A four-part song of modern man: Czech translations of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"

This thesis analyzes Czech translations of Walt Whitman's poetry, especially of his central poem, Song of Myself. The main aim of the paper is to provide translation analyses of all four complete Czech translations. Some fragmentary translations are also mentioned, and a basic overview of Czech secondary literature on Whitman's work is provided. The main body of the thesis is divided into three chapters. Chapter One describes Whitman's life and work in the context of his time, as portrayed in secondary literature. It concentrates on features reflected in the text of Song of Myself, including literary influences and censorship that influenced the work. It also sets out a hypothesis of possible censorship influences on the single translations. Chapter One continues with a detailed analysis of main structural features of Whitman's poetry, as reflected in Song of Myself. The features are contextualized with the main literary theories of the time and with Whitman's individual aesthetics. The structural features are sorted according to linguistic levels they belong to. This assortment is then used as a framework for the analyses in Chapters Two and Three. Chapter Two provides a detailed analysis of the translations in two selected sections of Song of Myself. The translations are compared to the original and one..