P.B. Shelley's Poem Ozymandias in Russian Translations

Abstract

The article presents a comparative analysis of Russian translations of P.B.Shelley's poem Ozymandias (1817), carried out by Ch. Vetrinsky, A.P. Barykova, K.D. Balmont, N. Minsky, V.Ya. Bryusov in 1890 - 1916. These translations fully reflect the peculiarities of the social and political, cultural and literary life in Russia of the late 19th - early 20th Centuries, namely weakening of the political system, growing of interest to the culture of Ancient Egypt, and strengthening of Neoromanticism in opposition to Naturalism in literature. In the process of the analysis, we used H. Smith's sonnet Ozymandias, P.B. Shelley's sonnet Ozymandias and its five Russian translations. The methods of historical poetics of A.N. Veselovsky, V.M. Zhirmunsky and provisions of the linguistic theory of translation of A.V. Fedorov were used. The article will be interesting for those studying literature, languages, philology.

Keywords

• P.B. Shelley, Ozymandias, Poetry, Literary Translation, Russian-English Literary Relations