High Art. Principles of Artistic Translation

When Chekhov's Cherry Orchard is transformed into Mr. Cherry Orchard by the pen of a quirky translator, it is easy to find a mistake and point out the inconsistency—worse still, if not the words or phrases are distorted, but the style. If one dims a biting epithet, destroys the rhythm somewhere, or expunges the warm hue—then nothing is left of the original. Moreover, the translator may act with the best intentions: copying in favor of the accuracy of a literal—servile—translation the alien syntax; or unintentionally making the text scraggly, not realizing that girls can be not only beautiful but also lovely or charming, and a person can be not only thin but also lanky or puny. Translation, says Chukovsky, is an art that needs to be learned, and its ideal was precisely captured by N. V. Gogol: The translator acted in such a way that you do not see him: he became such transparent glass that it seems as if there is no glass at all.