由文本的幾個小問題看契訶夫的《櫻桃園》

Finding New Insights in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard --A Study of Several Small Translation Problems

一般人想要了解契訶夫的《櫻桃園》，多半必須透過中譯本或英譯本來閱讀。過去多年來，筆者也是如此。由於筆者手邊的幾個英譯本都是由俄文直接翻譯而來，應該有相當的可靠度，因此筆者從來也沒有想過會有什麼問題。直到最近，筆者試著閱讀《櫻桃園》的俄文原文，才突然發現一些問題，而這些問題是閱讀翻譯本時不容易看見的。這些問題表面上看起來很小，但背後的意涵也可以很大，與劇本主題，社會變遷，和人物內心等問題都相關。大家可能都知道契訶夫是一位細膩的作家，但是由原文中更容易看出其細膩的程度。本文就是要透過對這些小問題的研究，讓我們能夠真正見證契訶夫對文字的處理是多麼謹慎精密（甚至精密到好像書寫密碼一般），也更能深刻體會這位戲劇家的偉大。

When the average non-Russian speaking person desires to read Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, he/she has to choose from one of the many languages into which the play has been translated ranging from English to Mandarin Chinese. This is exactly what the author of this paper has done over the past twenty years. Dependent upon several trusted English translations translated directly from Russian by scholars, the author has never questioned the credibility of these works until recently. After endeavoring to read the original Russian text of The Cherry Orchard, the author suddenly discovered some interesting problems which are not easily detected in translations. Although these translation problems appear minor, they also can be regarded as significant, since they may be related to the major themes of the play, social change, relationships between characters, and the internal emotions of individual characters, etc. Without question, Chekhov is a master of subtleties, but it is much easier to apprehend and appreciate the nuances of The Cherry Orchard through reading the original text.
This paper intends to analyze these minute problems, which will enable us to observe the subtlety of Chekhov’s language; and also help us truly to appreciate the greatness of this Russian playwright.