Haiku (俳句) is a very short Japanese form of poetry, established by the poet Matsuo Bashō in the 17th century. In principle, it is supposed to be comprised of seventeen morae. This thesis deals with the issue of haiku translation. The objectives were to determine the foundations of a proper haiku translation and whether an indirect translation of a poem via a relay language inherently deviates more from the original than a direct translation. Based on these objectives, two hypotheses were suggested: that translating a haiku directly from the original ensures less deviations from the original – that a direct translation promises a more authentic result than an indirect one – and that the best results would be achieved if the translations stuck to the form of seventeen syllables in the sequence 5–7–5. The theoretical part of the thesis contains a historical overview of the origin of haiku and discusses the characteristics of this poetic form that need to be considered to produce a convincing translation (brevity, cutting words kireji 切れ字, season words kigo 季語…). The problems these characteristics cause translators into European languages are also addressed. The practical part of this thesis consists of two sections. The first section is an analysis of direct and indirect translations that neglect any of the characteristics of haiku established in the theoretical part as conditions for a proper translation. The second section is a comparative analysis of several different direct and indirect Slovene translations of the same haiku.
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