Description
Book SynopsisAnalyses the work of seven Russian poets who translated their own poems into English, French, German, or Italian. Investigating the parallel versions of self-translated poetic texts, Adrian Wanner considers how verbal creativity functions in different languages, the conundrum of translation, and the vagaries of bilingual identities.
Trade Review“
The Bilingual Muse confirms Adrian Wanner as the leading scholar of Russian literary translingualism. His scintillating study of self-translation by seven disparate poets is attentive to the nuances of prosody as well as issues of cultural and personal identity. Especially luminescent are Wanner’s discussion of the short-lived polyglot prodigy Elizaveta Kul’man, his recuperation of the painter Wassily Kandinsky as a formidable trilingual poet, and his account of why Vladimir Nabokov regarded autotranslation as ‘self-torture.” - Steven G. Kellman, author of
The Translingual Imagination “
The Bilingual Muse is illuminating and useful. It is rare and unusual to see the kind of thorough treatment of all levels of language and prosody that Wanner provides.” - Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour, author of
Alien Tongues: Bilingual Russian Writers of the “First” EmigrationTable of Contents
- Introduction: “The Trick of Doubling Oneself”
- 1. Elizaveta Kul’man: The Most Polyglot of Russian Poets
- 2. Wassily Kandinsky’s Trilingual Poetry
- 3. Marina Tsvetaeva’s Self-Translation into French
- 4. Vladimir Nabokov’s Dilemma of Self-Translation
- 5. Joseph Brodsky in English
- 6. Self-Translation among Contemporary Russian-American Poets
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
