SOURCE: "On Translations of Poetry," in Nikolai Gumilev on Russian Poetry, edited and translated by David Lapeza, Ardis, 1976, pp. 34-8.

In the following essay, Gumilev demonstrates the Acmeist emphasis on formalism and precision in literary structure in his outline of nine criteria for the proper translation of poetry.

There are three methods for translating verse: by the first, the translator uses whatever meter and combination of rhymes happen to come into his head, his own vocabulary, often alien to the author, and at his personal discretion now lengthens, now shortens the original; clearly, such translation can only be called amateurish.

By the second method, the translator acts, for the most part, in the same way, but introduces a theoretical justification for his act; he assures us that if the poet being translated had written in Russian, he would have written in just that way. This method was very...