Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0014332, Sun, 10 Dec 2006 17:35:20 +0300

Subject
Re: R: [NABOKV-L] R: [NABOKV-L] abstruse commentaries,
Ovid and Ardors
Date
Body
Re: [NABOKV-L] R: [NABOKV-L] R: [NABOKV-L] abstruse commentaries, Ovid and ArdorsDear Stan,

My English is not good enough to allow me to discern all the nuances of sense that various possible renderings of the newspaper name "Utro Rossii" have, but it seems to me that among the ones that you suggested "Russia's Morning" would be the most accurate. By the way, "Utro Rossii" was the newspaper in which "the prophetic article" (Alexander Blok) "The Nearness of a Big War," by A. P. Mertvago, appeared in 1911 (on Oct. 25, exactly six years before the Bolshevist coup d'etat took place), in the same year as Ardov's articles did. Blok mentions this article (but not the name of its author or that of the newspaper that he refers to as "one of the Moscow newspapers") in the Preface to his long poem "Retribution" (1910-1921). See also my article in Zembla (and in The Nabokovian #54, Spring 2005) "Blok's Dreams as Enacted in Ada by Van Veen and Vice Versa."

Alexey Sklyarenko
----- Original Message -----
From: Stan Kelly-Bootle
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2006 4:33 PM
Subject: Re: [NABOKV-L] R: [NABOKV-L] R: [NABOKV-L] abstruse commentaries, Ovid and Ardors


On 22/11/06 21:44, "Alexey Sklyarenko" <skylark05@MAIL.RU> wrote:

the newspaper Utro Rossii ("The Morning of Russia").



Alexey: even this apparently simple phrase reminds us of the translational challenges of Russian -> English:

1. The absence of overt definite/indefinite articles: "A morning" or "The morning?"
2. The potential ambiguity of direct and indirect predication: "of Russia," "Russia's" or simply "Russian."

skb
Search the Nabokv-L archive at UCSB

Contact the Editors

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.

Visit Zembla

View Nabokv-L Policies

Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm






Attachment