The Translation of Eugene Onegin by Pushkin—A Comparative Multilingual Study
Written at the end of the 19th century by Pushkin, Eugene Onegin is perceived as one of the masterpieces of Russian literature. Yet in other countries, this fame is often overshadowed by Tchaikovsky’s eponymous opera. Nevertheless, the great number of translations of this work do not correspond with its relative obscurity outside Russia. Pushkin named Eugene Onegin a “novel in verse.” This hybrid work blurs literary preconceptions of the distinction between prose and poetry, novel and poem, and makes use of a great variety of styles and genres. His approach fits with Bakhtin’s definition of a multilingual text, which is characterized by polyglossia and is shaped by a unique structure so later known as the “Onegin stanza.” For all these reasons, Eugene Onegin is a challenge for translators, be they Russian speakers or not (Hofstadter, Giudici). Though Western language poetry uses a wide variety of meter and rhyme, translators are inclined to transpose the Russian into Western verse, Western translators first must define the nature of the text to translate, as it does not belong to traditional genres. On the other hand, for Asian languages, such as Korean or Japanese, which have entirely different linguistic mechanisms as well as literary and poetic traditions, the challenge first seems far more complex, since the translator has to either invent or denounce a form as significant as the content of the text. However, as the text problematizes this very relationship, the distinction between form and content becomes irrelevant. Observing the various translating approaches—both Western and Asian—sheds light on this particular feature of Eugene Onegin and its translation. While the familiarity of Western languages with meter, verse, and rhyme seems to leave the translator with the problem of genre (novel/poem, poetic prose/prosaic poetry), the otherness or strangeness of Asian languages reveals that the translator’s task is, and has always been—even for Western translators—not merely to (attempt to) reproduce a versified form, but to create a new form, a new text that does “what the text does.” (Meschonnic).