|
| |
The
first tendency affects the syntactic structures of the original starting with
punctuation. Wherever the structure of sentence is free, it is endangered to be
subjected to rationalisation. As a result, the sentences are rearranged and
reformulated. The crux of prose - the bushy undergrowth of sentences - is
flattened. The perfect example of the phenomenon is the French language, which
despises any kinds of repetitions as well as long sentences. Another keystone of
rationalisation is its proclivity for abstractness. Prose is generally focused
on the concrete, it even tends to render concrete several abstract elements.
Rationalisation makes the prose lose its concreteness by reordering the sentence
structure, by translating verbs by nouns etc. Thus, the prose passes
to abstract. Furthermore, rationalisation reshapes the relations between
formal and informal, order and disorder, abstract and concrete. In a word,
rationalisation distorts the original by reversing its basic tendency
Example
From the corner of the divan of
Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom,
innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the
honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches
seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs; and
now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long
tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of a huge window, producing a
kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid jade-faced
painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily
immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion.
Z kąta kanapy nakrytej
perskim dywanem, na której leżał, wypalając jak zwykle niezliczone ilości
papierosów, lord Henryk Wotton mógł jeszcze chwytać blask rozkwitłego
krzewu złotego deszczu o miodowej woni i barwie: drżące jego gałązki z
trudem zdawały się dźwigać ciężar swej płomiennej piękności. Tu i ówdzie
fantastyczne cienie przelatujących ptaków migotały na tle jedwabnych
firanek, spływających wzdłuż szerokich okien, a cienie te wywoływały na
chwilę wrażenie obrazów japońskich. Wtedy lord myślał o owych malarzach
z Tokio, których twarze są blade i
znużone, starają się oni wywoływać za pomocą sztuki z konieczności
nieruchomej wrażenie życia i ruchu.
|
