The poetry of Gavrila Derzhavin is a monument to that which could be read, heard, and, most important, seen in the two centuries in which he lived. The Palladian villa he occupied, the British service placed on the table before him, the English spinning machine put to use on his estate, and even the optical devices, such as the telescope, magic lantern, and camera obscura, which populated his home: Tatiana Smoliarova restores Derzhavin’s visual environment through minute textual clues, inviting the reader to consider how such impressions informed and shaped his thinking and writing, countering the conservative, Russophile ideology he shared in his later years. In examining the poetics, aesthetics, and politics of Derzhavin’s poems written in the early nineteenth century, Three Metaphors for Life makes us see this period as a chapter in the contradictory development of Russian modernity—at once regressive and progressive, resistant to social reform, insistent on a distinctly Russian historical destiny, yet enthusiastically embracing technological and industrial innovations and exploring new ways of thinking, seeing, and feeling.
Price: $109.00
Pages: 320
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Imprint: Academic Studies Press
Series: Liber Primus
Publication Date:
20 April 2018
Trim Size: 9.21 X 6.14 in
ISBN: 9781618115737
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800
Three Metaphors for Life is a fascinating, well-researched and well-written study of the late Derzhavin which brings new insight into his place in Russian literature, politics, philosophy and society. What’s more, it carefully connects Derzhavin to the intellectual, philosophical, poetic and scientific currents of his time, demonstrating that he is not merely an essential figure in the Russian enlightenment, but has significant contributions to make as a European intellectual. Smoliarova is a seasoned scholar, with bona fides in comparative European intellectual history and literature. Her bibliography is deep and current, and her voice is authoritative and truly erudite. With command of languages and specialized literature from Russia, England, France, and Germany, Smoliarova writes clearly and vividly, expressing and tracing coherent connections across European borders that shed light on the Russian empire and the experience of living in the years before the war with Napoleon. This translation lucidly introduces Smoliarova to an English-language audience. What's more, Ron Meyers ably handles the difficult task of rendering scholarly prose and classical Russian poetry in English."
— Angela Brintlinger, Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Ohio State University
Tatiana Smoliarova is an associate professor in the Slavic Languages and Literatures Department at the University of Toronto.
Preface
In Search of a Metaphor: In Place of an Introduction
Part 1. Magic Lantern (Projection)
Chapter 1. A Text in Performance
Shadows Only
Pregnant Moments
An Attempt in the Dramatic Field
Chapter 2. Lanterns and Lanternists
Laterna Magica
Citizen Robertson
The Fantasmagoria
Part 2. Rainbow (Refraction)
Chapter 1. Unweaving the Rainbow
The Meteorological Cycle
From Allegory to . . . Allegory
Magic Made Simple or Do-It-Yourself
Addison and His Pleasures
Chapter 2. The Limits of Imitation
Apelles and His Lines
Camera Obscura
The Child of Thaumas
Part 3. Garden of Memory (Reflection)
Chapter 1. The Keys to Zvanka
Beatus, My Brother
Essay on Man
The Art of Memory
A Peculiar Vision: Approaches to the Text
Chapter 2. Nine Views
Pleasures of the Imagination
Choral Vision
Fifteen Stanzas of Solitude
Chapter 3. The Poet’s House
The Bard Lived There
Zvanka’s Echo
Pindar, Derzhavin, and the 1920s: In Place of a Conclusion
Notes
References
