University of Ljubljana Press Založba Univerze v Ljubljani Ljubljana, 2023 ISSN 1581-8918 nglish anguage verseas erspectives and nquiries Journal Editors: Smiljana KOMAR and Mojca KREVEL Vol. 20, No. 2 (2023) Journal Editors: Smiljana KOMAR and Mojca KREVEL University of Ljubljana Press Založba Univerze v Ljubljani Ljubljana, 2023 Vol. 20, No. 2 (2023) nglish anguage verseas erspectives and nquiries 3 Contents PART I: LANGUAGE Dubravka Vidaković Erdeljić, Goran Milić 9 Should Green Always Get the Green Light? Translation of Figurative Technical Terms in View of Conceptual Integration Theory Ali mora zelena barva vedno dobiti zeleno luč? Prevajanje figurativnih strokovnih izrazov z vidika teorije pojmovne integracije PART II: LITERATURE María Laura Arce Álvarez 33 Invisible or “The Fine Art of Scribbling:” Paul Auster’s Metafiction in Postmodern Narrative Discourse Invisible ali “umetnost kracanja”: metafikcija Paula Austerja v postmodernem pripovednem diskurzu David Hazemali, Tomaž Onič 49 “Canning the Kaiser” in Words and Images: Case Studies of Patriotic American Propaganda from WWI »Konzerviranje kajzerja« v besedi in podobi: študiji primera ameriške domoljubne propagande iz prve svetovne vojne Goutam Karmakar, Rajendra Chetty 65 Epistemic Responsibility and Community Engagement in Sindiwe Magona’s Beauty’s Gift Epistemična odgovornost in angažma skupnosti v romanu Beauty’s Gift Sindiweje Magona 5 PART III: ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TEACHING Ivana Cindrić, Ivana Milković 83 Storytime in English Language Teaching – Teachers’ Practices, Attitudes, and Challenges Pripovedovanje zgodb pri pouku angleščine – raba v razredu, stališča in izzivi učiteljev PART IV: TRANSLATION STUDIES John Stubbs 105 Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Slovene Translation of Janez Menart Shakespearovi Soneti v slovenskem prevodu Janeza Menarta LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 123 Part I Language 9LANGUAGE Should Green Always Get the Green Light? Translation of Figurative Technical Terms in View of Conceptual Integration Theory ABSTRACT The paper is a case study analysing the process of secondary term formation by looking into the introduction of figurative terms in the field of economics from English, as the current lingua franca in the field, into Croatian. Although the primary focus is on the terminological gap-filling function of figurative terms, the paper also explores what happens in translation when a term conveys more functions (e.g., ideology constitutive function). Our approach is usage-based in that our conclusions are founded on the observations of how the analysed figurative terms behave in real communication (official documents, research papers, magazines, newspapers, blogs, etc.). The paper also argues for the applicability of the Conceptual Integration Theory as a framework able to account for the meaning construal in the process of translation and for translators’ choices. The translational process is thus seen as discourse-pragmatic phenomenon involving the transfer of cognitive categories, crucially determined by both intercultural and interlingual factors. Keywords: figurative terms, translation, conceptual integration theory, terminological gap- filling function, ideology constitutive function of terms Ali mora zelena barva vedno dobiti zeleno luč? Prevajanje figurativnih strokovnih izrazov z vidika teorije pojmovne integracije IZVLEČEK Prispevek je študija primera, ki analizira proces oblikovanja sekundarnih izrazov, in sicer z uvajanjem figurativnih izrazov na področje ekonomije iz angleščine, trenutne lingue france na tem področju, v hrvaščino. Čeprav je v ospredju predvsem terminološko zapolnjevanje vrzeli s figurativnimi izrazi, članek raziskuje tudi, kaj se zgodi v prevodu, ko termin izraža več funkcij (npr. funkcijo konstituiranja ideologije). Naš pristop temelji na rabi, naše ugotovitve pa na opazovanju, kako se analizirani figurativni izrazi obnašajo v resničnem sporazumevanju (uradni dokumenti, raziskovalni članki, revije, časopisi, blogi itd.). Članek zagovarja tudi uporabnost teorije pojmovne integracije kot okvirja, s katerim je mogoče pojasniti pomen- sko konstrukcijo v procesu prevajanja in prevajalčeve odločitve. Prevajalski proces je tako obravnavan kot diskurzivno-pragmatični pojav, ki vključuje prenos kognitivnih kategorij in je ključno pogojen z medkulturnimi in medjezikovnimi dejavniki. Ključne besede: figurativni izrazi, prevajanje, teorija pojmovne integracije, terminološko zapolnjevanje vrzeli, terminološko konstituiranje ideologije Dubravka Vidaković Erdeljić, Goran Milić University of Osijek, Croatia 2023, Vol. 20 (2), 9-29(126) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.20.2.9-29 UDC: 811.111'373.72:81'25=163.42 10 Dubravka Vidaković Erdeljić, Goran Milić Should Green Always Get the Green Light? Translation of Figurative ... 1 Introduction One of the fundamental claims of General Terminology Theory (henceforth: GTT) (Wüster 1979) was that general language words and specialized terms differ from one another because, unlike in general language, there is a monosemic reference between terms and concepts they designate. Accordingly, one of the primary goals of GTT was to eliminate ambiguity from specialized communication through standardization of terminology. However, such an approach was deemed too prescriptive and entirely inadequate to account for how terms are actually used in real communication. With the advent of cognitive-based terminology theories (Cabré 1999; 2000; 2003; Temmermann 1997; 2000; 2002; Faber Benítez, Márquez Linares and Vega Expósito 2005; Faber et al. 2006; Faber et al. 2007) the focus has shifted towards the study of meaning, actual use of terms in specialized discourse and conceptual structures underlying them (Faber Benítez 2009). It is argued that in specialized languages polysemy and synonymy occur frequently. Term variation, as a result of different verbal, situational and cognitive contexts in discourse (Temmerman, Kerremans and Vandervoort 2005), is a rule rather than exception, and figurative language is used routinely, not only for aesthetic purposes, but also to facilitate understanding of new concepts and theories, convey ideology and to fill terminological gaps. As cognitive linguists with an inclination towards practical application, in the present paper we build on the abovementioned principles of cognitive-based terminology theories in our attempt to explore what Sager (1990) dubs secondary term formation, where a new term is created for a concept emerging “as a result of knowledge transfer to another linguistic community” (1990, 80). More precisely, we analyse the translational counterparts of technical terms from economics, introduced into Croatian from English as the current lingua franca in the field. Our main focus is on the field of economics, as we find it especially convenient for the study of figurative terminology due to its being very rich in figurative language in general, as testified by many discourse studies (e.g., Boers 1999; Charteris-Black 2004; Fukuda 2009) applying the conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Of course, we do not claim that other fields of specialized language are less rich in figurative terminology as there are many studies amply testifying to the ubiquity of metaphors and figurative terminology in all sorts of specialized discourse (e.g., Faber 2012; Frezza and Gagliasso 2017; Rossi 2017a). However, another reason for confining our attention to economics discourse is the fact that it is also equally suitable for the study of term variation as it spans different discourse situations, ranging from highly specialized journals, academic (text)books and popular economics discourse found in the media (cf. Herrera-Soler and White 2012). The focus is put on figurative terminology, as it poses an enormous challenge for translators who, as mediators between two different cultures and linguistic systems, struggle to find a way to keep the same or similar metaphorical scenario in the target language, which would at the same time be able to convey other intended pragmatic and aesthetic functions of the specific term (cf. Fuertes Olivera and Pizarro Sánchez 2002). In exploring the translation of technical terms, we also side with Bin (2003) who, building on Turner and Fauconnier (1995) and Fauconnier and Turner (2002), argues for understanding Should Green Always Get the Green Light? Translation of Figurative ... 11LANGUAGE translation as an emergent, integrated structure, resulting from a dynamic process of conceptual integration (blending). In the present paper we therefore apply the Conceptual Integration Theory (henceforth: CIT) (Turner and Fauconnier 1995; Fauconnier and Turner 2002) to the process of interpretation in full support of “the return of sense on the scene of translation”, as aptly put by Fougner Rydning (2005). The translational process is thus seen as discourse- pragmatic phenomenon involving the transfer of cognitive categories, crucially determined by both intercultural and interlingual factors. Our starting point is therefore the idea that Conceptual Integration Theory “appears to offer translation theorists a general model of sense construction which enables them to account for the cognitive mechanisms underlying sense construction which are central in translation” (Fougner Rydning 2005, 402). Our approach is also descriptive and usage-based (Langacker 2000), since our goal is to account for how the analysed terms are used in real communication by resorting to evidence obtained through the observation of real language data. After a brief overview of the particular characteristics of figurative language and terminology in specialized discourse following this introduction, the basics of the CIT are presented in Section 3, with particular emphasis on its relation to the other staple theory of figurative language in cognitive linguistics, viz. the Conceptual Metaphor and Metonymy Theory (henceforth: CMMT). The central part of the paper features case studies of three English figurative terms from the discourse of economics, and their Croatian translational counterparts with particular reliance on the CIT, followed by the discussion of the findings and the conclusion. 2 Figurative Terminology in Theory and Practice Figurative conceptualization has for some time now been recognized as a staple in specialized discourse (e.g., Schlanger 1995; Agorni 2014; Milić and Vidaković Erdeljić 2017; Rossi 2017b). Figurative language and its underlying cognitive mechanisms (conceptual metaphor, conceptual metonymy and blending) are indispensable mechanisms for understanding abstract thought as well as a basic technique for reasoning. As such, and as argued by Naciscione (2003), it plays a vital role in science and research (Taylor 1995; Mithen 1999) by not only enabling the construal “of new meanings and abstract concepts, but also sensible arguments and intelligent judgements”. As a fundamental part of human cognitive functioning, it may consequently be seen as discourse-constitutive (Agorni 2014, 87) or, as Schlanger (1995) puts it, theory-constitutive in that it both permeates the thinking within a discipline, as well as actively produces and perpetuates it by facilitating the grasping of new theories. In addition to its discourse-constitutive function, Agorni (2014) also distinguishes among the communicative, pedagogical and terminological gap-filling functions of figurative language. Its communicative function is linked to the traditional view of metaphor as an aesthetic device, but also one of influence and persuasion, instrumental in the building of ideology. By using a certain metaphor, we bring into the spotlight particular aspects of reality, while leaving others in the dark. This provides metaphors with their suggestive power which can be exploited to persuade and manipulate (Resche 2012). Rossi (2017b, 194) labels such metaphors ideology- constitutive as they are “specifically chosen in order to convey a message about a given society 12 Dubravka Vidaković Erdeljić, Goran Milić Should Green Always Get the Green Light? Translation of Figurative ... and culture” and are “aimed at influencing a collective perception”. The pedagogical function is closely related to LSP (Language for Specific Purposes), as figurative language is used to explain technical concepts in addition to naming them, where it meets the terminological gap-filling function. The latter function of metaphors in LSP has been recognized as one of the most interesting aspects in the field of metaphor studies in that figurative uses often “grow into technical terms” (Agorni 2014, 8). Figurative language in the LSP is thus not a mere embellishment or a deviation, but rather performs a lexical-supplementary function (Goatly 2011, 154–77; Temmerman 2002). Figurative technical terms “help synthetise a notion or a conceptual area that could only be represented through a long description otherwise” (Agorni 2014, 88; Resche 2017). Agorni (ibid.) further observes that the terminological gap-filling function of metaphors is not independent from their other functions but interacts with them. Such lexicalizations of metaphors (Temmerman 2000) may, however, turn out problematic in areas such as translation, as they foreground both the complexities of the translation process, as well as the above-postulated strong link between language and culture(s) in lieu of the ubiquitous asymmetry and anisomorphism between the two that this process has to negotiate (Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk 2010). The issue of translators’ agency in the process is clearly in focus here, as producers of “mediated discourse”, situated between different linguistic and cultural systems – who are tasked with (first) establishing “priorities among the different functions that figurative language plays in the source text, and the associations that such images may activate in the mind of the reader” (Miller and Monti 2014, xi). Previous research by Fuertes Olivera and others (1998; Fuertes Olivera and Velasco Sacristán 2001; Fuertes Olivera and Pizarro Sánchez 2002) suggests that the preferred move of translators of texts in economics is to look for an exact equivalent of the original metaphor, rather than try to find another metaphorical expression with a similar meaning, or replace the original figure with an approximate literal paraphrase. The run-of-the mill solution and view is to preserve a technical term in translation, possibly in the form of loan translations. The strategy is argued to be a deliberate way of satisfying the two basic functions of metaphors, the technical and stylistic/pragmatic, as it may result in metaphorical neologisms through the creation of new similarities between the source and target domains. Their additional benefit of reproducing the novelty and vividness of the original metaphor (Agorni 2014, 89) is an extra pragmatic effect suggested in specific specialized discourses such as popular business discourse, as readers can simultaneously activate both the literal and figurative meanings yet recognize their terminological function. The process may ultimately result in the introduction of new mappings into the TL. The case studies presented below represent another step in a more detailed investigation of the potential ways of rendering terminology in translation. We are primarily interested in whether translators are able to convey all the functions figurative terms accommodate, what obstacles they encounter and what creative solutions they resort to. As we believe that the CIT is extremely potent in accounting for meaning construal in novel online conceptualizations, such as translation of figurative terminology, in the next section we briefly describe the most important ideas behind the CIT. 13LANGUAGE 3 Conceptual Integration Theory in Meaning Construction: Basic Terms and Juxtaposition with CMMT (as Models of Translation) Since there are many practical and concise overviews of the CIT (e.g., Köveceses 2002), we will focus on presenting the basics and its relation to the other key cognitive linguistic theory concerning figurative language – the Conceptual Metaphor and Metonymy Theory (henceforth: CMMT; Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Also known as the many-space model, the CIT (Turner and Fauconnier 1997; Fauconnier and Turner 2003; Coulson and Oakley 2000; Coulson, Oakley and Grady 1999) contends that the construction of sense can be accounted for in terms of blending, i.e., setting up a conceptual integration network, which involves (prototypically four) mental spaces. The latter contain “representations of the entities and relationships in any given scenario as perceived, imagined, remembered, or otherwise understood by a speaker” (Coulson and Oakley 2003). In prototypical conceptual integration, the partial structure from two or more mental input spaces is selectively projected and compressed in(to) a blend, which often develops emergent structure of its own, often absent from the input spaces, as structures from different mental spaces are projected into it. It occurs in understanding of the full meaning of a message, and draws on both conventionalized conceptual mappings as postulated in CMMT, and immediate context(s), i.e., discourse. A fourth, generic space, contains a skeletal conceptual structure common to the input spaces and licenses the projection. An oft-quoted example, usually used to both illustrate meaning creation, i.e., emergence of new meaning, and Figure 1. The conceptual integration network for Surgeon as a butcher blend (adapted from Grady, Oakley and Coulson 1999, 105). FIGURE 1. The conceptual integration network for Surgeon as a butcher blend (adapted from Grady, Oakley and Coulson 1999, 105). Although the CIT is a framework different from that of the CTMM, it is complementary to it. Blending goes beyond conceptual metaphor in several respects: a. Domains vs. mental spaces. Whereas metaphors are stable and systematic relationships between two conceptual domains, the basic unit of blending is a mental space, a temporary notion which speakers construct for immediate purposes, or when thinking or talking about perceived or imagined situations in the past and in the future. b. Two domains vs. four spaces. Metaphors involve mapping between two conceptual domains; blending, on the other hand, typically relies on a four-space model (two input spaces, plus a generic and a blend space). c. It is an emergent structure. Four-space models can account for phenomena hidden in two-domain models. d. Dynamism vs. stability as focus. The CMMT’s focus primarily lies in the identification of regular, conventional patterns of conceptualization underlying (ultimately figurative) linguistic expressions, whereas blending often explicitly addresses novel and unique examples. Blending thus seems better equipped to account for the construction of emergent meaning, e.g., in translation, than conceptual metaphors. In the course of translation, the process of meaning construal occurs twice, the first time when the original term is encountered by the translator in the SL and then the second time when the translator tries to reformulate the sense of the term in the TL (cf. Fougner Rydning 2005). Our model of conceptual integration in the process of translation is, however, a simplified one in which two meaning construals, namely interpretation of the SL term and its reformulation into 14 Dubravka Vidaković Erdeljić, Goran Milić Should Green Always Get the Green Light? Translation of Figurative ... represent the conceptual integration network graphically, is the analysis of Veale’s (1996) This surgeon is a butcher (resulting in the emergent meaning of the surgeon’s incompetence), which we reproduce here for convenience and illustration of the main components and mechanisms of the theory. Although the CIT is a framework different from that of the CTMM, it is complementary to it. Blending goes beyond conceptual metaphor in several respects: a. Domains vs. mental spaces. Whereas metaphors are stable and systematic relationships between two conceptual domains, the basic unit of blending is a mental space, a temporary notion which speakers construct for immediate purposes, or when thinking or talking about perceived or imagined situations in the past and in the future. b. Two domains vs. four spaces. Metaphors involve mapping between two conceptual domains; blending, on the other hand, typically relies on a four-space model (two input spaces, plus a generic and a blend space). c. It is an emergent structure. Four-space models can account for phenomena hidden in two-domain models. d. Dynamism vs. stability as focus. The CMMT’s focus primarily lies in the identification of regular, conventional patterns of conceptualization underlying (ultimately figurative) linguistic expressions, whereas blending often explicitly addresses novel and unique examples. Blending thus seems better equipped to account for the construction of emergent meaning, e.g., in translation, than conceptual metaphors. In the course of translation, the process of meaning construal occurs twice, the first time when the original term is encountered by the translator in the SL and then the second time when the translator tries to reformulate the sense of the term in the TL (cf. Fougner Rydning 2005). Our model of conceptual integration in the process of translation is, however, a simplified one in which two meaning construals, namely interpretation of the SL term and its reformulation into TL, are, for the sake of convenience, compressed into one illustration. Our model features two input spaces, the SL input featuring the original term, and the Figure 2. Simplified conceptual integration network in translation. TL, are for the sake of convenience, are compressed into one illustration. Our model features two input spaces, the SL input featuring the original term, and the TL input with the TL term. Th blended space in our model is populated by the meaning emerging in the process of its interpretation by the translator encountering the term in the SL, and ideally, if the translation is successf l, this is also the meaning trigg red by the TL term. The generic space, however, contains the skeletal structure of both input spaces, and therefore licences the TL term translation. FIGURE 2. Simplified conceptual integration network in translation. 4 Methodology Our aim is to establish what happens when a figurative term is first introduced from a source language into the target language. More precisely, we want to see if there are different term variants designating the same concept present in the discourse, and if there are, we want to determine if it is possible to observe any differences between different text types as regards their inclination towards the specific term variants. By analysing concrete translations which feature the terms under scrutiny, we also place particular focus on how translators deal with novel figurative terms and the challenges they encounter in the process of translation by discussing their solutions within the CIT as a framework well-equipped to address the links between the ST and TT and account for the (more or less) creative solutions translators come up with. Our analysis thus aims to answer the call for descriptive studies involving a shift from normativeness and prescriptivism toward an emphasis on description, explanation and prediction. This study is also an example of a contextualized case study in which we try to provide an in- depth analysis of the process of secondary term formation when figurative terms conveying several functions are introduced from English into Croatian. Our interest is therefore in the “particular rather than the general” (Fuertes Olivera and Velasco Sacristán 2012, 160), which is why we have confined our analysis to only three figurative terms in the field of economics. However, in order to corroborate our findings, we will also draw on some more examples which 15LANGUAGE TL input with the TL term. The blended space in our model is populated by the meaning emerging in the process of its interpretation by the translator encountering the term in the SL, and ideally, if the translation is successful, this is also the meaning triggered by the TL term. The generic space, however, contains the skeletal structure of both input spaces, and therefore licences the TL term translation. 4 Methodology Our aim is to establish what happens when a figurative term is first introduced from a source language into the target language. More precisely, we want to see if there are different term variants designating the same concept present in the discourse, and if there are, we want to determine if it is possible to observe any differences between different text types as regards their inclination towards the specific term variants. By analysing concrete translations which feature the terms under scrutiny, we also place particular focus on how translators deal with novel figurative terms and the challenges they encounter in the process of translation by discussing their solutions within the CIT as a framework well-equipped to address the links between the ST and TT and account for the (more or less) creative solutions translators come up with. Our analysis thus aims to answer the call for descriptive studies involving a shift from normativeness and prescriptivism toward an emphasis on description, explanation and prediction. This study is also an example of a contextualized case study in which we try to provide an in- depth analysis of the process of secondary term formation when figurative terms conveying several functions are introduced from English into Croatian. Our interest is therefore in the “particular rather than the general” (Fuertes Olivera and Velasco Sacristán 2012, 160), which is why we have confined our analysis to only three figurative terms in the field of economics. However, in order to corroborate our findings, we will also draw on some more examples which reveal tendencies observable in the processes of translation of figurative terms from English ino Croatian. The three examples from the field of economics, analysed below – green procurement, greenwashing and silver economy – were therefore chosen for their figurative nature (the additional common denominator being their reliance on colour terms) and the fact that they were created relatively recently in English from where they spread to other languages. As illustrated in Figure 3, a graph created with Google Books Ngram Viewer (cf. Rossi 2017b), the spread of these terms in English started around the 1990s, and since then their frequency of use has been growing.1 The relatively recent creation of these terms has therefore allowed us to establish how they were transposed into Croatian in different situational contexts and text types in the early stages of their introduction from English. In our analysis we rely on four different corpora. The first corpus we consulted is EUR-lex, an official website of the European Union providing free access to EU legislation and other public documents in the 24 official EU languages, which has afforded us a look into how novel figurative terms are treated by professional translators. In our CIT networks modelling the translation of figurative terms which are the focus of our analyses, we will always present 1 There are no available Google Books Ngram Viewer data for Croatian. 16 Dubravka Vidaković Erdeljić, Goran Milić Should Green Always Get the Green Light? Translation of Figurative ... those term variants which are provided by professional translators and which we were able to access through EUR-lex. The second corpus we turn to is IATE, a database of EU-specific terminology entered by translators and terminologists working in the language services of the EU institutions. Since IATE often contains several term variants referring to a single concept, its input to our discussion is valuable as it enables us a look into the thought process of different translators and terminologists. In our analysis we have also consulted the largest available general corpus of Croatian – hrWaC,2 a web corpus collected from the .hr top level domain, as well as the results we have extracted through the Google search engine by focusing on Croatian websites in the period between 1 January 2000 and 19 June 2023. We included Internet sources in our analysis in an attempt to gain insight into what term variants are used by experts in specialized journals, but also what term variants are used by journalists and lay people in general in the specific processes of secondary term formation under scrutiny. As argued by Fuertes Olivera and Velasco Sacristán (2012), sometimes, even before the translators start dealing with novel figurative terms, these have already been introduced in the target culture by field experts who have encountered and understood them in the conceptual scenario within which the terms were created. We believe that our searches of hrWaC and our Google searches will allow us to see whether experts who have encountered the specific figurative terms in the source language texts tend to retain the original figurative scenario or resort to paraphrases. The results of our corpus analyses indicate that the terms under scrutiny appear mostly in public administration documents, specialized journals, newspapers, magazines, and different blogs. In what follows we present the research results for each term in turn. 2 The current version of the Croatian web corpus hrWaC – v2.0 – contains 1.9 billion tokens. reveal tendencies observable in the processes of translation of figurative terms from English ino Croatian. The three examples from the field of economics, analysed below – green procurement, greenwashing and silver economy – were therefore chosen for their figurative nature (the additional common denominator being their reliance on colour terms) and the fact that they were created relatively recently in English from where they spread to other languages. As illustrated in Figure 3, a graph created with Google Books Ngram Viewer (cf. Rossi 2017b), the spread of these terms in English started around the 1990s, and since then their frequency of use has been growing.1 The relatively recent creation of these terms has therefore allowed us to establish how they were transposed into Croatian in different situational contexts and text types in the early stages of their introduction from English. FIGURE 3. The spread of the figurative terms silver economy, green procurement and greenwashing in English. In our analysis we rely on four different corpora. The first corpus we consulted is EUR-lex, an official website of the European Union providing free access to EU legislation and other public documents in the 24 official EU languages, which has afforded us a look into how novel figurative terms are treated by professional translat rs. In our CIT networks modelling the translation of figurative terms hich are the focus of our analyses, we will always present thos term variants wh ch are p ovided by professional translators a d which we were able to access through EUR-lex. The second corpus we turn to is IATE, a database of EU-specific terminology entered by translators and terminologists working in the language services of the EU institutions. Since IATE often contains several term variants referring to a single concept, its input to our 1 There are no available Google Books Ngram Viewer data for Croatian. Figure 3. The spread of the figurative terms silver economy, gree procureme t and g enwashi g in English. 17LANGUAGE 5 Analysis 5.1 Example 1: green (public) procurement The first example we discuss is that of green public procurement for which IATE offers the following definition: process whereby public authorities seek to procure goods, services and works with a reduced environmental impact throughout their life cycle when compared to goods, services and works with the same primary function that would otherwise be procured. The Croatian counterpart listed in IATE is a loan translation zelena javna nabava, which is also the only counterpart we come across in EUR-lex, where in only one out of five examples the term was used with quotation marks which, as metadiscursive markers, signal the novelty and presumably figurativeness of the term (cf. Delavigne 2017; Rossi 2017b). Our search of hrWaC has returned 51 hits of the term zelena javna nabava (frequency of 0.036 per million tokens) with quotation marks being used only twice as metadiscursive markers. Our Google search for the period between 1 January 2000 and 19 June 2023 has thrown up 94 examples of zelena javna nabava. Again, quotation marks were used only once. The searches across all our above-mentioned sources point to the fact that the term is mainly used in documents produced by different central and local government bodies and (European) institutions in the context of tendering procedures, and, less frequently, also in articles featured in newspapers and magazines. We found no other competing Croatian translations, and our Google search returned only a few examples where the meaning of the term was supported by the Croatian term održiv (sustainable). However, since terms are often introduced in TL as unadapted borrowings, we have also checked if the English original is used in Croatian websites. We came across 49 examples, but in all cases the term was used in websites offering content in English in one way or another, e.g., in abstracts of research papers written in English. All this may suggest that the loan translation zelena javna nabava is deemed straightforward, unambiguous and clear, and that the translator(s) did not expect the addressees of the message to have any difficulties accessing the intended meaning behind the original English term, presumably due to the fact that it is grounded in universal human experience of nature. The blending analysis for the term green public procurement illustrated in Figure 4 is a simplified version of the CIT network modelling the translation of a term from SL into the TL, and the order of steps is somewhat different than in monolingual online conceptualizations. Here, what translators are first faced with is the original SL term populating the Input 1 mental space, on the basis of which they are supposed to be able to construe the generic space, i.e., the core meaning shared between the mental spaces of two languages, as well as the emergent meaning occupying the blended space. In translation, therefore, the only unknown variable is the Input space 2, or the TL Input space, representing the TL term, which should be able to project into the blended space the partial structure which in ideal conditions should be equivalent to the one projected by the SL Input space. 18 Dubravka Vidaković Erdeljić, Goran Milić Should Green Always Get the Green Light? Translation of Figurative ... In Figure 4, the generic space shared between the mental spaces of two languages may be schematized as “ecologically responsible procurement”. This specific type of procurement in the original English term is prompted through the adjective green, a highly polysemous word which in one of its meanings, as listed in the Merriam Webster dictionary, denotes the quality of: “tending to preserve environmental quality (as by being recyclable, biodegradable, or nonpolluting)”. The underlying motivation is clearly metonymic, as it involves the activation of a part for whole mapping salient property for category in which the colour term green, experientially salient since being the colour of vegetation, stands for nature in general.3 The experience of nature is a universal one, as often are the conceptual metaphors and metonymies grounded in our interaction with nature. In order to keep the original image contained within the figurative term green public procurement and keep the intended meaning, translators into Croatian simply resorted to the adjective zelen, a cognate, i.e., metonymic equivalent of green (cf. Brdar and Brdar-Szabó 2014) which is readily available in Croatian and conveys the similar metonymically motivated meaning as the English green. This is also suggested by the definition we came across in a dictionary of neologisms:4 koji slijedi ekološku politiku i ideologiju (“in line with ecologically oriented policies and ideologies”). Both SL and TL input spaces are thus able to project into the blended space the emergent meaning of a positive bias towards this specific type of procurement. Therefore, several functions of the term are successfully reproduced in the TL, the original figure is thus kept and serves an aesthetic function and the ideological value of green, which is “aimed at influencing a collective perception” (Rossi 2017b, 194), is also preserved. In view of the analysis presented above, it was interesting to observe that out of 34 terms listed in IATE,5 which featured the adjective green in the sense of “beneficial to environment” (e.g., green AI, green growth, green payment, green product, green industry, green recovery, etc.) as many as 27 of them were translated in Croatian with the adjective zelen, clearly signalling the heavy reliance of translators on the metonymic mapping green for nature derived from the universal human experience. 5.2 Example 2: greenwashing The term greenwashing involves similar components, but a presumably different story. The focus here is on a problem placed before the translator, stemming from the cultural specificity of certain ideas and concepts, or their being rendered with different linguistic resources (lexical and grammatical structures). The core meaning behind the term as provided by IATE is disinformation disseminated by an organization, etc., so as to present an environmentally responsible public image; or a public image of environmental responsibility promulgated by or for an organization, etc., but perceived as being unfounded or intentionally misleading. The noun greenwashing itself however is a result of another process of conceptual integration in which the meaning of the noun whitewashing was derived from the verb whitewash whose 3 According to Berlin and Kay (1969) the colour green belongs to basic colour terms. Basic colour terms have prototype properties, which means that they are the best example of the colour term. 4 See http://rjecnik.neologizam.ffzg.unizg.hr/2016/04/26/zeleni/. 5 Accessed on 30 October 2023. 19LANGUAGE prototypical meaning as provided by Merriam Webster is: to whiten with whitewash (e.g., walls, cottages, fences). In the process of meaning extension, the verb got to mean to gloss over or cover up (something, such as a record of criminal behaviour).6 The generic structure of the new blend is therefore covering something unclean and disagreeable with paint to make it clean, but the fact that the objects of whitewashing are no longer physical objects but abstract ones – words, acts, and the like – produces the new emergent meaning of covering an unpleasant truth. By replacing the adjective white with the adjective green, the generic structure of the blend is kept intact (something unacceptable is covered with paint), but the fact that the paint is now green, which, again, metonymically stands for everything environmentally friendly, rather than white gives rise to a new, emergent meaning: to cover an environmentally unfriendly truth and make it look environmentally friendly and green. When it comes to Croatian variants, there are only four occurrences of this term in EUR- lex, and in all instances the translation is manipulativni zeleni marketing (“manipulative green marketing”) always followed by metadiscursive markers (quotation marks, italics, reformulations, definitions and once with the English original enclosed in brackets). In hrWaC, however, we did not come across the variant we found in EUR-lex, instead the unadapted borrowing greenwashing appears 27 times, always followed by metadiscursive markers such as quotation marks, italics, abbreviations such as tzv., (“so=called”), definitions and several attempts at translation enclosed in brackets: pozelenjivanje (lit. greening), eko- pranje (lit. eco-washing), zeleno umivanje (lit. green face washing) and zeleno pranje (lit. green washing). With regard to the text type, the unadapted borrowing was found to be predominately featured in news portals, blogs, and webpages of nongovernmental organizations. 6 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whitewash In view of the analysis presented above, it was interesting to observe that out of 34 terms listed in IATE,5 which featured the adjective green in the sense of “beneficial to environment” (e.g., green AI, green growth, green payment, green product, green industry, green recovery, etc.) as many as 27 of them were translated in Croatian with the adjective zelen, clearly signalling the heavy reliance of translators on the metonymic mapping GREEN FOR NATURE derived from the universal human experience. FIGURE 4. CIT model for the translation of the term green (public) procurement. 6.2 Ex mpl 2: greenwashing The term greenwashing involves similar components, but a presumably different story. The focus here is on a problem placed before the translator, stemming from the cultural specificity of certain ideas and concepts, or their being rendered with different linguistic resources (lexical and grammatical structures). The core meaning behind the term as provided by IATE is disinformation disseminated by an organization, etc., so as to present an environmentally responsible public image; or a public image of environmental responsibility promulgated by or for an organization, etc., but perceived as being unfounded or intentionally misleading. The noun greenwashing itself however is a result of another process of conceptual integration in which the meaning of the noun whitewashing was derived from the verb whitewash whose prototypical meaning as provided by Merriam Webster is: to whiten with whitewash (e.g., walls, cott ges, fe ces). In the process of meaning extension, th verb got to mean to gloss over or 5 Accessed on 30 October 2023. Figure 4. CIT model for the translation of the term green (public) procurement. 20 Dubravka Vidaković Erdeljić, Goran Milić Should Green Always Get the Green Light? Translation of Figurative ... Our Google search has also revealed that when it comes to Croatian counterparts the unadapted borrowing greenwashing is again the most frequent term variant, with 126 occurrences. It appeared on news portals, online fashion magazines and the webpages of different companies and nongovernmental organizations. It was almost always followed by metadiscursive markers of novelty and figurativeness, such as quotation marks, italics, expressions such as odnosno (“id est”) and tzv. (“so-called”), definitions and attempts at translations, e.g., ekomanipulacija (lit. ecomanipulation), zeleno ispiranje (lit. green rinsing), zelena šminka (lit. green make-up), zeleni marketing (lit. green marketing), lažni zeleni marketing (lit. false green marketing), obmanjivi marketing (lit. misleading marketing), ispiranje mozga zelenom politikom (lit. brainwashing through green policies), zlouporaba zelenog imidža (lit. green image abuse), and so on. The most frequent Croatian translations Google search has yielded are the loan translation zeleno pranje (greenwashing) with 41 search results, ekomanipulacija (ecomanipulation) with 38 results, and manipulativni zeleni marketing (manipulative green marketing) with 30 results. All three variants are in most cases followed by the usual metadiscursive markers. We have also noticed a difference between these variants with respect to the text types in which they commonly appear. The variant manipulativni zeleni marketing is most frequently used on the webpages of public administration bodies, companies, newspapers and magazines. The loan translation zeleno pranje is mostly used by experts as it appears in research papers, several thesis papers, blogs and news portals. The variant ekomanipulacija is also featured in blogs, thesis papers and news portals. The sheer number and variety of translation solutions in Croatian bears witness to the fact that it was no easy feat to convey the intended meaning into the language. In what follows we will discuss only the three most frequent translation solutions: zeleno pranje, ekomanipulacija and manipulativni zeleni marketing. If translated literally with zeleno pranje – green washing – the intended meaning of manipulation inherent in the original term is not that easily accessible in Croatian, since the Croatian language/culture is unaware of the origin and history of the term in the English language.7 However, Croatian already contains the figurative collocation pranje novca (lit. money washing – Eng. money laundering) where the noun pranje (washing) is, contrary to its typical meaning, used to convey that something is made clean by manipulation and illegal activities. Therefore, it is somewhat possible that native speakers of Croatian might construe the meaning of manipulation when encountering the term zeleno pranje, as well as because the odd fact that something is washed with the colour green could invite the process of inferencing. However, due to the asymmetries between the two cultures in question, this specific TL term cannot trigger the same kind of meaning construal as the SL term. It is also interesting that this loan translation is mostly used by experts, who have probably encountered the SL term in original documents in English and who are familiar with its meaning and aware of its connotations, which makes this loan translation an obvious and easy choice for them. Official documents and professional translators, however, prefer the other two translations ekomanipulacija and manipulativni zeleni marketing, which we also present in our CIT model in Figure 5. Both explicitly state in the TL input space the emergent meaning of 7 This word formation pathway seems to be quite productive in English, as suggested by at least three new terms containing the meaning of manipulation: leanwashing, nutriwashing and wellbeing washing. 21LANGUAGE manipulation which in the model of conceptual integration reads to deliberately cover up environmentally harming practices, and which in the SL input space is only being implied. It seems that translators of official documents are reluctant to keep the original figure for fear of its intended meaning not being clear to speakers of Croatian due to the cultural specificity of the original English term. Therefore, while the loan translation keeps the ideological value implied, although based on a different type of meaning construal than in the SL, the other two most frequent Croatian term variants state it explicitly. It is difficult to predict if any of these term variants will prevail or if they will all persevere, but in different genres. FIGURE 5. CIT model for the translation of the term green (public) procurement. 6.3 Example 3: silver economy Our next example is the term silver economy which IATE defines as the economic opportunities arising from public and consumer expenditure related to population ageing and the specific needs of older people. The concept is gaining in importance and popularity as the share of older people in the population is rapidly increasing. The original English term is again obviously motivated metonymically, as silver hair symbolizes old age. Interestingly, in English the adjective grey also collocates with hair and can also metonymically symbolize old age. In fact, our search of the British National Corpus shows that the collocation grey hair has 1.31 tokens per million words, while the collocation silver hair has only 0.22 tokens per million words. However, the collocations grey hair and silver hair probably do not trigger identical interpretations. While grey hair might be associated with less appealing aspects of old age, e.g., physical weakness, all sorts of old age-related ailments, reduced levels of energy, social exclusion, etc., silver in silver hair might potentially also be tied to the idea that silver is a precious metal, almost universally associated with wealth and success. Since the idea behind every economic activity is to earn profit and accumulate wealth, this neatly supplements the age component and provides the source expression with a euphemistic effect.8 IATE offers the loan translation srebrna ekonomija as a Croatian counterpart, but assigns it only two stars, indicating that the term is not deemed high on the reliability scale.9 In EUR-lex 8 It is then no wonder that the term chosen to identify economic activities meeting the specific needs of the population over 50 is silver economy rather than grey economy. The latter has already been reserved to cover the negative aspects the colour can culturally and experientially activate. Grey has a host of other rather negative connotations. For example, the fourth and fifth most frequent collocates of grey as an adjective are sky and clouds, which activate associations with bad weather. 9 IATE assigns the reliability value to each term, by assigning to it a specific number of stars. Four stars assigned to a term symbolize the highest level of reliability, while one star indicates that the reliability is not verified (https://iate.europa.eu/assets/handbook.pdf). Figure 5. CIT model for the translation of the term green (public) procurement. 5.3 Example 3: silver economy Our next example is the term silver economy which IATE defines as the economic opportunities arising from public and consumer expenditure related to population ageing and the specific needs of older people. The concept is gaining in importance and popularity as the share of older people in the population is rapidly increasing. The original English term is again obviously motivated metonymically, as silver hair symbolizes old age. Interestingly, in English the adjective grey also collocates with hair and can also metonymically symbolize old age. In fact, our search of the British National Corpus shows that the collocation grey hair has 1.31 tokens per million words, while the collocation silver hair has only 0.22 tokens per million words. However, the collocations grey hair and silver hair probably do not trigger identical interpretations. While grey hair might be associated with less appealing aspects of old age, e.g., p ysical weakness, all sorts of old age-related ailments, reduced levels of energy, social exclusi n, tc., silver in silver hair might potentially also be tied to the idea that silver is a precious metal, almost universally associated with wealth and success. Since the idea behind every economic activity is to earn profit and accumulate wealth, this neatly supplements the age component and provides the source expression with a euphemistic effect.8 8 It is then no wonder that the term chosen to identify economic activities meeting the specific needs of the population over 50 is silver economy rather than grey economy. The latter has already been reserved to cover the negative aspects the 22 Dubravka Vidaković Erdeljić, Goran Milić Should Green Always Get the Green Light? Translation of Figurative ... IATE offers the loan translation srebrna ekonomija as a Croatian counterpart, but assigns it only two stars, indicating that the term is not deemed high on the reliability scale.9 In EUR- lex there are only five occurrences of the term, which was translated with the loan translation three times and twice with the variant seniorsko gospodarstvo (seniors’ economy). Even though we searched hrWaC for different variants of the term, e.g., the loan translation, the expression ekonomija treće životne dobi (lit. third age economy), we found no occurrences. The Google search, however, produced 51 examples of the loan translation variant (srebrna ekonomija), in most cases followed by metadiscursive markers. On closer analysis of the hits, we were able to conclude that the term is primarily used by economic experts in research articles, EU-related websites and in newspaper articles aimed at the older population. We found no instances of the variant seniorsko gospodarstvo (seniors’ economy), but our search for the unadapted borrowing silver economy returned 20 results. This variant is mostly found on Croatian webpages offering content in English, with only several examples of its use in texts written in Croatian where it was put in quotation marks and followed by a definition. Our Google search has also revealed the variant sijeda ekonomija (grey economy), which was used only three times. Even though the colour spectrum of English and Croatian is not isomorphic, and Croatian has a specific colour term used exclusively to express the hair colour in old age (sijed), the situation in both languages is similar since in neither of them the term silver is the most frequent term to denote the hair colour in old age as also evidenced by our search of the hrWaC corpus, which returned only two tokens of srebrna kosa (silver hair) and 223 tokens of sijeda kosa (grey air). It was interesting, therefore, to observe that in Croatian the loan translation which keeps the original figurative scenario is the most common option across genres. This accords with Fuertes Olivera’s (1998) observation that translators tend to look for an exact equivalent of the original figure as a strategy to simultaneously convey the two main functions of the figure, i.e., the technical and the stylistic function (Fuertes Olivera and Pizarro Sánchez 2002; quoted in Agorni 2014). In the case of translating silver economy with a loan translation in Croatian, translators may be drawing on the fact that the Croatian equivalent of silver is occasionally used to denote hair colour in old age, and are thus creating what Indurkhya (1992) referred to as similarity-based metaphor which “[…] invite(s) the reader to make a comparison between the source and the target, as the transference of meaning is based on some existing similarity between the two” (Indurkhya 1992, 2; quoted in Agorni 2014). The fact that the loan translation is almost always followed by a definition or a reformulation signals the novelty of the figure and the fact that its meaning is not entirely transparent, but with time and use it may become an established term, easily understood even without any metadiscursive markers. Other equivalents of silver economy that we came across – seniorsko gospodarstvo and gospodarstvo treće životne dobi –explicitly state the intended meaning, i.e., colour can culturally and experientially activate. Grey has a host of other rather negative connotations. For example, the fourth and fifth most frequent collocates of grey as an adjective are sky and clouds, which activate associations with bad weather. 9 IATE assigns the reliability value to each term, by assigning to it a specific number of stars. Four stars assigned to a term symbolize the highest level of reliability, while one star indicates that the reliability is not verified (https://iate. europa.eu/assets/handbook.pdf). 23LANGUAGE what is contained in the blended space of the CIT network (Figure 6), but are utterly devoid of the vividness of the original figurative expression. FIGURE 6. CIT model for the translation of the term silver economy. 7 Discussion and Conclusion In this paper we have analysed the process of secondary term formation by looking into the introduction of three figurative terms in the field of economics from English, as the current lingua franca in the field, into Croatian. We have, therefore, placed our focus on the terminological gap-filling function of metaphorical terms, but were also curious about what happens in translation when a term conveys more functions (e.g., theory-constitutive or ideology constitutive functions). As noted in earlier research (Fuertes Olivera 1998, quoted in Agorni 2014), translators tend to opt for an exact, verbatim equivalent of the original figure/metaphor, rather than resorting to another figurative expression with a similar meaning, or replacing the original figure with a paraphrase. However, this may be tricky when translating figurative terms that convey several functions since, as argued earlier (e.g., Nida 1964; Nord 1997), it is very difficult to reproduce all the components and nuances of originals due to discursive and cultural pressures (Agorni 2014). Our approach was usage-based in that our conclusions are founded on the observation of how the analysed figurative terms behave in real communication (official documents, research papers, magazines, newspapers, blogs, etc.). In the paper we also argue that the Conceptual Integration Theory provides a sound framework able to account for the meaning construal in the process of translation and the choices translators make. Our analysis has yielded several insights. First, it was noticed that often a great deal of term variation occurs when the term is first introduced into the target language/community, which has enabled an analysis of interesting emergent patterns. When, for example, a figure is based on some universal experience (e.g. green standing metonymically for nature and implicitly for the ecological and sustainable in green public procurement), the figure is readily transposed into the target community, in this case with the cognate metonymic expression, and there is actually not much variation. However, when the figure is grounded in the source culture as in the case of greenwashing, or is not firmly entrenched in the target culture, as in the case of silver Figure 6. CIT model for the translation of the term silver economy. 6 Discussion and Conclusion In this paper we have analysed the process of secondary term formation by looking into the introduction of three figurative terms in the field of economics from English, as the current lingua franca in the field, into Croatian. We have, therefore, placed our focus on the terminological gap-filling function of metaphorical terms, but were also curious about what happens in translation when a term conveys more functions (e.g., theory-constitutive or ideology constitutiv functions). As noted in earlier research (Fuertes Olivera 1998, quoted in Agorni 2014), transl tors tend to opt for a exact, verbati equi alent of the original figure/ metaphor, rather than resorting to another figurative expression with a similar meaning, or replacing the original figure with a paraphrase. However, this may be tricky when translating figurative terms that convey several functions since, as argued earlier (e.g., Nida 1964; Nord 1997), it is very difficult to reproduce all the components and nuances of originals due to discursive and cultural pressures (Agorni 2014). Our approach was usage-based in that our conclusions are founded on the observation of how the analysed figurative terms behave in real communication (official documents, research papers, magazines, newspapers, blogs, etc.). In the paper we also argue that the Conceptual Integration Theory provides a sound framework able to account for the meaning construal in the process of translation and the choices translators make. Our analysis has yielded several insights. First, it was noticed that often a great deal of term variation occurs when the term is first introduced into the target language/community, which has enabled an analysis of interesting emergent patterns. When, for example, a figure is based on some universal experience (e.g. green standing metonymically for nature and implicitly for the ecological and sustainable in green public p ocurement), the figure is readily ransposed into the target community, in this case with the cogna e m tonymic expr ssion, and there is actually not much variation. However, when the figure is grounde in the s urce culture as 24 Dubravka Vidaković Erdeljić, Goran Milić Should Green Always Get the Green Light? Translation of Figurative ... in the case of greenwashing, or is not firmly entrenched in the target culture, as in the case of silver economy, term variation is much more present due to asymmetries between two languages and cultures. Our data show that in such instances official documents, presumably handled by professional translators, often prefer a paraphrase (manipulativni zeleni marketing – manipulative green marketing, seniorsko gospodarstvo – senior economy) which explicitly expresses the intended meaning and sometimes also keeps the ideological value of the term while the original figure is lost. Denroche (2019) maintains that such explicitation which makes information, and also culturally specific knowledge – which is implied in the source text – explicit is the result of differences between the language systems and is by some authors (e.g., Pym 2010) considered to be a translation universal. The term variants drawn from the web corpus and the Google search show a much more colourful picture. In these environments the unadapted borrowings, as in the case of greenwashing, and loan translations, as in the case of silver economy, are the most frequent choices, but almost always followed by different metadiscursive markers, reformulations and attempts at translation which all explicitly or implicitly convey the ideological value of the term. This is in line with conclusions offered by Delavigne (2014), who says that “the moment a technical or scientific term moves outside the boundaries of its typical or ‘natural’ environment, mutual understanding is lost. In order to bring it back, a work of discursive negotiation involving different reformulation strategies becomes necessary”. It is also worth noting that in the case of greenwashing and silver economy, the unadapted borrowing and the loan translations, respectively, are more common in texts produced by experts in the specific specialized field (e.g., in research papers) and by non-professional translators, e.g., journalists and authors of different blogs and texts published on the websites of different companies. Due to English being the current lingua franca in almost all fields of human activity, the authors of such texts are, presumably, very often bilingual and aware of the original figure and its connotations in the source language, but also of the fact that the intended audience might not be familiar with these, which might be the reason why they often supply their term variants with different metadiscursive markers and reformulations. Our analysis of the translation choices made by professional translators via the model of conceptual integration network suggests that the most successful TL term variants are those that are able to project into the blended space the same emergent meaning as intended by the SL term and also those that require of the TL speaker the same kind of conceptualization and meaning construal as required of the SL speaker by the SL term. This was the case with the term green public procurement, which due to the universal availability of its figure, was able to retain in the TL all the intended functions of the SL term, i.e., its theory-constitutive and its ideology-constitutive function. However, due to the cultural specificity of certain figures, as in the case of greenwashing, it is often impossible to retain the original image. In such cases translators opt for paraphrases, which most often do not trigger in the TL the same kind of conceptualization and meaning construal as in the SL, but the intended emergent meaning from the blended space is stated explicitly, as with the sense of manipulation in manipulativni zeleni marketing, keeping both its theory-constitutive and its ideology-constitutive functions intact. 25LANGUAGE In the case of silver economy, however, professional translators have provided two solutions – the loan translation srebrna ekonomija, which keeps the same figure as the SL term, and the paraphrase seniorsko gospodarstvo in which the original image is lost. We have checked IATE for solutions provided by other official EU languages and have observed with interest that some of them (German, Danish Finnish, French, etc.) also struggle between silver economy on the one hand and seniors’ economy on the other, supposedly due to the novelty of the figure. Some authors criticize the introduction of novel metaphors from English into other target languages as examples of terminological colonialism (cf. Fuertes-Olivera and Velasco- Sacristan 2012). Vrgoč and Mihaljević (2019), for example, voice concerns of many when they justly argue against extensive indiscriminate calquing of terms on the model of English, which often brings about unintelligible solutions which flout the TL rules. This may be the reason why some translators in the case of silver economy opt for the TL term which explicitly states the intended meaning of the SL term. In this particular case such a solution results in an impoverished vision as the original image is lost and the meaning construal in the TL is very different from the meaning construal in the SL. In terms of the conceptual integration network, the translator has resorted to the content of the blended space. While it may seem that this translation is completely justifiable since the idea of silver metonymically standing for old age is not heavily entrenched in Croatian, our corpus analysis of the collocation patterns of hair and kosa in English and Croatian, respectively, has shown that in neither of these languages does silver or srebrna metonymically symbolize old age, the most frequent collocation of hair and kosa being grey and sijeda, respectively. In our opinion, this may be the factor tipping the scale in favour of the loan translation as it would invite in the TL a similar process of meaning construal as triggered by the original term in the SL. As we argued above, this would be in line with Fuertes Olivera’s (1998) observation that translators tend to keep the original figure in the TL as a strategy to simultaneously convey both the technical and stylistic function of the term (Fuertes Olivera and Pizàrro Sanchez 2002, quoted in Agorni 2014). Since our study is confined to only three cases of figurative terms recently introduced from English to Croatian, we cannot draw any general conclusions. However, we still believe that the findings which have emerged point to some tendencies. First, we have noticed that term variation is much more common when the figure in the SL term is grounded in culturally specific knowledge. Second, field experts are more prone to retaining the original figure in the TL, even when it is grounded in the culturally specific elements of the SL community, while professional translators in such cases resort to paraphrases. When it comes to figures grounded in universal human experience, the situation is not as clear-cut. Our additional searches of the IATE have revealed different approaches taken by professional translators and terminologists. For example, the figurative term data mining from the field of information technology and data processing, denoting information extraction activity whose goal is to discover hidden facts contained in databases and other large sets of data, has two Croatian variants: the paraphrase dubinska analiza podataka and the loan translation rudarenje podataka. The former term is assigned only two stars, its use being marked as deprecated, while the latter is assigned as many as four stars, placing it high on the reliability scale. 26 Dubravka Vidaković Erdeljić, Goran Milić Should Green Always Get the Green Light? Translation of Figurative ... On the other hand, for the term radon daughters from the field of science, denoting the short- lived decay products of radon, IATE offers only one Croatian term variant, i.e., the paraphrase radonovi proizvodi raspada. Our Google search, however, has shown that when writing their papers experts use the loan translation radonove kćeri. This loan translation is quite intelligible, as when interpreting it speakers of Croatian can draw on the knowledge structure entailed by the metaphorical mapping chemical elements are a family. Our earlier research (Milić and Vidaković, 2017) into figurative terms translated from English into Croatian – more precisely, into their intelligibility to native speakers of Croatian – lends support to the findings of our present analysis, as it has shown that those figurative terms, translated verbatim, which were based on universal and experientially-grounded figurative scenarios (e.g., daughter-company – tvrtka kćer, green economy – zelena ekonomija, hard currency – čvrsta valuta, guerrilla marketing – gerilski marketing, tangible assets – opipljiva imovina, hostile takeover – neprijateljsko preuzimanje) were more comprehensible to native speakers of Croatian than those that were based on knowledge which was not a part of Croatian culture (e.g., business angel – poslovni anđeo, golden parachute – zlatni padobran, bull market –bikovsko tržište, bear market – medvjeđe tržište). We therefore argue for the retention of the SL figure whenever possible and whenever this is not blocked by intercultural and interlingual factors, as the retention of the original figure facilitates the understanding of the figurative scenario and its potential use for further theory constitutive, ideology-constitutive and theory explanatory purposes. We believe that our findings have repercussions for translator training as translators should be able to distinguish between different functions the figurative term is set to convey. Besides, we are convinced that translators would profit from a theoretical acquaintance with the basic mechanisms of CIT and CMMT, as this would enable them to better analyse novel figurative lexicalizations and find the best possible equivalents in the target language (cf. Temmerman 2002). In addition to that, and as evidenced in particular in the case of silver economy, corpus analyses can prove to be a quite useful tool in the translation of terms, as they provide translators with a better understanding of how terms behave in the SL, which can then, coupled with corpus analyses of the TL, navigate translators towards the most appropriate choices (cf. also Vrgoč and Mihaljević 2019). References Agorni, Mirella. 2014. “Translating Figures in the Domain of Business and Economics: A Rhetorical Role for Terminology?” In Tradurre figure, Translating Figurative Language, edited by Donna Rose Miller and Enrico Monti, 85–98. Bologna: Centro di Studi Linguistico-Culturali. Bin, Wang. 2003. “Metaphorical Terms for Translation” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 11 (3): 189– 95. https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2003.9961473. 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Wüster, Eugene. 1979. Einführung in die allgemeine Terminologielehre und terminologische Lexikographie. Wien: Springer. Part II Literature 33LITERATURE 2023, Vol. 20 (2), 33-48(126) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.20.2.33-48 UDC: 821.111(73).09-31Auster P. María Laura Arce Álvarez The Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain Invisible or “The Fine Art of Scribbling:” Paul Auster’s Metafiction in Postmodern Narrative Discourse ABSTRACT The intention of this article is to study Paul Auster’s novel Invisible (2009) as an exercise in metafiction and a poststructuralist game in which Auster introduces different fictional layers to make the figure of the author disappear. Auster presents the story of Adam Walker and Rudolph Born, two characters who become antagonists but whose lives depend on each other. By a series of narrations, the novel tells how the story of these two characters extends in time, challenging literary genres and multiplying different narrative layers. Keywords: Paul Auster, metafiction, narrative discourse, literary theory Invisible ali “umetnost kracanja”: metafikcija Paula Austerja v postmodernem pripovednem diskurzu IZVLEČEK Namen članka je obravnava Austerjevega romana Invisible (2009) s stališča metafikcije in poststrukturalistične igre, v kateri Auster s plastenjem fikcijskih ravni briše avtorja. Auster predstavi zgodbi Adama Walkerja in Rudopha Borna, ki sta, čeprav antagonista, življenjsko odvisna eden od drugega. Auster skozi niz pripovedi razvija zgodbo obeh protagonistov skozi čas ob hkratni relativizaciji literarne žanrskosti in z množenju različnih pripovednih plasti. Ključne besede: Paul Auster, metafikcija, pripovedni diskurz, literarna teorija 34 María Laura Arce Álvarez Invisible or “The Fine Art of Scribbling:” Paul Auster’s Metafiction in Postmodern Narrative Discourse 1 Introduction Paul Auster is one of the most representative writers of postmodern American fiction. His fiction is, above all, an excellent example of metafiction where the problematics of language, the limits of literary genres, the creation of infinite fictional layers and, of course, the authorship of the text are discussed. One of Mark Currie’s answers to his question “What is a postmodern novel?” (2011, 2), explicitly states: “Postmodern novels are metafictions: fictions about fiction; self-conscious fictions; fictions that incorporate critical and theoretical reflection into their fictional worlds” (2011, 3). Part of Auster’s fiction deals with “fictions about fiction” or fictions that “highlight the presence of an author, such as the intrusive authorial narrator who steps in to declare the fictionality of a fiction” (2011, 2), or a combination of these and “the surrogate author: a figure within the fictional world who occupies the role of an author, or a role analogous to the author” (2011, 3), which is the case with Invisible. Published in 2009, the novel is a postmodern and metafictional game in which Auster questions the authorship of the text with the use of successive fictional layers and blurring the lines between the narrator, reader, and author. Predominantly about different narrators reading or writing about other writers’ stories, the novel is centred on the figure of Rudolph Born, a French political science professor and presumed spy who becomes the Machiavellian character of the novel and opens all the different fictional layers of the text. Together with Born, Auster introduces Adam Walker, a young poet who decides to write about his experiences with the Frenchman and gives the manuscript to his friend Jim in the last days of his life. The aim of this article is to discuss how Auster’s novel Invisible becomes a metafictional example of Auster’s postmodernity and how, through it, he shows the process of creation of a literary space and questions the authorship of the novel by referring in the title of the novel to the invisible nature of the author. In this novel, Auster challenges narrative theory by introducing a form of metalepsis that blurs the limits of the different narrative levels and connects the different imaginary worlds, singular Chinese boxes, through an invisible thread. 2 Paul Auster’s Postmodern Literary Space To analyse the different narrative levels that construct the novel, it is fundamental to study the postmodern and poststructuralist perspectives of the text. Apart from the undeniable postmodernist essence of Auster’s fiction, his literary spaces are a response to the influence on his work of French symbolist and surrealist poetry, and consequently from French literary critics such as Gérard Genette, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault and Maurice Blanchot (Arce 2016; Kloeckner 2017). Auster openly talks about this literary intertextuality in his non- fictional works, especially in The Invention of Solitude (1982), as one of his foundational works, published before his first novel, The New York Trilogy (1987). From this perspective, Invisible is a clear example of Auster’s postmodernity and metafiction in a context in which the characters show the construction of the literary space they inhabit and make the role of the author disappear by overlapping different narrations. According to Patricia Waugh, what metafictional writers have in common is the fact that “they all explore a theory of fiction through the practice of writing fiction” (2001, 2), or, in other words, as she concludes “the 35LITERATURE lowest common denominator of metafiction is simultaneously to create a fiction and to make a statement about the creation of that fiction” (2001, 6). Certainly, Auster sets out his theoretical and literary principles in his non-fictional works (The Invention of Solitude [1982], The Red Notebook [1995]) and puts them into practice in his fiction, but there is still a strong connection between Auster and the theory of narrative discourse. It could be argued that he writes about the construction of a literary space in his fiction not only in Invisible but also in novels such as Oracle Night (2003), Travels in the Scriptorium (2006), Man in the Dark (2008) and Sunset Park (2010). Moreover, his first novel, The New York Trilogy, deals with the construction of a literary space, the process of writing and the role of the writer. From this perspective, Auster’s Invisible responds to Martin Paul Eve’s definition of metafiction when he asserts that the word “is used to describe fiction that is ‘self-aware’, fiction that knows it is fiction, fiction that draws attention, through various stylistic conceits, to itself as a work of fiction” (2016, 29). As a “self-aware” fiction, the novel, in its succession of fictional layers, deconstructs the role of the traditional author. As Waugh claims, “[m]etafictional novels thus reject the traditional figure of the author as a transcendental imagination fabricating, through an ultimately monologic discourse, structures of order which will replace the forgotten material text of the world” (2001, 16). Thus, one of the ultimate aims of metafiction is to make the author disappear, as occurs in Invisible. In his work Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds (1998), Lubomír Doležel asserts that “metafiction is a case of metalepsis” (1998, 166). Some years earlier, Genette, in his theory of narratology, used the term metalepsis to explain how “the transition from one narrative level to another can in principle be achieved only by the narrating, the act that consists precisely of introducing into one situation, by means of a discourse, the knowledge of another situation” (1983, 234). Doležel explains that metafiction is a self-disclosing narrative where “[f ]iction making procedures are overtly exposed” and “the text simultaneously constructs a fictional world and the story of this construction” (1998, 160). As a case of metalepsis, the transition between narrative levels can be considered a transgression that the critic Jeff Thoss describes as “transgressions between a story world and another (imaginary) world” (2011, 190). Thoss also argues that “metaleptic transgressions occur when entities travel between the different planes or interact with the other ontological sphere in ways that are perceived to be impossible” (2011, 192). The novel starts with a first-person narrator that the reader finds out later is the voice of one of the protagonists, Adam Walker. Indeed, the novel can be divided into five narrative levels and Auster decides to start on the second level. From a narratological perspective, there is a first level of narration linked to the present time of the novel, which deals with Adam Walker in the last years of his life and the narration of his college friend Jim. Auster transgresses this narrative level and introduces a second one in which the narrator, Adam Walker, narrates his experience with Rudolph de Born and his wife Margot. Evidently, one of the reasons why the novel starts in the second narrative level is because all the other narrative levels depend on the encounter between Adam Walker and Rudolph de Born, more concretely on Born. Metalepsis in the novel becomes another invisible element in the narration, a very subtle narrative strategy that makes Auster’s metafiction so particular and this text so groundbreaking in terms of transgression of narrative levels. As Péter Csató (2022, 268) asserts, 36 María Laura Arce Álvarez Invisible or “The Fine Art of Scribbling:” Paul Auster’s Metafiction in Postmodern Narrative Discourse metalepsis in Invisible is not deployed as an overtly disruptive textual technique, but rather as a surreptitious narrative strategy, much like a hidden undercurrent, which becomes visible once we have pieced all the puzzles together that are strewn across the novel’s four chapters. Genette has shown that “any event a narrative recounts is at a diegetic level immediately higher than the level at which the narrating act producing this narrative is placed” (1983, 228). In relation to this, Genette explains that all the events that take place in a first level of narration are called an extradiegetic level (1983, 228). Those events narrated inside the first level of narration are called diegetic or intradiegetic, and finally those events narrated in the second level of narration are called metadiegetic (1983, 228). He thus concludes: “the narrating instance of a first narrative is therefore extradiegetic by definition, as the narrating instance of a second (metadiegetic) narrative is diegetic by definition” (1983, 229). Bearing Genette’s analysis in mind, the first level of narration in Invisible, or Jim’s narration, can be considered the extradiegetic level. Therefore, Walker’s narration and his experience with Born becomes a diegetic or intradiegetic level. Yet, this diegetic or intradiegetic level, also considered a second level of narration, expands up to four different metadiegetic levels in which Jim reads Walker’s stories (Summer), rewrites and recreates Walker’s notes (Fall), transcribes Walker’s last notes, and translates Cécile Juin’s diary, all of them centred on the character of Born. This illustrates, as Marie-Laure Ryan asserts, the “interpenetration, or mutual contamination” between narrative levels that “will become entangled when an existent belongs to two or more levels at the same time” (2004, 442). Rudolph Born is the pivotal character of Invisible, the one who leads the action and opens the different fictional layers. The novel starts with Walker’s narration about the first time they meet, “I shook his hand for the first time in the spring of 1967” (Auster 2009, 3), a statement which already implies the importance of the character in the development of the action. Before talking about Born himself, remarkably, Walker talks about Born’s namesake, a twelfth-century French poet who becomes a character in Dante’s Inferno. Certainly, Dante describes him with his head in his hand, reproduced by Gustave Doré in 1868 and in his famous engravings of Divine Comedy, as a punishment “for having counseled Prince Henry to rebel against his father, King Henry II, and because de Born caused division between father and son and turned them into enemies” (Auster 2009, 3 –4). These lines that Walker interprets from Dante’s The Divine Comedy predict what is going to happen between Rudolph and himself. Moreover, Born’s attitude towards Walker seems to be the same Bertrand de Born had with Prince Henry and King Henry II, but the other way around: Born, in his attempt to control and manipulate Walker, pushes him to rebel against his mentor. And, unavoidably, once introduced to Walker, he asks his new friend if he is any way related to the Provençal poet, to which he replies: “that wretched creature who lost his head. Perhaps, but it doesn’t seem likely, I’m afraid. No de. You need to be nobility for that, and the sad truth is I’m anything but noble” (Auster 2009, 4). The possible connection between Rudolph Born and Bertrand de Born is open to interpretation, since Born himself states “perhaps”, supporting in a way the previous lines where Walker explains the confrontation between father and son that turns them into enemies, the same that will happen between himself and Born in the future. In the case of Walker, his name is also fundamental for the understanding of his relationship 37LITERATURE with Born and the metafictional meaning of the novel. His first name, Adam, refers to the biblical character. Certainly, this biblical reference takes us back to City of Glass (1985) and Peter Stilman Sr.’s project about recovering the original language spoken in the Garden of Eden as a way of healing the existential crisis of the postmodern individual (Auster 2004, 43). His last name recalls the act of walking, which again takes us to The New York Trilogy and the urban essence of the postmodern existence. In the context of Auster’s postmodernity, “walking”, as de Certeau asserts (1997, 93), means “writing”: The ordinary practitioners of the city live “down below,” below the thresholds at which visibility begins. They walk – an elementary form of this experience of the city, they are walkers (…) whose bodies follow the thicks and thins of an urban “text” they write without being able to read it. From a narratological perspective, Auster presents what Doležel calls the “multiperson world”, that in which more than one character interacts in a fictional space. According to Doležel, “The positions of the protagonists in the agential constellation remain fixed for the duration of the story; but their connections, dominated by the ambiguous love/hate emotional relation, are unstable and subject to sudden reversals” (1998, 76), words that describe the dynamics of the characters in the novel, particularly the interaction between Walker and Born, which is the origin of a great part of the fictional layers. In order to understand their interaction from the beginning, it is fundamental to mention what Doležel calls the “motivating interaction” through which “motivational systems are enhanced by two additional components, absent in the one-person world: interpersonal relations and social representations” (1998, 100–101). One of this “motivational systems” is power, “a means whereby one person – the power- holder controls the intentions and acting of another – the subordinate” (1998, 101). From the start of the novel Born exercises control over Walker, sometimes so strongly that it seems supernatural. And this point is made clear by Walker from the first lines of his narration (Auster 2009, 4): I have no memory of why I was there. Someone must have asked me to go along, but who that person was has long since evaporated from my mind. […] But that night, inexplicably, I said yes, and off I went with my forgotten friend to wherever it was he took me. This inexplicable force pushed him to the party where Born was waiting for him. This can be analysed from Doležel’s perspective and his interactional system in which Born would be the “power-holder” and Walker the “subordinate”. Also, from a metafictional perspective, this “inexplicable” control that Born exercises over Walker can be interpreted differently. If the novel is a succession of fictional layers and Born is the main origin of all of them, he can be considered the “creator” or “inventor” of this fictional space. In fact, leaving aside the relationship between Rudolph Born and Bertrand de Born, if we consider the meaning of his last name there is a possible link between the word “born” and the words “originate”, “invent”, or “create”, among other synonyms. In this context, Walker, like all the other characters in this fiction, would be creations of Born but that would not stop Walker from performing his role as author in the fiction, or more concretely his role as character-author. This reinforces a whole structure of authorship in the literary space, governed by Born, that contributes to the 38 María Laura Arce Álvarez Invisible or “The Fine Art of Scribbling:” Paul Auster’s Metafiction in Postmodern Narrative Discourse disappearance of the role of author itself. This interpretation will be considered throughout the whole analysis in order to discuss how Auster questions the authorship of the novel. However, according to Doležel’s proposal, it can be considered that the power Born exercises over Walker is a mental power “originating in superior mental capacities (knowledge, skills, expertise, etc.) [and] is applied through semiotic acts of information and persuasion” (1998, 103). There are different ways in which Born puts his power over Walker into practice, and this interaction with him is seen throughout the different events that take place in their friendship. Yet, Born’s first manipulation of Walker is through his wife, Margot. After their first meeting at a party where Walker does not remember how he arrived there, they meet in a bar in the West End. Walker’s first impulse is to ignore him since he had already had a bad impression of this man (Auster 2009, 14): that wasn’t to deny his other qualities–his charm, his intelligence, his humor–but underneath it all he had emanated a darkness and a cynicism that had thrown me off balance, had left me feeling that he wasn’t a man who could be trusted. This feeling of darkness and wickedness provoked by Born haunts the whole novel and predicts the terrible events of Walker’s early future. In this second encounter, Born openly persuades Walker to do something by seducing him with his own wife Margot. In a very suspicious tone, Born tells Walker that Margot was very impressed by him (Auster 2009, 16): She’s taken a real liking to you, but you should also know that she’s extremely worried. Worried? Why on earth should she be worried? She doesn’t even know me. Perhaps not, but she’s gotten it into her head that your future is at risk. Certainly, Walker’s future is at risk but not because of any external factor to come but because of his relationship with Born. As Doležel explains, “the most representative motivational complex is the erotic cluster” (1998, 104) and concludes: “the factor of sexual drive gives erotic activity the character of a need, similar to hunger and thirst. The emotional constituent – love – united eros with the grand passions of the mind” (1998, 104). Remarkably, this is how Born justifies Margot’s interest and attraction towards him: “She thinks you need help. Margot might not possess the quickest brain in the Western world, but she meets a boy who says he’s a poet, and the first word that comes to her is starvation” (Auster 2009, 17). So, Walker’s supposed need is Born’s excuse to help him with a job: he proposes that he to run a literary magazine (Auster 2009, 17–18). With this, Born establishes a strong professional bond with Walker that allows him to control and manipulate his actions. And this is confirmed when Born and Walker have a conversation together in front of Margot about the possibility of Walker having sex with her. This scene takes place in Born’s house, after their professional agreement with the literary magazine, and a delicious dinner prepared by Margot. Born openly talks about Margot with Walker, as follows (Auster 2009, 38): And what about Margot herself? Are you attracted to her as well? She’s sitting across the table from me. It seems wrong to talk about her as if she weren’t here. 39LITERATURE I’m sure she doesn’t mind. Do you, Margot? No, Margot said. Not in the least. You see, Mr Walker? Not in the least. Through these lines, it could be inferred that either Margot is part of this game, or she is also being manipulated by Born to manipulate Walker. In other words, if Walker is Born’s fictional creation, so is Margot. And her fictional role in this narration is to have sex with Walker. After admitting that he feels attracted to Margot, Born takes the situation to its limit and goes on coercing Walker (Auster 2009, 38–39): Am I to understand that if Margot threw herself at you and asked you to fuck her, you wouldn’t be interested? Is that what you’re saying? Poor Margot. You have no idea how much you’ve hurt her feelings. What are you talking about? Why don’t you ask her? Suddenly, Margot reached across the table and took hold of my hand. Don’t be upset, she said. Rudolf is only trying to have some fun. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Evidently Walker is part of a plan and Margot is there to help Born. A few pages later, Margot and Walker make love and in fact spend five nights together, however it is Margot who tells Walker that, after those nights, everything will be over (Auster 2009, 53): I’ve loved being with you, but we’ve run out of time now, and the moment you walk out of here, you’ll understand that you don’t need me anymore. That’s not true. Yes, it is. You just don’t know it yet. What are you talking about? Margot’s words suggest that she knows Born’s plan and she is just one of his puppets. She decides to participate in this macabre game in which this disloyalty to Born will have a very high cost for Walker. As a matter of fact, Born has created this situation not only to manipulate Walker psychologically, but also to emotionally blackmail him at the end of this part of the novel. Again, Margot, in her condition as a fictional character in Born’s fiction, is completely aware of the fact that once she has accomplished her role in Born’s work it will be her end. That is the reason why, a few lines before the extract quoted above, she says “I don’t know why, but something tells me this is the end, that this is the last time I’ll ever see you” (Auster 2009, 52), or more explicitly, when she tells Walker “the moment you walk out of here, you’ll understand that you don’t need me anymore” (Auster 2009, 53). Once the sexual encounter between Walker and Margot takes place, Born has total control over Walker. In Doležel’s words, “the subordinate agent has to follow the power holder’s intentions. In this asymmetrical constellation the mode of peremptory interaction is generated. Whatever the specific arrangements, the subordinate agent is in the service of the 40 María Laura Arce Álvarez Invisible or “The Fine Art of Scribbling:” Paul Auster’s Metafiction in Postmodern Narrative Discourse power holder” (1998, 106). Born then tells Walker that he knows he has slept with his wife. Unexpectedly, Born expresses his gratitude in relation to the incident and tells Walker his big secret, that he is in love with another woman in Paris (Auster 2009, 57): Thank me? For what? For showing me the light of truth. I feel greatly in your debt. I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Margot. What about her? She betrayed me. How? I asked, trying to play dumb but feeling ridiculous, crumpling up with shame as Born continued to smile at me. She slept with you. Even though Walker also betrayed him, Born’s understanding of the situation, instead of creating certain suspicion in Walker, strengthens the intimate links between them to such an extent that Walker asserts (Auster 2009, 62): I felt happy, awash in a sense of well-being, and whatever misgivings I might have had about Born were beginning to melt away, or at least had been put in abeyance for now. … I was willing to give him every benefit of the doubt. The whole situation is reversed when, at the end of part one, both Walker and Born, walking about Riverside Park, are mugged by a black teenager with a fake gun. Born stabs the kid showing again his wicked nature. Walker, in a desperate reaction, tells him to take the boy to the hospital but Born replies: “Don’t be an idiot, Born said, grabbing hold of my jacket and giving me a good hard shake. No hospitals. The boy is going to die, and we can’t have anything to do with it” (Auster 2009, 65). All the suspicion and mystery about the risks to Walker’s life if he stays with Born are confirmed but, as expected, he rebels and leaves to find some help: “I don’t care. Walk away from it if you like. Go home and drink another bottle of gin, but I’m running off Broadway right now to call for an ambulance” (Auster 2009, 66). When he comes back, both the black kid and Born have disappeared. The New York Post reports that same afternoon: “the body of eighteen-year-old Cedric Williams had been discovered in Riverside Park with over a dozen knife wounds gouged into his chest and stomach. There was no doubt in my mind that Born was responsible” (Auster 2009, 67). This is what Doležel, in terms of the characters’ power dynamics, calls “conflict”: “the influencee reacts by protecting the status of independence and the influencing agent persists in his or her attempts at domination, conflict is inevitable” (1998, 108). Thus, among the three different sequences of actions that can result from conflict, Born chooses a concrete speech act, threat and ultimatum (Doležel 1998, 109): “Not a word, Walker. Remember: I still have the knife, and I am not afraid to use it” (Auster 2009, 68). This will not be the only conflict in the novel. Born will come back in Walker’s fiction, titled “Summer”, where he will try to face Born again and do justice to Cedric Williams by telling everyone Born is a murderer. This is how Walker’s and Born’s conflict starts since both the erotic cluster and the conflict extend in parts two and three of the novel. 41LITERATURE 3 The Character-Author: Walker The second part of the novel changes narrator but still deals with Walker as one of the protagonists. This time Jim, Walker’s college friend, narrates the story of how he received a letter “less than a year ago” (Auster 2009, 76) from Walker. From a narratological perspective, according to Genette, we are dealing here with what he calls an anachrony: “the various types of discordance between the two orderings of story and narrative” (1983, 36). He further explains that narrative anachronies “implicitly assume the existence of a kind of zero degree that would be a condition of perfect temporal correspondence between narrative and story. This point of reference is more hypothetical than real” (1983, 36). Part II takes us to the present time of the novel, 2007, and to a new narrator, Jim, who still keeps a link with Walker. In fact, part II starts with a past reference, the time and setting where both characters met, Columbia University, in 1965. In this context, Part II becomes an “internal analepses” or “heterodiegetic” part (Genette 1983, 50): “analepses dealing with a story line (and thus with a diegetic content) different from the content (or contents) of the first narrative” (Genette 1983, 50). Indeed, it is different in the sense that it takes us from 1967 to 2007, and the person who narrates the story is different but still related in some way with one of the protagonists of Part I – Walker. Therefore “such analepses deal, classically, either with a character recently introduced whose “antecedents” the narrator wants to shed light on, or they deal with a character who has been out of sight for some time and whose recent past we must catch up with” (Genette 1983, 50). In this analepsis, Jim is in charge of shedding some light on Walker’s antecedents through the package he receives in spring 2007. He also deals with him as a character who has disappeared from his life for a long time, and consequently from his literary space and this narrative level. Remarkably, when Jim opens the UPS package he receives from Walker he explains: “it contained the manuscript of Walker’s story about Rudolf Born (Part I of this book), along with a cover letter from Adam” (Auster 2009, 76). The role of Jim as a narrator is affected by this statement since, by giving the reader the instruction of “Part I of this book”, he is placing himself in the role of writer. This is a fact that becomes even more explicit when he transcribes Walker’s notes and translates Cécile Juin’s diary to include it in what seems to be his book. From a postmodern perspective, this is a form of mise-en-abyme technique that becomes the basis of the whole narration. As the critic Brian McHale explains, “it is a nested or embedded representation, occupying a narrative level inferior to that of the primary, diegetic narrative world” (1990, 124). The influence of “this disruption of the logic of narrative hierarchy” is directly linked in postmodernism with the authorship of the text. Through this technique, postmodernist authors open the discussion of the role of the author, as it occurs here when Jim refers to the book the reader has in his hands and indirectly to the novel Invisible. Moreover, Walker, in his letter, talks about his manuscript as follows (Auster 2009, 76–77): By way of anticipation, I enclose a still-not-finished draft of the first chapter of a book I am trying to write. I want to go on with it but seem to have hit a wall of struggle and uncertainty – fear might be the word I’m looking for – and I’m hoping that a talk with you might give me the courage to climb over it or tear it down. I should add (in case you are in doubt) that it is not a work of fiction. 42 María Laura Arce Álvarez Invisible or “The Fine Art of Scribbling:” Paul Auster’s Metafiction in Postmodern Narrative Discourse Apart from playing with the idea of a story within a story, Auster plays again with authorship since not only is Jim an author, so is Walker. Both perform the roles of character-authors as a key fictional game to reinforce the metaleptic structure. The succession of character-authors blurs the frontiers between narrative layers and, of course, contributes to the invisibilization of the role of the author itself. The reader needs to get to Part II to find out that what he or she reads in Part I is a fragment of a manuscript written by Walker himself. According to Rosemary Huisman, “the narrator begins to write only after he has read everything” (2013, 272), which would imply a complete manipulation of the text from a creative perspective and an impersonation of Walker’s role as an author. And, of course, he also plays with the nature of the text, is it a true story or is it fiction? Jim has an answer for this (Auster 2009, 79): If I hadn’t been told it was a true story, I probably would have plunged in and taken those sixty-plus pages for the beginning of a novel (writers do, after all, sometimes inject characters who bear their own names into works of fiction) and then I might have found the ending implausible – or perhaps too abrupt, which would have made it unsatisfying. Jim literally tells the reader what he has done with Walker’s manuscript: use it as the first chapter of a novel. Here, the thin line between a true story and fiction is questionable, as Currie affirms “[t]hey like to thematise their own artificiality, often by constructing an internal boundary between fiction and reality, which allows for reflection on the relation between fiction and reality, as well as the irony that both the fiction and the reality are, in the end, fictional” (2011, 2). In this particular case, as Currie states, Jim plays the role of the “intrusive authorial narrator” (2011, 2) to confirm in a subtle way that Walker’s manuscript is fiction, and it is part of his novel. If Jim accomplishes the role of the intrusive authorial narrator, Walker becomes the “surrogate author” (2011, 3) as he performs the role of the character-author. In order to reinforce the authorial discussion, Jim, as an “intrusive authorial narrator” keeps on talking about his role in the narration. In a letter sent to Walker as a response to his first letter, Jim shares his experiences as a writer to help him with his manuscript, and again he talks about the book the narrator has in her or his hands (Auster 2009, 89): Part One was written in the first person, and when I began Part Two (which was more directly about myself than the previous part), I continued writing in the first person, grew more and more dissatisfied with the results, and eventually stopped. The pause lasted several months (difficult months, anguished months), and then one night the solution came to me. My approach had been wrong, I realized. By writing about myself in the first person, I had smothered myself and made myself invisible, had made it impossible for me to find the thing I was looking for. In this fragment, Jim not only talks about his role as author but about the process of writing. Furthermore, he questions the use of the first-person singular in Part II of the novel. This decision challenges his existence in the text, turning him into an invisible entity. Some lines after, he explains that “I needed to separate myself from myself, to step back and carve out some space between myself and my subject (which was myself )” (Auster 2009, 89), and the 43LITERATURE transition from “myself” to “subject” is the literary space where he disappears and becomes a character-author. McHale explains this in the following way (2011, 202): The author is another tool for the exploration and exploitation of ontology. S/he functions at two theoretically distinct levels of ontological structure: as the vehicle of autobiographical fact within the projected fictional world; and as the maker of that world, visibly occupying an ontological level superior to it. Apart from the fact that the issue of authorship is used in the text as a tool to open different fictional layers and thus contributes to the metafictional discussion, in this case Jim is a “vehicle of autobiographical fact” as a way of dealing with the confrontation between reality and fiction. Above all, Jim’s role is that of the “maker of that world” who occupies an “ontological level superior” to the ones in which Walker becomes the protagonist of his narration. Jim’s role as a writer is reinforced by the introduction of what Genette would call an “internal homodiegetic analepses”, that is, “internal analepses that deal with the same line of action as the first narrative” (1983, 51). Considering the first narrative with which the novel starts, Jim brings to the text the rest of Walker’s novel (Auster 2009, 93): Two days after the phone call, the second part of his book arrived at my house in a FedEx envelope. A brief cover letter informed me that he had at last come up with a title, 1967, and that each chapter would be headed by the name of a season. The first part was Spring, the part I had just been sent was Summer, and the part he was working on now was Fall. Again, Auster introduces the mise-en-abyme technique, and Jim, through Walker, introduces the idea of the novel within the novel which McHale explains as “the nested representation reproduces or duplicates the primary representation as a whole” (2001, 124). Jim is the means through which the reader gets to know Walker’s novel: “still fresh in my mind, I braced myself for something unbearable, a story that would be even more harsh and troubling than Spring” (Auster 2009, 94). From Jim’s words, the reader can infer that he is also a reader of Walker’s fiction and the link between the three chapters, “Spring,” “Summer” and “Fall”. However, from a metafictional perspective, Jim also becomes the “maker of that world” (2001, 202) since he can be the real author of Walker’s story and therefore be playing with the narrative roles. Indeed, with the last part of 1967 Jim sees himself forced to decode Walker’s encrypted notes to finish the novel. Jim receives a letter from Walker after he learns he is dead (Auster 2009, 165): [T]he news that Walker was dead, and now he was talking to me again, a dead man was talking to me, and I felt that as long as I held the letter in my hand, as long as the words of that letter were still before my eyes, it would be as if he had been resurrected, as if he had been momentarily brought back to life in the words he had written to me. Consequently, the author is dead. Here, Jim points to two things that seem to echo certain ideas reflected in Roland Barthes’ essay “The Death of the Author” (1967). On the one hand, the narrator refers to the fact that “a dead man was talking to me” underlining the importance of language and the fact that “the words of that letter were still before my eyes”. Barthes 44 María Laura Arce Álvarez Invisible or “The Fine Art of Scribbling:” Paul Auster’s Metafiction in Postmodern Narrative Discourse states that “it is language which speaks, not the author; to write is, through a prerequisite impersonality, to reach that point where only language acts, ‘performs,’ and not ‘me’” (1990, 168). In this context, the invisibility of the author reinforces the importance language has in the literary space to the extent that it makes the author disappear. On the other hand, Jim believes Walker is resurrected through his own words, and therefore through his own fiction, which highlights the relevance of the reader in the act of writing. A few years earlier, in 1955, the critic Maurice Blanchot was already discussing the relationship between the author and reader in the literary space: “The reader, without knowing it, is engaged in a profound struggle with the author” (1989, 193). Moreover, he (1989, 193) concludes that: What is a book no one reads? Something that is not yet written. It would seem, then, that to read is not to write the book again, but to allow the book to be: written – this time all by itself, without the intermediary of the writer, without anyone’s writing it. From this perspective, the role of the reader is more a creative one which emerges from the invisibility of the author to rewrite the book again. And that is exactly what Jim does through reading or, in this creative act, “rewriting” Walker’s manuscript. In this line of thought, Barthes culminates his essay by asserting: “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author” (1990, 172). Thus, the death of Walker is at the cost of Jim’s birth as a reader who, at the same time, takes a creative role in the fiction as a way of impersonating Walker, since he literally has to transcribe his words (Auster 2009, 166): Telegraphic. No complete sentences. From beginning to end, written like this. Goes to the store. Falls asleep. Lights a cigarette. In the third person this time. Third person, present tense, and therefore I decided to follow his lead and render his account in exactly that way – third person, present tense. As for the enclosed pages, do with them what you will. He had given me his permission, and I don’t feel that turning his encrypted, Morse-code jottings into full sentences constitutes a betrayal of any kind. Despite my editorial involvement with the text, in the deepest, truest sense of what it means to tell a story, every word of Fall was written by Walker himself. Jim’s act of writing is also an act of reading that affirms Walker’s death as an author. As Blanchot explains: “every reading where consideration of the writer seems to play so great a role is an attack which annihilates him in order to give the work back to itself: back to its anonymous presence, to the violent, impersonal affirmation that it is” (1989, 193). In other words, back to its invisibility. 4 The Death of the Author: Jim’s Ghosts If “Summer” tells of the incestuous relationship between Walker and his sister Gwyn during the summer of 1967 in New York, “Fall” brings back Born, but this time in Paris. Walker goes to Paris for his junior year in college, but his desire for revenge is uncontrollable and his stay in Paris becomes a way of unmasking Born and his evil nature. In “Fall” the narrator again uses the same narrative technique used in “Spring”, the erotic cluster and the conflict. Certainly, Walker’s desire for revenge is in a way an act of rebellion in the sense that he challenges Born’s domination of him and his own world. His aim is to tell everyone in Born’s 45LITERATURE new life (his wife, Hélène Juin and her daughter, Cécile Juin) that he is a murderer. From a metafictional perspective, if we consider Born the creator of Walker’s literary space, then as a fictional character he is threatening his fictional existence since he is not supposed to face his own creator in a literary space he is not allowed to transgress. However, in this new phase of his life Walker succumbs to continuing his romantic relationship with Margot, a character that still works as an inseparable link with Born, and even though they do not have any contact anymore, she will take him back to him (Auster 2009, 172): Margot smiles, then changes the subject by asking him for a cigarette. As he lights the Gauloise for her, Walker looks at Margot and suddenly understands that he will never be able to separate her in his mind from Born. It is a grotesque realization, and it utterly smashes the playful, seductive tone he was trying to initiate. […] Even if Margot is no longer a part of Born’s life, she is tied to Born in Walker’s memory, and to look at her is no different from looking at Born. The transgression takes place some lines after, when Walker tells Margot “about the stroll down Riverside Drive on that May evening after she left New York. He describes the stabbing to her. He tells her pointblank that Born is without question the murderer of Cedric Williams” (Auster 2009, 172). Here, Walker defies Born even more, and evidently does not respect his ultimatum. Moreover, by acting contrary to Born’s orders, he also defies Born’s role as a manipulator, as the influencer of this “multicharacter” narration. In this context, considering Born the influencer and creator makes Walker the influencee or character-author of this fictional layer, and thus he challenges Born’s authorship. Indeed, Walker is convinced that he can still control the situation since, in his role as character-author, he believes he is writing this part of the story; he is the one who defies Born by meeting Margot again and planning to casually meet him. However, he finds out that there is nothing he can do to avoid Born’s manipulation (Auster 2009, 182–83): He glances up, and there, standing directly in front of him, is Rudolf Born. Before Walker can say or do anything, the future husband of Hélène Juin sits down in the empty chair beside him. Walker’s pulse begins to race. He is breathless, speechless. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, he tells himself. If and when they crossed paths, he was the one who was going to spot Born, not the other way around. From this point onwards, Born’s domination of Walker is absolute, and even though Walker believes he can get into Born’s world again as a strategy to reveal to his new family that he is a murderer, this is only one more example of Born’s power over Walker and how he ends up trapped in his own game. Since Born reappears on the scene, the narrative discourse changes by blurring the limits between literary genres and ending the different parts of the narration with stage directions such as “End of Act I. Curtain” (2009, 187) or “End of Act II. Curtain” (2009, 222) until the last part of the manuscript written by Walker titled “Act III” (2009, 222). The introduction of stage directions to the narrative discourse reinforces the mise-en-abyme technique by opening a new discussion in relation to the literary genres used in the novel. This is also reflected in the last fictional layer when the authorship of the novel is questioned by Jim about becoming a translator, and accordingly, an author. Moreover, the last part of “Fall” is supposed to be a literal transcription of Walker’s final notes, leaving 46 María Laura Arce Álvarez Invisible or “The Fine Art of Scribbling:” Paul Auster’s Metafiction in Postmodern Narrative Discourse behind Jim’s role as a narrator to become a copyist. Thus, the conflict started in the first level of narration, “Spring”, culminates in Born’s final act, when he uses Cécile to put “two and a half kilos maybe three” (Auster 2009, 241) of hashish in Walker’s room while he is having a walk. The police arrest him, and Walker is deported back to the United States with the condition of not coming back again to France. This is how Born wins the conflict, this is how Born “succeeds in overpowering the antagonist” (Doležel 1998, 109). In other words, this is how Born “prove[s] his domination by punishing the conquered, up to and including his or her annihilation” (Doležel 1998, 110). And, of course, this is how Born kills Walker as a character in his fiction (Auster 2009, 244–43): He will never go back there, and he will never see any of them again. Good-bye, Margot. Good-bye, Cécile. Good-bye, Hélène. For years later, they are no more substantial than ghosts. They are all ghosts now, and W. will soon be walking among them. The last part of the novel confirms Jim’s performance as character-author and the transformation of Walker’s notes into his own fiction, as he states: “I have already described how I revamped Walker’s notes for Fall. As for the names, they have been invented according to Gwyn’s instructions” (Auster 2009, 260). The next level of narration is a translation of Cécile Juin’s diary. Certainly, Jim impersonates Walker not only as an author, but also as a translator. Born himself introduces Walker to Cécile as a translator (Auster 2009, 200), an act of premonition bearing in mind that Walker’s impersonator, Jim, will end up translating her diary and last experiences with Born. As a narrator, Jim makes a clear statement of his mission with the diary: “The diary was written in French, of course, and what follows is my translation of that French into English, which I am including with the author’s full permission” (Auster 2009, 274). This statement is ironic, since Jim is the author of Cécile Juin’s diary. If the narrator plays with his role of reader to become an author, he also contributes to this discussion in his role of translator. As mentioned before, once Jim becomes a translator he is again impersonating Walker and becoming an author. In The Invention of Solitude, Auster talks about the relationship between the translator, the text translated and the original author (Auster 1989, 136): A. sits down in his own room to translate another man’s book, and it is as though he were entering that man’s solitude and making it his own. […] Even though there is only one man in the room, there are two. A. imagines himself as a kind of ghost of that other man, who is both there and not there, and whose book is both the same and not the same as the one he is translating. Thus, in the same way that Jim is Walker’s ghost, he is also Cécile Juin’s ghost. If, at first, he was Walker’s ghost through a process of reading, here he becomes an author through the process of translating. Two ways of approaching and decoding a text that contribute to the mise-en-abyme technique. In other words, different fictional layers open to mirror the novel itself by introducing several ways of becoming the author of a text. The translation, as a new piece of fiction inside the story, connects with the other through its protagonist, Born. Now he has removed Walker from his fiction, this time the story deals with the encounter between Born and Cécile Juin after many years. The novel ends with Cécile finding out 47LITERATURE Born’s real identity, his real job as a spy for the French government and discovering his real, murderous nature. Cécile, the last survivor of Born’s world, accomplishes Walker’s mission as a redemption for what she did to him. 5 Conclusion To conclude, with this last fictional layer Jim questions once more the authorship of the novel but, in this succession of fictional levels and the repetition of different authors, the figure of one single author disappears. Certainly, Jim mirrors his role of author in all the different fictional layers and in his ghosts, Walker, Born and Cécile. From this perspective, Invisible can be considered an exercise of metafiction, a poststructuralist game in which Auster shows the reader the whole process of writing and the creation of a literary space with the aim of erasing the author as its central theme. Rather than excluding the author from the text, Auster plays with different character-authors who will successively disappear in the multiplication of several narratives. Author and character-authors meet in Rudolph Born’s story in which Walker sees himself immersed in Born’s trap as his fictional character, and therefore his whole life depends on Born’s creative decisions. This fictional layer is reflected in Jim’s story, questioning the authority of the text he is reading and the novel the reader has in her or his hands. In this sense, Jim stands as the writer, rewriter and translator of Walker’s life experience which at the same time becomes a fiction in the hands of Jim. Whereas Auster’s metafiction is characterized by fictionalizing the literary space and the practice of fiction, what makes Invisible stand out from the other works is how Auster constructs a metaleptic structure in which characters and readers navigate through imperceptible narrative layers linked with an invisible thread that connects them all. In this context, Auster’s fictional work is adroit in weaving the different fictional spaces whose frontiers turn invisible, giving the title a new meaning apart from its reference to the disappearance of the author in the novel. Invisible gives Auster’s postmodernity a new perspective in which the construction of the literary space is infinite and the boundaries between the fictional layers are erased in order to make the author invisible. References Alber, Jan, and Rüdiger Heinze. 2011. Unnatural Narratives-Unnatural Narratology. Boston: De Gruyter. Alighieri, Dante. 1991. The Divine Comedy. Encyclopedia Britannica. Arce, María Laura. 2016. Paul Auster and the Influence of Maurice Blanchot. Jefferson: McFarland. Auster, Paul. 1989. The Invention of Solitude. London: Faber & Faber. —. 2004. The New York Trilogy. London: Faber & Faber. —. 2009. Invisible. London: Faber & Faber. Barthes, Roland. 1990. “The Death of the Author.” In Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader, edited by David Lodge, 166–72. London: Longman. Blanchot, Maurice. 1989. The Space of Literature. Nebraska: Nebraska University Press. Csató, Péter. 2022. “Metaleptic Confessions: The Problematization of Fictional Truth in Paul Auster’s Invisible.” Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 28 (2): 267–88. Currie, Mark. 2011. Postmodern Narrative Theory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. De Certeau, Michel. 1997. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: California University Press. Doležel, Lubomír. 1998. Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Eve, Martin Paul. 2016. Literature Against Criticism. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. 48 María Laura Arce Álvarez Invisible or “The Fine Art of Scribbling:” Paul Auster’s Metafiction in Postmodern Narrative Discourse Genette, Gérard. 1983. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Huisman, Rosemary. 2013. “Paul Auster’s Storytelling in Invisible: The Pleasures of Postmodernity.” In Storytelling: Critical & Creative Approaches, edited by Jan Shaw, Philippa Kelly and L.E. Slemer, 261– 77. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kloeckner, Christian. 2017. The Writing of Terrorism: Contemporary American Fiction and Maurice Blanchot. Berlin: Peter Lang. Lodge, David, ed. 1990. Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. London: Longman. McHale, Brian. 2001. Postmodernist Fiction. New York: Routledge. Ryan, Marie-Laure. 2004. “Metaleptic Machines.” Semiotica 150 (1/4): 439–69. Thoss, Jeff. 2011. “Unnatural Narrative and Metalepsis: Grant Morrison’s Animal Man.” In Unnatural Narratives-Unnatural Narratology, edited by Jan Alber and Rüdiger Heinze, 189–209. Boston: De Gruyter. Waugh, Patricia. 2001. Metafiction. New York: Routledge. 49LITERATURE 2023, Vol. 20 (2), 49-63(126) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.20.2.49-63 UDC: 316.658.4(73):94(100)"1914/1918" David Hazemali, Tomaž Onič University of Maribor, Slovenia “Canning the Kaiser” in Words and Images: Case Studies of Patriotic American Propaganda from WWI ABSTRACT The article examines how the US government used poetry and posters as instruments of propaganda during World War I to mobilize the nation and resources for their war effort and to denigrate the enemy, especially the German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II. Two case studies are presented: the poem “Canning the Kaiser” by the American writer Upton Sinclair and the poster “Can Vegetables, Fruit and the Kaiser Too” by the Belgian-American artist Jozef Paul Verrees. The article explores the historical context of Sinclair’s poem as well as the use of humour, irony, and visual metaphors in both pieces of art to persuade the American public to conserve food, support the troops, and thus help defeat the Kaiser. A particular interest of this study lies in the idiomatic meaning of the phrase “Canning the Kaiser”, which is not only an intriguing linguistic issue but had a considerable impact on the development of the campaign. Keywords: propaganda, Canning the Kaiser, Upton Sinclair, World War I, United States of America, Jozef Paul Verrees »Konzerviranje kajzerja« v besedi in podobi: študiji primera ameriške domoljubne propagande iz prve svetovne vojne IZVLEČEK Prispevek prinaša dve študiji primera uporabe poezije in propagandnih plakatov, s katerimi je ameriška vlada v času prve svetovne vojne poskušala pritegniti prebivalstvo k podpori svojim vojnim prizadevanjem in hkrati očrniti sovražnika, zlasti nemškega cesarja Wilhelma II. Analiza vključuje pesem »Canning the Kaiser« ameriškega pisatelja Uptona Sinclairja in plakat »Can Vegetables, Fruit and the Kaiser Too« belgijsko-ameriškega umetnika Jozefa Paula Verreesa. Članek pojasni zgodovinski kontekst Sinclairjeve pesmi ter uporabo humorja, ironije in vizualnih metafor v obeh delih, ki naj bi ameriško javnost prepričali, naj konzervira hrano in podpira vojsko ter tako pomaga premagati »kajzerja«. Posebna zanimivost te študije je analiza pomenov frazema »Canning the Kaiser«, ki ni le jezikovno zanimiva, ampak je pomembno vplivala na razvoj ameriške propagandne kampanje. Ključne besede: propaganda, »Konzerviranje kajzerja«, Upton Sinclair, prva svetovna vojna, Združene države Amerike, Jozef Paul Verrees 50 David Hazemali, Tomaž Onič “Canning the Kaiser” in Words and Images: Case Studies ... 1 Introduction The United States of America joined World War I in April 1917.1 In order to mobilize the nation for the war effort, the Woodrow Wilson administration established the Committee on Public Information (CPI), also referred to as the Creel Committee, an independent government agency whose main mission was to foster enthusiasm for the war and support for the war effort among the multi-ethnic population on the home front (Hazemali and Matjašič Friš 2018, 914). This was particularly welcome for providing food supplies for the army the population, but also for helping to increase the enthusiasm of young men to become soldiers. At the same time, the committee’s job was to counter various agencies and individuals who made attempts to act against the US war effort (Creel 1920, 1–10). During the period of its existence, i.e., from 14 April 1917 to 30 June 1919, the Committee – alone or through other private organizations such as the National War Garden Commission (NWGC) and federal agencies like the United States Food Administration (USFA) – made every effort to promote its aspirations via all available media. This fostered a change in American food culture, as home-grown and canned produce replaced fresh fruit and vegetables (Tunc 2012, 193). Even today its activity is frequently considered one of the most significant propaganda campaigns in the history of the United States: There was no part of the great war machinery that we did not touch, no medium of appeal that we did not employ. The printed word, the spoken word, the motion picture, the poster, the signboard – all these were used in our campaign to make our own people and all other peoples understand the causes that compelled America to take arms in defense of its liberties and free institutions. (Creel 1920, 2) Two significant communication channels used for propaganda that are of particular interest to this study include poetry, which in this case was written to an existing well-known tune, and visual art in the form of public posters which – owing to their predominantly visual content – relied heavily on visualized rhetorical figures like visual metaphors and visual irony. Figurative language, particularly the use of carefully chosen or constructed metaphors, is often used for the purposes of political propaganda or manipulation, particularly – as maintained by Ramadan Shunnaq, Radwan and Shuqair – “in addressing large heterogeneous audiences” (2020, 258).2 Kennedy and Kolar (2023) develop the argument that such discourse is even more effective when combined with music, e.g., when used in songs. This article focuses on two such case studies that prominently featured in this campaign: the poem “Canning the Kaiser”3 by the distinguished American writer Upton Sinclair and the poster “Can Vegetables, 1 America formally declared war on the German Empire on 6 April. Contrary to what the Entente Powers had hoped, the US armed forces were still in the process of significant expansion (see Hazemali, Turnšek and Očko 2019, 428). As such, American war preparations on the home front proceeded and progressed in parallel with the military organization. 2 In literary and non-literary public discourse, metaphors often serve a propagandistic or manipulative purpose as reported by many contemporary stylistic or discourse analysis studies (e.g., see Plemenitaš 2017, 2020; Furlan and Kavalir 2021). 3 In order to avoid ambiguity regarding several song lyrics dealt with in this article, we chose to refer to Sinclair’s text “Canning the Kaiser” as to a poem, even though, in the narrow sense, this main object of literary and stylistic analysis is song lyrics written to an existing tune of a marching song from the American Civil War period with the title “Marching through Georgia”. “Canning the Kaiser” in Words and Images: Case Studies ... 51LITERATURE Fruit and the Kaiser Too”4 by the Belgian-American artist Jozef Paul Verrees (1889–1942). Sinclair’s poem draws its inspiration from the slogan “Can the Kaiser”, and later a song adopted by the US troops shortly after they arrived in Europe, thus contributing to bolstering American patriotism by utilizing and channelling the already negative national sentiment towards the German Emperor and King of Prussia, Kaiser Wilhelm II, as a symbol of the main enemy.5 Similarly, Verrees’ equally engaging poster visually neutralizes and defeats the Kaiser by encapsulating him in a glass jar; simultaneously, it foregrounds the importance of food conservation for securing the American and Entente Powers’ victory. Both products thus agitate against the Kaiser’s Germany, i.e., the then existing German Empire, by actively involving the addressees in the propagandist activity to shape public opinion. 2 “Canning the Kaiser” in Song War songs have frequently played a part in the side activities of military conflicts. According to the Russian-American musicologist, pianist and composer Nicolas Slonimsky (2013, 72), World War I saw the creation and widespread use of more than a hundred songs, referred to as the “Kaiser-hanging songs”, by the Entente Powers and their US ally. These heavily satirical poems with strong propaganda elements threatened the then German Emperor Wilhelm II, popularly referred to as the Kaiser, with hanging or some other form of execution. One such poem was written by an unlikely advocate of the US involvement in the war, the prolific American writer and social reformer Upton Sinclair. Sinclair held strong socialist beliefs and actively supported progressive social change, including the rights of workers. These convictions are reflected in many of his literary and socially critical works, such as the novel The Jungle (1906) and the critical exposé The Brass Check (1919), which made him a prominent figure in the socialist movement. He believed in peaceful solutions for international political problems and preferred diplomacy over armed conflict. During World War I, however, he underwent a notable transformation in his political stance regarding this issue: before the war and after it, Sinclair held strong pacifist beliefs and actively opposed the war as well as any form of American involvement. During the war, however, his anti-war stance changed significantly, since in 1916, even before the US entered the war, he wrote and circulated a letter that endorsed the war “from a socialist perspective” (Coodley 2013, 77). In February 1917, he abandoned the branch of the Socialist Party who favoured “peace at any price” (“Joins Hands with Mars”, The Princeton Union, 1917, 7), and in July, he publicly withdrew from the party owing to its opposition “to conscription and to the war America is waging upon ‘German autocracy’”. He compared the “Prussian ruling class”, i.e., the German Emperor and his political elite, to “a beast with the brains of an engineer” (“Upton Sinclair Quits Party over War Idea.” Star-Tuesday, 1917, 2). Sinclair’s temporary change of heart – he later returned 4 American WWI propaganda posters are usually referred to by the caption they contain or the most prominent part, which in this case is “Can Vegetables, Fruit and the Kaiser Too”. This poster, however, was frequently referred to simply as “Can the Kaiser” – probably owing to its popularity but also to the popularity of the phrase. The term “Can the Kaiser” was also used by the NWGC founder Charles Lathrop Pack (See Pack 1919, 21). 5 The US aligned itself with the Entente Powers, commonly referred to as the Entente, while the German Empire played a significant role within the Central Powers. It is worth mentioning that Emperor Wilhelm II was the grandson of Queen Victoria and there were, therefore, dynastic connections running counter to his current status as head of an enemy empire. 52 David Hazemali, Tomaž Onič “Canning the Kaiser” in Words and Images: Case Studies ... to his anti-war stance6 – was affected by his belief that the autocratic and oppressive regime in the German Empire needed to be eradicated. This earned him the label in The New York Tribune Review of “a socialist who refuse[d] to be un-American” (“A Socialist Who Refuses to be Un-American”, The New York Tribune Review, 1917, 6). One of the indicators of this surprising short-term shift was the pro-war poem “Canning the Kaiser”, which Sinclair wrote in July 1917 and later included in his novel Jimmie Higgins published in 1919, i.e., after the war. According to Sinclair, the genesis of his poem emerged from a news dispatch from London published in late June 1917, which celebrated the inventive phrase “can the Kaiser” coined by the first American troops who had landed in France a few days earlier: ‘Our soldiers had hardly landed in France when they announced that they intended to “can the Kaiser.’ At first blush this intensely amused our English friends who, with their own inimitable appreciation of humor, found great delight in contemplating the prospect of the American army’s expressed intention of bottling up the German war lord and hermetically sealing him in a retainer – figuratively speaking, of course. The dense Britons apparently never heard of the derivation of the term ‘can,’ as used in this sense, and the thought that it might perhaps allude to the time-honored practice of tying a tin can to a dog’s tail to get rid of him never once entered their heads.’ (“Yankee Humor”, Goodwin’s Weekly: a thinking paper for thinking people, 1917, 1) The same news item from Goodwin’s Weekly reports that “a catchy song has been improvised, entitled ‘Can the Kaiser’, which is sung to the stirring tune of ‘Dixie’” (ibid.). By “Dixie” the reporter refers to the well-known pre-American Civil War tune, also commonly known as “I Wish I Was in Dixie” written and composed in 1859 by Daniel Decatur Emmett. The lyrics of “Can the Kaiser” quoted in the same news dispatch are as follows: In khaki suit and army visor, All aboard to can the Kaiser, Look away! Look Away! Look Away, Germany. In Kaiserland he reigns alone; We’ll push the Kaiser off his throne: Look away! Look Away! Look Away, Germany. We’re off to can the Kaiser, Hooray! Hooray! In Kaiserland we’ll take our stand Until we can the Kaiser. Let’s go, lets’ go, let’s go and can the Kaiser. (In Walling 2019, 199–202) 6 A character in Sinclair’s 1919 novel Jimmie Higgins expresses a belief that can be seen as strongly autobiographical: “If at the beginning of 1917 I had known what I know today, I would have opposed the war and gone to jail with the pacifist radicals” (Piep 2005, 210). 53LITERATURE According to a young American recruit, H.W. Molye, the underlined can in the last line of the quoted lyrics was long drawn out and accompanied by stamping of feet (Molye 1917, 1). Although several “Kaiser-hanging songs” already existed at the time, this one appeared to be the catchiest, as suggested on 23 September 1917 by Sgt. Clinton J. Peterson, who was stationed at Camp Dix, Wrightstown, New Jersey: “We have lots of others but this one strikes me as being the best” (Walling 2019, 202). Apart from mockery of the British sense of humour by the Americans, the above passage from Goodwin’s Weekly touches on the main linguistic issue addressed in this study, which is connected to the idiomatic meaning of the phrase “Canning the Kaiser”. Apparently, canning as used by the American speakers of English – the soldiers as well as the general population – referred to the old inhumane practice of tying a tin can to a (usually wild) dog’s tail, which would cause noise and thus scare the dog away (see “Yankee Humor”, Goodwin’s Weekly: a thinking paper for thinking people, 1917, 1). The phrase was used by soldiers on the European battlefields but also by people across the US. According to a New York Times (8 July 1917) report, the chief of the Belgian War Mission in the US, diplomat Baron Ludovic Moncheur, who heard this phrase at one of the mountain states train stations when travelling across the country, had to ask a representative of the US Secretary of State for an explanation. This proves not only a different (or a lack of) understanding of the phrase by the Europeans, but also the nationwide usage of the expression. To American soldiers, canning the Kaiser would thus metaphorically mean scaring him away from his position of power, possibly from the political scene in general, or simply getting rid of him and the political entity he represented. On the other hand, the British obviously understood canning as a process of conserving in a glass jar with the purpose of preservation, which in the case of Kaiser would be closer to the purpose of containing and neutralizing him. Thus American soldiers, when singing the Kaiser song, must have had the “American meaning” in mind, while the “conservation meaning” was closer to the British.7 This indicates the brilliance of the CPI, USFA and NWGC poster propaganda campaign, since they cleverly adopted the “European understanding” of the phrase and supported it with a visual representation of the Kaiser in a glass jar. In this way, they achieved a double effect: the poster campaign was linked to the existing effect of the jingoistic war song, while they successfully promoted the “canning the Kaiser” concept in support of the war garden and food conservation movements. Verrees’ poster and the campaign in general will be addressed and analysed later in the article. For his version of “Canning the Kaiser” Sinclair used another well-known tune from the Civil War period: instead of “Dixie”, he chose the marching song “Marching through Georgia”, which today is widely available in multiple audio versions. As can be seen from Sinclair’s lyrics provided later in this section, many phrases from the refrain resemble these lines from the original: 7 According to OED, the process of sealing food in a metal canister in British usage is also referred to as “to tin”. The result of this process, i.e., the container with food, was called in the colonies a “tin can” – thus having it both ways. Cambridge Dictionary provides two more relevant meanings of can: the slang meaning of “to get canned” means “to be dismissed from the job”, while the (usually) imperative form “Can it!” means “stop doing something or making noise”. 54 David Hazemali, Tomaž Onič “Canning the Kaiser” in Words and Images: Case Studies ... “Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the jubilee! Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free!” So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea While we were marching through Georgia. (Work 1865) The inaugural performance of Sinclair’s song took place on the morning of 11 July 1917 at the First Unitarian Church in Portland, where the Department of Music Education at the National Education Association (NEA) held its session. According to the news report, the poem’s presentation was the “first of its kind” (“New Song is Hit”, The Morning Oregonian, 1917, 5), and it made a profound impression on the audience. When introducing the composition in the morning music session, Professor Gantvoort of the College of Music in Cincinnati expressed his pride at being among the first to perform it. Starting the familiar tune on the piano, he guided his students through the entire piece. He subsequently invited volunteers, primarily women, to join in at the Auditorium that evening. Approximately 35 individuals responded to his call, making it a memorable occasion. Gantvoort confidently anticipated that “Canning the Kaiser” would quickly eclipse the renowned “Tipperary” and predicted its resonance as a prominent war-time musical composition (“New Song is Hit”, The Morning Oregonian, 1917, 5). He was right, as the song became a hit on the home front, and some US newspapers labelled it a new “classic” (“Canning the Kaiser. Upton Sinclair Makes Big Hit with New War Song.” The Topeka State Journal, 1917, 8; “New Song is a “Hit”. Canning the Kaiser.” The Meridian Times, 1917, 8). It was quickly incorporated into US wartime propaganda, thus appearing, for example, in the Official Report of the meeting of the US National Education Association held in July 1917 (Winship 1917, 120), and as an official “War song for patriotic meetings” at the University of Texas (Shurter 1918, 12). It even reached the secluded mining town of Ely, Minnesota, where it was sung by pupils of the Ely public schools (“Pageant of Patriots”, The Ely Miner, 1918, 4). About two years after its first appearance in public, yet still while Sinclair was a patriotic supporter of the US government’s war policy, the poem “Canning the Kaiser” appeared in Sinclair’s novel Jimmie Higgins, which was published in 1919 but written over the course of 1918. This version of the poem is the one used for the literary and stylistic analysis later in this section, since this is, obviously, Sinclair’s final version, over which he had full control, which is not necessarily the case for the version sung among the troops and which – at least to some extent – was disseminated orally. Jimmie Higgins is one of Sinclair’s less well-known literary works. It explores themes of labour activism, socialism, and the struggles of the working class during the early 20th century in the US. The story follows the life of Jimmie Higgins, a “working Socialist Everyman” (Coodley 2013, 81), who is an advocate for workers’ rights and socialist principles, and becomes involved in socialist and labour movements. He organizes a labour union, dedicating himself to improving the conditions of workers in his community. In this respect, he shows a resemblance to Sinclair himself, particularly with regard to his beliefs and worldview. The novel portrays Jimmie’s experiences, the challenges he faces and the conflicts that arise as he tries to unite and empower the working class in the face of capitalist exploitation. 55LITERATURE Throughout the novel, Sinclair highlights the harsh realities of industrialization, economic inequality, and the resistance that labour activists encountered from both employers and government authorities. The character of Jimmie Higgins embodies the determination and sacrifices made by those who fought for social justice and workers’ rights during that era. The main character’s commitment to shedding light on the struggles of the working class is particularly autobiographical, since apart from writing, Sinclair also took an active part in politics at the state and federal levels and was a political activist in favour of public health, free speech and worker rights. The novel examines the complexities of organizing and advocating for change in a society marked by economic disparities and unequal power dynamics. The poem “Canning the Kaiser” is thematically in line with official propaganda against the German Empire, which was the primary war opponent of the Entente Powers on the European battlefield. The main target of mockery is the Kaiser, in the poem disrespectfully referred to as Bill (traditionally the short form for William and thus by extension for the German Wilhelm). Considering the American perspective, it is not surprising that other nations like the French, English, and even some Americans are mentioned in an ironic and patronizing tone. However, the poem does not seem to be intrinsically connected to the plot of the novel. It is introduced at the end of Chapter XIX, in which Jimmie arrives at a mobilization camp and undergoes standard procedures like inoculation and quarantine. A brief description of the other men at the camp is given, and the narrator calls attention to their particular slang, which Jimmie does not quite understand. The chapter closes with the account of how he “would sit and listen while they sang with zest a song telling about what they were going to do when they got to France” (Sinclair 1919), and then the poem is presented in full: Bring the good old bugle, boys, we’ll sing another song, Sing it with a spirit that will move the world along, Sing it as we love to sing it, just two million strong— While we are canning the Kaiser. CHORUS: Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill! We’re on the job to-day! Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill! We’ll seal you so you’ll stay! We’ll put you up in ginger in the good old Yankee way— While we are canning the Kaiser. Hear the song we’re singing on the shining roads of France; Hear the Tommies cheering, and see the Poilus prance; Africanders and Kanucks and Scots without their pants— While we are canning the Kaiser. (Chorus) Bring the guns from Bethlehem, by way of old New York; Bring the beans from Boston, and don’t leave out the pork; Bring a load of soda-pop and pull the grape-juice cork— While we are canning the Kaiser. (Chorus) 56 David Hazemali, Tomaž Onič “Canning the Kaiser” in Words and Images: Case Studies ... Come you men from Dixieland, you lumberjacks of Maine; Come you Texas cowboys, and you farmers of the plain; Florida to Oregon, we boast the Yankee strain— While we are canning the Kaiser. (Chorus) Now we’ve started on the job we mean to put it through; Ship the kings and kaisers all, and make the world anew; Clear the way for common folk, for men like me and you— While we are canning the Kaiser. (Chorus) (Sinclair 1919) Surprisingly, the next chapter does not pick up on the poem in any way; it only provides a comment on how nobody stays long in the mobilization camp but soon catches a ship to Europe. The lack of the poem’s more solid incorporation into the plot of the novel can be explained by its earlier existence as a propaganda song, but we will first look at the poem’s stylistic layer and its literary theoretical interpretation.8 The poem features several traditional rhetorical figures, which contribute to its main theme of supporting the American war effort as well as its central motif, i.e., the neutralization of the Kaiser – in the metonymical sense – by preserving (or rather containing) him in a jar or a can. Among the salient rhetorical schemes in the poem, we find repetition, which is present on several levels. The two most noticeable ones are the refrain and chorus that continuously co-appear at the closure of every stanza. The ironic reference to the Emperor, suggesting that all everyday errands are done “[w]hile we are canning the Kaiser”, occupies the closing line in each stanza and leads to the particularly mocking chorus with a disdainful perspective on Wilhelm II referred to as Bill, which is a meiosis of the English version of the name William. Both these repetitions go hand in hand with the fact that both poem’s predecessors, i.e., “Dixie” as well as “Marching through Georgia”, are marching songs and Sinclair’s adaptation still features the rhythmic characteristics of the latter. Similarly, Sinclair preserved the double iteration, an epizeuxis and an anaphora, which occupies the two iambic syllables in the first two lines of the Chorus “Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill!” (in “Marching Through Georgia” the anaphoric exclamation was “Hurrah! Hurrah!”). This anaphora is a strong cohesive element in the poem – in fact, it was additionally strengthened by Sinclair since it reappears in all but the last stanza, while in the original tune the anaphoric repetition appears only in the first two. Increased cohesion is also achieved through parallelism of these anaphoric phrases, since all are verbs in the imperative form that require some sort of action from the listener: sing, hear, bring and come. Their repetition is slightly varied over the stanzas, but the imperative mode as well as the climax that they create contribute to a greater engagement of the listener/reader which is typical of texts intended for or used as propaganda. With its marching rhythm, the poem/song affirms the idea of proactive propaganda: the verse opens and closes with a strong syllable, while the other strong and light positions are equally 8 For a similar stylistic analysis, see Boase-Beier (2021) for poetry or Zupan and Blake (2022) for prose. 57LITERATURE distributed in a sort of marching pulse. The metrical scheme of the non-refrain lines reads as – ◡ ◡ ◡ – ◡ ◡ ◡ – ◡ ◡ ◡ – (possibly with every second syllable stressed: – ◡ – ◡ – ◡ – ◡ – ◡ – ◡ –), where “–” marks a stressed and “◡” an unstressed position. The uniform metronome rhythm, as well as the existence of the sing-along chorus, is in line with the political decision of the then decision makers to introduce the poem into American primary schools and have it sung by the pupils. The poem also contains several sound figures. Particularly dominant among them is a rather straightforward rhyme scheme with unsophisticated high-frequency masculine rhyme like day-stay-way, France-prance-pants (near rhyme), York-pork-cork, etc. The simplicity and modesty of the rhyming scheme of all stanzas, including the chorus (aaaR, bbbR, cccR, etc., where R is the refrain), indirectly serve the goal of making the verses easier to memorize. This effect can, at least to a certain extent, also be attributed to alliteration. The central and most frequently repeated one is canning the Kaiser, but the others include Bring the … bugle, boys; Bring the beans from Boston; kings and kaisers and clear … for common folk. These are all forceful since the alliterating consonant is a plosive, which alludes to physical action and is – in this context – associated with fearlessness, certainty and determination. From this perspective, the sibilant alliteration in sing another song is softer and more pleasant, potentially also because of the adjoining consonance containing a nasal sound. The poem is loaded with patriotic imagery. Although its criticism and mockery are not primarily aimed at the other allied nations, it is obvious that the collective persona (the “we”) still sees Americans as superior. Not only does the chorus contain the phrase “in the good old Yankee way” in an appreciative, even patronizing way, but an attempt to include various representatives of the working-class American society is seen in references to people from various geographical locations like “men from Dixieland, lumberjacks of Maine, Texas cowboys [and] farmers of the plain”. The entire US territory is encompassed between “Florida and Oregon” and “boasting the Yankee strain”. On the other hand, slightly derogatory nicknames are used for other nations, even allies: South Africans are referred to as Africanders, Canadians as Kanucks and the mention of the Scots is accompanied by the derogatory stereotype about their not wearing underwear under their kilts. The central metaphor of the poem, canning (the Kaiser), is American at its core. The invention of preserving food by canning was originally European, but the US “eventually became the world leader in both automated canning processes and total can production”, and in the late 1890s American scientists “set canning on a scientific basis by describing specific time-temperature heating requirements for sterilizing canned foods” (Britannica 2021). The popularity of the idea – in terms of canning food at home as well as using industrially canned products – is reflected in the existence of this limerick, since limericks are usually written about current and popular themes: A CANNER one morning, quite canny, Was heard to remark to his Granny ‘A canner can can 58 David Hazemali, Tomaž Onič “Canning the Kaiser” in Words and Images: Case Studies ... Anything that he can But a canner can’t can a can can he?’ (Acanomous)9 Therefore, it is not surprising that the number of canning companies in the US grew fast. Among them was Boston Baked Beans, which is mentioned in the poem (“bring the beans from Boston”) with a somewhat humorous reference to the very little meat the cans proverbially contained. Even though this might be seen as an argument against the propagandist aim of the poem since it was not fully in line with the governmental food conservation policy, its prevailing function was more likely to produce a humorous effect augmented by the generally recognized fact that eating beans produces flatulence. Triggering laughter and communicating a certain lightness of the topic was an important message of the poem, since it conveyed an impression that contributing to the war effort is an easy, even pleasurable activity, and as Sarah Wassberg Johnson suggests, it “implies that home preserving has the power to defeat the might of the German Empire and the Kaiser himself” (2019). Apart from the prevailingly light and semantically positive lexical choices (singing, moving the world along, shining, cheering, soda-pop), the poem closes with the democratic concept of placing power in the hands of the (American) people by removing the Kaiser and thus “clear[ing] the way for common folk, for men like me and you” (Sinclair 1919). As the analysis shows, the poem contains many openly propagandist elements, which by itself is not an obstacle for it to be integrated into a novel with relevant content such as Jimmie Higgins. Yet in this case the text of the poem seems to have less relevance to the plot than to the overall thematic context of the novel, and Sinclair’s writing of this period in general. As the following case study will show, American propaganda of the time went beyond the verbal and into the visual arena. 3 “Canning the Kaiser” in Poster Art The other propaganda strategy of the CPI that we address in this article is the launch of a poster campaign in support of the mission of the USFA and NWGC to feed the troops and ensure enough food for civilians at home and abroad. According to Kingsbury (2010, 6–7), all nations involved in the war incorporated posters and other visual propaganda to rally support from their citizens and shape public opinion. In the US, the CPI mobilized the American artistic community as well as a number of talented immigrant artists – a total of 318 – on a voluntary basis for the creation of posters, window cards and related pictorial materials designed for 58 governmental departments and committees (Van Schaack 2006, 45). Creel’s report (Creel 1920, 3) states that a total of 1,438 drawings were employed for this purpose.10 By the end of the war, these drawings resulted in approximately 3,000 different war-related posters (Vogt 2000, 45). The enterprise was supervised by the visual artist Charles Dana Gibson, the creator of the famous Gibson Girl, who oversaw the Division of Pictorial Publicity (DPP) established in November of 1917 (Van Schaack 2006, 33–34). 9 The series of puns to can and its multiple derivatives wittily extends into the author-reference section, where Acanomous is a pun on Anonymous. 10 For the collection of posters and their authors, which is available in open access in the repository of Library of Congress, see the website https://www.loc.gov/collections/world-war-i-posters/. 59LITERATURE The first DPP posters were simple text designs that urged the public not to waste food, with suggestions on which items to save to “serve the cause of freedom”. Gradually, they moved towards the employment of visual material: occasionally figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Joan of Arc appeared, symbolizing patriotism and self-sacrifice, while images from the frontlines, such as a food convoy moving through a snowy landscape or an American soldier standing over a fallen German, helped the public visualize the horrors of war-torn Europe and spread the idea that small sacrifices at the dinner table might be transformed into meaningful contributions to the war effort. One of the central themes the posters started to target was the potential strain on the public food supply, which was the primary purpose of the NWGC. With the war effort and recruitment of workers likely to deplete the agricultural labour force, the Commission focused on encouraging families nationwide to start their own vegetable gardens, commonly known as war gardens, effectively fostering self-reliance and reducing dependence on the country’s food resources (see Pack 1919, 1–10). The lion’s share of this burden was undertaken by American women. As noted by Kusovac and Mohar, “[t]he government […] had a well- prepared plan for women on the home front, which was also part of the war propaganda” (2022, 126).11 According to the NWGC founder and one of the wealthiest American citizens before the war, Charles Lathrop Pack, [t]he sole aim of the National War Garden Commission was to arouse the patriots of America to the importance of putting all idle land to work, to teach them how to do it, and to educate them to conserve by canning and drying all food they could not use while fresh. (Pack 1919, 10) The posters were reproduced in newspapers and magazines and placed on bulletin boards in public places like railway stations, libraries, stores, and factory entrances, even in clubs, banks and commercial establishments. Some inspired other media such as pamphlets, films, poetry, and music. Many were also sent abroad, in response to requests for guidance in promoting gardening efforts, thus globalizing the campaign’s influence. This multifaceted dissemination strategy added an intricate layer to the NWGC’s mission (Pack 1919, 1–10). One of the most widespread and, therefore, most famous DPP posters issued by the NWGC was the one known as “Can the Kaiser”. Its purpose was to motivate the country’s gardeners to preserve vegetables for future use. It was created in 1918 by the Belgian-American artist Jozef Paul Verrees, who was recruited that year by the DPP (Vogt 2000, 41). He was injured in one of the earlier battles of the war while fighting for his country, and could no longer serve in the military. He moved to the US in 1915 to continue his profession and received recognition by the US authorities in 1917, when he created a propaganda poster for the US Air Force titled “Join the Air Service and serve in France”, yet “Can the Kaiser” remains among his best-known creations (Figure 1). 11 In just a few months, the contribution of women to the American war effort became not only appreciated, but indispensable. For an in-depth analysis of the women’s mobilization for war, see Jensen (2014); for more on the role of women in war propaganda as a literary theme, see Kusovac, Mohar and Gadpaille (2021, 34). 60 David Hazemali, Tomaž Onič “Canning the Kaiser” in Words and Images: Case Studies ... PICTURE 1. Poster “Can vegetables, fruit, and the Kaiser too” (Verrees 1918). The artist created a visual metaphor12 thematically linked to the concept of food preservation but also hinting at the war’s outcome: the Kaiser will be canned. The emperor is visually squeezed into a jar, which seems to be the reason for his irate facial expression. The imperial finery looks casual, while it is really quite meticulously positioned so that it adds to the main metaphor: the sabre, diagonally hung across the jar and ceremonially wrapped in the red ribbon, suggests ceremonial inactivity but at the same time – resembling a quick pencil stroke across the paper – cancels the Kaiser from European politics. Strategically positioned right under his throat, the blade also becomes a deadly weapon beheading him and consequently the enemy monarchy. Similarly, the helmet is carelessly placed on the jar lid to communicate a retirement from battle, even capitulation. Moreover, as a distant interpretation, the diagonally positioned helmet spike introduces a unicorn motif, suggesting that the Kaiser is an extinct species. Another visual metaphor additionally degrading the Kaiser and extending the canning metaphor is the lid of the jar, which resembles a horizontally striped prisoner’s hat, placing the Kaiser not only in a jar but in prison. The reflection of light on the jar falls in the middle of his forehead as if he were somehow labelled, the implication of which is negative. The foregrounded jar with the Kaiser carries the label “Monarch Brand / Unsweetened”. In the background, there are two more jars of canned goods, tomatoes and peas. The colour symbolism of red tomatoes denotes blood and war, creating a clear contrast with the peas jar on the other side of the Kaiser, which is homophonous with peace, the latter being on the horizon now that the enemy has been neutralized. At the same time, red and green are complementary colours in the colour spectrum, so the war vs. peace contrast is supported by colour symbolism.  12 For an in-depth case study of visualized rhetorical figures in a graphic novel, see Onič (2014, 186–96). Figure 1. Poster “Can vegetables, fruit, and the Kaiser too” (Verrees 1918). The artist created a visual metaphor12 thematically linked to the concept of food preservation but also hinting at the war’s outcome: the Kaiser will be canned. The emperor is visually squeezed into a jar, which seems to be the reason for his irate facial expression. The imperial finery looks casual, while it is really quite meticulously positioned so that it adds to the main metaph r: the sabre, di gonally hung across the jar and cere onially wrapped in the red ribbon, suggests ceremonial inactivity but at the same time – resembling a quick pencil stroke acro s the paper – cancels t e Kaiser from European poli ics. Strategically positioned right under his throat, the blade also becomes a deadly weapon beheading him and consequently th enemy m narc y. Similarly, the helmet is carelessly placed on the jar lid to communicate a reti ement from battle, even capitulation. Moreover, as a distant interpretation, the diagonally positioned helmet spike introduces a unicorn motif, suggesting that the Kaiser is an extinct species. Another visual metaphor additionally degrading the Kaiser and extending the canning metaphor is the lid of the jar, which resembles a horizontally striped prisoner’s hat, placing the Kaiser not only in a jar but in prison. The reflection of light on the jar falls in the middle of his forehe d as if he were somehow labelled, the implication of which is negative. The foregrounded jar with the Kaiser carries the label “Monarch Brand / Unsweetened”. In the background, there are two more jars of canned goods, tomatoes and peas. The colour symbolism of red tomatoes denotes blood and war, creating a clear contrast with the peas jar on the other side of the Kaiser, which is homophonous with peace, the latter being on the horizon now that the enemy has been neutralized. At the same time, red and green are complementary colours in the colour spectrum, so the war vs. peace contrast is supported by colour symbolism. The rendering of CAN in capital letters highlights both connotations of this play on words: apart from can as in “conserving food in jars”, there is also the reading of can as a modal 12 For an in-depth case study of visualized rhetorical figures in a graphic novel, see Onič (2014, 186–96). 61LITERATURE verb, suggesting that all that the poster promotes CAN be done or achieved: food can be preserved, war gardens can be kept, and the war can be won. For today’s audience of scholars and enthusiasts interested in this period of American history, there is also an echo of a more contemporary American reference to Barack Obama’s slogan of his 2008 Presidential Election campaign (“Yes, we can!”). This direct expression of ability also applies to American women, suggesting that the weakest (or, at least, the weaker) members of society can defeat the Kaiser, and even women can help win this war. The poster even promises, although distantly, that if the women win this war, the men should be home soon. Expanding on a quote from the English novelist D.H. Lawrence, Van Schaack brilliantly summarizes the importance of Verrees’ poster art and that of other DPP artists who created US propaganda during World War I: for the generation that lived through the horrors of war, “all the great words were cancelled out”, but the posters showed no sign of this disillusionment, and instead they brought the “great words” to life for millions of Americans, inspiring them to make sacrifices for the war effort. They were the words men believed in and were willing to die for – and their power still resonates across the gulf that separates the beginning of the last century from its end (Van Schaack 2006, 45). 4 Conclusion The multi-layered analysis of Sinclair’s poem “Canning the Kaiser” and Verrees’ poster “Can the Kaiser” presented here showcases a fertile example of the propagandistic mobilization of the American population and the American military to shape public opinion in support of the war effort. The CPI successfully combined multiple media channels to create a convincing context, within which they could persuade the population to support the war. Sinclair transformed a popular wartime slogan, “Can the Kaiser”, and rewrote an existing song into a catchy satire that achieved its aim by rallying American patriotism. Together with the use of a familiar tune, a plethora of foregrounded rhetorical schemes of repetition like anaphora, rhyme and refrain made it easy to memorize, and thus appeal to a broad audience. The effect is boosted by the predominantly patriotic themes and motifs as well as the first- person plural persona. Having understood the differences between American and British interpretations of the phrase “can the Kaiser”, the CPI cleverly adopted the British understanding, which is that of conserving and can metaphorically extend to defeating the Emperor. This idea was brilliantly visualized on Verrees’ poster “Can the Kaiser”, whose visual metaphor not only conveyed the concept of food preservation while hinting at the war’s outcome but also did it in a humorous and jingoistic manner. This efficient synergy enabled the US government to link the pro-war campaign, which included propaganda against the German Empire, with the already successful NWGC mission of promoting war gardens and food conservation on the American home front. It also serves as a prime example of how the CPI visually constructed the enemy through food. A literary artist and a visual artist thus contributed to uniting the American population and encouraging active, wide-ranging participation in the war effort by conveying a joint message that victory in the war was achievable through food conservation and collective efforts. 62 David Hazemali, Tomaž Onič “Canning the Kaiser” in Words and Images: Case Studies ... 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Zupan, Simon, and Jason Blake. 2022. “Thresholds and What Seems to Be: Munro’s First Sentences.” ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries 19 (1): 107–19. https:// doi.org/10.4312/elope.19.1.107-119. 65LITERATURE 2023, Vol. 20 (2), 65-79(126) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.20.2.65-79 UDC: 821.111(680).09-31Magona S.:[616.98:578.828] Goutam Karmakar, Rajendra Chetty University of the Western Cape, South Africa Epistemic Responsibility and Community Engagement in Sindiwe Magona’s Beauty’s Gift ABSTRACT HIV/AIDS has pervasively affected the health and well-being of South African women, as evidenced by their exacerbating mortality rates over the decades. Sindiwe Magona’s Beauty’s Gift (2008) is a critical intervention in this regard because, in focusing on the death of a young black woman owing to her infection with HIV/AIDS, it critiques the overarching and ingrained patriarchal ideologies that are hindering the treatment and prevention of this disease. The article seeks to examine Magona’s text as uncovering the lack of appropriate knowledge about HIV/AIDS, and the silencing of South African women in the articulation or dissemination of this disease-related knowledge. The article argues that Magona’s text emphasizes the delinking of taboos and highlights the necessity of the South African community’s engagement at micro and macro levels regarding HIV/AIDS. This engagement reflects an epistemic responsibility that is crucial to reducing the dreadful impact of this illness from both cultural and structural perspectives. Keywords: HIV/AIDS, epistemology, responsibility, awareness, community engagement Epistemična odgovornost in angažma skupnosti v romanu Beauty’s Gift Sindiweje Magona IZVLEČEK Virus HIV in bolezen AIDS sta močno zaznamovala zdravje in usodo južnoafriških žensk, kar je razvidno iz porasta njihove smrtnosti v zadnjih desetletjih. Roman Beauty’s Gift (2008) Sindiwije Magona opisuje smrt mlade temnopolte ženske zaradi AIDS-a in kritizira vseprisotne in globoko ukoreninjene patriarhalne ideologije, ki onemogočajo zdravljenje in preprečevanje te bolezni. V članku se osredotočam na avtoričino razkrivanje pomanjkanja znanja o virusu HIV in AIDS-u ter onemogočanja južnoafriških žensk, da bi to znanje ubesedile in delile. Moj namen je pokazati, da roman teži k detabuizaciji bolezni in da osvetljuje nujnost angažmaja južnoafriške skupnosti v zvezi z virusom HIV in boleznijo AIDS tako na mikro kot na makro ravni. Ta angažma zrcali epistemično odgovornost, ki je nujna za zmanjševanje grozljivih posledic te bolezni tako s kulturnega kot strukturnega vidika. Ključne besede: HIV/AIDS, epistemologija, odgovornost, zavedanje, angažma skupnosti 66 Goutam Karmakar, Rajendra Chetty Epistemic Responsibility and Community Engagement in Sindiwe Magona’s ... 1 Introduction Sindiwe Magona, a prominent writer, activist, and public intellectual in South Africa, writes out of a deep sense of dedication and affection towards her country and its people. The author’s literary works convey potent themes that advocate for personal agency and assertiveness by challenging prevailing cultural standards. Her writings not only confront societal barriers but also demonstrate her courage in vocalizing personal experiences. It is notable that Magona was the first author to produce a collection of literary works for children in the Xhosa language, and she holds a unique position as a South African writer in serving as a mediator between the academic community and public. Magona’s literary contributions have been influenced by her personal encounters of subjugation and impoverishment within the context of apartheid in South Africa. Among all her works, the novel Beauty’s Gift assumes much significance in its profound exploration of the social and cultural implications of AIDS in the lives of South African individuals, particularly black women and their families. As an intense, socially committed writer, Magona’s investigations into the adversities of HIV/AIDS started with her short stories “A State of Outrage” (1999) and “Leave Taking” (2004). In continuation with these works, in Beauty’s Gift, Magona registers a critique of the entrenched patriarchal ethos that needs to be questioned and curtailed to reduce the impacts of HIV/ AIDS. The pervasiveness of HIV/AIDS has been alarming in many African countries, especially with “South Africa [having] the highest number of people with HIV/AIDS in the world” for decades (Fassin and Schneider 2003, 495). According to global statistics on HIV/ AIDS in 2021, the eastern and southern African countries are reported to have especially high mortality rates (UNAIDS 2022), and “South Africa has the largest national HIV epidemic globally, with an estimated 7.9 million persons living with HIV” (Palanee-Phillips et al. 2022, 2). The 2023 epidemic update by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) presented an estimation that the global population of individuals living with HIV in 2022 was around 39.0 million (with a range of 33.1 million to 45.7 million). Since the initiation of the epidemic, it is estimated that around 85.6 million individuals (with a range of 64.8 million to 113.0 million) have been infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This exacerbation of HIV/AIDS in South Africa signifies a few crucial issues, such as the lack of health awareness, public acceptance, hegemonic moral attitudes, and overall, the systemic cultural inadequacies to address it. The relationship between AIDS and the LGBT population has been studied in various cultural contexts, including South Africa, where it is closely intertwined with racialized ideas. LGBT groups are commonly regarded as socially marginalized due to their departure from prevailing society norms about sexual behaviour, and the association with AIDS infection frequently results in stigmatization and feelings of shame. People living with HIV and/or AIDS have historically faced and continue to face stigmatization, as they are often seen as being contaminated by a disgusting and self-inflicted condition. There exists a widely held belief that HIV/AIDS is a result of engaging in sexual behaviour deemed inappropriate by society. Therefore, HIV/AIDS is often perceived as a manifestation of punishment for these offenses (Cameron 2005, 52). In South Africa, although constitutional protections have been established in the post-apartheid era to guarantee equal rights for individuals irrespective of gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, the prevailing societal attitudes remain predominantly Epistemic Responsibility and Community Engagement in Sindiwe Magona’s ... 67LITERATURE conservative, resulting in a lack of open discourse around matters pertaining to HIV/AIDS. The social and literary interventions surrounding HIV/AIDS have been extensive and diverse, and Magona’s novel effectively contributes to the ongoing discussions by highlighting the importance of addressing the underlying causes of the disease, exposing its deleterious impact on South African women, and fostering community involvement as a means to significantly reduce its impact in South Africa.  Magona’s Beauty’s Gift enunciates the concerns associated with HIV/AIDS, pinpointing the necessity to approach the disease not merely as a sexual malady but as a socio-cultural one. Centralizing on the death of a young black woman named Beauty due to HIV/AIDS, the narrative uncovers how social stigmatization, taboos, and collective silencing have become so common that the root causes of this fatal disease remain unidentified and unheeded. In being transmitted through unprotected sex, HIV/AIDS has become a metaphor “for moral and physical contamination”, in which the individuals diagnosed with HIV/AIDS are condemned as spoiled and morally responsible for carrying this infection (Nzioka 2000, 2). In countries such as South Africa, with families steeped in patriarchal strictures, this stigmatization and moral burdening have affected HIV-infected black women in very negative ways. In most cases, their vulnerabilities and victimization have been neglected, resulting in cultural apathy towards conversing about or mitigating HIV/AIDS. As such, the enduring consequences of stigmatization related to AIDS can be classified into five distinct categories: societal rejection, internalized insecurity, impact on confidence, implications on close relationships, and rejection experienced by individuals inside the South African community (Santana and Dancy 2000). Magona’s novel depicts the need to decipher the intrinsic factors behind the grip of HIV/AIDS and explore the structural, cognitive, and behavioural changes required to mitigate it. In this frame of thinking, the text embodies a pedagogic move in highlighting how South African society must dismantle the cultural silence that prevails around HIV/AIDS and engage in a conversation on it. The normalization of this silence has entailed an overwhelming ignorance about what causes HIV/AIDS and what remedies or precautions are available. The article thus studies Magona’s novel as a decisive commentary to demystify this silencing, as that is an elementary step to overcoming the ignorance of HIV/AIDS. Notably, this article departs from the conventional approaches to this novel from the representations of the female body and subjectivity in connection with HIV/AIDS. Instead, it analyses how the novel serves as an exemplification of the role that literary narratives play in deconstructing established hermeneutical and epistemological constructions on this disease. Magona critiques the conservative ethos that is not only instrumental in spreading HIV/AIDS in South African society, but also responsible for perpetrating “epistemic injustices” (Fricker 2007) on South African women. Most South African women and their families consider speaking about HIV/AIDS shameful and adopting any preventive or curative measures as hazardous, thereby unwittingly perpetuating a culture “dominated by secrecy, silence, and denial” (Soldati-Kahimbaara 2012, 166). The article studies how this silencing becomes detrimental to propagating appropriate knowledge about the disease, prohibiting infected individuals from sharing their experiences or testimonies and, in turn, perpetuating “epistemic injustice” (Fricker 2007) in various guises. The article marks its departure from existing readings of the novel in bringing to the foreground how it can be examined as an enunciation of the 68 Goutam Karmakar, Rajendra Chetty Epistemic Responsibility and Community Engagement in Sindiwe Magona’s ... embeddedness of HIV/AIDS and “epistemic injustices” in South African society. In addition to this, the article also contends that Magona’s writing implies a critical literacy in terms of “thinking beyond the text to understand issues” and the layered ideological underpinnings (McLaughlin and DeVoogd 2004, 13). Critical literacy seeks to bring awareness to the underlying ideologies and involves analysing the power dynamics, norms, and representations within texts, while also providing opportunities for promoting socio-political action that promotes equity (Comber and Simpson 2001; Morrell 2009) This article reads the text as an attempt to establish critical literacy and unravel epistemological potential, pushing readers to connect fiction with their lives and produce culturally responsive pedagogy to probe meaningful social action in everyday encounters. Literature can be utilized to facilitate comprehension of the narratives of South African families, women, and same-sex couples who are grappling with this distressing ailment that is frequently overlooked, and can be created as a medium to exemplify epistemic responsibility as a primary step to counter the ramifications of HIV/AIDS. The article argues that Magona’s narrative pertains to this in showing the power of literary texts “to critique and reconstruct the social fields” (Luke 200, 453). Magona’s novel emphasizes countering the “deep-rooted fatalism” that HIV/ AIDS harnesses (Woods 2013, 319), debunking the racialized stereotypes that it is associated with, and triggering a critical literacy to understand AIDS through a more pragmatic lens. There is a need to defamiliarize and delink normative thought processes and cognition, as only that can aid in not only pushing the people of South Africa to become aware of the repercussions of this disease, but also motivate them to evolve a sense of fellowship with those afflicted. The article maintains that Magona accentuates community engagement with the discourses on HIV/AIDS, as without that, it would be difficult to stimulate a sense of collective responsibility to either disrupt the taboo or vanquish the plague of HIV/AIDS. Magona’s rigorous take on the necessity of collective epistemic responsibility aligns her stance with prominent South African human rights activists such as Simon Nkoli, Edwin Cameron, and Zackie Achmat – all of whom have spoken or written on discriminatory practices against HIV/AIDS patients and evoked the ethics of inclusion and humane care-giving. In so doing, the article finally posits that Magona also evidences the role of writer-activist and public intellectual, who, through her writing, endeavours to unfold cultural discrepancies, envisage optimistic ways of approaching the disease, foster a renewed epistemology, and develop a democratic and critical literary environment in South Africa. 2 Epistemic Injustice and South African Women Magona’s novel centres on the lives of a group of five close friends referred to as FFF, and commences with the funeral of one of their friends, Beauty. The unexpected demise of Beauty, a professional educator and exemplary spouse, has left her acquaintances in a state of astonishment and confusion as they struggle to discern the underlying causes of her premature death. The story of Beauty serves as a poignant representation of the marginalized status of HIV-positive women, who are among the most ignored segments of society. The human rights framework concerning the issue of AIDS policy, specifically the concept of “stigma and discrimination”, has predominantly neglected to address gender-specific violations that women encounter (Mthembu 2022, 24). This notion of negligence becomes apparent when 69LITERATURE the family members of Beauty refrained from disclosing her illness to her acquaintances and maintained a discreet demeanour regarding the matter during the funeral. Nosisa, the eldest sister of Hamilton, presented an obituary on behalf of Mamkwayi, Beauty’s mother, where it was mentioned that Beauty had passed away due to tuberculosis. Nosisa expresses grief over the fact that “[tuberculosis] has already advanced to such a stage” (Magona 2008, 10), causing significant loss of life. Her friends remain entirely unaware of the real cause of Beauty’s death for days until Amanda, one of the FFF, reveals that Beauty had told her that she has been suffering from AIDS, given to her by her husband, Hamilton. Hamilton is promiscuous without consideration for the potential negative consequences on his health, family, and marital relationship, displaying a lack of responsibility and empathy as a husband. Upon discovering that Beauty has been diagnosed with HIV and is exhibiting physical deterioration and immobility, Hamilton maintains a complete avoidance of her, and his failure to provide care or medical assistance results in his wife being left to her fate. Hamilton even restricts Beauty from engaging in any form of communication or disclosure regarding her declining health, including interactions with her most intimate acquaintances. The poignant portrayal of Beauty’s suffering and eventual demise due to HIV/AIDS in the novel serves as a striking moment that sheds light on the patriarchal culture of South Africa. This culture is characterized by hegemonic masculinities and adherence to heterosexual norms, and the novel reveals the alarming tolerance and acceptability of such behaviours at a communal level. The correlation between Beauty’s contraction of the disease and her failure to comprehend the gravity of her situation or assert herself is indicative of the entrenched societal norms that equate sexual authority, aggression, and control with masculinity. The phenomenon of suppressing discussions on HIV/AIDs or other sexually transmitted diseases needs to be analysed within the framework of a culture that is heavily influenced by masculinity, wherein women’s expressions and depictions of their bodies are regulated by established conventions of matrimony, domesticity, and submissiveness. Studies indicate that South Africa has a significant incidence of female homicide, with the majority of victims being killed by their male intimate partners (Abrahams et al. 2009). The availability of rape statistics in South Africa is notably inadequate, with numerous instances of non-consensual or coercive sexual activity occurring within the context of marital relationships (Jewkes and Abrahams 2002, 1232). According to recent investigations, the number of reported rapes in 2019/2020 was 42,289, while the number of reported sexual assaults was 7,749, which translates to an average of approximately 115 rapes per day (Gowes 2022). The prevalence of violence within a given culture can lead to a lack of opportunities for open discourse and knowledge acquisition regarding sexual diseases and related issues. This dynamic contributes to the highly gendered nature of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, where women bear a “disproportionate burden of the illness and HIV care” (Morrell, Jewkes and Lindegger 2012, 14). As a consequence, South African women are unable to effectively express or engage as active agents in the process of interpreting their own experiences, utilizing their power in relation to HIV/AIDS, and generating knowledge on the subject matter, thereby becoming victims of epistemic injustice. Epistemic injustice occurs when an individual or group is wronged in their capacity as a knower. Epistemic injustice pertains to inequitable treatment that is associated with matters concerning knowledge, comprehension, and involvement in communicative activities. These 70 Goutam Karmakar, Rajendra Chetty Epistemic Responsibility and Community Engagement in Sindiwe Magona’s ... issues encompass a diverse array of subjects involving unjust treatment and disproportionate structures within the context of knowledge production and meaning-making practices (Kidd, Medina and Pohlhaus 2017, 1). Fricker (2007, 1) notes that this is a “distinctively epistemic kind of injustice” in which someone is wronged “specifically in their capacity as a knower”, and this can occur in two ways: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. In the case of Beauty, her vulnerability and inability to resist Hamilton stem from the acute hermeneutical injustice that the male-oriented South African social parameters put on women. Hermeneutical injustice generally occurs “when a gap in collective interpretive resources puts someone at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to making sense of their social experiences” (Fricker 2007, 1). Similar to numerous South African women, Beauty, who has been socialized to romanticize family and marriage owing to her middle-class background, experiences an intermittent failure to critically evaluate her harmful circumstances or challenge Hamilton’s cruelty. Beauty’s limited access to resources for interpreting individual rights pertaining to bodily autonomy, sexuality, and the safeguarding of life resulted in her being marginalized and unable to effectively consider her own welfare. The discussion of male sexual deviance and sexually transmitted diseases, particularly HIV, is subject to great scrutiny in South Africa. As a result, Beauty, who is suffering from advanced AIDS, struggles to articulate her thoughts and emotions, as there is a “lacuna in the biased conceptual resources available” (Langton 2010, 459). Beauty’s death evinces how society is highly gendered, characterized by persistent moralization and widespread violence, which presents significant challenges for women in formulating counter-discourses to HIV/AIDS due to the lack of epistemological avenues or cohesive “hermeneutical resources” (Townsend and Townsend 2021, 153). Marginalized women, such as Beauty, are susceptible to cognitive disadvantages due to the lack of logical structures available to describe the difficulties they encounter. Conversely, those in positions of power, like Hamilton, benefit from the absence of discourse surrounding HIV/AIDS. Magona’s novel provides a persuasive account of how hermeneutical injustices lead to the perpetration of testimonial injustices on women, hindering their epistemic credibility and authority. Testimonial injustice refers to a situation where a speaker is not given adequate credibility by a hearer after conveying information, due to a prejudiced stereotype held by the hearer (Fricker 2007). This culminates in the speaker’s exclusion from epistemological structures, which encompass activities such as questioning, responding, conjecturing, and thinking, due to diminished perceptions of proficiency (Hookway 2010). Beauty’s subjection to hermeneutical injustices mitigates her confidence to elaborate on or share her turbulence with her friends, culminating in a loss of her testifying or articulative capacity. This becomes evident at Amanda’s 35th birthday party, where Beauty’s frail body, “grotesque face”, and “raw-steak lips” (Magona 2008, 58) elicit agitation and shocked expressions among her acquaintances. Amanda, Beauty’s closest confidante, endeavours to uncover the truth behind Beauty’s deteriorating physical condition. While Amanda asks Beauty about herself, encouraging her to share if anything is worrying her, Beauty’s lack of credibility in forming opinions and minimal epistemic agency prevent her from constructing an honest testimony. This observation underscores the impact of impoverished epistemological circumstances, wherein unequal relations result in the exclusion of individuals from social participation, hence causing cognitive and moral harm (Goldstein 2022, 1862). Beauty deliberately chooses to be silent, pleading with her friends to respect her privacy. Beauty’s avoidance of 71LITERATURE speaking is significant as it corroborates the fear of “testimonial injustice” that encumbers South African women from asserting their identities or channelling their grievances against the deep-set gendered prejudices. The prevalent epistemology on HIV/AIDS, while inditing South African women for their supposed ethical violations, offers unjustifiable support to men for their extravagant masculinist displays. Confounded by the gendered hegemony of South African society and its cultural disavowal of AIDS on moral grounds, Beauty’s epistemic vulnerability arises from her fear that her “testimony will most likely be ignored or treated with suspicion” (Heggen and Berg 2021, 3), subsequently fragmenting her “matrimonial bliss” with Hamilton (Magona 2008, 57). Beauty’s subjugation to testimonial injustice also manifests when Amanda later meets Beauty in her maternal home. Perceiving Beauty’s degeneration to a “shrunken and skeletal” form with growths and “oozing sores” all over her body (Magona 2008, 91, 93), Amanda becomes extremely worried and upset. But to Amanda’s surprise, MaMkwayi – Beauty’s mother – prefers to “keep mum on exactly what Beauty’s illness is” (Magona 2008, 94), as if displaying a strange conformity to the overriding neglect of HIV/AIDS. Beauty’s intolerable physical suffering, emotional trauma, and despondency are not given due consideration by close family members, such as her mother or husband, as they remain there only as passive bystanders. They comply with the dominant structurization and actively refute Beauty’s experiential discourse both as an AIDS patient and a close relative. Denied the scope of enunciating herself as “communicatively intelligible” (Fricker 2007, 162), the testimonial injustice inflicted on Beauty shows how often patient testimonies are excluded in cultures and institutions on the grounds of irrelevance and insufficiency (Carel and Kidd 2014, 532). However, Magona’s narrative also encompasses a transformative epistemological trajectory in highlighting Beauty’s recuperation of her epistemic agency vis-à-vis her final words to Amanda, highlighting that “epistemic agency and therefore epistemic justice are fundamentally about propositional knowledge and verbal communication” (Radoilska 2020, 705). In her final moment, Beauty confesses her illness to Amanda, telling her that she, like many other South African women, has fallen prey to AIDS and enunciating that the looming silence on HIV/AIDS is no less dangerous than the disease itself. An advanced-stage AIDS patient, Beauty, tells Amanda not to “die a stupid death, like [she is] doing! Live!... Live until every hair on your head turns grey” (Magona 2008, 108). Beauty’s dying statement elucidates a South African woman’s fight against the epistemic injustices unleashed by the physical dominance, emotional aggression, and sexual betrayal of a corrosive, patriarchal culture. Her vocalization towards Amanda serves as a compelling denunciation of the “weaponized” (Shober 2013, 228) African cultural machismo. This act of speaking up signifies Beauty’s epistemic re-signification and rejection of the testimonial neglect she had previously experienced. Her message of celebrating the vitality of life registers “an epistemic space for the lived experience of illness” (Kidd and Carel 2017, 186) – a domain that needs to be acknowledged and incorporated into the social and communal discourse on AIDS in South Africa. In overcoming her “credibility deficit” (McKinnon 2016, 439), Beauty emerges as an agent stimulating an epistemic awareness and reinforcing a keen sense of responsibility in her friends in exposing the cultural deficits of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. What María Lugones (2003) defines as “hard to handle anger” has been adopted by Beauty as a valuable source of 72 Goutam Karmakar, Rajendra Chetty Epistemic Responsibility and Community Engagement in Sindiwe Magona’s ... insight into the mechanisms by which oppressive practices are constructed and exerted upon women in South Africa. The expression of Beauty’s anger, as conveyed in her final words, highlights the encounter with epistemic injustice experienced by marginalized communities. It also emphasizes their collective endeavours to engage in epistemic resistance and facilitate “powerful, evocative and transformative modes of engagement with traumatic experience” (Thomas 2014, 5), specifically in relation to HIV/AIDS. 3 Epistemic Awareness and Responsibility Driven by Beauty’s compelling testimony, which emphasizes an individual’s inherent right to a healthy existence, her four companions disregard the covert pretence of cultural and epistemological contentment. Amanda, Edith, Cordelia, and Doris have acquired a new epistemological understanding regarding the necessity of exposing and addressing the systemic marginalization and societal condemnation of individuals affected by HIV/AIDS. Their newly gained epistemic awareness that “there is no stigma to fighting to stay alive” (Magona 2008, 120) motivates them to cultivate solidarity against the callous and unabashed temperament of their male partners, families, and society towards the horrifying reality of AIDS. Magona’s narrative thus serves as a valuable illustration of how an individual’s epistemic agency can work as a catalyst for promoting epistemic awareness, autonomy, and revitalization, among other things. Beauty’s words, “ukhule ukhokhobe”, implying a long life, offer a vision to her friends, helping them garner a profound and intricate epistemic understanding of the deep- rooted malaises that need to be curtailed to alleviate the problem of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Beauty recognizes that the inability of marginalized groups in the field of global health to comprehend their experiences due to a lack of shared interpretative resources, as well as the disregard for their interpretive frameworks results in the infringement of their dignity and the violation of their basic human rights (Bhakuni 2023). As such, she acknowledges her limited understanding and accepts the consequences of her actions as she strives to save her friends from experiencing a “similar fate” (Magona 2008, 109), and motivate them to embrace life with heightened epistemic awareness. Epistemic awareness designates an individual’s or a group’s understanding and accumulation of specific epistemic justifications that they use to conform to various truths. It pertains to a particular way of becoming conscious of decision-making processes, including a close examination of the facts, plausible interpretations, and constructions of truth (Clyde and Wilkinson 2019, 172– 77). Epistemic awareness emphasizes “realizing the validity of one’s information” (Fernández- Fernández 2021, 21) and providing a rational assessment of the choices or truth claims that are made. In other words, epistemic awareness conforms to reasoning and interpreting capabilities in any given situation or context and thus correlates with the development of epistemic autonomy and responsibility. The awareness that HIV/AIDS is not a “black disease” (Magona 2008, 106) but one related to gender asymmetries and cultural ignorance drives Beauty’s friends to embark on a mission to “fight to live” and “fight for [their] lives” (Magona 2008, 112). Their battle starts at the micro-level, by countering their partners’ sexual whims, authority, and demands, and gradually emerges as a symbolic enactment of the women’s contestation of the masculinized norms of society. Each of them shows an astounding determination in establishing their epistemology – that sex is not safe without HIV tests, and intimate partners must be responsible 73LITERATURE for each other’s safety. Beauty’s gift, therefore, metaphorically contributes to reinforcing in her friends the substantial importance of an evaluative capacity in administering their conjugal relationships and outlook on life. This engenders in them an epistemic independence, which is contingent upon their volition and inclination to articulate the capacity for cognizance (Matheson and Lougheed 2022, 2). The epistemic awareness and autonomy exercised by Beauty’s friends incite wrath and annoyance in their husbands. When faced with a challenge to their dominance, men often resist the requirement to undergo HIV testing. For instance, Amanda’s husband, Zakes, expressing his fury and becomes resentful of Amanda’s request. Luvo, Edith’s husband, becomes aggressive at such audacity and instead accuses her of infidelity. Vuyo, Cordelia’s husband, shows his belligerence by physically abusing then angrily deserting her. Doris’s fiancé, Selby, agrees to the test, but surprisingly, after receiving a negative result, he breathes a sigh of relief, as if he had been worried about testing positive. Discovering Selby’s duality, Doris calls off their engagement. These women exhibit epistemic autonomy by being aware of their knowledge and convictions, and by maintaining a steadfast stance on the importance of safe intimacy and relationships. This serves as a crucial prerequisite for effecting “positive social change” (Hale 2007, 189) in a country that is grappling with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Upon witnessing Beauty’s fear, distress, vulnerability, and subsequent demise, these women comprehend the manner in which a psychological occurrence, when it reaches a pathological state, significantly hampers the cognitive autonomy of those who suffer from pervasive fear, thereby “limiting their ability to respond to evidence, and substantially limiting their epistemic horizons” (Puddifoot and Trakas 2023, 1). As such, they effectively reject the traditional gender roles that require them to submit to male desires and disregard the societal norms that discourage open discussion of sexual health. By conveying a direct message of “no test and no unprotected sex” (Magona 2008, 113) to their partners, they demonstrate agency and dismantle the inhibitions of social outrage and ostracization. Herein, Magona’s novel can be interpreted as a powerful affirmation to South African women that, unless voices are raised against the hideous patriarchal notions of society, reducing HIV/AIDS would be impossible. This is further evidenced in Amanda’s stand against Zakes’s family when they try to explain their son’s extramarital affairs as normal and legitimate. Contrary to their assumptions, Amanda stays firm in her decision. After discovering that Zakes has two “grass children” (Magona 2008, 111) born out of wedlock, Amanda rejects her husband. Amanda’s repudiation of her husband’s recklessness delineates her vehemence against the “traditional and cultural sanctions that [restricted] their full participation in decisions affecting their lives” (Kemp et al. 1995, 144–45). These “sanctions” construct the hegemonic epistemologies of gender subordination and oppression and strengthen biases, which in turn constrain the creation of alternative epistemologies and ways of introspecting on various difficult social issues. In affirming their awareness, Beauty’s friends enunciate a “fundamental epistemic responsibility” (Mudd 2013, 153) towards themselves and society. They strive to bring forth a reformed knowledge and consciousness so that women are not restricted to “conditional belonging” – in which they are identified as members of a political collectivity, but simultaneously confined to gendered epistemological structures and attitudes (Yuval-Davis 2009, 9). It is imperative to uphold the epistemic responsibility of promoting a socially equitable and conscious environment, which is precisely what Beauty’s friends are striving to accomplish. 74 Goutam Karmakar, Rajendra Chetty Epistemic Responsibility and Community Engagement in Sindiwe Magona’s ... 4 Community Engagement and De-Linking the Taboo Disparities in power arising from specialized expertise and education, as well as variations in circumstances, frequently result in community engagement where individuals proactively disseminate the knowledge necessary within a community. This bottom-up approach entails beginning with the community to recognize the issue, which may involve individuals living with HIV, patient advocates, and healthcare professionals. This approach involves the community in the gradual development of remedies or addresses and encourages the community to combat AIDS with increased epistemic agency (Karris, Dube and Moore 2020, 144). Likewise, Magona’s novel delves deep into the psychosocial and epistemological metamorphosis of Beauty’s friends as they embark on dismantling social apathy and reinvigorating an ethos of critical perceptiveness. Discrepancies in addressing the ingrained causes of HIV/AIDS characterize South African society, with a lack of epistemic awareness and responsibility that is related to the cultural absence of critical thinking and epistemic cognitive skills. Critical thinking here implies harnessing processes of exploring, evaluating, and inferring connotative meanings beyond the apparent (Abrami et al. 2015; Facione 1990). These processes are analogous to optimal epistemic cognitive abilities that assist individuals in discerning, assessing, and construing the formation of a specific body of knowledge pertaining to HIV/AIDS, rather than simply accepting it based on conviction or unfavourable circumstances. Realizing that collective emancipation from HIV/AIDS is not feasible without collective awareness, Beauty’s friends and some like-minded community members start criticizing the normalized perspectives on disease and death, demonstrating their collective critical thinking by engaging the community. Here they rely on “the knowledge creation perspective” (Paavola and Hakkarainen 2005), which denotes learning occurs through ongoing collaborative endeavours that are focused on generating new insights through engaging with common resources. In this perspective on learning and collective awareness, the premise of epistemic agency is deemed to be of utmost importance as it empowers learners to actively seek shared epistemic objectives (Muukkonen, Lakkala and Hakkarainen 2005). Their first attempt to disrupt society’s conventional and complacent attitudes comes through their questioning of the funeral ceremonies of AIDS patients. The discomforting silence on HIV/AIDS at funerals is accompanied by gaudy outward exhibitionism. For instance, at Beauty’s funeral MaMkwayi represents herself as unaffected by the “long painful death” of her only daughter, and Hamilton assumes a self-conscious “commanding presence” in his “beige silk suit and brown suede shoes” (Magona 2008, 43), showcasing customized expressions of grief. Hamilton’s lavish expenditure on Beauty’s funeral is juxtaposed with his failure to acknowledge his responsibility and disregard for her unfortunate passing. The procession included a white Mercedes-Benz limousine hearse, accompanied by a fleet of ten gleaming white Mercedes-Benz cars carrying family members and close friends (2008, 51). This highlights the inadequacy of the present health ecosystem in South Africa and its governing framework in relation to Beauty’s life, and its inability to effectively tackle contextual issues as an essential component of health. Beauty’s funeral, marked by a profound “hush” on her illness, enrages Beauty’s friends, reflecting the community’s deep-seated “active ignorance” (Medina 2013) towards HIV/AIDS. Active ignorance occurs when an individual actively holds on to his or her ignorance, covering it with certain epistemic vices such as closed-mindedness, arrogance, and inadaptability. The 75LITERATURE challenge in overcoming this ignorance lies in reconstructing epistemic beliefs, approaches, and habits (Medina 2013, 39). Magona’s text shows that cultural silence and not acknowledging the reality governing AIDS are the most decisive factors in perpetuating active ignorance in society. According to the South Africa HIV Stigma Index Study conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council and other collaborating partners, a notable proportion of HIV- positive women (7.6%) reported being subjected to coerced sterilization, while the number of HIV positive women in South Africa exceeds four million (Simbayi et al. 2015). Mothers like MaMkwayi, because of their enmeshment in the beliefs of social taboo and stigma, fail to develop appropriate epistemic awareness or exert the autonomy that is essential to diminish the incrementality of social strictures in aggravating HIV/AIDS. The encompassing threats of moral indignation obstruct their efforts to overcome their ignorance, and they continue to comply with the “actively held false outlooks” (El Kassar 2008, 300) on AIDS to bolster the status quo of the domestic and heterosexual orders of respectability. Moreover, stigma is a potent form of social branding that undermines an individual’s self-perception and impacts how they are perceived by others. Individuals who experience stigmatization are frequently perceived as deviating from societal norms, resulting in the attribution of shame and subsequent social exclusion, discrediting, rejection, or punitive measures (Alonzo and Reynolds 1995; Berger, Estwing Ferrans and Lashley 2001). Beauty’s friends thus recognize that the fundamental step in repudiating stigma and cultural ignorance is the community’s engagement with a sense of epistemic responsibility, developing a propensity to accept, speak about, and recognize the perversities and casualties of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. This community engagement symbolizes that the active ignorance of communities can only be assuaged through valorising collective practices of epistemic responsibilities, denouncing derogatory and biased perspectives, endorsing open-minded and revisionist approaches, and valuing others’ knowledge and expertise (Lehrer 2000, 124). The novel shows that despite being educated and affluent, many families are ignorant of the adversities of patriarchal hegemony, unprotected sex, and women’s right to safety. The exploitation of cognitive and metacognitive assessment abilities is essential in considering any fundamental transformation, as implied by Magona’s text. Within this particular context, the novel can be interpreted as a deliberate exercise in community engagement regarding appropriate courses of action or belief systems when faced with serious concerns such as HIV/AIDS, considering the pertinent contextual factors. As an exemplary manifestation of community engagement, the funeral that the Sonti family organizes on the death of their twins, Lungile and Lunga, is indeed thoughtful. In contrast to Beauty’s funeral, the Sonti family refrains from staying silent over their sons’ deaths and captures the funeral as a meaningful platform to organize an AIDS awareness campaign, inviting parents, activists, and NGO personnel to speak on and educate others on HIV/AIDS. Besides declaring their sons’ deaths from this disease, the family takes up a few promising initiatives, such as distributing pamphlets on HIV and AIDS, organizing speakers to talk candidly on the experiences of either being HIV patients or witnesses to them, and eliminating the pervasive misinformation on the disease. Nomtha Langa, a member of Vukani, a local NGO, recollecting her “ten-year journey of living with HIV”, attests that aversion towards HIV tests must be curtailed, and the community needs to delink HIV from notions of fatalism, moral condemnation, and racialized baggage. Mrs. Mazwi, a retired teacher and respected 76 Goutam Karmakar, Rajendra Chetty Epistemic Responsibility and Community Engagement in Sindiwe Magona’s ... community leader, comes to the forefront here, urging the community to take up a serious call on HIV/AIDS, discarding inhibitions with regard to “early detection” and sex education to control its spread (Magona 2008, 119). Beauty’s friends participate in this campaign, heartily applauding the efforts taken to reinstate the collective epistemic awareness of HIV/AIDS. Affirming love, mutuality, and compassion, Beauty’s friends protest the social tolerance of male philandering and the harmful tendencies of castigating women for bearing “outside” or “grass children” (Magona 2008, 111), and they start endorsing the essentiality of delinking to achieve a more equitable epistemological space for accommodating voices and discourses on health and survival. This process of collective awareness and community engagement enables individuals to critically evaluate their mental and social norms through a variety of creative and therapeutic approaches (Bennie et al. 2021). This, in turn, leads to a transformation in how individuals perceive the world, respond to their own impulses and wellness issues, and eventually culminates in a more holistic embodiment of themselves (Pant et al. 2022). The community engagement and collective efforts of Beauty’s friends effectively demonstrate their shared epistemic agency, which is a particular type of epistemic agency that arises within collaborative endeavours focused on generating shared knowledge bodies. This argument underscores the ability of individuals to go beyond being passive recipients of knowledge and become “productive participants in the knowledge-laden, object-driven collaborative activities and to be in charge of their own knowledge advancement” (Damşa et al. 2010, 146). The dissemination of knowledge as a “gift” through Beauty’s death and the ideological commitment of her friends effectively communicates the evolution of a crucial social pedagogy that promotes logical analysis and thorough examination of issues such as HIV/AIDS from the grassroots level and from a comprehensive standpoint. 5 Conclusion Beauty’s Gift can be interpreted as a significant contribution to South African literature and culture, as it offers a critical analysis of the prevalent “massive denial” (Magona 2008, 24) that has permeated the community’s ability to communicate, reflect, and combat the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS. Magona’s work centres on the victimization of a middle- class professional South African woman due to AIDS, highlighting the urgent need for the masses to become aware, take responsibility, and engage the community in possible ways to combat the prolonged consequences caused by this disease. Her assessment of the demise of Beauty and the ensuing introspection serves as a critique of the present-day societal and cultural conditions in South Africa. It can be said that Magona’s repudiation of the systemic inadequacies in South African society aligns her with the stance of societal transformation as proposed by radical feminism. Radical feminism, which developed as a movement during the 1960s and later evolved as a cultural process, aims to confront the fundamental origins of patriarchal oppression rather than solely focusing on legal or economic reforms (Willis 1984, 92). In evaluating the prevalent epistemological convictions pertaining to HIV/AIDS and their potential consequences, Magona’s novel attests to the political aspect of radical feminism, that the challenges arising from sexism should not be confined to the realm of personal matters. 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Matheson, Jonathan, and Kirk Lougheed. 2022. “Puzzles Concerning Epistemic Autonomy.” In Epistemic Autonomy, edited by Jonathan Matheson and Kirk Lougheed, 1–18. New York: Routledge. McKinnon, Rachel. 2016. “Epistemic Injustice.” Philosophy Compass 11 (8): 437–46. https:// doi.org/10.1111 /phc3.12336. McLaughlin, Maureen, and Glen L. DeVoogd. 2004. Critical Literacy: Enhancing Students’ Comprehension of Text. New York: Scholastic. Medina, José. 2013. The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and the Social Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. Morrell, Ernest. 2009. “Critical Research and the Future of Literacy Education.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 53 (2): 96–104. https://doi.org/10.1598/JAAL.53.2.1. 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Part III English Language and Literature Teaching 83ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TEACHING 2023, Vol. 20 (2), 83-101(126) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.20.2.83-101 UDC: 811.111'243:37.091.3(497.5) Ivana Cindrić, Ivana Milković University of Zagreb, Croatia Storytime in English Language Teaching – Teachers’ Practices, Attitudes, and Challenges ABSTRACT The research paper explores how primary school English language teachers in Croatia (N=110) use authentic literature in teaching. The survey examined the teachers’ attitudes, the frequency of use, criteria for text selection, and teaching methods. Additionally, teachers assessed their competences and readiness for using authentic children’s literature. The study found that teachers predominantly choose texts available in coursebooks, on average once a month. They present stories by combining reading aloud and storytelling, with only a few engaging in storytelling alone. Stories are mainly used for teaching vocabulary, but teachers also use them for activities such as dramatizations or discussions. Generally, the teachers reported feeling competent in using stories for teaching English language skills. However, the research revealed some areas that require more attention and support, especially regarding story selection, techniques for implementing stories, and time management. Some aspects of using authentic stories in teaching could be improved by being addressed in pre- and in- service teacher training. Keywords: authentic children’s literature, primary school, story, teaching English as a foreign language Pripovedovanje zgodb pri pouku angleščine – raba v razredu, stališča in izzivi učiteljev IZVLEČEK Prispevek raziskuje, kako osnovnošolski učitelji angleščine na Hrvaškem (N=110) v pouk vključujejo avtentično književnost. Raziskava obravnava odnos učiteljev, pogostost uporabe, merila za izbiro besedil in metode poučevanja. Poleg tega učitelji ocenijo svoje kompetence in pripravljenost na uporabo avtentične otroške literature pri pouku. Raziskava pokaže, da učitelji pretežno izbirajo besedila, ki so na voljo v učbenikih, in sicer v povprečju enkrat na mesec. Večina učiteljev predstavlja zgodbe tako, da glasno branje združuje s pripovedovan- jem, redki zgodbe le pripovedujejo. Zgodbe večinoma uporabljajo za poučevanje besedišča, občasno pa tudi za dejavnosti, kot sta dramatizacija ali diskusija. Učitelji se počutijo kompe- tentne pri uporabi zgodb za poučevanje angleščine, toda raziskava razkrije tudi področja, ki zahtevajo več pozornosti in podpore učiteljem, zlasti glede izbire zgodb, tehnik vključevanja zgodb v pouk in upravljanja s časom. Nekatere vidike uporabe avtentičnih zgodb bi lahko izboljšali tako, da bi jih obravnavali v okviru dodiplomskega pedagoškega študija in stalnega strokovnega spopolnjevanja učiteljev. Ključne besede: avtentična otroška literatura, osnovna šola, zgodba, poučevanje angleščine kot tujega jezika 84 Ivana Cindrić, Ivana Milković Storytime in English Language Teaching – Teachers’ Practices, Attitudes, and Challenges 1 Introduction The advantages of using authentic stories in English language teaching (ELT) go beyond enhancing students’ language skills. Using authentic stories in ELT enables cross-curricular learning, develops students’ awareness of multiculturalism and tolerance, promotes empathy, kindles imagination and creativity. What is more, literary texts also require interpretation skills and develop learners’ cultural awareness (Lovrović and Kolega 2021). All the aspects mentioned above were recognized and considered by curriculum developers in Croatia in 2003, when foreign language was introduced as an obligatory subject in the 1st grade of primary education. In Croatian primary school language programs, stories are “a significant part of the syllabus… (since they) are extremely useful in developing both children’s communicative and linguistic competence” (Štokić and Mihaljević Djigunović 2003, 41). Subsequently, this approach has persevered amidst numerous educational reforms. The present-day Croatian curriculum does not place any explicit emphasis on authentic texts but nurtures the idea that primary school children should get in contact with different literary texts written in English from their first year of learning the language. The outcomes connected to using literary texts in class are incorporated into the domain of intercultural communicative competence and implicitly presume that the texts should also be authentic. For example, one of the learning outcomes in the first grade of primary school is that children should be able to “compare literary texts in English with those from their own culture (e.g., illustrated stories, simple poems, comics and similar)” (Kurikulum nastavnog predmeta engleski jezik za osnovne škole i gimnazije 2019), which would not be attainable if the texts were not authentic and did not contain culture specific elements of the (Anglophone) source culture.1 Teachers, on the other hand, have freedom to decide what materials and methods they will use to achieve curriculum goals. They decide on the textbooks and on the additional sources and materials to be used and introduced in their lessons. Consequently, teachers also design activities and allot time that they are going to devote to working on literary texts. Although numerous research has been carried out with respect to foreign language learning and teaching in the Croatian context (e.g., Gačić and Šamo 2014; Mihaljević Djigunović and Medved Krajnović 2015; Andraka and Narančić Kovač 2019; Vrhovac et al. 2019), studies focused on materials teachers use in their lessons are scarce and are mostly focused on providing practical advice regarding the use of different materials (e.g., Rijavec 2015). Considering the well-known benefits of using authentic literature (Brewster, Ellis, and Girard 2002; Ghosn 2013a; Narančić Kovač 2019), the aim of the present study is to explore the practice of using authentic children’s stories by primary school English language teachers in Croatia and their attitudes towards such practice. The paper is structured as follows: literature review, methodology, study findings and conclusion. 1 Authentic literary texts are explicitly mentioned in the Croatian curriculum at higher levels of education from the 1st grade of high school (Kurikulum… 2019). 85ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TEACHING 2 Literature Review From the historical perspective, teaching English as a foreign language (ELT) is marked by various teaching approaches characterized by different methods, including the grammar- translation method, direct method, audio-lingual and audiovisual methods, communicative, and cognitive approaches, to arrive at the contemporary and widely accepted intercultural approach which places intercultural communicative competence at the centre of the teaching process (Andraka 2020). Literature, especially authentic children’s literature, has been present in primary ELT methodologies for over four decades (Ghosn 2013b). However, different teaching methods approached the incorporation of literature in education differently. For example, during the 1970s, with the prevailing communicative approach to learning foreign languages, Allwright (1979) emphasized that communication should be the aim of language teaching with the development of communicative skills as the priority. Since linguistic competence is only a part of the communicative competence, “communication practice can be expected to develop linguistic skills” (1979, 170). In order to provide foreign language learners with the same kind of communicative function as their own language, Widdowson (1978) suggested reading authentic passages or extracts as “genuine instances of language use” (1978, 80), while he was primarily concerned with the authenticity and genuineness of the reader’s appropriate response. Furthermore, since literature is representational and not referential (McRae 1994), it creates contexts which can be understood and interpreted “by a particularly intensive exploitation of the language medium” (Widdowson 1990, 178). It was concluded that “literature makes an irreplaceable contribution to the development of communicative competence” (McRae and Boardman 1984, 1). In the context of the contemporary intercultural approach to teaching English as a foreign language, Kramsch (1993) points out that “literary prose or poetry appeals to the students’ emotions, grabs their interest, remains in their memory and makes them partake in the memory of another speech community” (1993, 131), allowing them to acquire not only cultural knowledge, but also develop critical thinking (Cantizano 2020). Andraka (2020) points out that the language of authentic literary texts is not modified for classroom use and prepares students for understanding of future, unknown, texts that students are going to get in contact with outside of the classroom. Furthermore, even if the text is without explicit cultural information “the fact that it is a product of a specific culture makes it cultural content” (Andraka 2020, 40). Over the years, the list of benefits for including literature in teaching English as a foreign language has expanded to include linguistic, psychological (affective), cognitive, cultural and social reasons (Brewster, Ellis, and Girard 2002, 186; see also Narančić Kovač 1999 and 2019a; Ghosn, 2013a), bringing forth the distinction between using authentic and adapted literary texts. The most important characteristic of authentic literature is that the language is not selected, adapted or graded, and as such authentic literature offers “a rich source of authentic input” (Brewster, Ellis, and Girard 2002, 188)2. Although primarily aimed at child readers whose mother tongue is English, authentic literature can be selected to suit young English foreign language learners. 2 For more benefits of using authentic children’s literature in teaching English as foreign language see McRae (2008) and Bland (2013). 86 Ivana Cindrić, Ivana Milković Storytime in English Language Teaching – Teachers’ Practices, Attitudes, and Challenges While authentic literature offers numerous advantages in the teaching of English as a foreign language, adapted texts are at the other end of the spectrum. Adapted and sometimes abridged texts are common in the foreign language learning context, especially for young learners. They are adapted or constructed to fit the presumed learners’ needs and linguistic levels. Sometimes renowned publishers develop reading schemes and graded readers specifically for foreign language learners, in order to facilitate the acquisition of reading skills and provide reading materials that are not too difficult. Most of these materials, regardless of the publisher (e.g., Cambridge Storybooks published by Cambridge University Press, or picture books for FL learning published by Školska knjiga, Croatia) eliminate forms that are presumed too challenging for young learners, such as past tenses, idioms, phrasal verbs and so on. However, research has shown that even the youngest school children can read and understand appropriate literary texts in English as a foreign language. Moreover, young learners do not decode verb forms but derive the grammatical time from the story context, which makes changing grammatical forms to present tenses in stories for foreign language learners absurd and completely unnecessary (Narančić Kovač and Lauš 2011). In the Croatian context, adapted texts are primarily found in textbooks. If carefully adapted, they can still contribute to learners’ cultural knowledge (Petrović 1988), as well as other linguistic and communicative teaching goals, but the authentic communication experience is lost. Moreover, Rijavec (2015, 119) criticizes textbooks and texts in the textbooks as follows: “The artificially constructed texts not only disregard learners’ interests, but also underestimate their intellectual capacities and their knowledge of the world. They present a simplified version of what adults consider a child’s world should be.” Bland (2019, 90) highlights that a focus on children’s literature in language teacher education also leads to freedom from coursebook-driven ELT and one-size fits all materials. In addition, Clarke and Clarke (1990, 36) maintain that “it is in TESOL textbooks published in the west for the world market that we find a major instrument for cultural transmission and a source of concern for the effect which stereotyped images may have”. Relying on a textbook alone – even with young learners – must limit children’s imaginative scope, while “recent research into the nature of the human brain pleads an evolutionary advantage to our capacity for narrative” (Hunte and Golembiewski 2014, 73). Stories elicit an engaged response, and empathizing with characters in compelling stories is important for the ability to take pleasure in literature (Krashen and Bland 2014, 8). Because the coursebook is not necessarily the best option for young learner classes, many teachers spend time preparing instructional materials such as posters, vocabulary cards, and manipulatives (Enever 2011), or teach English with self-made materials only. The latter is the case in Slovenia, where textbooks are discouraged and rarely used in the first three years of EFL teaching (Dagarin Fojkar and Rozmanič 2021). Since Croatia was “among the pioneers in introducing a foreign language as an obligatory subject in its primary schools” (Gačić and Šamo 2014, 5), there has been substantial research in the theory and practice of teaching English as a foreign language in the Croatian context. For example, literature in ELT had been investigated by Narančić Kovač (1999; 2019a), Lauš and Narančić Kovač (2008), Stanišić and Milković (2022), and others, although to date there 87ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TEACHING is no research on teachers’ attitudes and practices when using narratives in EFL teaching in this context. 3 Methodology 3.1 Aim The aim of the present study was to establish the extent and the manner in which Croatian primary school English language teachers use narratives (authentic and adapted) in English language lessons. In particular, the study aimed to explore the following: frequency of use; criteria for selecting authentic literary texts; how teachers incorporate narratives or stories; readiness to use authentic stories; teachers’ estimates of their competences to use authentic stories in the classroom, and teachers’ attitudes towards using authentic stories. 3.2 Instrument In order to achieve the research objective, a questionnaire originally developed by Dagarin Fojkar and Rozmanič (2021) was applied. The questionnaire was modified to suit the specific target population, which consisted of primary school English language teachers in Croatia and aimed to collect data on several key factors. Divided into three main sections, the questionnaire included inquiries about general participant information (such as age, gender, grade-level taught, place of work, and educational background), experience in using stories (including frequency, selection criteria, teaching methods, additional activities, sources for finding stories) and teachers’ perceived competences, challenges, and attitudes towards the use of stories. The questionnaire was administered online in May 2022. Support from the Croatian Teacher Training Agency was enlisted to ensure participation from teachers across the country. 3.3 Sample of Participants The sample of participants for this study consisted of primary school English language teachers from various schools across the country. EFL teachers in the Croatian primary school context are either primary education and English language teachers or English language specialists. Generally, primary education and English language teachers teach mostly in lower grades of primary school (1–4), although their qualification enables them to teach English throughout primary school (grades 1–8). English language specialists can teach throughout primary school and secondary (high) school. Participation in the research was voluntary, and the survey itself was conducted online using Google Forms. This approach enabled the participation of teachers in 15 out of the 21 Croatian counties. A total of 110 responses were collected from primary school English language teachers, with 104 female participants and six male participants. Among the respondents, the largest age group was between 36 and 50 years old, comprising 76 teachers (69.1%). There were 20 participants (18.2%) in the 22–35 age bracket, and 14 participants (12.7%) in the 51–65 age bracket. According to the participants’ responses, almost 25% teach in all grades of primary school (grades 1–8), which indicates a relatively small school population and the need for teachers to be skilled in teaching EFL to both younger (lower 88 Ivana Cindrić, Ivana Milković Storytime in English Language Teaching – Teachers’ Practices, Attitudes, and Challenges primary) and older (higher primary) children. This is further supported by the fact that only 22% of respondents teach only in higher grades (grades 5–8) and 10% teach only in lower grades of primary school (grades 1–4). 4 Study Findings and Discussion Based on the responses provided by the participants, nearly half the teachers (49; 45%,) include stories (narratives) into their teaching once or twice per month (Table 1). On the other hand, a significant portion of teachers (44; 40%) report using stories less than once a month and there were few teachers (3; 2%) who rarely use stories. On a more positive note, 14 teachers (13%) implement stories in their lessons once per week. This is an important finding, since English is taught only twice a week in the lower grades (grades 1–4). In the higher grades (grades 5–8), where English lessons are scheduled for three hours per week, introducing a narrative once a week represents a well-balanced and diverse teaching approach. Table 1. Frequency of using stories (narratives) in ELT lessons. N % Once per week 14 13% Once or twice per month 49 45% Less than once per month 44 40% Rarely/sometimes 3 2% Regarding the types of stories teachers use in their lessons (Table 2), more than half the participants (64; 58.2%) state using stories provided by textbooks. These stories can be either authentic or adapted; however, as noted by Skela (2014, 131), in most cases they are adapted and not very frequent. A recent investigation of the presence of authentic literary texts in textbooks for 4th graders in Croatia conducted by Milković, Cindrić, and Cvitanović (2023), revealed that most texts in the analysed textbooks are actually adapted texts. These adapted texts involve simplifying or modifying the language to align with the presumed level of knowledge of foreign learners, or alternatively, condensing the storyline. Table 2. Types of stories used by primary EFL teachers. N % Stories from textbooks 64 58.2% Authentic short stories 14 12.7% Authentic chapter books 3 2.7% Authentic picture books 13 11.8% Adapted stories and picture books 12 11% Other: 4 3.6% In the current sample, teachers also reported using authentic short stories (14; 12.7%), authentic picturebooks3 (13; 11.8%), and adapted stories and picturebooks (12; 11%). Only 3 The term “picturebook” written as a compound noun is used to emphasize the interconnectedness of visual and textual discourse in the artefact (Lewis 2001, xiv; Mourão 2016, 26). 89ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TEACHING a few teachers reported using chapter books (3; 2,7%) and other types of stories (4; 3.6%) which would include stories with videos or combinations of story types. These results indicate teachers’ high reliance on stories provided by the textbooks. In fact, they show that reliance on textbooks continues to be very high in Croatia as the longitudinal study (2006–2010) known as the ELLiE study (Enever 2011) listed Croatia as first among four countries where coursebooks were widely used. This is not surprising if we take into consideration that textbooks are available to both the teacher and students, as opposed to picturebooks and other authentic stories which teachers and students might find challenging to obtain. Also, in terms of the limited time designated for English lessons in school, which is two or three hours per week – and the curriculum demands which have to be met within this – textbooks seem to be a logical solution as they cater to the curriculum. What is more, for teachers, stories in textbooks can be timesavers as the texts are already adapted and accompanying materials and follow-up activities are provided (Dagarin Fojkar, Skela, and Kovač 2013). On the other hand, high reliance on stories from textbooks is not always the best option for language learners. For instance, Cameron (2001, 162) criticizes the texts in EFL coursebooks that are called “stories” when they do not adhere to the archetypal story template: Most often they lack a plot; instead of setting up a problem and working towards its resolution, the characters just move through a sequence of activities. According to the author, teachers should be very careful and not assume that such non-stories will capture children’s imagination in the same way that stories can do. Non-stories do not play to the children’s strengths, for children have a desire “to find and construct coherence and meaning” (Cameron 2001, 159). According to Narančić Kovač (2019a, 350) adapted texts can be a good starting point for creating dramatizations, but their simplification leads to a certain impoverishment of the literary work characterized by unnatural language and a simulation of the authentic language. Authentic picturebooks, as opposed to adapted or abridged stories presented in textbooks, provide affordances for authentic L2 use, as Mourão (2015, 202) states, through the interpretation of the book’s pictures, words and design as these elements come together to produce a visual-verbal narrative that sometimes FL teachers take for granted as being led by the words. Finally, “storybooks can be used to provide extra language practice by supplementing and complementing a coursebook” (Brewster, Ellis, and Girard 2002, 192), but also as a source of enjoyment and relaxation (Narančić Kovač 1999, 264). The exploration of authentic literary works for children naturally prompted our investigation into the availability and sources of such materials for teachers. Specifically, we aimed to identify where teachers typically find stories (narratives) for their students. As indicated in Table 3, most teachers (46; 42%) report relying on textbooks for stories, which aligns with the finding that over half the teachers utilize the stories provided by textbooks. A significant proportion of teachers (30; 27%) source stories from the internet. Notably, a portion of teachers (15; 14%) have taken the initiative to create their own personal collection of stories (picture books) for children. A few teachers mention their school library as a source for finding authentic stories and picture books, while a small number of teachers indicate using a combination of the above sources (11; 10%). Surprisingly, none of the 110 participants 90 Ivana Cindrić, Ivana Milković Storytime in English Language Teaching – Teachers’ Practices, Attitudes, and Challenges in the sample mention the public library as a resource for accessing stories and authentic literature. Only a very small number of teachers (3; 2%) selected the option “all of the above”, suggesting that although they use textbooks, they also reach out for other reading materials that perhaps better suit their students’ needs, which is recommended. These results indicate that the teachers in this sample rarely use school libraries to access authentic materials, although according to the Standards for School Libraries (Ministry of Science and Education, 2023) school libraries should also provide materials in the foreign language. Even more surprising is the finding that the option of checking with public libraries is not pursued by the participants at all. There are two possible reasons for such behaviour. Firstly, it is possible that teachers are unaware of the resources available in school and local libraries. Secondly, it is also possible that the materials available in these libraries do not meet teachers’ needs. In such a context where literary resources are not easily accessible, teachers may naturally gravitate towards relying on textbooks. Table 3. Sources of stories. N % Textbook 46 42% Private collection/purchase 15 14% Internet 30 27% School library 5 5% Public library 0 0% All of the above 3 2% Other (textbook, private library, online, borrowing from friends, etc.) 11 10% Considering that teachers mostly use narratives offered by the textbook, it is not surprising that the main criterion for selecting a story (Table 4) is the topic to be covered (content). One participant’s comment sums up this finding: “I don’t select stories, I use what the textbook offers.” Other criteria that teachers find relevant when selecting a story for their English language lessons are language (authentic language with a lot of repetition), a clear sequence of events, text length and a combination of the above. Although some teachers shy away from using authentic reading materials for fear that the language might be too demanding for their learners (Brewster, Ellis, and Girard 2002, 188), there is an abundance of children’s literature written for L1 speakers that is simple enough language-wise and appropriate for classroom use (Narančić Kovač 2019a). Moreover, the selection of literature, as seen by Hall (2016, 464), “is not only a lesson-by-lesson or task-by task issue … it is also a concern for wider syllabus design”. These wider aims go beyond vocabulary building, genre and register learning or better reading skills alone but are part of a wider educational aspirations for ethical citizenship and (inter-)cultural awareness (Hall 2016, 464). 91ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TEACHING Table 4. Criteria for selecting stories. N % Topic (content) 59 54% Language (authentic and repetitive language) 28 25% Text length 6 5% Clear sequence of events 9 8% All of the above 6 5% Other 2 2% The following sets of questions concerned the actual use of authentic stories or how teachers approach stories in their lessons, their classroom arrangement during story-time, the activities used while engaging in story-time. Regarding teachers’ preferences for reading or telling stories (Table 5), the results show that more than half the teachers in the sample both read and tell stories. This is a positive finding considering storytelling is a challenging activity in the sense that it is “the teacher who decides the form of each retelling, shapes the story to the audience, encourages responses and perhaps introduces new elements without disturbing the template-like building blocks of storytelling” (Bland 2015, 186). A relatively small number of teachers either read or tell stories. Some teachers also seek other ways of presenting stories to students, such as digital tools, audio recordings, listening and watching native speakers, and so on. The use of such tools can also be linked to textbooks. In a study conducted in 2013 on a sample of 50 Slovene teachers of English in the 3rd and 4th grades, the majority of participants favoured reading over storytelling (Dagarin Fojkar, Skela, and Kovač 2013, 24). The authors attributed this to the demands of storytelling in terms of preparing a storytelling performance (i.e., the techniques, knowledge and performing skills required for successful storytelling). Although there is a clear distinction between reading and telling stories, “reading and listening to stories provides one of the richest sources of language and creative thought input for children” (Vale and Feunteun 1995, 40). Both reading and telling stories are welcome in the EFL classroom and depend mostly on the teaching style and storytelling skills of the teacher (Ellis and Brewster 2014, 25). Table 5. Storytelling vs. story reading. N % Reading 18 16% Storytelling 10 9% Both 71 65% Other 11 10% In terms of classroom arrangement (Table 6), it is evident that the highest proportion of participants (53; 48%) do not change the classroom setup for storytime activities. In other words, their teaching is traditional, frontal teaching. On a more positive note, a smaller but significant number of participants (46; 41%) ask students to create a circle and semi- circle when storytime activities take place. Some teachers reported using both arrangements depending on the story, activity, students’ age, and classroom. 92 Ivana Cindrić, Ivana Milković Storytime in English Language Teaching – Teachers’ Practices, Attitudes, and Challenges We relate the high percentage of teachers who do not change the classroom setup during storytime to the high frequency of textbook use. If the story is in the student’s textbook, there is no need to move away from behind the desk. Students simply flip the page and listen either to the teacher or a recording. However, when the teacher reads a picture book or book, or tells a story, moving the students so they can see and hear better seems the more logical step to take. Bland (2015, 186) notes that making a semicircle around the teacher provides comfortable whole-group togetherness without the paraphernalia of desks, pencil cases and school bags to distract from a trance-like immersion in a well-told story. What is more, “having pupils seated on the floor, in the form of a semi-circle, further contributes to the pleasant atmosphere in the classroom” (Dagarin Fojkar, Skela, and Kovač 2013, 26). Table 6. Classroom arrangement during storytime. N % Frontal classroom arrangement 53 48% Reading circle or semi-circle 46 41% Both 3 3% Depends (on the story, activities, age, classroom) 4 4% Group work 2 2% Other (reading diary, sitting on cushions) 2 2% While reading or telling stories, teachers frequently prepare additional activities for students (Table 7). Some of the activities are dramatizations, vocabulary enrichment, discussions, etc. In this research we have established that the most frequent activities teachers use while reading or telling stories are activities relating to vocabulary use (41; 37%) and dramatizations (28; 25%). Several teachers reported using discussion activities and activities relating to the integration of content from other areas. Such activities are expected in a language-oriented classroom, and they do not exclude cultural4 or other elements such as critical thinking.5 According to Hall (2016, 464), “the best tasks and activities will exploit to the full the specific features of the text”, i.e., literary texts offer valuable uses of language, and this is where their greatest affordances for language learners lie. Table 7. Activities during and after storytime. N % Learning vocabulary 41 37% Dramatization 28 25% Discussion 19 18% Cross-curricular integration 13 12% Other 9 8% 4 Kramsch (1993, 177) states that “teaching language is teaching culture”. Thus, learning a foreign language always includes cultural elements, even if it is only at a basic level. 5 Fisher (1990, 53) insists that “stories can provide a rich stimulus for divergent thinking” and that “all stories to some extent require thinking about and recreating in the listener’s or reader’s mind”. 93ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TEACHING With respect to using reading and telling techniques and additional support (Table 8), teachers mostly report using body and facial expressions, changes in voice, pictures, and illustrations. It is evident that although some teachers use artefacts and puppets, the majority do not. According to Bland (2015, 190-2), “creative teacher talk” is an important teacher skill for teaching English to young learners, for oral storytelling, picturebook readalouds and classroom discourse generally. Creative teacher talk is interactive, highly repetitive and with chant-like routines and expressive prosodic features, including carefully modulated pitch, tempo, volume, and rhythm to attract attention and underline meanings. Depending on the topic, the teacher may make use of dramatic pauses and exuberant intonation. In addition, creative teacher talk is accompanied by the scaffolding of gestures and facial expressions, elaboration, a slower speech rate, additional contextual cues and realia as well as comprehension checks. Table 8. Techniques and additional support used during storytime.   Yes No Frequency of responses Pictures and illustrations 104 6 Body and facial expression 108 2 Changes in voice 106 4 Artifacts 36 74 Puppets 42 68 Other 17 93 The next item explored under the heading experience in using stories was the time teachers devote to preparing lessons that revolve around storytime. According to the results (Table 9), more than half the participants state using approximately the same amount of time for preparing story-based lessons (62; 56%) as for regular, textbook-based lessons. On the other hand, 46 participants (42%) state that more time is necessary for preparing story- based lessons compared to preparing usual textbook-based lessons. The planning of a lesson that includes storytime (either reading a story or storytelling) is somewhat different from planning usual lessons following the textbook. Such planning necessitates time for finding and selecting an appropriate story, and for activities that accompany pre-reading, while- reading and post-reading activities. The fact that more than half of the participants spend the same amount of time planning storytime lessons and usual lessons can be linked to the finding that most participants use stories provided by the textbook. It is likely and common practice that the related teaching manual offers a ready-made teaching plan for instructors, resulting in minimal differences in the time required for planning such lessons compared to planning a typical lesson. Table 9. Time spent planning a story-based lesson. N % More than usual 46 42% Less than usual 2 2% Approximately the same time 62 56% 94 Ivana Cindrić, Ivana Milković Storytime in English Language Teaching – Teachers’ Practices, Attitudes, and Challenges The third section of the questionnaire comprised a self-assessment of competences for using authentic stories in the classroom, an open-ended question regarding the challenges teachers come across while utilizing storytime in their lessons, and an exploration of teachers’ attitudes regarding the use of authentic stories in the classroom. The results are presented in the order stated. The teachers self-assessed their competence to use stories on a five-point Likert scale (1– no competence, 2 – low competence, 3 – average competence, 4 – moderate competence, 5 – high competence). According to the results (Figure 1), a significant number of teachers (39%) assessed themselves as highly competent to use stories in the classroom, while most (44%) felt moderately competent. It is important to note that some teachers (18; 16%) estimated their competence to use stories in their lessons as average. Interestingly, Ellis and Brewster (2014, 6) report that teachers lacked confidence in using stories and storytelling in research conducted in the early 1990s. However, things have changed a lot in the years since due to the publication of handbooks, research papers,6 and the incorporation of relevant courses in teacher education syllabi.7 Even if teachers are not familiar with a literature-based approach or using literature in the FL classroom, there is a plethora of resources available which can serve to enhance their teaching skills in using literature. However, it would be desirable to equip students, as prospective teachers of foreign languages, with as many skills as possible, including skills in using literature in language teaching, or at least to inform them of the possibilities they can use in the future. literature. However, it would be desirable to equip students, as prospective teachers of foreign languages, with as many skills as possible, including skills in using literature in language teaching, or at least to inform them of the possibilities they can use in the future. FIGURE 1. Teachers’ self-assessment of their competence to use stories in their lessons. The following set of results (Table 10) indicates the challenges that teachers reported with respect to using storytime in their lessons.8 According to the participants, the largest obstacle to using storytime in their lessons is the lack of time, and almost all the participants (100) marked this as a challenge that they face. It is possible that the number of hours allocated for English language lessons per week (two in the lower grades and three in the higher grades) presents a challenge to teachers with respect to meeting the curriculum outcomes. However, awareness of possibilities in terms of different and diverse methods and materials in language teaching can help meet the demands of the curriculum without the anxiety and stress both teachers and students seem to be experiencing in their drive for success. For example, in their studies Tomlinson (2015, 283–84) and Mason (2013, 27) established that story-listening is as effective as or even more effective than traditional methods. Furthermore, stories are far more pleasant and engaging than traditional instruction, and students can gain other aspects of language as well as knowledge through stories (Mason 2013, 28). Additionally, the connection between the participants’ heavy reliance on stories in textbooks and their lack of time for using other authentic stories cannot be overlooked. We presume this is a result of a practical matter that puts textbooks at the centre of teaching – specifically, following textbooks to the letter and presenting the material in the order suggested by the books themselves. Using textbooks is not negative per se, but Rijavec (2015, 119) warns against putting them at the centre of teaching: First of all, we should free ourselves from the tyranny of the course book by challenging our general attitude towards it. We should stop treating it as the Bible and feeling guilty in case we do not fulfill its purposes completely. The second most frequently mentioned challenge for teachers is lack of materials (58). According to the results, teachers infrequently source materials from school libraries, possibly indicating that school libraries either do  8 Teachers could choose more than one item. 0%; 0 1%; 1 16%; 18 44%; 48 39%; 43 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 No competence Low competence Average competence Moderate competence High competence Figure 1. Teachers’ self-assessment of their competence to use stories in their lessons. The following set of results (T ble 10) indicates the challenges that teachers reported with respect to using storytime in their lessons.8 According to the participants, the largest obstacle o using sto ytime i their lesson is th lack of time, and almost all the participants (100) marked this as a challenge that they face. It is possible that the number of hours allocated for 6 Several relevant titles can be found in this paper. 7 For example, in the Croatian context, there are several relevant courses integrated into syllabi at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Teacher Education (e. g. Literature in Teaching English, Creative Teaching Activities, etc.), some from t e very beginning of the program for Teachers f E glish as a Foreign Language, since 1993 (Narančić Kovač 2019b). 8 Teachers could choose more than one item. 95ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TEACHING English language lessons per week (two in the lower grades and three in the higher grades) presents a challenge to teachers with respect to meeting the curriculum outcomes. However, awareness of possibilities in terms of different and diverse methods and materials in language teaching can help meet the demands of the curriculum without the anxiety and stress both teachers and students seem to be experiencing in their drive for success. For example, in their studies Tomlinson (2015, 283–84) and Mason (2013, 27) established that story-listening is as effective as or even more effective than traditional methods. Furthermore, stories are far more pleasant and engaging than traditional instruction, and students can gain other aspects of language as well as knowledge through stories (Mason 2013, 28). Additionally, the connection between the participants’ heavy reliance on stories in textbooks and their lack of time for using other authentic stories cannot be overlooked. We presume this is a result of a practical matter that puts textbooks at the centre of teaching – specifically, following textbooks to the letter and presenting the material in the order suggested by the books themselves. Using textbooks is not negative per se, but Rijavec (2015, 119) warns against putting them at the centre of teaching: First of all, we should free ourselves from the tyranny of the course book by challenging our general attitude towards it. We should stop treating it as the Bible and feeling guilty in case we do not fulfill its purposes completely. The second most frequently mentioned challenge for teachers is lack of materials (58). According to the results, teachers infrequently source materials from school libraries, possibly indicating that school libraries either do not provide sufficient or adequate teaching material, and therefore the pressure to provide quality storybooks is complicated by the related financial burden. Some teachers collect materials and books for their own personal library, which is certainly commendable, but should not be the only way to provide literary texts for classroom use. A notable number of teachers (31) report students’ lack of interest in stories as being a challenge. Teachers report that some students refuse to participate and show resistance to such activities. According to the results of this research, we assume that a part of the reason for such behaviour might rest in the fact that textbook texts are not as emotionally engaging as authentic literary texts. However, the teachers’ explanation for such student reactions is the existence of large gaps in previously acquired knowledge and skills in English. They also relate this to the students’ poor work habits, the ease with which they become distracted, as well as lack of focus and consistency. Teachers state that some students require more supervision and support inside and outside of school. This often leads to a growing achievement gap between them and those who can follow the program, as well as growing insecurity and frustration, which over time results in the development of the aforementioned resistance. This is a vicious cycle and teachers cannot make much difference due to the lack of institutional support and lack of interest from higher authorities. Finally, teachers’ attitudes regarding the use of stories in their lessons were examined (Table 11). The participants were provided with a total of 24 positive and negative statements regarding the benefits of storytime for which they were asked to state their degree of agreement on a five-point Likert scale (1– Entirely disagree, 2 – Mostly disagree, 3 – Can’t decide, 4 – Mostly agree, 5 – Entirely agree). The statements were categorized into four groups including 96 Ivana Cindrić, Ivana Milković Storytime in English Language Teaching – Teachers’ Practices, Attitudes, and Challenges teachers’ attitudes towards: 1– Students’ interests, concentration, creativity and imagination; 2 – Teaching vocabulary, language, grammar and communicative competence through literature; 3 – Authentic literature and cultural aspects; 4 – General teaching aspects. For this part of the research, the most frequent value in the data set, i.e., Mode, was calculated. Table 10. Challenges participants come across when using stories in EFL lessons.   Yes No Frequency of responses Lack of materials 58 52 Insufficient competence 11 99 Lack of time 100 10 Unfamiliar method 4 106 Students’ lack of interest in such activities 31 79 Other 6 104 Table 11. Teachers’ attitudes regarding different aspects of using stories. Categories Statement Mode 1 Teachers’ attitudes towards students’ interests, concentration, creativity and imagination 1 Reading stories in ELT raises students’ interest in the language. 4 2 Reading stories in ELT helps students to concentrate. 4 6 Using stories in ELT promotes students’ creativity and imagination. 5 23 Authentic children’s literature is not conducive to creative work with students. 1 2 Teachers’ attitudes towards teaching vocabulary, language, grammar and communicative competence through literature 3 Authentic stories are a good source for vocabulary and language learning. 5 7 By using authentic English children’s literature students are exposed to natural, authentic language. 5 9 Reading stories in ELT serves only as a foundation for teaching grammar. 1 10 Authentic children’s literature in ELT prepares children for the acquisition of more complex language structures. 5 13 Reading authentic children’s literature in the English language can serve as material for checking vocabulary comprehension. 5 14 Authentic children’s literature is important for developing students’ communicative competence. 4 16 Authentic children’s literature which is available to me does not contain vocabulary relevant for students. 2 17 Authentic children’s literature which is available to me does not contain contemporary language. 2 97ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TEACHING The participants mostly agreed (Mode 4) that their students’ interests in the language and their concentration are better when using stories, while they entirely agree (Mode 5) that using stories promotes students’ creativity and imagination. In the second group of statements, Teachers’ attitudes towards teaching vocabulary, language, grammar and communicative competence through literature, the participants entirely agreed (Mode 5) that authentic stories are an important source of vocabulary, grammar, and language learning in general as well as of exposure to authentic, natural language and more complex grammar structures. The respondents mostly agree (Mode 4) that authentic children’s literature is important for developing communicative competence. Consistent with the results on the positive statements in this group of questions, the negative statements were marked “disagree”, which means that teachers are aware that authentic children’s literature should not be used only for language aspects such as teaching grammar. Regarding the third group of statements, Teachers’ attitudes towards authentic literature and cultural aspects, the respondents entirely agreed (Mode 5) with all three positive statements about using stories to promote the development of students’ positive attitudes towards 18 The obstacle I come across is that the text is loaded with grammatical structures students have not yet learned. 3 24 Authentic children’s literature contains atypical language which students cannot use for communicative purposes. 2 3 Teachers’ attitudes towards authentic literature and culture 8 Using stories in ELT promotes students’ development of positive attitudes towards language and literature. 5 11 Through literature, students can learn a lot about the culture of English-speaking areas. 5 12 Reading authentic children’s literature can improve students’ awareness of cultural differences and mutual understanding between cultures. 5 15 My students can’t understand authentic children’s literature due to cultural differences. 2 4 Teachers’ attitudes towards some general aspects in teaching 4 Using stories in ELT can be a starting point for engaging students in cross-curricular activities. 5 5 When using stories in ELT the learning environment is more relaxed. 5 19 Using authentic children’s literature in ELT requires extra time and effort to prepare the materials adequately. 4 20 Regular ELT sessions in schools do not offer the time for using authentic children’s literature. 4 21 Authentic children’s literature in the English language can only be used for leisure time activities. 1 22 I avoid authentic children’s literature as I find that it is impossible to use in ELT. 1 98 Ivana Cindrić, Ivana Milković Storytime in English Language Teaching – Teachers’ Practices, Attitudes, and Challenges English language, literature and culture. The respondents do not consider cultural differences in authentic literary texts to pose a challenge to reading comprehension. With respect to statements about general teaching aspects, the participants showed an awareness of the benefits and teaching opportunities that literature can offer in the FL classroom. They perceive literature as an opportunity to create a more relaxed learning environment and a window to cross-curricular teaching. The also mostly agree (Mode 4) that extra time and effort to prepare adequate materials is necessary when using authentic children’s literature in ELT, and that regular ELT sessions do not offer the time for using authentic children’s literature. They entirely disagreed (Mode 1) with the statement that they avoid authentic children’s literature because it is impossible to use it in ELT, which leaves us hopeful that teachers consider they can overcome obstacles for using stories. 5 Conclusion According to the research results, we can establish that English language teachers in Croatian primary schools use storytime on average once a month. When they engage in storytime, most teachers rely on the stories provided by textbooks. They combine reading stories aloud with storytelling and accompany this activity with pictures and illustrations, facial expressions, body language and changes in voice. Puppets and realia are used by less than half of the participants. For most teachers, stories are used to enhance or enrich vocabulary, for dramatization purposes or for discussions. They are aware that literature should not be used exclusively for language purposes and that using stories in the EFL classroom offers many benefits for students, as well as opportunities for the teacher. The participants in the sample assess their competence in using stories in their lessons as moderate to high. However, some teachers’ responses, particularly those indicating average competence, suggest that additional guidance may be necessary. This matter should be addressed more comprehensively in both pre-service and in-service teacher education, as short-term training or workshops have limited effects (Butler 2019, 34). Furthermore, the participants demonstrate positive attitudes towards using stories in the foreign language classroom, acknowledging their benefits. According to the teachers, insufficient time for reading and engaging in storytelling presents a challenge. Additionally, they mention that lack of adequate resources limits the use of authentic literature, often leading teachers to rely solely on textbooks and the accompanying (ready-made) materials. Based on these conclusions we can identify issues that need to be attended to for stories to be effectively integrated into foreign language instruction, especially when teaching young language learners. Teachers’ perception of lack of time is closely linked to the use of textbooks. As other research has shown, there is a correlation between textbook use and the use of authentic materials and texts. When teachers do not rely on textbooks, they resort to other materials including authentic literature. Apart from relying on textbooks, the pressure of time constraints can also be attributed to teachers’ limited awareness that teaching and learning goals can be achieved through diverse methods, including storytelling. Given this perspective, pre-service and in-service teacher training programs should consistently address this awareness gap. 99ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TEACHING The reported lack of resources is a burning problem for teachers which needs to be addressed, and there is thus a need for more research that would focus on the amount and quality of resources available in the form of English language books in school and local libraries. Considering Croatia has been at the forefront of introducing foreign languages to young learners as early as grade 1 (formally since 2003), the lack of resources in the English language in school libraries is quite disheartening. Nowadays, being a member country of the European Union gives schools the opportunity to carry out various projects. In that respect, care should be taken to ensure that school libraries are equipped not only with resources in the students’ mother tongue, but also in English. Students’ declining interest in stories can be attributed to their confinement within textbooks. We propose that this can be addressed by introducing real, authentic books and picturebooks. The younger the students, the more receptive they are to developing a genuine affection for books, rather than stories in textbooks. Encouraging students to move away from their desks and creating a special place and time for reading is a starting point. Another possible explanation for the falls in students’ interest in stories may be attributed to the teachers’ varied abilities to effectively incorporate authentic literary texts into their lessons, potentially due to a lack of competence in this area. However, for a comprehensive understanding of the study’s results, it seems important to examine the correlations between teachers’ initial training, perceived competence in story-based teaching and teachers’ practices. Finally, teachers’ positive opinions regarding storytime and their awareness of the benefits of stories provide a solid foundation for devising strategies to motivate and inspire them to pursue this approach. In summary, this study sheds light on EFL teachers’ incorporation of stories in their lessons, offering valuable insights into current teaching practices. However, there are still opportunities for future research, particularly in conducting a thorough exploration of distinctions between teachers’ initial training, grade level, and conducting a detailed examination of resource availability in school and local libraries. These research directions should contribute to a more thorough understanding of story-based teaching practices in FL contexts. References Allwright, Richard. 1979. “Language Learning through Communication Practice.” In The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching, edited by Christopher J. Brumfit and Keith Johnson, 167–82. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 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Rijavec, Maja. 2015. “How to Outdo the Textbook.” In Children and English as a Foreign Language, edited by Jelena Mihaljević Djigunović, 119–22. Zagreb: FF Press. Skela, Janez. 2014. “The Quest for Literature in EFL Textbooks – A Quest for Camelot?” ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries 11 (1): 113–36. https:// doi.org/10.4312/elope.11.1.113-136. Stanišić, Ana, and Ivana Milković. 2022. “The Picturebook as a Starting Point: A Case Study of First-Grade Chameleons.” In Trends and Challenges in Foreign Language Education and Research, edited by Ivana Cindrić and Ivana Milković, 44–62. Zagreb: Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb. Štokić, Lidvina, and Jelena Mihaljević Djigunović. 2003. “Early Foreign Language Education in Croatia.” In An Early Start: Young Learners and Modern Languages in Europe and Beyond, edited by Marianne Nikolov and Helena Curtain, 41–50. Council of Europe. 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Part IV Translation Studies 105TRANSLATION STUDIES 2023, Vol. 20 (2), 105-120(126) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.20.2.105-120 UDC: 821.111.09-193.3Shakespeare W.:81'255.4=163.6 John Stubbs University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Slovene Translation of Janez Menart ABSTRACT The poet Janez Menart was a major figure in the postwar Slovene literary milieu. As such, his complete translation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets is of great interest in its own right. When placed in the broad framework of Skopos theory, the translation and the critical argument surrounding it also illuminate the irreconcilable nature of certain divergent approaches to literary translation. The chief point my remarks here will attempt to add to the discussion is that, notwithstanding the licence Menart occasionally permitted himself, his rendering of the work as a whole displays an uncanny sense of the logic and cohesion of the overall sequence the Sonnets comprise. His practical handling of the poems anticipated later trends in Anglo-American editorial scholarship; his translation manages to be both a classic in its own language and to offer a significant, if internationally overlooked reading of the original text. Keywords: Shakespeare, Sonnets, Janez Menart, translation Shakespearovi Soneti v slovenskem prevodu Janeza Menarta IZVLEČEK Pesnik Janez Menart je bil pomembna osebnost povojnega slovenskega literarnega okolja. Zato je njegov celoten prevod Shakespearovih Sonetov zelo zanimiv že sam po sebi. Če ga umestimo v širši okvir Skoposove teorije, prevod in kritična razprava, ki ga spremljata, osvetljujeta tudi nezdružljivost nekaterih pristopov k literarnemu prevajanju. Glavna poanta moje razprave o teh prevodih je, da kaže Menartova predelava dela kot celote izjemen občutek za logiko in kohezijo celotnega zaporedja, ki ga soneti sestavljajo, ne glede na prevajalsko svobodo, ki si jo je občasno dovolil. Njegov prevajalski pristop je napoved poznejših trendov v anglo-ameriški uredniški znanosti. Njegovemu prevodu je uspelo, da je postal klasika v svojem jeziku, ki hkrati ponuja pomembno, čeprav mednarodno spregledano branje izvirnega besedila. Ključne besede: Shakespeare, Soneti, Janez Menart, prevod 106 John Stubbs Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Slovene Translation of Janez Menart Introduction The poet Janez Menart was a major figure in the post-war Slovene literary milieu. As such, his complete verse translation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, the first in Slovene, is of great interest in itself. When placed in the broad framework of Skopos theory, the translation and the critical argument surrounding it also illuminate the irreconcilable nature of certain divergent approaches to literary translation. The chief point my remarks here will attempt to add to the discussion is that, notwithstanding the licence Menart occasionally permitted himself, his rendering of the work as a whole displays an uncanny sense of the logic and cohesion of the overall sequence the Sonnets comprise. His practical handling of the poems anticipated later trends in Anglo-American editorial scholarship; his translation manages to be both a classic in its own language and to offer a significant, if internationally overlooked reading of the original text.1 I I will take a certain amount of familiarity with the Shakespearean text for granted on the part of my reader, as the first task here is to stress the significance of the translator. The Slovene poet Janez Menart (1929–2004), a figure proverbially “born for success” (Glavan 2006), was and remains highly regarded in Slovenia for his own poetry as well as his verse translations.2 Librarians in Ljubljana will quote from his works and offer you anecdotes about him based on first or second hand experience. Friends and colleagues I asked for help as I worked on his translation of the Sonnets often knew by heart the lines and phrases on which I consulted them. Menart came to prominence as a poet in his own right and, alongside Kajetan Kovič, Ciril Zlobec and Tone Pavček, as a contributor to probably the most influential and celebrated post-war book of Slovene poetry: Pesmi Štirih (1953) (Poems of Four, and implicitly, as years passed, Poems of the Four). A laudatory article of 1973, marking twenty years since that volume’s first publication, described Menart as “of all the four, the most entire in himself [iz enega kosa], the most consistent and clear; his lyrical subject matter diverse and rich, and yet encompassed by a comprehensive poetic world” (Mejak 1973, 317). In the meantime, Menart remained a prolific translator of poetry, tackling an impressive range of medieval and early modern works. As a final preliminary, I should mention that another full verse translation of the Sonnets exists in Slovene. The critical reception of Srečo Fišer’s account of the poems, however, does not (to my knowledge) cast light on the conflicting traditions in translation theory and Anglo-American Shakespearean studies I consider below. The scope of this essay prevents an extensive comparison of the translations, despite the great interest that exercise would involve. For present purposes, my focus is on Menart. 1 Many friends and colleagues in Ljubljana helped me as I worked on Menart’s translation. Other debts go further back: my discussion of Sonnet 70, for example, draws on a conversation with Gavin Alexander, my doctoral supervisor at Cambridge, more than twenty years ago. The paper itself developed from a theatrical setting: and for this, above all, I thank Matjaž Berger, director of the Anton Podbevšek Teater in Novo Mesto, who invited me to speak on the Sonnets – accompanied by readings given by Barbara Ribnikar – in April 2023. 2 For testimony to Menart’s standing, see (for example) Mejak (1973, 317–19), Jenuš (1999), Zlobec (2004) and Žerdin (2004). 107TRANSLATION STUDIES Menart’s verse translation of the Sonnets mirrors Shakespeare’s poetic form throughout, including the points at which Shakespeare himself diverged from a “Shakespearean” sonnet form. The translation was published in 1965; in a long and interesting article of the same year, Menart explained his approach to translating poetry. The crux of his argument, which he illustrated by means of classical, medieval and early modern examples, rests on the following statement. The translator is obliged to mediate between the poet and readers of the second language. In doing so he will wish by all means to ensure that the reader of the translation will experience to the greatest possible extent the ‘same’ feeling he would derive from the original, if he spoke the language in which the poem was first written. (Menart 1965, 666) A general reader might observe that Menart sets about cracking that hardest of nuts with respect to his chosen field: Frost’s dictum that poetry is what gets lost in translation. Menart does so by urging the poet to try creating a poetic equivalent to the original, rather than a literal attempt at replication. Speaking loosely in this manner of “equivalence” between the “source” and “target” texts will attract the sceptical interest of a translation specialist, who will call for more detail. In translation theory, the definitions of equivalence are manifold. A reader of Katharina Reiß’s seminal overview of the question will be inclined to accept that Menart aimed at equivalence of the kind reserved for “communicative” or “creative” translation. Reiß viewed creative translation as a response to “new concepts, ways of thinking, ideas and objects” that do not as yet exist in the “target culture” (Reiß and Vermeer 2014, 125). Shakespeare’s Sonnets had of course been around for a long time, and many of Menart’s readers will have known them in the original or in, for example, a German translation. Yet, insofar as the Slovene language itself was concerned, Shakespeare’s Sonnets were indeed new in 1965, and Menart felt entitled to draw on his own creative powers as a poet in order to teach the source to readers with no knowledge of early modern English. Part of his aim, although he never explicitly said so, must have been to show that the thing could be done as well in Slovene as in any other language. The standard he set himself in his essay “On Translating Poetry” might seem a bit vague to some. For Menart, translators must preserve the “feeling” of the original – an emotion they will detect intuitively from profound scholarly acquaintance with the language of their source. At least one critic of Menart’s translation, as we shall see in a moment, felt that he gave himself unwarranted licence with such ideas. Nevertheless, within the framework of late twentieth- century translation studies, he defined a clear purpose, a “skopos”, against which its adequacy might be assessed. No translator (no writer) has prerogative over the criteria readers and critics may apply: as Menart himself discovered. In 2002, very late in his career, he responded fastidiously – if a little testily – to objections Meta Grosman had levelled at his translation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets in a paper of 1987. Professor Grosman was (and indeed, is) a pioneer of modern English and American studies in the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Arts. For her 1987 paper she had collected the views of 120 readers of two of Menart’s translated sonnets (116 and 129), on the basis of which she concluded that “the interpretative possibilities of the original are thus 108 John Stubbs Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Slovene Translation of Janez Menart considerably reduced” (Grosman 1987, 303). She drew on critical authorities ranging from William Empson to George Steiner and Jonathan Culler to support her argument. Some fifteen years later, taking issue with some points and agreeing with others, Menart was willing to adapt details of his translation in the face of Grosman’s commentary. He expressed broad agreement with many of her specific interpretations, but proved less flexible on the wider question of the “multi-layeredness” and ambiguity of meaning that Grosman, supported by post-structural theory and commentary, insisted is to be found in the Shakespearean text. Menart, adhering to an older school, declared that Shakespeare’s meaning is always singular and clear – and that the historical circumstances of performance and publication made it so by necessity (Menart 2002, 77). That rather sweeping claim is harder to sustain than many of the arguments Menart supplied to support particular readings. I intend to suggest here that the difference between the poet’s and professor’s conceptions of the Shakespearean text was much slighter than they realized, and that a subsequent shift in editorial and critical responses to the Sonnets largely bears out the intuitive grasp Menart displayed of the collection’s overall composition. Reiß’s synopsis of “equivalence” in translation theory nevertheless allows one to pinpoint a difference at the core of their disagreement that does seem irreconcilable. Whereas Menart claimed the freedoms of creative translation, Grosman insisted on applying the norms and requirements of what Reiß called “philological translation”. Philological translation demands sacrifices on the part of translators concerned with the literary elegance of their own phrasing and prosody. Philological translation, as Reiß explained: aims at informing the target reader about how the source text author communicated with the readers of the source text. In order to achieve this aim, the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic dimensions of the source text linguistic signs are ‘imitated’ to such an extent that the target language may seem completely unnatural to the target audience. The resulting text will be adequate or appropriate with regard to the goal set, but it will definitely not be equivalent with regard to the source text, which sounds natural to the source culture readers and does not foreignize their language. During the long history of translating, this translation type has been regarded as the ideal of translation in general, especially for certain text types, such as philosophical texts or literary works of art. (Reiß and Vermeer 2014, 124) A reader of Professor Grosman’s essay on Menart will see that it is concerned more or less exactly with the goals spelt out here by Reiß. Grosman, it might be said, wanted a translation that would help her teach the complexities of Shakespeare’s text to undergraduates, not one that substituted Shakespearean detail with its own literary sophistication, as it appeared Menart’s did. Menart might contend that his goal, too, had been to inform “the target reader about how the source text author communicated with the readers of the source text”. He refused, though, to “foreignize” his own language; indeed he insisted on doing the reverse. Some critics of Menart’s translations recognized virtues in both sides of the argument. As Vladimir Pogačnik put it, after discussing lapses of accuracy (as he saw them) in Menart’s version of La Chanson de Rolande, “Notwithstanding the foregoing reservations, Menart’s language regally and masterfully [suvereno] satisfies the melodic demands of the verse form” (Pogačnik, 2002, 103). Other commentaries, such as Grosman’s, have been sharper. As Miha 109TRANSLATION STUDIES Pintarič observed, concluding five pages of observations on lapses in Menart’s translation of Villon’s poetic Testament, Menart fares better in capturing the poet’s colloquialisms than moments at which it would be necessary to preserve a higher register – moments on which a full sense of the irony that often accompanies Villon’s colloquial expression frequently depends (Pintarič 2002, 133). An early response to Menart’s translation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets raised similar objections. In 1966, while largely extolling Menart’s achievement, Božidar Pahor singled out a failure of translation in the opening of Sonnet 30 (“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought / I summon up remembrance of things past”): Ko skličem k seji blagih, tihih misli spomine na stvari minulih dni [When I summon to a hearing of sweet, silent thoughts Memories of the things of departed days… ]3 (Shakespeare 2016, 30) Pahor was unhappy with seja, the Slovene rendering of “sessions”: “Seja is so dry and official. Thoughts of things past are not members of a working committee who have turned up to listen to a financial report” (Pahor 1966, 414). The bureaucratic ring that Pahor detects in Menart is nevertheless equally present in the original line. Sessions carries a strong, indeed predominant echo of the courtroom and its annexes. As so often elsewhere, Shakespeare draws on a legal paradigm that feels harsh in the delicate emotional context in which a given term from that paradigm occurs. The idea of the poetic speaker sitting in judgement on his own thoughts is active throughout the sequence. The harshness that Pahor disliked here, then, is not Menart’s but Shakespeare’s; seja is the standard Slovene term for a legal session or hearing. There is no anachronism. Menart’s version preserves the (paradoxical) Shakespearean idea of a silent tribunal. Such criticism addresses what Skopos theorists call “translation pairs”, and the discrepancies that emerge can seem fatal. Where the target language seems to go too far astray from the source – or, in literary translation, to capture too few of its subtler resonances – the critic of translation feels entitled to grimace. A peculiarity of Grosman’s quarrel with Menart was that she felt that his freedom in translation had curtailed the freedom of Shakespeare’s verbal invention. Her criticism went beyond pointing out moments of individual infelicity (although she did that, too, on the basis of both her own reading and her students’ comments). In truly philological fashion, she defended what she took as historic innovations in approaches to the text itself. Grosman admired the respect for “multiplicity of meaning” [mnogopomenskost, in Slovene] demonstrated by “newer editions” than those Menart had used (Grosman 1987, 317, n.33). With respect to critical and editorial treatments of the Sonnets, her international precedent was Stephen Booth’s Essay on Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Booth 1969). Booth’s striking essay brought a 3 Paul de Man warned (somewhat exultantly) of the dangers of translating translation (de Man 1985, 35; commenting on Benjamin [1968] 2007, 81); I offer my back translations of Menart in a duly cautioned spirit of pragmatism, for readers unfamiliar with Slovene. Unless otherwise stated, references to Shakespeare follow the text in Evans (1997). 110 John Stubbs Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Slovene Translation of Janez Menart “poetics of indeterminacy”, in Stephen Orgel’s phrase, to bear on the sonnets, “arguing that the poems are essentially open, and that their interpretation is a function of the process of reading, a process that will, inevitably, vary from reader to reader and age to age”. Yet, as Orgel noted, when Booth had “paid his dues to bibliography” and edited the Sonnets for himself (Booth 1977), he produced an exhaustive commentary that “almost invariably decides that the standard reading [inherited largely from a tradition of commentary established by the eighteenth-century editor, Edmund Malone] is the right one” (Orgel 2002). Grosman did not include Booth’s work in her extensive array of sources, yet her commitment to semantic “multi-layeredness” in the Sonnets takes on qualifications that are implicitly similar to his. Menart’s offence, for her, lay not in failing to produce a translation that tolerated a variety of interpretations. He had erred by cancelling complexities in the original that Grosman’s readers failed to locate in his translation. The text itself, as Booth had found, was unitary, and her objection was that Menart had dealt with it selectively, simplifying in places, embellishing in others (Grosman 1987, 310–13 especially). The work of the theorist Antoine Berman also indicates an insuperable difference of translational skopoi. Berman might well have seen Meta Grosman’s 1987 paper as reflecting a school of thought he describes as “engagé”. Such critics are loyal above all to the historical particularity of the original text as they perceive it, and Berman is less than polite towards them. “Engagé” analyses are all about denunciation, he argues; “denouncing”, moreover, “with precision”. They involve the “meticulous tracking of the incoherencies, poor systematicity, and biases of the translators” (Berman 2009, 32–33). They are, as Reiß would put it, “philologists”. In contradistinction if not outright opposition to such readers are translation critics of what Berman calls the “socio-critical” or “Tel Aviv School”. Such critics stress instead the “norms” of translators and the cultural discourses in which they participate. A “socio-critical” analysis of Menart’s translations would consider the Slovene milieu that shaped him and for which he provided his translations of Shakespeare, Villon and other authors. Such an analysis permits – indeed expects – liberties of the kind Reiß anticipates in “communicative” and still more so in “creative” translations (Berman 2009, 36-39). Berman was very sceptical of the independent validity of either approach. Progress for him lay with the synthetic mode of “translation criticism” he developed and applied, in his last book, to French translations of poems by John Donne (whom Menart also, incidentally, translated). In any case, with some qualifications, Berman’s “engagé”/ “socio-critical” dichotomy mirrors and supports the division of translation schools and skopoi mapped out by Reiß. One could go into much more detail on particular theoreticians; I have merely given an idea of the broad traditions to which Janez Menart and Meta Grosman conceivably belong. I will devote the rest of my essay to considering whether Menart’s text does enough to answer the charges levelled against it, and endeavour to show some of the ways in which it in fact illuminates the Shakespearean original. II One response to Grosman’s critique – a critical challenge to a great many other translations than Menart’s alone – might be a shrug. Menart might simply have said, “There are different 111TRANSLATION STUDIES sorts of faithfulness, let us leave the matter there.” Yet, in answering Grosman he did not say this, and neither, I think, should we. Let us take, to begin with, his treatment of the opening lines of sonnet 70: Naj ti ne bo nič mar, če kdo te bláti, lepota je star cilj obrekovanj, ki so ji v škodo in okrasje hkrati – saj krokar kraka v najbolj sončen dan. [Never you mind, if someone slanders you; Beauty was always a target for rumours, Which both soils it and add to its lustre - Indeed, the raven croaks on the sunniest of days. ] (Shakespeare 2016, 74) We shall turn to the original in a moment; for now, the back translation in parentheses above will suggest to the non-reader of Slovene that we fall a long way short of Sonnet 70. In literal, lexical terms, we arguably do, yet in terms of cadence and register, verzna melodija, we come much closer to the original. The limitations of my literal back translation are indicators of literary sophistication in the language of translation. The grammatical compression allowed by the dative feminine pronoun ji in the third line of the translation is quite simply untranslatable. Indeed, English cannot reproduce anything of the minimalist economy of Menart’s line, which combines a vernacular directness with conceptual clarity, and is on top of that miraculously euphonious. Professor Grosman would surely insist that it is not enough that a scholarly translation of poetry merely “sounds good”. Her approach would single out the presence of the raven in l.4 of the translation, and the way Menart has summarily discarded what is arguably one of the key lines of the entire sonnet sequence. Here is the opening of the original: That thou art blam’d shall not be thy defect, For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair; The ornament of beauty is suspect, A crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air. (70.1–4) Shakespeare’s sonnet is torn between an urge to reassure the Friend that slander will not lessen him (or harm his reputation), and a lurking sense that “the ornament of beauty”, which might be understood as a surfeit or enhancement of beauty, really is a defect. The crow that flies in the original is both a flaw in the seamless vault of heaven and, as it were, the finishing touch on its blueness; the speck in the clear sky that makes one wonder at it. The crow is by strong implication “suspect” – yet even an upstart crow is innocent until proven guilty. Menart’s raven (krokar) brings no such ambiguity. Its croaking is there to indicate that scavengers are active even on the best of days. There is little doubt that the line introducing the raven is splendid. Even an ear unfamiliar with Slovene will surely respond to the 112 John Stubbs Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Slovene Translation of Janez Menart onomatopoeic phrase krokar kraka (“the raven croaks”). The real question is whether we can possibly accept this line as a translation of the original; and if we can, how on earth has Menart got away with it? The line can by no means stand as a literal rendering of its Shakespearean counterpart. Nevertheless, in the passage, and the translated sonnet as a whole, an overall balance of rhetorical forces restores parity between the translation and translated text. Menart, as we have seen, drops the phrase “the ornament of beauty” altogether – for the much barer diction of his own third line. Then, while Shakespeare’s idea of ornament being suspect carries a profound ambivalence, Menart’s opening reassurance to the Friend carries almost total conviction (“Naj ti ne bo nič mar” / “Never you mind…”). It is the sudden transition to the raven that jars, as the shriek of such a bird directly overhead would make you start; indeed, the underlying angst in the original is transferred entirely onto this bird. Menart’s raven is the mirror image in negative of Shakespeare’s crow in the serenity of heaven’s sweetest air. Accordingly, even though Menart has entirely altered the distribution of emotional factors that colour the original, they are all present – and as such, one would surely have to admit that, while the two poems are manifestly not “the same”, the sum of feeling in both is the same. There is a further, allusive element to Menart’s translation. The appearance of the raven, the krokar, is surely not an accident. Shakespeare knew his corvids, and indeed is most particular about all species of bird. When he writes crow he means crow, and there is no mistake when he mentions a raven. Menart’s line seems conscious, then, of another distinct seam of Shakespearean symbolism. Othello compares the recollection of the fatal handkerchief to the flight of a raven over an infected house, “boding to all” (IV.1.21). Still more relevantly to our present context, “the raven himself is hoarse”, declares Lady Macbeth, in croaking the “fatal entrance” of King Duncan (I.5.38–39). Macbeth speaks of “the crow” that “makes wing to the rooky wood” at a moment when “light thickens” and he imagines “night’s black agents” gathering (III.2.51–53). The latter passage in Macbeth paradoxically associates the crow flying to its roost with the retiring “good things of day” – an indeterminate augury, much like the crow sighted in Sonnet 70.4 In any case, Menart clearly seems to have decided to colour the line of the sonnet with the ominous energies carried by the ravens of Macbeth and Othello. In so doing, he was able to preserve the note of deep misgiving in Shakespeare’s sonnet; he also performed the real feat of completely changing the literal meaning and rhetorical tenor of the fourth line while making his own version sound richly Shakespearean. The American critic John Hollander would read the translated line as an allusive transumption (Hollander 1981); Menart’s raven transumes Shakespeare’s crow yet carries an echo – albeit a croaky one – of another Shakespearean symbol.5 4 Or, indeed, like “the crows and choughs that wing the midway air” beyond the (entirely imaginary) precipice Edgar describes to Gloucester in King Lear IV.6.12; although those birds, too, while entirely unreal, are floating ominously near the scene of a soon to be attempted suicide. 5 At a purely theoretical level one might speculate as to whether transumptio (metalepsis), the “over-taking” or “superimposition” of one word by another, is a better tropological model than translatio (metaphor, involving a transfer or “carrying across” of meaning) for translation of the kind Menart practised. 113TRANSLATION STUDIES III All well and good, one might say, from the perspective of “creative” and “communicative” translation. An adherent of philological translation would still shake her head, however, as the raven is not a crow. I wonder, though, how the philologist might view the suggestion that, in making such a change, Menart had in fact heeded a direction from the sonnets themselves. Readers will remember the anxiety Shakespeare’s Poet expresses at several points in the sequence about his stock of invention dwindling or running dry. In 76 he is troubled at his verse’s lack of “variation or quick change” (l.2); in 105 he is (or says that he is) reconciled to the fact that he is only expressing “one thing” (how “fair, kind and true” his Friend is), and that his poetry consists almost entirely of “varying to other words” that single point (ll.9–10). “Variation” carries Erasmian overtones, of course, and scholarship suggests there is no reason to think that Shakespeare was ignorant of them.6 One might not even be amiss in considering variation as an active ordering function of the Sonnets. Through terms that recur in new situations, through the new phrasing found for abiding worries, one sonnet will be found to transform elements of another or indeed many others. The variation they manifest in this sense lightly meshes the texts of individual sonnets into the text of the Sonnets; a feat of cohesion that is all the more remarkable because the rough and ready format of the 1609 quarto makes it seem extemporary. That might be placing more weight on variation than the concept is able to bear. In any case, major scholarly editions of the last thirty years or so have encouraged students to see themes and preoccupations evolving by means of combination and development within pairs, trios, groups, or what one might even call whole chapters of sonnets, along with counterparts stranded from one another by “longer intervals” (Burrow 2002, 108).7 The view taken by W.H. Auden that “they are not in any planned sequence” and indeed evince “no semblance of order” (Auden 1964, xxi) has lost ground. The poetics of indeterminacy does have its champions, in Slovenia as elsewhere: such readers see inferences about the gender of poet and addressee in the majority of poems as entirely suppositious, and treat those poems in consequence as a more or less random gathering of reflections “about abstract concepts” (Zavrl 2023, 193). Yet it is hard to ignore or suppress altogether the echoes and structural parallels within and between the poems, close neighbours or distant relatives, and the sense of situational continuity they generate. The clashes and coincidences of image and viewpoint, “the waves of consonant moods, of sounds and rhythms of thought” (Burrow 2002, 108) function as ligatures, by means of analogy in some places and contrast in others. 6 “Variation” was a concept with manifold forms that Erasmus encouraged the students of De Copia Verborum ac Rerum (On the Copiousness of Words and Things) (1512), his manual of rhetorical style, to apply for themselves. For a compelling recent attempt to catch the presence of Erasmus in the Sonnets, see “Moving between sources: Ovid and Erasmus in Shakespeare’s Sonnets” in Lyne (2016, 76–112). 7 John Kerrigan outlines the thematic and dramatic architecture of the cycle on the first page of the introduction to his revelatory edition. “Inevitably”, he goes on, ‘the question arises: would the diversity of Shakespeare’s volume have baffled its early readers? The central claim of this edition is no, it would not – though modern critics have failed to register the point of the collection as a collection” (Kerrigan 1986, 7–8). Burrow (2002) and Shrank and Lyne (2017) accept and develop this view of coherence within the sequence. For a crisp summary of the editorial tradition from Booth (1977) on, see Orgel (2002) (mentioned earlier). Meta Grosman approved of Kerrigan’s view of, as she put it, “complex internal connection between individual descriptions” (Grosman 1987, 317, note 33). 114 John Stubbs Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Slovene Translation of Janez Menart For the sake of argument, if it is reasonable to suggest that since one given sonnet within the collection offers a “variation” of another (consider the parallels between 105 and 76, for example; or the “looking-glass” sonnets, 22 and 62), it might be helpful to consider Menart’s Soneti as containing not only translations of but, at moments, variations on the original text. They provide an invaluable aid to reading the original, from which they manifestly emanate and to which, for much of the time, they closely adhere; yet they do not seek to reproduce it. But this is only another way of saying that Menart’s translation is a creative and communicative, not a philological one. Menart’s treatment of the opening of Sonnet 130 is one of the most audacious moments in his translation, precisely because the original lines are so well known, in Slovenia as beyond.8 Menart declines to say “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”, and instead he has his sonneteer declare, “Ne, ona nima žametnih oči” (“No, she does not have eyes of velvet”). Here he ensures equilibrium between the original line and his variation on it by confronting an equivalent cliché: that is, “velvety” eyes (recorded as proverbial by entry (2) on “žameten” in the Fran database), replace “sun-like” eyes. More importantly still, in terms of the dramatic progression of the sonnet sequence, he reminds us that the Mistress is not at all soft in her glances – at least not to him. Readers accustomed to encountering 130 in isolation are likely to understand it as a sustained rejection of the idea that beauty comes in any fixed or definitive form, and that unconventional attractions may be equally captivating. Readers familiar with Sonnet 129, and its anguished meditation on sexual obsession – the carnal trap in which the Poet claims the Mistress has him – will always understand Sonnet 130 as a reflective, attenuating pause, an interlude, in which sources of affection briefly off-set causes of pain and humiliation. Menart attunes his translation to the latter, wider-viewed sense of the poem; acknowledging in practice, as he refused to in theory, the multiple “layers” that context brings to its meaning. His variation is subtle enough, nevertheless, not to compromise the sonnet’s independent power; and that subtlety stems from what must to some seem the unwarranted, even banal substitution of velvet for the sun as a key term of comparison. On philological grounds, when a more expansive view of context is taken, Menart has surely achieved an equivalence between his text and Shakespeare’s. Two Elizabethan usages of the word “context” are helpful and relevant here. In his attempt to preserve the “feeling” stirred by the original, Menart was prepared, as we have seen, to suppress certain aspects of phrasing and diction for the sake of what contemporaries of Shakespeare would have recognized as “the connected structure of a writing or composition; a continuous text or composition with parts duly connected” (OED †2) or “the connection or coherence between the parts of a discourse” (OED †3). Both senses of “context” have been obsolete for centuries, though it is worth noting that Milton is cited as using the former as late as 1641, and both evidently stem from the still earlier and possibly original English usage of the word to mean “the weaving together of words and sentences”.9 An appreciation of context in these more phenomenological, more textually oriented senses allows us to appreciate, and support, Menart’s handling of Sonnet 130. 8 The sonnet was for many years a set text on the Slovene secondary school English matura or baccalaureate examination. 9 In passing one should note Diarmaid MacCulloch’s claim, as yet ignored by OED, that the writing of Thomas Cranmer decisively affected English usage of the word (MacCulloch 2018, 189). 115TRANSLATION STUDIES In her 1987 paper, Meta Grosman reserved particular criticism for Menart’s translation of Sonnet 116 – “Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediment”. Menart went to great pains to answer her remarks in his 2002 response, to the point of rewriting his version of the sonnet (Grosman 1987, 310–13; Menart 2002, 82–84). One of Menart’s key transgressions (in Grosman’s eyes) may, however, be defended on the contextual grounds advanced above. “Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds”, reads the Shakespearean text – for which Menart supplies: “Ne, ljubezen ni ljubezen, / če varanje jo v varanje peha” (“No, love is not love if betrayal drives it to [commit] betrayal”). Menart claimed he had good reasons for rendering alteration as betrayal: but was willing to change it. We should pause before accepting the amendment. Betrayal (varanje) makes good sense as a variation on alteration in the context of the phase of the Sonnets in which the line reaches us. These last poems directly addressing the Friend are deeply moved by the younger man’s ability to forgive the older Poet his infidelities, and the Poet warmly accepts redemption. Menart raises the standard of acceptance real love requires: it must be willing to overlook unfaithfulness, not just change, on the part of the beloved. He indubitably radicalized the meaning of the individual lines in Sonnet 116, yet his situational reading of the last twenty- five or so sonnets to the Friend is more than justified. Indeed, it abides by the very principle of “multi-layered” or multiple meaning that Grosman sought to teach Menart. IV In the introduction to the first edition of his translation, Menart offered a cautious but detailed paraphrase of the elusive story, as he saw it, that the Sonnets seem to tell, but with his closing words, acutely, urged readers to look instead for elements or “ingredients” (sestavine) of a story, scattered and re-gathered throughout the collection. He rejected the notion that those elements reflected a predetermined plan. He supported a view instead of Shakespeare writing the poems in cycles, which accordingly generated lyrical groups and correspondences between those groups (Shakespeare1965, x–xv). These remarks, along with many in his endnotes (mystifyingly, never fully reprinted in more recent editions) testify to deep involvement with the Sonnets’ collective ephemerality. As with some of his more contestable declarations (notably his rejection of meaning having more than one “layer”), these remarks are nevertheless overshadowed by Menart’s dexterity in the act of translation. In working with the texts, in reading and, in translating them, in a sense performing them, he shows a still greater, if less conscious grasp of the “context” of the poems – their context, that is, in the sense an Elizabethan or Jacobean might have understood, as “the connected structure of a writing or composition” or “the connection or coherence between the parts of a discourse”. The dynamic, seemingly impromptu sequencing of the Sonnets relies on discontinuity and reversal as much as “narrative” progression; the formal principle of the volta writ large, as it were. Nowhere is that sudden twisting action more present than in another of the perennial favourites, Sonnet 18. The editors of the online Folger Shakespeare Library edition stress that the question “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” marks a “radical departure” from the preceding series.10 The poem manifestly continues to explore the intellectual and personal 10 Mowatt and Werstner (2006), commenting on Sonnet 18. In notes to the preceding series, helpful synopses point out, for instance, how Sonnets 5 and 6 are “linked” and how 10 “expands on” the couplet that closes 9, among other 116 John Stubbs Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Slovene Translation of Janez Menart problem voiced in Sonnet 1: how to preserve the beauty and virtue of the Friend if he resists the premise that “From fairest creatures we desire increase” – and refuses to have children? Yet Sonnet 18 proceeds to offer unprecedented assertions about the capacity of poetry to compensate for the Friend’s wilful barrenness; assertions that fade somewhat, in subsequent poems, as the Poet voices doubts about the nature of language and his own nerve and talent. What Sonnet 18 gives us, then, is a moment in a poetic context defined both by measured gradations and a sharp transition into a new vein of thought and expression. The sense of progression is probably easier to detect, if not translate, because one of the linguistic markers of discontinuity is now more or less invisible. A very abrupt shift of register occurs merely with the proposal, “Shall I compare thee..?” The idea of the Poet involving his Friend and social superior (addressed throughout via the intimate pronoun thou, but still the “Lord of my Love” (26.1)) in a comparison was deeply suspect to a rhetorically literate Elizabethan.11 Comparisons were proverbially “odious”. In Much Ado about Nothing (III.5.17), Dogberry inadvertently describes them as “odorous”, which is indication in itself that inexpert speakers should leave them well alone. Hal goads Falstaff for tiring himself with “base comparisons” (Henry part 1, II.4.250). Anthony attempts, in defeat and disgrace, to rile Octavius for making “gay comparisons” and not being willing to fight him in person (Anthony and Cleopatra, III.13.26). In combat, Macbeth presents the traitor Cawdor with “self-comparisons” that prove grimly ironic (I.2.55). Berowne in Love’s Labour’s Lost (V.2.844) is “full of comparisons and wounding flouts”. In all, the word carried questionable associations for Shakespeare almost throughout his career. It connoted verbal if not outright moral trickery – except, just possibly, in the speech of an accomplished (and ultimately virtuous) wit such as Berowne, who comes to see the wisdom of “honest plain words” (V.2.753). The opening line of Sonnet 18, set against the tender but still formal concern expressed by the preceding sonnets, thus comprises a startling and possibly dangerous change of key. Menart’s response to the poem’s audacity, its “radical departure”, was an audacious one in its own right. He largely avoids the Poet’s baroque figurative register, and pursues the initial comparison in much plainer, yet more strident terms. As such, he clearly recognized the tonal rupture that the offer, “Shall I compare thee…” leaves in the tissue of the sequence. Shakespeare’s Friend is more “temperate” (l.2: the Slovene cognate would probably be “zmeren”) than a summer’s day; Menart’s equivalent is “manj minljiv” – “less transient”. Shakespeare declares, incontrovertibly yet figuratively, that “summer’s lease hath all too short a date” (l.4). Menart avoids the legal metaphor entirely, and says, with equal but rather more colloquial truthfulness, “Before you know it, summer passes” (“in preden se zaveš, poletje mine”). Almost anticipating an objection, he then produces an all but word-for-word rendering of line 5, “Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines” (“oko neba prevroče včasih sveti”). Instead of the sun’s “gold complexion” being “dimm’d” (l.6), however, in the Slovene we read of a simpler solar “face” (obraz) disappearing comments that stress an over-reaching sense of argumentative cohesion. The influence of Kerrigan’s commentary on the overall organization of the collection, and the opening group in particular (Kerrigan 1986, 196) can be detected here. 11 For an overview of the proximity of certain classes of analogy to catachresis and other “vices” of style from a sixteenth- century perspective, see Ettenhuber (2011). On the status of comparison in Sonnet 18 specifically, see Kerrigan (1986, 30–31 and 196). The famous sally against “false compare” in Sonnet 130 (l.14) is concerned with a related but separate problem: that poem decries cliché and banal artificiality in similitudes, rather than the possibly “odious” lapse of decorum and judgement that endangers Sonnet 18. 117TRANSLATION STUDIES in the mist. From moment to moment, the translation differs from its original in slight, yet significant points of detail, usually in accentuating the more qualified assertion in Shakespeare’s text while simplifying diction. The speaker of the translated poem is in fact more like one of Shakespeare’s honest and forthright observers of nature than one of his great wits. At the decisive moment of the argument, Menart pushes that direct, declaratory voice into a naïve denial of reality. In Shakespeare’s poem, Death will not be able to brag that the Friend wanders “in his shade” (l.11). That “shade” is of course a trope that can cover any number of realities, and which as such defies rebuttal: one can always speculate that a soul may reside beyond the demesne of death, or whatever the image of Death’s “shade” represents on a metaphysical plane. Menart’s Poet, by contrast, remains on earth, and simply asserts: Ne bo se Smrt bahála, da trohniš, saj v mojih pesmih raseš v večnih čase. [Death will not boast that you are rotting, Indeed you will grow for eternity in my lines.] The Menartian claim is patently untenable. Death, we know, will be perfectly able to brag about the Friend’s eventual state of putrefaction, especially since the translation has just conceded that “lepotam vsem je sojeno umreti” (“Every beauty is destined to die”; a much more direct admission than the original’s antanaclasis, “every fair from fair sometime declines” (l.7)). The claim on eternity in Sonnet 18 is only valid insofar as its ultimate assertion that Death shall not “brag” is not logically untrue on its own terms. Menart’s Poet avoids that sophistry, preferring straightforward error to the ornamentation by means of which the original text sustains its comparison. He is still thinking here of the discrepant place the sonnet occupies in the opening set of sonnets, and the reference point its flamboyant gambit constitutes within the larger sequence. Paradoxically, he leaves us with a greater sense of the foolhardiness of the comparison, and of doubts that the sequence will go on to express. As such he is remarkably faithful to the wiser and sadder Shakespearean voice that re-emerges after Sonnet 18’s virtuosity fades away. The voice that cries, a couple of poems later, “O, let me true in love but truly write” (21.9). Still, the overall path of the translation never deviates drastically from the one laid down by the original text. Both equally beg the question, how can anything embedded in eternity grow with regard “to time” (l.12)? The movement into the challenge to Time issued by the next sonnet, 19, will ensue with equal bravado in both. Menart’s rendering of Sonnet 18’s final claim about its “lines” is striking both for its closeness to Shakespeare’s couplet and its own memorable economy. Dokler vid videl bo in dihal dih, Živele bodo, ti živél boš v njih. [As long as vision sees and breath breathes, They [my poems] will live, and you in them.] (Shakespeare 2016, 22) 118 John Stubbs Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Slovene Translation of Janez Menart The conclusion to the original nevertheless reveals telling differences in emphasis. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. A moment earlier, Shakespeare’s Poet spoke of “eternal lines”, of which this (this poem) is the sum. The deictic gesture of Shakespeare’s language is thus stronger than in Menart’s version. Menart’s Poet continues to speak of “my poems”, non-eternal ones, in the plural, and his assertion of their longevity is palpably milder. He says that they will live (“živele bodo”) and the Friend will live in them (“v njih”), not that they will “give life to thee” – the final note of the original. With the last breath of his translation, Menart introduces the logical care with propositions that has characterized the original up to now, precisely at the moment that the original dispenses with it. For a loved one might live, figuratively, in a poem, as people might live on a Grecian urn; that a poem might give life to thee is a figurative claim of another order. Just as Shakespeare’s text arguably launches into overstatement, Menart’s pulls back from it. The outcome, overall, is the equivalence or parity of feeling or impression that Menart defined as his goal. Up to this point, he has prioritized a dramatic sense of the sonnet’s position within the sequence, the new movement it seems to announce, and the defiant excitement that accompanies it, over the baroque particularity of Shakespeare’s phrasing. In the final lines, he restores the greater figurative logic of Sonnet 18 itself – but in a manner more in keeping with the deeper psychological honesty that haunts and binds the Sonnets as an elusive unity. V Janez Menart certainly strayed at moments from the letter of the text in translating Shakespeare’s Sonnets. When he did so, however, the effect is usually illuminating. Notwithstanding his own scepticism about open or indeterminate meaning in Shakespeare, his adaptations or “variations” are very often responses to the way individual phrases and cadences are complicated by contextual pressures from elsewhere within a given poem, or at a further remove within the sequence. Paradoxically, Menart's “creative” treatment of individual lines or passages is frequently a function of his highly “philological” respect for those pressures. I have tried to show that his translation anticipates a later editorial trend that recognized both fluid openness of meaning and subtle schematization in the collection. In a late essay, Menart mused that “sonnets write themselves” (Menart 2003); yet his translation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets indicates deep prior meditation, design and discernment, and reflects the original work’s ineffable yet tenacious architecture. Katharina Reiß rejected J.C. Catford’s claim that translation may only achieve true equivalence when the source and target language texts “are interchangeable in a given situation” (Catford 1965, 49). Catford’s idea of a “situation” that determines both the meaning and success of translation anticipated the concept of “purpose”, that is, skopos, which would be so central to Reiß and Vermeer and their followers. Reiß found Catford’s assertion unrealistic, especially if applied to a literary translation (Reiß and Vermeer 2014, 118). It strikes me that, in Menart’s case, Catford’s theorem is sustainable. That, at least, is what I could only conclude from the widespread knowledge of and affection for the translation I encountered while I studied it, in order to give a talk about the Sonnets in Slovene. My colleague for that evening was an actor 119TRANSLATION STUDIES who recited a handful of the Slovene poems. She left me – and our audience – in no doubt as to the independent excellence of Menart’s translation. It was indeed perfectly “interchangeable” with the original in that theatrical situation. As such, to expand on Catford’s maxim, this particular translation seems to answer all but a very few of the cultural purposes and needs that Shakespeare’s text supplies. Yet the chief beneficiary of such a translation is, paradoxically, the reader for whom it is technically redundant; that is to say, someone like me, a reader familiar with the source and target languages. Some, I fear, would say that Menart’s relative international obscurity disqualifies his translation from wider consideration, for “no one has heard of him”, and “who speaks Slovene, anyway?” The hierarchy of “high” and “low” impact cultures – subtly discussed in the sphere of Slovene studies by Martina Ožbot (Ožbot 2021, 7–18 and 19–36) – will have its unopposable say. Indeed, it might even incline both advocates of “philological” and “communicative” translation, “socio-critical” and “engagé” specialists alike, to dismiss a “low impact” voice, however distinguished that voice might be in its own tradition. For all that, and however quixotic it might seem to say so, any British or American student of Shakespeare would gain much by reading this translation of the Sonnets in the original Slovene. References Benjamin, Walter. (1968) 2007. “The Task of the Translator.” In Illuminations, translated by Harry Zohn, 69–82. New York: Schocken. Berman, Antoine, 2009. Toward a Translation Criticism: John Donne. Translated by Françoise Massardier- Kenney. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. Booth, Stephen. 1969. An Essay on Shakespeare’s Sonnets. New Haven: Yale University Press. —. 1977. Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Edited with Analytic Commentary. New Haven: Yale University Press. Burrow, Colin, ed. 2002. [Shakespeare] The Sonnets and Poems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Catford, J.C., 1965. A Linguistic Theory of Translation: An Essay in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. De Man, Paul. 1985. “‘Conclusions’ Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Task of the Translator’ Messenger Lecture, Cornell University, March 4, 1983.” Yale French Studies, The Lesson of Paul de Man 69: 25–46. https:// doi.org/10 .2307/2929923. Ettenhuber, Katrin. 2011. “’Comparisons are Odious?’ Revisiting the Metaphysical Conceit in Donne.” The Review of English Studies 62 (255): 393–413. https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgq103. Evans, G. Blakemore, et al., eds. 1997. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd Ed. New York: Houghton. Glavan, Mihael, ed. 2009 Pesnik se predstavi : rojen za uspeh: dokumentarna razstava ob 80. obletnici rojstva Janeza Menarta, razstavna dvorana NUK, Ljubljana, 3. september 2009 – 4. oktober 2009 [catalogue from an exhibition celebrating Menart’s work]. Ljubljana: Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica. Grosman, Meta. 1987. “Shakespearjevi Soneti v slovenščini.” Slavistična Revija 35 (3): 303–20. Hollander, John. 1981. The Figure of Echo: A Mode of Allusion in Milton and After. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jenuš, Nataša. 1999. “Dobra poezija je zelo osebna stvar: pogovor z Janezom Menartom – ob avtorjevi sedemdesetletnici.” Večer 253 (55): 42, October 30, 1999. Kerrigan, John, ed. 1986. [Shakespeare] The Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint. London: Penguin Books. Lyne, Raphael. 2016. Memory and Intertextuality in Renaissance Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacCulloch, Diarmaid. 2018. Thomas Cromwell: A Life. London: Allen Lane. Mejak, Mitja. 1973. “Marginalije ob liričnem jubileju.” Sodobnost 21 (4): 313–27. Menart, Janez. 1965. “O prevajanju poezije.” Sodobnost 13 (8/9): 665–80. 120 John Stubbs Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Slovene Translation of Janez Menart —. 2002. “O prevajalskem ptičem mleku.” In Prevajanje srednjeveških in renesančnih besedil/The Translation of Medieval and Renaissance Texts, edited by Martina Ožbot, 61–91. Ljubljana: Društvo slovenskih prevajalcev. —. 2003. “Sonet se zapiše sam.” Sobotna Priloga, Delo 45 (91): 20–21, April 19, 2003. Mowatt, Barbara A., and Paul Werstine, eds. 2006. Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Poems. New York: Simon and Schuster. https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-sonnets/. Orgel, Stephen. 2002. “Mr Who He?” London Review of Books 24 (15), August 8, 2002. https:// www.lrb.co.uk /the-paper/v24/n15/stephen-orgel/mr-who-he. Ožbot, Martina. 2021. Translation and Multilingualism: A Dynamic Interaction. Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani. Pahor, Božidor. 1966. “Shakespearovi soneti v Menartovem prevodu.” Sodobnost 14 (4): 412–17. Pintarič, Miha, 2002. “Villon: prevod ironije in ironija prevoda.” In Prevajanje srednjeveških in renesančnih besedil/Translation of Medieval and Renaissance Texts, edited by Martina Ožbot, 131–35. Ljubljana: Društvo slovenskih prevajalcev. Pogačnik, Vladimir. 2002. “Pesem o Rolandu v dveh slovenskih prevodih.” In Prevajanje srednjeveških in renesančnih besedil/Translation of Medieval and Renaissance Texts, edited by Martina Ožbot, 99–117. Ljubljana: Društvo slovenskih prevajalcev. Reiß, Katharina, and Hans Vermeer. 2014. Towards a General Theory of Translational Action: Skopos Theory Explained. Translated by Christine Nord. London: Routledge. Shakespeare, William. 2005. Soneti [The Sonnets]. Translated by Srečo Fišer. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva Založba. —. 1965. Soneti [The Sonnets]. Translated by Janez Menart. Ljubljana: Slovenska Matica. Reprinted 2016. Ljubljana: Mladinska Knjiga. Shrank, Cathy, and Raphael Lyne, eds. 2017. The Complete Poems of Shakespeare. London: Routledge. Zavrl, Andrej. 2023. “Koga nagovarjajo Shakespearovi soneti (v slovenščini)?” Primerjalna književnost 46 (1): 169–93. Zlobec, Ciril. 2004. “V našem času in svetu je videl hkrati svetlobo in sence: Janez Menart 1929–2004.” Delo 46 (18): 11, January 23, 2004. Žerdin, Ali. 2004. “Janez Menart: 1929–2004.” Mladina 4: 55, January 26, 2.   List of Contributors 123 María Laura Arce Álvarez The Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain laura.arce@uam.es Rajendra Chetty University of the Western Cape, South Africa rchetty@uwc.ac.za Ivana Cindrić University of Zagreb, Croatia ivana.cindric@ufzg.hr David Hazemali University of Maribor, Slovenia david.hazemali@um.si Goutam Karmakar University of the Western Cape, South Africa goutamkrmkr@gmail.com Goran Milić University of Osijek, Croatia gmilic@ffos.hr Ivana Milković University of Zagreb, Croatia ivana.milkovic@ufzg.hr Tomaž Onič University of Maribor, Slovenia tomaz.onic@um.si John Stubbs University of Ljubljana, Slovenia john.stubbs@ff.uni-lj.si Dubravka Vidaković Erdeljić University of Osijek, Croatia dvidakovic@ffos.hr LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS ELOPE English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries ELOPE publishes original research articles, studies and essays that address matters pertaining to the English language, literature, teaching and translation. Submission of Manuscripts Manuscripts should be submitted for blind review in electronic form using the Faculty of Arts (University of Ljubljana) OJS platform (https://journals.uni-lj.si/elope/about/submissions). Only one contribution by the same author per volume will be considered. Each paper should be accompanied by abstracts in English and Slovene and keywords. Abstracts by non-native speakers of Slovene will be translated into Slovene by ELOPE. Please be sure to have a qualified native speaker proofread your English-language article. Suggested length of manuscripts is between 5,000 and 8,000 words. Manuscript Style and Format The manuscript should be in the following format: • title in English (no longer than 100 characters including spaces), • abstracts in English and Slovene (with a maximum of 150 words for each language) and (up to five) keywords, • the text should be divided into introduction; body of the paper (possibly subdivided); and conclusion. The text should be preferably written in Word format (OpenOffice and RTF files are also acceptable). Please observe the following: • 12-point Times New Roman font size, • 2.5 cm page margins on all sides, • 1.5-point line spacing, • left text alignment, • footnotes should be brief (up to 300 words per page; 10-point Times New Roman font size). For resolving practical style and formatting queries, please see the articles in the latest on-line issue or contact the technical editor. References References should comply with The Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition, 2017) author-date system. A Quick Guide to CMS is available here: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/ citation-guide-2.html. Final note Please note that only manuscripts fully adhering to the ELOPE Guidelines for Contributors will be considered for publication. ELOPE Vol. 20, No. 2 (2023) Journal Editors Smiljana Komar, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Mojca Krevel, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Editorial Board Lisa Botshon, University of Maine at Augusta, United States of America; Biljana Čubrović, University of Belgrade, Serbia; Michael Devine, Acadia University, Canada; Dušan Gabrovšek, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; Michelle Gadpaille, University of Maribor, Slovenia; Meta Grosman, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; Allan James, University of Klagenfurt, Austria; Victor Kennedy, University of Maribor, Slovenia; Bernhard Kettemann, University of Graz, Austria; Alberto Lázaro, University of Alcalá de Henares, Spain; J. Lachlan Mackenzie, VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands; Tomaž Onič, University of Maribor, Slovenia; Roger D. Sell, Åbo Akademi University, Finland; Andrej Stopar, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; Rick Van Noy, Radford University, United States of America; Terri-ann White, University of Western Australia, Australia Editorial Secretary Gašper Ilc, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Technical Editor Andrej Stopar, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Proofreading Paul Steed Editorial Policy ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries is a double-blind, peer- reviewed academic journal that publishes original research articles, studies and essays that address matters pertaining to the English language, literature, teaching and translation. The journal promotes the discussion of linguistic and literary issues from theoretical and applied perspectives regardless of school of thought or methodology. Covering a wide range of issues and concerns, ELOPE aims to investigate and highlight the themes explored by contemporary scholars in the diverse fields of English studies. Published by University of Ljubljana Press Založba Univerze v Ljubljani For the Publisher: Gregor Majdič, Rector of the University of Ljubljana Issued by Slovene Association for the Study of English Slovensko društvo za angleške študije Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana Oddelek za anglistiko in amerikanistiko, Filozofska fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani University of Ljubljana Press, Faculty of Arts Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani For the Issuer: Mojca Schlamberger Brezar, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana The journal is published with support from the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency. The publication is free of charge. Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) Kristina Pegan Vičič Journal Design Gašper Mrak Cover Marjan Pogačnik: Zimsko cvetje, 1994 7.6 x 10.0 cm; colour etching, deep relief Owner: National Gallery, Ljubljana, Photo: Bojan Salaj, National Gallery, Ljubljana Printed by Birografika Bori Number of Copies 110 https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.20.2 Online ISSN: 2386-0316 Print ISSN: 1581-8918 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.