Post-Scriptum on Dawn's left hand...
Cf. long postings on Nabokov-L, 29
Sept.2007. Excerpts:
JM...:Borges praises FitzGerald's
translation of Khayyám, for example, by his having added the word "left" to
obtain a delicate and forebodingly "sinister" effect: "Dreaming when dawn's left
hand was in the sky/ I heard a voice within the tavern
cry..."
S.K-B: ...As you hint, seeking 'precision' is
problematical when the original is deliberately 'unprecise' playful, or
ambiguous, as is the case with what we call 'poetry.' [...] VN was
uniquely placed to tackle the 'translation' challenge; his essays on the subject
have the edge over Borges' lectures (useful though they are) clinched by VN's
towering achievements with Alice (into Russian) and (over-toweringly) with
Onegin (into English). Here we have a writer close to Pushkin's creative genius
equally 'fluent' in English and Pushkinese (to coin an ugly term for what was
then almost a rebirth of the Russian language). Whether we call it 'translation'
or 'literal recreation,' the aim of VN's Onegin is to provide the non-Slavophone
with as close an insight as possible to the original without pretending that all
the glorious nuances can be captured. I'm tempted to call it 'extreme
rendition,' but I gather that that phrase has been co-opted by the
military...