Ian Probstein

Temptations of Translation: A Comparative Review of the History of Translation in Russia and

in the West.

In his book I konostas [ Iconostasis] Rev. P avel Florensky, a n o utstanding Russian t heologian,

philosopher, and poet, describes two types of creativity: the first, according to Florensky, is inspired by

God a nd is a t ransition from t he w orld o f being into a higher world; the s econd i s l imited only b y

earthly l ife and is more like a mechanistic ar t. H e co mpares t hese t wo types o f cr eativity t o human

dreams: in the early dream the soul ascends from earth to Heaven, it still has stronger ties with human

existence than with God; in the other, the soul descends from Heaven to earthly life and brings "divine

visions to earth."

Florensky co mpares t he ar t of icon painting to the ar t of t ranslation from t he d ivine language

into an earthly human tongue. Every kind of creativity may be described as either a d ivine inspiration

or a technical process. In this respect we may say that art is an impossible, an inaccessible thing. The

work of art is revealed — or rather released — only after an endless struggle between the ideal as seen

by an ar tist and its incarnation in a d efinite context e ither on canvas o r on paper, no matter how it is

written: w ith the help of o il, letters, or musical notes. A s was stated by the Russian scholar Mikhail

Bakhtin, " Creative art i n i ts relation towards m aterial i s overcoming i t...by m eans of the i mmanent

improvement," that is to say, "With the help of creative artistic devices existing in the material o f the

art." Thus a poet overcomes the word with the help of the language (i.e. not with the help of "negative

overcoming as it is done in the spheres of cognition: by the usage of algebraization, abbreviations, and

conventional signs"). (Questions of Literature and Aesthetics, 46, 49; translation is mine.)

Kafka w as haunted b y t he s ame idea o f t he impossibility o f a rt, the impossibility o f w riting

which was directly connected to the heritage and curse of Babel. He expressed it to Max Brod in 1921

when he was speaking about "the impossibility of not writing, the impossibility of writing in German,

the impossibility of writing d ifferently. One could a lmost add a fourth impossibility: the impossibility

of writing."

Literary t ranslation an d e specially t he t ranslation o f p oetry is, p hilosophically s peaking, t he

same i mpossible a nd inaccessible t ask. Y et, t he cr eative individual has always been t empted by t he

idea of the impossible, by the ideal. As was expressed by Mandelshtam, "there is nothing like this in

Russian, but it should be in Russian." That is why literary or creative translation exists alongside word-

for-word or g rammatical t ranslation. T he t ranslation o f p oetry is s till much more co mplicated and

subtle t han t he t ranslation o f p rose: a translator of p oetry is t rying, if w e might s ay, q uoting t he line

from Cesar Vallejo's poem, "to seize the poet [by his hand] in the act of creating poetry."1

One o f t he t asks o f t he t ranslator ( or r ather s uper-tasks) is t o r estore the bridges, t he t ies

between the humanity destroyed after the fall of the Tower of Babel. As Dante

expressed it in De Vulgari Eloquentia,

...Since it is our wish to enlighten to some extent the discernment of those who walk through the

streets like blind men, generally fancying that those things which are [really] in front of them are

behind them, we will endeavor, the Word aiding us from heaven, to be of service to the

vernacular speech; not only drawing the water of our own wit for such a drink, but mixing with it

the best of what we have taken or compiled from others, so that we may thence be able to give

draughts of the sweetest hydromel" (Dante, in Preminger and Hardison, 412).

This is c lose t o t he p henomenological approach t owards t ranslation a s Walter B enjamin

understood it. Probably, 'in the end of history,' all separate languages will fuse again or will come back

to the ' Word w hich w as in t he beginning.' Y et ev en n ow t he cr eativity o f w riters s eparated i n

languages, but not separated in humanity is inspired by similar thoughts and feelings, by akin poetical

motives in fact. (Later in this work I will come back to the notion of poetical motive, as I understand it,

and d ifferentiate it from t he motif o r r ecurrent t heme.) L ike Benjamin, I t hink t hat w ords h ave

"emotional c onnotations." B enjamin showed that the " word B rot m eans s omething d ifferent to a

German than the word pain to a Frenchman, that these words are not interchangeable for them, that, in

fact, they strive to exclude each other" (Benjamin 74).

In his lecture on Benjamin's "The Task of the Translator" de Man picked up a nd extended the

same example a dding h is own l iterary and e motional connotations. W hen he a nswered the questions

after the lecture, d e Man s aid t hat " he w as indulging" himself a nd p erhaps neither B enjamin nor d e

Man himself should do it for ..."whenever you give an example you... lose what you want to say" (De

Man 95-96).

Since these rather 'simple' words do not have only d ifferent connotations ( including historical,

literary, psychological, e motional, et c.), but even denotations in d ifferent languages, I a m inclined t o

think, and my practical experience has only proved

it, that the "word as such is untranslatable," in Derrida's dictum: we can reveal or, as Steiner put it, re-

enact the ties between words, the spirit of what is hidden behind them. As Benjamin stated, "as regards

the meaning, the language of a translation can — in fact, must - let itself go, so that it gives voice to the

intentio of the original not as reproduction but as harmony, as a supplement to the language in which it

expresses itself, as its own kind of intentio" (Benjamin 78-9). T his intentio is very close to the poetic

motive as I interpret it.

When d e M an starts t o i nterpret B enjamin's e ssay, he first an d foremost d oes a v ery c lose

reading of the original, the ways it was translated into English and French and in many cases gives his

own versions of translation. He speaks about the prosaization of the original and states that translation

is 'decanonization' a nd 'desecration' o f t he o riginal. "The final o utcome," according t o d e M an's

interpretation and translation of Benjamin's text, "is still a broken part." Y et, according to Benjamin,

there is an allusion to the curse o f Babel implication o f the d istortion o f the 'pure language', while de

Man speaks mostly of translation.

"The t ranslation," he s tates, " is t he fragment o f a fragment, is breaking t he fragment - so t he

vessel k eeps breaking, c onstantly - and never r econstitutes i t; t here w as no v essel in t he first

place , or we have no knowledge of this vessel, or no awareness, no access to it, so for all intents

and purposes there has never been one" (De Man 91).

Here, in my o pinion, he co mes back t o P lato's ideas, as w as e xpressed, for e xample, in t he

"Ion." T ranslation a s t he imitation o f t he imitation o f t he imitation, a nd t his is t he w ay d e M an

understands t ranslation: in his view, it is doomed to be a d istortion o f the o riginal. Y et, we might as

well apply Aristotelian approach ( to say nothing of t hat o f t he P lotinus) a nd interpret translation a s a

creative force of the one who has an idea of the original as of the ideal and who tries first and foremost

to re-enact the spirit of the original. O f course, it may be, and in the majority o f cases is, imperfectly

manifested in the 'adopted' language. However, there is always room for perfection. T ranslation may

as well be understood as the creative force.

The t ask o f the t ranslator according to Benjamin, is "to release in his own language that pure

language which is under the spell o f another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in h is re-

creation of that work. For the sake of the pure language he breaks through decayed barriers of his own

language.

"Luther, Voss, Holderlin, and George have extended the boundaries o f the German language"

(Benjamin 80). T he t ranslator of po etry, like t he po et himself, pus hes language t o i ts limits a nd, i f

necessary, goes beyond them. As Steiner put it rendering the ideas of Walter Benjamin, the translator

"extends his native idiom towards the hidden absolute meaning" (Steiner, 65). The task of the poet and

the t ranslator of poetry is, so to speak, to get a g ain out of loss: a d iverse poetic and ar tistic t reasure

gave birth to the works of Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Góngora, Cervantes, Rabelais,

Goethe, and many o thers; the t ranslator tries to re-enact their masterpieces in his own tongue by thus

enriching the language itself. In so doing, both the poet and the translator of poetry fulfill, so to speak,

the nominalist function: naming all living forms, everything that surrounds him. The Russian acmeists,

Mandelshtam, Gumilyov, and Akhmatova among them, called themselves "Adamists."

"Thrice-blessed is he who enshrines a name in song," wrote Mandelshtam in "The Finder o f a

Horseshoe" (1923). To name a thing means to bring it back to life, to preserve it in eternity.

A song embellished by a name

Lives longer than all others;

It stands out among the rest by the frontlet on its brow,

That heals it from amnesia...

To name the phenomena of the world is to reveal them. Revelation is re-evaluation: re-veiling

and unveiling something so palpable and fragile that when "rendered in a d isdainful prose," to quote

Pushkin, it evaporates.

In his lectures o n " Logoenergetics", w hich studies t he w ord in its e ffectiveness not so much

reality, but the e ffect pr oduced by t he w ord on r eality, V ladimir M ikushevich, one of t he most

prominent translators of G erman, F rench, a nd E nglish p oetry into R ussian, professor of t he H igher

Literary Courses (Creative writing and translation), states that the philosophy of translation is based on

the relationship between God and man and the essence of it is translation from the divine language into

a human tongue (From the letter of Mikushevich to the author, the translation is mine. — I. P.). Here

Mikushevich, as w e s ee, s hares t he ab ove-mentioned id ea of F lorensky. Mikushevich a rgues that

Logoenergetics is basically ontological because the function of contemporary art is to bring words back

to the Word. According to him, one of the most serious tasks and problems facing Logoenergetics is a

conflict b etween t he t ext an d t he ineffable, "a hidden w ord w hich is not ex pressed t extually. T he

interpretation ( and t ranslation) o f 'the hidden' is o ften missed by t heoreticians a s it r esists b oth

linguistic and literary research and interpretation. Yet any translation, not only a poetic one is based on

'the hidden' s ince t here can be no u nderstanding a nd c ommunication w ithout i t; t he w ords a s s igns

cannot function satisfactory." ( Here the Russian poet and scholar comes close to the ideas o f Derrida

and the so-called school of 'deconstruction', but without their negative conclusions.)

The R ussian literary t heory a nd p ractice d istinguish t hree main t ypes o f t ranslation w hich,

generally speaking, co incide w ith S teiner's d ivision o f t ranslation into interlinear, imitation, a nd

translation per se. First, the so-called grammatical or word-for-word translation is done with scientific

commentaries o n t he history a nd cu lture o f t he epoch, t he v ocabulary o f t he author an d t he p iece

chosen; t here a re many bilingual editions w ith comments o n quot ations a nd a llusions; o ften t here is

information on the s tructure of t he language in which t he o riginal w as w ritten. S uch ed itions w ere

usually pu blished in t he former U SSR a nd n owadays in Russia by t he N auka [ Science] P ublishing

House, Progress, Raduga, and s ome l ocal pu blishing h ouses. That was the w ay, f or i nstance,

Shakespeare's " Hamlet," T . S . E liot's " Poems," " Mahabharata," o r " The R ubaiyat" o f O mar K hayam

were published.

Some American translators and theoreticians doubt whether there is any sense in differentiating

between w ord-for-word or l iteral a nd literary t ranslation. John S turrock pu ts f orward a n idea o f

interlinear t ranslation w hich co mbines literal ( first s tage of t ranslation acco rding t o Sturrock) a nd

literary when "temporary version is edited." While considering Derrida's idea of the 'impossibility o f

translation' in the phenomenological sense of the word and having arrived at conclusion that "languages

may c onverge but no t m erge... T ranslators k now ve ry w ell how much t heir s ources lose o n t heir

passage to another language," Mr. Sturrock surprisingly comes to a paradoxical idea that "... A greater

tolerance o f literalism in t ranslation w ould bring s ome ea se t o their co nscience a nd r estore the lost

balance between the claims to ultimate respect of the source and the brazen imperatives of the market"

(Sturrock 1008).

Among the fighters for literalism in this century Nabokov was, probably, one of the champions.

His poem "On Translating 'Eugene Onegin' " is a manifestation of a bitter and sarcastic attitude towards

translation:

What is translation? On a platter

A poet's pale and glaring head,

A parrot's screech, a monkey's chatter,

And profanation of the dead.

Having ar rived at co nclusion t hat in t he t ranslation o f verse anything but t he 'clumsiest

literalism' is a fraud, while t ranslating his own poems into English Nabokov, nevertheless, is far from

being clumsy and literal. Thus translating the poem "To Russia" (1939) he is not always literal:

I'm prepared to lie hidden forever

and to live without name. I'm prepared,

lest we only in dreams come together,

all conceivable dreams to forswear;

to be drained of my blood, to be crippled

to have done with the books I most love,

for the first available idiom

to exchange all I have: my own tongue.

Навсегда я готов затаиться

И без имени жить я готов,

Чтоб с тобой и в мечтах не сходиться,

Отказаться от всяческих снов,

Обескровить себя, искалечить,

Не касаться любимейших книг,

Променять на любое нарнчье

Все, что есть у меня – мой язык.

A b ilingual reader will i mmediately no tice that there is no verb 't o lie' in the Russian ve rsion:

«pfnfbnmcz» is simply 'to hide oneself' or, perhaps, 'to withdraw into oneself.' The literal translation of

the next lines is slightly different also: 'I'm prepared, in order not to come together (to meet you) even

in dreams, to forswear all (or: any) dreams; to drain myself of my blood, to cripple myself, not to touch

the books I love most...' I t is not said in the Russian version that "we only in dreams come together;"

instead of "conceivable" there is simply: to forswear all or any [possible] dreams. On the other hand, it

is not emphasized in the English version that the lyrical hero of the poem is ready to drain himself o f

his blood and to cripple himself; "to have done with books" is stronger than 'not to touch the books.'

Thus, while translating his own works Nabokov does not practice what he preaches. 2 These st ylistic

and semantic d eviations show t he a rtist w ho r e-enacted ' soaring p oints' ( or 'p oints o f a nguish,

«болевые точки»), as T svetaeva p ut it, r evealing t he s pirit o f t he p oem and making it more

conceivable for a foreign reader. The note Nabokov wrote about the translation of this poem speaks for

itself:

The o riginal, a streamlined, r apid mechanism, consists o f r egular t hree-foot anapests o f t he

"panting" type, with alternating feminine-masculine rhymes. It was impossible to combine lit and

literality, except in some passages (only t he third stanza gives a c lose imitation o f the poem's

form); and since the impetus of the original redeems its verbal vagueness, my faithful but bumpy

version is not the success that a prosy cab might have been (Nabokov 99).

Heine's negative attitude t owards t he t ranslation of his p oems into F rench is w ell k nown: he

called t hem "moonlight s tuffed w ith s traw." D ante in Convivio said t hat " nothing fully e xpressive,

nothing w hich t he M uses have t ouched can be carried o ver into an other t ongue w ithout l osing its

savour and harmony" (In Steiner, 241; Steiner's translation).

Du Bellay's Defence et Illustration de la Langue Francaise of 1549 known as the first literary

manifesto w ritten in French is a lso famous for its s evere attack o n t ranslation. S tating, t hat " each

language has something indefinably individual only to itself," he then comes up to a conclusion that "if

you make an effort to render its innate character into another language, observing the law of translation,

so that it is not expanded at all beyond the limits of the author, your diction will be constrained, turgid,

and without charm" (Du Bellay 170).

This 'a ttack' m ight be as well c onsidered a s a n attack on literalism in t ranslation a nd "is not

addressed to those who, at the command of princes and great lords, t ranslate the most famous Greek

and Latin poets: because the obedience that one owes to such personages does not permit any excuse in

such endeavors..." First and foremost, Du Bellay is against "those who, light-heartedly, undertake such

tasks thoughtlessly, and acquit themselves in the same manner" (Du Bellay171).

In o ther words, Du Bellay is against thoughtless amateurs. I t is u ndeniable t hat t ranslation is

not only "a messianistic act , which brings redemption nearer," as the t ranslator of The Old Testament

into G erman Franz Rosenzweig d eclared, but a lso an ar t and a cr aft; t ranslation o f p oetry a longside

genuine p oetry w as a " sacred cr aft," in M arina Tsvetaeva's d ictum, for the g enerations o f R ussian

poets.

Discussing how the Romans enriched their language Du Bellay argued that they d id it through

imitation of the best Greek authors; imitation, however, went alongside translation. Finally, there were

certain contradictions in Du Bellay's theoretical views a nd creative practice as well: one o f the most

passionate champions of writing in vernacular, Du Bellay was famous for his poems written in Latin.

Leopardi in t he Zibaldone emphasized t he impossibility o f t ranslation o f t he ideas " enclosed

and even bound in words like precious stones in a ring." R ilke in his letter to Countess Sizzo in March

1922 insists t hat even word o rder and t he usage of auxiliary p arts o f speech in a p oem ( such as , for

example, ar ticles a nd co njunctions) make it u nique, a nd a p oem, in its t urn, makes eac h w ord

semantically u nique. On t he o ther hand, B enjamin stated ( and I w ill subscribe t o i t), that " a literal

rendering o f the syntax co mpletely demolishes t he t heory o f r eproduction o f meaning a nd is a d irect

threat to comprehensibility" (Benjamin 78).

Dr. Johnson in his "Preface to the 1755 Dictionary" 'attacked' translation from the point of view

of the 'receiving' idiom:

The great pest of speech is frequency in translation. No book was ever turned from one language

into another, without imparting something of its native idiom; this is the most mischievous and

comprehensive innovation; s ingle words my e nter by t housands, a nd t he fabric o f t he t ongue

continue the same, but new phraseology changes much at once; it alters not the single stones of

the building, but the order of the columns. If an academy should be established for the cultivation

of our stile... let them, instead of compiling grammars and dictionaries, endeavour, with all their

influence, to s top the license o f t ranslatours, whose idleness a nd ignorance, i f it be suffered t o

proceed, will reduce us to babble a dialect of France (Samuel Johnson 236).

Not le ss c an be s aid in d efense o f t ranslation. G oethe be lieved t hat it w as " one o f t he most

important an d valuable co ncerns in t he w hole o f w orld a ffairs," as it w as e xpressed in his letter to

Carlyle in July 1827. Pushkin considered the translator to be the courier of the human spirit. Benjamin

claimed that "translation... catches the fire on the eternal life of the works and perpetual renewal of the

language. Translation keeps putting the hallowed growth of languages to the test: How far removed is

their h idden meaning from r evelation, how c lose c an it be brought b y t he k nowledge o f t his

remoteness?... A lthough t ranslation, u nlike ar t, cannot claim p ermanence for its p roducts, i ts g oal is

undeniably a final, conclusive, de cisive stage o f a ll linguistic c reation. I t can not l ive t here

permanently, to be sure, and it certainly does not reach it in its entirety. Yet, in a singularly impressive

manner, at l east i t p oints t he w ay t o this r egion: the p redestined, h itherto i naccessible r ealm o f

reconciliation a nd fulfillment o f languages. T he t ransfer ca n never be t otal, but w hat r eaches t his

region is that element in a translation which goes beyond transmittal of subject matter" (Benjamin 74-

75).

George Steiner speaks of the four periods in the history of translation.3 The first one began with

the writings of Cicero against "verbum pro verbo" translation and ends with Holderlin's writings on his

own t ranslation o f S ophocles. T he main c haracteristics o f t he p eriod w ere e mpirical focus, p rimary

statement, and technical notation. The beginning of the second period was marked by Alexander Fraser

Tytler's (Lord Woodhouselee) "Essay on the Principles of Translation" issued in London in 1792, and

by Friedrich S chleiermacher's " Ueber d ie V erschieden Methoden d es U bersetzens" o f 1813. D uring

that p eriod t he t opic acq uired its vocabulary, a methodological s tatus o f its o wn, a nd a hermeneutic

approach. In the works of A. W. Schlegel and Humboldt the subject of t ranslation acquired a frankly

philosophic aspect. This period is marked by the works of Goethe, Schopenhauer, Matthew Arnold and

goes as far as t he forties o f t he 2 0th ce ntury w here in t he w orks b y P aul V aléry, E zra Pound, I . A.

Richards, Benedetto Croce, Walter Benjamin, Ortega y Gasset and extends to Valery Larbaud's "Sous

l'invocation de Saint J_rome" o f 1946 w hich Steiner calls "inspired but unsystematic." I t was in this

period when philosophic-poetic theory and definition o f t ranslation was further developed. T he third

period, according to Steiner, began in the middle of the 1940s and was marked by the e laboration of

logic a nd formal models o f linguistic t ransfer; d uring t his p eriod linguistic t heory a nd statistics w ere

applied to translation. Andrei Fedorov's Introduction to the Theory of Translation [Vvedenije v Teoriju

Perevoda, Moscow: 1953), Quine's Word and Object (1960), the formation of national and international

translators societies and associations with their own magazines and journals as well as organization of

representative s ymposia, t he most influential o f w hich in E nglish, as S teiner believes, w ere "On

Translation" edited by Reuben A. Brower (published at Harvard in 1959), and "The Craft and Contexts

of T ranslation: A C ritical S ymposium" ( edited b y William Arrowsmith a nd R oger S hattuck f or the

University o f Texas Press in 1961) set out new directions in t ranslation. S teiner thinks that in many

respects we are still in the third period though the 'discovery' of Walter Benjamin's paper "Die Aufgabe

des Uebersetzers" originally published in 1923 a longside with the growing influence of Heidegger and

Hans-Georg Gadamer, as Steiner put it, "has caused a r eversion to hermeneutic, a lmost metaphysical

inquires into translation a nd interpretation." I would argue t hat the d ifferentiation between machine,

technical, and mechanistic translation on the one hand, and creative translation on the other has always

been very strong in Russia.

In his lecture o n B enjamin's es say, d e Man s tates, as w as a lready mentioned a bove, t hat

translation is inevitably a 'prosaization of the original'. Yet, he speaks mainly about prose whether he

considers Zohn's or Gandillak's t ranslation o f Benjamin's essay or gives his own versions o f it as well

as o f some other works. I n other words, to prove his point, de Man has to practice what he does not

preach. I n the beginning o f his lecture on Benjamin, de Man states that "the translator per definition

fails... unless he is a poet, but this is not always the case" (De Man, 80). It is certainly not. Yet in the

practice a nd t heory o f poetic t ranslation in Russia ( we my r efer t o Efim E tkind's Poetry and

Translation [Poezija i Perevod, Moscow-Leningrad: 1963], to the work of the Writers Union seminars

of literary translation [founded in the 1920s by Ivan Kashkin]), it was stated from the very beginning

that the translator of poetry ought to be a poet himself and the translator of prose ought to be a writer.

In such a case, we have to approach the problem from a 'slightly' different point and we'll have to see it

in a slightly d ifferent light. S econd, the work of the Russian school o f literary translation has always

been d irected ag ainst l iteralism. F inally, t he appearance o f w hat I w ould ca ll a n 'ontological-

phenomenological' a pproach formulated b y Vladimir Mikushevich, a nd o f t he s chool o f

'deconstruction' in t he West, de monstrates n owadays t wo c ontemporary t rends a kin in p hilosophical

sources but extremely opposite in theoretical conclusions and practices.

In co nnection w ith t his, I w ould like t o c onsider d ifferent ap proaches t o creative or literary

translation in Russian theory and practice o f t ranslation. H ere we can differentiate between two main

types. The first type considers translation as a free adaptation or imitation, as Steiner called it (which is

more like a n o riginal p iece t han a t ranslation as we now understand it). W e ca n s ay t hat Alexander

Pushkin's adaptation o f S hakespeare's " Measure for Measure" a nd o f John Wilson's "The City o f t he

Plague" are vivid e xamples o f t his k ind o f imitation. I nspired by t he poem dedicated t o the London

plague o f 1665, this one o f Pushkin's "Little Tragedies" has really become a p earl o f Russian poetry.

Moreover, Pushkin did not only make his own version of Wilson's poem (and changed it into a tragedy

in verse), but also added two songs: that of Mary and the song of the Chairman, which are not found in

the o riginal. I f Pushkin's "Pir Vo Vremya C humy" [ Feast in t he T ime o f P lague] co uld be t ranslated

back into E nglish, it w ould by no m eans c oincide w ith W ilson's po em, t he s ource of P ushkin's

inspiration.

There is another variety of such a free translation (or imitation per se) which has not lost its ties

with the o riginal. T he roots o f this t radition can be t raced to Russian 18th century literature (Vasilij

Trediakovsky) and then to the creative work of Vasilij Zhukovsky.

The R ussian 1 8th c entury t ranslator be longed t o a c lassical t radition a nd w as not s o m uch

concerned with creation in his native language of a foreign work of art in all its complexity (its poetic

motive, i.e., p ersonality o f a n a rtist, t he latter's a pproach t owards l ife, his style a nd intonational

system), as he was concerned with the creation of a certain impersonal work of art which was closer in

his opinion to the ideal, as was stated by the contemporary Russian scholar Yuri Levin.4 In so doing,

the Russian 18th century translator was extremely scrupulous with the author, who himself approached

the ideal as the translator understood it. On the other hand, the translator would change the poem if he

thought s uch changes w ould improve it. T hat is w hy t he o utstanding R ussian 1 8th c entury p oet

Trediakovsky u sed t o s ay: " A t ranslator d iffers from a cr eator only by name, if at a ll," a nd: " What

difference does it make if a r eader admires my work or somebody else's in my book?" (Trediakovsky

369. The translation is mine.)

The 19th century translator belonged to another literary trend: published in 1802, Zhukovsky's

translation o f Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written In A Country Church-Yard" to a g reat extent signified a

boundary between Karamzin's s entimentalism a nd a new R omantic period in t he R ussian literature.

Zhukovsky, w hose c reativity w as inspired mainly by E uropean ( i. e . foreign) authors, b rought the

romantic spirit into the Russian literature; and, as was stated by the Russian critic Belinsky, "he gave it

an o pportunity for further d evelopment: there c ould have been no P ushkin w ithout Z hukovsky."

(Belinsky 221; the translation is mine.)

Thus we can see that in this transition or "shift" from classicism to romanticism the motivation

of the translator has slightly changed also: inspired not only by the ethical value, by the ideal, but also

by the aesthetical merits of the poems the 19th century translator was concerned with the creation of an

individual work of art. Translation ceased to be impersonal.

Reading Z hukovsky's t ranslations nowadays o ne might as k if t hey ar e a s ad equate as t he

originals, if they are translations at all; what was the poet's approach towards the motive, the style and

tropes, the sentence structure and the choice of images, which are inseparable parts of the intonational

system?

In his essay "On Fables," Zhukovsky put forward the idea that "The translator of prose is a slave

while the translator of poetry is a rival," and then he went even further, by stating: "Doesn't it mean you

are a creator if you find in your imagination beautiful images which replace the original ones and thus

create your own and superb work of art?" (Zhukovsky 189; the translation is mine.)

I must mention that the translation of prose was not considered to be an art until the end of the

19th century and was done mainly by amateurs or mediocre writers.

The analyses of Zhukovsky's creativity, which was inspired mainly by foreign authors and to a

smaller extent by the world he lived in, show that "he nevertheless was an original poet who gave to his

translations of foreign poetry not only his own vision, but also his entire self" (Veselovsky 463, 469).

Thus, ha ving t wice t ranslated G ray's "Elegy Written in a C ountry C hurch-Yard" ( 1802, 1839) a nd

Burger's "Lenore" (1808, 1831), Zhukovsky included each ve rsion in h is Collected Works and p laced

them ac cording t o the d ates o f t ranslation: t he first d idn't n egate t he o ther, they were a ll his,

Zhukovsky's, four different poems.

The scholars of Zhukovsky's poetry came to an almost unanimous conclusion that he created his

translations in a new poetical system which was different from the original; in this system "the plot was

borrowed, the style was his own." (Gukovsky 65; translation is mine.) Thus Zhukovsky created a new

artistic u nity: harmonious, solid, and c apable o f life, while "the o riginal w as t ransferred into another

system of style." (Zhirmunsky 85; translation is mine.)

In spite of the fact that the whole Russian modern literature developed through constant and live

contact w ith foreign literature, Z hukovsky w as t he o ne w ho d id more t han a nyone e lse in p oetical

translation as he understood it, enriching both literature and the Russian reader.

All o f t he major Russian 19t h c entury po ets pa id t ribute t o foreign po etry and included t heir

translations, a daptations, o r i mitations in c ollections o f t heir o wn po etry us ually pu blishing t he

translations in chronological o rder acco rding t o the d ate o f cr eation o f t he R ussian t ext ( placing t he

name of the author in parenthesis). Translation was for them an ever-lasting dialogue-competition with

ancient and modern foreign authors. O n the other hand, thus their "Thirst for world culture," to quote

Mandelshtam, was "extinguished." T hat was also a gain out of loss: they did a lot to restore the ties of

the humanity.

That w as how L ermontov p ublished his interpretations o f some o f t he B yron's "Hebrew

Melodies." Although s ome lines d o n ot c oincide w ith t he or iginal, most of t hem, e specially

Lermontov's v ersion of " My S oul is D ark," struck t he r eader b y t he impression o f its a bsolute

truthfulness. T hat is to say, the poetical motive revealed in the new intonational system with its own

prosody, syntax, and style produced the same effect on the Russian reader as the original on the native

speakers o f E nglish, a nd t he new images r e-enacted in n ew w ords acq uired co nnections ad equate t o

those of t he o riginal. Y et i n t he last movement, i n t he last two l ines o f t he R ussian v ersion,

Lermontov's own vision was even more tragic than that of Byron's, instead of "...And break at once —

or yield to song," Lermontov wrote:

['The perilous hour came — the soul is full

Of poison, as if the cup of Death.']

Thus the poetic motive of Lermontov's poem differs from that of Byron's and leaves no chance

for joy.

In the second half of the 19th century (even a little earlier) along with free interpretations, a new

tendency to a more adequate, precise translation began to develop in Russia. We can characterize this

school as a school of "restriction," that is to say, the translators of poetry tried to add as little of their

own thoughts, feelings, and associations as their skill and gift allowed them to do. The conception of

translation a s a pu blic dut y do minated a ll o f t he o ther a ims a nd m otives: the m ain purpose o f

translators' w ork w as to en rich t he R ussian cu lture w ith t he b est ach ievements o f w orld literature.

Irinarkh V vedensky, t he t ranslator of Thackeray and D ickens, Alexander Druzhinin, t he t ranslator o f

Shakespeare, N icholai H erbel, w ho d id no t only translate E uropean p oets ( Byron, a ll t he s onnets b y

Shakespeare), but also the Ukrainian poet Shevchenko; Michail Michailov, one of the most prominent

Russian t ranslators of t he second half o f t he 19th century; D mitry Min, t he first Russian t ranslator o f

Dante's "Divine Comedy" ( the t ranslation was awarded Pushkin's pr ize in 1907); Petr Veinberg, who

was co nsidered by his co ntemporaries t he best t ranslator o f t he second half o f t he 19th c entury, a nd

others made a sigificant contribution to the development of the Russian literature.

We ca n find a n e xample o f such a n approach t owards translation much ear lier: t he best

translation of Homer's Iliad into Russian was done by Pushkin's contemporary Nikolai Gnyedich. The

translator's prime motive was not self-expression but a r evelation o f t he essence, e ven o f t he r hythm,

metre, and syntax of the original. Like Leigh Hunt, Gnyedich wanted to give his readers a better idea of

Homer whom he considered to be one of the most sublime and greatest authors of all times and nations.

Some cr itics compared his endeavor to that of Pope. G nyedich even sacrificed sometimes to this aim

the p rinciple o f harmony a nd eu phony w hich d ominated the R ussian p oetry at that time. S ome of

Gnyedich's c ontemporaries w ere a gainst hi s joining gr oups of c onsonants a nd t hose o f s tressed

syllables (especially in sequences o f one-syllable words) which helped to create an e ffect o f Homer's

hexameter a nd d id not sound quite natural t o the Russian ear . T heir perception was influenced t o a

great e xtent b y Zhukovsky's melodic e uphony a nd P ushkin's harmony. Y et, t his t ranslation not only

became an event in the Russian 19th century literature, but also was — and s till is — considered an

achievement and a model of translation for all the generations of translators to come.

Zhukovsky, who translated Homer's Odyssey, tried in his later years to create a new version of

Iliad. Inspired by the same ideas o f preciseness, se lf-denial, and sacrifice, t hat unfinished t ranslation

was ne vertheless a t ypical s ample o f Zhukovsky's c reativity: his a ttempts t o overcome his o wn style

and approach were vain; his poetical personality was too resistant to his conscious attempts.

Thus the history of creative translation in Russia proves that the mainstream of its development

was a imed, on the one hand, at the re-incarnation of the essence and spirit of the original and, on the

other, at ex actness a nd self-denial. T here w ere, o f co urse, r epresentatives o f d ifferent t rends in

translation i n the n earest p ast as there ar e ev en today. T here ar e, f or i nstance, p eople w ho w ere

translating from dozens o f languages without knowing them (using word-for-word translations); such

an approach became a veritable disease in the so-called t ranslations from the languages o f t he former

Soviet U nion. ( There w ere more t han hundred languages a nd, acco rding t o the C ommunist p arty

ideology, each nation had to be represented by its 'officially outstanding' writers and poets.) There are

also p oets w ho ar e mainly co ncerned with t he self-expression a nd c ompetition r ather t han w ith a

revelation of the poetical context of the original. Hoever, such masters of creative translation as Sergey

Shervinsky, t he t ranslator of O vid a nd V irgil, Vilhelm Levik, w ho 'embraced' a ll o f t he European

poetry, A rkady S hteinberg, t he be st t ranslator of Paradise Lost into R ussian, E fim E tkind, L ev

Ginsburg, a pr ominent t ranslator of G erman po etry, a nd many o thers d iscussed t he pr oblem o f t he

limits o f freedom of interpretation: the problem of "improvement and replacement" of any part o f the

original was out of the question for them. It is already taken for granted that mediocre or weak poems

cannot b e improved: a t ranslation must p roduce a t ruthful and ad equate impression o n t he foreign

reader.

The Russian 20th century school of translation was also a school of 'restriction,' so to speak, but

that was a r estriction o f a nother k ind: in t he years o f t otalitarian t error in t he USSR w hen a word o f

truth was considered to be a crime, many poets who were not published, 'escaped' in poetic translation.

It was the only way of poetic activities and intellectual opposition which was possible. I t did not help

the great Russian poet Osip Mandelstam and Benedict Livshits, a superb poet and translator of French

poetry (they both perished in camps); nor did it he lp Nickolaj Zabolotsky, who in his f irst books was

close to the so-called Oberiu (topsy-turvy or absurd) poetry and in his later years became a master of

deep phi losophical verse, a nd w as a n o utstanding translator of p oetry ( he a lso s pent s even years in

camps and exile). Arkadi Shteinberg, a poet of great power and a superb translator of poetry, was twice

sentenced — in a ll, for m ore than t en years o f Stalin c amps; bu t it he lped M ichail Zenkevich, t he

translator of E nglish a nd American p oetry, M ickail Lozinski, t he t ranslator of Dante's The Divine

Comedy, Marina Tsvetayeva, even Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova, Arsenij Tarkovsky, Semyon

Lipkin, and many other outstanding poets had to escape in translation. 5

That w as t he r eason w hy t he school o f p oetic t ranslation w hich had more t han a t wo-century

tradition by t hat t ime b ecame in t he S oviet p eriod a u nique o ne w ere o nly p oets an d p rofessional

writers worked. O n the other hand, that was the reason why we can read t heir o wn bo oks only now.

(The book of Livshits' poetry was published only several years ago; Steinberg's book was published in

1997, 13 years after his death in 1984.)

Today t here is a d anger o f a nother ex treme in R ussian cr eative t ranslation: t here ar e

professional translators who are skillful in versification, but sometimes are further from poetry than we

from the remotest planets, and who try to give a word-for-word description rather than a revelation of

the d eep, d ynamic, a nd mysterious ties b etween w ords and i mages — without m ystery, t here is no

poetry, no matter w hether in a n o riginal p oem o r i n a t ranslation. " It s tands t o r eason," w rote

Benjamin, "that k inship do es not n ecessarily involve likeness." P ushkin, B atyushkov, Z hukovsky,

Gnyedich, Tyutchev in the 19th century extended the boundaries of the Russian language by enriching

its music as well as by enlarging its vocabulary and syntax which became more flexible. The translator

of T asso, B atyushkov brought I talian music a nd t he openness o f t he I talian vowels t o t he R ussian

language. Tyutchev, who developed 'archaic' verse and the traditions of Derzhavin, synthesized them in

a magic fusion with the music of the German verse. The syllabic irregularity of the qualitative prosody

of t he E nglish verse a nd r ich r hythmic variety o f a free verse o r v erse libre have brought n ew

rhythmical-syntactic p erspectives t o the p rosody o f t he R ussian verse. L iteral t ranslation never

attempts to achieve this task and, consequently, limits the scope and the aims of translation. Any literal

translation is at its best designed as a reference for those who do not know the language of the original.

Yet, since languages develop and change (Benjamin speaks of "the flux of meaning," Steiner compares

language to a f lux), literal t ranslations can be and, in fact, are o f limited t ime and value. I mitations,

adaptations or free translations which are of no time as poetry itself, on the other hand, do not attempt

to render the original poem as translation per se into another language.

The problem of the balance between the "freedom and fidelity," in Benjamin's dictum, brings us

back to the idea of the impossible: the only way to re-create poetry is to struggle with the resistance of

the material, to go through the same tortures of creation as the author. My approach towards translation

is not based on the position of the pure 'other' in Derridian sense but on Bakhtinian dialogism: one has

to become 'the other,' to transfer from the original to one's own language — there and back. I t is quite

obvious that a word-for-word translation or any k ind of l iteralism is of l ittle help, if a t all, in such an

endeavor. In other words, we have to struggle with "the curse of Babel" and not "to cast a violet in the

crucible" (Shelley 484).

An Approach to Poetic Motive, Intonational System, Style, and Context.

The main achievement of the Russian school of creative translation in the 20th century was that

it changed the approach towards the goal of translation and the aesthetical motivation of the translator's

work. (I d ifferentiate h ere t he n otions o f 'aesthetical mo tivation' and ' literary mo tivation' or

'motivirovka' which was introduced by the scholars of the Russian Formal School and to which I come

back later in this work.) The translation of poetry is no longer considered to be only a self-expression

by m eans o f a foreign p oet; it has become not only a co mpetition w ith a foreign p oet ( here ag ain I

would like t o r emind t he r eaders o f t he quot ation from Zhukovsky mentioned a bove); but f irst a nd

foremost, the work of translator became a combined work of investigator and creator. The translator of

poetry must be a poet himself, yet, he also has to be a researcher: to study poetry as well as the epoch

when the chosen piece was written, the aesthetic movement or school the poet belonged to, and the life

of the poet he is translating, his poetical and philosophical ideas. Having accumulated his knowledge,

the translator must hide i t i n the most humble a nd modest way b etween the l ines, or place i t i n t he

commentaries and footnotes. H e has only his art when proving that a poet he is presenting, or rather

representing, be longs to the world culture (both the t ranslator h imself a nd his r eaders have t o be lieve

that these verses written in their native language belong to Shelley, Keats, Byron, or any other, even a

minor p oet). I n ad dition, t he r esearch o f a p oet's life a nd t he k nowledge w e acq uire should be

connected w ith o ur u nderstanding o f t he forces and a esthetic p rinciples w hich lead a n ar tist t o the

incarnation o f his ideas. I n o ther w ords, I d o n ot s eparate the p ersonality o f a n a rtist, t he p oetical

motive w hich inspired him, from t he incarnation o f t hese ideas a nd feelings in t he d efinite p oetical

context.

Emil Staiger believes that "the distinctive style of the poem is not the form and not the context,

not the idea and not the motif: it is rather a ll these in one, because, as we have said a w ord achieves

perfection when everything is unified in style." (Staiger 414.) This is another way of putting it, though

I cannot agree, first of all, with Mr. Staiger's separation of the personality of an artist from the poetical

motive, and, secondly, with the way Mr. Staiger proves it: he states that "a work achieves perfection

when e verything is u nified in s tyle," a nd t hen s tates t hat " style cr owns e verything because a w ork

achieves p erfection w hen e verything is u nified in s tyle" ( Staiger 412, 414) . ( In ot her w ords, x =y

because we stated that y=x.) I t is useless to separate, of course, style from the motive, personality of

the author, from the intonational system; neither can we separate the form from the idea. The work of

art, its "plastic space"6

In h is w ork " Poetichesky M otiv i C ontekst" [ Poetic M otive a nd C ontext], V ladimir

Mikushevich, while developing the thought of the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911)

that motive is a p oetical approach towards life and reality in all its complexity, states that "art begins

or context, is the unity which crowns and unites everything, including style.

with an approach towards life, with a substance... Yet we need a personality for poetical comprehension

of t his r elation. P ersonality a nd substance ar e t he t wo s ides o f the po etic motive" ( Mikushevich 41.

Translation is mine.) I n his lectures, Mikushevich defines the poetic motive in a different way: as "a

personalistic ar chetype o r p raephenomenon r ealized in d ifferent co ntexts." ( The latter m ay be

compared t o a realization o f " a u niversal idea" i n " suitable p articulars," as G oethe p ut i t, w hich

"produces an allegory.")

In my opinion, the idea o f the poetic motive is close to both that o f 'enargaia,' a movement of

poetic thought or narration through the image, as it was understood in ancient Greece, and 'energia,'an

essence of poetic thought, the incarnation of spirit in the language, as it was interpreted in the Middle

Ages and then by Humboldt. The latter is close to what George Steiner calls "a contingent motion of

spirit" (Steiner 71). Thus, by the motive of a poetic work I understand an integrity of 'enargaia', which

includes in itself the main or recurrent themes (motifs), something that induces a poet to act, as well as

the philosophical, ethical, and aesthetical approach of the poet's personality towards life revealed in a

definite context (energia).

The concept of personality in art nowadays can be considered a truism: an artist is an artist. For

some people the word "artist" is immediately associated with a g ifted person leading a Bohemian life

(in Paris or in Greenwich Village), or with a Romantic "outcast" and individualist who p laces himself

above t he society, o r w ith a n " anachoret i n a t ower." O thers immediately t hink o f M ozart or o f

Beethoven, of Milton or Shakespeare, of Byron, Shelley or Keats, of Dante or Pushkin: for them genius

is a synonym of an artistic personality and a symbol of an epoch. Yet, the relation between 'the artistic

personality' and the artistic creation is rather controversial and sophisticated. I t has been explained on

the basis o f t heological, social, p sychological, purely a esthetic, a nd o ther ap proaches t o ar t an d

creativity. Perhaps, i t i s worth considering this pr oblem from a hi storical, diachronic point of vi ew.

The Czech scholar Jan Mukařovsky in his lecture "Personality in Art" spoke of the dramatic change in

the understanding of this concept in the nineteenth century:

The Romantic conception of personality culminates in the notion of genius. Genius is no longer

personality creating through a conscious will, attentive to the external reality which it cognizes

or reshapes. Genius is creative involuntariness — spontaneity. It is just as spontaneous as the

natural forces to which it is related... A genius does not even create, for something within him

creates ("Es dichtet in mir" is the slogan of the Romantic artist.) Spontaneity, of course,

immediately changes the relationship between the artist and his work, between the artist and

reality, and between the artist and other people, as well as the artist's attitude toward himself. A

work suddenly appears as a genuine expression of the artist's personality, as a "material"

replica of his mental organization. It is as involuntary a product as a pearl in an oyster's shell.

The artist no longer seeks the organization in sensorially perceptible nature but in himself. He

himself is a natural force, and therefore the image of nature as he experiences it in his inner self

and as he implements in his work is more authentic than a mechanically reproducing testimony

of the senses. Man, and especially man-the-artist, begins to experience the tension and

contradiction between reality and himself."(Mukařovsky 154).

These o bservations ar e subtle but t he generalizations co ncerning t he r elationship between t he

artist an d nature ar e s omewhat s traightforward an d arbitrary: for S helley, for ex ample, nature is a

source of great inspiration; the relationship between human spirit and nature in its d irect or symbolic

way (nature in the i mage of ' Might,' 'N ecessity,' 'Intellectual Beauty') is o ne o f t he dominant poetical

motives and I will try to show it later in our interpretation of Shelley's poems. It is true that the angle

of reflection was changed in the art of Romantic poets: it ceased to be a reflection of nature and became

a r eflection o f an a rtist looking a nd c ontemplating o n nature a nd human mind. T he p resence o f t he

artistic personality is more vivid and shaped in the Romantic poetry: full of tragic controversies caused

by the realization of the loss of harmony and unity with nature, it ceased to be impersonal. It was better

expressed in t he t hought o f Macha c ited by Mukařovsky, "The human spirit a nd nature, w hich w ere

one, have fallen apart in t ime. Nature goes its eternal, peaceful, regular way, but man has to obliterate

all traces which lead to it, having thereby lost his original harmony and essence" (Mukařovsky 154).

A Romantic would no longer say: "World is me," nor even: "I am the world." Perhaps, this was

one o f t he main reasons w hy a Romantic saw "reality d ifferently t han o thers in h is o wn u nique way"

and felt "himself to be unique, different from other people, separated from them, whether he feels this

separation to be a privilege or a curse. A Romantic artist would no longer repeat Leonardo's statement

that i n his w ork he must he ed e veryone's judgment because e very man, e ven t he non-artist, k nows

nature" (Mukařovsky154).

That is why personal experience became more and more important for a Romantic, and, finally,

was s omehow hyperbolized." All o f w hich changed t he r elation between an a rtist a nd his w ork,

creativity: it became the only way of self-expression, the way of life. The idea of sharing the results of

his w ork w ith ot hers, t hough important f or a Romantic p oet, c eased t o b e t he main p urpose of

creativity. Even in post-Romantic art the idea o f creating "for oneself" was very strong; Pushkin, the

first Russian 'professional' writer ( in our modern understanding of this concept) used to say, " I write

for myself and then a llow to publish my work." B aratynsky, Pushkin's contemporary, the poet whom

Pushkin highly appreciated, wrote, "The way I found a friend in g eneration// I 'll find a r eader in the

coming one." This direction towards the future was extremely palpable in the art of the Avant-Garde,

especially in t hat o f t he Futurists, t hough t he n ecessity o f sharing t he r esults o f cr eativity w ith

contemporaries became more and more v ivid: t he necessity o f spectators, r eaders changed t he w hole

concept o f t he ar tistic p ersonality. Alexander B lok, t he g reat R ussian p oet of t he beginning o f t he

twentieth century, who is considered to be "the last true Romantic" did not only say that "Poet is not a

career, but a fate," but also that "poetry is a craft."7

In a pragmatic society the concept of sharing the artistic work with others is exaggerated and is

revealed in t he ideas o f "the market" o r o f " the s ocial o rder." T his p henomenon r esulted in t he

appearance o f 'best-sellers,' 'socialist r ealism,' a s w ell a s o f t he so-called 'dissident' a rt, a nd ' hermetic

art,' a nd c hanged t he a rtistic p ersonality. T hus, the s ocial o rder a nd p sychological p henomena

(conscious and subconscious) as well as philosophical and aesthetical ideas influence poetical motives

of an artist and alter artistic personality. Creative personality however cannot be defined as a 'sum' of

influences: it is rather a dynamic integrity in which some or one o f t his components is e nhanced a nd

performs a dominant function.

Coming back to the thought that the poetic motive is "a contingent motion of spirit," 'enargaia'

and 'energia,' it is worth e mphasizing t hat t he motive o f an a rtistic w ork s hould include i n i tself a n

integrity of the main and recurrent themes (motifs), something that induces the artist to act, as well as

philosophical, et hical a nd a esthetical ap proach o f a p ersonality ( artist) towards r eality a nd ar t. This

brings u s t o the idea o f t he incarnation o f t he p oetic motive in a d efinite co ntext d etermined by t he

number o f functions t he dominant of w hich in literature is, perhaps, t he poetic ( Jakobson) o r rhetoric

(Paul de Man) function.

The i ncarnation of artistic (poetic) m otive i n v erse is its lexical, s yntactical, a nd r hythmical

(metrical, if we consider a traditional system of versification) realization in a definite context. In other

words, the concept of the 'poetic motive' in my interpretation also includes (but is not limited by) the

concept of "motif" and that of 'literary motivation' [motivirovka] as it was introduced by the OPOIAZ

(Formal S chool). The t erm ' motivation' w as first p roposed b y V iktor S hklovsky in his e ssay "The

connection of Devices of Plot Formation with General Devices of Style" and was applied to the studies

of prose, especially of novel. In his work "The Theory of the Formal Method" Boris Eikhenbaum states

that

The determination of various devices of plot formation (serial construction, parallelism,

framing, concatenation, and others) established the distinction between the elements of a work's

construction and the elements comprising the material uses (the story stuff, the choice of motifs,

of protagonists, of themes, etc.)," and that the scholars of the Formal Method "...directed all

their efforts toward promoting the significance of structural devices and subordinating

everything else as motivation" (The Theory 18, 19).

The context of a poetical work is a "plastic space" where a poetic motive is revealed or released.

Such an approach to interpretation is, in my opinion, a starting point on the way to understanding the

work of an y ar tist; it is based o n a d iachronic ( more t han t wo cen turies), s ynchronical, a nd cr eative

experience o f t he R ussian s chool o f creative t ranslation. ( Here I must mention p arenthetically t hat

there is no pure synchronical approach: both the experience of a 'school' and of a scholar as well as that

of a translator of poetry inevitably includes the elements of diachrony.) Philosophically speaking, this

approach is based o n t he integrity o f p henomenological, o ntological ( which can be metaphorically

interpreted as diachronic) and epistemological (synchronical) analyses united (especially in translation)

by a teleological approach.

This integrity or 'structure' also includes intonational system by which I substitute a traditional

term " intonation" t hat d oes n ot ex plain a nything an d s eparates p oet's p ersonality from t he p oetic

motive, form and material from the 'content', the ideas of the poet from the syntax, rhythm (or metre)

and rhymes (another component of style).

Yuri Tynianov defines rhythm as a "constructive factor of verse" and states that "not all aspects of a word are of equal value; dynamic form is not the result of uniting or merging such aspects (cf. the often used term "correspondence"), but rather the result of their interaction which enhances one group of factors at the expense of another. In this process the enhanced factor deforms those subordinated to it. Second, the sensation of form in such a situation is always the sensation of flow (and therefore of change) of interaction between the subordinating, constructive factor and the subordinated factors. There is absolutely no need to introduce a temporal connotation into this concept of progress or "unfolding." Flow dynamics may be taken in isolation, outside of time, as pure motion. Art exists by means of this interaction or struggle" (Tynianiov, in Mateika & Pomorska 128).

This de finition o f r hythm a s o f a c onstructive, d ominant f actor ("enhanced") o f v erse s till

remains somewhat vague: T ynianov h imself mixes up t he co ncepts o f meter and rhythm a nd t ries to

define rhythm in verse libre as a "metric equivalent." As a consequence, the boundary between metric

verse and verse libre is blurred; on the other hand, he mixes up prose and verse libre and t ries to find

the o rigin o f t he R ussian verse libre in T urgenev's "Verses in P rose" ( which is p rose) a nd t hough

parenthetically, s peaks o f verse libre a s o f a "transition [perehod] to a pr ose." ( Tynianov, R ussian

edition, 72. Translation is mine.)

Second, T ynianov in his w ork s peaks s eparately o f r hythm a nd o f t he meaning t he w ord

acquires in verse. The same approach was recently demonstrated by John Lotz. 8

The co ncept of a "rhythmical-syntactic figure" an d t hat o f a " rhythmical-syntactic u nit"

developed by Osip Brik

9 seems t o be more p roductive: it makes possible t o analyze t he meaning o f

word in context without the separation of rhythm from semantics and other "subordinated" factors.

Boris E ikhenbaum d efines melodics a s an intonational s ystem, i.e. a s a c ombination o f

intonational figures o r m ovements a s t hey a re r evealed in a d efinite s yntax ( Melodics of Russian

Lyrical Verse, 338) . I f w e extend t his de finition, w e s hall inevitably co me t o a co nclusion t hat t he

intonational system is a unity of intonation per se, "rhythmical-syntactic" or metrical-syntactic units (in

traditional systems o f v ersification), d iction, a nd s tylistic d evices w hich ar e r evealed in t he d efinite

syntax ( including t he co mposition o f a p iece) in the p rocess o f incarnation o f t he poetical motive in

context. B y intonation per se I understand the integrity o f the author's personal tone ( 'lichnyi ton,' as

was first introduced by Eikhenbaum) and intonational figures: rises and falls of the voice, combination

of up beats a nd do wnbeats ( including pr oclitics and enclitics, t he so-called s hifts o f w ord st ress in

polysyllabic words as well as the absence of stress which Jakobson calls "frustrated expectation") with

pauses an d en jambements. P auses a nd en jambements al ongside w ith r hythmic an d metric

characteristics of verse (quantitative in French, qualitative in English, as was stated by Northrop Frye)

as w ell as s trophic a nd g raphic o rganization o f verse ar e constructive f actors of v erse (omission o f

lines and even stanzas in Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin," Apollinaire's "Calligrammes," Brodsky's ellipses

and enjambements).

My concept of intonational system is also close to what N. Frye called 'melos,' 'harmony,' and

'opsis' (or "babble," "doodle," and "riddle"). As Northrop Frye put it, In babble, rhyme, assonance, alliteration, and puns develop out of sound associations." Doodle is "verbal d esign," "putting w ords into p atterns." "The r adical o f melos is c harm: t he hypnotic incantation that, through its pulsing dance rhythm, appeals to involuntary physical response, and is hence not far from the sense of magic, or physically compelling power.... The radical of opsis in the lyric is riddle, which is characteristically a fusion of sensation and reflection, the use of an object of sense experience to stimulate a mental activity in connection with it. (Frye 275, 278, 280).

It i s d ifficult a nd, p erhaps, u seless t o s eparate intonation from r hythm; neither c an i t be

separated from the artistic or creative personality, since there are no abstract

intonational p atterns a nd/or s ystems. T hus w e d o no t s eparate the p ersonality o f an a rtist f rom his

creative work.

Since r hyme a nd 'rhythm' a re inseparable pa rts o f t he intonational system t he R ussian t heory

and practice o f the poetic t ranslation demands that the t ranslator of poetry cannot separate them from

the p oetic motive, ne ither can he substitute one s ystem o r meter b y a nother, s ay, a iambic foot b y a

trochaic one, a t raditional metric system by a free verse or vice versa; nor can he ignore the system of

rhymes. In other words we must preserve the integrity of the poem chosen for translation. All of which

brings us t o the problems o f 'form, material a nd content,' o f t ranslator's freedom, w hich, in its t urn,

borders with the problem of integrity of the whole work. The concept of the 'dominant,' put forward by

Roman Jakobson, appears to be crucial in defining of the enhanced, constructive factors of verse.

In his w ork Language in Literature Roman J akobson c haracterizes t he first t hree s tages o f

Formalist research as: (1) "analysis of the sound aspects of a literary work;" (2) "problems of meaning within a framework of poetics;" (3) " integration o f sound a nd meaning into a s eparable w hole. D uring t his latter s tage, the concept of the dominant was particularly fruitful; it was one of the most crucial, elaborated, and productive concepts in Russian Formalist theory. The dominant may be defined as the focusing component of a work of art: it rules, determines, and transforms the remaining components. It is the dominant which guarantees the integrity o f the structure. The dominant specifies the work. The specific trait of bound language is obviously its prosodic pattern, its verse form. It might seem that this is s imply a t autology: verse is verse. However, we must constantly bear in mind that the e lement which specifies a g iven variety of language dominates the entire structure and thus acts as its mandatory and inalienable constituent, dominating a ll the remaining e lements and e xerting d irect influence u pon t hem. V erse in t urn is not a s imple co ncept an d not an indivisible unit" (Jakobson, Language in Literature 41).

Jakobson in his practice was not free of a 'paradigmatical' approach himself and in an attempt to

make P ushkin's po ems 'fit' his t heory made a mistake in de fining t he ' dominant' in s ome o f t hem.

Pushkin's poem "I Loved You" is based, as was stated by Shklovsky in his book Tetiva [A Bow-String]

in the chapter "On Jakobson's essay 'Poetry of Grammar and Grammar of Poetry,'" not on the absence

of images and artistic devices and not on the interrelation of grammar forms, as Jakobson believed, but

on the laws of rhetoric, the dominant of this poem, the main device with the help of which it is created

is orator's speech which was defamiliarized, "made strange" (the so-called 'ostranenie') by the usage of

introductory words and phrases, peculiar grammar forms, etc.

Thus, S hklovsky showed t hat a mistake in de fining t he do minant o f t he po em o r e recting

schemes instead of being able to see the facts may lead to misinterpretation of the poem.

Actually, w hile a nalyzing, interpreting, a nd t ranslating po etry w e seldom have d ifficulties in

identifying grammar forms a nd t heir interrelation. P robably, t he most challenging t ask is t o preserve

'aesthetic u niqueness' o f t he poem a nd to r eveal its poetical motive in a new co ntext. The t ranslator

may have d ifficulties in identifying t he d ominant of t he p oem, in preserving its pr osodic pa ttern in

particular, and the intonational system of the chosen poem in general.

Metaphor or any other trope is not the only device with the help of which poetry is created. The

absence o f t ropes or f igures d oes not necessary mean t he a bsence o f p oetry. A s w as first s tated b y

Shklovsky in "Potebnja" and later summed up by E ikhenbaum in The Theory of the Formal Method,

"...The use of images and symbols does not constitute the distinguishing features of poetic language as

against prosaic (practical) language": Poetic language is distinguished from prosaic language by the palpableness of its construction. The palpableness may be brought about by the acoustical aspect or the semasiological aspect. Sometimes what is palpable is not the structure of the words but the use of words in a construction, their arrangement. One of the means of creating a palpable construction, the very fabric of which is experienced, is the poetic image, but it is only one of the means. (The Theory 14).

In o ther w ords, this p alpableness c an be interpreted a s " hesitation between t he sound a nd t he

sense" (Valéry), or, as Gerard Manley Hopkins put it, as "speech wholly or partially repeating the same

figure of sound."

One o f t he most challenging t asks for the t ranslator of poetry is, probably, to transfer in t ime

and s pace, t o r estore the image o f t he ep och, a nd t hen co me back t o h is native language a nd t ime,

especially when he faces such a t ext as an Iliad, w here, as was proved by René Wellek and Austin

Warren in their programmatic Theory of Literature, "We cannot contrast in language with the everyday

language of Greece, and cannot therefore feel the deviations from colloquial language on which much

of the poetic effect must depend. We are unable to understand many verbal ambiguities which are an

essential part of every poet's meaning" (Wellek and Warren 155).

Even close reading of Shakespeare, as was brilliantly shown by George Steiner in the opening

chapter o f After Babel, r equires a pr ofound and thoughtful w ork a nd imagination. S teiner's idea o f

understanding and close reading of the text is that of translation even in one's native language.

On t he contextual level it is much more d ifficult to r eveal t he s tyle a nd t he system o f images

and tropes than the interrelation of grammatical forms. I n connection with it, I must admit that poems

with 'thick metaphorical images,' so to speak, (for example, Mayakovsky's poetry) are relatively easier

to translate t han t ranquil, t ransparent poetry o f P ushkin. In hi s seemingly 'i mageless' poetry i t i s a n

image-vision, an image of the whole poem (for instance, "I Loved You"), its poetical motive revealed

in t he d efinite co ntext ( where w ords s hould acquire t he same t ies — not l imited t o l exical o r

grammatical) is much more difficult to preserve than to destroy.

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Notes

1 See: Cesar Vallejo. Inquestas Infianti. The poem is entitled "Telúrica y Magnética."

2 The difference between the English and the Russian versions of Lolita is even more

striking. Nabokov wrote in the "Postscriptum to the Russian Edition" that he came to the

conclusion that the main difference between the two languages was in the spirit of each

language. [I. P.]

3 See: Steiner, George. After Babel. "The Claims of Theory." New York: Oxford UP, 1976.

236-239.

4 Yuri Levin, a scholar from St. Petersburgh, gave a profound survey of the history of

creative translation in Russia in his book: Russkiye Perevodchiki 19 Veka i Razvitiye

Hudozhestvennogo Perevoda [Russian Translators of the 19th Century and the

Development of Creative Translation]. Leningrad: Nauka [Science] Publishing House,

1985.

5 This "tradition" continued until the fall of the Communism in the Former USSR: before

leaving the USSR in 1972, Joseph Brodsky, the 1987 Nobel Prize winner for Literature,

was occasionally 'allowed' to publish only translations.

6 The exspression belongs to Arkady Steinberg (1907-1984).

7 See Blok, Alexander. "O Naznachenii Poeta" [On the Task of the Poet]. Collected Works.

Moscow-Leningrad: Hudozhestvennaia Literatura, 1962. Vol. 6, 160-167.

8 See: Lotz, John. "Elements of Versification." Versification. Major Language Types. W. K. Wimsatt, ed. New York: New York U P, 1972. 1-21. 9 See: Brik, O. M. "Contribution to the Study of Verse Language" and "Ritm i Sintaksis."

Readings in Russian Poetics. Formalist and Structuralist Views. Ladislaw Matejka and

Krystyna Pomorska, eds. Ann Arbor: Michigan UP, 1978.