Das Heike monogatari auf Deutsch: Die Übersetzungen von Björn Adelmeier (2022) und Michael Stein (2023). Ein quellenkritischer Vergleich.

Abstract

One hundred years after Sadler’s first complete English translation of the Heike monogatari, the work is finally available in its entirety in German, and not just once, but twice: in a translation by Björn Adelmeier (2022, Reclam) and Michael Stein (2023, Manesse). This article will compare both translations, focusing on the question of the “text” the translations are based on and the “texts” they both produced. The textual situation of the Heike monogatari differs considerably from modern literary works. Numerous versions exist, all of them representing the same narrative known as Heike monogatari, despite their many differences. Their development cannot be attributed solely to written processes of creation. Instead, it took place under the strong influence of oral performance. All text versions that developed through this process were validated by the collective memory of the narrated events. The collective memory does not give authority to just one specific text, but a metatext that is more comprehensive than any written version can ever be. For these reasons, “text” in the context of Heike monogatari is just a relative quantity. The study will take a close look at the ways in which both translations handle this specific configuration of the narrated text. It will discuss the role of the Kakuichi-version, the most refined version among the texts aimed at oral performance. It will show that both translators used editions based on different manuscript or print versions to configurate their own specific text, and it will discuss the problems that arise out of these decisions. As we will see, these questions are especially crucial when dealing with Adelmeiers translation: The translator in fact produced a contamination between the Kakuichi-version and an Edo-period print version that developed from the Kakuichi-text. The study will then move on to analyse selected individual aspects of the translating process, such as the transmission of Japanese names, titles and time periods, the translation of Japanese poetic forms and the accuracy of the translations. The aim is to locate the text versions produced by the translations within the frame of the existing Heike-texts, and to enable a most effective use of both translations for future German-language studies on the Heike monogatari.