Nabokov
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Now comes the literalist. He may toy with ‘honorable’ instead of ‘honest’ and waver between ‘seriously’ and ‘not in jest’; he will replace ‘rules’ by the more evocative ‘principles’ and rearrange the order of words to achieve some semblance of English construction and retain some vestige of Russian rhythm, arriving at:
My uncle has most honest principles: when he was taken ill in earnest,
he has made one respect him
and nothing better could invent . . .
And if he is still not satisWed with his version, the translator can at least hope to amplify it in a detailed note.
[ . . . ]
We are now in a position to word our question more accurately: can a rhymed poem like Eugene Onegin be truly translated with the retention of its rhymes? The answer, of course, is no. To reproduce the rhymes or yet translate the entire poem literally is mathematically impossible. But in losing its rhyme the poem loses its bloom, which neither marginal description nor the alchemy of a scholium can replace. Should one then content oneself with an exact rendering of the subject matter and forget all about form? Or should one still excuse an imitation of the poem’s structure to which only twisted bits of sense stick here and there, by convincing oneself and one’s public that in mutilating its meaning for the sake of a pleasure-measure rhyme one has the opportunity of prettifying or skipping the dry and diYcult passages?
[ . . . ]
In transposing Eugene Onegin from Pushkin’s Russian into my English I have sacriWced to completeness of meaning every formal element including the iambic rhythm, whenever its retention hindered Wdelity. To my ideal of literalism I sacriWced everything (elegance, euphony, clarity, good taste, modern usage, and even grammar) that the dainty mimic prizes higher than truth. Pushkin has likened translation to horses changed at the posthouses of civilization. The greatest reward I can think of is that students may use my work as a pony. [ . . . ]
The Shift to Literalism
Nabokov attempted to translate Pushkin at three diVerent stages of his career: as an emerging English writer in 1945; as an acclaimed author in 1964, and as a bilingual master in 1976. The shift towards ‘bony literalism’ can be traced in his handling of a single stanza.
4.13 vladimir nabokov 387
Three translations by Nabokov of Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, chapter 1,
stanza, XXXII,
Russian Review, 4/2 (1945), 38–9
Diana’s bosom, Flora’s dimple are very charming, I agree—
but there’s a greater charm, less simple, —the instep of Terpsichore.
By prophesying to the eye
a prize with which no prize can vie ’tis a fair token and a snare
for swarms of daydreams. Everywhere its grace, sweet reader, I admire:
at long-hemmed tables, half-concealed, in spring, upon a velvet Weld,
in winter, at a grated Wre,
in ballrooms, on a glossy Xoor, on the bleak boulders of a shore.
Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse (Bollingen Series 72, New York:
Pantheon Press 1964; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964), i. 111
Diana’s bosom, Flora’s cheeks, are charming, dear friend! Nevertheless, for me
something about it makes more charming the small foot of Terpsichore.
By prophesying to the gaze an unpriced recompense,
with token beauty it attracts the willful swarm of desires.
I like it, dear Elvina,
beneath the long napery of tables, in springtime on the turf of meads, in winter on the hearth’s cast iron, on mirrory parquet of halls,
by the sea on granite of rocks.
Eugene Onegin (Bollingen Series, Princeton: Princeton University Press, (1964; rev. 1975), i. 109
Diana’s bosom, Flora’s cheeks, are charming, dear friends!
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However, the little foot of Terpsichore is for me in some way more charming. By prophesying to the gaze
an unpriced recompense, with token beauty it attracts the willful swarm of longings.
I’m fond of it, my friend Elvina, beneath the long napery of tables, in springtime on the turf of meads, in winter on the hearth’s cast iron, on mirrory parquet of halls,
by the sea on granite of rocks.
notes to chapter one: xxxii. commentary, vol . 2 : 118–120 (excerpts). [1964 and 1975]
3–4/Cf. Le joli-pied of Nicolas Edme Restif de la Bretonne, a mediocre but entertaining writer of the eighteenth century (1974–1806) [ . . . ]
7/with token beauty /uslo´vnoyu kraso´y . Although uslovn€ıy means ‘conditional’ or ‘conventional,’ the only possible sense here must turn on the idea of un signe convenu, with the emphasis on the sign, the emblem, the cipher, the code of beauty, the secret language of those narrow little feet [ . . . ]
Cf. Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, IV, v. 55:
There’s language in her eye, her cheek, her lip
Nay, her foot speaks . . .
8/ willful swarm /svoevo´l’n€ıy ro´y : a common Gallicism, essaim, with svoevo´l’n€ıy, ‘self-willed’ echoing alliteratively such cliche´ epithets as volage, frivole, folaˆtre [ . . . ]
9/Elvina: I suspect this is a natural child of Macpherson’s Malvina. It occurs in French imitations of the Ossian poems [ . . . ]
Reception of Onegin
By the time Eugene Onegin Wnally appeared in 1964, Nabokov was internationally acclaimed as a virtuoso stylist. His translation was thus perceived not as the product of a thorough but idiosyncratic scholar, but of a writer who talked of aesthetic bliss while giving short shrift to the creator of the ‘greatest poem in the Russian language’; and a writer, moreover, who had Xouted his own strictures when translating his own work. Despite the frankness of Nabokov’s aims, hostility has persisted. Yet no student or translator can ignore his study: Nabokov gained Pushkin due recognition as a universal poet, and enhanced scholarship in the Weld. His detailed historical analysis establishes crucial intertextual links between the Russian masterpiece and European writing, and shows how Pushkin often relied on sources read in translation. This point is commonly seen as spiteful condescension on the part of the superior multilingualist, but like Pushkin, Nabokov saw translation as
4.13 vladimir nabokov 389
cultural synthesis, a vital stage or staging post in literary evolution; unlike him, however, he saw ‘misrepresentations’ as obstructions to that process.
Nabokov’s Onegin ignited one of the most celebrated literary rows of the twentieth century. The loudest detractor was his erstwhile friend and supporter Edmund Wilson, who chose to ignore its advertised purpose, and derided the lack of poetic form, the stilted, archaic diction, awkward syntax, and elephantine prose that so betrayed the glories of the Russian. Nabokov rose in defence and a bitter debate over prosody and style dragged on for many months. Nabokov wearily stated his cause for the last time in ‘Reply To My Critics’:
From: ‘Reply To My Critics’, Encounter (Feb. 1966), repr. in Strong Opinions (New York: McGraw Hill, 1973), 241–67
[ . . . If] adverse criticism happens to be directed not at those acts of fancy [my novels], but at such a matter-of-fact work of reference as my annotated translation of Eugene Onegin, other considerations take over. Unlike my novels, EO possesses an ethical side, moral and human elements. It reXects the compiler’s honesty or dishonesty, skill or sloppiness. If told I am a bad poet, I smile; but if told I am a poor scholar, I reach for my heaviest dictionary.
[ . . . O]ne might conclude that literal translation represents an approach entirely devised by me; that it had never been heard of before; and that there was something oVensive and even sinister about such a method and undertaking. Promoters and producers of what Anthony Burgess calls ‘arty translations’—carefully rhymed, pleasantly modulated versions containing, say, eighteen percent of sense plus thirty-two of nonsense and Wfty of neutral padding—are I think more prudent than they realize. While ostensibly tempted by impossible dreams, they are subliminally impelled by a kind of selfpreservation. The ‘arty translation’ protects them by concealing and camouXaging ignorance or incomplete information or the fuzzy edge of limited knowledge. Stark literalism, on the other hand, would expose their fragile frame to unknown and incalculable perils.
[ . . . ]
As a result the canned music of rhymed versions is enthusiastically advertised, and accepted, and the sacriWce of textual precision applauded as something rather heroic, whereas only suspicion and blood-hounds await the gaunt, graceless literalist groping around in despair for the obscure word that would satisfy impassioned Wdelity and accumulating in the process a wealth of information which only makes the advocates of pretty camouXage tremble or sneer.
[ . . . ]