FIGURES OF SOUND IN UKRAINIAN TRANSLATIONS OF R.M. RILKE’S POETRY

Abstract

The paper looks into the way figures of sound in R. M. Rilke’s poetry are conveyed in Ukrainian translations by the example of 1st sonnet of 1st part of “The Sonnets to Orpheus” (M. Lukash, M. Bazhan, V. Stus) from the methodological positions of linguistic poetics, idiostylistics of artistic translation and the theory of translation strategies. The sonnet of 1^st part of “The Sonnets to Orpheus” (“Da stieg ein Baum <…>”) presents Orpheus’s lament – an ancient Greek mythical hero who lost his beloved wife. His singing influences plants and animals, evokes transformation in the forest and turns into sheer music. Thus, figures of sound play the paramount part here. The convey of figures of sound, which are an inalienable property of R.M. Rilke’s idiostyle, in Ukrainian translations imprints the difference in the phonetic structure of German and Ukrainian. While assonance is not typical of German poetry whatsoever, it is inherent in R.M. Rilke’s individual style. In Ukrainian assonance is specified by the fact that it includes not only stressed vowels but the unstressed ones as well, as the letter bear full meaning, which makes them easier to convey in translation. The terms “alliteration” and “syllable repetition” are synonymous in German language studies (Alliteration / Stabreim), these are: 1) repetition of the first consonants; 2) repetition of the first consonants and the following vowels; 3) repetition of the first stressed syllables. By contrast, Slavic studies consider “alliteration” as repetition of consonants in different positions, and suggest the term “syllable repetition” for repetition of consonants with the following vowels. This contradiction can be related to the ancient German verse which was characteristic for ceremonial songs, spells and vows. In R.M. Rilke’s poetry, consonant repetition is not always accompanied by repetition of vowels, which allows to distinguish alliteration and syllable repetition. His alliteration is often related to syntactic structures: attribute phrases, rhythmic idiomatic pairs, listing and other parallel structures. All three versions show adequate form of translation, although in terms of figures of sound, M. Lukash’s translation captures R.M. Rilke’s idiomatic style to the fullest extent due to the successful combination of domestication and foreignization strategies.