Nikolay Gnedich

Russian poet and translator

Nikolay Ivanovich Gnedich Никола́й Ива́нович Гне́дич
Portrait by Orest Kiprensky (1826—1828)
Born	(1784-02-13)13 February 1784 Poltava, Russian Empire
Died	15 February 1833(1833-02-15) (aged 49) Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Alma mater	Imperial Moscow University (1802)

Nikolay Ivanovich Gnedich (Russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Гне́дич, IPA: [nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ ˈɡnʲedʲɪtɕ] ^ⓘ; 13 February [O.S. 2 February] 1784 – 15 February [O.S. 3 February] 1833) was a Ukrainian-born Russian poet and translator best known for his idyll The Fishers (1822). His translation of the Iliad (1807–29) is still the standard one.

Alexander Pushkin assessed Gnedich's Iliad as "a noble exploit worthy of Achilles" and addressed to him an epistle starting with lines "With Homer you conversed alone for days and nights..."^[1]

Pushkin also penned an epigram in Homeric hexameters, which unfavourably compares one-eyed Gnedich with the blind Greek poet:

Крив был Гнедич-поэт, преложитель слепого Гомера,

Боком одним с образцом схож и его перевод.

Poet Gnedich, renderer of Homer the Blind,
Was himself one-eyed,
Likewise, his translation
Is only half like the original.^[2]

He also wrote Don Corrado de Gerrera (1803), probably the first example of Russian Gothic fiction.^[3]

References

^ Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin. "To Gnedich". Oldpoetry. Archived from the original on 2005-05-21.
^ Remnick, David. The Translation Wars
^ The Gothic-fantastic in nineteenth-century Russian literature, Neil Cornwell, p. 59.

Bibliography

Imperial Moscow University: 1755-1917: encyclopedic dictionary. Moscow: Russian political encyclopedia (ROSSPEN). 2010. pp. 167–168. ISBN 978-5-8243-1429-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |agency= ignored (help)

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