| Abstrakt: |
This paper examines Eduard Huber's translation of Faust I (1838), the first complete translation into Russian, in the context of Goethe's translation theory (Notes to West-Eastern Divan, 1819) and Berman's The Experience of the Foreign (1984). Goethe's insights shed light on Huber's text, and Huber's translation, in turn, elucidates specific pitfalls that Goethe's theory of epochs did not anticipate: the impact of censorship, the influence of the translator's melancholic persona, the urge to fit into the Russian Romantic tradition, and limitations of the Russian metrical system. These four factors align with Berman's "systems of deformation" which result from the "cultural resistance" to any translation. My article, structured around these deformations, demonstrates in detail how the receiving culture resists translation in the case of Huber's Faust. The original is altered in the spheres of religion, politics, and sexuality; Huber gives Faust and secondary characters his own lyric voice, introduces Romantic motifs, and adjusts some German meters. Overall, Huber's translation does not fit neatly into any of Goethe's "translation epochs." It is "parodistic," yet in the metrical sphere it sometimes moves towards what Goethe called the "highest" translation epoch. Huber's translation not only enriches Goethe's theory but also, while telling the story of Faust, implicitly tells Huber's own story, as well as the story of Russia's literary development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
