Vyacheslav Ivanov and C.M. Bowra: a ... - UCL Discovery

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versions would be worse than they are but for kind help from Mr. I. Berlin and Dr. S. Rachmilevitsch.’ 17 Bowra clearly had some Russian, but the manner of its acquisition and its precise level remain something of a mystery. Did he pick up the language during the few months he spent in Petersburg in 1916? Did he perhaps take lessons later in Oxford or attempt to teach himself? He does not write about this in his Memories, nor do the published memoirs of his contemporaries cast any light on the subject. 18 My own attempts to find out from witnesses how good his Russian was have yielded two results, suggesting that his ability to memorise literary texts far exceeded his grasp of the living language. Isaiah Berlin, describing to me the occasion when he accompanied Bowra on his first visit to Ivanov in Rome in 1947, recalled that Bowra conversed with Ivanov in French, as his spoken Russian was very poor. 19 Timothy Binyon, a former Fellow of Wadham College and Tutor in Russian, informed me that in later years Bowra could quote Russian poetry from memory at great length, though in rather a strange accent, and remembered Bowra reciting to him occasionally in the College common-room after dinner (possibly a long passage from Lermontov's ‘Mtsyri’). 20 How, therefore, did Bowra approach the task of translating Ivanov? His general method as a translator was strongly influenced by the classes given by Murray on translation from Greek that he had attended as an undergraduate in Oxford; as Isaiah Berlin perceptively commented, Bowra ‘virtually alone in England happily (and successfully) parsed the obscurest lines of modern Russian poets as he did the verse of 17 Bowra (ed.), A Book of Russian Verse, v; Bowra (ed.), A Second Book of Russian Verse, v. 18 Apart from Ivanov's daughter, who comments in her memoirs that Bowra ‘knew Russian well’. Lidiya Ivanova, Vospominaniya. Kniga ob ottse, ed. John Malmstad (Paris: Atheneum, 1990), 293. 19 Personal communication to the author from Isaiah Berlin, All Souls College, Oxford, 26 November 1980. 20 Personal communication to the author from T.J. Binyon, July and August 2002. Most sadly, Timothy Binyon died unexpectedly on 8 October 2004. According to his obituary, Bowra ‘bid’ for him to become a Fellow of Wadham in 1968 and was his chief mentor when he began teaching at the College (Paul Levy, The Independent, 13 October 2004). 50
Pindar or Alcaeus.’ 21 In his brief foreword to Sir Cecil Kisch's bilingual anthology of nineteenth-century Russian poetry, published in 1947, Bowra offered a simple and clear definition of his approach to the art of translation: ‘There are many ways of translating poetry, and one of the most interesting ways is that which keeps as closely as possible to the meaning and the metre of the original text. This method allows us to see what the poet really said and into what form he cast his thoughts.’ It is clear from his comments that he placed a high value on ‘great accuracy’ in conveying both the meaning and the form of the original poems, and was sensitive to the difficulty of rendering ‘the ease and simplicity of Russian poetry’ in English. 22 In A Book of Russian Verse his stated aim was ‘to give a representative selection of short Russian poems in translations as faithful and as readable as can be found’ with versions that follow ‘not only the sense but the metres of the originals’. 23 To see how well Bowra succeeded in meeting these goals, we shall consider two of his translations from Ivanov’s verse. The first example, ‘Complaint’, was singled out by Ivanov as his favourite translation when he eventually received a copy of Bowra's first anthology in 1947, four years after its first publication. 24 Complaint Thy soul, unhearing and unspeaking, In its dark forest droops to sleep, Where droves of dark desires are breaking And through the tangled brushwood sweep. 21 Berlin, ‘Memorial Address in St Mary’s’, 19. 22 Cecil Kisch, tr., The Waggon of Life and Other Lyrics by Russian Poets of the Nineteenth Century, with a foreword by Dr C.M. Bowra (London: Cresset Press, 1947), xi. 23 Bowra (ed.), A Book of Russian Verse, v. 24 See draft of letter 9 in Chapter 5, note 73. 51
Page 1 and 2: BIRMINGHAM SLAVONIC MONOGRAPHS No.
Page 3 and 4: Дорогой друг мой, м
Page 5 and 6: Illustrations Photograph of V.I. Iv
Page 7 and 8: Transcription and Transliteration I
Page 9 and 10: INTRODUCTION Vyacheslav Ivanov (186
Page 11 and 12: classical tradition of humanism to
Page 13 and 14: tradition’. 1 Although Ivanov beg
Page 15 and 16: he overlooked them because of his h
Page 17 and 18: ‘zhiznetvorchestvo’ (creation o
Page 19 and 20: (Transparency, 1904), Eros (1907),
Page 21 and 22: humanism; as we shall see below, th
Page 23 and 24: his transformation of the Russian l
Page 25 and 26: The publication of these letters in
Page 27 and 28: edition then formed the basis of th
Page 29 and 30: Жил Диониса новый с
Page 31 and 32: CHAPTER TWO Bowra as a Classical Sc
Page 33 and 34: company of a Russian friend's siste
Page 35 and 36: who initiated him into the art of t
Page 37 and 38: made possible his election to the O
Page 39 and 40: the United States, that he discusse
Page 41 and 42: intuitions, was able to recognize i
Page 43 and 44: Moscow during the war years. 2 The
Page 45 and 46: (tiny little corner): 'это то
Page 47 and 48: of the existing anthologies of Russ
Page 49: (unchanged) in 1947 and then follow
Page 53 and 54: Уединенная душа. 26 A
Page 55 and 56: К закатным пристан
Page 57 and 58: succeeds in conveying the power and
Page 59 and 60: Dimitrii, who also omit all referen
Page 61 and 62: all a great personality in contact
Page 63 and 64: ight now it’s impossible to deter
Page 65 and 66: covering several pages; 16 distichs
Page 67 and 68: to the task of translation. A key t
Page 69 and 70: connection advanced by Ivanov and p
Page 71 and 72: you, poet, so much sympathy, compre
Page 73 and 74: mutans carmina in aes raucum’) in
Page 75 and 76: conventional morality. These aspect
Page 77 and 78: Bowra's interpretation and admired
Page 79 and 80: members of a common humanist tradit
Page 81 and 82: details of his meetings with Akhmat
Page 83 and 84: of Svet Vechernii back to Oxford, t
Page 85 and 86: he was clearly anxious to define in
Page 87 and 88: the way in which his generation of
Page 89 and 90: έστίν. 79 This Christian versi
Page 91 and 92: These are not just empty truisms. I
Page 93 and 94: Bowra were discovered in Wadham Col
Page 95 and 96: [To C. M. Bowra, Oxford high-priest
Page 97 and 98: prospere vigeant! 12 Iam ante quinq
Page 99 and 100: Dear Sir, 3 Ivanov - Bowra 1 Octobe
Page 101 and 102:
Praestantissime poeta, 28 4 Bowra -
Page 103 and 104:
5 Ivanov - Bowra 9 December 1946 33
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survival. 38 I am glad that you hav
Page 107 and 108:
implies. 47 How hard it is, for ins
Page 109 and 110:
Dear Professor Ivanov, 7 Bowra - Iv
Page 111 and 112:
With all good wishes to your family
Page 113 and 114:
compatriotes non-initiés. 64 Vos t
Page 115 and 116:
Dear Professor Ivanov, 10 Bowra - I
Page 117 and 118:
your book. 81 I have also written t
Page 119 and 120:
His subsequent support for the publ
Page 121 and 122:
Works by V.I. Ivanov 1 SELECT BIBLI
Page 123 and 124:
Ivanov, Vyacheslav, Dionis i pradio
Page 125 and 126:
Berlin and Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verl
Page 127 and 128:
Bowra, C.M., Early Greek Elegists,
Page 129 and 130:
London: Duckworth, 1974, 48-85. Aub
Page 131 and 132:
Vena 1998, ed. Sergei Averintsev an
Page 133 and 134:
Konovalov, S., ed., Vyacheslav I. I
Page 135 and 136:
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, Atalan
Page 137:
INDEX OF NAMES AND WORKS 137
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