Bolesław Leśmian--Wieczorem (In the Evening)

[Senna Jawa]

Bolesław Leśmian was most likely born between years 1877 and 1879. His collection of poems Sad Rozstajny (The Crossroad Orchard--translation of this collection title, here exact anyway, was done by A.Chciuk-Celt) was published in 1912, when Leśmian was about 24 years old. The creation and publishing process certainly took some time, hence Leśmian was even younger at the time of writing Wieczorem which opens the volume of translations by Celt.

Actually, it's not easy to find anything by Leśmian in English except Mythematics and Entropy, which is a translation of selected Leśmian poems by Alexandra Chciuk-Celt. This translation was the basis of her Ph.D. on Leśmian. I see her achievement as a mixed success. But the challenge was unusually hard. The title of her collection, which is her own Mythematics and Entropy (this title is NOT a translation), already is a misunderstanding. Chciuk decided on neologisms, and one could say--great, since Leśmian was fond of neologisms. However abstract, scientific language was totally alien to the author. His was the language of beautiful poetry, which constrained itself to Nature and village and fantastic creatures being very closed to Nature and folk types. Not only that there are no scientific terms, there no city expressions, no clerks, no factories, no sport jargon, etc. Thus the Chciuk's title is simply a linguistic crime Leśmian language is embedded in the past, is oriented toward the very kernel of Polish language. In particular, his neologisms are embedded into such fundamental language. This language goes together with beautiful and varied melody of Leśmian poems, wonderfully elegant rhymes, ... You look at other poets and you feel that they are pretenders (for instance, Frost was fond of rhyming but it makes me laugh).

See: Mythematics and Extropy, Selected Poems by Bolesław Leśmian, Translated and Annotated by Sandra Celt (Alexandra Chciuk-Celt, Ph.D.) (c) 1983, 1984, ISBN 0-938-335-13-8, Library of Congress 87-061444.

 

[Angeline]

Bolesław Leśmian was most likely born between years 1877 and 1879. His collection of poems Sad Rozstajny (The Crossroad Orchard--translation of this collection title, here exact anyway, was done by A.Chciuk-Celt) was published in 1912, when Leśmian was about 24 years old. The creation and publishing process certainly took some time, hence Leśmian was even younger at the time of writing Wieczorem which opens the volume of translations by Celt.

Actually, it's not easy to find anything by Leśmian in English except Mythematics and Entropy, which is a translation of selected Leśmian poems by Alexandra Chciuk-Celt. This translation was the basis of her Ph.D. on Leśmian. I see her achievement as a mixed success. But the challenge was unusually hard. The title of her collection, which is her own Mythematics and Entropy (this title is NOT a translation), already is a misunderstanding. Chciuk decided on neologisms, and one could say--great, since Leśmian was fond of neologisms. However abstract, scientific language was totally alien to the author. His was the language of beautiful poetry, which constrained itself to Nature and village and fantastic creatures being very closed to Nature and folk types. Not only that there are no scientific terms, there no city expressions, no clerks, no factories, no sport jargon, etc. Thus the Chciuk's title is simply a linguistic crime Leśmian language is embedded in the past, is oriented toward the very kernel of Polish language. In particular, his neologisms are embedded into such fundamental language. This language goes together with beautiful and varied melody of Leśmian poems, wonderfully elegant rhymes, ... You look at other poets and you feel that they are pretenders (for instance, Frost was fond of rhyming but it makes me laugh).

See: Mythematics and Extropy, Selected Poems by Bolesław Leśmian, Translated and Annotated by Sandra Celt (Alexandra Chciuk-Celt, Ph.D.) (c) 1983, 1984, ISBN 0-938-335-13-8, Library of Congress 87-061444.

This is much more than I expected. I did find a few poems in translation on the web, but I could tell reading them that they are echoes, poor translations. Thanks for all this info. If you ever see any translations that you think are closer to the originals, let me know here or email or facebook.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Wieczór. Structure.

Wieczór consists of four stanzas, each having 5 lines (I'll represent each stanza just by a line which provides the number of syllables, with their partition into two parts) of the regular--non-refrain--lines:

7+5 . 7+5 . 7+5 . 7+5 . 8
7+5 . 7+5 . 7+5 . 7+5 . 8
7+5 . 7+5 . 7+5 . 7+5 . 8
7+5 . 7+5 . 7+5 . 7+5 . 8​

--a total of 20 lines. The first four lines of each stanza rhyme: abab (independently among the stanzas). These rhymes are masculine (closed; they associate single syllable endings). The fifth lines rhyme across the poem: xyyx. This time they are feminine rhymes, they associate a syllable and a half. Furthermore, those fifth lines serve as a refrain, they repeat two lines according to the pattern: X-Y-Y-X. (Actually, to add gentle variety, the end-line punctuation marks differ: it's ! versus ..., and period . versus exclamation !).

The whole is very pleasing, creates mood.

Caesura 7+5 is more advanced than 6+5, and 6+6 is still easier. The refrain lines have accents:

bAb Ab bAb​

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Now about Chciuk's translation. In general, it's hard to preserve rhymes and rhythm. Chciuk succeeds pretty well in this respect (not perfectly). It is hard. Possibly it was more important to convey the subtle points which are still more decisive. I tried to compare her translations with the originals. I managed in the case of the first chosen poem, which was just this, Wieczorem, but gave up during the next one. It was just nerve-wracking, and I gave up in the middle of it.

Just let me mention that Chiuk replaced the refrain lines by lines with 7 and 5 syllables. Perhaps it could be fine to switch from 8 syllables, but it's be better to keep the same length for all lines (after all, we are talking about two different lines only, so this should not be too hard?). Also, Chciuk's caesura varies sometimes from Leśmian's 7+5.

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PS. Angeline, perhaps post an English translation of a poem by Leśmian in a separate thread, and we may have a look at it. If you like it .

 

[Senna Jawa]

Wieczorem. Lines 1-2 (of twenty).

Let's look at the first two lines of the original and of the translation. The original by Leśmian:

Wieczorem

Mrok się gęstwi po sadzie, ziemny powiał chłód,
Zda się, iż dal zbłąkana podchodzi do wrót...​

and Chciuk's translation:

In the Evening

Dusk congeals in the orchard, stonelike chill swept in,
Wayward, lost farawayness has come home again.​

So far so good (re: translation, even if it's not what one would like to). Let's list some points:

• It's interesting that the title of the original is simpler and shorter than of the translation. It's nobody's fault (Polish 1 : 0 English ).
• This time Chciuk's rhyme is not exact but it's not a problem, it's good enough.
• Combination stonelike is not a poetic word (stone-like). It should be avoided in the case of Leśmian. Especially that it implies artificiality (word like)In the original we have ziemny--a neologism, but gentle and NATURAL. For instant, there is a Polish adjective ziemisty. Noun ziemia stands for Earth, earth, land, ground (the surface of the earth) but first of all for what we walk on barefoot away from cities and asphalt and so on. Farmers can say good ziemia or bad ziemia, and you can have ziemia also in a flower pot. There are common expressions like to feel chill coming from ziemia (say, when you sleep straight on the ground). Thus adjective ziemny in the given context is a neologism but just barely so. Even a tennis court can be ziemny. This kind of a neologism gives you freshness and comfort at the same time. (These are the moments of poetry). Swept is perhaps a result of a draft, while the chill should come from the ground (ziemny!).
• Verb congeals applies mostly to chemistry and physics. It also is widely used as a metaphor, so that most any two things including even two actions, etc.) can congeal. Leśmian uses here his neologism gęstwi--once again natural, from the depth of Polish language. Noun gęstwa means thicket. While it relates to adjective dense, first of all it has everything to do with vegetation, rather wild vegetation (but not only), perhaps even forest or jungle (but rather low vegetation, below your knees or below your shoulders). Imagewise and sensewise word congeals is good. But congeals is not integrated with orchard the way gęstwi is. In the context of orchard one is generic, the other one is... perfect!
• We have an actual deviation from the original. Phrase Zda się got replaced by unrelated Waveward--the original says It seems. When an author is any good, and especially in the given case, deviations are risky. The more exact translation would read: It seems lost farawayness has come home .... The whole poem is completely peaceful. Thus weird and wild Waveward destroys the mood--not too much, but sharp poetry is all about details and precision. The translator perhaps told herself that this was fine since this kind of descriptions like wayward are familiar to Leśmian's poetry. And still I feel that breaking the mood of this poem was wrong. Observe that that the distant space, translated as farawayness, can be anything but wayward. Going back to the original Zda się, the meaning of this phrase is more than It seems. It roughly mean: The lyrical subject is under the impression. The difference is that in It seems it may mean that the lyrical subject is actively making a conjecture or creating an opinion; in the case of Zda się the impression comes from the scene, and the lyrical subject gets the impression passively.
• The last word: again, is extra, was absent in the original. Was it added for the sake of the rhyme? It takes away the uniqueness of the moment. Too bad.
• The translator has introduced her own neologism farawayness, not too bad. Such translator operations should be expected, it's really hard to translate poetry, and next to impossible in the Lesmian's case. The Polish word is dal, just a regular Polish word but... beautiful! Dal and blue go together well, with all variants of blue, like blue+gray (what would be in English? A bruise or sea may have such a gray-blue color, but there are also lighter gray-blue versions). Thus dal is... perfect (am I repeating myself?).
• You see home in the translation. It is: do wrót, in the original, or: to the gate, in English. By the way, the Polish noun wrota (the main form) is automatically plural (because it is like a double door in a fence), which adds to the effect a bit extra. Thus the dal (farawayness) comes to you a step by step--first the gate is approached, and then you can imagine that the house will be reached aftewrward. Thus this action takes time, doesn't happen instantly. There is one more poetic moment to it. On one hand we deal in this image with distance and space. And on his way Leśmian introduces zoom: the gate. This makes the image much more complete, full (not a vague shambo-mambo).

 

[Senna Jawa]

Antropomorphism, Line 2.

Let's look at the first two lines of the original and of the translation. The original by Leśmian:

Wieczorem

Mrok się gęstwi po sadzie, ziemny powiał chłód,
Zda się, iż dal zbłąkana podchodzi do wrót...​

The anthropomorphism from line 2 is prepared by line 1:

(L1) ____ The dusk thickets in orchard, earthly chill creeps in,

Now it's easy to get lost in thicket in semi-darkness (but thickets above was used as a verb, as a neologism). Thus the anthropomorphism of line 2 comes natural (as we will see):

(L2) ____ It seems that the lost in space space approaches the gate...

But first let me be precise about word dal (farawayness or distant space). The scope of this distance is still within our ability to see as near horizon or at the edge of a distant (but visible!) forest. The use of dal in the context of stars is already more rare (but still possible), it is less basic.

Also, word podchodzi is more than approaches or has come. Word podchodzi is derived from an equivalent of the English word go. While it means to approach, it also has a tinge of a meaning like to creep or to sneak (just slightly). Thus my inserted into line 1 phrase creeps in gives roughly the impression intended by the original.

Now finally about the anthropomorphism. There are actually two of them in line 2. The first one: the distant space is lost in space. Only people and (rarely ) animals get lost. But, literary, the distant space cannot get lost. The second anthropomorphsm, so poetic!, is also an oxymoren. The distant space cannot come to the gate or anywhere--especially near you. This is all a wonderful poetic license and an anthropomorphism.

Observe how wonderfully integrated and organic are these lines:

• the distant space gets lost not due to any abstract notions but because of the thicket overwhelming the orchard;
• the distant space suddenly gains a status of something like another human being when it gets lost; it's a moving image and imagery; one can feel sorry for dal;
• the distance space is already close to the gate hence close to us (to the lyrical subject); this induces in us all kind of deep, atavistic emotions. Peopple may feel a little bit worried, afraid. Or others may just now, after a busy day, feel nothing but peace.

Let me put the two translation lines together:

In the evening

The dusk thickets in orchard, earthly chill creeps in,
It seems that the lost in space space approaches the gate...
​

Thank you,