Imagery in translation. Transla ting Alexander Ostrovsky into English

DRAMA UNIT 4:

TRANSLA TING ALEXANDER OSTROVSKY INTO ENGLISH

Introductory Notes

Alexander Ostrovsky (1823-1886) was a son of a heredi­tary gentleman who had set a small private practice as a lawyer and whose close ancestors were from the clergy class. The family lived in Moscow and were what foreigners would call "a strong­hold of traditional Muscovite way of life, hardly touched by Eu-ropeanization." The future playwright was brought up among the homes of wealthy merchants where things were kept up properly in the old style. The young boy developed an ear for the speech and an eye for the sight of his father's clients and their families and later got capable to raise it into a kind of natural poetic dic­tion in his plays.

His father had an excellent library, which contributed con­siderably to Alexander's education, for he did not get a degree at Moscow University, though he studied law there. But by his own evidence, he spent more time at the Bolshoy Theatre (then used for drama). After the University he spent a few years at work in courts, mainly in the Commercial Court, which gave him an ex­tensive knowledge of the seamy side of life and the ways of mi­nor officials. But his heart was always in the theatre; he made friends with actors and started his experience as a playwright.

His first play, The Bankrupt, or We can settle this among ourselves, was published in 1850. The play aroused utter indigna­tion among the merchant community of Moscow, and their com­plaints reached the Emperor himself who prohibited performing it.

Yet Ostrovsky went on writing, and soon his name was mentioned among the best Russian playwrights — Fonvizin, Gri-boedov and Gogol. His first performed play, Don 't get into some-

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________ Практикум по художественному переводу___

one else's sledge was staged in 1853; it is a story of a merchant's daughter who falls in love with an untrustworthy gentleman, but in the end goes back to the merchant boy who really loves her. The Tsar went to see this play and approved it. Soon followed Poverty is no Vice and other plays.

In his plays Ostrovsky recorded and reproduced the slight­est details of the traditional life, ways and customs of Moscow merchant families as well as their rich and expressive Russian Language.

Apart from using the folk speech, he also invented his own words and phrases which later became popular, for instance, samo-dur (an "autofool"); his similes are especially colourful and ex­pressive, with a comic and sometimes satirical touch: «Садись, садись, Устинья Наумовна, что как пушка на колесах 'стоишь]», «А умен-то как — просто тебе истукан золотой». «Пришла да села, как квашня» — and the like.

His language was distinguished by many Russian writers. Turgenev wrote to his friend about him: «Эдаким славным, вкусным, чистым русским языком никто не писал до него\» (Nobody used such a pleasant, tasty and pure Russian language before him!) Maxim Gorky called him "a wizard of the Russian language."

He wrote over fifty plays: dramas, comedies, tragedies, his­torical plays, realistic plays, costume pieces, even fairy tales (his Snow Maiden was used twice as an opera libretto, by Tchaikovsky and by Rimsky-Korsakov). He even did some translations: he was working on Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra when he died.

His most popular play, Thunder, appeared in 1859. The customs, characters, and the very landscape of the play are the incarnation of the Middle Russia down the Volga River, the plac­es where Ostrovsky's ancestors originated and where he liked to travel.

The language of its characters, like in most of his plays, is, to a certain extent, untranslatable. Any English version of it inev­itably loses the original "Russianness" of the choice of words,

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Imagery in Translation

their forms, syntax — and altogether the music of the speech; it becomes neutral and artificial, as it were, lacking natural merits and freshness of the original.

Below is cited the commentary of the English translator of the Thunder on how he solved the translation problem of Russian names in this play, where most of them are "names speaking for themselves", i. e., meaningful, symbolic names:

"In giving the name 'Kuligin' to this man [aelf-educated craftsman — Т. К.] Ostrovsky was no doubt thinking of a famous self-taught craftsman called Kulibin, who lived in the eighteenth century, but at the same time he makes the name symbolic of the future of the Russian people, for kuliga means 'a patch of forest ground cleared for cultivation.' Opposed to him are the denizens of the surrounding forest — Dikoy ('savage') and Mrs Kabanova ('the wild sow'). Christian names, too, are symbolic in this play; Saul Dikoy has a moody violent temper, like his namesake King Saul, and-Mrs Kabanova is one of the 'Marthas' of this world — at least in her own estimation. So too with Barbara the 'wild' and Catherine the 'pure'; Tikhon (Greek Tychon)... is a rather unusu­al and monastic name, probably chosen because it sounds like the Russian word for'quiet.'

The surnames in this play however are real Russian sur­names, and the overtones of meaning that they carry could not be reproduced in English. They have therefore been retained in their original form."

Task for comparison: Гроза — Thunder

ГРОЗА

Действие первое

Явление пятое

(Входят Кабанова, Кабанов, Катерина и Варвара).

Кабанова: Если ты хочешь мать послушать, так ты, как

приедешь туда, сделай так, как я тебе приказывала._______

Практикум по художественному переводу____

Кабанов: Да как же я могу, маменька, вас ослушаться!

Кабанова: Не очень-то нынче старших уважают. Варвара {про себя): Не уважишь тебя, как же! Кабанов: Я, кажется, маменька, из вашей воли ни на

шаг.

Кабанова: Поверила бы я тебе, мой друг, кабы своими глазами не видала да своими ушами не слыхала, каково те­перь стало почтение родителям от детей-то! Хоть бы то-то помнили, сколько матери болезней от детей переносят.

Кабанов: Я, маменька...

Кабанова: Если родительница что когда и обидное, по вашей гордости, скажет, так, я думаю, можно бы перенести! А! как ты думаешь?

Кабанов: Да когда же я, маменька, не переносил от вас?

Кабанова: Мать стара, глупа; ну, а вы, молодые люди, умные, не должны с нас, дураков, взыскивать.

Кабанов {вздыхая, в сторону): Ах ты, Господи! (Ма­тери): Да смеем ли мы, маменька, подумать!

Кабанова: Ведь от любви родители и строги-то к вам бывают, от любви вас и бранят-то, все думают добру научить. Ну, а это нынче не нравится. И пойдут детки-то по людям славить, что мать ворчунья, что мать проходу не дает, со све­ту сживает. А сохрани Господи, каким-нибудь словом снохе не угодить, ну и пошел разговор, что свекровь заела совсем.

Кабанов: Нешто, маменька, кто говорит про вас?

Кабанова: Не слыхала, мой друг, не слыхала, лгать не хочу. Уж кабы я слышала, я бы с тобой, мой милый, тогда не

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