Of trees and gender (and cabbages and kings)

[David Powelstock]

Interestingly, Lermontov's translation of the same Heine poem opts for two
feminine nouns, "sosna" i "pal'ma," thereby stripping it of its rather
pedestrian romantic allegory. I have argued that this represents a step
beyond the kind of naïve autobiographical self-expressionism characteristic
of Lermontov's earlier works in generalizing longing as an existential
condition, rather than a sexual cliché. He simultaneously shifts the focus
from *kto kogo* to empathy. He maintains the greater geographical separation
of the original. In the Lermontov piece, "north" and "east" are explicit,
thus drawing on the established imaginitive geography so well established in
Russia by that time, without reducing it to, well, again, *kto kogo*. P. Iu.
Danilevskii has identified the theme of Lermontov's version as the "tragic
insurmountability of isolation, despite the general similarity of [the two
subjects'] fates." Just because a poem has trees in it doesn't mean it *has*
to be about sex. If there is a gender issue for Lermontov at this stage of
his career, and in this poem, it is his attribution to the female of empathy
and vulnerability, both qualities, btw, that were also a part of Lermontov's
own lyric persona.

Cheers,
David


David Powelstock 
Asst. Prof. of Russian & East European Literatures 
Chair, Program in Russian & East European Studies 
Brandeis University 
GRALL, MS 024 
Waltham, MA  02454-9110 
781.736.3347 (Office) 


-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 2:35 AM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] AATSEEL 2007

4 April 07

Dear colleagues,
This call for papers on a very interesting topic reminded me of lectures
Roman Jakobson gave at Brown University (this would have been in 1968 or
1969, if memory serves). Professor Jakobson expressed admiration for
Tiutchev's translation of Heine's poem "Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam," 
where the gender opposition of "Ein Fichtenbaum" (masculine) to "Die Palme"
(feminine) is maintained by use of "kedr" vs. "pal'ma" in the translation
(it somehow would not have been appropriate for a grammatically feminine
"el'" or "sosna" to be longing for a grammatically feminine "pal'ma," he
said, even though "el'" or "sosna" 
would have been literally more accurate). Looking into the matter further, I
found that this example goes back to the work of philologist Aleksandr
(Oleksandr) Potebnia (IZ ZAPISOK PO TEORII SLOVESNOSTI,
Khar'kov: 1905, p. 69), and that there is a long tradition of citing Russian
translations of Heine's poem to illustrate the semantic importance of
grammatical gender in poetry (Veselovskii, Grigor'ev, Shcherba, and others).
See my "Potebnja, Shklovskij, and the Familiarity/Strangeness Paradox,"
RUSSIAN LITERATURE 4 (1976, 175-198).

And what IF a "sosna" should long for a "pal'ma?" Nowadays that is something
we can talk about openly.

Regards to the list,

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
UC Davis


mrojavi1 at SWARTHMORE.EDU wrote:

>Dear ALL,
>
>I'm organizing a panel for AATSEEL 2007 in Chicago (Dec. 27-
>30) entitled  “Grammatical gender as a source of metaphorical 
>thinking.”
>
>
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