Due to a variety of factors, including my university's sudden surge in
its effort to terminate our Russian Major, I couldn't pull this
together in time. Well, and since in fact Nabokov was born on
April 22, I'm only one day later than everyone else.
Back in September, Douglas Hofstadter got interested in the "Onegin
stanza" that wraps up The Gift, and he began to communicate
with me and James Falen, author of an acclaimed translation of Onegin
and my emeritus colleague at the threatened Tennessee Russian program.
What DH noted was that the English version is not a perfectly formed
Onegin stanza, and in particular it departs from the masculine-feminine
rhyme pattern, and it also has a few departures from iambic meter. As
many list readers know, Hofstadter has a deep antipathy to VN, kindled
largely by the latter's rough treatment of Edmund Wilson and Onegin's
earlier translators into English. This antipathy is something I've
been debating with him in a good-spirited way for some years. In any
case, Hofstadter, Falen and Blackwell each produced a translation
preserving the m/f pattern (as the original Russian does). First,
Fyodor's paragraph/stanza in Russian and VN's English version, and then
the new translations, followed by a brief discussion.
Прощай
же, книга! Для видений
отсрочки смертной тоже нет.
С колен поднимется Евгений,
но удаляется поэт.
И всё же слух не может сразу
расстаться с музыкой, рассказу
дать замереть… судьба сама
ещё звенит, и для ума
внимательного нет границы
там, где поставил точку я:
продлённый призрак бытия
синеет за чертой страницы,
как завтрашние облака,
и не кончается строка.
Vladimir Nabokov:
Good-by, my book! Like mortal eyes,
Imagined ones must close some day.
Onegin from his knees will rise —
But his creator strolls away.
And yet the ear cannot right now
Part with the music and allow
The tale to fade; the chords of fate
Itself continue to vibrate;
And no obstruction for the sage
Exists where I have put The End:
The shadows of my world extend
Beyond the skyline of the page,
Blue as tomorrow’s morning haze —
Nor does this terminate the phrase.
James Falen:
Farewell, my book! Imagination
Must also close its eyes one day.
Onegin will remain on station,
While his creator strolls away.
But one still hears the music’s glory,
Reluctant to allow the story
To fade away… Fate’s living toll
Still sounds; and for the sentient soul
There are in life no final stages,
Not even where I’ve put The End:
The shadows of my world extend
Beyond the skyline of the pages,
As blue as morning clouds portend,
And so the lines will never end.
Stephen Blackwell:
Farewell then, book; for even figments
their mortal end cannot postpone.
Eugene will rise with ashen pigment,
His poet calmly leaves, alone.
And still the ear evades decision
to quell the tune, or make the vision
go dead… just so a fate unseen
reverberates, and for a keen
and probing mind there is no boundary
there, where I put a little dot:
the straining ghost of being’s plot
shows blue beyond the page’s foundry,
like clouds beyond tomorrow’s bend—
the crafted line will never end.
Douglas Hofstadter:
Farewell, my book! Imagination
Must meet its death, just as must we.
Eugene stays trapped within his station,
While Pushkin sallies forth, scot-free.
And yet we cannot bear to shut off
Our story, hate the sudden cut-off
Of music’s chords… But fate lives on
(Despite that last full stop I’ve drawn),
For any keen and sharp observer.
Beyond the borders of the page,
My art flows on, unbound by age,
Without a limit to its fervor,
All blue, like clouds, tomorrow’s crop…
And this last line will never stop.
Why did Nabokov not make his own translation keep to masculine and
feminine rhymes? In 1955, he had published two Onegin stanzas with a
perfect m/f pattern. But those were not translations--they were about
translation: "On Translating 'Eugene Onegin' " (Poems and Problems, 175).
So the fact that Nabokov recognized that m/f alternation was not a
prominent part of English prosody cannot be the main factor: he was
happy to use it when he wished. Since Fyodor's Russian sonnet keeps
the m/f pattern, we can't say that the translation is attempting to
bring some of Fyodor's metrical flaws into English.
So why was he satisfied with a translation
that was a less-than-perfect mimicry of the Onegin stanza and the
prosody of the original Russian version? It is an interesting, ironic
situation: it was 1962, when Nabokov had just finished preparing his
literalist translation theory in his EO translation and
commentary, which
he had worked on for a decade, and suddenly he was faced with the need
to produce a translation of his own Onegin-style stanza! He
probably did not foresee that self-set booby-trap when he launched into
his EO work, but surely he noticed it when he had to translate
that
paragraph. Was he to make a literal translation sacrificing rhyme and
meter, as his newfound ideology required, and thus lose entirely the
recognizable poetic form of the Onegin stanza? or was he to create a
perfect Onegin stanza, so that it would be immediately recognizable,
but in flagrant violation of his own loudly proclaimed principles? My
guess, and it's only a guess, is that he decided that his best option
was to produce a recognizable stanza that almost followed the
rules, but also to deviate enough that he could claim, if necessary,
that he was subjugating form to meaning in the translated verse. Or,
perhaps, he just figured that the m/f alternation was much less
important than catching the meanings he wanted along with most of
the Onegin stanza structure.
Whatever the truth, I'm grateful to Doug for raising this fascinating
question, and to both him and Jim Falen for allowing their translations
to appear on NABOKV-L for the anniversary. They both asked that I send
along their birthday greetings!
Stephen Blackwell