Witness and Transformation: The Poetics of Gennady Aygi

Sarah Valentine

Published by Academic Studies Press 2015

Witness and Transformation

The Poetics of Gennady Aygi

Sarah Valentine

In the series Liber Primus

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781618114440

Overview
Contents

About this book

A first full-length critical study of Chuvash-born poet Gennady Aygi (1934-2006), who is considered the father of late-Soviet avant-garde Russian poetry, this book charts the development of Aygi’s poetics, which draws equally on Russian poetic and religious tradition, European literature and philosophy, and Chuvash literature, folk culture, and cosmology. Moving chronologically through Aygi’s life and work from the 1950s to his final work in the early 2000s, the book concludes with an interview with American poet Fanny Howe about the importance of Aygi’s work in translation. The volume places Aygi in the context of twentieth-century poetry of witness and reveals the global significance of his work.

Author / Editor information

Sarah Valentine earned a PhD in Russian Literature from Princeton University and has received a research fellowship from the Templeton Foundation from Princeton’s Center for the Study of Religion, a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Writer in Residence Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. Her peer-reviewed articles have appeared in PMLA, Slavic and East European Journal and Poetics, and her translation from the Russian, Into the Snow: Selected Poems of Gennady Aygi was published by Wave Books in 2011. She teaches English and Comparative Literature at Northwestern University.

Reviews

Gerald Janecek, Professor Emeritus of Russian and Eastern Studies, University of Kentucky:
“Of the most important Russian poets of the late Soviet period (Brodsky, Vsevolod Nekrasov, Aygi), only Aygi was not Russian, but Chuvash. However, with his mentor Boris Pasternak’s encouragement, Aygi began to compose primarily in Russian, thereby opening his work to a broad international audience. Sarah Valentine’s astute and rich monograph, the first on Aygi in English, establishes Aygi’s preeminence in contemporary world poetry and reveals the importance of Chuvash language and culture for his Russian works. Aygi’s special background has given him a whole new vision of the world in some of the greatest Russian poetry of the last century."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
A Note on Transliteration Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter One: Chuvash Poetics: Forming an Aesthetic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
Chapter Two: The Moscow Neo-Avant-Garde Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
Chapter Three: Three Poems Called “Silence”: The Human-Word as Divine Mystery Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
Chapter Four: Poem as Reliquary: Violence, Elegy, Witness Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
Chapter Five: After the Fall: Poetry of the 1990s and 2000s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
Final Thoughts: A Conversation with Fanny Howe on Poetry Crossing Borders Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	176
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	182
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195

Language: English
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 216

eBook

Published: September 15, 2015
ISBN: 9781618114440