One Hundred Frogs in Steve McCaffery’s The Basho Variations

Monika Kocot

doi:10.18778/2083-2931.11.23

Authors

Monika Kocot University of Lodz https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8111-4998

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.11.23

Keywords:

haiku, frog, Steve McCaffery, Matsuo Bashō, translation, transcreation, transtranslation, event

Abstract

The article discusses Steve McCaffery’s The Basho Variations with a focus on various modes of transtranslation/transcreation/transaption of Matsuo Bashō’s famous frog haiku. The emphasis is placed on the complexities (of the processuality) of transtranslation which deliberately alters, distorts and reimagines the source text. The intercultural and intertextual quality of McCaffery’s poems is discussed in the context of multilevel references to classical Japanese aesthetics of haiku writing. The comparative reading of McCaffery’s and Bashō’s texts foregrounds the issue of events, or “frogmentary events,” and the importance of the role of the reader in completing poetic messages.

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Author Biography

Monika Kocot, University of Lodz

Monika Kocot, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of British Literature and Culture at the University of Lodz, Poland. She is the author of Playing Games of Sense in Edwin Morgan’s Writing (2016) and co-editor of Języki (pop)kultury w literaturze, mediach i filmie (2015), Nie tylko Ishiguro. Szkice o literaturze anglojęzycznej w Polsce (2019), and Moving Between Modes. Papers in Intersemiotic Translation. In Memoriam Professor Alina Kwiatkowska (2020). She has published articles on contemporary Scottish poetry and prose, as well as Native American writing. Her latest research is on philosophy and spirituality in literature, with a particular emphasis on geopoetics and comparative literature. She is a member of the Association for Cultural Studies, the Association for Scottish Literary Studies, Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, and Polish Cognitive Linguistics Association. She is the Vice President of The K. K. Baczynski Literary Society.

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