View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of East Anglia digital repository POLISH-JEWISH FICTION BEFORE THE SECOND WORLD WAR: A TESTING GROUND FOR POLYSYSTEM THEORY WANDA JÓZWIKOWSKA Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Literary Translation University of East Anglia School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing September 2016 © This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived there from must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution. ABSTRACT In this thesis, I intend to show that it is possible to offer a partial explanation for the fact that pre-war Polish-Jewish fiction has been recognised only to a very limited extent in Britain. In doing this, I embrace the limitations and unaddressed areas of polysystem theory, an approach that leads to several contributions to this theory so that it is more suited to look at marginal translations. In this study, the source context and the largely hypothetical target context (given the predominant lack of English translations) of pre-war Polish-Jewish fiction are conceptualised as systems informed by a variety of factors. I begin by introducing polysystem theory in Chapter 1, where I also explain the rationale for its use in this study. I also briefly define pre-war Polish-Jewish fiction and elaborate on the nature of its visibility in Britain. I then go on to consider, in Chapter 2, the origins and the characteristics of the literature in question in search of factors that inform the current status of this literature in Britain. In Chapter 3, I focus on specific aspects of British culture and history to identify factors embedded in the target context that inform the current limited recognition of pre-war Polish-Jewish fiction in Britain. In Chapters 4 and 5, I turn to the texts of the few English translations of Polish-Jewish works of fiction; and consider the dynamics of their publishing processes respectively. Finally, the conclusions I draw in final Chapter 6 are that polysystem theory can be applied to account for the limited attention paid to pre-war Polish-Jewish fiction as a whole in Britain; and, possibly, to account for other largely unacknowledged literary works in other contexts. Moreover, drawing on the results of this study, I suggest ways in which the current status of the literature I am concerned with can be changed in future. My main contribution is that of the new concept of a systemic gap, which in this study represents largely untranslated writing in British literature, and which has enabled me to address the question of the limited reception of Polish-Jewish fiction in Britain. In the light of these findings, I argue that it is useful to look at untranslated texts and largely unrecognised translations because such research can offer new insights into the practice and the theory of translation. 2 POLISH-JEWISH FICTION BEFORE THE SECOND WORLD WAR: A TESTING GROUND FOR POLYSYSTEM THEORY CONTENTS A note on terminology 7 Acknowledgements 8 1 INTRODUCTION 9 1.1 Why polysystem theory? 9 1.2 Reasons for testing polysystem theory 16 1.3 The meaning of “Polish-Jewish” 17 1.4 Pre-war Polish-Jewish fiction 21 1.5 The meaning of “visibility” 24 1.6 Structure of the thesis 27 2 SOURCE LANGUAGE POLYSYSTEM FACTORS 35 2.1 Historical and socio-political factors in the source polysystem that militate 38 against translation 2.1.1 Jewish autonomy as a historical factor 38 2.1.2 Emancipation and Haskalah as sociocultural factors 44 2.1.3 Politics in the Second Polish Republic (1918-1939) as a political factor 46 2.2 Literary factors in the source polysystem that militate against translation 47 2.2.1 Translation-unfriendly content of pre-war Polish-Jewish prose fiction 47 2.2.2 Translation-resistant nature of pre-war Polish-Jewish prose fiction 55 2.2.3 The lack of visibility of pre-war Polish-Jewish fiction in contemporary 59 Poland 2.3 Linguistic factors in the source language polysystem that militate against 63 translation 2.3.1 Yiddish in pre-war Polish-Jewish fiction – a linguistic and stylistic 63 hindrance to translation 2.3.2 Polish in pre-war Polish-Jewish fiction – a linguistic and stylistic 65 hindrance to translation 3 TARGET LANGUAGE POLYSYSTEM FACTORS 69 3.1 Historical and socio-political factors in the target polysystem that militate 70 against translation 3.1.1 Discontinuous presence of Jews in Britain as a historical factor 70 3.1.2 Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe as a socio-political factor 75 3.1.3 English reticence as a sociocultural factor 78 3.1.4 Other historical factors 79 3.2 Literary factors in the target polysystem that militate against translation 80 3.2.1 The system of British-Jewish literature 81 3 3.2.1.1 Established British-Jewish literature and Jewish identity 82 3.2.1.2 British-Jewish immigrant literature and Jewish identity 86 3.2.1.3 Disruption in established British-Jewish literature 90 3.2.1.4 Non-Holocaust British-Jewish literature and Jewish identity 98 3.2.1.5 British-Jewish Holocaust literature and Jewish identity 102 3.2.1.6 Contemporary fiction and Jewish identity 104 3.2.2 The system of translated Polish literature 106 3.2.3 The system of Jewish literature 110 3.2.3.1 The system of Israeli Hebrew literature 111 3.2.3.2 The system of Yiddish and Holocaust writing 113 3.3 Linguistic factors in the target polysystem that militate against translation 118 4 PRE-WAR POLISH-JEWISH FICTION IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION 121 4.1 Rationale for a textual analysis 121 4.2 Textual shifts in Loves and Ambitions and Salt of the Earth 122 4.2.1 Quantitative impoverishment of the target text 126 4.2.2 Destruction of the original vernacular plurality in the target text 133 4.2.3 Contradictory shifts in the paratexts of the target text 141 4.2.4 Omission of names in the target text 144 4.2.5 Clarification 148 4.3 Textual shifts in “The Eternally Wandering Jew” 153 4.4 Textual shifts in The Street of Crocodiles 158 4.5 Translation approach as a factor in polysystem theory 168 4.6 Textual features of the target text in the concept of a systemic gap 170 5 RECEPTION OF PRE-WAR POLISH-JEWISH FICTION 173 5.1 Methodological approach and rationale 173 5.2 Situational context 176 5.2.1 Naglerowa’s Loves and Ambitions (London, 1954) 176 5.2.2 Schulz’s Cinnamon Shops (London, 1963) 179 5.2.3 Wittlin’s Salt of the Earth (London, 1939) 181 5.3 Publishers in the network 182 5.3.1 Naglerowa’s Loves and Ambitions 183 5.3.2 Schulz’s Cinnamon Shops 185 5.3.3 Wittlin’s Salt of the Earth 187 5.4 Translators in the network 188 5.4.1 Naglerowa’s Loves and Ambitions 189 5.4.2 Schulz’s Cinnamon Shops 190 5.4.3 Wittlin’s Salt of the Earth 191 5.5 Reception 193 5.5.1 Naglerowa’s Loves and Ambitions 193 5.5.2 Schulz’s Cinnamon Shops 194 5.5.3 Wittlin’s Salt of the Earth 199 5.6 Polish-Jewish literature in British-published anthologies 201 4 6 CONCLUSION 205 6.1 Why polysystem theory? 205 6.1.1 Explanation of the systemic gap 206 6.1.2 Further changes to polysystem theory 210 6.2 Practical benefits of this study 214 6.3 Reasons for researching less visible literatures 218 Bibliography 221 Appendix 1 260 Appendix 2 263 Appendix 3 264 Appendix 4 266 Appendix 5 267 5 List of Tables and Figures Tables Table 1 Pre-war Polish-Jewish fiction translated into English 23 Table 2 Examples of pre-war Polish-Jewish prose fiction 29 Table 3 The availability of pre-war Polish-Jewish prose fiction by 60 selected writers Table 4 Quantitative impoverishment translation shifts in Loves and 127 Ambitions Table 4a Counter-examples to quantitative impoverishment 130 translation shifts in Loves and Ambitions Table 5 Quantitative impoverishment translation shifts in 131 Salt of the Earth Table 6 Translation shifts of the destruction of the original 134 vernacular plurality in Loves and Ambitions Table 6a Counter-examples to translation shifts of the destruction of 136 the original vernacular plurality in Loves and Ambitions Table 7 Table 7 Destruction of the original vernacular plurality in 138 Salt of the Earth Table 8 Paratexts in Loves and Ambitions 141 Table 9 Omission of names in Loves and Ambitions 145 Table 9a Counter-examples to omission of names in Loves and 147 Ambitions Table 10 Clarification shifts in Loves and Ambitions 149 Table 11 Clarification shifts in Salt of the Earth 151 Table 12 Translation shifts in “The Eternally Wandering Jew” 154 Table 13 Quantitative impoverishment in Cinnamon Shops 159 Table 14 Erasure of vernacular plurality in Cinnamon Shops 162 Table 15 Shifts in the translation of names in Cinnamon Shops 165 Table 16 Clarification shifts in Cinnamon Shops 166 Table 17 The overview of factors that explain the gap 209 6 Figures Figure 1 A systemic representation of the particular areas of 12 British literature Figure 2 Dependencies of signs in the form of a chain 125 A note on terminology Literary works by Polish Jews written specifically in the Polish language are referred to as “Polish-Jewish” while literature by Polish Jews more broadly, regardless of the language (which could include Polish, Hebrew or Yiddish), is termed “Polish Jewish” (without a hyphen).