The Poet as Mythmaker: A Study of Symbolic Meaning in Taras ?ev enko

Grabowicz, George G.

ISBN 10: 0674678524 / ISBN 13: 9780674678521

Published by Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1982

About this Item

Book has slight bumping to edges and corners, beginning of foxing to textblock edges.Otherwise, very good copy, clean and unmarked pages and tight binding. Dust jacket has 1/4" closed tear on front cover, mild wear to edges and corners, slight toning to edges and toning to inside spine, now protected in archival covering.

Seller Inventory # 1035423

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Poet as Mythmaker: A Study of Symbolic Meaning in Taras ?ev enko
• Publisher: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
• Publication Date: 1982
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674678524
• ISBN 13: 9780674678521
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literary Criticism

About this title

Synopsis

Taras Ševčenko (1814–1861) is the central figure in modern Ukrainian literature, but despite the enormous attention that has been devoted to his person, his work, and his role in Ukrainian history and the Ukrainian national renascence, the core of the Ševčenko phenomenon―the symbolic nature of his poetry―has received little systematic analysis.

As this book argues, myth serves as the underlying code and model of Ševčenko’s poetic universe. Examining the structures and paradigms of Ševčenko’s mythical thought provides answers for various crucial and heretofore intractable questions, such as those concerning the relation of his Ukrainian poetry to his Russian prose, his sense of a transcendent “curse” and “guilt” in the Ukrainian past and present, the interrelation of his revolutionist fervor with his apparent providentialism, or of the tension between the nativism and the universalism of his poetry.

Moreover, it is through the structures of his mythical thought that we can understand Ševčenko’s “prophecy,” in effect, his millenarian vision. In this framework, too, the author focuses on the religious tenor of Ševčenko’s poetry, in which he is both expiator and carrier of the Word, and, finally, on the reception―indeed the cult of Ševčenko among generations of Ukrainians.

About the Author

George G. Grabowicz is Dmytro Chyzhevs'kyj Professor of Ukrainian Literature in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University.