A new Anthology of Russian verse in congruent translation with parallel texts

Tue Oct 27 00:35:55 UTC 2009

Ancient Purple Translations presents:

SALT CRYSTALS ON AN AXE

Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry
in Congruent Translation

(AVAILABLE FROM all branches of AMAZON.COM, see also ancientpurple.com)

The bilingual collection of works by 56 Russian poets spans the whole of the
20th century, from Innokenty Annensky (18551909) to Boris Ryzhy
(19742001), and reflects some of the characteristic styles and themes of
the period. By giving preference to shorter pieces, it also provides a
glimpse into the fascinating portable world of small-form poetry that is
carried along by every cultured speaker of Russian. The all-new "congruent"
translations, based on the system described and justified in Editor's
Introduction, offer Anglophone readers a rare opportunity to appreciate
Russian verse on its own terms, complete with its characteristic formal
features.

The book offers annotation to both the translations and the originals and a
concise timeline of 20th-century Russian history putting the poems in context. 

"I very much liked the introduction; it is truly one of the few cases when I
have seen an English translator from Russian consider in depth what meter
and rhyme can mean for a translation. In a way I miss the old days of the
Nabokov-Arndt polemic, when people were at least taking these matters
seriously rather than ignoring them.  Translations of Evgeny Rein's poems
are particularly fine, but many others struck me as quite successful
including those of the works by Korzhavin and Slutsky  and I could name
others as well."  

Barry Scherr
Professor of Russian, Dartmouth College 

SPECIAL FEATURES FOR STUDENTS OF RUSSIAN
===============================

The presence of form-preserving translations alongside the originals makes
the texts accessible as works of art even to beginners whose knowledge of
the language is modest.

The notes are not lumped together at the back of the book but accompany
individual author's entries. This makes it easier to look them up (which
students would need to do much more often than lay readers) and also
simplifies photocopying poems together with the attendant notes.

The indexes of metres and rhyme schemes included in the Appendix help to
locate samples of poems written in a particular form, making the book a
valuable resource for studying Russian prosody. The anthology includes
examples of all primary Russian metrical schemes as well as of logaoedics,
imitative classical verse, dolnik and accentual verse. The rhyme schemes
range from no rhyme at all to the French sonnet, interlocking rubaiyat and
even more complex arrangements.

The necessary background information on Russian realities and culture is
given in the annotation.

All dedications and important inter-textual references are explained. Where
appropriate, the passages to which the poem refers or alludes are quoted in
the notes alongside their translation into English.

Explanation is provided of unusual or irregular language in the originals.
We have aimed to explain everything that may not be found in a medium-size
dictionary.

Letter ё is printed wherever there is even the slightest chance of the е/ё
ambiguity.

To aid scansion, the position of word stress is indicated where it may be
ambiguous, where a non-normative stress was intended by the author, and also
in rare proper names.

When transliterated Russian words occur in translation (which mainly happens
with proper names), the stress is marked with accented vowels, so that the
words may be read correctly.

Unusual formal features of the originals are pointed out and explained. The
table of symbols in the beginning of the book summarises the notation used
for this.

Notes are given on finer artistic aspects of poems that may easily be
overlooked.

The index of authors is provided in both languages, so that works of poets
who are known to the reader only from Russian-language sources could be
easily looked up without guessing the transliterated spelling of the surname.