The Seagull - Translation

Translation

The Seagull was first translated into English for a performance at the Royalty Theatre, Glasgow, in November 1909. Since that time, there have been numerous translations of the text—from 1998 to 2004 alone there were 25 published versions. In the introduction of his own version, Tom Stoppard wrote: "You can’t have too many English Seagulls: at the intersection of all of them, the Russian one will be forever elusive." However, some early translations of The Seagull have come under criticism from modern Russian scholars. The Marian Fell translation, in particular, has been criticized for its elementary mistakes and total ignorance of Russian life and culture. Renowned translator and author of the book The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation Peter France wrote of Chekhov's multiple adaptations:

Proliferation and confusion of translation reign in the plays. Throughout the history of Chekhov on the British and American stages we see a version translated, adapted, cobbled together for each new major production, very often by a theatre director with no knowledge of the original, working from a crib prepared by a Russian with no knowledge of the stage. —