И молвил он: «В былое время
Держал, как дорогое бремя,
Я голову свою…
Теперь же, скажем откровенно,
Мозгов лишен я совершенно
И с легким сердцем, вдохновенно
На голове стою.»
Regarding the receptor’s comprehension of the text, another problem arises – rendering the historical overtone обертон, нотка of a text. A source text can be distanced from the target language receptor not only in culture, but also in time. Books belonging to earlier literature are understood differently by source language readers and target language readers, due to the difference in their knowledge and cultural backgrounds. How can a translator solve the problem of conveying a historical coloring? There are two main ways: 1) using an archaic syntax and vocabulary, typical of the target language works (for example, when translating from English into Russian, using 18th century Russian, of the type: Правда, чтоб видеть сие явственнее еще, потребно самому иметь и очи и чувства ипохондрические; но я, благодаря бога! будучи оными всещедро одарен, надеюсь представить вам самую живейшую картину тех лиц и особ, с коими я на берегу часто общался. – Н. Новиков); 2) using today’s syntax and some archaic words and culture-bound words for the local and historical coloring. This can be exemplified by an abstract from Gulliver’s Travels by J. Swift: My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the third of five sons. He sent me to Emanuel College in Cambridge, at fourteen years old, where I resided three years, and applied myself close to my studies; but the charge of maintaining me (although I had a very scanty allowance) being too great for a narrow future, I was bound apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent surgeon in London, with whom I continued four years; and my father now and then sending me small sums of money, I laid them out in learning navigation, and other parts of the mathematics, useful to those who intend to travel, as I always believed it would be some time or other my fortune to do. The translator did some partitioning and other transformations to make the text better adapted to the contemporary reader, retaining the culture-bound words (unfortunately, some information was necessarily reduced): Я уроженец Ноттингемпшира, где у моего отца было небольшое поместье. Когда мне исполнилось четырнадцать лет, отец послал меня в колледж Иманьюела в Кембридже. Там я пробыл три года, прилежно занимаясь науками. Однако отцу было не по средствам дольше содержать меня в колледже, поэтому он взял меня оттуда и отдал в учение к выдающемуся лондонскому врачу мистеру Джемсу Бетсу, у которого я провел четыре года. Все деньги, какие изредка присылал мне отец, я тратил на изучение навигации и других отраслей математики. Эти науки всегда могли пригодиться в путешествии, а я был убежден, что судьба предназначила мне сделаться путешественником. (Transl. by B. Engelgardt)
The first method may be misleading in the sense that it can make the reader imagine him/herself reading a Russian original rather than a translation. Therefore, translators mostly prefer the second way of rendering historical texts.
TRANSLATOR’S IMPACT
In the attempt to make a good translation, a translator, nevertheless bears the influence of cultural and literary trends typical of the time, which affect his/her outlook and have a certain impact on the translation. It brings us back to the history of translation. It is known that Vasily Zhukovsky, translating Byron, avoided all themes of rebellion from the poet’s works, as they were alien to the translator. On the other hand, he emphasized the religious motifs in Byron’s poems. He adjusted Byron’s poetry to himself, which allowed V. Belinsky to say that he was a poet rather than a translator.
Another example of ideological incursion (вторжение) in translation was Voltaire’s translation of Hamlet’s soliloquy (монолог), not as a meditation on death, but as a diatribe ['daıətraıb] обличительная речь against religion.
These days it is considered necessary for a translator to follow only the source language author, sometimes at the expense of his/her own artistic work.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the quality of translation is dependent on translator’s personal knowledge, intuitions and artistic competence.
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