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Art in the Light of Conscience
Eight Essays on Poetry
Marina Tsvetaeva
Harvard University Press, 1992

In the Soviet Union, as in the West, Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-4941) is acknowledged to be one of the great Russian poets of the century, along with Mandelstam, Pasternak and Akhmatova. Overnight sensation and oft-times pariah, Tsvetaeva was a poet of extraordinary intensity whose work continues to be discovered by new readers. Yet, while she is considered to be one of the major influences on modern Soviet poetry, few know of her consummate gifts as a writer of prose. These select essays, most of which have never been available in translation before, display the dazzlingly original prose style and the powerful, dialogic voice of a poet who would like to make art’s mystery accessible without diminishing it.

The essays provide incomparable insight on poetry, the poetic process, and what it means to be a poet. The volume offers, among many fascinating topics, a celebration of the poetry of Pasternak and reflections on the lives and works of other Russian poets, such as Mandelstam, Mayakovsky, and Zhukovsky. Included in this richly diverse collection are the essays “The Poet on the Critic,” which earned Tsvetaeva the enmity of many, Art in the Light of Conscience, a spirited defense of poetry, and The Poet and Time, seen by many scholars as providing the key to understanding Tsvetaeva’s work. The immense power and originality of Tsvetaeva’s language captured by Angela Livingstone’s superb translation of the essays along with twelve of Tsvetaeva’s poems on related themes, is testimony to why the Tsvetaevan revival in the Soviet Union and interest in the West continue to gain momentum as the centenary of her birth approaches. The volume is made complete by the addition of an elegant introduction by the translator, a chronology of Tsvetaeva’s life, and an index of contemporary poets and writers mentioned in the essays.

“Good poetry is always better than prose,” Tsvetaeva wrote. Prose as good as hers, however, is rare and few have done as much as she to explore the processes of creation and the feelings of the exceptionally creative person in the ordinary world.

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front cover of Milestones
Milestones
A Bilingual Edition
Marina Tsvetaeva, translated from the Russian by Robin Kemball
Northwestern University Press, 2003
Milestones is an apt title for this collection, for the eighty-four poems within show a poet passing from mere talent into mastery of her craft. Composed between January and December of 1916, these poems find the twenty-four year-old Tsvetaeva thirsting for the fullness of life while at the same time contemplating the inevitability of death—a theme she was to revisit many times in her career. Tsvetaeva's work of the time also reflects her knowledge of (and pride in) her native culture, especially the centrality of Moscow as the ultimate destination of all Russians. Throughout the verse she opens up to the sensual wonders of nature—sky, forest, wind, and not least her beloved daughter Alya, who would come to figure greatly in the work and legacy of her mother.

Milestones lays out a sensual feast of moods, themes, styles, and rhythms—all the ingredients that would in time reveal Tsvetaeva as one of the most daring and original poets of her time.
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front cover of The Ratcatcher
The Ratcatcher
Marina Tsvetaeva, translated from the Russian by Angela Livingstone
Northwestern University Press, 2000
Winner of 2000 Heldt Translation Prize

The Ratcatcher,
Marina Tsvetaeva's masterpiece, is a satirical version of the Pied Piper of Hamelin legend in the form of a complex narrative poem that bears all the marks of Tsvetaeva's poetic style. Written in 1926, it was not available in Russia until 1965, and has hitherto been virtually unknown in English.
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