502
PA RTISAN REVIEW
added to this mL'(ture, was individual genius which is neither Russian
nor French, but universal and divine. In regard to Russian influence,
Zhukovski and Batyushkov were the immediate predecessors of Push–
kin: hannony and precision-this was what he learned from both,
though even his boyish verses were more vivid and vigorous than
those of his young teachers. Pushkin's French was as fluent as that
of any highly cultured gentleman of his day. Gallicisms in various
stages of assimilation populate his poetry with the gay hardir.es3 of
lucern and dandelion invading a trail in the Rocky Mountains.
Coeur
tUtri J essaim de desirs J transports J alarmes J attraits, attendrissemwt,
tol amour J amer regret
are only a few-my list comprises about
ninety expressions that Pushkin as well as his predecessors and con–
temporaries transposed from French into melodious Russian. Of
~pe
cial importance is
bizarre J bizarrerie
which Pushkin rendered as
strann:YJ strannost'
when alluding to the oddity of Onegin's nature.
The
douces ehimeres
of French elegies are as close to the
sladkie
meekt:
and
sladostn:e meektaniya
of Pushkin as they arc to the
"delicious reverie" and "sweet delusions" of eighteenth-century Eng–
lish poets. The
sombres boeages
are Pushkin's
sumraekn:e dubrov"i
and Pope's "darksome groves." The English translator should also
make up his mind how to render such significant nouns and their
derivatives as
toska (angoisse), tomnost J (langueur)
and
nega (mol–
lesse)
which constantly recur in Pushkin's idiom. I translate
toska
as
"heart-ache" or "anguish" in the sense of Keats's "wakeful anguish."
Tomnost J
with its adjective
tomn'iy
is among Pushkin's favorite words.
The good translator will recall that "languish" is used as a noun by
Elizabethan poets (e.g., Samuel Daniel's "relieve my languish"), and
in this sense is to "anguish" what "pale" is to "d<J.rk." Blake's "her
languished head" takes care of the adjective, and the "languid moon"
of Keats is nicely duplicated by Pushkin's
tomnaya luna.
At some
point
tomnost'
(languor) grades into
nega (moUe langueur),
soft
luxury of the senses, slumberous tenderness. Pushkin was acquainted
with English poets only through their French models or French ver–
sions; the English translator of
Onegin J
while seeking an idiom in the
Gallic diction of Pope and Byron, or in the romantic vocabulary of
Keats, must constantly refer to the French poets.
In his early youth, Pushkin's literary .taste was formed by the
