THE NAMES OF THE LOW COMEDIANS AND PRISONERS RENDERED IN THE RUSSIAN TRANSLATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE’S MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Abstract

The article studies 18 characteristic comic names from Shakespeare’s comedy Measure for Measure (MM) and their interpretations given in the Russian translations. It argues that the charactonyms in MM are mostly rendered into Russian consistently with the principal interpretations, i.e. accepted in the majority of the annotated editions, which may show that in Russia the comedy has a similar pragmatic effect as on English readers and audiences. The material of the research is 15 English annotated editions of the play, added by reference books, and 8 Russian translations. The research shows that the principal interpretations of at least half of the equivalents are expressed only in 3 translations of the 20^th century: by Soroka 12 names, Schepkina-Kupernik 11 names, and Zenkevich 9 names. However, all 8 translations studied present no less than 9 adequate equivalents each, i.e. 50 % on aggregate.