COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF STYLISTIC DEVICES IN THE GERMAN TRANSLATIONS OF THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTS

Abstract

The article presents a comparative analysis of stylistic devices in the German translations of the "Books of Ecclesiastes", which is a text of the Old Testament, typical of biblical didactic and prophetic books, and whose purpose is to encourage people to think about the meaning of life. The book raises the issues of transience and futility of human existence especially acutely. The relevance of the study lies in the comparison of modern German translations of the book of Ecclesiastes with the aim of demonstrating translation trends and different approaches to the reproduction of artistic means in these translations. The research material consists of translations of the book of Ecclesiastes from different years, made by translators from the ancient Hebrew language into German. The article examines the stylistic means of the biblical text and their reproduction in modern translations, compares and comments on some problematic fragments of the book of Ecclesiastes, the translation of which, despite a large number of scientific works, still needs clarification. Particular attention is paid to fragments of the text, the interpretation of which has a double meaning. The research material allows analysing the diachronic trends in the translation of the book of Ecclesiastes and drawing conclusions about the possibility and purpose of reproduction by the translator’s content and means of artistic imagery in translations of different years. According to the conducted analysis, the authors came to the conclusion that, despite centuries of discussion, an attempt to make a single universal translation of the book of Ecclesiastes is impossible. From a methodological point of view, we should emphasize that in recent years there has been a negative trend toward a recipient-oriented understanding of the text, which, in turn, pushes the translator to omit stylistic devices and form a translation of the holy book that is more understandable for today, which unfortunately leads to the loss of artistic stylistics of the archaic poetic text.