Gaspard Hauser and the Russian Verlaine: Transformation of the myth of the poet

The paper deals with five translations of Paul Verlaine’s poem “Gaspard Hauser chante” (1873): by Valery Bryusov (1911), Georgy Shengeli (1940s), Wilhelm Levick (1956), Ariadna Efron (1969), Ale­xander Revich (1970s). Russian translators transform the image of Gaspard, which is at the same time one of the author’s masks and a prototype of the Poète maudit , which also appears later in the “Scenario for a Ballet” from Verlaine’s “Memoirs of a Widower” (1886). In the process of russification Bryusov, who considered Verlaine his teacher in symbolism, only slightly changes the French poet’s transparent syntax. Shengeli, practicing a scholarly approach, treats Gaspard in the context of Verlaine’s entire legacy: he was the first to equate Gaspard with Verlaine and he makes him a victim of the century. Levick, incorporating the commentary into the translation of the poem and striving to bring him nearer to the Russian reader, converts Gaspard into a conscious individual. Efron, using the vocabulary and style of Pushkin and Tsvetaeva, offers a Christological image of a poet. Revich’s Gaspard is a sort of social activist, who reproaches humanity for being insufficiently humane. Consequently, the myth of the Poètes maudits is extended from the 19 th century into the future and into Russian literature; the poet becomes even more sacrificial then “The Prophet” of Pushkin. He has a tragic fate, just like the fates of the great Russian poets of the 20 th century: Osip Mandelstam, Marina Tsvetaeva, Boris Pasternak.