GOGOL PUSHKIN TOLSTOY
Dead Souls Eugene Onegin War and Peace
First published First published First published
1842 1825 t
o 1832 1865 to
1869
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The authoritative Russian text includes large Edmund Wilson’s negative review of Nabok- Tolstoy’s first draft, published by Ecco Press and
swathes of an unfinished Part II that Gogol tried ov’s literal, free-verse translation sparked a nasty marketed as an “original,” more-readable, “more
to burn before he died. Decisions about how public falling out between the two friends, played peace, less war,” version without all the French
much of this to include can be controversial. out in the pages of the New York Review of was released in October 2007, at the same time
Also, Gogol’s anti-Semitism is pretty shocking. Books. Widely reviled, Nabokov’s version none- as the P&V edition from Knopf. Pevear said the
theless had a chilling effect on the field, and sub- publication and associated marketing claims
Notable translations
sequent efforts haven’t gotten as much attention betrayed a “philistine attitude towards Tolstoy
as they perhaps should. as an artist.” Ecco publisher Daniel halpern
Home Life in Russia (1854). Recast by an
responded nastily that perhaps Pevear was
editor as non-fiction, Dead Souls was used as
Notable translations
confused, since he doesn’t read Russian (which is
anti-Russian propaganda in England at the time
sort of true). Pevear generated further controversy
of the Crimean War. Babette Deutsch (1935). One of the earliest
with critical remarks about a 2005 Briggs edition.
English translations, still praised by academics.
Bernard Guilbert Guerney
Notable translations
(1942, updated by Susanne Fusso, 1996, Walter W. Arndt (1963; version was
Yale University Press). Persnickety Nabok- published by E.P. Dutton in 1981). Attempts Constance Garnett (1904, current-
ov called Guerney’s version “an extrodinarily fine to preserve the iambic tetrameter; won the Bol- ly available from Modern Library Clas-
piece of work” and it’s still a classic. Fusso in- lingen Prize for translation. sics). The indefatigable Mrs. Garnett went blind
cluded only a few samples of Part II to give read- “Can a rhymed poem like Eugene Onegin be tru- while working on this book. Ernest hemingway
ers a taste without, in her view, violating Gogol. ly translated with the retention of its rhymes? The found that her take on Tolstoy made it more beara-
“To me, including Part II is damaging to Gogol’s answer, of course, is no.”—Vladimir Nabokov. ble for him.
memory. he didn’t intend for this to be part of the “I am sorry to say that, though Arndt is no great
novel,” she says. Also, it’s not as well-written as poet and that his effort to stick to the rhyme Louise and Aylmer Maude (1923, cur-
Part I. Guerney elided some of the mean Jew ref- scheme sometimes leads him to a certain far- rently available from Oxford World Clas-
erences and Fusso let that decision stand. fetchedness, his version is, in general, much sics). The translators were friends of Tolstoy, so
closer to Onegin than any of the others I have this version is often, though erroneously, said
sampled.”—Edmund Wilson. to have been “approved” by him. Preserves the
original French.
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