The Word That Causes Death's Defeat: Poems of Memory (Annals of Communism) - Hardcover

Akhmatova, Anna

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300103778 ISBN 13: 9780300103779

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2004

Synopsis

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966), one of twentieth-century Russia's greatest poets, was viewed as a dangerous element by post-Revolution authorities. One of the few unrepentant poets to survive the Bolshevik revolution and subsequent Stalinist purges, she set for herself the artistic task of preserving the memory of pre-Revolutionary cultural heritage and of those who had been silenced. This book presents Nancy K. Anderson's superb translations of three of Akhmatova's most important poems: Requiem, a commemoration of the victims of Stalin's Terror; The Way of All the Earth, a work to which the poet returned repeatedly over the last quarter-century of her life and which combines Old Russian motifs with the modernist search for a lost past; and Poem Without a Hero, widely admired as the poet's magnum opus. Each poem is accompanied by extensive commentary. The complex and allusive Poem Without a Hero is also provided with an extensive critical commentary that draws on the poet's manuscripts and private notebooks. Anderson offers relevant facts about the poet's life and an overview of the political and cultural forces that shaped her work. The resulting volume enables English-language readers to gain a deeper level of understanding of Akhmatova's poems and how and why they were created.

About this title

Review:

'...the best possible introduction to Akhmatova's life and work, offering a concise and compelling biography...' -- Times Literary Supplement, December 2005

About the Author:

Nancy K. Anderson is an independent scholar. She is a highly regarded translator of Russian poetry, including Yale University Press's translation of Alexander Pushkin's Little Tragedies, and has taught courses in Russian, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky at Yale University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0300103778
• ISBN 13: 9780300103779
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288