A short post featuring only a translation of Blake’s poem “A Poison Tree”, with the title given in the Serbian translation as “A Poison Fruit”, was showcased in October 2014 on a blog on the Serbian information portal B92. The post was very popular and talked-about online more because the translated title moved away from the Blake’s original title. Our hypothesis is that such a move in the translation from Blake’s original message implies its different behaviour within the Serbian contemporary online media space. Our purpose is to define why the Serbian receptor-language translator, himself a medical doctor and not a professional translator or writer, decided to translate that poem by Blake, and to observe how the translation behaves on the blog, managing to achieve intense reactions from the post’s followers. In such an attempt we will be sensitive towards textual studies, fandom studies and media theories. Our conclusion will point towards the Serbian receptor-language translator producing new literary meanings.
Tanja Bakic is a published poet and translator from Montenegro. She is pursuing her PhD thesis on William Blake.