Some Notes on the Translation of Poetry

Author(s): Waclaw Lednicki

Source: The American Slavic and East European Review, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Dec., 1952), pp. 304-
311
Published by: Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies; Cambridge
University Press
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 SOME NOTES ON THE TRANSLATION
OF POETRY
WACLAW LEDNICKI

RECEIPT FROM AUSTRALIA of a volume of new translations

kin's lyrics' suggests some observations on the problems of trans-
lating poetry. Mr. Morrison, the author of the book, begins his
prefatory note by quoting one of the wise and charming remarks
of Don Quixote: "Translation from one language into another . . .
is like looking at Flemish tapestries on the wrong side; for though
the figures are visible, they are full of threads that make them
indistinct, and they do not show with the smoothness and bright-
ness of the right side." I think that Mr. Morrison had a good idea
in protecting himself with Don Quixote's Flemish tapestry. Tradut-
tore-traditore is an old slogan. It is a known fact that there is
nothing more difficult than a poetic translation. Leibniz went even
farther; he maintained that in general it is impossible for one lan-
guage to reproduce another with equal force and adequate expres-
sion. Very close to this idealistic conception of language is Croce in
his A esthetics,2 based on the absolute unity of form and content.
For Croce a piece of art is a synthesis a priori in which the content
has been embraced by form, and the form filled by content; in
which an emotion is always expressed by image, and the image is
always felt; in which the idea always flows from intuition, finding
its final and unique expression in words which awaken our organ-
ism and excite our muscles and senses. A piece of art representing
an intuitive perception is impossible to translate. It will have either
a new expression or a new content. In conclusion Croce utilizes
the old parable, likening translations to women: they are either
faithful and ugly, or beautiful and unfaithful. Borowy in his excel-
lent study, "Boy as a Translator,"3 justly makes several reservations
to these statements of Croce: "Being impossible in an absolute sense,
translations are relatively possible, a fact which Croce himself
admits." It would, of course, be difficult to deny the usefulness of
translations and the great achievements they have made from the
cultural and aesthetic point of view. Suffice it to mention Baudelaire,
Fitzgerald and Boy, who, one may say without greatly exaggerat-
ing, brilliantly translated almost the whole of classic French lit-
erature into Polish-both poetry and prose, beginning with such

' R. H. Morrison, Lyrics from Pushkin (Melbourne, 1951), V + 32 pp.

2Benedetto Croce, Breviaire d'estlzetique (Paris, 1923); see also my monograph
on Pushkin's "Bronze Horseman": Jezdziec Miedziany A. Puszkina, Przeklad J.
Tuwima, Studium W. Lednickiego (Warsaw, I932), p. 34.
3Przeglqd Warszawski, II, No. 7 (192I), pp. 33-34.

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 Some Notes on the Translation of Poetry 305

writers as Rabelais, Montaigne, Racine, and ending with modem

French writers.
As indispensable as they are, artistic translations are always an
extremely difficult enterprise. In the majority of cases, poetic trans-
lations are coffins without any hope for the miracle of resurrection
-often prose translations of poetic texts are no better, although,
at least, they are less presumptuous. I dare say that in some instances
translations are impossible. I have in mind not only the existence
of essential differences between languages. After all, to follow J. M.
Rozwadowski's brilliant and deep speculations in the field of the
philosophy of language, each language represents centuries of tragic
efforts on the part of human beings to find an adequate expression
for their feelings and thoughts about the universe. Indeed, every
great language is a unique mirror of the landscape, of the air, of
the sky-of all the natural, and historical, surroundings in which
it has developed. When we are forced to use several languages our
thought becomes less poetic-as the clarity of vision granted to us
by our own words is dissolved.
The French language with its abstractness displays a power of
syntax and phrasing under which words continually develop and
enrich their semantics. The Slavic languages with their metaphorical
character created a lexical richness. The wealth of English meta-
phors connected with the sea results from the unique character in
which British civilization has developed. Racine, one of the greatest
French poets, used an astonishingly small number of words; and
Pushkin, who praised Racine enormously, stresses the fact that
Racine's greatness is "based on his verses, full of sense, preciseness
and harmony! "4 The same Pushkin insists that "there is no more
difficult and thankless task than to render Russian poems into
French"; and this presumably because of the "compactness of the
Russian language-one cannot be sufficiently brief."5 This state-
ment might rather astonish anyone who knows Russian and French.
My distinguished and learned young colleague, Professor Yakov
Malkiel, suggested to me when I quoted Pushkin's statement to
him that the Russian poet probably had in mind the brevity
achieved through declensions and aspects. And K. Cukovskij op-
poses English "compactness" to Russian "diffuseness""!
4 Pushkin's letter to L. S. Pushkin, beginning January, I 824, from Odessa.
' His letter to Prince N. B. Golicyn, November io, i836, from Petersburg.
6 K. iukovskij, Vysokoe Iskzusstvo (Moscow, i941), p. I07. Compare also
siskov's remarks about the "poverty" of the French language: "The French,
because of the poverty of their language, use the word taste everywhere; for
them it is applicable to everything: to food, to clothes, to poetry, to shoes, to
music, to sciences, and to love." See Professor V. V. Vinogradov, Ocerki po
istorii russkogo literaturnogo jazyka XVII-XIX vv. (Leiden, 1949), p. i6o.

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 306 The American Slavic and East European Review
No less important are cases of individual exclusiveness. How, for
instance, can one translate Paul Valery? I know that there are
English, Spanish, German, Polish (and probably other), translations
not only of his prose but also his poems, even translations of
Cimetiere marin (his most difficult poem). However, I would still
consider him an untranslatable poet. A man whose mathematical
search for clarity, precision, and purity led him to create a language
which should be personal and at the same time universal and pure
cannot be transferred into a foreign medium. Valery's poetry is a
debate between thought and language; his constant use of anaco-
luthons, parentheses, italics, and quotation marks,7 his acrobatic
play with multiple meanings, create a poetry with a continuous
display of hazy intellectual suggestions. His "evocatory sorcery"
is inimitable. Indeed, how is it possible to translate a man who
writes the following:

Dans le tres beau style, la phrase se dessine-'intention se devine-

les choses demeurent spirituelles.
En quelque sorte, la parole demeure pure comme la lumiere quoi
qu'elle traverse et touche. Elle laisse des ombres calculables. Elle ne se
perd pas dans les couleurs qu'elle provoque.8

I think that Paul Zifferer is right in saying that "no virtuosity in

foreign language would ever suffice to explain Valery's haughty
enigma," the more so that even "his own language is not always
an absolutely sure key."9
Another example could also illustrate these vicissitudes of trans-
lation: Slowacki. It would be a vain effort to try to reproduce the
unique harmony of musicalness, imagery, emotion, and thought
characterizing some of his works which one has indeed the right
to classify as "pure poetry," to use Abbe Bremond's term. Espe-
cially challenging are the daring effects of his baroque style. In
other words, each line in this poetry is an unrepeatable poetic
formula. In Slowacki's case, moreover, we witness such a brilliant
mastery of the native language, that it is absolutely impossible to
achieve equal results in any other language.
Pushkin is a very similar example, but for slightly different rea-
sons. His is not a "haughty enigma." But he is also a "pure poet,"
a poet par excellence, "only a poet" as Vladimir Solov'ev justly
stated in emphasizing the quintessence of this great phenomenon.
7 Marcel Raymond, Paul Vale'ry, etc. (Paris, 1946), p. 69.
8Paul Val6ry, Tel Quel (Paris, '94'), p. 158.
9 Hommage des ecrivains 6trangers a Paul Vale'ry (Maestricht, 1927), p. 78.

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 Some Notes on the Transiation of Poetry 307

(One, of course, cannot forget the remarkableness of Pushkin's

intelligence.) The main difficulty with Pushkin lies in his simplicity,
sobriety, and his unique talent of choosing the right word. He
does not play with the language as does Slowacki; he does not
display fireworks; nor does he create effervescent or scintillating
cascades and rainbows of words, or luminous edifices. Each poem
of Pushkin, especially his short lyrics (Mr. Morrison's selection
consists only of them), is not only simple and sober, but modest.
When one reads these poems in Russian, one feels caressed by the
touch of Pushkin's chaste Muse. The poet himself praises the rustic
charm of this "provincial girl." But these rustic charms are never
trivial; on the contrary, in essence this simplicity is aristocratic,
refined, gracious. Pushkin's poetry has behind it not only the poet's
genius and exquisite taste, but also his fantastic memory, which
absorbed and preserved the rich heritage of European and Russian
poetry. Pushkin's lyrical poems are so natural that when one reads
them in Russian one accepts them without astonishment: they are
as natural as a beautiful, quiet evening, or a clear, dormant pond.
One immediately loves them and feels their spontaneity. They are
as much a Ding an sich as a Schotnheit an sich. Significantly enough,
this impression becomes even stronger when one compares the
Russian text to a foreign translation. Suddenly the foreign text
reveals the superior beauty of Pushkin's poetry. His wording, his
comparisons, his occasional metaphors, his phrasing, and his accents
shine again as unique and unrepeatable poetry. They lose this
superior quality almost entirely in a foreign reproduction. They
become worse than the "wrong side of a Flemish tapestry"; they
are like cheap lithographs. I have often had the occasion to consider
the problem of translating Pushkin into Polish; and I have discussed
it with one of the greatest poets in Poland, Tuwim, who insisted
on the close adherence to Pushkin's meters, rhythms, stanzas, and
rhyme sequences. This problem is particularly difficult in the
Russian-Polish case, as the Russian and Polish versification systems
are different. For instance, the iambic meter, most natural for Rus-
sian poetry, is not at all natural to Polish. Therefore, in my opinion,
modern Polish poets in translating Pushkin should try to use forms
typical for Polish versification, and in the style of Pushkin's Polish
contemporaries. A master of Polish poetry like Tuwim could afford
the iambic meter in a rather short poem like "The Bronze Horse-
man," but the problem was much more difficult with Eugene
Onegin, a work of almost six thousand lines, with a stanza of eight
masculine rhymes and only six feminine. Certainly this problem is

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308 The American Slavic and East European Review

different when we face an English translation, as the iambic meter,

so frequently used by Pushkin, is also a traditional meter in English
poetry.
I do not feel qualified to judge and analyze in detail the virtues
and vices of Mr. Morrison's translation from the point of view
of its essentially English value, but in principle I do not agree with
his purpose, "to translate something of the melody of the Russian
poetry, so that the final effect on the reader should be near to the
effect of reading the verses in Russian."10 It seems to me that this
is a vain project. Only those who know Russian are able to judge
whether Mr. Morrison's attempt is successful or not. But these
people do not need such translations. Is this, then, a purely literary
speculation offered to some few specialists? I repeat once again,
unfortunately this appears to be a vain attempt even as a specula-
tion, unless it might serve as additional proof of Pushkin's essential
poetic superiority. Preservation of poetic intonation is important,
but it is not the only important concern of the translator.
After these general remarks, I should like to select some scattered
examples with which I shall illustrate my views. I shall start with
those poems which have already been translated by others. Of
course, I shall not attempt any bibliographic research here; I shall
simply use Yarmolinsky's well-known collection.
In "Three Springs"-if we compare Mr. Morrison's translation
with that of Babette Deutsch, it seems that the latter is certainly
closer to Pushkin's text, as it preserves the most characteristic
epithets and does not insert any superfluous qualifications. For in-
stance, Pushkin simply says, "Three Springs mysteriously broke
through." M/Jr. Morrison preserves the adverb "mysteriously," but
adds another qualifying word-"secret"-to the word "springs."
The important noun "steppe" (desert), again preserved by Babette
Deutsch, has been replaced in Morrison's translation by the much
weaker "plain." The last two lines, "And last the sweet spring of
annihilation / To cool our heart and wash away its pain," are quite
unsuccessful. Miss Deutsch's text is more fortunate: "But 'tis the
deep, cold wellspring of oblivion / That slakes most sweetly ecstasy
and thirst." There is no doubt that "oblivion" is a better choice
than "annihilation." However, the lines about the Castalian spring
are in Morrison's translation closer to Pushkin than in Deutsch's.
It would be difficult to justify these deviations from Pushkin's sapid
imagery by the attempts at musical imitation.
Mr. Morrison's translation of the charming poem beginning with
the words "Ja vas lyubil," which Deutsch correctly translates
10 From the "Prefatory Note."

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 Some Notes on the Translation of Poetry 309

"I loved you once," is a complete failure. The "trace of that love's
passion" distorts Pushkin entirely; and the lines, "But all I seek is
not in any passion / To sadden you or bring you further pain,"
are very poor. This poem might be considered the best example
of the genuine simplicity and grace of Pushkin's erotic lyrics. In
Mr. Morrison's hands it loses its poetic color as a carelessly touched
butterfly wing loses its delicate powdery coat.
Of the five stanzas which comprise Pushkin's "Winter Morning,"
Mr. Morrison has translated only one. This poem is practically a
painting; it contains several winter landscapes and interiors. It
presents a story of the awakening of the beloved after a stormy
night; to the gloomy scenery of the evening the poet opposes the
radiant morning countryside which casts an amber glow on the
room. The stanza about carpets of shining snow under the blue
skies, the transparent darkening forest, the fir tree becoming green
through the hoar-frost, the river which shines under the ice-this
is indeed a painting, and this poetic picture has inspired many
Russian painters. I may quote Mr. Morrison's translation in its
entirety and the reader may judge for himself whether Pushkin's
brush has been faithfully wielded by his translator:

Beneath the azure skies extended,

Spread like a carpet rare and splendid,
Afire with sunlight lies the snow.
Darker the wood alone is growing,
And frost-clad firs are greenly showing,
And neath the ice bright waters flow.

I do not think that the principle of musical reproduction is justified

in this case. Malerei is as important here as the exquisite cadence of
Pushkin's lines-as Poesie. I should like to add a parenthetical re-
marlk at this point. In school anthologies serving Russian children,
the first stanza of this poem, in which Pushkin mentions his beloved,
was usually omitted; this censorship was obviously in consideration
of the children's morals. It would be difficult to say why Mr.
Morrison has reduced this poem to only one stanza.
No better is the translation of the poem beginning with the
words "Mne boj znakom." Pushkin's short, condensed, precise lines
have developed into clumsy paraphrases. Also, Pushkin uses the
word "iena" not in the sense of "wife" but "woman"; he intends
to convey that the one who has not faced death has not tasted full
joy and is not worthy of the kisses of sweet women. Mr. Morrison,
perhaps again for some moral reasons, replaces "sweet women" by
"best wife."

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310 The American Slavic and East European Review

The very important poem "Ancar" ("The Upas Tree")-I do

not object to the synecdochic title, "Antiar"-is rather happily
translated. However, the rhymes "moisten" and "poison" are ques-
tionable; and the last stanza is certainly not adequate to Pushkin's
text. Again Deutsch's translation is much better. However, the use
by Mr. Morrison of the word "prince" instead of Deutsch's "Tsar,"
is more appropriate. N. V. Izmajlov convincingly showed a long
time ago that Pushkin's first idea was to use the term "prince," as
he wanted to preserve the ethnographic character of this poem,
based on an Oriental legend, rather than to introduce any Russian
political allusions. The term "prince" gives a more general signifi-
cance to this philosophic poem.11
The early elegy "Ja perezil svoi Zelan'ya" is translated much
better by Maurice Baring, whose translation, despite its textual
deviations, renders more closely the melody and the pre-Romantic
style of Pushkin's poem.
Finally, I would say that Mr. Morrison's choice of poems is some-
times doubtful. Why did he include pieces like "My Epitaph" and
"Unfinished Painting"? The elegy, "O Thou who from my years
most tender," is perhaps the most questionable. I must confess that
I did not remember this as a poem of Pushkin. I pedantically
checked three modern editions. None of them includes this poem
even among the Dubia, which is probably proof that the possibility
of attributing this poem to Pushkin has never been seriously con-
sidered. Unfortunately, I have not been able to avail myself of the
Isakov edition, which was Mr. Morrison's basic source. In general
this edition should not be trusted, as it contains many poems er-
roneously attributed to Pushkin. Nor could I find this poem among
the works of any other author. At any rate, it could have been
written by a weak poet or it could belong to an early period of
one of the secondary poets of the early nineteenth century. The
first four lines are so awkward that Pushkin could never have
written them. Mr. Morrison was a victim of Isakov's edition in this
matter; but it still does not explain his translating this mediocre
piece of poetry.
The old and venerable Essay on the Principles of Translation
"t Cf. Puskin i ego sovremenniki, Issue XXXI-XXXII (Leningrad, 1937), pp. 3-14.
I agree with Izmajlov's comments, despite the fact that the first published text of
this poem contained the word "Tsar" instead of "prince," and despite the corre-
spondence between Pushkin and Benckendorff connected with this poem. This
poem has ties with Coleridge's Remorse (Pushkin's manuscript contains two lines
from Coleridge about the "poison-tree") and it might also have some ties with
George Colman "the younger." See also D. Jakubovic, "Zametka ob Ancare."
Literaturnoe Nasledstvo, XVI-XVIII (Moscow, I934), pp. 869-76.

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 Some Notes on the Translation of Poetry 311

by A. F. Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, contains many rules and

precepts of good translation which are still valuable for our days.
Among them there is a paradoxical statement to the effect that
"it is less difficult to attain the ease of original composition in
poetical, than in prose translation. Lyric poetry admits of the
greatest liberty of translation."'12 This statement could encourage
Mr. Morrison; but the essay also emphasizes some special condi-
tions: "It will appear no unnatural conclusion to assert that he only
is perfectly accomplished for the duty of a translator who possesses
a genius akin to that of the original author.. .. It will hence fol-
low, that to exercise this freedom with propriety a translator must
have the talent of original composition in poetry; and therefore,
that in this species of translation the possession of a genius akin
to that of his author is more essentially necessary than in any
other."'13 Paul Zifferer, whom I have already quoted, justly said:
"The poet's word is always unique; it is the hapax legoinenon which
has sense only in one place, that one which a superior order assigns
to it. 14 Perhaps I am prejudiced, but for most of us Pushkinists
the word of Pushkin is a hapax legomenon. This is an excuse for
my criticism, which does not diminish the sincere consideration I
have for Mr. Morrison's devoted efforts to bring the great Russian
poet closer to the Anglo-Saxon reader.'5
12 A. F. Tytler, Essay on the Principles of Translation (London, 1797), Chapter X.
13 Ibid., Chapter XV.
14 Honunage des ecrivains etrangers a' Paul Valery, p. 82.
1 The outstanding Russian literary critic and historian of literature, K. cukovskij,
in 194i devoted an interesting book (which I mentioned above) to the problem
of translation. He called his book "The Lofty Art." In the preface he stressed the
exceedingly high level which the art of translation has reached in Soviet Russia.
(There is no doubt that Russia is a country with a well-established and rich tradi-
tion of translation.) cukovskij emphasized that this level invites creation of a
theory. And still his book of 250 pages is filled with innumerable examples of all
kinds of distortions and disfigurations of the translated texts. The foreign authors
have been subjected to terrific losses, they have lost essential words and epithets,
their charm, their characteristic intonations, national character, and peculiarities
of style. It appears that in modern Russian translations Shakespeare has become
particularly "impolite," Shelley has lost his light and free poetical diction because
his rhythmical schemes are too narrow for Russian verse, Dickens has become too
Dickensian, etc. iukovskij asserts that a poetic translation may be called truly
precise only when, besides the meaning, style, phonetics, and rhythm, the intona-
tional peculiarities of the original are also rendered. WVithout this a translation is
hopeless. On the other hand, he maintains that preservation of the number of lines
and the rhythm of a poetical work may lead to a loss not only of the meaning, but
also of the beauty, poetry, and inspiration of the original. As a paradoxical answer
to his preface, cukovskij stresses how obnoxious and dangerous all kinds of ready
recipes of good translation in poetry may be. "Such recipes do not and cannot
exist." Cf. Kornej cukovskij, op. cit.

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