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TRACING YOUNG
SIRIN
Translating the early poetry of Vladimir Nabokov: Гроздь (1923)
Academic Research: Amherst Center of Russian CultureSpring 2022, Senior Capstone
Mentor: Professor Boris Wolfson
My senior capstone project re-examines Vladimir Nabokov’s early poetic oeuvre as a pivotal yet understudied component of his literary development, illuminating connections between his formative verse and his later, more celebrated prose. Initiated by the discovery of the rare first edition of Гроздь (The Cluster) in the Amherst Center for Russian Culture’s Rare Book Collection, the research addresses a significant gap in Nabokovian studies: while critics have produced extensive scholarship on his prose, they have given comparatively scant attention to his poetry, despite its centrality throughout his career.
The project situates Nabokov’s early Russian-language poetry in its historical and cultural contexts, highlighting the émigré milieu in which he first published his poems. By examining critical reception—both contemporary and later commentary—the study reveals that Nabokov’s poetic practice was often dismissed as overly aestheticized, derivative, or lacking emotional resonance. Nonetheless, even these skeptical critiques acknowledged his technical skill and linguistic dexterity, qualities that would mature and find fuller expression in his later fiction.
In synthesizing translation processes and textual analysis, the project demonstrates how Nabokov’s early poetic engagement with sound, color, imagery, and formal experimentation prefigured the distinctive narrative voice, stylistic precision, and thematic complexity of his prose. By discerning the process of poetry’s “invisible design” that Nabokov himself hinted at in his autobiographical writings, the research argues that his poetry offers a crucial vantage point for understanding the evolution of his artistic vision, enabling a more nuanced appreciation of his literary trajectory. In this light, Nabokov’s poetry becomes not a mere prelude to his prose, but an integral, foundational element of his entire oeuvre.
1. BACKGROUND
Nabokov’s earliest poetry collections between 1916 and 19291. (1916) Стихи (Poems). 68 poems in Russian.
2. (1918) Альманах: Два пути (An Almanac: Two Paths). 12 poems by Nabokov, 8 by Andrei Balashov, in Russian.
3. (1922) Гроздь (The Cluster). 36 poems in Russian, by "V. Sirin".
4. (1923) Горній путь (The Empyrean Path). 128 poems in Russian, by "V. Sirin".
5. (1929) Возвращение Чорба (The Return of Chorb). 15 short stories and 24 poems, in Russian, by "V. Sirin".
STRUCTURE OF Гроздь (The Cluster)
I. “Гроздь” / “The Cluster”
Devoted to poetry and poets, the consciousness of the poet
Dedications to Blok, Bunin, Dostoevsky
II. “Ты” / “You”
Ambiguous Love Poems
The addressee, grammatically female, never clearly defined
III. “Ушедшее” / “Gone”
Nostalgia for the departed past
Frequent backdrop of Russia
IV. “Движение” / “Movement”
Trains and train station imagery and motifs
Movement through space, passage into otherworlds / other realms of consciousness
2. DECONSTRUCTING THE PROCESS OF TRANSLATION
3. EXCERPTS FROM
Гроздь
Молчи, не вспeнивай души,
не расточай своей печали, —
— чтобъ слезы душу расцвeчали
въ ненарушаемой тиши.
Слезу — безцeнный самоцвeтъ, —
таи въ сокровищницe черной...
въ порывe скорби непокорной
ты погасиль бы тайный свeтъ.
Блаженно бережно таи
дарь лучезарный, даръ страданья,
— живую радугу, рыданья
неизрeчимыя свои...
Чтобъ въ этотъ часъ твои уста,
какъ бездыханные, молчали..
вотъ цeломудрие печали,
глубинъ священныхъ чистота.
Stay silent, do not churn your soul,
do not squander your sorrow, —
— so that tears could color the soul
in impenetrable silence.
Conceal your tear — that priceless gem —
in a darkened treasure chest...
because any fit of rebellious grief from you
would extinguish the mystic light.
Blissfully, carefully conceal
the radiant gift of radiance, the gift of suffering ,
— that living rainbow of your
unutterable laments…
For your lips, at this moment, may be,
to be silent, as if devoid of life…
that is the chastity of sorrow,
the purity of sacred depths.
сидeлъ и дивился плывущимъ просторамъ,
и льнулъ ко стеклу холодeющимъ лбомъ!..
И мимо широкихъ рокочущихъ оконъ
свивался и таялъ за локономъ локонъ
летучаго дыма; и столбъ за столбомъ
проскакивалъ мимо, порывъ прерывая
взмывающихъ нитей; и даль полевая
блаженно вращалась въ бреду голубомъ.
И часто я видeлъ такие закаты,
что повздъ, казалось, взбeгаетъ на скаты
крутыхъ огневыхъ облаковъ и по нимъ
спускается плавно, взвивается снова
въ багряный огонь изъ огня золотого —
и съ поeздомъ вмeстe по кручамъ цвeтнымъ
столбы пролетаютъ въ восторгeзаката,
и черныя струны взмываютъ крылато,
и ангеломъ рeетъ сиреневый дымъ.
I’d sit and marvel at the floating expanses
and lean against the window with my forehead, as it grew colder!..
And the curled ringlets of flying smoke
would twist and melt, one after another, beyond
the wide, ever-roaring windows, and pole after pole
would gallop past, punctuating the uprush
of soaring cords, and the distant fields
would revolve blissfully in a delirium of blue.
And often I’d see the kinds of sunsets
during which the train seemed to climb right up the steep slopes
of fiery clouds, and then descend smoothly
down those slopes, then leap up
back into crimson fire from flames of gold ,—
and, along with the train, the poles seemed
to scale the steep slopes of color in the ecstasy of the sunset,
and the black cords soar like wings,
and lilac smoke levitates like an angel.
ANALYZING NABOKOV’S “FIRST” POETIC COMOSITION RECORDED IN SPEAK, MEMORY
A STYLIZED RECOLLECTION
Chapter 11 of Speak, Memory recounts how Nabokov’s first urge to compose a poem was sparked by observing a raindrop on a leaf. Although framed as his “very first poem,” “Дождь пролетел,” or “The Rain Has Flown” is a stylized recollection. Nabokov likens this early creative spark to a “fissure” in time—a momentary suspension of ordinary perception. By lingering on the abrupt “missed heartbeat,” the text underscores how encountering beauty momentarily detaches the poet from the normal flow of time.
“A moment later my first poem began. What touched it off? I think I know. Without any wind blowing, the sheer weight of a raindrop, shining in parasitic luxury on a cordate leaf, caused its tip to dip, and what looked like a globule of quicksilver performed a sudden glissando down the center vein, and then, having shed its bright load, the relieved leaf unbent. Tip, leaf, dip, relief – the instant it all took to happen seemed to me not so much a fraction of time as a fissure in it, a missed heartbeat, which was refunded at once by a patter of rhymes: I say “patter” intentionally, for when a gust of wind did come, the trees would briskly start to drip all together in as crude an imitation of the recent downpour as the stanza I was already muttering resembled the shock of wonder I had experienced when for a moment heart and leaf had been one.”
(SM, 217)
Chapter 11 of Speak, Memory recounts how Nabokov’s first urge to compose a poem was sparked by observing a raindrop on a leaf. Although framed as his “very first poem,” “Дождь пролетел,” or “The Rain Has Flown” is a stylized recollection. Nabokov likens this early creative spark to a “fissure” in time—a momentary suspension of ordinary perception. By lingering on the abrupt “missed heartbeat,” the text underscores how encountering beauty momentarily detaches the poet from the normal flow of time.
“A moment later my first poem began. What touched it off? I think I know. Without any wind blowing, the sheer weight of a raindrop, shining in parasitic luxury on a cordate leaf, caused its tip to dip, and what looked like a globule of quicksilver performed a sudden glissando down the center vein, and then, having shed its bright load, the relieved leaf unbent. Tip, leaf, dip, relief – the instant it all took to happen seemed to me not so much a fraction of time as a fissure in it, a missed heartbeat, which was refunded at once by a patter of rhymes: I say “patter” intentionally, for when a gust of wind did come, the trees would briskly start to drip all together in as crude an imitation of the recent downpour as the stanza I was already muttering resembled the shock of wonder I had experienced when for a moment heart and leaf had been one.”
(SM, 217)
Дождь пролетел и сгорел на лету.
Иду по румяной дорожке.
Иволги свищут, рябины в цвету,
белеют на ивах сережки.
Воздух живителен, влажен, душист.
Как жимолость благоухает!
Кончиком вниз наклоняется лист
и с кончика жемчуг роняет.
The rain has flown and burnt up in flight.
I tread the red sand of a path.
Golden orioles whistle, the rowan is in bloom,
the catkins on sallows are white.
The air is refreshing, humid and sweet.
How good the caprifole smells!
Downward a leaf inclines its tip
And drops from its tip a pearl.
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