An Interpretative Study on the Translation of Gerhart Hauptmann’s Novel Bahnwärter Thiel

This article is about the Turkish translation of Gerhart Hauptman’s (1862- 1946) most known novel “Bahnwärter Thiel†(1888). Hauptmann, who won the Nobel Literary Price in 1912, is one of the most famous German authors and the most important representative of the literary trend, called Naturalizm. In “Bahnwärter Thiel†Hauptmann describes in a magnificient way the mentality in the end of the 19th century. His description has been very effective and still effects the reader today. The novel was translated into Turkish in 1946. From then on there hasn’t been any study on the Turkish version, “Hat Bekçisi Thiel†. Thinking that in literary translation the author’s message resulting from the content, form and style of the text has to be transferred, this article analyses some selected passages, sentences, words and idioms by comparing them with the original version and discusses the solutions found by the translator. The aim of the article is to clarify to what extent the translator was successful concerning the transfer of the author’s originality and message to the Turkish reader.