Krzysztof Fordoński

An Ode 'with Large Additions': Isaac Watts 'Translates from Casimire’s Book IV Ode 4'

Krzysztof Fordoński

Uniwersytet Warszawski

An Ode 'with Large Additions': Isaac Watts Translates from Casimire’s Book IV Ode 4

Keywords: Sarbiewski, Isaac Watts, translation, emulation, translation of poetry

The celebrated English hymnographer Isaac Watts (1674-1748) first encountered the poetry of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski during his elementary education at Southampton. The fascination with an exotic Polish and, which is far more striking when we think of the devout Protestant Watts, Roman Catholic Jesuit poet continued for a large part of Watts’ life. The practical effect of the fascination are thirteen surviving translations. Watts found Sarbiewski so inspiring that he adapted one of his odes as a hymn intended for his congregation although, apparently aware that Jesuit poetry could raise many Puritan eyebrows, he did not reveal the original author in the publication. Usually, however, he made the connection clear and he expressed his admiration for Sarbiewski in the preface to his collection of poems Horae Lyricae. The present paper deals with the most striking and free of the thirteen translations – “The celebrated Victory of the Poles, over Osman the Turkish Emperor, in the Dacian battle Translated from Casimire. Book IV. Ode 4. with large Additions”. Watts first published the translation in 1706 edition of Horae Lyricae but he kept on returning to the poem, expanding the translation (or perhaps emulation) almost with every one of the seven editions of the collection published in his lifetime. Ultimately, the poem which in the original consists of 92 lines grew to 227 lines. The paper shall briefly present Isaac Watts, probably the most influential of English translators of Sarbiewski in the first half of the 18th century. It will then attempt to place Watts’ translation strategies within the context of translation practice of the Augustan Age. Ultimately, it will offer an analysis of the “large additions”, alterations introduced in the original text by the English poet.