From Croatian into Latin in 1510: Marko Marulić, Regum Delmatiae atque Croatiae gesta
(May 2011)Abstract
The differences between two medieval versions of Croatian Chronicle (GRS, CC) and Marulić's translation (RDCG) reveal that Marulić tried to turn the Gesta regum Sclavorum into both a better read and a more convincing story for the educated international public. That makes his Regum Delmatiae atque Croatiae gesta a distinctly cultural translation, in the sense of Peter Burke.
To achieve a cultural shift, Marulić introduced classicizing equivalents for certain military, legal, and religious terms; he strived to avoid repetition by elegant variation; he found anaphoric pairs to embellish the ends of sentences, usually with an added moralizing point. On the other hand, Marulić condensed Latin syntax, delivering more information at a faster pace. He streamlined the narrative and tried to make it generally more coherent.
Behind the style in the RDCG it is tempting to imagine a certain political agenda. As Marulić made Croatian warlords and kings more like rulers out of Livy and Sallust, he asserted a degree of continuity between world of the Romans and world of Croatians. Thanks to Marulić, a very same story which revealed Croatians as barbarian newcomers and inobedient murderers of their own kings conveyed, through its humanist Latin, a discreet impression of this people's and this region's cultural roots.
Description
Submitted for publication (May 2011) in "Translation and Literature" special issue on neo-Latin translation.