Subject
Re: Translation (fwd)
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Mr. Vorobey, I am afraid that we are going in circles around a few
obvious points that we almost agree on. You agree that a poetic
translation is unfaithful to the original; I simply follow this to the
logical conclusion and say that poetic translations are thus
pointless... unless they are done by a writer of equal or greater
genius, in which case they almost always result in a new work (like
Marshak's Burns).
I am sorry to say that I do not believe in your theory of progressively
improving translations (although a Borgesian future in which we shall
have the ideally exact, metric, rhyming and flowing English "Onegin", is
tempting to envisage!)
And finally, yes, if I'd had the misfortune not to read English, I would
have preferred a podstrochnik of Shakespeare, had I wanted to study his
plays.
Peter.