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E-book
Author Cavanagh, Clare

Title Lyric poetry and modern politics : Russia, Poland, and the West / Clare Cavanagh
Published New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, [2009]
©2009

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 332 pages)
Contents Introduction: acknowledged legislation -- Courting disaster: Blok and Yeats -- Whitman, Mayakovsky, and the body politic -- The death of the book à la russe: the Acmeists under Stalin -- Akhmatova and the forms of responsibility: the Poem without a Hero -- Avant-guarde again, or the posthumous Polish adventures of Vladimir Mayakovsky -- Bringing up the rear: the histories of Wisława Szymborska -- Counterrevolution in poetic language: Poland's Generation of '68 -- The unacknowledged legislator's dream: Czesław Miłosz and Anglo-American poetry -- Afterword: martyrs, survivors, and success stories, or the postcommunist prophet
Summary Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics explores the intersection of poetry, national life, and national identity in Poland and Russia from 1917 to the present. As a corrective to recent trends in criticism, acclaimed translator and critic Clare Cavanagh demonstrates how the practice of the personal lyric in totalitarian states such as Russia and Poland did not represent an escapist tendency; rather it reverberated as a bold political statement and at times a dangerous act. Cavanagh also provides a comparative study of modern poetry from the perspective of the eastern and western sides of the iron curtain. Among the poets discussed are Blok, Mayakovsky, Akhmatova, Yeats, Whitman, Frost, Szymborska, Zagajewski, and Miłosz; close readings of individual poems are included, some translated for the first time. Cavanagh examines these poets and their work as a challenge to Western postmodernist theories, thus offering new perspectives on twentieth-century lyric poetry
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-315) and index
Notes English
National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, 2010
Print version record
Subject Lyric poetry -- History and criticism
Russian poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
Polish poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
Politics and literature -- History -- 20th century
Politics in literature.
HISTORY -- Modern -- 20th Century.
Lyric poetry
Polish poetry
Politics and literature
Politics in literature
Russian poetry
Russisch.
Pools.
Gedichten.
Politieke aspecten.
poésie russe -- 20e s. -- études diverses.
poésie polonaise -- 20e s. -- études diverses.
poésie -- politique -- Pologne -- Russie -- 20e s. -- études diverses.
Rysk poesi -- historia -- 1900-talet.
Polsk poesi -- historia -- 1900-talet.
Litteratur och politik -- historia -- 1900-talet.
Politik i litteraturen.
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780300156560
0300156561