Subject
Re: Translation: Better Burns (fwd)
Date
Body
> From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
>
> Peter Kartsev wrote: "[Marshak's] Burns may well be better than Burns'
> Burns."
>
> And, as we all know, "To be or not to be" sounds even better in German!
> Peter, you must have written this in jest! If Marshak's Burns is "better
> than Burns' Burns," the final product is obviously no Burns at all! I tend
> to agree with both VN and Peter Kartsev that poetry is pretty much
> untranslatable -- but, in my book, trying to "improve" the poet in
> translation according to the translator's sense of "good" poetry is
> an even greater sin (because it involves such chutzpah!) than humanly
> falling short of perfection in trying to keep the precise nature and
> unique individuality of the original.
-------------------
From Peter Kartsev:
But Marshak wasn't trying to improve Burns. His translation is quite
exact, actually. You can't accuse him of traducing Burns just because
his version is better known in Russian than Burns' verse in English
(Jack London's novels are better known in Russian too, so what - their
translators improved them?). This may be due to dozens of other reasons -
not the least being that Burns' English isn't quite standard English,
with its "Gin a body meet a body" and "Need the warld ken?". Burns'
verse sounds archaic or dialectic to a modern ear and Marshak's is in
modern, flowing Russian. Does it mean that Marshak's verse has nothing
to do with Burns? Do you think that when translating Chaucer to Russian,
one should use comparable old Slavic archaisms? _That_ would be absurd,
wouldn't it?
I'm saddened that people confuse the obviously true "poetry cannot
be translated perfectly" with the extreme and absurd "poetry is
untranslatable". Scores of great poems that are read in translation,
all the way from the Iliad, and shape personalities and tastes, are a
living, and majestic, proof that poetry *is* translatable. Why subscribe
to this naive extremism?
--
Anatoly Vorobey,
mellon@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/
"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton
>
> Peter Kartsev wrote: "[Marshak's] Burns may well be better than Burns'
> Burns."
>
> And, as we all know, "To be or not to be" sounds even better in German!
> Peter, you must have written this in jest! If Marshak's Burns is "better
> than Burns' Burns," the final product is obviously no Burns at all! I tend
> to agree with both VN and Peter Kartsev that poetry is pretty much
> untranslatable -- but, in my book, trying to "improve" the poet in
> translation according to the translator's sense of "good" poetry is
> an even greater sin (because it involves such chutzpah!) than humanly
> falling short of perfection in trying to keep the precise nature and
> unique individuality of the original.
-------------------
From Peter Kartsev:
But Marshak wasn't trying to improve Burns. His translation is quite
exact, actually. You can't accuse him of traducing Burns just because
his version is better known in Russian than Burns' verse in English
(Jack London's novels are better known in Russian too, so what - their
translators improved them?). This may be due to dozens of other reasons -
not the least being that Burns' English isn't quite standard English,
with its "Gin a body meet a body" and "Need the warld ken?". Burns'
verse sounds archaic or dialectic to a modern ear and Marshak's is in
modern, flowing Russian. Does it mean that Marshak's verse has nothing
to do with Burns? Do you think that when translating Chaucer to Russian,
one should use comparable old Slavic archaisms? _That_ would be absurd,
wouldn't it?
I'm saddened that people confuse the obviously true "poetry cannot
be translated perfectly" with the extreme and absurd "poetry is
untranslatable". Scores of great poems that are read in translation,
all the way from the Iliad, and shape personalities and tastes, are a
living, and majestic, proof that poetry *is* translatable. Why subscribe
to this naive extremism?
--
Anatoly Vorobey,
mellon@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/
"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton