From Russian With Love

by Weissbort, Daniel

• ISBN13: 9780856463426
• ISBN10: 0856463426
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-10-01
• Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd.

Summary

Landmark critique of Nobel Prize-winning writer by his friend and translator.

Author Biography

Daniel Weissbort was born in 1935. He studied History and did graduate work in the politics of post-Stalin Soviet literature. He has published translations of several Russian poets, including Nikolai Zabolotsky, as well as several volumes of his own verse. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

PREFACE	7	(2)
First Meeting: My Unreliable Memory	9	(7)
"Would you want to be judged by these?"	16	(3)
Reading in Iowa City, Iowa	19	(3)
Cats	22	(2)
"A Part of Speech": Misunderstandings	24	(3)
"Tenderly Yours"	27	(2)
Having it All: His Own Idiolect	29	(6)
Interlude	35	(1)
Is Russian Translatable?	36	(5)
"May 24, 1980" and Reading Aloud	41	(7)
"May 24, 1980", the Brodsky Version	48	(6)
Translating Oneself	54	(4)
Brodsky Remembered	58	(2)
"The Poem"	60	(4)
"The Jewish Cemetery in Leningrad"	64	(3)
But Back to "May 24, 1980" and Tonic Verse	67	(7)
Something New	74	(2)
Jewishness	76	(9)
Another Look at "the Poem"	85	(2)
Recriminations	87	(3)
"A Part of Speech": Attitude Indeed!	90	(2)
"On Love"	92	(4)
Choices	96	(7)
Words Aloud	103	(4)
Proselytizing Students	107	(4)
The Self Projected	111	(4)
How Does Brodsky or Anyone Else Translate Brodsky?	115	(2)
Two Jews	117	(4)
Improvising the Whole: D.H. Lawrence	121	(6)
Buber	127	(3)
Rhymes Galore	130	(4)
Hopkins, Yes; Brodsky, No!	134	(3)
An Irish Tribute	137	(2)
Rhymes, Especially Feminine Ones	139	(6)
So Forth: Who is the Translator?	145	(3)
An Inscription	148	(2)
At Sea in English But Not in American: Rhymes	150	(8)
The Russianizing of Donne	158	(6)
Writing and the Man	164	(2)
The Essayist	166	(2)
On Not Saying Goodbye	168	(2)
Projects, Especially 19th-Century Russian Poetry	170	(5)
Pasternak: The Joys of English	175	(4)
New York: Home	179	(4)
A Sour Note	183	(1)
A Collective Goodbye	184	(4)
Zabolotsky in Brooklyn Heights	188	(9)
Last Conversation with Joseph	197	(3)
Defending the Bard	200	(5)
Former Students' Testimonies	205	(2)
Listening	207	(3)
The Shape of "May 24, 1980": Compensation	210	(3)
Brodsky into Brodsky	213	(3)
Tidying up JB	216	(5)
"May 24, 1980": Into the Lions' Den	221	(3)
Revising "A Part of Speech"	224	(6)
New Versions for Old	230	(3)
Leftover Comments on "May 24, 1980"	233	(2)
Against Formal Translation	235	(4)
Last But Not Least	239	(3)
POSTFACE	242	(3)
NOTES	245	(6)
INDEX	251