The Translator’s Burden
The new interpreter starts out with a strong admiration for Pushkin and his finest achievement, mixed with deep respect for all the amateur versifiers who have already toiled lovingly to transmit some inkling of it into another language. This is the double burden to be borne by any new translator, together with the certain knowledge that the task is literally impossible.
One can only hope that the thrilling energy of a Pushkin poem can be released in sufficient quantities for some of it to carry across to the non-Russian mind. This is not quite as hopelessly optimistic as it may seem. Russian and English are closer to each other (with their shared strong word stress, huge vocabulary and wide range of acoustic expressiveness) than, for example, French and English. More specifically, Shakespeare, as we have seen, was ten times dearer to Pushkin than any confection of Racine, Corneille and Molière, and Byron’s irreverent appeal was massively greater than that of Lamartine. Thus there is a small chance of making an English translation sound something rather like the original, whereas a French version of Pushkin is unimaginable. (Is there such a thing? Even the transliteration of the poet’s name tells us something: the English “Púshkin”, stressed on the first syllable, looks and sounds quite close to the original whereas the (stressless) French “Pouchkine” has an alien quality, nothing like the Russian.) Armed with this small advantage, we can advance.
When translating a long prose work (as I well know from long experience with War and Peace) it is best to keep well away from earlier translations until you are well into the project. This will avoid all possibility of borrowing or imitation, conscious or otherwise. With Yevgeny Onegin, however, the opposite applies. It is essential to know and judge how previous attempts have tackled the various technical difficulties, such as the English spelling of Russian names, the sonnet-like stanza with its original and slightly complicated rhyme scheme involving many two-syllable rhymes, the variations in language register, the decision to modernize the English or attempt to keep it sounding slightly archaic and self-consciously poetic, and so on. There is a surprisingly wide range of solutions to these problems, and they all need careful consideration.
This is not the place to comb through the existing translations one by one, making close comparisons. That exercise is best left to postgraduate students with time to spare. Besides, it would be invidious to dwell on supposed examples of bad practice or mistaken judgements; the purpose of examining earlier versions is not to revel in triumphalist “improvements” but rather to avoid any dangerous pitfalls and improve the general quality of decision-making. Still, we must report briefly on what we have found in looking at all of the translations listed below.
What’s in a Russian Name?
First, the titular Russian name: Yevgény Onégin, which has not been rendered in this way by any other translator in English. The general preference is for “Eugene Onegin”, though you will also find the forename written as Evgeny. We are going for a straight transliteration of the original rather than the obvious and popular translation into a near English equivalent. One problem with “Eugene” is that, while the name has been widely used in Ireland and has transferred itself to America by emigration, the rest of the anglophone world is less comfortable with it. It does not sound like something central to English culture, as the Russian name is in Pushkin’s world. The first-syllable stress (Eugene) is also hard to manage, and it will sound odd if it is used to rhyme with “seen” or “spleen”. But the most important consideration is simply that the transliterated form preserves a delightful acoustic effect of the original: the fact that these two words (six syllables employing thirteen letters in either language) form a little lyric on their own:
Yevgény
Onégin.
The pleasant euphony of this small phrase is not a thing to be lost. The name makes up a tiny poem in two parts, each consisting of three syllables. (Say it out loud: Yevgény rhymes with “rainy”; Onégin is pronounced “An-yé-gin”, the “o” being unstressed. Yev-gé-ny An-yé-gin.) It does not matter whether you read each word, technically, as a one-foot iambic line with a feminine ending (i.e. having two-syllables, as in habit/rabbit) or treat the two words as perfect amphibrachs (two times te-túm-te); either way you have a couple of perfectly balanced lines in a combination that has an appealing ring. But there is more to it than that. The interplay of consonants and vowels is typical of Pushkin, who is famous for hitting on successful acoustic arrangements apparently through serendipity. Look what happens here. Not only do the two little lines form a strong (if approximate) feminine rhyme (-ény/-égin), but the main letters in the two phrases go like this: e… gén… nég… i, with the first “e” and the last “i” sounding the same (both in Russian like an “i” because the “e” is unstressed). So we suddenly realize that this is a modest example of chiasmus, a device in which parallel forms are presented in one order and then re-presented in reverse (as in, “Nice to see you. To see you nice!”). Thus the name given to the hero sings with its own sweet harmony every time it is used, and since it is possible to fully retain this property in transliteration, we should certainly do so. However, there is irony even in this positive decision: the poetic beauty of this miniature creation is not merited by the hero on whom it has been bestowed: his character and behaviour are not in tune with it, being unbalanced and unbeautiful in the extreme, as we shall see.
Anyone who thinks all of this sounds fanciful could be challenged to change the name to something else, and see if it makes a difference. What if the poet had hit upon Yevgeny Bazarov, Yevgeny Oleshin or Dmitry Onegin? The story and the characters would remain the same, but some spangle of acoustic refinement would have departed from an important work of poetry; on the finest scale of ideal values this hidden property of a novel in verse would have been thinned down, driving it one nuance away from perfection. The importance of such values to this poet was made clear in a poem of 1829 (‘Winter…’), in which he describes what it is like when inspiration deserts a poet: “The sounds won’t come together…”
The ease with which Pushkin achieves intricate effects like this one reminds me of younger days. At the age of eleven I watched a famous batsman (Len Hutton) compile a score of 104 at Bramall Lane; at sixteen I heard my first Mozart, the clarinet concerto. I remember being struck by the simplicity of the skills used on both occasions. You could obviously rush home and perform this kind of high art yourself, because it was so effortless, except that you couldn’t get remotely near the models when you tried. Pushkin’s poetry is consistently of that order: nearly every line of his seems like a happy fluke that could have happened to anyone, until you try to do it yourself and the lucky chances don’t materialize.
We have dwelt long on the two words at the head of this poem, and we shall have to linger over other examples of Pushkin’s poetic effectiveness. (The small number of enthusiasts who want more of this could consult my short book on the novel in the Cambridge University Press series: Landmarks in World Literature, 1992). The point is this: don’t be fooled by the seductive idea of serendipity. Complex organization by a master intelligence is the name of the game. If you are prepared to think like a modern physicist, treating the word like an atom, you will find in the subatomic realm a full range of interrelated particles of sound sharing magical relationships. But it isn’t magic, it isn’t luck; it is creative genius in a holiday mood. And Pushkin’s translator must be intimately aware of the imperceptible tricks and forces that drive and decorate his work, not in order to replicate them in some mechanical way, but at least to guide the English language in some appropriate direction, in the hope that now and then a modest turn of phrase will produce the occasional flash of wit, aptness or originality strong enough to bring out a memory of the original.
The Onegin Stanza
The stanza used in this novel is a tried and tested poetic form: the sonnet. It contains the standard fourteen lines and a fixed rhyme scheme. However, Pushkin’s version is unusual in at lea
st two ways. First, the line has been shortened from the traditional five feet to four (from iambic pentameter to tetrameter). Second, the rhyme scheme has an unusual property. In order to understand what this is, it is necessary to be familiar with the two main family branches into which the sonnet has been traditionally divided. The “Italian” sonnet breaks into two unequal halves. Its first eight lines (the octave) introduce the main idea; a strong break appears at the end of line eight, and the last six lines (the sestet) are then left to provide some kind of response to the first idea—a counter-proposal, re-affirmation or some new departure. Wordsworth’s sonnet composed on Westminster Bridge in 1802, “Earth has not anything to show more fair…”, and Christina Rossetti’s famous poem “Remember me when I am gone away…” are good examples of the form in English literature.
By contrast, the “English” sonnet works the fourteen lines into a different pattern. It begins with three four-line groups (quatrains), each with its own idea, though the three ideas usually amount to an ongoing argument of increasing intensity. These are followed by a terminal couplet containing a good deal of explosive power, enough to complete the preceding argument or dramatically subvert it. Another name for this form is the Shakespearean sonnet since our finest poet was its greatest exponent. (Curiously, Shakespeare appears to have written one sonnet—No. 145 of 154—in eight-syllable lines, the iambic tetrameter used by Pushkin in this novel, though it is not highly regarded in our poetry and it didn’t catch on.)
Within these two basic sonnet shapes there is some room for varying the rhymes, but not much. Typical rhyme schemes might be:
Italian sonnet: [abab abab] + [cde cde]
English sonnet: [abab] + [cdcd] + [efef ] + [gg]
With a stroke of genius (more suited to Russian than English) Pushkin has hit upon a “sonnet” form that can go either way. It can become Italian or English at the flick of a switch in mid-stanza. Here is the basic pattern:
Onegin sonnet: [ababccddeffegg]
This group of rhymes has no inbuilt preference for one sonnet form over another. Everything depends on the sense and where you place the punctuation. If, according to his whim, the poet chooses to end a proposition at line eight and develop it over the next six lines, he can do so and will produce the following grouping:
[ababccdd] + [effegg]
As a matter of interest, the sestet may be construed as [eff ] + [egg] or [effe] + [gg], again according to where the sense provides a strong line-ending. In either case, there will be an Italian feel to the sonnet as long as the sense comes to strong conclusion—with a full-stop, question mark, exclamation mark or at least a semi-colon—at the end of line eight.
On another occasion he may want the sense to run on down the stanza and come to a resonant conclusion in a powerful final couplet. The way to do this is to take the emphasis away from line eight and supply a strong ending for line twelve. His stanza will then assume the English shape, as follows:
[abab ccdd effe] + [gg]
Pushkin makes full use of this inbuilt flexibility. Almost all of his stanzas begin with a clearly defined first quatrain—there is usually strong punctuation at the end of line four—and a majority of them seem to favour the English mode, because of the limitless possibilities in the terminal couplet for all sorts of striking effects (humour is common among them). But beyond these general observations nothing is predictable. The Onegin stanza is a mettlesome creature; when it starts out you can never tell where it may take you, or by what route. Similarly, when you look back on a stanza it will not remind you of its predecessor, nor of any other stanza; each one will seem to be what it is, a unique little lyric in its own right. Variety of this kind is a true friend, a strong defence against tedium.
Apart from its flexibility, this stanza has one further property underwriting its richness. Two-thirds of the way through it, the reader is almost certain to lose all sense of direction in formal terms. However well you know Pushkin, and this novel in particular, you are not likely to escape the feeling of disorientation in the region of lines eight, nine, ten and eleven. The rhymes fall out in such a way that it is difficult to see immediately in any of these lines whether you are completing a rhyme set up earlier (and precisely where this might have been) or starting a new one. It is surprising to note that in a stanza so carefully regulated by rhyme there are three occasions when three successive lines do not rhyme with each other: [abc], [def ] and [feg]. Two of these three occasions occur at this point in the stanza. All of this creates an impression of greater complexity than really exists, promotes subtlety and suggests mystery. One famous critic has likened this poetic performance to that of a painted ball set spinning: you see its pattern clearly at the beginning and end of its movement, but in mid-spin all you get is a colourful blur.
To sum up: the Onegin stanza is an imaginative version of the sonnet, consisting of three four-line groups, each with a different pattern of rhymes—an easy “alternating” quatrain [abab], a quatrain made up of two couplets [ccdd] and an “envelope” quatrain [effe]—all of this topped off with a strong couplet [gg]. A rhyming formula that looks rigid turns out to be the last word in flexibility. But there is one further complication, which gives rise to the biggest single difficulty for the translator of this magical work—the feminine rhyme. This is not just a problem; it is an intractable bugbear, for the treatment of which you need a bold strategy.
Feminine Rhymes
Paired words ending in a single stressed syllable are called “masculine” rhymes: for example, “what/spot”, “man/began”, “displease/striptease”. There are masses of these in English and in Russian. The problem arises with “feminine” rhymes, in which a stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed one, as in “token/spoken” or “level/bedevil”. Russian can form pleasing rhymes like this with ease; English cannot. In English there are so few feminine rhymes available that they strike us as boring. When you hear the word “languish”, isn’t it all too easy to guess what its rhyme will be? There is no other rhyme than “anguish”. “Feature” belongs only to “creature”, “habit” to “rabbit” and “sentence” to “repentance”. True, you can make up plenty of feminine rhymes by using common noun endings such as those ending in “-tion”, but these tend to be both obvious and tedious. Verbal rhymes are easily formed but utterly boring, especially participles like “hoping/moping” or “related/dated”. Almost all the available feminine rhymes in English are unusable because of their wearisome predictability, which is why our poets avoid them (unless you are a humorist like W.S. Gilbert).
Pushkin uses feminine rhymes throughout Yevgeny Onegin on a regular, alternating basis. This can be demonstrated best by giving feminine rhymes a capital letter and using lower case for masculine ones. The stanza which we have described actually rhymes like this: AbAb, CCdd, EffE, gg. Six of the endings are feminine (two syllables) and the other eight are masculine (one syllable). Here are the rhymes used for the opening stanza of the novel in one of the better English translations (with the feminine rhymes picked out):
AbAb: condition, prune, recognition, opportune
CCdd: others, brothers, day, away
EffE: glaring, dead, head, bearing
gg: cough, off
If you look closely at, say, the rhymed dedication to this novel and its first stanza you will discover that every single existing translation employs more than one rhyme that can only be described as weak by being obvious, hackneyed, verbal or ending in “-tion”.
No one is going to notice anything wrong with the choice of these rhymes taken individually, but really they are far from ideal. The first pair belongs to that tedious group of words ending in “-tion”, the second pair are so obvious as to be virtually inevitable, and the third pair depend upon another tedious termination in “-ing”. You will not find many lazy rhyming pairs like these in the works of our major poets. And, although they float past unnoticed in any particular stanza, you can imagine the soporific effect of their use on a regular basis. To t
ake a particularly unfortunate example, one translator uses the following six feminine rhymes in one stanza: reflection/complexion, fascination/condemnation, conversation/disputation; elsewhere he allows this sequence covering three successive stanzas: waiting/abating, agreed with/speed with, unsuspecting/inspecting, pretension/condescension, arising/apprising, rolling/strolling—all of them rather tedious (except for the splendidly surprising “agreed with/speed with”). He is not alone. Here are the feminine rhymes from one stanza in another version: inscribing/gibing, imbibing/transcribing, sobbing/throbbing, with quacking/a-lacking quick to follow in the next verse. Similarly, one of the very best translations allows a succession of verbal rhymes as long as this: quicken/thicken, quivers/shivers, playing/saying, pleading/reading, presented/invented. In at least two versions you will find a stanza using nothing but present participles for all of its six feminine rhymes: descending/wending, flaring/faring, commanding/standing, and grieving/receiving, keeping/sleeping, waiting/debating. Hardly what you would encounter in Milton or Wordsworth. (Incidentally, my German translation of this work demonstrates this tendency even more effectively. At the start of the fourth chapter, for example, the first twenty-one stanzas begin in a discouraging way. Pushkin has omitted the first six stanzas; stanza 7 begins with the feminine rhyme stehen/gehen, stanza 8 with verstellen/darzustellen, and so it goes on down to stanza 26 with vorzulesen/Menschenwesen and stanza 27 with reiten/Seiten. Only one stanza (10) fails to end in an “-n”. Of the others only 15 and 19 fail to end in “-en”. All the others—that is, eighteen out of twenty-one stanzas—have the same two letters as an ending for the opening feminine rhyme. Does everything in German have to end in an “-n”? The tedium experienced when reading pages treated in this way must stand as a stark warning to any new anglophone translator tempted in this direction.)