Words Apart: The Untranslatability of Velimir Khlebnikov and Eugene Jolas

Leanne Rae DARNBROUGH

KU Leuven

Page 026-038

Abstract: This paper compares the linguistic revolutions of Russian Cubo-Futurist Velimir Khlebnikov and the American avant-garde poet and publisher Eugene Jolas in terms of their translatability. These two are prime examples for comparison because both were not only avid poets, but also renegade theorists engaged in apotropaic linguistic revolutions, desperately striving to stave off (or at least delay) the looming apocalypse via their words. While Khlebnikov strives to recreate a primeval language of transparency based on an exoteric mathematical structure, Eugene Jolas intentionally mixes languages to reflect more about their relations than mere words. Both strategies render the poetry of Khlebnikov and Jolas practically untranslatable but for very divergent reasons.

Keywords: translation, Velimir Khlebnikov, Zaum, Eugene Jolas, language innovation, poetry

DOI: 10.53397/hunnu.jflc.202501004

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