The Russian Auden and the Russianness of Auden
-
Nila Friedberg
Abstract
One of Joseph Brodsky’s primary mentors, W.H. Auden constituted a key influence on the Russian poet. At the same time, Brodsky found Auden extremely difficult to translate. Rendering Auden’s “Stop all the Clocks” in Russian, Brodsky does not preserve Auden’s form, opting instead for iambic hexameter, a meter not frequently used by Russian poets in Brodsky’s time. I argue that the difficulty of translating Auden is that “Stop All the Clocks” recalls too much the Russian dol’nik – for the post-emigration Brodsky, the most “neutral” meter. Thus, problems in translation can arise not only because of prosodic differences between poets and languages, but even when two poets happen to be metrically similar, because a translator may seek through formal distinctiveness to pay homage to the author of the original. I further show that Brodsky’s metrical choice, i.e., iambic hexameter, is not accidental and represents a complex blend of semantic links to various poets and texts, including an echo of Brodsky’s own earlier poem devoted to his mentor Anna Akhmatova. What is the function of rhythm in poetry? What esthetic ends are served by the formal patterns […]? No doubt the formal organization of meter is determined in a complex way by the interacting demands of esthetic function and linguistic form. But how? Kiparsky (1977: 246)
Abstract
One of Joseph Brodsky’s primary mentors, W.H. Auden constituted a key influence on the Russian poet. At the same time, Brodsky found Auden extremely difficult to translate. Rendering Auden’s “Stop all the Clocks” in Russian, Brodsky does not preserve Auden’s form, opting instead for iambic hexameter, a meter not frequently used by Russian poets in Brodsky’s time. I argue that the difficulty of translating Auden is that “Stop All the Clocks” recalls too much the Russian dol’nik – for the post-emigration Brodsky, the most “neutral” meter. Thus, problems in translation can arise not only because of prosodic differences between poets and languages, but even when two poets happen to be metrically similar, because a translator may seek through formal distinctiveness to pay homage to the author of the original. I further show that Brodsky’s metrical choice, i.e., iambic hexameter, is not accidental and represents a complex blend of semantic links to various poets and texts, including an echo of Brodsky’s own earlier poem devoted to his mentor Anna Akhmatova. What is the function of rhythm in poetry? What esthetic ends are served by the formal patterns […]? No doubt the formal organization of meter is determined in a complex way by the interacting demands of esthetic function and linguistic form. But how? Kiparsky (1977: 246)
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors vii
- Acknowledgments xiii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Isochronous metrics
- Textsetting as constraint conflict 43
- Comparing musical textsetting in French and in English songs 63
- Bavarian Zwiefache 79
- Natural Versification in French and German counting-out rhymes 101
- Minimal chronometric forms 123
- Symmetry and children’s poetry in sign languages 143
-
Part II. Prosodic metrics
- Pairs and triplets 167
- Generative linguistics and Arabic metrics 193
- On the meter of Middle English alliterative verse 209
- The Russian Auden and the Russianness of Auden 229
- Towards a universal definition of the caesura 247
- Metrical alignment 267
- Rephrasing line-end restrictions 287
-
Part III. Para-metrical phenomena
- Pif paf poof 307
- The phonology of elision and metrical figures in Italian versification 325
-
Part IV. Macrostructural metrics
- Convention and parody in the rhyming of Tristan Corbière 337
- The metrics of Sephardic song 355
- A rule of metrical uniformity in old Hungarian poetry 371
- Metrical structure of the European sonnet 385
- Persons index 403
- Languages index 411
- Subjects index 415
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors vii
- Acknowledgments xiii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Isochronous metrics
- Textsetting as constraint conflict 43
- Comparing musical textsetting in French and in English songs 63
- Bavarian Zwiefache 79
- Natural Versification in French and German counting-out rhymes 101
- Minimal chronometric forms 123
- Symmetry and children’s poetry in sign languages 143
-
Part II. Prosodic metrics
- Pairs and triplets 167
- Generative linguistics and Arabic metrics 193
- On the meter of Middle English alliterative verse 209
- The Russian Auden and the Russianness of Auden 229
- Towards a universal definition of the caesura 247
- Metrical alignment 267
- Rephrasing line-end restrictions 287
-
Part III. Para-metrical phenomena
- Pif paf poof 307
- The phonology of elision and metrical figures in Italian versification 325
-
Part IV. Macrostructural metrics
- Convention and parody in the rhyming of Tristan Corbière 337
- The metrics of Sephardic song 355
- A rule of metrical uniformity in old Hungarian poetry 371
- Metrical structure of the European sonnet 385
- Persons index 403
- Languages index 411
- Subjects index 415
