Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Art in the Light of Conscience: Eight Essays on Poetry
    Unavailable
    Art in the Light of Conscience: Eight Essays on Poetry
    Unavailable
    Art in the Light of Conscience: Eight Essays on Poetry
    Ebook328 pages6 hours

    Art in the Light of Conscience: Eight Essays on Poetry

    By Marina Tsvetaeva

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941) was one of the four great Russian poets of the 20th century, along with Akhmatova, Mandelstam and Pasternak. She also wrote outstanding prose. Endowed with 'phenomenally heightened linguistic sensitivity' (Joseph Brodsky), Tsvetaeva was primarily concerned with the nature of poetic creation and what it means to be a poet. Among the most exciting of all explorations of this theme are the essays 'Art in the Light of Conscience', her spirited defence of poetry; 'The Poet on the Critic', which earned her the enmity of many; and 'The Poet and Time', the key to understanding her work. Her richly diverse essays provide incomparable insights into poetry, the poetic process, and what it means to be a poet. This book includes, among many fascinating topics, a celebration of the poetry of Pasternak ('Downpour of Light') and reflections on the lives and works of other Russian poets, such as Mandelstam and Mayakovsky, as well as a magnificent study of Zhukovsky's translation of Goethe's 'Erlking'. Even during periods of extreme personal hardship, her work retained its sense of elated energy and humour, and Angela Livingstone's translations bring the English-speaking reader as close as possible to Tsvetaeva's inimitable voice. First published in English in 1992, Art in the Light of Conscience includes an introduction by the translator, textual notes and a glossary, as well as revised translations of 12 poems by Tsvetaeva on poets and poetry. 'For me, there are no essays on poetry as unique, as profound, as passionate, as inspiring as these. "Art, a series of answers to which there are no questions," Tsvetaeva brilliantly asserts, and then goes on to ask questions we didn't know existed until she offered them to us, and answers to some of poetry's most enduring mysteries' – C.K. Williams.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloodaxe Books
    Release dateJan 29, 2015
    ISBN9781780372310
    Unavailable
    Art in the Light of Conscience: Eight Essays on Poetry
    Author

    Marina Tsvetaeva

    Marina Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow in 1892. Her father was a professor of art history at the University of Moscow and her mother, who died of TB when Tsvetaeva was fourteen, was a gifted pianist. Tsvetaeva's first poems, Evening Album, were self-published in 1910. In 1912 Tsvetaeva married Sergei Efron, with whom she had two daughters, Alya and Irina. During the Civil War Efron fought in the White Army while Tsvetaeva and the children endured the Moscow famine. Irina died of starvation in 1920. In 1922 the Civil War ended with Bolshevik victory and Tsvetaeva joined Efron in exile in Prague. It was here that she wrote some of her greatest poetry. In 1924 Tsvetaeva's son Georgy was born. The family moved to Paris in 1925. Tsvetaeva became isolated from Russian literary émigrés and, increasingly, from Efron and Alya, whose allegiances moved towards Communism. Both returned to Russia in 1937, Alya freely and Efron to avoid arrest for his involvement in the murder of a defector. Tsvetaeva followed him to Russia with Georgy in 1939, unaware of Stalin's Terror. Alya was arrested and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Efron was shot in 1941. In the same year, following the German invasion, Tsvetaeva and Georgy left Moscow for Yelabuga in the Tartar Republic. Tsvetaeva hanged herself there on 31 August 1941.

    Read more from Marina Tsvetaeva

    Related to Art in the Light of Conscience

    Related ebooks

    Literary Criticism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Living Mandelstam

      May 1, 2020

      It is common for English-language accounts of Mandelstam’s life to begin with an account of his death. Consider the first sentence of a twosentence biography that appeared in The New York Review of Books in 2016 to preface a translation by Andrew Dav

      13 min read

    • Article

      Think What a Poem Might Do: A Conversation with Jill Bialosky and Matthew Zapruder

      Aug 17, 2017

      What, if anything, do you think poetry can do for us in these difficult times? The post Think What a Poem Might Do: A Conversation with Jill Bialosky and Matthew Zapruder appeared first on The Millions.

      10 min read

    • Article

      Pre-order* Your Copy Today At

      Mar 9, 2021

      Pre-order* Your Copy Today At
      1 min read

    • Article

      Ocean Vuong

      Mar 9, 2021

      Scraped the last $8.48from the glass jar.Your day’s worth of tips at the nail salon. Enoughfor one hit. Enoughto be good till noon butthese hands alreadyblurring. The money a weird hummingbird caughtin my fingers. I take outthe carton of eggs. Crack

      1 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems by Eavan Boland

      May 1, 2020

      Four Poems by Eavan Boland
      3 min read

    • Article

      On Louise Glück

      Dec 1, 2021

      I WAS LYING in bed late at night, woeful, confused by another death, this one the death of a close friend; the losses had been mounting steadily, a bewildering number of losses, each one specific, difficult to accept, hard to overcome, and I must hav

      12 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Hisham Matar

      Dec 18, 2018

      The fact that this isn’t recognized for what it is, a magisterial work and a 20th-century masterpiece, makes me even more anxious about our times. The post A Year in Reading: Hisham Matar appeared first on The Millions.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Reconsidering Pablo Neruda in Light of ‘The Poet’s Calling’

      Jun 4, 2018

      When Pablo Neruda was expelled from France in 1952, he wrote this to his beloved countrymen in Chile: “The future of humanity may be endangered in the hands of a few evil men, but it does not belong to them. The future of man is ours, because we are

      4 min read

    • Article

      Clarice Lispector’s Children’s Story Taught Me to Read Her Like An Adult

      Mar 17, 2017

      Filmmaker Pedro Almodovar was asked to write an introduction to the translated edition of Clarice Lispector’s final novel Breath of Life. Instead of a formal introduction, his refusal letter was published and said this of Lispector’s work: “Each phra

      7 min read

    • Article

      Ishion Hutchinson

      Jun 8, 2021

      Tremor in his hands. He turns obsoleteleaves edged with thunder since the opening scene.What he sees he reads under croton shade,out in the sun. Restless peninsula,dog-eared, melting off into the blue.The blue breaks white as hallucination,more hagga

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Mournful Spring

      Mar 1, 2022

      in memory of Adam Zagajewski So many friends have you seen pass,maestro of the poetic eulogy. Now it’s my turn. Can you hear me?We don’t know. Why didn’t we spend more time together,talk more, call each other? I thought you’d live to be old,very ol

      1 min read

    Reviews for Art in the Light of Conscience

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words