Papadiamantis into English: Some Observations

Papadiamántis into English: Some Observations Elizabeth Constantinides There is no dearth of writing on translation, both its theory and its practice. From St. Augustine to contemporary philosophers and linguists , the matter of translation has been inextricably linked to fundamental questions of language, meaning, and communication. Such broad and complex theoretical considerations may or may not engage the translators. But if they undertake to render a literary text into another language, they must certainly develop procedures that are determined by some sort of working principles. Debates between translators and critics on methodology and practical results have been as impassioned and strident as any in the recent history of literature: it sometimes happens that in disagreements over how to turn a phrase the ordinary civilities of learned discourse are cast aside and plain insult takes the place of reasoned argument. I shall mention two such disputes as illustrations of what I believe is the central preoccupation of the translator: Is the translation to be idiomatic in the receptor language? Is it to read smoothly, as if written for readers of the translator's time and place? Should it, in short, not read like a translation ? Or, alternatively, is the version to keep as close as possible to the original text in diction, syntax, and style, no matter how unidiomatic in the receptor language?1 Surely one of the most acrimonious of literary quarrels in recent years is the exchange between Edmund Wilson and Vladimir Nabokov on the latter's translation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, published, after many years of work, in 1964. Nabokov proclaimed that his version was "literal" (Karlinsky 1979: 321), one of "total accuracy and completeness of meaning" (Nabokov 1966: 97). The translation aroused much controversy (Nabokov 1968), but the criticism that offended the translator the most was Edmund Wilson's article, originally published in the New York Review of Books in 1965: Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Volume 8, 1990. 263 264 Elizabeth Constantinides It [Nabokov's "literal" translation] has produced a bald and awkward language which has nothing in common with Pushkin's or with the usual writings of Nabokov . . . they only characteristic Nabokov trait that one recognizes in this uneven and sometimes banal translation is the addiction to rare and unfamiliar words, which, in view of his declared intention to stick so close to the text that his version may be used as a trot, are entirely inappropriate here ... To inflict on the reader such words is not really to translate at all, for it is not to write idiomatic and recognizable English. (Wilson 1973: 210-211) Wilson also had harsh things to say about Nabokov's "overdone" commentary , tricks with language, and general "lack of common sense" (1973: 218). In a "Reply to My Critics" Nabokov defends "stark literalism " and "the gaunt, graceless literalist groping around in despair for the obscure word that would satisfy impassioned fidelity" (1968: 301). He flails at "paraphrasts," "arty translations," and the "amoral and philistine" objections to literalism (1968: 301-302), and answers Wilson's objections point by point. He accuses Wilson of obtuseness in not understanding the value of archaism in a translation: In several instances, English archaisms have been used in my [Eugene Onegin] not merely to match Russian antiquated words but to revive a nuance of meaning present in the ordinary Russian term but lost in the English one. Such terms are not meant to be idiomatic. The phrases I decide upon aspire toward literality, not readability. (1968: 310) More controversy followed (Wilson 1973: 231-232), with the result that the friendship between the two men, fostered over many years by a warm correspondence and Wilson's good offices on Nabokov's behalf with American publishers, was severed (Karlinsky 1979: 24— 25, 332-333). Another debate, often brought up in discussions of translation, was initiated by Matthew Arnold's lectures "On Translating Homer," first published in 1862. In these lectures Arnold faulted earlier translations , including Chapman's and Pope's, for lacking one or more of the characteristic qualities of Homer, a poet "rapid in movement, plain in speech, simple in thought, and noble" (Arnold 1960: 141-142). But he reserved his most stringent comments for...