Imagery in Translation

Task for translation: Поэзия

ПОЭЗИЯ

Среди громов, среди огней, Среди клокочущих страстей, В стихийном, пламенном раздоре, Она с небес слетает к нам — Небесная — к земным сынам, С лазурной ясностью во взоре, И на бунтующее море Льет примирительный елей.

EXERCISES FOR TRANSLATION

• Study the rhythm, metre, stanza and rhymepatterns in
the poem as well as their expressive functions in the text.

• Study the choice of words in the poem and commenton
their logical and emotive value in thetext. *

• Identify the syntactic character of the sentence andcom­
ment on its function in the creation of the poetic maxim.

• Study the epithets in the poem and comment on their ex­
pressive power.

• Study the structure of the antithesis in the poemand com­
ment upon its role in the imagery and poetic thought.

• Reconstruct the main stylistic device of thepoem and
comment upon the structure and function of the metaphor.

• Experiment with the text: change the rhymescheme, re­
place lines, words and stylistic units. Compare the resultwith the
original poem and comment upon the difference.

• Translate the text word for word into English andanalyse

the result.

• Reconstruct the rhyme scheme of the source textin Rus­
sian and complete the lines according to the original stanza me­
tre.

• Consider the ways of reproducing the stylistic compo­
nents of the Russian poem in English and see if any changes and
transformations are inevitable or desirable,

• Complete the translated text and read it aloudto compare
how of the poem sounds in English and in Russian.

• Discuss the results and comment on your preferencesin
the choice of words and transformations of thesource stylistic
units.

84

Практикум по художественному переводу