Mayakovsky and Whitman: The Icon and the Mosaic

Vladimir Mayakovsky, who knew hardly a word of English, once upbraided his friend Kornei Chukovsky for his “too confectionized” (chereschur bonbon'-erochno) rendering of Walt Whitman into Russian. Chukovsky, it seems, was deeply impressed by Mayakovsky's instinctive feel for Whitman's rugged diction. Ever since, Chukovsky has detected in the Russian poet's verse the permanent impress of the American “kosmos.” This notion, propagated by the translator in numerous places, has fully infiltrated both Western and Soviet scholarship on Mayakovsky. In a recent philological study, Vera Timofeeva has suggested that Mayakovsky's anthropocentrism and his flair for concrete metaphors are a direct legacy from Whitman. And Helen Muchnic, following up a clue from Chukovsky, has referred to Chelovek (Man) as “a Whitmanesque poem,” though admitting that it lacks somewhat the “geniality” of the “Good Gray Poet.” Such remarks perpetuate a rather loose impressionism. Chelovek, as we shall later observe, is hardly a “Whitmanesque poem.“