The role of strong text positions in the genre enantiodromia of B. Pasternak’s and S. Marshak’s artistic literary translations of J. Keats’s poem “To Autumn”

Abstract

The article analyzes how original meanings are transformed in literary translation. The mythological basis for the image of Autumn in John Keats’ poem is revealed as the embodiment of the image of Demeter-Persephone. The ambivalence of that ancient deity enables discussing of the genre enantiodromia between elegy and ode, allowing translators to create diverse genre configurations. Keats’s ode-etude “To Autumn”, in the analyzed translations, was transformed into an elegiac ode by Marshak, and a philosophical ode by Pasternak, while in all three texts the enantiodromic combination of elegy and ode is assumed to be invariant. Structural analysis of the text’s strong points in translations of J. Keats’s “To Autumn” served as the primary tool for identifying the originality of authorized versions. The poet’s individuality is represented in the compositional core of the work: the title programs the genre component, he beginning creates a certain lyrical intrigue, and the ending summarizes the lyrical and philosophical content of the original text and its translation. The integrated application of structural – semantic, hermeneutic, textological and mythopoetic methods of analysis enable the author to compare the titles, opening and closing lines of the works and identify significant thematic differences at the level of the considered poets’ idiolects. The authorial worlds of poet-translators are compared through the prism of the text being translated.