Two Tyres of Perception of French Romance

Abstract

In Georgian poetry of the 19th century new types of song poems were widely developed, including romances, its variations and songs modeled on folk poetry. This process finds a peculiar manifestation in Alexander Chavchavadze’s poem “When you loved me...”, composed probably in 1907-1811, after he was summoned from Tambov exile to St. Petersburg for political reasons. The study of the genesis of this poem led us to such texts as Aleksey Merzlyakov’s “To Her (Rondo)” (“You loved me...”, 1806), Vasily Zhukovsky’s “Song. Translated from French” (“When I was loved...”, 1807) and the French source of these translations which remained unk­nown. As we managed to find out, these poems are translations of a romance without a title by a French poet and playwright Victor-Joseph Etienne de Jouy:

Quand tu m’aimais, inconstante Sophie,

J’étais heureux, je chérissais le jour;

Tu m’as quitté, je déteste la vie,

Ah! mon bonheur n’était que mon amour.

Quand tu m’aimais, le dieu de l’harmonie

Pour te chanter m’inspirait chaque jour;

Tu me quite, j’ai perdu mon génie:

Ah! mon talent n’était que mon amour.

Quand tu m’aimais, aux larmes accessible

Du malheureux je cherchais le sejour

Tu me quite, mon coeur est moins sensible,

Car mes vertus etaient dans mon amour.

The absence of the author's name both in Georgian manuscripts and in publications of Russian translations is explained by the fact that the attribution of this poem to the pen of Etienne de Jouy is first confirmed only in the complete collection of his works (1823). Even in the collection “Le Pouvoir de l'Amour” published in 1821, this poem was presented anonymously. Only in one songbook – Chansonnier du jour. Paris, 1802-1803. – the poem is followed by the author’s initials: V. J. This French poem is also presented in the following collections: Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Le Troubadour italien, français et allemand, Berlin, 1805; Le chansonnier de Bacchus, 1806; Les roses du Vaudeville ou Chansonier du Jour. 1805. This French poem may also be found in collections that have remained outside our attention

It can be assumed with high probability that in the same period the attention of A. Chavchavadze and Russian poets to this anonymous French poetic text was caused by the romances of Gaspare Spontini and Francois-Adrien Boaldier on the words of Etienne de Jouy’s poem. The detail that the words – inconstante Sophie – are omitted in the Georgian and Russian translations can be explained by the fact that in Gaspare Spontini's scores they are replaced in this form – trope inconstante amie. Obviously, discussing this issue, it is necessary to find out the date of creation of music based on the words of Etienne de Jouy's poem.

Textual comparison indicates that the Georgian translation of the poem was made from the French original. Just one word makes you wonder if A. Chavchavadze also looked at Merzlyakov’s translation. The Russian translations of de Jouy's poem, on the one hand, and the Georgian translation, on the other hand, represent opposite manifestations of the reception of the French romance. The translations by V. Zhukovsky and A. Merzlyakov show a desire to preserve the basic compositional, intonation and content features of the romance. As for A. Chavchavadze’s approach to the translated text it is typologically of a completely different kind. Though his translation repeats the essential components of the romance: melodiousness, the motif of memories, minor intonation, the exclusion of syntactically complex struc­tures and the literary nature of the images, at the same time, there is also a noticeable deviation from the characteristics of the romance, including its brevity. Unlike the French source and its Russian translations, A. Chavchavadze’s translation consists not of three, but of five stanzas, and lexical correspondence is reduced to a minimum. The composition of the poem has been significantly changed: the chorus has been canceled, and identical lines that rhyme with each other have been added in every fourth verse. The poem is constructed in eleven-syllable size, which, although close to the size of the original, at the same time clearly refers to the intertext of intonations and motives that had developed by that time in Georgian lyrics.

The Georgian translation of Etienne de Jouy's poem, which is a hybrid genre variety of vocal lyrics, is a certain analogue of the so-called Russian song, which was formed as a result of crossing formal and semantic components borrowed from French romance and folk song.