Three “Erl-Kings”

Abstract

The scholars of Russian literature are very well aware of V Zhukovsky’s translation of Goethe’s “Erlkonig” (1782), published as “Lesnoy tsar’ ” (1818). However, none of the studies of Zhukovsky’s literary works mentions that Zhukovsky presumably used the English variant of the ballad by W. Scott for his translation of “Lesnoy tsar’ ”. W. Scott’s “The Erl-King” (1797) was written fifteen years after the original and almost twenty years before Zhukovsky’s translation. Thus, it can be assumed that V Zhukovsky, who was acquainted with W. Scott’s, couldn’t ignore the English translation of “Erlkonig”. If we compare V Zhukovsky’s and W. Scott’s tranlsations in terms of their closeness to the original, we can see that the former is significantly far from the original than the latter. Zhukovsky is faithful to the original in terms of the content, but he completely abandons the folklore stylistics of the original and traditionally organizes his text according to the ballad principles, which have already been developed in his original works. However, in his evolution, V. Zhukovsky follows W. Scott and draws on not only W. Scott’s early ballads but also his later narrative poems. By the moment when V. Zhukovsky starts translating Goethe’s ballad, he must have been acquainted with W. Scott’s narrative poems and other poetical pieces, which results in a difference between the original, English, and Russian translations. The closeness of Zhukovsky’s and Scott’s translation strategies can be seen not only on the level of content but also on the stylistic level. When creating “The Erl-King”, W. Scott focuses on the literary form of the ballad: even though his translation is quite close to the original, he transforms the poetical semantics and ballad form in the vein of sentimentalism, which can be also seen in his translation of Burger’s “Lenore”. The comparative analyses of the original and two translations by Zhukovsky and Scott allows making a conclusion that W. Scott’s translation of “Erlkonig” can be “interposed” between Goethe’s text, which is close to folklore ballad traditions, and Zhukovsky’s literary variant. If we take into account the undeniable fact that V. Zhukovsky looked to W. Scott’s ballads, we can say that early W. Scott’s literary pieces vector Zhukovsky’s translational creative works and play the role of a transition stage for Zhukovsky’s development as a poet and translator. It should be noted then, that later W. Scott returns to folklore variants of the ballad, while Zhukovsky remains faithful to the previously developed course to create his own philosophy of the genre.