Review | The Stranger, selected poems of Alexander Blok, Translated by Andrey Kneller

Today I will be reviewing Andrey Kneller’s translation and selection of Alexander Blok’s poems, The Stranger. The poems in this collection span the years of Blok’s career, giving us a well-rounded idea of one of the greatest Russian poets, who was called ‘the tragic tenor of the epoch’ by fellow poet Anna Akhmatova. This is one of many books of Russian poetry that Andrey Kneller has translated and compiled. He himself a poet in his own right, lends us his poetic ear and precision in delivering these artistic, moving translations of some of the greatest Russian voices of the past two centuries.

The questions and the arguments regarding the methods and mores of poetic translation are as notorious as any bad translation, if not more so, this is particularly true when Russian poetry is translated into English. There are those who say that poetic translation should be literal, to the degree that the formal elements of the original, such as rhythm and rhyme are forsaken, and there are those who say that the preservation of the rhythm and rhyme of a line is as important as the preservation of the meaning of that line --- if not more so. There are those who despise Nabokov’s treatment of Pushkin, and there are those who consider Brodsky to have been too liberal when it came to his self-translations. The question of whether a poem should be rendered literally to the point of stripping it bare of its original rhythm or rhyme, or whether we should creatively interpret the meaning for the sake of preserving that rhythm and rhyme are important questions that any connoisseur, or even initiate, of poetry originally written in a language other than his own, must ask.

Essentially, we can say that there are many moving parts to a translation, some of which depend on the reader, most of which depend on the translator – whom we hope has a good ear precisely because of this responsibility – but putting specifics aside, what is most important to understand about translation is what precisely it is: translation constitutes moving something from one place to another, it is transportation as much as anything else. In this case, it is the translation/transportation of poetry from one language to another. It is this simple idea of translation that is the best measure by which to judge a translation; does it transport the meaning, and hopefully something of the mood and style, of the original?

And how does Andrey Kneller’s translation of Alexander Blok fit into this? How do these translations connect to the original meaning of the poems in question? I could say simply that he carries the meaning over sufficiently, with a few exceptions, but that would be too easy, I prefer instead to look at some of the poems and present them here with what I think of Kneller’s translation --- as well as what I think of the original poems.

One method of translating poetry is of translating line-by-line instead of word-by-word. When this occurs, we may get a substitute meaning of the original that sounds better in English than if it were a word-by-word translation --- however, some degree of meaning is obscured in the end result. This isn’t to say that this is an inferior method of translation, in fact it has its virtues, at other times it may be questionable, and at others; completely absurd. The following poem of Blok’s, Servus – Reginae is an example of where this method has worked effectively for the most part:

Don’t send for me. No need to call,

    I’ll come inside.

Onto my knees, I’ll quickly fall

    Down by your side.

I’ll tamely wait for your commands

    And hear them through,

And treasure every single chance

    Of meeting you.

Your servant, and your dear, at times.

    Your passion’s wave

Has conquered me. And always, I’m –

    Your humble slave.

The first stanza cannot be called a literally faithful translation if we look at it word-by-word. The line rendered as ‘I’ll come inside.’ Literally means ‘I will come into the temple’ Some might consider this to be a crime against Blok’s original intent, the symbolism of a temple obviously being important for the poet, however, if the temple is a symbol of the interior, then rendering this line as ‘I’ll come inside’ is not a failure of translation --- yes, the temple symbol is lost, but the allusion to the interior of things generally, is sustained. This is one of those cases where the line is rendered as an entity unto itself – hence the nonliteral word-by-word reading. However, if we were to look at the poem in a literal translation next to Kneller’s more interpretive translation, we would still find them to be more or less the same poem. This may seem self-evident, but this is not always the case in poetic translation, there are those translations that when compared to a literal rendering of the same material show up as wildly different poems. Such a dislocation between original and translation, is more so than not, avoided by Kneller. Of course, as a counter argument we could say that the loss of the temple symbol in the translation does diminish the poem and remove it from any mystical meaning it may have originally had. The idea that Kneller has taken the temple symbol from us may literally be true, but as it was a symbol to begin with, and since Kneller retains what it is symbolic of, we cannot rightly say that a crime has been committed. This poem is one of Kneller’s best translations in the book, primarily because it retains enough of the original mood and meaning, even though he does translate one allusion, or symbol, to another. We understand what the poem means, though we hear Blok’s voice through Kneller’s.

Servus – Reginae is an example among many of Blok’s fascination with the feminine ideal --- an ideal personified by the Beautiful Lady of his earlier poems but seen throughout the entirety of his work to varying degrees. To Blok, this feminine ideal (the Sophia, the Eternal Feminine, The Beautiful Lady) was the object of his highest reverence, regardless of what the content of his personal relationships may have shown. Above all it was a reverence not just of a feminine ideal but was intimately connected for him with his highest ideal, art. In fact, the feminine ideal and art are hardly separable for Blok, especially in the earlier years of his career. What we see in Servus – Reginae is his willingness to serve this highest ideal. While the poem is above all a love lyric, it also shows us something of Blok’s wider ethos, an ethos which includes a need to serve a higher ideal no matter what. It may seem overly analytical to say that a love lyric is speaking of something beyond love, or that Blok only wrote such a poem so as to express his highest philosophical ideals. This is not what I am saying. Rather, I think that Blok was able to express the feeling of his love through this method because of his ideals – I mean that the two are connected, it is not a case of one or the other, but of both --- thus the complexities of poetic inspiration are clearly seen --- Blok did not write a love lyric to prove a philosophical ideal, he wrote a love lyric about a love that confirmed, or proved to him; a philosophical ideal.

While this high ideal existed for Blok, it would be too simple to say that by its discovery he was freed from all existential torments. In fact, it could be said that this ideal paved the way for such torments, particularly those in the form of dichotomies and antimonies. This is seen above all in the first poem in The Stranger ‘It’s dark, despite the moon above …’ a poem which is another of Kneller’s best translations in this collection:

It's dark, despite the moon above.

For many, life may turn out better, --

Inside my soul, the spring of love

Will not replace the stormy weather.

The night’s spread out in the street,

And to my spirit’s muted stare,

That’s soaked in poison, hot and sweet,

It answers with a deathly glare.

I try to keep my passions down,

Out in the cold and dawning mist,

I wander, lost among the crowd,

Engrossed with thoughts of only this:

It’s dark, despite the moon above.

For many, life may turn out better, --

Inside my soul, the spring of love

Will not replace the stormy weather.

This is a poem of classic Blokian juxtaposition. We see that despite the love that exists within him, the speaker is still followed by ominous and dark feelings as he wanders the foggy streets of Petersburg before dawn. His soul has in effect been poisoned, most likely by passion, which brings us to one of Blok’s greatest dichotomies: that of Heavenly Love vs Earthly Passion. For all of Blok’s romanticism and approaches to decadence, earthly passion was something he felt need to guard against, especially as he considered it in opposition to his ideal, the Sophia. Many who read Blok will be quick to point out this dichotomy, but in doing so they often miss a crucial point; they tend to say that the dichotomy existed between the Eternal Feminine and her earthly ‘corrupt’ equivalent ‘the strange woman’, they argue that Blok is preoccupied by a kind of Madonna Whore complex, and that this is what such poems as ‘It’s dark, despite the moon above’ are indicative of. Yes, dichotomies run rampant throughout Blok’s oeuvre, but it is less a dichotomy between the feminine ideal and the earthly woman, less between the Madonna and Eve, and rather, between Adam and the feminine in any form --- heavenly or not. This is to say, that Blok did not consider earthly woman to be the corrupted being, but rather himself – and it was this self that he viewed in opposition to the feminine (which in any form, his wife or a humble prostitute was the ideal to some degree)

If we take this view when reading ‘It’s dark, despite the moon above…’ we see that the poet considers himself to be a part of the stormy weather, that is, such temperamental conditions constitute an abyss between himself and the object of his ideal, whom he dares not approach. It isn’t that Blok looks at the corruption of the city and blames it for corrupting him, rather he seems to see the city as a reflection of himself --- albeit a reflection he does not relish the sight of. The realisation that perhaps he has more in common with the doubles and daemons of Petersburg nightly scenes than with the idyllic springtime of love, gives rise to a torment that is explored in this poem and others, primarily through the juxtaposition of images or symbols; stormy weather – springtime, dark night – moonlight, etc. The repetition of the opening lines at the end of the poem, in all likelihood was not done by Blok because he could not think of anything else to write, but rather, to show the hopeless continuation of an existence without meaning --- this, the reader shall see is a popular device of Blok’s. Kneller’s translation has a degree of lucidity that some of his other’s in this book do not possess to as great a degree. We are able to understand what Blok is saying through Kneller’s English --- which thankfully, does not stray much from the content of the original, in either mood or meaning.

Many of Blok’s poems prior to the year 1905, carry on similar themes: beautiful and mystical women, mysterious fogs, a certain amount of existential despair, but it is not until after 1905 that his poems take on what we might call a deeper resonance and meaning. The original themes are still present, but they are taken to another level; especially as regards existential concerns. The year 1905 was a significant moment for the Russian people --- with the abortive 1905 revolution and the military humiliation at Tsushima in the Russo – Japanese war, the temperament of the country was rising. While one can read about the year 1905 in a book of Russian history, it is more edifying to explore this disastrous year through the writings and works of art produced at or about that time. Anna Akhmatova, years later, would recall 1905 as a significant year for the Russian people --- one that was a foreshadowing of future losses and tragedies. Blok was no exception, and it is in the poems from 1905 onwards that we get a taste of his apocalyptic and revolutionary yearnings.

Before I continue, a word about apocalypse. The Russian Symbolists (with whom Blok was associated) set themselves apart from their French counterparts primarily through their attention to spiritual matters like that of the Sophia and the apocalypse. The apocalypse they envisioned was not meant to be a catastrophe --- though it would be in effect; catastrophic --- rather it was to be a much-needed renewal for a broken world. Essentially what was to follow was heaven on earth, and for the Symbolists, by and large, it would be the Sophia who would reign over mankind in this post-apocalyptic utopia. Thus, we can say that many of the apocalyptic yearnings in Russian Symbolist poetry (such as Blok’s) were written in a hopeful light, whatever the dark imagery may have been, the note of such poetry is often more optimistic in its apocalyptic themes than it is in its treatment of immediate reality.

A poem from around this time that gives us an indication of the change that was immanent in Blok’s poetry, would be ‘A girl was singing in an old church choir…’

A girl was singing in the old church choir,

About the ships that sailed in the mist,

About those abroad, whose lives turned dire,

And those who’ve lost their happiness and bliss.

Up in the cupolas, her voice has filled the room,

The sun ,upon her shoulders, made them white,

And everyone was watching from the gloom

The way her dress sang out in the light.

And they all thought that joy was close at hand,

That ships were stationed in a peaceful bay,

That those abroad, were living there, content,

And basking in the soothing, balmy rays.

Her voice was gentle and the light was sweeping

Up, by the altar gates, where, all alone,

Aware of the Secret, - a child was weeping

That no one was ever again coming home.

This poem at first appears like a romantic and pastoral verse about a pretty girl who sings in a church choir, but it is much more than that. The mood at first seems sweet and gentle, but when we arrive at the final stanza, we find that this is a deception --- one we have fallen prey to just like the spectators of the girl’s performance. Like them we are entranced by the pretty words, the flowing song; just what are these ships and what are they doing --- that doesn’t matter --- be assured they are safe and listen to the music. The dire fate --- that no one is coming home again --- cannot be faced by the multitudes, but only by the child, aware of the ‘Secret’, and by the poet. I cannot say definitively that Blok wrote this poem with the events of Tsushima in mind, but its content could easily be an allusion to those events. Blok’s language as mentioned is romantic and pastoral (though the poem itself hardly is, at least in terms of theme) this is something that Kneller brings over into the English, I would say that Kneller’s Blok translations border on this mood oftentimes, in this particular case it is a good thing as the original is expressed through this stylistic mood —Kneller’s English paints the same picture that Blok’s Russian does (as much as the product of such distinct languages can be analogous) and while this may seem an easy thing to do; it is far from it.

If the former verse can be seen as the hint at the ingress of the apocalypse, it is the following that is an expression of the ingress itself:

I love You, my Guardian Angel, in gloom.

In gloom, that has followed me out of the womb.

Because you were once my fair gorgeous bride.

Because you have seen all the secrets I hide.

Because we are bound by secrets and night.

Because you’re my sister, my daughter, my bride.

Because we are destined to live a long life,

And more so, because we are – husband and wife!

Because of my chains and because of your spell,

And the family curse that still haunts us as well.

Because you don’t love what I love in this life.

Because I still grieve for the poor and deprived.

We have yet to find harmony, and I doubt we will.

Because I’d like to and I’m willing to kill –

Out of vengeance, the blinded men, full of evil,

Who have ridiculed me and belittled my people.

Who locked up the strong and free men in a jail,

And didn’t believe that my blaze would prevail.

Who want to deprive me of the light I envisioned

And purchase from me my canine submission…

Because I am weak and no longer as brave,

Because my ancestors were all merely slaves,

Because gentle poison has taken my life,

And no arm of mine could lift up a knife…

And also because I am weak, I confess,

For all your misfortune and the strength you possess.

For all that had burned and was coated by lead ---

That can never be taken and torn into shreds!

Together, we watched the dawn’s breaking rays ---

And into this chasm, together, we gaze.

Two sides of one fortune, for you and for me:

We are slaves raging wild! Our spirits are free!

Be humble! Be daring! Stay here! Go away!

Is there fire or darkness ahead – who’s to say?

Where are we heading? What’s that call? What’s that cry?

Forever – together – it’s just you and I!

Will we rise from the dead? Or perish and die?

At first the poem appears as a normal love lyric --- albeit one having more in common with Wuthering Heights, than with one of Jane Austen’s creations. There is also something that reminds of Edgar Allan Poe, in particular his poem Annabel Lee, but after a few stanzas we begin to see that there is more at play in this poem than originally met the eye. The speaker is bound to his Guardian Angel, by such gothic conventions as chains and family curses, and we then see that it is a relationship fraught with difficulties. The poet even announces to us that him and his beloved Angel are unlikely to find harmony in this life, the reasons for this are to do with the fact that the speaker grieves for the poor, and is willing to kill ‘Out of vengeance, the blinded men, full of evil’ the words rendered as ‘full of evil’ literally mean those ‘who live without fire’ given the symbolism of fire, we can say that to Blok, to live without such a vital element would be tantamount to evil, so Kneller’s interpretation works in this way. It is from this point on that we begin to see that this Guardian Angel may not in fact be the speaker’s earthly bride, but the poet’s country instead. This bride, whom he is bound to by such Bronte-esque conditions as secrets and night, with whom he has such a vital and troubled relationship, seems beyond the scope of a regular woman, and is instead perhaps Russia herself.

Blok uses many of his symbolic allusions to femininity (though the opening stanza’s talk of wombs owes its creation to Kneller, the original making no mention of a womb, but of earth instead, thus we can say that Kneller once again translates one symbol into another of similar association.) This sense of the poem continues, but then turns back to appearing like a poem about a man and his beloved who are there to watch the ingress of a new age. The fact that they do not know what lies within the chasm which opens before them with alien sounds, increases our apprehension of the apocalyptic in the poem. It is of course interesting that Blok and so many of his contemporaries would find apocalyptic themes for their work at the time in which they did, as shortly after, the events of the first world war and of the revolution would seem to prove their prescentience right --- except that the Sophia never descended to earth to save mankind from the baser instincts of war, totalitarianism, and genocide that would find such preeminence in the 20th century.

From here on in the collection, the poems continue with typical Blokian themes. Those about beautiful mysterious women such as In a Restaurant and ‘You’re like a temple…’ are joined by those of existential torment. One of the latter that stands out to me the most, in both my comprehension of the original and in Kneller’s translation, is ‘Night. The city grew calm…’

Night. The city grew calm.

Behind the large window

The mood is solemn and somber,

As if a man is dying.

But there someone stands simply sad,

Troubled by his misfortune,

With an opened collar,

And looks at the stars.

“stars, stars,

Tell me the cause of grief!”

And he looks at the stars.

“stars, stars,

Where did such anguish come from?”

And the stars tell him,

The stars tell him everything.

This is such a simple poem that it almost belies best interests to discuss it in a critical or analytical fashion. And while I am assured that the reader can see clearly enough for himself what this poem is about, I will still lend a note of interpretation. This poem is a timeless image, by which I mean that any man in any time in history has looked to the night sky and asked the stars what is the cause of his grief. And it is in this timelessness that lies the most striking part of the poem --- that the scene described could occur in any place or any time. Therefore, this poem is not a standard fin de siecle, post-Gott-ist-tot exploration of the torment of the zeitgeist. Rather it is a poem of a timeless experience that lies well outside any one moment in history. While in other instances, such as in ‘The night, the pharmacy, the street…’ we cannot fully separate the poem from its time, this is a scene outside time, applicable to anyman in every century.

The original poem does not contain the features of standard, rhymed Russian verse, and this is reflected in Kneller’s translation. Most noticeable about the translation is the exactitude of it. While in some of the poems we have seen, we notice that some English words in the translation are not exact equivalents to their Russian counterparts. This most likely was done out of respect for the formal elements of the original poems in question, which brings us back to the opening statement of this article --- the questions and the arguments around the methods and mores of poetic translation. I will leave it up to both the reader of this article and hopefully the reader of The Stranger, to decide for himself these matters, but I will say that the translation of ‘Night. The city grew calm…’ is proof that Kneller knows what he is doing, he understands the original and any changes in meaning that do occur in his translations owe their origin to his respect for the formal elements of the original. To the English audience it may seem overly fussy to care so much about form when translating poetry but given the importance of said form to Russian verse, said audience should hardly be surprised. Such an effort as Kneller has extended in these translations should be lauded as it is a commendable and difficult feat.

I consider the original meaning of a poem to be very important, and that is what I like to see brought over in a translation, however in the case of many of the poems in this book I can say that what Kneller has done is, overall, a success. The successes of this book include many of the poems mentioned but also one more that I will mention in passing. The excerpt of The Twelveincluded in the book, is unfortunately only an excerpt, but nonetheless it stands as an interesting example of the poet Blok’s change in diction and the translator Kneller’s creative handling of said change. Unfortunately, we can only view the excerpt through stylistic terms, as it is incomplete. I am not able to look at the deeper meaning of so complex a poem when so much of it is not before me to judge. The opening stanza should give the reader a taste of the excerpt.

Black night.

White snow.

Windy outside!

A man can’t withstand the blow.

Windy outside –

On God’s earth, world-wide!

With the exception of the line ‘windy outside!’ the translation is accurate in its words. Notice how these words in their sharp simplicity differ from Blok’s earlier work. There is not a single word that does not need to be there, and this is something Kneller keeps to for the most part in his translation. Regardless of why Blok changed his style so dramatically, we can see that he did. The Blok of The Twelve seems to be a different Blok than that of The Stanger or Servus – Reginae. We cannot regret the change, and we should assume that it was an aesthetic necessity that was behind this change which we saw the first hints of in the poems from around 1905.

Aside from linguistic changes in mode and mood, we also can see in the excerpt a change in the image or symbol.

Throughout the city,

They’ve stretched a line.

On the line – a sign:

“All power to the Constituent Committee!”

An old woman slips, weeping,

Can’t comprehend the meaning,

Who needs this charade,

Such large signs and flags?

How many shawls could be made

For the kids wearing rags…

Like a hen, the old one, reckless,

Steps through the snow-bank, brave.

-Oh, Mother of God – Our Protectress!

-those Bolsheviks will be my grave!

It might be an overstatement to say that in this image is the most discernable if not the most important change in Blok’s poetry, but here is a poet who used to write lyrics about beautiful women, about the trials of love, and about the fire of life, and now he writes about an elderly woman having trouble walking through the snow, bemoaning the children dressed in rags and praying to the Mother of God for protection. Given Blok’s support for the Bolsheviks, we could say that he is mocking this poor old woman, mocking her faith and her concern for the children. Somehow, I think this unlikely --- although I should not judge from the excerpt alone --- it seems un-Blokian to mock such a figure, and yet it is even more un-Blokian to write about such a figure in the first place. We do see sympathy for the huddled masses in earlier poems such as ‘Outside, beyond the window pane…’ and Guardian Angel, but for Blok to take such an unromantic image as the old woman and insert her into a poem shows the great metaphysical and aesthetic change that must have occurred in Blok at the time of the revolution, and perhaps shows a certain maturity and depth that was only slightly present in many of his earlier poems.

Ending The Stranger with the excerpt of The Twelve was a good idea on behalf of Kneller --- if only because it enables the reader to traverse a good deal of Blok’s career from the days of ‘It’s dark, despite the moon above…’  to the revolutionary poems. As to whether the reader will be able to discern the finer points of this poetry and its significance through the lens of Kneller’s English, I think so. I have mentioned most of the poems that stood out to me in terms of their content and their treatment by the translator. There are some good poems that I have neglected to mention, and there are also those such as ‘Let the nightingale resound…’and ‘We were together…’ that in my opinion are not the greatest successes of the book or of Kneller’s career as a translator of poetry. On the note of that career, I will say that it has obviously been a career well spent, with great care and concern for whatever the work in question happens to be. I hardly think that there is so competent or talented a translator of Russian poetry alive today. The effort that Kneller extends into his work is evidenced not only by his technical skill and poetic sensibility, but also by the format in which he chooses to bring out these books to a modern, English audience. The books are the perfect size for travel, mostly well bound (though my own edition of his selection of Akhmatova has begun to fall apart due to excessive reading) and the cover designs are appropriate and handsome --- in more recent editions, capturing the aesthetic essence of the poetry, often in a minimal black and white scheme.

I will say that I did not enjoy The Stranger as much as I have enjoyed Kneller’s translations of Akhmatova and of other poets. But it is far from a flop, and I think that this book does belong on the shelf of any avid participant in poetry, though in some cases it does seem to lack some of the fire that Kneller’s other work possesses. That said, I think the edition is well thought out, and that most of the translations are well done. This is by no means a bad way to get acquainted with Blok. What I have said so far is all opinion, that the reader of this article may heed or not. As a final word I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Russian poetry, or in good poetry in general. Blok is one of the greatest poets of Russia, second only to Pushkin according to some, and Andrey Kneller has done this great poet justice in his translation.

References

The Stranger, Alexander Blok, Andrey Kneller, Boston, 2011