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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
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)