Article published In:
Translation and Interpreting StudiesVol. 11:2 (2016) ► pp.225–247
From literal to technical
Reconsidering translation-related aspects of Nabokov’s Commentary to Onegin
Our understanding of Vladimir Nabokov’s method of translating Eugene Onegin as literal is largely based on his own claims and as such it populates anthologies of translation theory (i.e., Venuti’s The Translation Studies Reader) and classrooms. However, upon closer examination, Nabokov’s method is extremely removed both from the broad and specialized understanding of what a literal translation is. It is neither instrumental, as any literal translation would be, nor hermeneutic, as any literary translation accompanied by a voluminous commentary should be. Nabokov’s Commentary, an adjunct to his translation of Eugene Onegin, is the key to his translation method and to the translation’s strangeness. Analyzing the nature, scope, and function of the commentary from within the field of translation studies rather than that of literary criticism, this essay accounts for a number of idiosyncrasies observed by many critics of Commentary but previously unexplored and unexplained. These include its seemingly irrational feature of discussing texts unrelated to Pushkin’s own reading list; its excessive attention to Gallicisms and Romantic texts; its role in stabilizing translation; in a word, its function in Nabokov’s innovative translation methodology. This essay argues that instead of reviewing Nabokov’s Commentary within the paradigms of literary or historiographic genres, we should consider it first as a translation tool. The translation methodology then can be reevaluated in more technical terms than conventionally practiced in literary translation criticism. This revision unveils Nabokov’s translation not as literary but technical and not as literal but corpus-based, with mechanics and parallel texts minutely detailed in the commentary.
Keywords: Gallicisms, Onegin, parallel texts, corpus, Nabokov, Pushkin
References
Baker, Mona
1992 In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation. London: Routledge. 
Binyon, Timothy John
2003 Pushkin: A Biography. New York: Knopf.
Boyd, Brian
1991 Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Brown, Clarence
1967 “Nabokov’s Pushkin and Nabokov’s Nabokov.” Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature 8 (2): 280–293.
Brown, Edward J
1964 “Nabokov and Pushkin.” Slavic Review: American Quarterly of Soviet and East European Studies 231: 687–701.
1977 “Round Two: Nabokov versus Pushkin.” Slavic Review: American Quarterly of Soviet and East European Studies 36 (1): 101–105.
Chukovskii, Kornei
1988 “Onegin na chuzhbine [Onegin in an Alien Land].” In Vysokoe iskusstvo, 324–347. Moscow: Sovetskii Pisatel’.
Coates, Jenefer
1998 “Changing Horses, Nabokov and Translation.” In The Practices of Literary Translation: Constraints and Creativity, ed. by Jean Boase-Beier and Michael Holman, 91–108. Manchester: St. Jerome.
Conquest, Robert
1965 “Nabokov’s Eugene Onegin.” Poetry 106 (6): 263–268.
Dolinin, Alexander
1995 “Eugene Onegin.” In The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov, ed. by Vladimir E. Alexandrov, 117–130. New York: Garland.
Dubuc, Robert
1997 Terminology: A Practical Approach, adapted by Elaine Kennedy. Brossard: Linguatech éditeur.
Eskin, Michael
1997 “ ‘Literal Translation’: The Semiotic Significance of Nabokov’s Conception of Poetic Translation.” Interdisciplinary Journal for Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis 2 (1): 1–32.
Fahlen, John, (trans
) 1995 “Introduction.” In Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse, ed. by Alexander Pushkin, vii–xxiv. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gerschenkron, Alexander
1966 “Manufectured Monument?” Modern Philology 631: 336–347.
Gregg, Larry
1974 “Slava Snabokovu.” In A Book of Things about Vladimir Nabokov, ed. by Carl R. Proffer, 11–27. Ann Arbor: Ardis.
Hervey, Sándor, Michael Loughridge, and Ian Higgins
2006 Thinking German Translation: A Course in Translation Method, German to English. London: Routledge.
Hofstadter, Douglas R
1997 Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language. New York: Basic Books.
., (trans) 1999 “Translator’s Preface.” In Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse, by Alexander Pushkin, ix–xli. New York: Basic Books.
Farren, Mary-Jane, and Christine Demaeker
2011 “How Translation Is Taught in Belgium.” Invited paper presented at the
Center for Translation Studies
, University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, 14 February 2011.
Lakhtikova, Anastasia
2008 “The Multiple Russian Contexts of Nabokov’s Onegin.” Ph.D. dissertation, Washington University in St. Louis.
Laviosa, Sara
1998 “The Corpus-Based Approach: A New Paradigm in Translation Studies.” Meta 43 (4): 474–479.
Leighton, Lauren G
1991 Two Worlds, One Art: Literary Translation in Russia and America. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press.
Malmkjaer, Kirsten
1998 “Love thy Neighbour: Will Parallel Corpora Endear Linguists to Translators?” Meta 43 (4): 534–541.
Muliarchik, Aleksandr
1999 “A.S. Pushkin, V. Nabokov i Edmund Wilson.” SShA, Kanada, ekonomika, politika, kul’tura 51: 89–101; 61: 91–102.
Nabokov, Vladimir
1955 “Problems of Translation: Onegin in English.” Partisan Review 221: 29–32.
, trans., comm 1990 Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse, 2 vols1, ed. by Aleksandr Pushkin. [Bollingen Series 72]. 2nd ed.. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeevich. Polnoe Sobranie Sovhinenii, Dmitrii Blagoi, et al.
(eds) 1959–1962 Russkaia Virtual’naia Biblioteka, Vol. 41, Vers. 2.2 30 Jan 2002 Ed. by Vladimir Litvinov and Igor’ Pil’shchikov. Last accessed June 22, 2011. [URL].
Rappaport, Helen
2000 “Literal Translation: A Practitioner’s View.” In Encyclopedia of Literary Translation into English: A–L, Vol. 11, ed. by Olive Classe, 857–859. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn.
Robinson, Douglas
1991 “Aversion.” In The Translator’s Turn, 239–249. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
2003 Becoming a Translator: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Translation. London: Routledge.
Ronen, Omry
1998–1999 “Emulation, Anti-Parody, Intertextuality, and Annotation.” Nabokov Studies 51: 63–70.
Rosengrant, Judson
1994 “Nabokov’s Theory and Practice of Translation: 1941–1975.” SEEJ 38 (1): 29–32.
Shaw, Thomas J
1965 “Translations of Onegin.” Russian Review 24 (2): 111–127.
1977 “Eugene Onegin.” SEEJ 21 (2): 268–270.
Schulte, Rainer, and John Biguenet
(eds) 1992 Theories of Translation: An Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Skovajsa, Kornel Joseph
1971 “Vladimir Nabokov’s Eugene Onegin: A Critical Study.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California.
Sofer, Morry
(ed) 1996 The Translator’s Handbook. Rockville: Schreiber.
Tarvi, L
1999 “Pushkin i Nabokov: Iz opyta po klonirovaniiu oneginskoĭ stroki na angliĭskom.” In A. S. Pushkin i V. V. Nabokov, ed. by V.P. Stark, 297–313. St. Petersburg: Dorn.
Trubikhina, Julia
2008 “The Metaphysical ‘Affinity of the Unlike’: Strategies of Nabokov’s Literalism.” Intertexts 12 (1): 55–73.
Venuti, Lawrence
(ed) 2004 The Translation Studies Reader. 2nd Ed. London: Routledge.
Washbourne, R. Kelly
2010 Manual of Spanish-English Translation. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Wilson, Edmund 1965 “The Strange Case of Pushkin and Nabokov…” New York Review of Books 4 (12): 15 July: 3–6.