Chapter 6. Translating rhyme and rhythm
translated his sonnets. In the other, E analyses the sonnets in terms of Islamic and
Christian esoteric philosophy.
Kulenović, like his contemporary Dizdar, was a poet of Bosnian origin who
wrote in post-World-War-II Yugoslavia, but his Soneti/Sonnets form an interest-
ing counterpoint to the Dizdar volume. Dizdar is the more popular poet, and his
depiction of Bosnia as an autonomous land of stubborn other-thinkers makes
him revered among supporters of Bosnian independence – who comprise more
Bosniaks than Bosnian Serbs or Croats. Kulenović, by contrast, is a ‘poet’s poet’,
with what may be seen as a hybrid Bosniak/ Serbian identity (Lovrenović 2002a):
he was born in Bosnia of Bosniak parents in 1910, but lived and worked in
Belgrade until his death in 1978. Both projects, therefore, form part of a drive to
promote a cosmopolitanist image of Bosnian culture via bilingual fine-art edi-
tions of poetry.
Krik, like the other Soneti, combines a modernist, inward-looking content and
complex style with a classical form: see Figure 43. In it, the poetic I hears a scream
in pitch-dark woods. But the darkness, the scream and the silence that follows are
also inside the self, highlighting a theme common to the Soneti: that “the world
seems to have left the world, remaining only in the mind”^1. The sonnets’ intro-
verted content and tone of “heavy [...] and stifled sensualism”^2 are reflected in
their style: their rich, precise but obscure lexis, and their hermetic diction
(Konstantinović 1983; Kiš 1986/1990; Begić 1983; Radovanović 2000). All this is
echoed by the sonnets’ complex intrinsic form. Here too, Krik is typical, using
15-syllable hexameter Lines linked by full rhymes into an ABBA CDDC EEF GGF
rhyme scheme.
For this chapter’s study, think-aloud recordings were made of Krik’s first four
drafts, all in my home office. As Draft 4 closely resembled Draft 3, only Drafts 1–3
are analysed here, thus paralleling Toen wij. My end-of-Draft-3 version is shown
in Figure 44. It also uses 15-syllable rhyming hexameters, though the rhyme
scheme is now AABB CCDD EFE GFE.
By publication, the sonnets had gone through about ten major and minor
drafts. Figure 45 shows the published version of Krik: Cry.
Recordings were transcribed by others. Transcripts were checked, edited and
coded by myself. Another researcher independently second-coded a sample tran-
script: differences were minimal, but were used to fine-tune my overall coding.- “svet kao da je napustio svet, ostajući još jedino u umu” (Konstantinović 1983: 306).
- “teški [...] i prigušeni senzualizam” (Kiš 1986/1990: 105).