"I hate you, Romeo." : a heretic re-writing of "Romeo and Juliet"

In the nineteen twenties last century a young poet and diplomat from Warsa w, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, was taking part in an international congress of intellectuals in Heidelberg . During his stay in Germany he wrote The Lovers of Verona (the title in Polish reads Kochankowie z Werony ), a play that offers a radical reinterpretation of the main message of Shakespeare ’s Romeo and Juliet . Iwaszkiewicz ’s vision of the young lovers , who are infected by insurmountable enmity , was determined by his pessimistic views on the nature of love and desire, expressed also in his other pla ys, prose and poetry. This article discusses the circumstances behind Iwaszkiewicz’ s adaptation that shed light on the reasons for this unorthodox re -writing of Shakespeare ’s famous tragedy. This is done to highlight the complex interrelations between authorial writing and translation activity which in case of writer -translators are determined by a net of political, social and personal factors.