Masarykova univerzita Filozofická fakulta Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Bakalářská diplomová práce 2011 Anežka Sobotková Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Anežka Sobotková An Analysis of Czech Translations of English Texts on Wicca Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Renata Kamenická, Ph. D. 2011 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature Table of Contents 1 Introduction.................................................................................................................1 2 What is Wicca..............................................................................................................3 2.1 The Gardnerian Tradition.....................................................................................4 2.2 The Alexandrian tradition....................................................................................4 3 The corpus...................................................................................................................5 3.1 Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft by Raymond Buckland......................6 3.2 What Witches Do by Stewart Farrar....................................................................9 3.3 Witchcraft Today by Gerald Brosseau Gardner.................................................11 3.4 The translations..................................................................................................14 3.4.1 Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft: The Czech translation by Jana Novotná..................................................................................................................14 3.4.2 What Witches Do: The Czech translation by Lily Sekytová......................18 3.4.3 Witchcraft Today: The Czech translation by Jan Auský............................20 4 The analyses of selected vocabulary items................................................................22 4.1 Coven.................................................................................................................23 4.2 Wicca..................................................................................................................27 4.3 Wiccan (a noun and an adjective)......................................................................30 4.4 Witch (a noun)....................................................................................................32 4.5 Witch (an attributive adjective)..........................................................................37 4.6 Perform..............................................................................................................40 4.7 Practice (a noun) and practise (a verb)..............................................................41 4.8 Cast....................................................................................................................44 4.9 So mote it be......................................................................................................47 4.10 Chant (a noun and a verb)................................................................................48 4.11 Blessed be........................................................................................................50 4.12 Initiation and dedication..................................................................................52 4.13 Heathen and pagan...........................................................................................54 4.14 Belief................................................................................................................57 4.15 Beliefs..............................................................................................................59 5 Conclusion.................................................................................................................61 References.......................................................................................................................63 Résumé (English)............................................................................................................68 Resumé (Czech)...............................................................................................................69 1 Introduction In the last decades, interest in alternative spirituality has increased both in Europe and the USA and new spiritual movements and paths started to emerge. Many of these paths can be labelled Neo-Pagan because they are, to different degrees, inspired by pre- Christian (mainly) European Pagan religions, while hugely differing from all those in that they are designed to fit the spiritual needs of (post)modern European or American people. Wicca, which is part of this thesis's background, is one of these paths. This bachelor thesis does not deal with Wicca or any other spiritual path in general, though. Rather than that, it is concerned with translated literature through which Wicca was introduced to the Czech readership. Czech translations of books on Wicca started to emerge in the 1990's and the interest has much increased since that time: Wicca is a label that sells today. Even though it is very difficult to tell, as there are no official data available, it can be presumed that it was through translated literature that Wicca found its way into the Czech environment and started to be practised by Czechs. This means that translated literature has played an important role in the process. It is unfortunate, in this respect, that many popular books on Wicca (and other alternative spiritual paths) did not receive a professional treatment in terms of translation. As will be shown in the chapters on the translations included in the corpus this thesis is based on, some of the translations are rather substandard and bear hints of the translator's lack of language and translation skills and factual knowledge of the subject. The main motivation for writing an analysis of translated texts on Wicca was the fact that a poor translation may discredit the book in the eyes of some readers and prevent them from actually seeing the content through the unfit “wrapping”. Wicca, for instance, 1 while becoming considerably popular, has not received much scholarly attention in the Czech Republic. Although whole chapters could be written on the subject of stylistic imperfections or imperfections caused by a lack of either translation skills or factual knowledge, this topic is left aside in this thesis (with the exception of some general comments on the translated books dealt with) because it is connected to translation in general, rather than being specific to texts on Wicca. In order to make the output beneficial or, a potential source of useful information for future translators on the subject of Wicca or other Neo- Pagan paths, this thesis focuses on some most common lexis and terminology specific to the Neo-Pagan/Wiccan context, which occur in the majority of writings on the topic dealt with and which are hard to translate into Czech. For this purpose, an analysis of three books on Wicca and their Czech translations was done and each of the selected hard-to-render concepts was given a chapter, in which the meanings of the expressions are explained, if needed, and the various ways they got translated by the translators are compared, discussed, and questioned. In some chapters, additional possible solutions not suggested by any of the translators are included. The most important part of the thesis is the analysis of the individual hard-to-render concepts from the three books chosen. Nevertheless, some background information had to be brought forth, too, to establish the context. In addition to the pieces of relevant cultural information included throughout the text, there is also a chapter explaining the term “Wicca” at the very beginning of the thesis. In the following part, the choice of primary literature is accounted for and the three books and their authors are briefly introduced. The translated Czech books are given similar introductions with the difference that the scope of these embraces the technical side of the issue (meaning the 2 quality of the translations) more than the cultural background and significance of the books. The final part, then, contains 15 chapters, wherein the individual lexical items are discussed. 2 What is Wicca Wicca is a contemporary spiritual religion, based on and reviving the ancient pre-Christian pagan religions of Europe. Wiccans believe in a divine force or power as the source of all. It [this power] is both immanent and transcendent while encompassing the whole universe. Therefore the world and all aspects within the world, "nature" and "life itself" in particular, are considered sacred (Knowles, n.d.). The religion was founded by Gerald Brosseau Gardner in the early 1950's as a mystery tradition with a degree system and a notable influence from occultism. Since that time, however, it has become the main source of inspiration to many rather eclectic spiritual paths, which still use the label “Wicca”. The term is thus much broader than it was fifty years ago, as is quite evident from the above description by Knowles. There are two deities in Wicca, the God and the Goddess. Often labelled “The Horned God” and “The Mother Goddess”, they correspond to the male-female duality of the Universe (Farrar, 2010, p. 32). There is no moral code comparable to the Christian commandments. However,