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= Jeremiah_Curtin =
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Introduction
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Jeremiah Curtin (6 September 1835 - 14 December 1906) was an American
ethnographer, folklorist, and translator. Curtin had an abiding
interest in languages and was conversant with several. From 1883 to
1891 he was employed by the Bureau of American Ethnology as a field
researcher documenting the customs and mythologies of various Native
American tribes.
He and his wife, Alma Cardell Curtin, traveled extensively, collecting
ethnological information, from the Modocs of the Pacific Northwest to
the Buryats of Siberia.
They made several trips to Ireland, visited the Aran Islands, and,
with the aid of interpreters, collected folklore in southwest Munster
and other Gaelic-speaking regions. Curtin compiled one of the first
accurate collections of Irish folk material, and was an important
source for W. B. Yeats. Curtin is known for several collections of
Irish folktales.
He also translated into English Henryk Sienkiewicz's 'Quo Vadis' and
other novels and stories by the Pole.
Life
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Born in Detroit, Michigan, to Irish parents, Curtin spent his early
life on the family farm in what is now Greendale, Wisconsin and later
attended Harvard College, despite his parents preference that he go to
a Catholic college. While there he studied under folklorist Francis
James Child. Curtin graduated from Harvard in 1863. Curtin then moved
to New York where he read law, and worked for the U.S. Sanitary
Commission while translating and teaching German.
In 1864 he went to Russia, where he served as secretary to Cassius M.
Clay, Minister to the Russian court. During his time in Russia, Curtin
became friends with Konstantin Pobedonostsev, professor of law at
Moscow State University. He also visited Czechoslovakia and the
Caucasus, and studied Slavic languages. While continuing to improve
his Russian language skills, he also studied Czech, Polish, Bohemian,
Lithuanian, Latvian, Hungarian, and Turkish. Curtin returned to the
United States in 1868 for a brief visit. Clay assumed that around this
time Curtin made some comments to William H. Seward that cost Clay an
appointment as Secretary of War. Clay referred to Curtin as a "Jesuit
Irishman".
Upon his return to the United States, Curtin lectured on Russia and
the Caucasus. In 1872 he married Alma M. Cardell. Mrs. Cardell acted
as his secretary. In 1883 Curtin was employed by the Bureau of
American Ethnology as a field worker. His specialties were his work
with American Indian languages and Slavic languages.
In 1900, Curtin travelled to Siberia, which resulted in the book 'A
Journey in Southern Siberia' (published posthumously). The first part
of the book is a travelogue; the last two-thirds is a record of the
mythology of the Buryat people, including a prose summary of Gesar as
performed by Manshuud Emegeev.
In 1905, he was asked by President Theodore Roosevelt to serve at the
peace conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, bringing an end to the
Russo-Japanese War.
Jeremiah Curtin died December 14, 1906, in Burlington Vermont and was
buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Bristol.
His grandson Harry Sylvester, an American Catholic author, was born in
1908.
Irish folklore
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Curtin visited Ireland on five occasions between 1871 and 1893,and
collected folkloric material in southwest Munster, the Aran Islands,
and other Irish language regions with the help of interpreters. From
this work he produced 'Myths and Folklore of Ireland' (1890), an
important source for folk material used by Yeats; 'Hero Tales of
Ireland' (1894); and 'Tales of the Fairies and Ghost World' (1895). He
also published a series of articles in 'The New York Sun', later
edited and republished as 'Irish Folk Tales' by Séamus Ó Duilearga in
1944.
Translations from Polish
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According to the epitaph placed over Curtin's grave in Bristol,
Vermont, by his erstwhile employer, the Smithsonian Institution, and
written by his friend Theodore Roosevelt, Polish was but one of
seventy languages that "Jeremiah Curtin [in his] travel[s] over the
wide world ... learn[ed] to speak".
In addition to publishing collections of fairy tales and folklore and
writings about his travels, Curtin translated a number of volumes by
Henryk Sienkiewicz, including his 'Trilogy' set in the 17th-century
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a couple of volumes on contemporary
Poland, and, most famously and profitably, 'Quo Vadis' (1897). In 1900
Curtin translated 'The Teutonic Knights' by Sienkiewicz, the author's
major historic novel about the Battle of Grunwald and its background.
He also published an English version of Bolesław Prus' only historical
novel, 'Pharaoh', under the title 'The Pharaoh and the Priest' (1902).
Having both Polish and Russian interests, Curtin scrupulously avoided
publicly favoring either people in their historic neighbors' quarrels
(particularly since the Russian Empire had been in occupation of a
third of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including Warsaw,
since the latter part of the 18th century).
Sienkiewicz
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Curtin began translating Henryk Sienkiewicz's historical novel 'With
Fire and Sword' in 1888 at age fifty. Subsequently, he rendered the
other two volumes of the author's 'Trilogy', other works by
Sienkiewicz, and in 1897 his 'Quo Vadis', "[t]he handsome income ...
from [whose] sale ... gave him ... financial independence ..." and set
the publisher, Little, Brown and Company, on its feet. Sienkiewicz
himself appears to have been short-changed in his part of the profits
from the translation of the best-selling 'Quo Vadis'.
In 1897, Curtin's first meeting with Sienkiewicz, like his earlier
first contact with the latter's writings, came about by sheer chance,
in a hotel dining room at the Swiss resort of Ragatz. For the next
nine years, until Curtin's death in 1906, the two men would be in
continual contact through correspondence and personal meetings.
Harold B. Segel writes about Curtin's translations of works by Henryk
Sienkiewicz:
Segel cites a series of mistranslations perpetrated by Curtin due to
his carelessness, uncritical reliance on dictionaries, and ignorance
of Polish idiom, culture, history and language. Among the more
striking is the rendering, in 'The Deluge', of "'Czołem'"
("Greetings!"--a greeting still used by Poles) "literally" as "With
the forehead!"
According to Segel, the greatest weakness of Curtin's translations is
their literalness. "Despite the fact that the translator himself
possessed no impressive literary talent, greater attention to matters
of style would have eliminated many of the infelicities and made for
less stilted translation. But Curtin worked hastily ... [C]ritics ...
could only surmise that, in his fidelity to the letter of the original
rather than to its spirit, Curtin presented a duller, less colorful
Sienkiewicz".
Contemporary critics were dismayed at Curtin's gratuitous, outlandish
modifications of the spellings of Polish proper names and other terms,
and at his failure to provide adequate annotations.
Both Bozena Shallcross and Jan Rybicki say that, at least in the case
of some early translations, Curtin's work may have been based on
Russian translations rather than on the Polish originals.
Sienkiewicz himself, who had spent time in America and knew the
English language, wrote to the translator:
{{blockquote|I have read with diligent attention all the volumes of my
works sent me (American Edition). I understand how great the
difficulties were which you had to overcome, especially in translating
the historical novels, the language of which is somewhat archaic in
character. I admire not only the sincere conscientiousness and
accuracy, but also the skill, with which you did the work. Your
countrymen will establish your merit better than I; as to me, I can
only desire that you and no one else should translate all that I
write. With respect and friendship, HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ.}}
The blurb page postfaced to the 1898 Little, Brown and Co. edition of
'Quo Vadis' includes high praise of Curtin's translations by reviewers
writing in the 'Chicago Mail', 'Portland Advertiser', 'Chicago Evening
Post', 'Literary World', 'Pittsburgh Chronicle Telegraph', 'Providence
Journal', 'Brooklyn Eagle', 'Detroit Tribune', 'Boston Times', 'Boston
Saturday Evening Gazette', 'Boston Courier', 'Cleveland Plain Dealer',
'New York Times', 'Boston Home Journal', 'Review of Reviews', 'Boston
Herald', and several other newspapers.
Prus
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In 1897, during a Warsaw visit, Curtin learned from August Robert
Wolff, of Gebethner and Wolff, Sienkiewicz's Polish publishers, that
the Polish journalist and novelist Bolesław Prus, an acquaintance of
Sienkiewicz, was as good a writer, and that none of Sienkiewicz's
works surpassed in quality Prus' novel 'Pharaoh'. Curtin read
'Pharaoh', enjoyed it and decided to translate it in the future.
During an 1898 Warsaw visit, Curtin began translating Prus' 'Pharaoh'.
Polish friends had urged him to translate it, and he had himself found
it "a powerful novel, well conceived and skillfully executed"; he
declared its author a "deep and independent thinker." In September
1899, again in Warsaw--where, as often happened, Sienkiewicz was
away--Curtin went ahead with his translation of Prus' historical
novel. Wolff urged him to continue with Prus, calling him profounder
than Sienkiewicz. During another Warsaw visit, in early 1900, while
again waiting for Sienkiewicz to return from abroad, Curtin called on
Prus.
Christopher Kasparek says that, if anything, Curtin did still worse by
Sienkiewicz's "more profound" compatriot, Bolesław Prus. Prus'
historical novel 'Pharaoh' appears, in Curtin's version, as 'The
Pharaoh and the Priest' by "Alexander Glovatski." Why the author's
pen name was dropped in favor of a transliterated and distorted
version of his private name, is not explained. Concerning the change
of title, Curtin states laconically, at the end (p. viii) of his
"Prefatory Remarks" (plagiarized from Prus' "Introduction", which also
appears in the book), that "The title of this volume has been changed
from 'The Pharaoh' to 'The Pharaoh and the Priest,' at the wish of the
author." Curtin's English version of the novel is incomplete, lacking
the striking epilog that closes the novel's sixty-seven chapters.
If in Sienkiewicz's 'Rodzina Połanieckich' Curtin rendered
"'Monachium'" (Polish for "Munich") as "Monachium" (which is
meaningless in English), in Prus' 'Pharaoh' (chapter 1) he renders
"'Zatoka Sebenicka'" ("Bay of Sebennytos") as "Bay of Sebenico".
Curtin's translation style may be gauged by comparing a 2020 rendering
of a passage from chapter 49, with Curtin's version published in 1902.
In this passage the protagonist, Prince Ramses, reproves the priest
Pentuer, a scion of peasants:
In Curtin's version:
The Curtin version certainly illustrates the "thee"-"thou" archaisms
discussed earlier. It also shows pure mistranslations: "peasants" as
"laborers" and "toilers"; "murdered" as "killed"; "drew the Nile mud"
as "dipped up muddy water from the Nile"; "cows" as "milch cows"; and
most egregiously, "the lice-ridden of this world" (literally, in the
original, "those whom lice bite") as "he... who bites lice."
Analysis of ''Memoirs''
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The 'Memoirs' of Jeremiah Curtin were published in 1940 by the State
Historical Society of Wisconsin from a manuscript presented to the
society by Curtin's niece, Mrs. Walter J. Seifert, who made assurance
that the material was to be credited to Curtin himself, although
dictated to Mrs. Curtin, and "[s]ometimes she rewrote his matter
several times".
In spite of this, Professor Michal Jacek Mikos has demonstrated that
the so-called 'Memoirs' of Jeremiah Curtin were written not by Curtin
himself but by his wife Alma Cardell Curtin from extracts from her own
diaries and letters to her family.
Rybicki suggests that this raises the question as to the extent of
Mrs. Curtin's contribution to the various works by her husband. While
characterizing Curtin's translations as "mediocre", he suggests this
might have been something of a collaborative effort by husband and
wife. Rybicki compared the 'Memoirs' with other Curtin works and found
that the two books on the Mongols, written after Curtin's death, were
stylistically more similar to the 'Memoirs', while the Native American
mythologies are least like the 'Memoirs'. Rybicki also found
similarities in two translations: 'Przez stepy' ("Lillian Morris") and
'Za chlebem' (For Bread). Rybicki concludes, "the corrections she
introduced could be quite far-reaching".
Works
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*'Myths and Folk-lore of Ireland', 1890.
*'Myths and Folk-tales of the Russians, Western Slavs, and Magyars',
Little, Brown, and Company, 1890.
*'Hero-Tales of Ireland', 1894.
*'Tales of the Fairies and of the Ghost World', 1895.
*'Creation Myths of Primitive America', 1898.
*'A Journey in Southern Siberia', Little, Brown, and Company, 1909.
*'Seneca Indian Myths', 1922.
*'The Mongols: A History', Little, Brown, and Company. 1908.
*'The Mongols in Russia', Little, Brown, and Company. 1908.
* 'Myths of the Modocs', Sampsom Low, Marston & Compant, Ltd.,
1912
* 'Supplement: Irish Folk-Tales'. 1942, edited by Séamus Ó Duilearga
[[Henryk Sienkiewicz]]
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* 'Quo Vadis', (Henryk Sienkiewicz)
* 'Yanko the Magician and Other Stories', (Henryk Sienkiewicz),
Little, Brown, and Company, 1893
* 'In Vain', (Henryk Sienkiewicz), Little, Brown, and Company, 1899
* 'The Knights of the Cross', (Henryk Sienkiewicz), Little, Brown, and
Company, 1900
* 'The Argonauts', (Eliza Orzeszkowa), 1901
* 'Children of the Soil', (Henryk Sienkiewicz)
* 'Hania', (Henryk Sienkiewicz)
* 'With Fire and Sword'
[[Bolesław Prus]]
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* 'Pharaoh' (as 'The Pharaoh and the Priest') ("Alexander
Glovatski"), 1902
See also
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*Jeremiah Curtin House
*Folkloristics
*Translation
References
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;Citations
;Bibliography
*
* Prus, Bolesław, 'Pharaoh', translated from the Polish, with foreword
and notes, by Christopher Kasparek, Amazon Kindle e-book, 2020,
ASIN:BO8MDN6CZV.
*
*
External links
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*
*
*
*[
http://www.rogalinski.com.pl/jezyki-obce/ogniem-i-mieczem-henryka-sienkiewicza-w-tlumaczeniu-jeremiaha-curtina-jako-przyklad-braku-zrozumienia-historii-polski-przez-obcokrajowca-oraz-trudnosci-z-odzwierciedleniem-kolorytu-jezykowego-w-pr/
Analysis of Curtin's translation of "With Fire and Sword" by Henryk
Sienkiewicz (in Polish)]
*[
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/mfli/index.htm 'Myths and
Folk-lore of Ireland']
*[
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/tfgw/index.htm 'Tales of the
Fairies and of the Ghost World']
*[
http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/ca/cma/index.htm 'Creation Myths of
Primitive America']
*[
http://www.sacred-texts.com/asia/jss/index.htm 'A Journey in
Southern Siberia']
*[
http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/iro/sim/index.htm 'Seneca Indian
Myths']
*[
http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/lhbum:@field(DOCID+@lit(lhbum52353)):
His memoirs]
*
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Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Curtin
