Pride and Prejudice opening sentence in Russian

[Rutsala, Kirsten M.]

Since no one else has pointed out the error in the original post, the first line of the novel actually reads as follows:  "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."  The use of the word "want" rather than "need" adds something to the text, in terms of meaning and nuance, as well as cadence and alliteration.



Kirsten Rutsala
Assistant Professor of Russian
Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
University of Oklahoma
206 Kaufman Hall
780 Van Vleet Oval
Norman, OK 73019
(405) 325-1393
________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of Alina Israeli [aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU]
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2013 9:24 AM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Pride and Prejudice opening sentence in Russian


I am accepting Michele's challenge.

First, the English phrase has a cadence:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged,
that a single man in possession of a good fortune
must be in need of a wife.”

So I propose something along the lines of the following to preserve it:

Следует признать повсеместно признанным,
что холостой мужчина с приличным состоянием
очевидно нуждается в жене.

Alina

On Sep 12, 2013, at 9:48 AM, Michele A Berdy wrote:

I do hope some of our native Russian speakers and translators will chime in
here. Word order in sentences is such a tricky business. It's possible that
flipping the order as Gurova has done creates something closer to the effect
of the original. Maintaining the word order might make it flat and almost
bureaucratic. But I'm just guessing -- we need an expert opinion or two!


Alina Israeli
Associate Professor of Russian
WLC, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington DC 20016
(202) 885-2387  fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu<mailto:aisrael at american.edu>





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