Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander Givental
Orwn, in another reply I mentioned an article of Gasparov about this poem, where he praises it for the coherence between form and content. So, the hint is not in some subtle connotations hidden in the poem but in the very essence of it: the quatrain being mock-translated in it is about a mirror reflection of the Moon, which serves at the same time as a metaphor for the very act of translating.
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I could say the same thing about how the line I quoted before--"represented in their author's phrasing"--also embodies the essence of your word-problem in that the words serve as a reflection of their author's meaning, which are in turn reflected in the mind of the reader, who translates the word into their personal idiom (Benjamin's whole theory of translation). Frankly this: "the original, its mock-translation from Russian into Russian, then its translation in English, and then the mock-translation of that English translation into English (or, maybe, it is the English translation of the Russian mock-translation)" is far more hidden in the poem than the line I quoted. (Also, this four-fold translation assumes a lot about psycholinguistics that not every linguist would agree with).
Which brings me to my first answer: that the problem and solution are undefined. You expect us to follow your train of thought precisely even though the words you have used to articulate the problem expand beyond your control. So Allen's answer is also correct; when you say "iPhone" there is no reason for anyone to consider that the phone and the reflection of the phone are the same thing, but your word-problem depends on our doing so. You even have to come back and further explain what you mean to set us within certain parameters of thought. Allen has translated your word "iPhone" in his head to mean the phone itself, unreflected, which he uses to find the answer. This is perfectly acceptable--you can't point us to some Platonic dictionary with all the "correct" meanings of the words!