Helena Hartlová produced a Czech translation of this diary – Pravdivá zpověď Adriana Molea.
C. D. Payne's Youth in Revolt: the Journals of Nick Twisp can be seen as an
American version of Adrian Mole's diaries – an awkward teenager trying to cope with his life that seems to be a complete disaster. Czech translation by Tamara Váňová.
The Diary of a Pilgrimage by Jerome Klapka Jerome tells the reader about the experiences of an English traveller in Germany. Czech translation by Ladislav Votig.
The last book in the corpus is Irena Obermannová's Deník šílené milenky, a sequel to her previous book Deník šílené manželky. Deník šílené milenky offers a story quite similar to that of Bridget Jones – a woman in her thirties trying to find her sense of life and love as well. Unlike Bridget, the heroine of this book is divorced.
That concludes the introduction of the corpus. The analysis itself starts in the
11 following chapter.
12 4. Features of “diariness” in Anglo-Saxon versus Czech Diary Literature.
4.1 Thematic Structure. Content.
The thematic structure of the individual diary depends very much on the sub- genre to which a certain diary belongs, but still may differ even within the boundaries of each sub-genre.
For the thematic analysis of the chosen corpus, I will utilize the preliminary division of the genre into specific categories fully, since it is undoubtedly the content and the topic that classifies the book according to the sub-genres. In the following chapters concerning formal and narrative structure, the concept of the sub-genre division will prove more or less irrelevant as the formal features vary across the boundaries of the sub-genres and rather reflect the style of individual authors or the conventions and norms of the genre as a whole than of either sub-genre. As for the rhetorical structure, the division into individual sub-genres works only with addressing the reader and even there it is not consistent.
4.1.1 Autobiographical Diaries.
4.1.1.1 Authentic Diaries.
Authentic diaries represents a type of genuine diary. The authenticity in its name means that the author keeps a record of thoughts and events just for himself without a potential readership in mind and decides to publish the diary only afterwards, when the process of writing is done, be that his own decision or that of his heirs.
In the corpus, there are three authentic diaries. Of the AS diaries: Graham
Greene's My Dream Diary: A World of My Own and Virginia Woolf's Diaries and of the
Czech diaries: Josef Váchal's Deníky As for the thematic structure, they differ very
13 much. Greene's diary is a record of dreams which constitutes “the world of [his] own” (Greene). He therefore deviates from the common image of the diaries containing a list of events that happened during a single day.
Woolf and Váchal, on the contrary, have created a chronicle of everyday events.
Váchal records all events of the day, even very banal ones, but limits himself by hardly ever indicating any thoughts or feelings. Each entry contains the information about the weather in one or two words.
Woolf's entries are, on the other hand, more elaborate. She describes everyday events and her thoughts, opinions of her readings and her state of mind as well.
4.1.1.2 Stylized Diaries.
Since the stylized autobiographical diaries differ from the authentic ones just in terms of a potential readership, as for the thematic structure, they resemble. The stylized autobiographical diaries in the corpus contain a mix of everyday events and the thoughts and opinions of the author on various cultural and social events. This is the case in Vaculík's Český snář and Viewegh's Báječný rok (Deník 2005) and Daniel
Defoe's A Journal of a Plague Year. Apart from a record of personal events, these three diaries act as a testimony of the era in which they were written, the two latter have it in their title after all. Peterová's Deník alkoholičky, on the other hand, is focused purely on the author´s life. This is the case of Jiřina Šiklová's Deník staré paní as well.
An exception among the stylized diaries is Burian's Sága o cestě na Island, a peculiar combination of a diary and a book of travels. It is limited temporally as well as spatially since it presents the author's experiences of his journey to Iceland and facts about the country.
4.1.2 Diary Novels.
14 As for the thematic structure of diary novels, it is important, according to Peter
Morton, to distinguish between the mock-diaries and pseudo-diaries as defined in the first chapter of the thesis.
4.1.2.1 Pseudo-diaries.
In the corpus, the sub-genre of pseudo-diary is represented by one English book and one Czech work. Namely, Peter Ackroyd's The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde and
Jan Bittner's Deník kastelána.
As the purpose of the author in writing pseudo-diaries is to give an impression of authenticity, their thematic content resembles that of non-fictional diaries, be that stylized or authentic ones. Ackroyd actually created a pseudo-stylized diary with a lot of memoir passages. His entries contain both everyday events and memories of the past as well as general opinions on the life of the famous writer. In the sample, memoir passages predominate over the other topics and the author expresses his aim via his protagonist saying that “[he] must master the past by giving it the meaning which only now it possesses for [him]” (Ackroyd 75)
Deník kastelána, on the other hand, is an imitation of the authentic diary, but as opposed to The Last Testament, it does not lack a plot and therefore really deserves to be called a diary novel, a novel that adopted the form of the diary. Bittner does not avoid the description of everyday banal events preserving the atmosphere of authenticity, but the plot, solving the mystery of an ancient castle still prevails.
4.1.2.2 Mock-diaries.
The sub-genre of mock-diary with its tradition in English diary literature is the most numerous group in my corpus. Among the Czech books in the corpus, there is none to be listed in this sub-genre, perhaps with the exception of Obermannová's Deník
15 šílené milenky which may be seen to mock the genre of diary by breaking several norms of the genre as stated in the previous chapters. It is a record of the life of a divorced woman in her forties trying to find love.
George Grossmith's The Diary of a Nobody is said to be the first example of mock-diary in English literature with the others descending from it – Jerome Klapka
Jerome's The Diary of a Pilgrimage, Susan Townsend's True Confessions of Adrian
Mole as well as Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary.
The thematic content of mock-diaries is again close to that of stylized diaries as in the case of the pseudo-diaries since it is the sub-genre of stylized diaries that is usually mocked. The trick of the mock-diaries and its specificity lies in the choice of events that are recorded by the protagonist and in the character of the protagonist. The hero of mock-diaries is typically a loser and his life is a sequence of embarrassing and painful experiences. This notion is implied in the name of The Diary of a Nobody.
Apart from Bridget Jones's Diary, the mock diaries in the corpus do not contain any plot; they are really just sets of experiences, everyday events, thoughts and opinions. As was already mentioned in the previous chapter, The Diary of a Nobody provides the reader with the ordinary life of a minor, insignificant bureaucrat and his problems. True Confessions of Adrian Mole offers the story of an adolescent who failed his A-levels, was not allowed to enter university and has to cope with this sad situation.
The above mentioned plot of Bridget Jones's Diary is based on Jane Austen's novel
Pride and Prejudice. Basically, the theme of the book is how to find love and Mr. Right.
The only American book in the corpus is C. D. Payne's Youth in Revolt: the
Journals of Nick Twisp; its plot very much resembles that of Sue Townsend's diaries of
Adrian Mole, it records the story of an awkward teenager whose life turned out to be a
16 complete failure.
4.2 Formal Organisation.
As the specific formal structure is the most obvious and typical for diaries, this part of the analysis promises to bring the most interesting results. In terms of form, diaries are generally written as a sequence of entries, each of them introduced by a date.
Several entries are then put into chapters sometimes.
4.2.1 Chapters
In voluminous works that cover long periods of time, entries are grouped in chapters according to years. In diaries with shorter time-line, usually a year, the chapters are named after the months of the year (occasionally with the subtitle of an important event). Occasionally, chapters are organized according to months but they remain unnamed. A lot of diaries have no chapters at all. Less often, each chapter covers a shorter period than a month and are named either conventionally (Chapter 1) or according to the event that is the most important or characteristic for a certain period.
Rarely, the entries are grouped into chapters according to the topic they deal with.
The examples are stated in the following tables. Table 1 shows the names of the chapters found in the corpus, Table 2 shows the proportionate use of the methods for organizing chapters.
Chapters – Table 1
AS Cz Years W: 1919 Vách: 1938 Months F: April – Inner Poise Vie: Leden May – Mother-to-Be Pa: November, December Š: (unnamed) - Va: (unnamed)
17 Less than a conventional Gs: Chapter XII - month naming Chapter XIII Chapter XIV characteristic T:Adrian Mole Leaves - event Home Mole at the Department of the Environment Topic Gr: Happiness - War Moments of Danger and Fear The Job of Writing
Chapters - Table 2
AS Cz Years 1 1 Months 2 3 Less than a month 2 0 Topic 1 0 No chapters 3 4 Total 9 8
The numbers in the table show that grouping entries into chapters is more common in the AS part of the corpus than in the Cz part and the chapters vary in terms of how they are named. If a Cz diary has chapters at all, they are always named according to years or months in the corpus. Since the corpus consists of only a relatively small number of books, the generalization of this conclusion and its application to the tradition of the genre of diary literature as a whole is not possible.
As diaries are written as sequences of entries, an entry may be seen as a core of the diary and its formal structure defines the formal structure of the whole book.
4.2.2 Entries.
As a rule, each entry in a diary covers one day. However, this rule has also its
18 exceptions. In the corpus, only three authors chose to break the rule, all of them AS.
Among those is Greene whose Dream Diary is actually not a diary as such since it offers a record of dreams not daily events. Each entry of this diary deals with a single dream; then it is the case of Defoe who wrote his journal as a continuous text. It is not that Defoe and Greene do not state any dates at all, but they do so within the text itself.
Obermannová, on the other hand, gives her entries and text completely without dates, so it is not clear what period of time one entry covers and when the story actually happens. As such Obermannová breaks the crucial principle of keeping a diary, i.e. the temporal determination.
The other authors adhere to the rule and devote each entry to a single day, moreover, two of them split the day into two entries or more – Jerome and Burian.
The length of individual entries varies a lot in the corpus. The shortest entry contains several lines; the longest one is spread over several pages. Within a single book, the entries are more or less of the same length, e.g. for Váchal, a paragraph-long entry is typical, while Ackroyd makes most of his entries about five pages in length. The biggest difference within one book is to be found in Bittner where one entry has four lines and the very next one expands to a whole three pages.
It is difficult to state in what way entries of one part of the corpus differ from those of the other as a whole, it is rather the matter of the individual authors.
What varies even among the authors who chose single day entries, and may be somehow analysed, is the way of writing dates.
4.2.2.1 Dates.
The basic pattern for writing dates that is to be found in the corpus is to give the day and month. In the diaries, where a year is stated either at the beginning of the book
19 or at the beginning of each of the chapters, the date goes without year. Often, the name of the day is added. And some authors state both year and the name of the day. Dates differ also in regards to the numbers. Either cardinal or ordinal numbers for the day are used in English. Czech authors always use cardinal numbers with the exception of one
Czech author who chose the number for naming months. See the following tables.
Dates – Table 1
AS Cz D/M - Vách: 13. března - Š: 12. ledna M/D Gs: December 17 - D/M/Y A: 10 August 1900 Bu: 30. července 1994 Name of the day/D J: Saturday, 24th - Name of the day/D/M F: Sunday 2 April Bitt: Úterý 7. listopadu W: Wednesday 7 August P: neděle 20. března - Vie: Sobota 1/1 Name of the day/M/D T: Monday June 13th - Pa: Friday, November 21 - Name of the day/D/M/Y - Va: Pondělí 22. ledna 1979
Dates – Table 2
AS Cz D/M 0 2 M/D 1 0 D/M/Y 1 1 Name of the day/D 1 0 Name of the day/D/M 2 3 Name of the day/M/D 2 0 Name of the day/D/M/Y 0 1 No dates 2 1 Total 9 8
20 As the tables show, stating dates does not differ very much in both parts of the corpus - seven AS diaries with dates versus seven dated Cz diaries. What varies to a relatively great extent in each part of the corpus is the form of the date. Although among various date forms, one is preferred by most authors from both parts of the corpus –
Name of the day/D/M that is used in two AS diaries in the corpus and three Cz ones.
Again, in order to get a general conclusion of stating dates in AS vs. Cz diaries, using more extensive corpus is necessary.
4.2.2.2 Entry Introduction.
Apart from dates, some authors introduce each entry with a specific set of information – as does Fielding in Bridget Jones's Diary, when she provides the reader with her heroine's weight and number of alcohol units, cigarettes and calories she had consumed the previous day. Jerome provides the reader with a summary of what is about to happen in the entry. Obermannová starts each entry with a poem. Jan Burian gives his entries titles and provides the reader with short paragraphs concerning geographic, demographic or biologic information about individual places he visited in each entry.
Entry Introduction – Table 1
AS Cz F: 9st, alcohol units 0 (marvellous), cigarettes O: Tolik samoty je kolem 0, calories 2250 Až to praská Každý vláčí svoje hoře A co láska? Leží tam v oboře Nožky má nahoře A mlaská J: Difficulty of keeping this Diary.-A big Bu: Jak malý krok pro lidstvo... Wash.-The German Bed.-Its Goings on.- ISLAND Manners and Customs of the German Army. Poloha: ostrov v severní části Atlantského oceánu u severního polárního kruhu
21 Rozloha: 103 000 km2 , členité pobřeží, hluboké zálivy
Entry Introduction – Table 2
AS Cz 2 2
The number of diaries with an entry introduction of any form is the same in both the AS and the Cz part of the corpus - it is two vs. two, therefore the conclusion may be that there is no difference in proportionate use of entry introductions between both parts of the corpus. For a more general result, the corpus needs to be extended.
4.2.3 Specific Formal Features.
Apart from organizing the book into entries and stating dates, some diarists help to reinforce the authenticity of the diary form by specific features of typographical design. In the corpus, it is in fact only one author (or rather an editor of the diary) who chooses this method – Michal Viewegh The specific formal feature in his diary is a 'tear- off corner' that is usually to be found in personal organizers.
4.2.4 Linguistic Devices.
Linguistic devices also play an important role in constituting formal structure of the genre of diary literature. Among them, syntactic devices seem to be the most outstanding.
4.2.4.1 Syntactic Devices.
A specific set of syntactic and grammatical devices is to be found in the genre of diary literature. For the authentic and to a certain extent stylized diaries as well, an economy of expression could be presupposed as being typical. Among the devices used for this purpose, abbreviations and omissions are common. In diary novels, the authors
22 choose omissions and abbreviations for creating the authentic effect of the text.
Among the diaries of the corpus, Josef Váchal's Deníky is the most striking example of the use of abbreviations and omissions; he hardly ever writes in complete sentences. As for verb forms, Váchal often omits 'jsem' in the past tense, so it looks like a third person verb form, but it is only a case of omission as from time to time, the first person form is preserved:
13. února ...Po ¼7. rozsazoval a sázel; H. nepřišla celý den i nadělal víc práce...nalezl literaturu k Postylám a odešel zas Letohradskou až k Pexidrovi...i zvrhnul lavor k tomu a večeřím rybu na klíně... (Váchal 158) 28. dubna K 7. hodině posnídal, dosud trochu nevolno. - Později podmrak; pracoval na hotovém už rýmování pro Jančákovou; opsal, udělal titul – Večerník před spaním jsem četl. (Váchal 159)
As for abbreviations in Váchal's diary, they are reserved mainly for proper names:
H. šla na berní správu...Mikulášskou, Celetnou, od Mas. nádr. Jindřiš...pak k m. kde stihl odcházející H... (Váchal 158)
However, time is also indicated with the help of abbreviations – fractions in this diary:
¾ na 6, po ½ 1, po ¼ na 7, ¼7. ½8. etc. (Váchal)
Of the other authors, Woolf also uses abbreviations for names, for her husband's name (L. for Leonard) in particular. Other names are abbreviated only occasionally.
Among the diary novels of the corpus, Bridget Jones's Diary is the one where abbreviations and omissions occur to quite a high extent; omitting the 'I' or 'I am' in verb forms is typical as well as abbreviating. The abbreviations are solely devoted to the words of self assessment (v.g. for very good) etc.:
Determined, now, to tackle constant lateness for work...Went to Judy's
23 party tonight in tight little black dress, v. proud of myself. (Fielding 94) In future must get straight up when wake up and reform entire laundry system. (Fielding 93) Understand where have been going wrong by going to parties armed only with objective of not getting too pissed. (Fielding 97) Abbreviations and omissions – Table 1
AS CZ 2 1
With two AS and only one Cz diary using abbreviations and omissions in the corpus, the conclusion is that it is a device more common in the AS part of the corpus.
Surprisingly enough, the other authors of the corpus completely avoided omitting and abbreviating.
4.3 Rhetorical structure.
This sub-chapter will deal with the narrative methods that are to be found in the genre of diary literature based on the chosen corpus, starting with the role of the author and the narrator in the text.
4.3.1 Author’s Perspective.
In the authentic and stylized diaries, the author acts as a part of the action, moreover, he is the hero of the story, it is therefore obvious that diaries are typically narrated from the author’s perspective - so the author and the narrator merge - and the narrative adopts an ich-form (first person narrative). On the other hand, in fictional diaries, be that a diary novel or a book of travels, the author and the narrator differ, but the form of the first person narrative is preserved to keep the illusion of authenticity.
The protagonist becomes a narrator in this case.
In the corpus, only one book breaks this convention - a diary novel. In Deník
24 šílené milenky, Obermannová uses an er-form (third person narrative). The author, the narrator and the protagonist are three different entities in this diary. This together with a formal structure unusual for the genre of diary, as mentioned above (no dates, no temporal determination), seems to exclude the book from the genre of diary literature, therefore I called it an exception in the introduction to the chapter - at least in terms of formal structure.
As a conclusion, as shown in both the AS and Cz parts of the corpus, diary literature is typically narrated in the first person.
4.3.2 Time Perspective.
Apart from the author’s personality, time plays an important role in diary writing. The authors usually either use a retrospective method, when they describe what happened during the day at the end of the day, so the time of action and the time of writing differ (this is the case with most of the books in the corpus – Townsend, Jerome,
Woolf, Grossmith, Burian, Viewegh, Obermannová, Greene); or they describe the events while they are happening, so the time of action and the time of writing are identical, or mix both perspectives together. Indicating time is actually what gives diaries their authenticity.
4.3.2.1 Time Indication.
There are two ways of setting the narrative on the time-line (if there is any). One of the ways is that the authors state the exact time using clock indication, e.g. Vaculík occasionally gives an hour-by-hour record in one entry:
Je čtvrt na dvanáct a kluci ještě nejsou doma. … Je půlnoc, přišel Jan….Je jedna hodina, přišel Ondráš….Je půl třetí, protože jsem přestal psát. (Vaculík 8,9) Je tři čtvrtě na čtyři v noci, nemůžu věřit. (Vaculík 16)
25 Helen Fielding, on the other hand, provides the reader with a minute-by-minute record of what is going on:
7 a.m. Get weighed 7.03 a.m. Return to bed in sulk over weight… 7.30 a.m. Hunger pangs force self out of bed. Make coffee, consider grapefruit. 7.35 -7.50 a.m. Open wardrobe. Stare at clothes. (Fielding 92)
Fielding uses an exact time indication as a means of imparting the authenticity into the fictional narrative. The problem is, however, that it may sound authentic, but in fact she goes too far, beyond the plausibility of the narrative. One tends to wonder, how
Bridget can do all those things and find time to sit down and write about them at the same time. So the fictionality of the narrative reveals itself and it is treated with irony at the same time, hence the comic effect of the narrative among other aspects . To invoke
Peter Morton, the time perspective used in Bridget Jones’s Diary expresses clearly that it is a case of a mock-diary, where “the illusion of authenticity is thin” and which are
“intrinsically humorous in tone and have an unreliable narrator.” (Morton 2) It is necessary to point out that such a detailed description of the action occurs once in a whole book, otherwise Fielding gives time indication of much longer intervals or just once an entry.
9 p.m. It was my father, speaking in a weird, disconnected voice, almost as if he were a dalek. (Fielding 90) 11.45 p.m. Have just been sick, and as I slumped over the loo... (Fielding 112)
Another author who chose an exact time indication in his diary in the AS part of the corpus is C. D. Payne:
2:30 P.M. Dad just left a message for Joanie in which he expressed a
26 desire to strangle me... 3:30 P.M. I just called the hospital in Santa Cruz. Bernice Lynch has emerged from her sedative-induced coma... 5:15 P.M. Mom just left a phone message telling Joanie to call... (Payne 332)
Among the Czech authors, Váchal uses an exact time indication – the smallest unit is fifteen minutes:
V ½ 6 vzbuzen...šel ve ¼ na 8 siln. do Jičína...ve 12 píši denník... (Váchal 159)
The way in which the other authors deal with the problem of time is by using time adverbials like Bittner:
Později Tak jsem se tam byl podívat. (Bittner 27)
In Peter Ackroyd’s Last Testament of Oscar Wilde, the thoughts and everyday events are mixed with memories from the past and the book oscillates between the diary and the book of memoirs. Daniel Defoe's A Journal of a Plague Year is an exception as the whole of it is narrated in retrospective.
Time Indication – Table 1
AS Cz Time indication 2 3
Regarding tha exact time indication, Cz diaries outnumber the AS three to one in the corpus, the conclusion then is that in the Cz part of the corpus, time indication is more common a feature of “diariness”, however, the corpus is too small to be able to show definite results, for such a conclusion, the corpus would have to be much more extensive.
The narrative method of the diary, either retrospective or recording concurrent
27 events, is also crucial for the choice of tense in the narrative.
4.3.2.2 Tense.
This sub-chapter might just as well be placed among the linguistic devices in the chapter dealing with formal structure, nevertheless, since tense constitutes an essential part of the narrative it goes better with the chapter about rhetorical structure.
Generally, the past tense is used for describing past events and the present tense comes to the fore when an action contemporary to the act of writing is dealt with.
Moreover, the Czech authors very often use the narrator's present for telling past events and even mix the past and narrator's present tenses together. In English, the infinitive is also used for the same purpose, i.e. the ‘updating’ of past events, besides the narrator's present . The following table shows examples and the proportionate use of the narrator's present tense or infinitive usage.
Tense - Table 1 – Narrator's Present vs. Infinitive
AS Cz Narrator's Present J: He does not know Va: Jdu k Rudolfinu, syrově tu táhne. it is a bed at first. Přecházím, tu ke mně přistane zelené He rings for the auto, v něm Zdena. chambermaid, and Vie: Otec chce na rozdíl od ostatních explains to her that poslouchat Klausův projev, takže nám she has shown him stydne čočka. into the wrong room. She says: Bu: Byl jsem na palubě skoro první, přede „This is a mnou stála jen Ischa...převáží terénní bedroom.“ automobil....stojí a hledí vstříc mohutným skaliskům... P: Šmátrám, pátrám, tiše štrachám, vyhazuji ven rezervní ponožky..., už je mi úplně jedno, že oba kluky probudím...já pátrala dál Infinitive F: Begin selection - of underwear...Go back to ironing. Find unsuitably small black lacy
28 pair.
Tense – Table 2 - Narrator's Present vs. Infinitive
AS Cz Narrator's Present 1 4 Infinitive 1 0 Total 2 4
Other method used by the authors in the corpus is to keep the present tense for the action that takes place in the course of writing, i.e. the concurrent event. Among the
Czech authors, Bittner, Váchal and Šiklová fulfil this condition; among the English authors, Woolf, Grossmith and Ackroyd prefer not to play with the time perspective, i.e. they avoid using the narrator's present in their diaries at all. Quantitatively speaking, two Cz diarists as opposed to three AS ones decided to use the present tense for describing the present or concurring events in the corpus.
In the rest of the corpus, strict usage of the past tense for describing all events in the diary occurs. This is the case of Obermannová, Defoe, Townsend, Greene and
Payne. Numerically, it is one Cz as opposed to three AS diarists. The present tense is, however, a part of dialogues even in these diaries. For the overall review of tense usage in either part of the corpus, see the following table:
Tense – Table 3
AS Cz Narrator's Present (Infinitive) 2 4 Present Tense (used strictly for 3 3 present action) Past Tense Only 4 1 Total 9 8
29 The table shows that changing the time perspective with the help of the narrator's present is typical for the Cz part of the chosen corpus and again, such a conclusion could not be applied on the genre as a whole without extending the corpus.
The following sub-chapter is devoted to another rhetorical device of diary literature – dialogue.
4.3.3 Dialogue.
Although the diary is in fact a long monologue that may actually be compared to
'stream of consciousness', dialogue also plays an important part in the narrative.
Dialogue in the diary is specific in the sense that it is actually always paraphrased as the protagonist is the narrator, it is implied that the reader knows only the perspective of the narrator. The fact is, this is rather a matter of the first person narrative rather than the genre of a diary as such, but as the first person narrative is characteristic for the genre, the narrator's perspective of the dialogue becomes a feature of “diariness” as well.
Although the dialogues are paraphrased, they are hardly ever presented in the form of indirect speech; all the dialogues in the corpus proceed as direct speech with inverted commas. With regard to the perspective of the narrator as the only one, however, it may be spoken of as pseudo-direct speech.
In the corpus, only three authors do not include dialogues in their diaries. Of the
Anglo-Saxon authors it is Virginia Woolf and Daniel Defoe who avoid direct dialogues and limit themselves to rarely occurring indirect speech. Of the Czech authors, it is
Josef Váchal and Jiřina Šiklová. All the other diaries, with one single exception, do contain dialogues with the abovementioned pseudo-direct speech. The exception I have in mind again, is Obermannová's Deník šílené milenky whose narrator differs clearly from the protagonist due to the third person narrative and therefore appears to be
30 independent and omniscient. The dialogues represented by such an uninvolved narrator seem to be more real as opposed to the first person narrative. This is a case of genuine direct speech.
Dialogues – Table 1
AS Cz 7 6
4.3.4 Addressing the Reader.
Another important aspect of the narrative in the genre of diary is the reader- writer relationship. In authentic diaries, readers are not born in the diarist's mind during the process of writing and they come to the fore only after the author decides to have his diary published. For stylized diaries, on the other hand, addressing the readership is characteristic. Basically, there are two forms of addressing the reader, direct and indirect. With the direct form, the author speaks to the reader, while with the indirect address, the author speaks about the reader. In diary novels, the purpose of the author is important, i.e. what he intends his diary to appear like, an authentic diary or a stylized one.
In the corpus, addressing the reader is quite rare as shown in the following table.
Addressing Reader – Table 1
AS Cz Direct address Stylized Diaries A: I must tell you a fantasy - of mine. Diary Novels J: To attempt the subject - without ding it justice, would be a waste of your time, sweet reader...
31 Indirect address Stylized Diaries D: I scarce need tell the Vie: ...Sára reader that... neudělala nebo nepronesla něco čtenářsky vděčného Diary Novels - -
Addressing Reader – Table 2
AS Cz Direct address Stylized Diaries 0 0 Diary Novels 2 0 Indirect address Stylized Diaries 1 1 Diary Novels 0 0 Total 3 1
According to the table, the AS part of the corpus outnumbers the Cz one in terms of addressing the reader three to one – therefore addressing the reader may be said to be more characteristic for the AS part of the corpus.
To conclude this chapter that was devoted to the comparison of the AS vs. Cz originals of diaries in terms of features of “diariness”, it might be stated that both parts of the corpus do not differ dramatically – it must be born in mind that the corpus is relatively limited. However, the aim of the following chapter will be to compare the results of this analysis to results of the analysis of the translations of the AS part of the corpus into Czech vs. Cz part of the corpus, i.e. the original Cz diaries.
32 5. Features of “diariness” in Original Czech versus Translated Diary Literature.
The previous chapter was devoted to the analysis of Anglo-Saxon vs. Czech diary literature and was meant to constitute the basis for the analysis of the original Cz vs. AS diary literature translated into Czech. The aim of this chapter is to compare the original Czech and translated diary literature in order to find out what tradition is reflected in the translations, i.e. whether translators preserve the tradition of the genre in the SC, i.e. Anglo-Saxon, or if they prefer the norms of the TC, i.e. Czech.
The chapter will be organized according to the previous chapter - the sub- chapters dealing with the individual features of “diariness” as proposed above: thematic structure, formal organisation and rhetorical structure with a special emphasis set on the relevant issues such as syntactic devices in the sub-chapter dealing with formal structure and tense in the sub-chapter devoted to the rhetorical structure.
5.1 Thematic Structure. Content.
Generally, the thematic structure is the one that undergoes the least transformation in the process of translation and this fact applies in diary literature as well. The sub-genres that the individual diaries belong to are, therefore, preserved as well as the themes occurring in the individual diaries.
5.2 Formal Organisation.
5.2.1 Chapters.
The previous analysis showed that chapters are typical or more common in the
Anglo-Saxon part of the corpus and as such they seem to be preserved in the translations. See the tables.
Chapters – Table 3
33 Trans. Orig. Years W: 1919 Vách: 1938 Months F: Duben – Duševně vyrovnaná Vie: Leden Květen – Nástavající matka Pa: Listopad, Prosinec Š: (unnamed) - Va: (unnamed) Less than a conventional Gs: Hlava dvanáctá - month naming Hlava třináctá Hlava čtrnáctá characteristic T: Adrian Mole odchází z - event domova Mole na odboru pro životní prostředí Topic Gr: Šťastné chvilky - Váchlka Chvilky nebezpečí a strachu Práce spisovatele
Chapters – Table 4
Trans. Orig. Years 1 1 Months 2 3 Less than a month 2 0 Topic 1 0 No chapters 3 4 Total 9 8
As the table indicates, the proportionate use of the chapters and also the number of the various forms remains the same. The conclusion therefore is that the translators do not reflect the custom that proved to be to a certain extent typical for the original Cz part of the corpus, i.e. not to group entries into chapters, and did not deicde to omit chapters - they preserve the original concept.
5.2.2 Entries.
Entries, one of the most specific characteristic of the genre of diary literature in
34 general, are usually preserved in the translations without any modifications unless a voluminous work is translated as is the case of Virginia Woolf's The Diary of Virginia
Woolf which was originally published in several volumes. Its Czech translation consists of only one volume and that is why the work as a whole as well as the individual entries were shortened. With the other diarists, no differences in the length of entries are to be found.
The essential part of an entry that can be and frequently is modified in translation is a date.
5.2.2.1 Dates.
Dates – Table 3
Trans. Orig. D/M Gs: 17. prosince Vách: 13. března - Š: 12. ledna M/D - - D/M/Y A: 10. srpna 1900 Bu: 30. července 1994 Name of the day/D J: Sobota, 24. - Name of the day/D/M F: Neděle, 2. dubna Bitt: Úterý 7. listopadu W: Pondělí 5. srpna P: neděle 20. března T: Pondělí, 13. června Vie: Sobota 1/1 Pa: Pátek, 21. listopadu - Name of the day/M/D - - Name of the day/D/M/Y - Va: Pondělí 22. ledna 1979
Dates – Table 4
Trans. Orig. D/M 1 2 M/D 0 0 D/M/Y 1 1 Name of the day/D 1 0
35 Name of the day/D/M 3 3 Name of the day/M/D 0 0 Name of the day/D/M/Y 0 1 No dates 2 1 Total 9 8
As for the dates, the numbers are again more or less the same with several minor modifications which has to do with the usual format of writing dates in Cz as opposed to English. In Czech, the order is always D/M or Name of the day/D/M. That is why
Antonín Přidal translated Grossmith's December 17 as 17. prosince, Helena Hartlová translated Townsend's Monday, June 13th as Pondělí, 13. června and Tamara Váňová adapted Payne's Friday, November, 21 into Pátek, 21. listopadu.
The most popular form of writing dates in both Cz translations and Cz originals in the corpus remains Name of the day/D/M.
5.2.2.2 Entry Introduction.
Cz Transl. Cz Orig. F: 57 kg, 0 skleniček alkoholu (super), 0 O: Tolik samoty je kolem cigaret, 2250 kcal Až to praská Každý vláčí svoje hoře A co láska? Leží tam v oboře Nožky má nahoře A mlaská J: Obtíže při vedení tohoto deníku. Velké Bu: Jak malý krok pro lidstvo... mytí. Německá postel. Jak se s ní zachází. ISLAND Způsoby a obyčeje německé armády. Poloha: ostrov v severní části Posedlost B. Kolínská katedrála. Myšlenky Atlantského oceánu u severního beze slov. Zvláštní zvyk. polárního kruhu Rozloha: 103 000 km2 , členité pobřeží, hluboké zálivy
The proportionate use of entry introduction in Cz translations vs. Cz originals remains the same as in the previous analysis (AS originals vs Cz originals), two vs. two.
36 5.2.3 Linguistic Devices.
5.2.3.1 Syntactic Devices.
As was said in the previous chapter, a certain set of syntactic devices could be considered as typical for the genre of diary literature. The analysis proved that to be abbreviations and omissions as means of economic expression. Among the AS diaries, two books were highlighted which contain such devices – Bridget Jones's Diary and
The Diaries of Virginia Woolf.
In the translation of the former, Deník Bridget Jonesové, the translator Barbora
Puchalská wholly abandoned the practice of omitting and abbreviating and used the whole words (velmi dobře vs. v. g.) and complete verb forms (determined, now vs. rozhodla jsem se) and replaced the infinitives, which Fielding used for planning the future, by construction with future tenses . See the following table for more examples:
Went to meet Jude...Waved at him Čekala jsem na Jude...Když jsem na něj zamávala But not to mention idea to Sharon... Nesmím se o tom ale zmínit Sharon v.v.g. velmi dobře [sic!] v.v. bad, but have not weighed self hrůza, ale ani jsem se...nevážila Slimming obssession v. bad. Jsem posedlá hubnutím.
As for Woolf's Deníky, the translator Kateřina Hilská preserved the abbreviations of the proper names (L. for Woolf's husband Leonard in particular).
Comparing the Cz translations with the Cz originals in the corpus, omissions and abbreviations are to be found in one translation (Woolf ) and in one Cz original work
(Váchal). However, these devices are to be found in two AS originals. This fact leads to the question of whether the translator of that one book avoided this specific syntactic device as a reflection of the fact that it is statistically less common in the Cz part of the
37 corpus, or if it was a matter of other purposes such as the reader's better understanding.
The point is that in the case of Deník Bridget Jonesové, the text loses a bit of its authentic tone by the absence of omissions and abbreviations and the translation does not offer any other form of compensation. It leads to the conclusion that Barbora
Puchalská in Deník Bridget Jonesové wholly suppressed the features of the genre as such.
5.3 Rhetorical Structure.
5.3.1 Author's Perspective.
In all translations, the first person narrative is preserved, that is one of the main characteristics of diary literature as a whole. The only exception is still Irena
Obermannová's Deník šílené milenky with its er-form narrative.
5.3.2 Time Perspective.
The time perspecitve as a whole, in terms of preferring the retrospective method to recording the events in the course of writing underwent a bit of a change again in the
Cz translations vs. AS originals; the important aspect of the temporal determination that was somehow reflected in the translations is the grammatical category of tense. But before discussing tense, examining what changes the form of time indication underwent in the translation will be interesting.
5.3.2.1 Time Indication.
Speaking about the fact that the form of time indication did undergo some changes implies that the occurrence of it was not modified at all, i.e. time indication as such is preserved, but its form as changed to a certain extent. Therefore the table stating the proportionate use of an exact time indication remains the same as in the previous chapter.
38 Time Indication – Table 2
Cz Trans. Cz Orig. Time indication 1 3
By the modification of the form in which the time indication is stated, the transformation of the 12-hour clock notation into the 24-hour one is meant. This is, again, the case of Bridget Jones's Diary or Deník Bridget Jonesové, respectively, and also of Youth in Revolt and Mládí v hajzlu, as those are the two of the AS diaries using an exact time indication (21.00 vs. 9 p.m. in the former; 19.30 vs. 7:30 P.M in the latter).
5.3.2.2 Tense.
The previous analysis led to the conclusion that tense is an important device used in the narrative of diary literature as it influences the time perspective of the book.
The narrator's present or infinitive proved to be such devices that are able to modify an usual perception of the time perspective. The following table shows the narrator's present tense and infinitive usage in the translations vs. originals:
Tense – Table 4 - Narrator's Present vs. Infinitive
Cz Transl. Cz Orig. Narrator's Present J: Napřed nepozná, že je to Va: Jdu k Rudolfinu, syrově tu postel...Zazvoní na pokojskou táhne. Přecházím, tu ke mně a řekne jí, že mu vykázala přistane zelené auto, v něm špatný pokoj, že chtěl ložnici. Zdena. Ona odpoví...On se táže... Vie: Otec chce na rozdíl od ostatních poslouchat Klausův projev, takže nám stydne čočka. F: S náladou pod psa jsem se Bu: Byl jsem na palubě skoro vrátila do postele...O vstávání první, přede mnou stála jen nemůže být řeč. Myslím na Ischa...převáží terénní Daniela. automobil....stojí a hledí vstříc mohutným skaliskům...
39 - P: Šmátrám, pátrám, tiše štrachám, vyhazuji ven rezervní ponožky..., už je mi úplně jedno, že oba kluky probudím...já pátrala dál Infinitive - -
Tense – Table 5 - Narrator's Present vs. Infinitive
Cz Transl. Cz Orig. Narrator's Present 2 4 Infinitive 0 0 Total 2 4
The numbers indicating other tenses than past for describing past events remains the same again compared with the previous analysis, only the infinitive was substituted by the narrator's present in the case of Deník Bridget Jonesové. This is an example of 'shift' or 'transposition' using Peter Newmark's terminology. (Newmark
1988: 85)
The proportionate use of tense in terms of the narrator's present as opposed to the other tenses (present and past tense) is the same in the comparison of the AS originals vs. Cz originals as well as in that of Cz translations vs. Cz originals as shown in the following table.
Tense – Table 6
Cz Transl. Cz Orig. Narrator's Present (Infinitive) 2 4 Present Tense (used strictly for 3 3 present action) Past Tense Only 4 1 Total 9 8
40 Apart from Barbora Puchalská in Deník Bridget Jonesové, none of the other translators decided to shift the time perspective into the narrator's present which proved to be typical for the Cz part of the corpus of diary literature. To conclude, the feature of tense is reflected with respect to the AS part of the corpus in the Cz translations and the tense of the English original is preserved in all the translations of the whole corpus.
5.3.3 Addressing the Reader.
Another device of the rhetorical structure that was analysed in the previous chapter was the method of addressing the reader.
Addressing Reader – Table 3
Cz Transl. Cz Orig. Direct address Stylized Diaries - - Diary Novels A: Musím vám vyprávět - jeden příběh. J: Pokoušet se o něco, co - nejsem by bylo maření času, tvého času, milý čtenáři... Indirect address Stylized Diaries D: Nemusím jistě čtenáři Vie: ...Sára říkat... neudělala nebo nepronesla něco čtenářsky vděčného Diary Novels - -
Addressing Reader – Table 4
Cz Transl. Cz Orig. Direct address Stylized Diaries 0 0 Diary Novels 2 0 Indirect address Stylized Diaries 1 1 Diary Novels 0 0 Total 3 1
41 The tables show that the proportionate use as well as the form of the addresses were not transformed in the process of translation – translations outnumber the originals three to one and the conclusion is that the ways of addressing the reader which are to be found in the AS part of the corpus were preserved in the Cz translations.
The conclusion of this chapter which is devoted to the comparison of Cz translations of AS diaries in the corpus with Cz original diaries is that translators tend to preserve the features of “diariness” of AS diaries in their Cz translations. It certainly is not very difficult since the features do not differ much in both parts of the corpus as was proved by the previous analysis in chapter four.
42 6. Conclusion.
The aim of my thesis was to find out what features of “diariness” or norms are to be found in Anglo-Saxon and Czech traditions of the genre of diary literature – to what extent they differ or are common, and how the difference is reflected by translators of
AS diaries into Czech.
The comparison of AS originals with Cz originals proved that there are several slight differences among the features of “diariness”. Among the aspects of formal structure, it is grouping entries into chapters that is more common in the AS part of the corpus than the Cz one (six to four). Among the aspects of rhetorical structure, it is narrator's present tense (or infinitive) usage that proved to be more common in the Cz part of the corpus than the AS part (four to two).
Differences among the other aspects of both formal and rhetorical structures turned out to be either insignificant in terms of numbers (e.g. time indication that is to be found in two AS diaries as opposed to three Cz ones) or so various in form that they were impossible to express statistically (e.g. various forms of writing dates). The results of this analysis were used as a basis for the following analysis of Cz translations of AS diaries vs. Cz original diaries in order to find out to what extent the translators of AS diaries reflected the differences that were detected.
The comparison of Cz translations with Cz originals showed that in the aspects that differed relatively significantly in the previous analysis, the translators adhered to the AS originals and with only one exception of Brabora Puchalská, a translator of
Bridget Jones's Diary, tried to preserve the original concept of the genre in the translated diaries.
43 Speaking of the AS and Cz traditions and norms may be considered to be too bold as the chosen corpus was relatively small consisting of a mere seventeen books.
Results of the provided analyses are therefore not applicable to the genre as a whole.
For more generally applicable conclusions, a far more extensive corpus would be required. Nevertheless, this thesis may be used as a basis for further analysis of more diaries.
44 7. Bibliography.
7.1 Primary Sources.
Ackroyd, Peter. The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde. London: Sphere Books, 1988.
Ackroyd, Peter. Fiktivní deník OscaraWildea. Trans. Eva Veselá. Praha: Orsini, 2006.
Bittner, Jan. Deník kastelána. Brno: Petrov, 2000.
Burian, Jan. Sága o cestě na Island. Praha: Primus, 2000.
Defoe, Daniel. A Journal of the Plague Year. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1928.
Defoe, Daniel. Deník morového roku. Trans. František Fröhlich. Praha: Odeon, 1982.
Fielding, Helen. Bridget Jones's Diary. London: Picador, 1996.
Fielding, Helen. Deník Bridget Jonesové. Trans. Barbora Puchalská. Praha: Aurora,
1998.
Greene, Graham. World of My Own: A Dream Diary. London: Penguin Books, 1993.
Greene, Graham. Můj svět: Deník snů. Trans. Miroslav Soukup. Praha: BB Art, 2001.
Grossmith, George. The Diary of a Nobody. New York: J. M. Dent, 1940.
Grossmith, George. Deník pana Nuly. Trans. Mirek Čejka (Antonín Přidal). Praha:
Odeon, 1974.
Jerome, Jerome Klapka. Diary of a Pilgrimage. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1892.
Jerome, Jerome Klapka. Poutníkův deník. Trans. Ladislav Vojtig. Praha: Garamond,
1999.
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