A Turkish Translation of Genji Monogatari

Abstract

The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari) is the probably the earliest prose fiction in the world that still lives today as a masterpiece since the first decade of the 11th century. This 1200-page Japanese classic was written by a noble court woman, Murasaki Shikibu, and it spans almost three quarters of a century. The first part has to do with the life and loves of the nobleman known as “The Shining Genji”, and the final chapters follow the fate and fortunes of the characters that survived after Genji’s death.

There have been four English translations of the novel: one partial translation (1882) by a Japanese translator and three other complete translations by different English native speakers in the 20th century.

This paper studies the Turkish translation process of The Tale of Genji from Edward G. Seidensticker’s English version. It points out the plentitude of potential translation choices and tries to explore the reasons of translators for their decisions. It compares the translators’ strategies and assesses their impact on the meanings and functions of the allusions and the connections between the adopted strategies.