The Garnett Book of Russian Verse. A Treasury of Russian Poets from 1730 to 1996 by Donald s> Rayfield Jeremy Hicks , Olga Makarova , Anna Pilkington (review)

Abstract

504 SEER, 8o, 3, 2002 Rayfield, Donald; Hicks, Jeremy; Makarova, Olga, and Pilkington, Anna (eds). TheGarnett BookofRussianVerse. A TreasuyofRussian Poetsfrom I730 toI996. GarnettPress,London, 2000. XXVi + 750 pp. Index. ?25.00. THE GARNETT BOOK OF RUSSIAN VERSE offers the reader over five hundred poems:twelvepoems fromfivepoets offera samplerof the eighteenthcentury; I84 from thirty-two poets represent an ample selection of poetic creativity from Bunina to Annenskii;and 3I6 poems from thirty-fivepoets dojustice to the poetic talentof the SilverAge and period of the Thaw. In a lapidaryintroduction,giving a potted historyof Russianpoetry and an explanation of the principles of this collection, Donald Rayfield pays tribute to Dmitrii Obolensky'sclassicPenguin BookofRussianVerse (London, I962) as a formative work of the taste and literary values of an earlier generation of readers.Forboth ProfessorsObolensky and Rayfield, the nineteenth century presents an embarrassment of riches. Whatever the individual choice of poems and even two hundredpoems is only the tip of the iceberg most of the nineteenth-century poets included in both the earlier and later anthologies are indisputable classics. Confirmation of the earlier anthology and enormous amplificationof the selections is the hallmarkof this outstandingly generous collection. Numbers do not tell the whole story, but it should be noted that Rayfield outdoes even Obolensky's justifiable generosity to Pushkinand Tiutchev: the latter garnerssixteen in the Penguin versustwentyone in Garnett, while the twenty-nineverse selectionsfrom Pushkinextend the psychological profile and range of genres from those representedin Obolensky 'sseventeen texts. In many cases, including Baratynskii,Lermontov, Fet, Blok, Pasternak, and Akhmatova, the generous selection represents ample introduction for new readers, and permanent pleasure for the lover of Russian poetry. Readers of anthologies are often vicarious editors and prone to secondguessing choices and combinations. Does the Baratynskiiselection, almost exclusively taken from his greatest elegies and unleavened by his brilliant epigrammatic verse, seem unrelenting?Is it possible to appreciate Kuzmin without a sample of his neo-classical pastiche? For every perceived loss, however, there are gains:the brooding depth of Baratynskiiis unquestionably overpowering, just as the explicit and ecstatic love poems by Kuzmin are revelations. Many of the poems throw out subtle intertextual and thematic connections to one another, e.g., Derzhavin's 'Reka vremen', Lermontov's 'Vykhozuodin ia' and Mandel'shtam's'Grifel'naiaoda', suggestingimplicitly an underlying architecture to the volume, and sometimes audibly demonstrating that Russian poetry as much as its prose depends on dialogue between writers.By startingin the eighteenth century the anthology helps to dispel the general impressionthat Pushkinis the big bang of Russian poetry. Poems by Lomonosov, Radishchev and Derzhavin attest bold innovation in philosophical poetry while Barkov's 'Oda' exhibits brash libertinism, some compensation for absence of the gentler Dmitriev and Karamzin who might have been a bridge to the well-representedearly Romantics. Elsewhere, the inclusionof greatpoems by a numberof second-tierpoets, likeKiukhel'beker, shows discrimination and a proper respect for their historical significance. REVIEWS 505 Not everythinghere is tried and true, including some archivalbentrovati from Tatiana Shchepkina-Kupernik. Literaryanthologies reflectthe contemporarynotion of the canon, and can also influence it. Most strikingis the now dominant place of poets from the firsthalf of the twentiethcentury.In makinghis compilation of poets fromthe early Soviet period, Obolenskyconfrontedboth an incomplete corpusof texts and reputations largely untested over the preceding decades. In placing Mandel'shtam and Tsvetaeva within the same covers as Pushkin and Baratynsky,he was makingthe case fortheirimportancein the canon. Almost forty years on from Obolensky, Rayfield's marvellous collection reflects a verse traditionwhere the achievement of the greatesttwentieth-centurypoets fromAkhmatova to the early Brodskyhas been fullyassimilated.Perhapsthe most lavish sample belongs to Mandel'shtamwhose selection, apartfrom his widely known masterpieces, includes poems from the very end of his life, a decision that deservedly corrects a tendency to emphasize the verse written before 193I. Akhmatova, Gumilev and Maiakovskiifare well, while even a substantialsection of Tsvetaeva seems to convey only a limited sense of her multifaceted genius. Uncertainty over the value of contemporarywill always bedevil any editor. Conscious of the value of tested reputations,and aware of themistakeninclusionofpoetic samozvantsy Bagritskii,Tikhonov,Voznesenskii , Akhmadulina, Yevtushenko are out Professor Rayfield elects from poets of the Soviet period Tarkovskiiand Mikhalkov,but no Slutskyor Guitar Poets. From the post-Thaw Garnett includes...