An Age Ago: A Selection of Nineteenth-Century Russian Poetry

by Alan Myers (Translator), Alan Myers (Selected by), Joseph Brodsky (Foreword by)

Overview

Representative selections from the great Russian poets of the nineteenth century, chosen by the uniquely qualified Nobel Laureate Joseph Brodsky.

"Brodsky's commendable selections offer many of the best-loved and oft-memorized poems of the Russian people." - Library Journal

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374520847
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	09/01/1988
Pages:	171
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) came to the United States in 1972, an involuntary exile from the Soviet Union. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987 and served as Poet Laureate of the United States in 1991 and 1992.

Table of Contents

	Foreword	xi
	Friendship	3
	Song	4
	Song	6
	Remembrance	7
	Night	8
	March 19, 1823	9
	As I was leaving Albion's shore	13
	To My Friends	16
	There is enjoyment in a wilderness of trees	17
	You've heard that saying brave	18
	The Russian God	21
	Tears	23
	The Tear	24
	I have outlived most things	25
	Remembrance	26
	To Natalia Nikolaevna Pushkina	28
	To Chaadaev	31
	K***	32
	To Vyazemsky	34
	Arion	35
	Message to Siberia	36
	The Prophet	37
	When wand'ring along noisy alleys	39
	The Georgian hills above	41
	I loved you once	42
	To a Poet	43
	For God's sake, let me not go mad	44
	It's time, my dear, it's time	46
	Elegy	47
	... I visit once again	48
	Disillusion	53
	My gift is scant	54
	Death	55
	The Muse	57
	Desolation	58
	The Wineglass	62
	Autumn	64
	All things have their own pace	71
	Planting a Wood	72
	Elegy	77
	Song	78
	Elegy	79
	Thanksgiving	80
	Elegy	81
	The Sail	85
	No, I'm not Byron	86
	Meditation	87
	Prayer	89
	Testament	90
	The boredom, the sadness	92
	Gratitude	93
	Native Land	94
	I walk out alone into the darkness	96
	The Dream	98
	Farewell to Russia's unwashed features	99
	The Prophet	100
	As round this earthly globe	105
	There is about these autumn evenings bright	106
	Silentium!	107
	I love the rite of Luther's congregation	108
	My soul is an Elysium of shades	109
	Day and Night	110
	When locked in murd'rous toils	111
	Bestow, O Lord, thy gracious pardon	112
	Last Love	113
	Seated there upon the floor	114
	She was oblivious the livelong day	115
	Through reason Russia can't be known	116
	Should you love	119
	O land of mine	120
	As wave after wave	121
	The lord, when arming me	122
	You are a victim of life's grief	123
	Farewell	127
	from Reflections by a Main Entrance	128
	from Frost, the Red-nosed	130
	My dear, mere words have no power	137
	Breathing seems much easier	138
	The Old Park	139
	By the Fireside	141
	To the Muse	142
	Up in the hay one evening	143
	The stars glowed red	144
	Never	145
	To the Muse	147
	Butterfly	148
	Biographical Notes	151

Editorial Reviews

This newly translated anthology of 11 19th-century Russian poets will both delight and educate readers interested in Russian literature and history. The poems are accessible today primarily because they focus on such universal metaphysical and private issues as love, time, aging, jealousy, war, nature and death. Lyrical, strictly structured with traditional rhyme schemes and meters, the verse is an unusual combination of Romantic language and subject matter and rational theory stemming from the Age of Enlightenment. The anthology balances political, philosophical and personal poems nicely, and the selections complement each other, displaying the individual styles of the authors as well as their common concerns. The poets represented range from the well-known Aleksandr Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov to the less familiar (to Americans) Prince Vyazemsky and Nikolai Yazykov. The translation is skillful, retaining both the formal aspects of the original verse and its colloquialisms. Brief biographies of the authors are included. This fine anthology is marred only by its slimness: enticed readers will wish for a more comprehensive selection. (July)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

$9.95. poetry The 19th century was Russian literature's Golden Age, and many of its prose writersTolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Gogol among themhave achieved justifiable fame in the West. Unfortunately, such equally great poets as Pushkin, Lermontov, Batyushkov, Zhukovsky, and Fet have not had their due. These are among the poets represented in this new anthology, selected by Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky. Intense and lyrical, the poems reflect the precarious lives of their authors, many of whom had promising careers cut short by ``epidemics, the chains of a dungeon, a bullet received on the battlefield or in the course of a duel. . . .'' Brodsky's commendable selections offer many of the best-loved and oft-memorized poems of the Russian people. Alphonse Vinh, Yale Univ. Lib.

Library Journal