Subject
Re: Fiennes' Onegin (fwd)
Date
Body
> From: Peter Kartsev <petr@glas.apc.org>
>
> would-be translators. The comparison of these enthusiastic efforts with
> Nabokov's literal text can be a source of many a happy chuckle. Highly
> recommended, and even more enjoyable than comparing Pasternak's
> Shakespeare to the original.
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.
> But seriously, and obviously, Nabokov's translation gives a non-speaker
> of Russian (the one who can't be bothered to master the alphabet) his
> only chance to know what Pushkin actually wrote.
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,
mellon@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/
"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton
>
> would-be translators. The comparison of these enthusiastic efforts with
> Nabokov's literal text can be a source of many a happy chuckle. Highly
> recommended, and even more enjoyable than comparing Pasternak's
> Shakespeare to the original.
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.
> But seriously, and obviously, Nabokov's translation gives a non-speaker
> of Russian (the one who can't be bothered to master the alphabet) his
> only chance to know what Pushkin actually wrote.
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,
mellon@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/
"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton