Sprung rhythm in the poetry of Stanisław Barańczak

Abstract

This sketch shows the influence of G. M. Hopkins's poetry, especially his idea of sprung rhythm, on works of S. Barańczak. Barańczak was translating Hopkins's poems in the second half of the seventies of the twentieth century. He is also an author of articles concerning Hopkins's life and poetry. During process of translation Barańczak had the opportunity to meet not only philosophical and religious poems but also the idea of sprung rhythm. This specific rhythmical form became an interesting translatological issue for Barańczak about which he wrote analytically in his articles. The author of this sketch shows that the sprung rhythm encountered during translating came into Barańczak's own poems. Rhythmic form of Hopkins' poems is similar to the Polish tradition of tonic long-formatted verse originating from Mickiewicz's poetry. Barańczak used this pattern in translations and his own poems, but he modified it and made it alike to Hopkins's model of sprung rhythm. Author shows also that Barańczak was inspired by Hopkins's prosody effects, especially instrumentation and paronomasia.