I just joined the list and have been following the translation thread with
some interest. I've translated Russian, which I read (but don't speak) pretty
well.I haven't looked at Mandelstam translations in a long time, but would
agree that Greene's are among the better ones.Most Russian readers, however,
would probably feel that Mandelstam without rhymes is not Mandelstam at all.
There's a big difference in traditions here. And unlike, say Yeats, who tried
to make his rhyming more unobtrusive, M. worked his rhymes more and more
heavily as he went on, both for semantic linkages and movement.If there was
ever a poet for whom rhyme is the opposite of decorative, it is him. Henry,
you got that right, at least.
What examples are there in English of translations in the line of "scrupulous
care and fidelity, and helpfulness, which will tend to go unnoticed."?
Russians have produced a lot in that line, or at least such is the
conventional wisdom.
Alan Shaw
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