'Post-Horse of Civilisation': Joseph Brodsky Translating Joseph Brodsky
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‘Post-horse of Civilisation’: Joseph Brodsky translating Joseph Brodsky. Towards a New Theory of Russian-English Poetry Translation Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde am Fachbereich Philosophie und Geisteswissenschaften, Institut für Englische Philologie der Freien Universität Berlin vorgelegt von Zakhar Ishov, MA (FU Berlin) Berlin, am Juni 30, 2008 Gutachter 1. Gutachter Prof. Dr. Dr. Russell West-Pavlov 2. Gutachter Prof. Dr. Georg Witte Die Disputation im Fach Englische Philologie wurde am 21.08.2008 abgelegt und das Promotionsverfahren mit der Gesamtnote ‘summa cum laude’ bestanden. ii Table of contents GUTACHTER ........................................................................................................................................II TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................................................... III ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................ VII PREFACE..............................................................................................................................................XI NOTE...................................................................................................................................................XIII INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................... 1 THE PHENOMENON OF THE ‘E NGLISH BRODSKY ’: AUTHOR & SELF -TRANSLATOR ................................. 3 OUTLINE OF THE THESIS ........................................................................................................................ 6 BREAKDOWN OF THE CHAPTERS ............................................................................................................ 8 CHAPTER 1: CRITICAL DEBATE OVER BRODSKY’S SELF-TRANSLATIONS................... 14 TRANSLATIONS OR ORIGINALS ?........................................................................................................... 14 BRODSKY ’S CRITICS ............................................................................................................................ 15 BRODSKY ’S DEFENDERS ...................................................................................................................... 18 BRODSKY SCHOLARSHIP : TRANSLATIONS AS MERE SHADES OF ORIGINALS.......................................... 20 BRODSKY SCHOLARSHIP : NEED FOR CHANGE ...................................................................................... 24 ENGLISH BRODSKY : A NEW PERSPECTIVE ............................................................................................ 26 CHAPTER 2: ARCHIVAL RESEARCH: GATHERING MATERIALS, CATALOGUING, INTERVIEWS ..................................................................................................................................................... 29 RESEARCH RESULTS ............................................................................................................................ 30 CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL STANDPOINTS AND HYPOTHESES........................................ 33 BRODSKY AND THE TRADITION OF RUSSIAN POETS -TRANSLATORS ..................................................... 34 Walter Benjamin and his translation theory .................................................................................. 39 CHAPTER 4: THEORETICAL STANDPOINTS AND HYPOTHESES: VIKTOR ZHIRMUNSKY ................................................................................................................................................... 49 METRE AND RHYTHM .......................................................................................................................... 51 ‘M ETRICAL TASK ’: VARIETY OF ELEMENTS OF METRICAL ORGANIZATION . ......................................... 54 ‘Simultaneity of assonances’.......................................................................................................... 54 Rhymes........................................................................................................................................... 57 Rhyme: a phenomenon of rhythm................................................................................................... 59 CHAPTER 5: BRODSKY’S BIOGRAPHY – THE ‘TWISTS OF LANGUAGE’.......................... 61 LEARNING ENGLISH ............................................................................................................................ 61 GUESTS FROM THE FUTURE.................................................................................................................. 68 iii LANGUAGE OF EXILE ........................................................................................................................... 70 EARLY AMERICANA ............................................................................................................................ 71 THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING TRANSLATED ........................................................................................... 76 ‘J OSEPH BRODSKY : SELECTED POEMS ’................................................................................................ 78 TEACHING ENGLISH AND ‘O N RICHARD WILBUR ’............................................................................... 85 ART VS . POLITICS : THE AMERICAN LEFT AND FREE VERSE ................................................................. 88 BEYOND CONSOLATION : BRODSKY ’S EXPECTATIONS OF TRANSLATION ............................................. 91 FARRAR , STRAUS , AND GIROUX : ‘A PART OF SPEECH ’..................................................................... 101 APPENDIX .......................................................................................................................................... 103 CHAPTER 6: ‘A TRANSLATION: WHATEVER MUST BE DONE’ ......................................... 107 WEISSBORT -BRODSKY : RANGING PRACTICES OF TRANSLATION ........................................................ 107 WEISSBORT -BRODSKY : ‘CHINWAG ’ OVER TRANSLATION .................................................................. 109 Brodsky’s main arguments........................................................................................................... 120 THE THEORY OF METRE AND RHYME : ANGLO -RUSSIAN SIMILARITIES AND CONTRASTS .................. 121 Russian-English similarities: verse metre as compositional principle ........................................ 121 Metres: Russian-English contrasts .............................................................................................. 124 Rhymes: Russian-English similarities: rhyme as compositional principle .................................. 127 Rhymes: Russian-English contrasts, feminine rhymes................................................................. 129 SOME OBSERVATIONS ON BRODSKY ’S TRANSLATING THEORY IN THE VIEW OF ENGLISH -RUSSIAN METRICAL CONTRASTS ..................................................................................................................................... 132 CHAPTER 7: A SECOND CHRISTMAS BY THE SHORE.......................................................... 136 INTRODUCTION : REAL POETS AND MERE TRANSLATORS .................................................................... 136 “A SECOND CHRISTMAS BY THE SHORE ” .......................................................................................... 140 ‘A second Christmas’: prosodic scheme...................................................................................... 142 Stanza I: interlinear translation................................................................................................... 144 Stanza I: Brodsky’s commentaries............................................................................................... 146 st Stanza I – Kline’s 1 revision ...................................................................................................... 150 Stanza I – definitive version by Brodsky ...................................................................................... 151 Stanza II ....................................................................................................................................... 154 Stanza II: Kline’s first draft ......................................................................................................... 160 Stanza II – Kline’s first revision .................................................................................................. 161 Stanza II: Brodsky........................................................................................................................ 161 Stanza III...................................................................................................................................... 162 st Stanza III – Kline’s 1 draft:........................................................................................................ 163 Stanza III: Brodsky ...................................................................................................................... 164 Stanza IV...................................................................................................................................... 165 nd Stanza IV: Kline’s 2 draft.......................................................................................................... 171 CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................................................................................