Translations of Pushkin, Tolstoy?

[Russell Valentino]

Well, I did say it reminded me of it, David, not that it was it. Of course I
saw you weren't criticizing the whole thing, which is why I prefaced by saying
I liked your very concrete solution. I think you're absolutely right that
spleen is still the best choice (despite all the other solutions suggested so
far). And I agree with you that appealing to the difficulty of translating into
Onegin stanzas isn't satisfying at all. Falen's translation is successful
partly because he makes it seem easy a la Pushkin.

But I can't agree with your characterization of soul as a translation error:
the term is too amorphous, too much of a catch all for that. It may emphasize
things in English that have come to signify differently from what P.'s text
meant for contemporaries or what P. intended at the moment of inspiration. But
by the way I've just expressed this, isn't it clear that it is a complex issue,
filled with literary historical nuance and dependent on linguistic-cultural
change in two languages and literary poetic traditions? (Spleen is still the
best choice.) I suspect we could find other key words of a similar sort in
Falen's text that would make us pause and think more carefully about
the "original." This is one of the major benefits of comparative translation,
it seems to me.

A side note: the fact that Nabokov's text is not helpful in this regard is not
surprising at all. Though he does not present it in such terms, his "pony" is
actually a modernist exercise in ostranenie, a filter of sorts that readers are
supposed to try and read "through" with effort and attention. It does violence
to the original (in English) with the aim of getting readers to see Pushkin's
work with new eyes.

IMO.

Russell

Quoting David Powelstock <pstock at BRANDEIS.EDU>:

> Russell's anecdote is amusing, but Weinberger's pitiless critic is beside
> the point in this discussion.  No one has disparaged Falen's translation as
> whole.  On the contrary, it has been commended in this thread, except for
> this one unfortunate moment.  In her original post, Laura simply said that
> she would warn her students in advance of this error, since can easily lead
> to mistaken inferences and, in her experience, already had.  I took her to
> mean that it gives students the utterly mistaken idea that Evgeny's
> condition was somehow emblematic of the "Russian soul," a term with an
> entire history of its own.  (Did I understand you correctly, Laura?)
> Translators have enough natural predators without fabricating strawmen.
>
> Cheers,
> David
> (Powelstock)
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
> > [mailto:SEELANGS at listserv.cuny.edu] On Behalf Of Russell Valentino
> > Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 2:05 PM
> > To: SEELANGS at listserv.cuny.edu
> > Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Translations of Pushkin, Tolstoy?
> >
> > David Powelstock's suggestion is constructive. I especially
> > appreciate the workable solution: spleen is clearly better.
> > But this discussion has reminded me of a comment by Eliot
> > Weinberger. Forgive me for quoting a slightly large
> > snippet:
> >
> > "And yet translations ... are often dismissed on the basis of
> > a single word, usually by members of foreign language
> > departments, known in the trade as the 'translation police.'
> > They are the ones who write- to take an actual example- that
> > a certain immensely prolific translator from the German
> > 'simply does not know German' because somewhere in the
> > vastness of Buddenbrooks, he had translated a 'chesterfield'
> > as a 'greatcoat.' Such examples, as any translator can tell
> > you, are more the rule than the exception. One can only
> > imagine if writers were reviewed in the same way: 'the use of
> > the word "incarnadine" on page 349 proves the utter
> > mediocrity of this book.'"
> >
> > The whole (entertaining and informative) piece is here:
> > http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp/91st/vol1_n1/vol1_n1AUTH_WEINBERGER.
> html. Or go to 91st Meridian (http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp/91st/) > and click
> on issue number one.
> >
> > Russell
> >
> > Quoting David Powelstock <pstock at BRANDEIS.EDU>:
> >
> > > The problem with Falen's translation of "russkaia khandra"
> > as "Russian soul"
> > > is that it suggests that Evgeny's particular spiritual condition is
> > > the equivalent of the Russian soul in general.[...] Do we
> > really think
> > > that
> > Pushkin considered Evgeny the emblem of "russkaia dusha"?
> > That would be a hard argument to make.  Thus, "Russian soul"
> > is a bad translation error.  It distorts Pushkin's attitude
> > toward Evgeny and Russia, and it is semantically and
> > historically inaccurate. "Russian spleen" would work better,
> > and it wouldn't be difficult to rhyme.
> > >
> > > David Powelstock

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