This 1857 poem by Nikolay Nekrasov illustrates how Russia since Peter the Great has always taken a close interest in European affairs--or to put it another way, how Russia became part of Europe through Peter the Great widespread reforms. With this translation, I have tried to keep as close as possible to Nekrasov’s Russian and to his lineation. I have not attempted to replicate his rhyme scheme (ababcdccd) or his tetrameters. Nor have I followed the original punctuation. As is often the custom in Russian poetry, Nekrasov offers no title. I have chosen “In the Capitals.” Another common aspect of Russian poetry is the ellipsis; I have kept it here.
As an amateur translator of Russian poetry, I base my approach primarily on fidelity to the original. I find that many translators take too many liberties, often leading to a translation that is far from the original text. Of course these liberties are not usually taken because the translator thinks s/he can improve on the original. Rather, translators take liberties with the text because they want to duplicate the prosodic format. For example, if the original poem uses rhyme, many translators feel an obligation to duplicate that rhyme scheme. With many languages, especially those that employ inflection as Russian does, duplicating rhymes in English is difficult. As well, duplication of the line can be a challenge with respect to meter and the number of syllables.
Following a common practice in Russian poetry, this poem has no title. I have added my own. Reaped Fields Reaped cornfields, bare woods,Mist and damp from the waters.Like a wheel, the silent moonRolls down behind the blue hills. The churned-up road slumbers.Today it noticesThat little by littleGrey winter is on its way. Yesterday in the resonant copseI saw through the mistA chestnut moon harnessed, like a colt, to our sleigh. 1917 Sergei Esenin (1895-1925) is still, one hundred years after his death, a popular poet in Russia. When he was young, he wrote poems about village life. At 28 he married the celebrated American dancer Isadora Duncan. Always unstable, Esenin hanged himself two years later, leaving behind a farewell poem written in his own blood: “ Goodbye, my friend, goodbye.”
Gaspard de la nuit, Book III The Night and Its Marvels I. The Gothic Room Nox et solitudo plenae sunt diabolo [The night and my bedroom are full of devils.]The Church Fathers “Oh!” I murmured to the night, “The earth is an scented calyx whose pistil and stamen are the sun and the stars!” And eyes heavy with sleep, I closed the window inlaid with a cross of the Calvary, black in the yellow aureole of the stained glass. *** Still, if it were only at midnight—the hour emblazoned with dragons and devils!--that the gnome gorges on the oil of my lamp!
This well-known poem describes a failed attempt to achieve self-knowledge. It has three mostly unrhymed stanzas of 10,12 and 8 unequal lines. Like Apollinaire, Reverdy doesn’t use punctuation. The first stanza describes the chaos in the poet’s mind as he tries to come to terms with himself. This can only be done if the noise of the world, especially from people, can be shut out or left far away. But life can’t be shut out or escaped; despite all efforts, “unforgotten memories” like cold draughts can still be felt. Throughout all this suicide lurks. Ultimately the poet fails in his attempt but lives on to try again.
Autumn Rose The forest has speckled its peaks,The garden has bared its brow,September has died, and the dahliasHave burned in the breath of night. But in the draught of frostAlone among the dead,There’s still you, queen rose,Fragrant and magnificent. Despite some cruel ordealsAnd the malice of fading days,You waft to me the imageAnd the breath of spring. 1886 September Rose After the morning sigh of frost,How strangely the rose smilesWith a flush of parted lipsOn a fleeting September day!
Ivan Turgenev, of course, is much better known as a novelist, but for a few years before achieving fame, he wrote poems. From 1841 to 1844, when in his mid-twenties, he wrote 29 poems. At this time he completed university and began to work in the civil service. Two of these poems, written in 1842, used a favorite Russian topic—Autumn. In writing these poems, Turgenev would have known the celebrated poem on this theme by Pushkin. And more than likely he would have also read autumn poems by Lermontov, Baratynsky and Tyutchev.
According to Tomas Tranströmer, the title of this major poem is a “non-existent plural for the Baltic,” implying the multiple approach he used to describe the Baltic Sea. Thus the persistent reader encounters the geographical Baltic, the political Baltic, the historical Baltic, the shipping Baltic, the family-history Baltic, the multi-language Baltic, the threatening Baltic—to name a few. Baltics is unique among Tomas Tranströmer’s poems. It’s the only long poem that he wrote. He has described it as “a sort of long poem where I put everything.” The poem has 245 lines divided into six sections. As well he uses poetic form in a totally different way from his normal practice.
Although his hero, Yury Zhivago, is a poet, Pasternak doesn’t introduce the topic of poetry writing until near the end of Doctor Zhivago. He chooses to wait until the tragic climax of the novel, when Yury and Lara spend a few days in secluded cabin at Varykino. In this article, it is taken for granted that both Yury’s and his author’s opinions are the same. There are four passages on writing in the fourteenth “Again in Varykino” chapter:1. Writing under inspiration2. Writing the final draft
Philippe Jaccotet (1925-2021) published poetry for over 50 years. The eight translated poems below were written over the first 30 years of his career. They all appear in Derek Mahon’s important Philippe Jaccotet: Selected Poems (1988). Choosing at least one poem from each of the seven collections Mahon has used, I have made my own translations. These differ somewhat from Mahon’s in that I have stayed closer to the original, whereas Mahon, from my perspective, took some “liberties” with Jaccottet’s original words. This means that Mahon’s translations are better poems in English, while my translations keep as closely as possible to the original French.