- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: Yale University Press; illustrated edition edition (19 Nov 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0300069227
- ISBN-13: 978-0300069228
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 15.5 x 2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,407,475 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941) ranks with Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam and Boris Pasternak as one of Russia's greatest 20th-century poets. Her suicide at the age of 48 was the tragic culmination of a life beset by loss and hardship. This volume presents in English a collection of essays published in the Russian emigre press after Tsvetaeva left Moscow in 1922. Based on diaries she kept from 1917 to 1920, the work describes the broad social, economic and cultural chaos provoked by the Bolshevik Revolution. Events and individuals are seen through the lens of her personal experience - that of a destitute young woman of upper-class background with two small children (one of whom died of starvation), a missing husband, and no means of support other than her poetry. These autobiographical writings, sources of information on Tsvetaeva and her literary contemporaries, are also significant for the insights they provide into the sources and methodology of her difficult poetic language. In addition, they supply an eyewitness account of a dramatic period in Russian history, told by a gifted and outspoken poet.
About the Author
Jamey Gambrell writes on Russian art and culture. Her published translations include works by Joseph Brodsky, Tatyana Tolstaya, Daniil Kharms and Tsvetaeva's essays on Rainer Maria Rilke.
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3.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"diaries" rather than poetry, 25 Dec 2009
By doc peterson - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Earthly Signs (Russian Literature & Thought) (Hardcover)
The subtitle of _Earthly Signs_ is "Moscow Diaries, 1917 - 1922." I had taken this metaphorically, with the expectation and hope that Tsvetaeva's poems would be illuminated with a biography. Instead, the subtitle is literal, which was a disappointment; I had hoped for a different translation than Selected Poems (Tsvetaeva, Marina) (Twentieth-Century Classics), which I was unhappy with. Nonetheless, her diaries did give me some insight into the character and personality of the poet, as well as a micro-cosmic view into the chaos, uncertainty and fear that many Russians felt during the Russian Revolution and the Civil War, hence the three stars.
Tsvetaeva was a melancholy woman. This is apparent in her poetry, but it is vividly shown in her dairy. Not caught up in the romance and drama of the revolution, Tsvetaeva instead was concerned with more basic things: safety, food, and the nagging worry of the safety of her family. This is a common thread throughout the diary as she travels from the Crimea to Moscow to elsewhere. The faces, conversations and concerns of those who cross her path are meticulously documented, along with her own reflections and thoughts. One passage in particular struck me, as Tsetaeva meditates on the grief that war inflicts, writing, "A daughter whose father has been killed - is an orphan. A wife whose husband has been killed is a widow. But a mother whose son has been killed?" This is fairly representative of thoughts that occupy the majority of the book.
Much of the power of _Earthly Signs_ is the result of Tsvetaeva herself, to be sure. But I can't help but think that the translator and editor, Jamey Gambrell, also played a role in this. As Gambrell writes in the introduction, "Every translation, like every poem or novel, is a voyage of sorts. My hope is that I have managed to read these earthly signs well enough, to follow Tsvetaeva's path closely enough to repave enough of her singullar road, for English readers to be translated across the river." I believe these hopes have been realized. A pity, then, that Gambrell has not (at least yet), translated her poetry in addition to these diaries.
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