The Queen of Spades - Softcover

Pushkin, Alexander Sergeievitch

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ISBN 10: 1557424217 ISBN 13: 9781557424211

Publisher: Wildside Press, 2005

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Pushkin, who was born in 1799 and died in 1838, is the founder of Russian literature, and it is difficult to overestimate his influence. He is the first, and still the most generally beloved, of all their national poets. The wild enthusiasm that greeted his verse has never passed away, and he has generally been regarded in Russia as one of the great poets of the world.

Pushkin was, for a time at any rate, a Romantic, largely influenced, as all the world was then, by Byron. He is full of sentiment, smiles and tears, and passionate enthusiasms. He therefore struck out in a path in which he has had no great followers; for the big men in Russian literature are all Realists. Romanticism is as foreign to the spirit of Russian Realism as it is to French Classicism. What is peculiarly Slavonic about Pushkin is his simplicity, his na�vet�. Though affected by foreign models, he was close to the soil. This is shown particularly in his prose tales, and it is here that his title as Founder of Russian Literature is most clearly demonstrated. He took Russia away from the artificiality of the eighteenth century, and exhibited the possibilities of native material in the native tongue.

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About the Author

Considered to be the greatest Russian poet, Pushkin is also the pioneer of modern Russian literature. Introducing the use of vernacular speech, he amalgamates drama, poetry and satire in his works. He greatly influenced the Russian writers of all eras.