El somni d’una nit d’estiu en la traducció de Josep Carner: la versificació*

Abstract

Josep Carner’s translation of A Midsummer’s Night Dream (El somni d’una nit d’estiu, 1908) is but an indirect version, based on François-Victor Hugo’s prose translation into French. However, its solutions are not fully dependent on those of the French text: they are often determined by a sophisticated new versification which put strict requirements of metre and rhyme. This article first shows that Carner’s decisions regarding word choice and order, verse forms, and transfer of literal sense, are mutually conditioned; then it gives reasons for his aim at language innovation and virtuosity in versification at this initial stage of his career.