Heine’s dolnik in the academic discussion and the Russian translation practice of the 1900s—1930s

Abstract

The spread of new poetic meters in the works of both older and younger generation of symbolists inevitably led to attempts at their scientific comprehension and description. This paper demonstrates that in writings on Russian verse, starting with Andrei Bely's “Symbol­ism”, the concepts of ‘dolnik/pauznik’ have been consistently analysed in comparison with German tonic verse in general and Heine's poetry in particular. The theoretical interest in ‘dolnik’ was fueled not only by the prevailing poetic processes but also by new translation experiments, primarily the equirhythmic translations of Heine by Alexander Blok, published in his collection “Night Hours” (1911). The formal similarities between Russian and German ‘dolnik’ prompted scholars to develop comparative metrics and theories of tonic verse, while the rhythmic differences led to the refinement of concepts related to rhythm and meter in non-syllabic verse, as well as the establishment of ideas concerning formal and functional equiva­lence of metric forms in poetic translation. In addition to scientific discussions from the 1910s—1930s, the paper addresses the rhythmic strategies employed in Russian translations of Heine’s three-ictic dolnik of the early decades of the 20th century by Alexander Blok, Yuri Tynianov, Viktor Zorgenfrei, Evgenya Knipovich, and Vera Arens. The equirhythmic tradi­tion established by Blok in translating Heine’s verse is contrasted with Tynianov's functional approach. This study deepens the understanding of the connections between symbolist and formalist poetics, as well as between symbolist translation and the so-called philological trans­lation of the 1920s and 1930s.

Keywords

• alexander blok
• german dolnik
• russian dolnik
• equirhythmic translation
• russian formalism