Subject
Re: Translation (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Peter Kartsev <petr@glas.apc.org>
-----------------
Message requiring your approval (83 lines)
------------------
> Secondly, although
I have read N's EO with great delight, I am still > sure that what I read
did not actually convey to me what Pushkin actually > wrote: the
experience cannot have even distantly approached the experience of >
reading the original. In fact, my feeling was that the magic had been >
murdered in the dissection, though dissection may be a necessary
preliminary > to scientific enquiry. Third, I hope it is not being
suggested that speaking > or understanding Russian is merely a question of
mastering the alphabet? > > N's famous division of translation into three
kinds, lexical, literal and > paraphrastic, has proved memorably useful,
to me at any rate. But what is all > interpretation, all communication in
fact, if not paraphrase? The same thing, > in other words? What are the
volumes of, say, Shakespeare "interpretation" if > not a form of
paraphrastic translation? Some poetic works, it seems to me, > including
those of Pushkin, are obdurately untranslatable. Another case in > point
is that of the Swedish poet Bellman, whose 18th century lyrics uniquely >
embody the soul of the language, and cannot well be reproduced in English.
> There is a mystery at the bottom of this, and its solution is not in
sight.
> Charles Harrison Wallace --------------------- Mr. Wallace, our views on
translation are much more similar than I thought at first. I never meant
that VN offers the English reader the complete experience of reading
Pushkin in the original. But his translation is, at the very least,
useful, because it conveys the exact sense of what Pushkin said if not the
actual form of the original. On the other hand, the poetic translations of
EO convey absolutely nothing beyond the varying ability of their
respective authors to paraphrase, para-maim and para-murder.
The suggestion that reading Russian classics is merely a matter of
mastering the alphabet is not exactly mine. I was alluding to a certain
passage in chapter 1, I think, of "Pnin".
I can almost agree with your last paragraph, except that I think all works
of literature are untranslatable. The few exceptions only serve to prove
the rule and, as VN noted somewhere, border on the miraculous.
-------------------------
> What a pity, then, that no brave soul has volunteered to produce the
> exact, literal, ugly, and unreadable _podstrochnik_ (literal translation)
> of Shakespeare in Russian, akin to Nabokov's _podstrochnik_ of Pushkin!
> Surely, *this* is what we've been missing all along, choked by the
> unbearably rhyming sonnets as rendered by Marshak, or unbearably
> metrical and flowing Hamlet as rendered by Lozinsky or Pasternak!
> All the educated Russians will flock to that ugly literal edition of
> Shakespeare at once and will start comparing it to the treacherous
> and dishonest previous translations with many a happy chuckle. We'll
> even sacrifice the treacherous (and fortunately scarce) non-literal
> translations of Shakespeare by Nabokov.
>
> What Pushkin actually wrote is a novel in verse, *in Russian*. The only
> way to know what he wrote is to read it, *in Russian*. To believe that
> *any* translation, "literal" or otherwise, could reproduce the work
> in a very different language really faithfully, is silly and naive. To
> dismiss poetic translations for being unable to do that is to attack a
> strawman. To claim that a literal translation faithfully reproduces
> a work of poetry (as opposed to a housing contract) is to betray
> astonishing naiveness.
>
> Anatoly Vorobey
>
Mr. Vorobey, I believe that educated Russians are currently flocking to
read Sorokin and Pelevin, which goes a long way towards making their
flocking habits largely irrelevant. Marshak's translations are excellent
on their own, and his Burns may well be better than Burns' Burns.
Pasternak's Shakespeare, however, is pitiful.
I was never so silly or naive as to claim that a literal translation
faithfully reproduces anything. Perhaps you should have read my words more
carefully. And I dismiss poetic translations not so much for being
unfaithful to the original, but rather for being presumptuous. When
Nabokov translates Tyutchev, the authorship of the resulting gem is a
matter for argument; but when Arndt or another non-entity translates
"Onegin", it is ludicrous to ascribe the result to Pushkin.
Incidentally, if you agree that a poetic translation is by definition
unfaithful to the original, then what, exactly, is its purpose?
Peter.
Peter Kartsev
petr@glas.apc.org
-----------------
Message requiring your approval (83 lines)
------------------
> Secondly, although
I have read N's EO with great delight, I am still > sure that what I read
did not actually convey to me what Pushkin actually > wrote: the
experience cannot have even distantly approached the experience of >
reading the original. In fact, my feeling was that the magic had been >
murdered in the dissection, though dissection may be a necessary
preliminary > to scientific enquiry. Third, I hope it is not being
suggested that speaking > or understanding Russian is merely a question of
mastering the alphabet? > > N's famous division of translation into three
kinds, lexical, literal and > paraphrastic, has proved memorably useful,
to me at any rate. But what is all > interpretation, all communication in
fact, if not paraphrase? The same thing, > in other words? What are the
volumes of, say, Shakespeare "interpretation" if > not a form of
paraphrastic translation? Some poetic works, it seems to me, > including
those of Pushkin, are obdurately untranslatable. Another case in > point
is that of the Swedish poet Bellman, whose 18th century lyrics uniquely >
embody the soul of the language, and cannot well be reproduced in English.
> There is a mystery at the bottom of this, and its solution is not in
sight.
> Charles Harrison Wallace --------------------- Mr. Wallace, our views on
translation are much more similar than I thought at first. I never meant
that VN offers the English reader the complete experience of reading
Pushkin in the original. But his translation is, at the very least,
useful, because it conveys the exact sense of what Pushkin said if not the
actual form of the original. On the other hand, the poetic translations of
EO convey absolutely nothing beyond the varying ability of their
respective authors to paraphrase, para-maim and para-murder.
The suggestion that reading Russian classics is merely a matter of
mastering the alphabet is not exactly mine. I was alluding to a certain
passage in chapter 1, I think, of "Pnin".
I can almost agree with your last paragraph, except that I think all works
of literature are untranslatable. The few exceptions only serve to prove
the rule and, as VN noted somewhere, border on the miraculous.
-------------------------
> What a pity, then, that no brave soul has volunteered to produce the
> exact, literal, ugly, and unreadable _podstrochnik_ (literal translation)
> of Shakespeare in Russian, akin to Nabokov's _podstrochnik_ of Pushkin!
> Surely, *this* is what we've been missing all along, choked by the
> unbearably rhyming sonnets as rendered by Marshak, or unbearably
> metrical and flowing Hamlet as rendered by Lozinsky or Pasternak!
> All the educated Russians will flock to that ugly literal edition of
> Shakespeare at once and will start comparing it to the treacherous
> and dishonest previous translations with many a happy chuckle. We'll
> even sacrifice the treacherous (and fortunately scarce) non-literal
> translations of Shakespeare by Nabokov.
>
> What Pushkin actually wrote is a novel in verse, *in Russian*. The only
> way to know what he wrote is to read it, *in Russian*. To believe that
> *any* translation, "literal" or otherwise, could reproduce the work
> in a very different language really faithfully, is silly and naive. To
> dismiss poetic translations for being unable to do that is to attack a
> strawman. To claim that a literal translation faithfully reproduces
> a work of poetry (as opposed to a housing contract) is to betray
> astonishing naiveness.
>
> Anatoly Vorobey
>
Mr. Vorobey, I believe that educated Russians are currently flocking to
read Sorokin and Pelevin, which goes a long way towards making their
flocking habits largely irrelevant. Marshak's translations are excellent
on their own, and his Burns may well be better than Burns' Burns.
Pasternak's Shakespeare, however, is pitiful.
I was never so silly or naive as to claim that a literal translation
faithfully reproduces anything. Perhaps you should have read my words more
carefully. And I dismiss poetic translations not so much for being
unfaithful to the original, but rather for being presumptuous. When
Nabokov translates Tyutchev, the authorship of the resulting gem is a
matter for argument; but when Arndt or another non-entity translates
"Onegin", it is ludicrous to ascribe the result to Pushkin.
Incidentally, if you agree that a poetic translation is by definition
unfaithful to the original, then what, exactly, is its purpose?
Peter.
Peter Kartsev
petr@glas.apc.org