The Gypsies: And Other Narrative Poems - Softcover

Pushkin, Alexander

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1567924697 ISBN 13: 9781567924695

Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, 2013

Synopsis

Alexander Pushkin (1799 1837), Russia's greatest writer, wrote much more than his novel in verse Eugene Onegin. In this selection of five of his finest narrative poems, all his essential qualities are on display his ironic poise, his stylistic variety, his confounding of expectations, his creation of poetry out of everyday language.

"The Gypsies" is modern Russian literature's first masterpiece. Telling the anti-Romantic tale of an effete city-dweller whose search for "unspoiled" values among a band of gypsies ends in tragedy, it is the major but unacknowledged source for Bizet's Carmen. In "The Bridegroom" Pushkin turns the Romantic ballad into a whodunnit filled with sexual dread and subconscious terror. In "Count Nulin," a deliciously comic tale of country life, he stands Shakespeare's "Rape of Lucrece" on its head what would have happened if Lucrece had slapped Tarquin's face? "The Tale of the Dead Princess" (Pushkin's version of the Snow White story) transforms Russian folk tale into purest art, and its companion-piece, the eerie "Tale of the Golden Cockerel" (inspired by his bitter experience in with Tsar Nicholas I), savagely politicizes the folk-tale form.

Antony Wood is one of the very few translators who can bring Pushkin authentically alive in English. If, as The Tablet has said, he "comes close to the translator's ideal," so Simon Brett comes close to the illustrator's. This well-known engraver has captured the essence of each of these poems in a single dramatic image, from the firelight reverie of the title poem to the grisly action of "The Bridegroom." The Gypsies is a double masterpiece: a masterly translation of Pushkin for today and a triumph of the illustrator's art.

About this title

About the Author:

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era who is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin was born into Russian nobility in Moscow. Notoriously touchy about his honour, he fought as many as twenty-nine duels, and was fatally wounded in such an encounter with Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès.While under the strict surveillance of the Tsar's political police and unable to publish, Pushkin wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was serialized between 1825 and 1832. Antony Wood is publisher of Angel Books, London. His previous translations of Pushkin's poetry include Mozart and Salieri: The Little Tragedies, Boris Godunov, and a number of lyric poems. He was awarded a Pushkin Medal by the Russian government in 1999, the bicentenary year of Pushkin's birth.

Simon Brett has been making wood engravings since 1961. His prints, bookplates, and book illustrations are among the finest of the present time, and he writes frequently on the history, practice, and current condition of the engraver's art.

Review:

Lively, elegant, and swift: all that I imagine Pushkin to be. --Christopher Logue

About this edition

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1567924697
• ISBN 13: 9781567924695
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160
• Illustrator: Brett Simon