Ebooks for the Classroom+Faculty

Under the Sign of Contradiction : Mandelstam and the Politics of Memory
ISBN: 9781787078635
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / Peter Lang Ltd. International Academic Publishers
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: Literature;

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.

Anna Razumnayais 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, Pusteblumeand elsewhere. She lives in Boston with her family.