Information about the author:
Tatiana V. Victoroff
Tatiana V. Victoroff, DSc in Philology, Professor, Université de Strasbourg, Faculté des Lettres. Bâtiment Le Portique, 14 Rue René Descartes, BP 80010 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France; literary director, publishing house YMCA-Press, 11 rue de la Montagne Sainte Geneviève, 75005 Paris, France.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2607-7693
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Abstract:
The article studies Ivan Bunin’s translations of the Parnassian poets, mainly Charles Leconte de Lisle. The author analyzes seven poems by Leconte de Lisle translated by Bunin, including a draft autograph of “Eternal Fragrance”, published for the first time, free paraphrase (“Malay Song”) and a quote of his poem in the story “Without a Tribe”. Finally, an attempt is made to attribute the poem “Nightmare”, published likely by Bunin in 1895 as a translation “from French”, without specifying the author of the original. The restoration of French sources and Russian translations used by Bunin makes it possible to clarify the dating of the story “Without a Tribe”, Bunin’s reading circle in the early period of his work and his dialogue, in addition to the poets of the Parnassian school, with Ch. Baudelaire, E. Verhaeren, G. de Maupassant creating a genre of free retelling-rewriting of French sources, conducted, among other things, through the medium of Russian classical writers (M. Lermontov, A. Chekhov). The author concludes that there were three kinds of attitude Bunin as a translator had to the original text: an exact poetic translation, which marks almost all translations of Leconte de Lisle; a free paraphrase “to the tune” in symphony with his own mood (poetic paraphrases of “Confessions of the Son of the Century” by A. de Musset and lyrical poetry by P. Bourget, reminiscences from “Migratory Birds” by J. Richepin in the fairy tale “Holiday”, variations on the theme of “Death of the Sun” by Leconte de Lisle in the story “Without a Tribe”); finally, a free translation “from French” (“Nightmare” as a dialogue with the Parnassians; “Night Blizzard” — with Baudelaire), which is in fact Bunin’s original work, retaining a connection with the poetic school, which seeks to return poetry to the peaks of Parnassus. The Appendix to the article reproduces all the known texts of Bunin’s translations of French poetry with the identification of the most significant variants based on autographs and author’s publications, allowing to understand the peculiarities of the translator’s work.
