TRANSLATION OF OLD ENGLISH VERSE TEXTS INTO UKRAINIAN: METHODOLOGY AND POETIC TEXTURE

Abstract

Background. The article focuses on the methodological and practical aspects of translating Old English poetic texts into Ukrainian, taking into account the historical, cultural, and linguistic distance between the original and the modern recipient. It is noted that Old English poetry combines archaic vocabulary, specific rhythmic organization, formulaic imagery, and a complex system of alliteration, which makes literal reproduction within the framework of modern Ukrainian poetic models highly challenging. The relevance of the study arises from the scarcity of Ukrainian translations of Anglo-Saxon texts and the lack of established principles for their poetic adaptation. The aim of the paper is to outline translation strategies that make it possible to balance the preservation of poetic structure with the adequate rendering of the worldview and cultural meanings of the Old English original.

Methods. The methodological foundation of the research is based on a combination of hermeneutic and linguisticstylistic analysis. The proposed approach is demonstrated on a poetic fragment from an Old English religious text. Authorial translation variants are employed for comparative purposes.

Results. The study shows that Old English poetry contains lexical units and figurative formulas without direct modern equivalents, reflecting a sacral and mythological worldview. It is demonstrated that a typical stanzaic unit has a bipartite structure with a caesura, while alliteration functions as the principal rhythmic device.

Conclusions. The findings confirm that the translation of Old English poetry requires not a literal but a hermeneutic interpretation aimed at reconstructing the cultural context. Poetic translation should serve not only as a verbalization of meaning but also as a recreation of the text's rhythmical and melodic code. The proposed analytical approach can be applied to the translation of other Anglo-Saxon works as well as to the cross-linguistic transfer of poetic systems that are historically and culturally distant.