Realizing Metaphors: Alexander Pushkin and the Life of the Poet (Wisconsin Centre for Pushkin Studies) (Publications of the Wisconsin Center for Pushkin Studies) - Softcover

Bethea, David M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0299159744 ISBN 13: 9780299159740

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review

"The book covers immense ground--as an essay on the blindness and insight of four major critic/thinkers (Freud, Bloom, Jakobson, Lotman) and as a rigorous and penetrating study of the relationship of two of Russia's greatest poets (Pushkin and Derzhavin). I have never read anything quite like it, either as a daring essay in critical theory or a study of Pushkin's lifelong encounter with his great predecessor."--William Mills Todd, Harvard University
"After reading "Realizing Metaphors," I would like to express my delight, first of all, at that which, while not an academic accomplishment, is perhaps something even more rare--the author's love toward Pushkin. . . . The Pushkin that appears in David Bethea's book seems to me very much like the original, protean and elusive."--Olga Sedakova, Russian poet
""Realizing Metaphors" addresses a question that is one of the most exciting and controversial in the field of literary studies--the question of how (if at all) an artist's life relates to his or her works. . . . Bethea brilliantly succeeds in his task. . . . The result is a book that is a new word both in Pushkin studies and in the field of literary biography."-- Irina Reyfman, Columbia University

""Realizing Metaphors" addresses a question that is one of the most exciting and controversial in the field of literary studies—the question of how (if at all) an artist's life relates to his or her works. . . . Bethea brilliantly succeeds in his task. . . . The result is a book that is a new word both in Pushkin studies and in the field of literary biography."— Irina Reyfman, Columbia University

"The book covers immense ground—as an essay on the blindness and insight of four major critic/thinkers (Freud, Bloom, Jakobson, Lotman) and as a rigorous and penetrating study of the relationship of two of Russia's greatest poets (Pushkin and Derzhavin). I have never read anything quite like it, either as a daring essay in critical theory or a study of Pushkin's lifelong encounter with his great predecessor."—William Mills Todd, Harvard University

"After reading "Realizing Metaphors",  I would like to express my delight, first of all, at that which, while not an academic accomplishment, is perhaps something even more rare—the author's love toward Pushkin. . . . The Pushkin that appears in David Bethea's book seems to me very much like the original, protean and elusive."—Olga Sedakova, Russian poet

About the Author

David M. Bethea is Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is the author of Khodasevich: His Life and Art; The Shape of Apocalypse in Modern Russian Fiction; and Joseph Brodsky and the Creation of Exile.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0299159744
• ISBN 13: 9780299159740
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 240