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The Poetry of Anna Akhmatova

The Poetry of Anna Akhmatova

Alexandra Harrington

(2006)

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Abstract

This book outlines a fresh and coherent framework for the apprehension of Akhmatova's oeuvre in its totality, seeing her as a poet who moves beyond modernism in her later period. The appeal to postmodernism, which is in itself innovatory with regard to Akhmatova studies, also allows exploration of a second problematic issue: how to account for the shift in self-presentation in the later verse, and the different concept of poetic self which it advances. This new account of Akhmatova's path to maturity challenges the conventional view of the early Akhmatova as poet in the classical Russian tradition, and of the later Akhmatova as paradigmatically modernist.


Alexandra Harrington is Lecturer in Russian in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Durham. She is the author of various articles on Akhmatova and is currently working on a new monograph about the poet Vasilii Komarovskii.


This book arose from several years of research on Akhmatova. Anna Akhmatova is one of the most acclaimed poets of the twentieth century. Her career falls into two distinct periods, an 'earlier' and a 'later', the dividing line being her period of relative silence between 1925 and 1940.  As is often observed, her return to poetry brings with it a sudden and dramatic shift away from a relatively homogenous body of early lyric miniatures to a more diverse and complex style. One of the major unresolved problems in Akhmatova scholarship is that of how the poetics of the two phases are related. Previous attempts to plot her creative trajectory contain internal inconsistencies and are in conflict with one another, often serving to confuse rather than clarify the debate. This book seeks to explore these themes, bringing reconciliation to seemingly disparate views. This book outlines a fresh and coherent framework for the apprehension of Akhmatova's oeuvre in its totality, seeing her as a poet who moves beyond modernism in her later period. The appeal to postmodernism, which is in itself innovatory with regard to Akhmatova studies, also allows exploration of a second problematic issue: how to account for the shift in self-presentation in the later verse, and the different concept of poetic self which it advances. This new account of Akhmatova's path to maturity challenges the conventional view of the early Akhmatova as poet in the classical Russian tradition, and of the later Akhmatova as paradigmatically modernist.

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Front Matter\r 1
Half Title\r 1
Series Page\r 2
Title\r 3
Copyright\r 4
Contents\r 5
Acknowledgements\r 7
Note\r 9
Main Body\r 11
Introduction\r 11
Biographical Sketch\r 12
Akhmatova's Myth of Death and Rebirth\r 20
Characteristics of Akhmatova's Earlier and Later Poetry\r 23
Critical Views of the Early and Later Akhmatova\r 24
Akhmatova and Modernism\r 27
Akhmatova and Postmodernism\r 30
Chapter One. Missing Centres, Hints and Evasions - Epistemological Uncertainty in the Early Period\r 35
Epistemology and Ontology in the Debate between Acmeism and Symbolism\r 35
Epistemology and the Conventions of Lyric Poetry\r 43
Truncated Plot in Akhmatova's Early Lyrics\r 45
The Nineteenth-Century Novel\r 48
Cinema and Cubism\r 49
Avant-garde Techniques in the Early Poetry\r 52
Montage Composition in Lyric Cycles\r 56
Towards a Nouveau Roman\r 64
The Chameleon Persona\r 66
From Epistemology to Ontology\r 78
Chapter Two. Requiem - The Upturned World and Disintegrating Self\r 87
The Modern Poetic Sequence\r 88
The Paratexts of Requiem\r 89
The Inconsistent Speaker and Fragmenting Text\r 100
The Transformation of the Speaker\r 110
Chapter Three. Ends and Beginnings, Different Selves, and Possible Worlds - Ontological Instability in the 'Northern Elegies'\r 113
The Alien World of the Past\r 115
The World Next Door\r 119
Possible Worlds of the Future\r 123
Forking Paths and Other Dramas\r 127
Paper Worlds\r 137
The World of Fiction\r 141
Ironic Beginnings\r 146
Chapter Four. Non-Meetings and the World through the Looking Glass - Akhmatova's Late Cycles\r 153
The Poetics of Negation and Paradox\r 155
Non-meetings and Non-being\r 158
The Burnt Notebook\r 166
Living, Dying and Resurrection\r 174
Midnight Verses\r 179
Chapter Five. Worlds Within Worlds - Poem Without a Hero\r 195
The Text-within-a-Text \r 200
Viewing 1913 from 1940 - the Postmodenrist Return to Modernism\r 204
Akhmatova's Critique of the 1910s\r 209
The Surpassing of Modernism\r 217
Postmodernist Pla(y)giarism\r 221
Conversation between an Author and an Editor\r 228
The Multiple Author\r 232
Multiple Endings and Paratextual Paraphernalia\r 238
Rough Drafts\r 243
Conclusion\r 245
End Matter\r 247
Endnotes\r 247
Endnotes: Introduction\r 247
Endnotes: Chapter One\r 249
Endnotes: Chapter Two\r 251
Endnotes: Chapter Three\r 252
Endnotes: Chapter Four\r 255
Endnotes: Chapter Five\r 257
Bibliography\r 261
Index \r 271