The Quest for Selfhood: Shakespeare’s Sonnets Interpreted by Maria Hablevych

Abstract

The article provides insight into the Ukrainian Shakespeare Studies criticism by presenting an overview of the approach to Shakespeare utilised by Ukrainian scholar, critic, editor, and practising translator Maria Hablevych (1950–2025). In her critical reading of Shakespeare, Hablevych uses two approaches to the text: reader-response theory and the psychoanalytical approach. The scholar perceives the complexity of the authorial self of Shakespeare, mirrored in his works, which is then reflected in her Commentaries (1998). These perspectives find their further application in the two translation projects of the Sonnets (1998 by Dmytro Pavlychko, 2011 by Natalia Butuk), in which Hablevych was involved as a critic and an editor. Both Ukrainian translations reveal different degrees of compliance with the editor’s view on Shakespeare and his Sonnets. Regarding translation as a social practice, we treat Hablevych as a multifaceted agent, namely one with a complex role in both fields of literary studies and of Translation Studies. We seek to illustrate Hablevych’s understanding and interpretation of the authorial self of the Sonnets against the postulates of reader-response theory (Iser, Ingarden, Jauss), Freud’s psychoanalysis as well as Lacan’s post-structuralist theses. We further look at their application in the Ukrainian versions of Sonnets, whose interpretation and translation were slightly (Pavlyvhko) or more distinctively (Butuk) influenced by Hablevych.