“Videnie Bylo Mne”: Raleigh's “A Vision upon this Conceit of the Faerie Queen” as Interpreted by Osip Rumer

The article examines O. Rumer's translation (1938) of Sir W. Raleigh's “A Vision upon this Conceit of the Faerie Queen” (1590). Interest in the English Renaissance poetry in Russia is gradually advancing during 1920-1930s as M. Gorky launches a project of systematic translation of foreign literature. Rumer was the first Russian translator of Raleigh, with his two translations published in the Collection of European Renaissance Poetry (ed. by B. Purishev). Though the preface explains the reason to address the sonnet “The Lie”, the sonnet itself is not accompanied by any commentary. The analysis of Rumer's translation strategies as well as Purishev's aims as an editor has revealed the reception patterns of Raleigh's poetry and English Renaissance in the 1930s. The research mainly draws on Purishev's collections of Renaissance poetry (1937, 1938). The author employs the methods of reception and translation theory and literary text analysis. First, the article gives an overview of Raleigh's sonnet and its basic traits. The form (genre) and the content (a dialog with E. Spenser) being crucial, both are explicated in the title of the translation. The title transformation is determined by the strive to create a unified field of the Renaissance sonnet as well as to accurately represent the national type of the genre within that field. The latter is also achieved through preserving the original form (“Shakespearean sonnet”). Second, the author compares the Rumer's translation with the original text to reveal the differences in the representation of space dimensions, characters, the role of the speaker, and the plot. The transformations of the scene (the Temple) and some characters (the speaker, Laura, the guards) provoke the change in modality from sacral to celebratory. A sacred vision of the original transforms into a solemn hymn, and the pilgrim (the speaker) -into a passive spectator. Finally, the author argues that all the shifts in the meaning reflect the specific understanding and use of Renaissance culture among the Russian literati of the 1930s. They highlight the traits considered as “typically” Renaissance (sonnet genre, its connection to Shakespeare through form and to Spenser through content). Rumer's translation tends to be general and pared-down, having to present Raleigh to a naїve audience, largely unfamiliar with English literature of that time. The receptive situation itself could not allow a more nuanced translation. The shift in modality was also determined by the general ideas of the Renaissance as the time of a social change and a “progressive movement of culture”. In conclusion, the author states that, being the pioneers in bringing Raleigh to the Russian reader, both Rumer and Purishev aimed at giving a general understanding as well as creating a closed “canonical” system of Renaissance poetry. Their work was continued and expanded by following generations of translators and critics.

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