This bilingual collection of works by 56 Russian poets spans the whole of the 20th century, from Innokenty Annensky (1855-1909) to Boris Ryzhy (1974-2001), and reflects some of the characteristic styles and themes of the period. By giving preference to shorter pieces, it also provides a glimpse into the fascinating portable world of small-form poetry that is carried along by every cultured speaker of Russian. The all-new "congruent" translations, based on the system described and justified in Editor's Introduction, offer Anglophone readers a rare opportunity to appreciate Russian verse on its own terms, complete with its characteristic formal features. The intended audience includes English-language poetry aficionados; students of Russian who wish to get to grips with the poetic language and form, and to understand the differences between English and Russian poetic traditions; translators and linguists interested in the theory and practice of verse translation; youngsters of English-Russian bilingual upbringing whose command of Russian falls short of the necessary standard for appreciating poetry in the original. The book offers annotations to both the translations and the originals, a concise timeline of 20th-century Russian history putting the poems in context, and also indexes of metres and rhyme schemes intended for readers who may wish to find examples of a particular poetic form.
FREE Two-Day Shipping for Students. Learn more |
Book Description
Special Offers and Product Promotions
- Buy $50 in qualifying physical textbooks, get $5 in Amazon MP3 Credit. Here's how (restrictions apply)
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
English-Russian XX century,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Salt Crystals on an Axe: Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry in Congruent Translation: A Bilingual Mini-Anthology (Paperback)
Arguably, political history of the XX century was dominated by English and Russian-speaking people, presenting two competing models for the human future. Cultural interaction between these worlds was and still is very fruitful. Russian poetry occupies a central part in the Russian culture yet I think it was never properly translated on such a scale. This is a unique book as it presents a congruent translation
of a representative Anthology. The quality of translations is marvellous: as a bi-lingual person I can appreciate that one can indeed interleave stanzas of the translation with that of the original. This is indeed "an opportunity to appreciate Russian poetry on its own terms". Incidentally, the last line of Pasternak's Hamlet is better in the English version. I think this book is a great gift for Anglophone poetry lovers and for bi-lingual people and families. I also recommend it to Russian diaspora, in particular, to help them share their cultural heritage with their kids and friends.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Salt Crystals on an Axe,
By
This review is from: Salt Crystals on an Axe: Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry in Congruent Translation: A Bilingual Mini-Anthology (Paperback)
Anglophone readers interested in twentieth-century Russian poetry have several anthologies to choose from, but this new book stands apart in one very important respect. Contrary to the main trend in poetic translation into English, it pays full attention to the form of Russian poems and provides translations that preserve the form to the greatest extent realistically possible. The need for doing this may not be immediately obvious, and the introduction to the book provides a thorough explanation, mostly in nontechnical language, of why this very difficult approach has been chosen - without shunning controversy where it naturally arises. It even convincingly argues with Vladimir Nabokov in the process. Importantly, it also explains what can be lost in translation in order to preserve the essential formal features - and it looks like it's not much that has to be lost.
Of course, completing the actual task of translation must have taken so much more than a carefully thought through system, and the translator of this volume has done a truly excellent job. As a native speaker of Russian and a published poet in this language, I can vouch that I could immediately recognize the voices of my favorite poets in these translations: not only what they were saying in their works, but also how they were saying it - and that, for me, is the most important thing. In fact, an argument can be made that in Russian poetry it is fundamentally impossible to separate "how" from "what", which makes preserving the "how" ever more important and this anthology ever more successful.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
