Nabokov on Pushkin, and related snippets:
http://matsnews.blogspot.com.br/2010/06/poems-about-translation-6-nabokov-on.htmlJust
saw that the Rossica Young Translators' Prize for translation from Russian to
English was recently awarded to Leo Shtutin. The texts translated by this year's
entrants are here. It's a great initiative (though I found the website a bit
frustratingly designed) and let's wish it much success in promoting translation
from Russian.
It seemed like a good moment to look up Nabokov's ironic
poem about translating Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. The first four lines of this
poem are so well known that I had forgotten it didn't stop there:
On
Translating Eugene Onegin
1
What is translation? On a platter
A
poet's pale and glaring head,
A parrot's screech, a monkey's chatter,
And
profanation of the dead.
The parasites you were so hard on
Are pardoned if
I have your pardon,
O, Pushkin, for my stratagem:
I traveled down your
secret stem,
And reached the root, and fed upon it;
Then, in a language
newly learned,
I grew another stalk and turned
Your stanza patterned on a
sonnet,
Into my honest roadside prose--
All thorn, but cousin to your
rose.
2
Reflected words can only shiver
Like elongated lights that
twist
In the black mirror of a river
Between the city and the
mist.
Elusive Pushkin! Persevering,
I still pick up Tatiana's
earring,
Still travel with your sullen rake.
I find another man's
mistake,
I analyze alliterations
That grace your feasts and haunt the
great
Fourth stanza of your Canto Eight.
This is my task--a poet's
patience
And scholastic passion blent:
Dove-droppings on your
monument.
For another opinionated discussion on whether poetry
translation is possible,
see this
recent conversation Ilya Kaminsky
and Adam Kirsch on the Poetry Foundation website.
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