John Updike as a Translator of Russian Poetry

• In Event: Mediators: Translations and Translators in Soviet International Relations

Abstract

This paper examines John Updike’s translations of Russian poetry into English in the 1960s. John Updike (1932–2009) was a major novelist, poet, and critic in 20th-century American letters. I take as my case study Updike’s translations of the Soviet poet Evgenii Evtushenko (1932–2017). Updike’s Evtushenko translations were published in LIFE magazine in February 1967, in concert with the Soviet poet’s cross-country tour of the U.S. that winter. As Updike did not know Russian, Albert C. Todd, a Russian literature specialist and translator, prepared literals for Updike to poeticize. I analyze Todd's literals, Updike’s drafts, and the published translations so as to reconstruct Updike’s aesthetic motivations and orientations. Archival material from the Yevgeny Yevtushenko Papers in Stanford University's Department of Special Collections presents a privileged window into Updike’s translation workshop. This translation project participated in a broader 1960s trend of anglophone writers and poets translating modern Russian poetry (e.g., Robert Lowell's translations of Osip Mandel'shtam, W.H. Auden's translations of Andrei Voznesenskii, etc.). What sets Updike apart, however, is his negative evaluation of Evtushenko qua poet. Updike assumed the twofold task of both translating and improving Evtushenko's lyric poems.

Author

• Benjamin Musachio, UNC at Chapel Hill