Under the Sign of Contradiction : Mandelstam and the Politics of Memory

Razumnaya, Anna

ISBN 10: 1787070514 / ISBN 13: 9781787070516

Published by Peter Lang, 2021

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 42436022-n

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Under the Sign of Contradiction : Mandelstam and the Politics of Memory
• Publisher: Peter Lang
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1787070514
• ISBN 13: 9781787070516
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

The book revisits the final decade in the life of Osip Mandelstam (1891–1938), a central poet of Russian Modernism. Premised on the belief that no life can be understood without insight into its contradictions, the book attends to the two contentious cruxes of Mandelstam’s life and art: his testifying against his closest friends to the secret police and his composition, in exile, of an ode in praise of Stalin. Offering a close reading of the protocols of Mandelstam’s interrogations, a critical reflection on the nature of the «Ode» and an unflinching yet humane interpretation of the connecting events, the book pursues the dramatic arc of Mandelstam’s imaginative involvement with the politics of the Soviet state, revealing the perennial aspects of his case in dialogue with poets and critics in the English language, from Andrew Marvell to William Empson. In doing so, the book contemplates Mandelstam – a poet of «longing for world culture» – as a phenomenon of Western literature at large.

About the Author

Anna Razumnaya is a literary historian, textual scholar and journalist. She earned her doctorate at the Editorial Institute of Boston University. Her critical essays, translations and other writings have appeared in literary journals Essays in Criticism, Literary Imagination, Berlin.BEREGA, Pusteblume and elsewhere. She lives in Boston with her family.