Poetry and Politics in the Soviet Period. the twentieth century, through analysis of its lyric poetry. The beginning of the twentieth century

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Poetry and Politics in the Soviet Period. the twentieth century, through analysis of its lyric poetry. The beginning of the twentieth century"

Bethany Dalton
6 years ago
Views:

1 Rebecca Pyatkevich April 15, 2004 Poetry and Politics in the Soviet Period This course will attempt an overview of the important developments in Russian poetry of the twentieth century, through analysis of its lyric poetry. The beginning of the twentieth century in Russia was a period of nearly unprecedented poetic fecundity; yet the poets that it produced, and the next two poetic generations that followed, existed in an extraordinarily complex cultural and literary climate. The demands of the political orthodoxy, if followed, were stultifying to the creation of good poetic text that reflected the aesthetic, modernist and then post-modern, of the twentieth century. The story of Russian poetry in the 20 th century is the story of how the poets negotiated between the demands of the political power structure, and the demands of their aesthetic interests and preoccupations. They thus produced a poetry that addressed, in an artistically sound manner, the traditional poetic concerns of personal experience, the role of the poet, the interaction of the human personality and the world, and the nature of their historical reality; in opposition to the often one-dimensional, collectivistic, positivistic aesthetic of the poetic orthodoxy. The course will begin with an overview of the two main tendencies that characterized the poetry of the Silver Age. We will then look at the reaction of the stronger poetic voices Mandelstam, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak to the changing cultural and political situation, as those changes took place over time. We will then look at the poetry of the forties and fifties, to examine the way in which poets used poetic means to circumvent the demands of censorship, thus, in a sense, preparing for the Thaw. The last third of the course will be concerned with the new generation of poets writing since the sixties. W e will examine the work of sixties Leningrad

2 and Moscow official and unofficial poets, and the two different unofficial strains as they developed in the last decades of the existence of the Soviet Union. The course is intended for undergraduates, either with at least three years of study of the Russian language, or heritage speakers. All the readings are to be read in the original, although whenever possible, translated versions will be made available as study aids. In order to facilitate discussion, students will be asked to write short response papers (half a page to a page) on ONE poem of choice from the readings for *each* class period. There will be three short papers (3 to 5 pages in length), on a poem or subject of the students choosing, assigned during the semester. In the final week, the students will choose a poem from current Russian periodicals to present to the class. There will be no final paper or exam. The grading structure is as follows: Class Participation: 20% Response papers: 10% Paper # 1: 20% Paper # 2: 20% Paper # 3: 20% Class presentation: 10%

3 Week 1 Jan. 18 Jan. 20 Week 2 Jan. 25 Jan. 27 Week 3 Feb. 1 Â fi. Feb. 3 Week 4 Feb. 8 Feb. 10 Introduction. Roots: Preservation and Innovation Introduction. Historical background. Canonical Soviet poetry (examples). Innokentii Annenskii: ç ÔÓÎÓÚÌÂ, èâúâapple Ûapple Velimir Khlebnikov: à fl Ò ËappleÂÎ Ò Ó Ò ËappleÂÎ, äûáìâ ËÍ Acmeism Anna Akhmatova: ÇÂ ÂappleÓÏ ; ëî ÓÎÓÒ ÏÓÈ, ÌÓ ÓÎfl ÌÂ ÒÎ ÂÂÚ Nikolai Gumilev: åâ Ú Osip Mandelstam: àá ÓÏÛÚ ÁÎÓ Ó Ë fláíó Ó, äóìˆâappleú Ì ÓÍÁ ÎÂ, Notre- Dame Post-Futurism Marina Tsvetaeva: ñ ÌÒÍ fl ÒÚapple ÒÚ apple ÁÎÛÍË, óâú fiappleú È Ó, Ö fi Ë Vladimir Mayakovskii: àá ÛÎËˆ ÛÎËˆÛ, äóùú Ù Ú Boris Pasternak: ëúappleëêë Revolution, and afterwards Vladimir Mayakovskii: å Ë fiï Aleksandr Blok: 12 Aleksandr Blok: 12 (continued) <Short Paper # 1> Week 5 Feb. 15 Feb. 17 Week 6 Feb. 22 Feb. 24 About building utopias (the twenties) Vladimir Mayakovsky: Notre Dame Nikolai Zabolotskii: Ñ ËÊÂÌËÂ, ç apple ÌÍÂ Speaking in silence (thirties and forties) Osip Mandelstam: åìâ Í ÊÂÚÒfl, Ï Ó ÓappleËÚ ÓÎÊÌ, á appleâïû Û Ó ÎÂÒÚ applefl Û Ëı ÂÍÓ, å ÊË fiï, ÔÓ ÒÓ Ó ÌÂ Ûfl ÒÚapple Ì Osip Mandelstam: O, ÚÓÚ ÏÂ ÎÂÌÌ È Ó ÎË È ÔappleÓÒÚÓapple ; ëóıapple ÌË ÏÓ appleâ Ì ÒÂ

4 Week 7 Mar. 1 Mar. 3 Week 8 Mar. 8 Mar. 10 Speaking in silence (thirties and forties) Anna Akhmatova: Requiem Anna Akhmatova: Requiem (continued) Usurping the orthodox (the fifties) Boris Pasternak: á ÁËÏÍË Boris Slutskii: ã ÓÂ Ì ÎÓ Ì ÎÓ ÍÓÌˆ Boris Pasternak: ÇÓ ÒfiÏ ÏÌÂ ıó ÂÚÒfl ÓÈÚË, ëóïíìûú Â ÂÍË Samuil Marshak: ÇÒfi ÚÓ, Â Ó ÍÓÒÌfiÚÒfl ÂÎÓ ÂÍ <Short Paper # 2> Week 9 Mar. 22 Mar. 24 Week 10 Mar. 29 The Sixties Blurring boundaries Evgenii Evtushenko: Ñ ÓappleÓ Bella Akhmadulina: ëîû ËÎÓÒ Ú Í, ÚÓ ˆ ÚË ÒÂÏË Gleb Gorbovskii: ÉÓappleÓ, ÓappleÓ, fl Ú ÓÈ ÔÓÏ Á ÌÌËÍ, ÑÛ ÂÎÓ Â ÂÒÍ fl éòîëí Ì çâ ÒÍÓÏ Aleksandr Kushner: ÇËÊÛ, ËÊÛ ÒÔÓÁ apple ÌÍÛ ; èóíîóìâìëâ ÓÎı Ó The Sixties Blurring boundaries Vladimir Ufliand: éúíappleó ÂÌËÂ ÓappleÓÊ ÌËÌ, ç apple Ó Îfl ÛÏ ÌËfl Mar. 31 Joseph Brodsky: êóê ÂÒÚ ÂÌÒÍËÈ êóï ÌÒ, å ÎË Ò ÔÓ Ú ÔappleflÏÓ Ì Í Ì Î, ëêëï ËÈ Ô ÈÍÛ ËÁ Ì ÌËfl, ü ÒÂ Ú Âapple ËÎ, ÚÓ ÒÛ Ë apple Week 11 Apr. 5 Apr. 7 Week 12 Apr. 12 Apr. 14 Leningrad Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties Gennadii Alekseev: èóòîâ ÌËÈ ÍÂÌÚ apple, Ç appleë ˆËË Ì ÚÂÏÛ Ó ÉÓÎ ÓÙÂ Sergei Stratanovsky, é Ó Ì È Í Ì Î ; Ç ÌÓ, ÍÓ ÔappleÓÒË Î Ë Í Í ÛÎÍË Elena Shvarts: ÇÓappleÓ ÂÈ Moscow Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties Dmitrii Prigov: Å Ì Î ÌÓÂ apple ÒÒÛÊ ÂÌËÂ Ì ÚÂÏÛ Ò Ó Ó Mikhail Aizenberg: óâï ÊË Û? Nina Iskrenko: OÌ ÔÓˆÂÎÓ Î Â Ó ÔÓ Û ÍÛ (excerpt), ë ÂÚ ÏÓÈ ÁÂappleÍ Î ˆÂ, ÒÍ ÊË <Short Paper # 3> Week 13 Apr. 19 éú ÓÍapple ËÌ Í ˆÂÌÚappleÛ émigré poetry Joseph Brodsky: ÑÓÊ ÛÒÚÂ, ó ÒÚ appleâ Ë (ÓÚapple ÍË), Ç ÓÁÂappleÌÓÏ Íapple

5 Apr. 21 Week 14 Apr. 26 Apr. 28 Lev Loseff: èóìëï flappleïó, ÓÎÓ Ûı, àîë Â fi Ú ÍÓÈ Ò ÊÂÚ, É Â ÓÁ Ûı appleóáó Ú ÓÚ ÂappleÂÔËˆ Poetry, Post-Soviet From current periodicals <Student Presentations> Discussion

6 Selected Bibliography Bethea, David. Joseph Brodsky and the Creation of Exile. Princeton, NJ: Pricneton University Press, Doherty, Justin. The Acmeist Movement in Russian Poetry: Culture and the Word. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Gordin, Iakov. Pereklichka vo Mrake: Iosif Brodskii i ego Sobesedniki. Peterbrug: Izdatelstvo Pushkinskogo Fonda, Lachmann, Renate. Memory and Literature: Intertextuality in Russian Modernism. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1997 Loseff, Lev. Tulupy my, Sobrannoe. Ekaterinburg: U-Faktoria, Loseff, Lev and Polukhina, Valentina. Joseph Brodsky: The Art of a Poem. New York: St. Martin s Press, Inc Joseph Brodsky s Poetics and Aesthetics. London: Macmillan Press, Iosif Brodskii i mir: metaphisica, antichnost, sovremennost. Sankt-Peterburg: Izdatelstvo zhurnala Zvezda, Iosif Brodskii: Tvorchestvo, lichnost, sud ba. Sankt-Peterburg: Izdatelstvo zhurnala Zvezda, Krivulin, Viktor. Zolotoi vek samizdata. Available at Ljunnggren, Anna. At the Crossroads of Russian Modernism: Studies in Innokentij Annenskij s Poetics. Stockholm, Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksell International, MacFadyen, David. Joseph Brodsky and the Soviet Muse. Montreal: McGill-Queen s University Press, Samizdat Leningrada: Literaturnaia Encyclopediia. Moscow: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozreniie, Sapgir, Genrikh. Numerous texts at Savitskii, Stanislav. Andegraund: Istoriia i mify leningradskoi neofitsial noi literatury. Moskva: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, Setchkarev, Vsevolod. Studies in the Life and Work of Innokentij Annenskij. The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1963.

7 Tucker, Janet G. Innokentij Annenskij and the Acmeist Doctrine. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, Vail, Petr and Aleksandr Genis, 60-e: Mir sovetskogo cheloveka. Moskva: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2001.

which best answers the question

which best answers the question ÈÏ apple INSTRUCTIONS The following section contains two types of questions: Reading Comprehension and Sentence Completion. Each question is followed by four possible responses. Choose the response which