Under the Sign of Contradiction

Mandelstam and the Politics of Memory

Anna Razumnaya

• Publisher: Peter Lang Group
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781787070516
• eBook ISBN: 9781787078635
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

The book revisits the final decade in the life of Osip Mandelstam (1891–1938), a central poet of Russian Modernism. Premised on the belief that no life can be understood without insight into its contradictions, the book attends to the two contentious cruxes of Mandelstam's life and art: his testifying against his closest friends to the secret police and his composition, in exile, of an ode in praise of Stalin. Offering a close reading of the protocols of Mandelstam's interrogations, a critical reflection on the nature of the «Ode» and an unflinching yet humane interpretation of the connecting events, the book pursues the dramatic arc of Mandelstam's imaginative involvement with the politics of the Soviet state, revealing the perennial aspects of his case in dialogue with poets and critics in the English language, from Andrew Marvell to William Empson. In doing so, the book contemplates Mandelstam – a poet of «longing for world culture» – as a phenomenon of Western literature at large.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Note on the Text
• Preface
• Exhibits
• Prologue: Biography Between Contradictions
• Chapter 1. ‘The Stalin Epigram’ and the Liberty of Protest
• Chapter 2. A Moulten Falcon
• Chapter 3. ‘Be Simple Answer’d, for We Know the Truth’
• Chapter 4. Double Bind, 1934
• Interlude Under the Stars
• Chapter 5. In the Cross-Vault
• Chapter 6. Quarrels on the Witness Stand Posthumous Mandelstam
• Epilogue: Criticism and the Fate of Poets
• References
• Perspectives in English
• Index