I absolutely agree with the previous user. There are quite a few Russians (yourself included) who easily read and write in either language (and other languages, too). So, better keep it bilingual; I personally am amused by a possibility to compare both versions; especially, given the fact that I myself have long ago opted for composing poetry in my native tongue only. Так что всяческих Вам удач.
At my age there is a strong urge to leave well enough alone: do not mend it if it is not broken. On the other hand, what does not move dies.
The problem as I see it is that you cannot have it both ways. The way I do it, to be able to sit down and write something one has to keep up a certain buzz emitter in the brain. And the buzz could only be in one language, either/or - English and Russian are very different. As long as you insert pieces of one into the other it is safe, but once you go whole hog you can only follow the direction you have chosen. Somebody like Brodsky does not count: he never really crossed over, his output in English is patently ignorable.
There is another consideration which I also have to take into account: through the years my Russian audience has been very kind and grateful to me. Should I break a happy marriage for the sake of a stormy romance? Could I come back if the new affair goes sour? Is this a moral problem or simply a practical one?
There is no moral problem in entering the territory of another language. If you can walk there, and are, more or less, accustomed to the road map (charted by more experienced hikers) - why not?
But there are subtleties of perception that may never be rendered in another language.
As for the audience - readers come, readers go. They may be educated, too.
I think there is a tincture of morality in choosing one's instrument (given that there is choice): the proverbial ineptness of the Brodsky Englished output speaks for itself. It was up to him to choke it at its root; instead, he published. There is morality in controlling the execrable. Much of his English production should have gone through a publisher's printer.
No, this was not what I meant, or meant to mean if only I made myself clearer. The moral dimension comes in with the readers - the ones you leave behind when/if you switch the tongue and on whose shoulders you had ascended (let us assume it was an ascent.) Telling your faithful readers to learn English or go fly a kite is different from abandoning your father-mother-in-law-land which you were never given a chance to choose. Is this moral?
True, I already abandoned my readers for 17 years or so, but I can always imagine/pretend that I was sitting all that time under some Bodhi tree only to come back transfigured. This is where the marriage simile comes handy: I did not abandon them for somebody else. This time I will.
Brodsky, of course, never suffered from such doubts since his audience of choice was always a certain committee in Stockholm.
Audience is an unfamiliar dimention altogether (here, a supine bracket representing a smile). As a reader, though, I doubt there is a matrimonial infidelity: one's output is, quite literally, out for good and not going anywhere. An audience can keep on courting just that. I think it was Nabokov to say that one ultimately writes for one reader - a future version of self. Everybody else is less significant. But I don't know.
Leaving Brodsky aside, how much do you care about your Russian readers? Some of them should be flabbergasted by our exchange in the language other than our/their mother tongue. If the answer is different from "a lot", then go without any reservation into the "unknown" territory.
In my own case, I'm still convinced that what I am able to express in English lacks in certain fluidity (still present in my native tongue). Not that I can't express myself duly in this acquired language; quite the opposite.
Having said all that, what do you expect form your hypothetical Anglophone audience? Not a laurel wreath from that Swedish committee, I assume. Then what?
If I had a definite answer to your question, we would not be having this discussion. And you are quite right: some of the alleged readers could be already taking offence. Not that I relieve it much with the last poem posted.
I didn't mean to offer you a suggestion as to what you should compose; I simply wanted to deliver this message: should you write anything in any language, I'd be pleased to take a look at it. On my part, I promise to abstain from commentaries of any sort; a reader's inconspicuousness guaranteed.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 11:01 am (UTC)The problem as I see it is that you cannot have it both ways. The way I do it, to be able to sit down and write something one has to keep up a certain buzz emitter in the brain. And the buzz could only be in one language, either/or - English and Russian are very different. As long as you insert pieces of one into the other it is safe, but once you go whole hog you can only follow the direction you have chosen. Somebody like Brodsky does not count: he never really crossed over, his output in English is patently ignorable.
There is another consideration which I also have to take into account: through the years my Russian audience has been very kind and grateful to me. Should I break a happy marriage for the sake of a stormy romance? Could I come back if the new affair goes sour? Is this a moral problem or simply a practical one?
Most likely, it will happen the way it will.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 03:20 pm (UTC)But there are subtleties of perception that may never be rendered in another language.
As for the audience - readers come, readers go. They may be educated, too.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 04:11 pm (UTC)omission noted
Date: 2005-05-11 04:15 pm (UTC)Re: your previous post
Date: 2005-05-11 05:13 pm (UTC)Re: your previous post
Date: 2005-05-11 06:32 pm (UTC)True, I already abandoned my readers for 17 years or so, but I can always imagine/pretend that I was sitting all that time under some Bodhi tree only to come back transfigured. This is where the marriage simile comes handy: I did not abandon them for somebody else. This time I will.
Brodsky, of course, never suffered from such doubts since his audience of choice was always a certain committee in Stockholm.
Re: your previous post
Date: 2005-05-11 07:22 pm (UTC)Re: your previous post
Date: 2005-05-12 02:16 pm (UTC)In my own case, I'm still convinced that what I am able to express in English lacks in certain fluidity (still present in my native tongue). Not that I can't express myself duly in this acquired language; quite the opposite.
Having said all that, what do you expect form your hypothetical Anglophone audience? Not a laurel wreath from that Swedish committee, I assume. Then what?
Re: your previous post
Date: 2005-05-12 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 03:55 pm (UTC)