gender in translation

[Shafarenko, Alex]

I wonder when the "nowadays" in John's message below started. It certainly was not difficult for Betjeman and Larkin to write serious rhymed poetry, and they are
not 19th century light verse practitioners, to say nothing of Frost and Auden, so perhaps  there was a precipitous death of rhymed verse in English around the 1980s --
after centuries of achievement. As Tim Steele aptly said somewhere,  Departments of English turned towards free verse and critics followed. As a result versification skills
waned. At the same time, the deluge of idiotic rhymed incantations in TV adverts created the impression in peoples' minds that the only place for rhyme (as well as metre,
which followed suit) is among that gibberish. "Serious" poets had to be writing verse libre. Well, to blame the instrument for the decadence of its users is as productive
as it is to accuse the violin of the inability to articulate jazz. It is able and innocent. It's them who are neither.

By contrast, Russian poetry stayed the course (while not eschewing free verse where it is potent and called for artistically). It is especially sad that "modern" translators of
Russian poetry take it as given that such translation must be into English free verse...

Inventiveness with the language is a lot more required in poetry than it is in prose. Gender modification is only one interesting example.

Alex Shafarenko
________________________________________
From: John Dunn [j.dunn at SLAVONIC.ARTS.GLA.AC.UK]
Sent: 29 July 2010 15:50
Subject: Re: gender in translation

There is, I would imagine, a thesis to be written comparing the humorous use of linguistic and paralinguistic devices in English and Russian.   It strikes me that in English word-play tends to be an end in itself, and I am not sure whether that is true to the same extent in Russian.

As for rhyme, I tend to think that the English-language light verse tradition, including such 19th-century practitioners as Thomas Hood (with his fondness for punning rhymes) and W.S. Gilbert, has a lot to answer for.  It is difficult nowadays to use rhyme in English for anything other than humorous effect, which is why I have serious reservations about rhymed translations of Russian poetry.

John Dunn.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------