Looking for/Longing for/Sick for Home: Marina Tsvetaeva in English Translation

Translation and Literature. 2014. No. 23.3. P. 336–364.

Bergin T., Цветкова М. В., Whyte C.

This contribution is the result of a correspondance between a postdoctoral English literature scholar and poet, Tara Bergin, who is based in Newcastle University, and a Russian and English literature scholar, Marina Tsvetkova, who is based at the National Research University Higher School of Economics at Nizhny Novgorod. I am told that they met at a conference on translated poetry held at Cambridge University, and found they had too many questions to ask each other in the time available; their conversations centered around the ways in which Tsvetaeva had been translated into English. It was agreed that they should write to each other, with the hope eventually using their letters as the basis of an academic essay. Tara Bergin's task was to make notes on Elaine Feinstein's English translation of Marian Tsvetaeva' Тоска по родине (Feinstein's "Homesickness"), considering it from the point of view of an English-speaking reader, looking at its effectiveness as a poem in English, but also keeping in mind he knowledge of Tsvetaeva, gained from biographies and critical works available in English. She would then send her comments to Marina Tsvetkova. Marina is more familiar with the Russian original, and David McDuff's English translation of it, and was interested to read a native English speaker's opinion on the Fernstein's version. Her task was to reply by explaining her views on the McDuff's translation from the point of view of a native speaker, fluent in English, who understands the context of the original poem.

Ключевые слова: poetry translation, поэтический перевод, Marina Tsvetaeva's poetry, Элейн Файнстайн, David McDuff, Elaine Feinstein, Поэзия Марины Цветаевой, Дэвид МакДафф