Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire in the Translations and Edited by N.S. Gumilev (Unfulfilled Project by Publishing House “World Literature”)

Abstract

Based on hitherto unpublished archival documents from the Gorky Archive at IWL RAS and TsGALI, the article analyses the work of Gumilyov as a compiler, translator, and editor of the book Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire, prepared for publication in “World Literature” in 1918–1921. For researchers, the most significant activity of Gumilev of this period was his work on preparing for publication outstanding French poets, widely represented in the Catalog of the publishing house “World Literature” (1919). The example of the poem “Death of Lovers” demonstrates the particular attitude of Gumilyov as an Acmeist to Baudelaire’s poetics associated with his religious spiritualism. An analysis of the translation of this poem shows that Gumilyov “narrowed” Baudelaire, abandoning the mystical component of his poetry, which caused criticism from the symbolist poet Alexander Blok, whose opinion remained in the protocols of the publishing house. The article establishes the number of translations by Gumilyov: 18 instead of the previously known 16. The appendix provides a reconstruction of the composition of the book Flowers of Evil by Baudelaire, which Gumilyov was preparing for publication: of the six sections, one remained untranslated (“Wine”); of Baudelaire’s 151 poems, almost half were translated (73).

Keywords

• n. gumilev
• baudelaire
• “flowers of evil
• ” t. gauthier
• the publishing house “world literature
• ” a. blok
• m. lozinsky
• literary studio of poetic translation
• the literary translation
• “death of lovers
• ” acmeism
• spiritualism