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

Greek versions: ‘I am not sure that they are really Hellenic – I wish they were.’ 43 He knew that
Ivanov would be a discerning judge of this question - the copy of Prozrachnost’ that he had just
received from Moscow included the poet’s translation of Bacchylides’s dithyramb ‘Theseus’,
followed by extensive comments on the musical principles underlying the transposition of its
Dionysian qualities from Greek into Russian. As a poet who had devoted a large part of his
creative energies to reviving Greek poetic forms in Russian through original verse, drama and
translations, Ivanov understood exactly what Bowra was trying to achieve and what he meant by
his closing comment in the letter. He copied it out twice: first on a folded sheet accompanying
Bowra's Greek version of Coleridge, followed by two significant words ‘“Ελληνίδ” έμπνει’
(breathes the ‘Greek’), and then again at the beginning of his letter of reply, written on 9
December 1946. After quoting Bowra’s words, he opened his letter with a six-line original
poem, composed by him in Greek iambic trimeters to allay his correspondent’s worries about
the ‘Hellenic’ qualities of his versions. Like the earlier Latin distichs, this poem also takes the
form of a flattering address to Bowra; Ivanov reassured him that he must indeed be inspired by
the Greek Muse, for without such inspiration it would be impossible for anyone, however wise,
to render lines of the Northern lyre into Greek. 44
In the next part of his letter, after expressing his admiration for Bowra’s command of the
Greek poetic language, Ivanov went on to address his concern in considerable detail. In the case
of the Greek version of Swinburne, he found it ‘more transparent, more serene, more Greek’
than the original, apart from four lines, deemed to be ‘rather biblical’. In the case of Coleridge’s
fragment, after a careful comparison of the Greek version with the original text, he praised
42 V. I. , ‘Simbolismo’, in Enciclopedia Italiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti (Rome: Istituto della
Enciclopedia Italiana fondata da Giovanni Treccani), 1936, XXXI, 795.
43 Letter 4 in Chapter 5.
44 Letter 5 in Chapter 5; for further discussion of the Greek poem, see Chapter 5, note 35.
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