I am reminded, while reading this, of Ann Pasternak Slater's comments on Pevear and Volokhonsky's translations of her uncle's poems that accompany Doctor Zhivago:

"There are many bad translations of Pasternak's poems," she said, and described those as "no worse than the rest." Similar words that could be used just as easily to describe this mid-century — containing nothing later than 1938's The Second Birth — collection of verse, translated by J. M. Cohen.

The resultant translations are, by the translator's admission, attempts at literal renditions of the original Russian. As such, with no attempt made at form but only content, these versions' imagery feels uninspired and grey, the rhythms dead; a crib sheet to determine the meaning, but with no clues to point the reader towards the appeals of the original.

As Slater would say: "Not inaccurate, and lacking everything." ( )