Images of irreverence : nonsense poetry in translation as exemplified by Edward Lear’s poem "The akond of swat"

The paper deals with selected “rewritings” of Edward Lear’s nonsense poem The Akond of Swat, focusing specifically on the translators’, illustrators’, adapters’ and editors’ attitudes towards the allusive nature of the poem – the reference it makes to the historical figure of the Pashtun religious leader Abdul Ghaffūr, also known as the Akond (or Wali) of Swat or Saidū Bābā, which may be viewed as problematic from a postcolonial viewpoint. Recent translated and illustrated versions of the poem inscribe it with new aesthetic and ideological values. Two Polish translations considered in the paper, produced by Andrzej Nowicki and Stanisław Barańczak respectively, demonstrate changing approaches to the nonsense genre displayed in Polish literary circles (gradual transition from pure to parodistic nonsense). Graphic representations of the poem discussed in the paper testify to the artists’ interpretive powers in redefining the genre of Lear’s poem: rebranding it as an infantile fairy tale on the one hand and a disturbing reflection on tyranny and “the war on terrorism” on the other.