SHAKESPEARE’S «THE TAMING OF THE SHREW» IN PROSAIC TRANSLATIONS BY N.KH. KETCHER AND A.N. OSTROVSKY

Abstract

Two prosaic translations of W. Shakespeare’s comedy ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ are compared in the article. The translations belonged to N.Kh. Ketcher (1843) and A.N. Ostrovsky (1850). The comparison of the texts and other variants of the comedy by both translators makes it possible to conclude that Ostrovsky followed Ketcher’s faithful rendering of the original in his translation; that was what he was especially noted for by his contemporaries. Ostrovsky turned to this comedy with the purpose of studying English and the fundamentals of translation. That is why his first steps in the new sphere were not quite independent, he relied on his experienced ‘teacher’ and aimed at mastering one of the basic principles of translation – preserving the sense of the original. In future it would help him to convert the exact interlinear translation into verse.