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Born in Translation: Mikhail Chulkov and Charlotte Summers

Born in Translation: Mikhail Chulkov and Charlotte Summers Abstract This essay discusses an intriguing literary journey, one in which an anonymous English eighteenth-century novel crossed the channel and, through its translation into French and Russian, became a crucial narrative model for one of the first published Russian fiction writers, Mikhail Chulkov. The English novel in question, The History of Charlotte Summers, The Fortunate Parish Girl (1749), was translated into French in 1751 and from French into Russian in 1763, just three years before the publication of the first installment of Chulkov's first literary work, The Mocker or Slavonic Tales (1766). This essay argues that Chulkov was inspired by at least one of these versions of Charlotte Summers when he developed his own self-conscious, self-mocking narrator and mock(ed) readers and listeners. The essay focuses on the self-conscious narrator and mock readers in the English original and their peculiarly transformed counterparts in its Russian translation and examines how Chulkov appropriates these elements to his own literary purpose, in both his voluminous collection The Mocker (1766–1768) and his short picaresque novel The Comely Cook or The Adventures of a Debauched Woman (1770). The timing of both the original publication and the translations of Charlotte Summers as well as textual evidence support the hypothesis that this anonymous English novel constitutes a profoundly important, yet overlooked, model for a crucial and entertaining feature of Chulkov's fiction: his ironic, self-conscious narrators' method of interweaving the narrative with an incessant squabble/dialogue/interaction with their mock readers and listeners. Charlotte Summers offered Chulkov, then a novice fiction writer, ways to undermine the earnest authoritative narrative voice ubiquitous in early Russian prose fiction, to introduce entertainment and mockery as valid aesthetic principles, and to fight his own literary and polemical battles. CiteULike Complore Connotea Delicious Digg Facebook Google+ Reddit Technorati Twitter What's this? « Previous | Next Article » Table of Contents This Article doi: 10.1215/00104124-1335736 Comparative Literature 2011 Volume 63, Number 3: 253-268 » Abstract Full Text (PDF) References Classifications Article Services Email this article to a colleague Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Download to citation manager Citing Articles Load citing article information Citing articles via Web of Science Google Scholar Articles by Garn, R. Related Content Load related web page information Social Bookmarking CiteULike Complore Connotea Delicious Digg Facebook Google+ Reddit Technorati Twitter What's this? Current Issue Summer 2011, 63 (3) Alert me to new issues of Comparative Literature Duke University Press Journals ONLINE About the Journal Editorial Board Submission Guidelines Permissions Advertising Indexing / Abstracting Privacy Policy Subscriptions Library Resource Center Activation / Acct. Mgr. E-mail Alerts Help Feedback © 2011 by University of Oregon Print ISSN: 0010-4124 Online ISSN: 1945-8517 var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-5666725-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Comparative Literature Duke University Press

Born in Translation: Mikhail Chulkov and Charlotte Summers

Garn, Rimma
Comparative Literature , Volume 63 (3) – Jun 20, 2011
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Duke University Press
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Copyright © Duke Univ Press
ISSN
0010-4124
eISSN
1945-8517
DOI
10.1215/00104124-1335736
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Abstract

Abstract This essay discusses an intriguing literary journey, one in which an anonymous English eighteenth-century novel crossed the channel and, through its translation into French and Russian, became a crucial narrative model for one of the first published Russian fiction writers, Mikhail Chulkov. The English novel in question, The History of Charlotte Summers, The Fortunate Parish Girl (1749), was translated into French in 1751 and from French into Russian in 1763, just three years before the publication of the first installment of Chulkov's first literary work, The Mocker or Slavonic Tales (1766). This essay argues that Chulkov was inspired by at least one of these versions of Charlotte Summers when he developed his own self-conscious, self-mocking narrator and mock(ed) readers and listeners. The essay focuses on the self-conscious narrator and mock readers in the English original and their peculiarly transformed counterparts in its Russian translation and examines how Chulkov appropriates these elements to his own literary purpose, in both his voluminous collection The Mocker (1766–1768) and his short picaresque novel The Comely Cook or The Adventures of a Debauched Woman (1770). The timing of both the original publication and the translations of Charlotte Summers as well as textual evidence support the hypothesis that this anonymous English novel constitutes a profoundly important, yet overlooked, model for a crucial and entertaining feature of Chulkov's fiction: his ironic, self-conscious narrators' method of interweaving the narrative with an incessant squabble/dialogue/interaction with their mock readers and listeners. Charlotte Summers offered Chulkov, then a novice fiction writer, ways to undermine the earnest authoritative narrative voice ubiquitous in early Russian prose fiction, to introduce entertainment and mockery as valid aesthetic principles, and to fight his own literary and polemical battles. CiteULike Complore Connotea Delicious Digg Facebook Google+ Reddit Technorati Twitter What's this? « Previous | Next Article » Table of Contents This Article doi: 10.1215/00104124-1335736 Comparative Literature 2011 Volume 63, Number 3: 253-268 » Abstract Full Text (PDF) References Classifications Article Services Email this article to a colleague Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Download to citation manager Citing Articles Load citing article information Citing articles via Web of Science Google Scholar Articles by Garn, R. Related Content Load related web page information Social Bookmarking CiteULike Complore Connotea Delicious Digg Facebook Google+ Reddit Technorati Twitter What's this? Current Issue Summer 2011, 63 (3) Alert me to new issues of Comparative Literature Duke University Press Journals ONLINE About the Journal Editorial Board Submission Guidelines Permissions Advertising Indexing / Abstracting Privacy Policy Subscriptions Library Resource Center Activation / Acct. Mgr. E-mail Alerts Help Feedback © 2011 by University of Oregon Print ISSN: 0010-4124 Online ISSN: 1945-8517 var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-5666725-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview();

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Comparative Literature – Duke University Press

Published: Jun 20, 2011

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