Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz

Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz (1894–1980) was a poet, playwright, author, essayist, translator and editor of cultural magazines. He was also a member of parliament and the president of the Polish Writers’ Union (Związek Literatów Polskich). He translated two Shakespeare plays, both published in 1954: Romeo i Julia and Hamlet. The quality of his work and his considerable reputation meant that his translation projects were highly visible.

Iwaszkiewicz studied law at Kyiv University and music at the Kyiv Conservatory. In the early stages of his career, he worked in various government jobs, but before the outbreak of the Second World War his primary focus had become his literary work. In 1925-1926 he translated Romeo and Juliet for the National Theatre, but it was not performed at the time. A decade later his version of Hamlet was a major success on the stage, reinforcing the idea that there was a need for new translations produced by gifted poets.

He lived at Stawisko, outside Warsaw. During the occupation many writers spent time there and some of them took up the challenge of translating Shakespeare afresh.

He worked on the translations for thirty years, during which time multiple versions came into being. Iwaszkiewicz was prompted to make changes both by the demands of new productions and publication. He sought to break away from the style of canonical translations. He also turned his back on the example of the academic translations that had appeared in the inter-war years. He took pains to be accurate, graceful and evocative. To achieve these ends, he would often need to simplify and tone down the mannerist syntactical excesses. He shared his ideas about the principles of translation in introductory essays and he also wrote critiques of other translations.

Reviews of his Hamlet in the theatre were typically complimentary about the translation, with the proviso that a final judgement would have to wait for the publication of the text. When the play appeared in print, the poetic talents of the translator were celebrated, but the simplifications were criticised. This lively response to the translation was confined to the 1950s. Since then it has been performed sporadically, right up to the present day. Iwaszkiewicz’s translation of Romeo and Juliet was popular up until the early 1980s, with more than twenty productions using the text.

Iwaszkiewicz’s translations have been the subject of various comparative analyses. They have also been studied in relation to Iwaszkiewicz’s own poetry. Both plays were reissued together in 1999.