Практикум по художественному переводу

the Iliad in 1822: «У великих авторов форма не есть вещь произвольная, которую можно переменить, не вредя духу сочинения; связь их неразрывна, и искажение одного необходимо ведет за собою утрату другого. Древние греки писали экзаметром; вопрос, как их переводить, решен: обязанность сохранить в переводе сей классический размер»¹. One of the most prolific and brilliant translators Russia has pro­duced, Vasily Zhjukovsky, was quite certain about the principles of poetic translation: «Стихотворцев надлежит, по моему мнению, переводить стихами: прозаический перевод стихов всегда есть самый неверный и далекий от оригинала. Одна из главных прелестей поэзии состоит в гармонии; в прозе она или исчезает или не может быть передана тою гармониею, которая свойственна поэзии»². Considering a translator's "duties," Zhukovsky emphasized the impression that the translated text must produce on the reader: according to him, it had to be as close to that of the original as possible. The effect of similar if not identical harmony is a matter of not only the subject but also the form of the text or, rather, the unity of both.

When a translator is to translate a poem, he may put it into one of two main categories according to its form. One is so-called "free verse," or vers libre; the other is classically structured po­etry, that is, verse based on regular metre, rhyme and stanza pat­tern. However, it is evident that the impact a free verse poem's of on the reader differs greatly from that of traditional poetic harmony. It appeals to different points of perception: while a tra­ditional poem speaks more to the emotions, vers libre tends to appeal to the reason rather than to the heart. Vers libre has proper­ties of its own, which makes the reader seek other things in such a text than he would in a sonnet. Besides, vers libre itself requires sophisticated decisions and technigucs in translation.

If you start with a vers libre poem, it may seem easy to

¹ П. А. Катенин. Размышления и разборы, с. 188-189.

² В. А. Жуковский. О переводах вообще и в особенности о пере­
водах стихов / В. А. Жуковский. Эстетика и критика. - М.: Искусство,
1985, с. 283._______________________________________________________

22

Imagery in Translation

translate: just you need to put word after word in the proper order, as you do when translating any piece of prose. Since the turn of the 20th century English poetry (in Britain and USA) has pre­dominantly developed in the direction of vers libre, which means no rhyme, irregular number of syllables, and purely phrasal stresses. The only restriction is the comparatively short line. For some time, you feel at ease with such a task. However, gradually this feeling gives way to hopeless embarrassment: some lines be­come much shorter than the corresponding lines in the original, while others turn out much, much longer, stretched by the de­mands of the target language and/or your want of skills. For ex­ample, choosing the course of literal rendering, we try to trans­late something as easy as a few lines of a poem by Ellen Chances:

The touch of skin to skin. Cheek upon cheek, breath into breath, gaze into gaze.

The result is quick and disastrous:

Прикосновение кожи к коже. Щека к щеке, дыханье в дыханье, взгляд во взгляд.

What sounds natural and melodic in English has become stumbling, faltering and clumsy in Russian as a result of such literal "faithfulness." More than that, it has become senseless, for the sense of the poem is in its clarity. Let us try another way, then:

Прикосновение тела к телу. Единение щек, единенье дыханья,

единение взглядов.

_                                                                        —

Практикум по художественному переводу

In this version, the Russian lines have become longer, the syntactical and semantic structures different. Altogether, in such a version the Russian text sounds more natural and creates an image similar to that of the original. Is it a great sin of a transla­tor? Vladimir Nabokov in his essay The Art of Translation men­tioned three such mortal sins:

1. "obvious errors due to ignorance or misguided knowl­
edge"

2. "leaving out tricky passages"

3. "transforming the original formula according to his own
taste."

It is easy to guess that the first two sins "seem petty" in comparison with the third. Following Nabokov's advice, you may adopt a motto Do not try to improve the author being translated! Yet, you should not distort or forget anything either. This dichot­omy seems a deadlock until you find some narrow pass between the poles.

Thus even with vers libre one has to transform the original formula of the imaginary world, otherwise the poem would sound rotten in the target language, breaking the rules of good taste for the sake of primitive emotional perceptibility. The main matter of translating vers libre will be conveyed in syntax, though obey­ing the rules of euphony in the target language is also important (in our example, the [k-k] joints of the first variant simply kill any idea of a lyrical poem).

Much more complicated is the matter of translating a tradi­tionally structured poem. You must take into consideration not only the vast variety of metres, types of rhyme and forms of stan­za, not to mention the individuality of their combination in a par­ticular source poem, but also the highly probable difference in the way they function in the two languages. What a pure iambic pentameter can mean to English perception may not correspond to how and what it means to a Russian reader, and vice versa. Some translators lament the lack of rhyming resources in English

24

Imagery in Translation

when it comes to translating the strong, pure rhymes of, say, M delstam. Presumably, this is what makes James Greene, the tra lator of Mandelstam's poetry into English, modestly admit have mostly had to eschew rhyme (but not half-rhyme, intei rhymes or assonance)... total "faithfulness", were it possible the "same" metre, rhyme-scheme, pattern of sounds, numbei syllables, line-length, etc., etc. — would be an absurdity." Jus — an absurdity. To found your translation on this cornersto you will find it natural to use trochee instead of iambus, two i instead of four, and to change the number of lines. Moreoi since rhyme is merely a nuisance, away with it! Then, as it h pens, Anna Akhmatova turns from a solemn rhythmical and r lodic voice into clumsy, incomprehensible prose (in the eve literal translation by the diligent Judith Henschemeiyer). You n call it "adaptation", "version", "imitation", etc.

The Russian tradition of poetry translation has develoj the opposite point of view on how to represent English verse Russian. Its basic principles are solid (yet, surprisingly, qi achievable): since the instructions of Valery Bryusov and Nike Gumilyov, an English poem in Russian translation should m the three requirements: equivalent metre, rhyme and line patte Comparing this with the quotation from James Greene above,) can see the difference that lies in one particular term: instead the "same" we use the word "equivalent," which may not nee sarily be "the same" in body, but the same in function. In other words, of value is not formal but functional equivalen Anyhow, you cannot expect a valuable translation substitute fc poem when the body has three arms instead of two, and, prol bly, only one eye. What Bryusov called "the method of trans tion" is the selection by the translator of the most important f tures in the source poem, those that determine its system of im; ery; it may be the metric pattern or rhyme, alliteration or syntac structure, a key word or a stylistic device. The proper choice the method of translation allows the translator to reconstruct • most important components of the source poem in the target 1;