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=3ERhyme in Russian might not be the same thing, culturally, as rhyme in
=3EEnglish, in view of the different histories of the two poetries. Usually
=3Eyou have to choose between rhyme and meaning, if you translate the one
=3Eyou're going to lose some (sometimes most) of the other. And if you rhyme
=3Etranslation in English you're probably going to displace the poem =
further
=3Eback in history than is comfortable -- we don't =5Fwant=5F Mandelstam to =
be an
=3EEdwardian poet=21 It's certainly true though, that we get most Russian,=
and
=3Eall early Chinese poetry, in cheap substitute versions by setting aside =
all
=3Ethat structure as if it doesn't mean anything. I don't know any answer to
=3Ethis.
Mandelstam's verse is about as highly-articulated in terms of rhyme =26
sound pattern as can be. I think that this is the main thing that gets
lost in the various informal English versions we have. It's certainly a
difficult problem, as you suggest, but one shouldn't assume that rhyme
in English translation is always going to be antiquated or anachronistic.
Both Yeats =26 Crane, in whom I find stylistic parallels to Mandelstam,
were his near-contemporaries. (Yeats in his self-conscious monumentality,
Crane in his extreme sound-patterning blended with traditional meter.)
Henry
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