FEMINIST REINTERPRETATION IN THE ENGLISH AND UKRAINIAN TRANSLATIONS OF CIRCE BY M. MILLER

Abstract

This article presents a translation-oriented analysis of contemporary feminist rewritings of the Circe myth, with a particular emphasis on their reception and rendering in the Ukrainian cultural and linguistic space. Focusing on Madeline Miller’s Circe as a key example of mythopoetic revision, the study investigates how the novel restores voice, agency, and psychological complexity to a figure historically shaped by layers of patriarchal interpretation. It argues that centuries of cultural reception from classical commentaries and Christian allegory to Renaissance and Romantic constructions of the alluring, dangerous, or demonic woman have produced persistent linguistic and symbolic frameworks that still inform translators’ choices. Special attention is devoted to the Ukrainian translation, where shifts in gendered terminology, metaphors of embodiment, representations of the “demonic feminine,” and nuances of emotional and affective agency reveal how language can either reinforce or challenge inherited narrative patterns. The analysis demonstrates that culturally embedded associations related to beauty, monstrosity, female autonomy, and moral evaluation may subtly modify the feminist impetus of Miller’s narrative, creating new emphases or redistributing interpretive weight. By conceptualizing translation not as a neutral transfer but as a dynamic site of mythic renegotiation, the article addresses the extent to which feminist reinterpretation can be preserved across languages without inadvertently reinstating androcentric narrative constraints. Ultimately, the study argues that the Ukrainian translation of Circe offers an illuminating case of how feminist discourse travels, adapts, and acquires new meanings, revealing the crucial role of cultural context in the ongoing reclamation of mythic female subjectivity.