Canadian Slavonic Papers

Forefathers by Adam MickiewiczCanadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Winter, 1969), pp.518-520Published by: Canadian Association of SlavistsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40866266 .

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518 REVUE CANADIENNE DES SLAVISTES

In comparing the translation with the original, an improvement is noted in the transfer of the footnotes from a separate appendix in the original to the individual pages of the translation. However, the fact that the work was Driessen's Ph.D. dissertation at Amsterdam University in 1955 was not noted in the preface to the translation. Few important works related to his topic are missing in Driessen's excellent bibliography. The lapses in style and occasional grammatical mistakes may be the fault of the translation.

Several objections can be raised with regard to Driessen's psychological treatment. His preoccupation with the Oedipal theory led him to prefer a selection of Gogol's earlier fantastic tales which lent themselves most readily to interpretation in its terms. It is precisely in the artistically more mature works, for example 'Old-world Landowners/ 'The Two Ivans/ 'The Over- coat/ that the psychological side of Driessen's interpretations is least developed and he resorts to other approaches. Driessen also confuses psychological intelligibility with aesthetic value. Certainly, any of the 'St. Petersburg Tales' are aesthetically superior to the 'Dikanka' tales or *Viy/ which are praised so highly by Driessen. Driessen's interpretation of Gogol's anxiety, a product of his Oedipal complex, as the common factor which is reflected in Gogol's works, leads to a static view of Gogol's psychology. Such a view cannot account for the dynamics of psychological change which are reflected in Gogol's mature works. Perhaps the psychological concept of 'regression' could be introduced to offset this static aspect of Driessen's theory and explain the psychological development reflected in Gogol's mature art. A full scale work from a consistent psychoanalytical point of view would indeed be welcome. Until such a work is written, Driessen's study remains the best of its kind.

Driessen's work may be considered an incomplete, though at times bril- liant collection of essays on Gogol's early short stories. As a work of creative criticism it establishes Driessen as one of the foremost scholars of Gogol.

[Frederick KosarekJ

Forefathers. Adam Mickiewicz. Translated by Count Potocki of Mon- talk. London: The Polish Cultural Foundation, 1968. Pp. xxii + 288.

There seem to be two extreme approaches to the translation of poetry. The first is that adopted by Vladimir Nabokov in his translations of Slovo o polku Igoreve and Evgenii Onegin, and is based on the principle of matter over form. The result hardly reads as poetry, but it can at least be used by students as a pony, and this goal is expressly stated by Nabokov in the introduction to his Onegin translation. The other extreme approach is that of rhyme at all cost, and it is this stand which is taken by Count Potocki in his translation of Mickiewicz's Dziady. This translation is neither accurate nor poetic, and its only service may be to make Mickiewicz look like a bad poet.

To begin with, Potocki's handling of rhymes is amateurish and does not take into account the differences between Polish and English. Polish, as an inflected language, lends itself to frequent and close rhymes. The English rhyme system is not so tight, unless, of course, one stoops to the level of the

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BOOK REVIEWS 519

nursery rhyme. This is precisely what Potocki has done: his rhymes are for the most part simple, one-syllable words, and they are almost always perfect rhymes. Thus, in his translation of the first 102 lines of part one, 28 of the 56 rhyming combinations consist entirely of one-syllable words (light-night, way-day, chain-pain, king-sing, etc.) and only four are not perfect rhymes. Moreover, he maintains the use of the couplet, even though its extended use in English is more stilted than in Polish. Indeed, he does more than just maintain the couplet, for he employs it even in places where Mickiewicz does not. At times this only serves to negate the variety of the original, as in the case of his translation of lines 700-5 of part four, where he uses four couplets to translate Mickiewicz's pattern of abacbc. At other times the result is more disastrous, as in the case of the opening lines of the Improvi- sation (part three, scene 2). There his use of five couplets and a quatrain is a complete distortion of a beautiful sonnet characterized by the placement of the couplet after the first quatrain.

Potocki seems determined to rhyme, and at times he has to make such odd twists to keep to this rule that the effect is ludicrous and we are left with nothing more than a mockery of Mickiewicz. Among the devices he uses toward this end are the turning of one line into two ('Dobrze, ze nie chce czytaé, boby nas zanudziT = 'It's just as well he doesn't want to read: / I'm afraid he'd bore us with his screed'), the addition of entire phrases which are in no way present in the original ('Nie chcecie jadla, napoju, / Zos- tawciez nas w pokoju' = *You do not want our drinks nor food: / Leave us in peace, by the Holy Rood!'), and the substitution of one image for another ('I oko zwrócil wieflcie i slodkie jak figç' = 'He's rolling an eye like a fat pig in a cloister'). What makes all this even worse is the use of such un- familiar and odd-sounding words as 'screed' and 'rood/ What could be fun- nier than: 'Each noddle / Was neatly sliced with a knife, for talking twaddle?* Perhaps the old Radin-Noyes translation ('Each head was snapped off like a poppy flower!') was not poetic, but at last it did not evoke laughter at the expense of Poland's greatest poet.

In spite of the aforesaid, it must be recognized as a significant contribu- tion to Mickiewiczana and to the study of Polish literature abroad that for the first time we have most of Dziady in one volume and in English. Unfor- tunately, and without any explanation, an important scene was omitted from part three. This is perhaps the clearest testimony to the age of the transla- tion - most, or all, of which was done in the forties - since the recent switch in critical opinion in the direction of recognizing structural unity, at least in that part of the play, would hardly allow for such tampering with the text.

We are also fortunate in being provided with the foreword by Professor Weintraub. Certainly the general reader, if not the scholar, is presented with the background needed to understand the play. It is regrettable that this excellent summary is written in a language loaded with such foreignisms as faulty word order ('she continued to meet clandestinely Mickiewicz'), un- usual word formation ('a fully-fledged romantic'), and the omission of the definite article ('Prince Adam Czartoryski, Tsar's former friend'). Perhaps it is this lack of a feeling for the English language, which Professor Wein- traub seems to have in common with Count Potocki, that explains the

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520 CANADIAN SLAVONIC PAPERS

former's praise of the latter's work as 'the first translation which the reader can enjoy as true poetry/

Translations of poetry are not normally made for scholars, since serious scholarship is usually based on the original language. Their general purpose is to make available to the reading public the literature of another language, and they can only succeed if they are readable and beautiful in the language into which they are translated. The ideal, therefore, is for the translator to have a perfect knowledge of both languages. But if this is not possible, it should at least be clear from all the Zukovskiis and Pasternaks, Audens and Deutsches that a poet's feeling for the second language is more essential than a native knowledge of the original.

[Gerald Darring, University of Illinois]

ANNOUNCEMENT

The AAASS Newsletter recently launched a Professional Placement Register as a service to scholars in all Slavic disciplines. The listing of positions by the Register will not be limited to the academic world, but will include govern- ment agencies and industry as well, providing the talents they require fall within the scope of Slavic studies. There is no charge for this listing service.

Institutions wishing to place notices of vacancies should write to the Pro- fessional Placement Register, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Room 254, 190 West Nineteenth Avenue, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210. Information should include field of specialization required, rank, courses, hours, salary level, etc., and the name, address, and telephone number of the person to whom inquiries should be addressed. Submit each notice on typed copy, double-spaced, on a separate sheet of paper (not in the body of a letter) .

Applicants for positions are requested not to write to the AAASS, but to correspond directly with the institution listed.

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