David M. Bethea - Böcker

Readers often have regarded with curiosity the creative life of the poet. In this study, David Bethea illustrates the relation between the art and life of 19th-century poet Alexander Pushkin, the central figure in Russian thought and culture. Bethea shows how Pushkin, on the eve of this 200th anniversary, still speaks to our time. He indicates how we, as modern readers, might ""realize"" the promethean metaphors central to the poet's intensely ""sculpted"" life. The Pushkin who emerges from Bethea's portrait is one who, long unknown to English-language readers, closely resembles the original both psychologically and artistically. Bethea begins by addressing the influential thinkers Freud, Bloom, Jakobson and Lotman to show that their premises do not, by themselves, adequately account for Pushkin's psychology of creation or his version of the ""Life of the Poet"". He then proposes his own versatile model of reading, and goes on to sketch the tangled connections between Pushkin and his great compatriot, the 18th-century poet Gavrila Derzhavin.

The Pushkin Handbook, a collection of studies by leading Pushkin scholars from the former Soviet Union, North America, and elsewhere, unites in one volume a multiplicity of voices engaged in a genuinely post-Soviet dialogue. From its beginnings, Pushkin’s oeuvre has accommodated numerous, often competing readings. This book is further testimony to the continuing complexity of Russia’s preeminent writer: his place in the literary and cultural cosmos, his relationship to his Russian predecessors and contemporaries, and his reception and interpretation at various points in history.

David Bethea examines the distinctly Russian view of the "end" of history in five major works of modern Russian fiction. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Joseph Brodsky, one of the most prominent contemporary American poets, is also among the finest living poets in the Russian language. Nevertheless, his poetry and the crucial bilingual dimension of his poetic world are still insufficiently understood by Western audiences. How did the Russian-born Brodsky arrive at his present status as an international man of letters and American poet laureate? Has he been created by his bilingual experience, or has he fashioned the bilingual self as a necessary precondition for writing poetry in the first place? Here David Bethea suggests that the key to Brodsky, perhaps the last of the great Russian poets in the "bardic" mode, is in his relation to others, or the Other. Brodsky's master trope turns out to be "triangular vision," the tendency to mediate a prior model (Dante) with a closer model (Mandelstam) in the creation of a palimpsest-like text in which the poet is implicated as a triangulated hybrid of these earlier incarnations.In pursuing this theme, Bethea compares and contrasts Brodsky to the poet's favorite models--Donne, Auden, Mandelstam, and Tsvetaeva--and analyzes his fundamental differences with Nabokov, the only Russian exile of Brodsky's stature to rival him as a bilingual phenomenon. Various critical paradigms are used throughout the study as foils to Brodsky's thinking. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This critical biography of Vladislav Khodasevich (1886-1939), David M. Bethea introduces to the Western reader the life and art of a literary figure described by Vladimir Nabokov as the greatest Russian poet of the twentieth century. Originally published in 1983. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

David Bethea examines the distinctly Russian view of the "end" of history in five major works of modern Russian fiction. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Joseph Brodsky, one of the most prominent contemporary American poets, is also among the finest living poets in the Russian language. Nevertheless, his poetry and the crucial bilingual dimension of his poetic world are still insufficiently understood by Western audiences. How did the Russian-born Brodsky arrive at his present status as an international man of letters and American poet laureate? Has he been created by his bilingual experience, or has he fashioned the bilingual self as a necessary precondition for writing poetry in the first place? Here David Bethea suggests that the key to Brodsky, perhaps the last of the great Russian poets in the "bardic" mode, is in his relation to others, or the Other. Brodsky's master trope turns out to be "triangular vision," the tendency to mediate a prior model (Dante) with a closer model (Mandelstam) in the creation of a palimpsest-like text in which the poet is implicated as a triangulated hybrid of these earlier incarnations.In pursuing this theme, Bethea compares and contrasts Brodsky to the poet's favorite models--Donne, Auden, Mandelstam, and Tsvetaeva--and analyzes his fundamental differences with Nabokov, the only Russian exile of Brodsky's stature to rival him as a bilingual phenomenon. Various critical paradigms are used throughout the study as foils to Brodsky's thinking. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This critical biography of Vladislav Khodasevich (1886-1939), David M. Bethea introduces to the Western reader the life and art of a literary figure described by Vladimir Nabokov as the greatest Russian poet of the twentieth century. Originally published in 1983. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Vladimir Nabokov, bilingual writer of dazzling masterpieces, is a phenomenon that both resists and requires contextualization. This book challenges the myth of Nabokov as a sole genius who worked in isolation from his surroundings, as it seeks to anchor his work firmly within the historical, cultural, intellectual and political contexts of the turbulent twentieth century. Vladimir Nabokov in Context maps the ever-changing sites, people, cultures and ideologies of his itinerant life which shaped the production and reception of his work. Concise and lively essays by leading scholars reveal a complex relationship of mutual influence between Nabokov's work and his environment. Appealing to a wide community of literary scholars this timely companion to Nabokov's writing offers new insights and approaches to one of the most important, and yet most elusive writers of modern literature.

Vladimir Nabokov, bilingual writer of dazzling masterpieces, is a phenomenon that both resists and requires contextualization. This book challenges the myth of Nabokov as a sole genius who worked in isolation from his surroundings, as it seeks to anchor his work firmly within the historical, cultural, intellectual and political contexts of the turbulent twentieth century. Vladimir Nabokov in Context maps the ever-changing sites, people, cultures and ideologies of his itinerant life which shaped the production and reception of his work. Concise and lively essays by leading scholars reveal a complex relationship of mutual influence between Nabokov's work and his environment. Appealing to a wide community of literary scholars this timely companion to Nabokov's writing offers new insights and approaches to one of the most important, and yet most elusive writers of modern literature.

The 50th volume of Stanford Slavic Studies brings together prominent international specialists in the study of Russian literary history. 42 contributors are affiliated with leading academic centers in the United States, the European Union, United Kingdom, Russia, and Israel. Their essays propose new approaches and introduce hitherto unknown materials that address themes central to literary scholarship, such as theory of Russian verse, history of Russian Formalism, Russian-German and Russian-Italian cultural ties. The chapters of this book cover such towering figures of modern Russian letters as Pushkin, Gogol, Akhmatova, Mandelshtam, Nabokov, and Pasternak. The volume is dedicated to the distinguished authority in Russian poetry and comparative literary studies, Professor of Princeton University Michael Wachtel.