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Getting wrapped around an axle...
May. 23rd, 2011 09:08 amThis art text I'm working on appears to be a little short on the scholarly background side, which bothers me, on the one hand, but since work from clients is not currently flooding my inbox, it also gives me a chance to do a little research.
One particular section of the text starts by attributing the following lines to Heinrich Heine:
What I find curious is how often the lines can be found in scripts intended for IWD programs in which the recitation of these lines by the person conducting the event (the 'ведущий' in Russian, for which 'emcee' may be a bit too informal, but I digress...) is followed by the playing of Schubert's Ave Maria, the screen projection of Raphael's Sistine Madonna, and the rest of the program. (Then again, perhaps it's a standard curricular script that's been passed around a lot.)
Returning to my mutton, however, I tend to doubt the Heine attribution, because the lines, which read (as I translate them, with a pinch of license for the sake of rhyme):
My editorial solution (since I have been given some editorial leeway in the translation) is to leave Heine out entirely and instead of "Recalling Heine's lines," put "Recalling lines familiar to all Russian schoolchildren" (or something similar).
Cheers...
One particular section of the text starts by attributing the following lines to Heinrich Heine:
О Женщина!A routine check of the runet (Russian internet) reveals that these lines are very often quoted and requoted, particularly on March 8 (International Women's Day), but with the exception of a couple of out-of-the-way pages (e.g., at gov.cap.ru) that attribute the lines to one "V. Pavlinov"—which I have not been able to independently verify—these five lines remain unattributed.
В тебе, как нимбы, вплетены,
И чары пробудившейся весны,
И щедрость осени золотоносной!
В тебе одной - все осени, все вёсны!
What I find curious is how often the lines can be found in scripts intended for IWD programs in which the recitation of these lines by the person conducting the event (the 'ведущий' in Russian, for which 'emcee' may be a bit too informal, but I digress...) is followed by the playing of Schubert's Ave Maria, the screen projection of Raphael's Sistine Madonna, and the rest of the program. (Then again, perhaps it's a standard curricular script that's been passed around a lot.)
Returning to my mutton, however, I tend to doubt the Heine attribution, because the lines, which read (as I translate them, with a pinch of license for the sake of rhyme):
O Woman!don't quite jive with a couple of thoughts on women widely attributed to Heine, that "woman is at once apple and serpent" (!) and "I will not say that women have no character; rather, they have a new one every day" (which sounds, by the way, suspiciously like the mother-in-law jokes that were a staple of comics who appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show ages ago).
In you, entwined like haloes, sing
The spells of waking spring
And the bounty of fall gold!
For you alone all falls and springs enfold!
My editorial solution (since I have been given some editorial leeway in the translation) is to leave Heine out entirely and instead of "Recalling Heine's lines," put "Recalling lines familiar to all Russian schoolchildren" (or something similar).
Cheers...
