Classical bucolics in M.N. Muravyev's translations (the beginnings of sentimentalism)

M.N. Muravyev is one of the most distinctive figures in the Russian Enlightenment, and his time (late 18th - early 19th centuries) is marked as a crucial period when classicism and sentimentalism united and both turned to ancient literature. This paper studies the reception of Vergil's bucolic traditions in original Muravyev's works and purports to reveal the distinctions of the poetic translation of Vergil's poem "The Bucolics" made by M.N. Muravyev and by V.G. Ruban. In this paper it is important to identify classical bucolic traditions in the Russian Literature of the 18th century and in the works by M.N. Muravyev in particular. The author compares the artistic features of the initial verses (1-17) of the eclogue in the two translations. The "Bucolic" by Vergil is analyzed and new trends forming sentimentalism in M.N. Muravyev's translation are discussed. V.K. Trediakovsky was a pioneer of bucolic poetry in the Russian Literature of the 18th century. A.P. Sumarokov also wrote eclogues and idylls showing the images of shepherds and shepherdesses as a dream of ideal human relations. In 1771, at the age of 14, Muravyev wrote his "Eclogue" which clearly echoed the bucolic plot, characters and atmosphere when two swains were competing in singing in the morning. His poems "Vozvrashchenie vesny" ("The Return of Spring") and "Prekrasnoy vskhod zari" ("The Rising of a Beautiful Dawn") written in 1775 also reflect the bucolic theme. In the spring of 1778 Muravyev translated the opening verses (1-17 lines) of the eclogues of the first "Bucolic" showing his careful attitude to Vergil's text, his characters and the general atmosphere. The size of the original text and the translation itself helped to create all this. M.N. Muravyev translated the verses using the iambic dactylic hexameter reflecting their ancient style. Moreover, in his translation M.N. Muravyev successfully combined classical traditions and new trends of sentimentalism, lyricism and psychologism. The advantages of Muravyev's translation are clearly observed when we compare his work with the translation of the same verses made by V.G. Ruban (1742-1795) in 1777. Comparing the two translations of Vergil's "Bucolic" we can notice that Muravyev's predecessor sought to convey the lexical and rhythmic construction of the text using the Russian hexameter which is referred to as the stylistic figurative means of the ancient author. The syntactic organization of the text of Muravyev's translation is simpler and closer to the original text than that of V.G. Ruban. In Muravyev's translation the classical language is pushed aside by the language of feelings. Combining ancient and classical traditions M.N. Muravyev rendered the emotional atmosphere of the poem more successfully. M.N. Muravyev is claimed to be taught by Vergil's special vision of the world, when simple and gentle human emotions and moral purity are manifested through soft artistic images, through the ability to describe subtleties and details.

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