All posts tagged Alexander Pushkin
The Truth of Seeking Truth
One of the most damaging contemporary dicta is that truth does not exist: that all we know is our own perspective, if even that. According to some, if you so much as mention truth, you have revealed your own outdatedness. The pursuit of truth can only lead farther into illusion, some say; to be with the times, one must admit that there's no ultimate truth at all.
Were it not for its emphasis on being with the times, the above could seem plausible. Again and again, we think we know what happened in a given episode in our lives, only to find out later that our understanding was just a fragment and that the various known fragments do not complete a whole. Not only that, but even if all of the information were available, we could only make sense of it through stories–and stories require selection, emphasis, and sequence. There is no way to convey a full picture, even if it exists; our language, existing in time, does not allow for such complexity and completeness.
Yet much of our experience is sturdy. The bicycle does not turn into a tractor from one day to the next. The slice of pizza does not become a cherry pie in the middle of a bite. If you go to a concert, and you remember it the next day, so do others; if you teach a class, there's general agreement, the next time, about what the lesson contained, even if not everyone remembers everything. So consistency of experience and commonality of memory point to some reality outside of us, a reality that can be called true.
Moreover, we are disposed to seeking out truth; day after day, we try to find out what really happened, what was really said, what a word means, where a particular thing is located, what causes a particular phenomenon, and what we think; this pursuit is not all in vain, nor does it follow a set schedule. When you find the solution to a math problem, it stays; when you understand a word, the understanding abides, even if it changes over time. Knowing your own thoughts may be the most difficult challenge of all, since you are thinking them even as you examine them. Even so, we probably all have had moments of clarity, of knowing, at least for an instant, who we are.
That we build justice systems, schools, governments, news publications on the pursuit of truth does not, in itself, prove truth's existence; looking at the history of such institutions, we can find many deceptions and follies. Still, people coming together in a courtroom affirm that through assembling the evidence, hearing the witnesses, and deliberating, a jury can reach a fairer and more accurate verdict than it would without these actions. In the classroom, anyone can make mistakes, but the very existence of mistakes suggests the possibility of accuracy. In newspapers and on news programs, a story can get distorted, but then, over time, others correct the record. At their best, all of these institutions pursue truth instead of claiming to have it–and demonstrate, through their daily work, that such pursuit is possible.
Literature can hold truth, but it does this through seeking. Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" sounds on the surface like a simple telling of truth, but the truth moves before our eyes, changing color and tone, ambling through grief and delight. Pushkin's Evgeny Onegin plays with deception and dissimulation but reaches a kind of clarity. Eliot's "Prufrock" seeks something too, in a muted and doubting way. I cannot think of a work of literature (that is, a work that I would want to reread) that does not in some way seek truth, integrity, precision, form, completion, or clarity (and their necessary companions). It may or may not reach an answer, but it takes the reader from one place of understanding to another.
The search for truth does not move with the times; it may go against the passions and predilections of a given culture or group. It follows its own timing; discoveries and insights do not always arrive on schedule, but may come when unexpected and fail to arrive when expected. How many of us have recognized one of our mistakes long after making it; how many dramatic works rely on such mistiming? It would be better to catch a mistake in advance, but short of that, we take insight as it comes.
Each of us seeks some kind of truth: some with enthusiasm, some with weariness, some with direction and purpose, some with open curiosity. To respect others is to recognize that they seek just as I do–not in the same way or with the same timing, but for similar reasons: they want to understand what they do not now understand; they believe, as I do, that there is something to learn.
I took the photo when crossing the Zagyva last week. Also, I made a few additions to this piece after posting it.
by Diana Senechal on September 21, 2018 • Permalink
Posted in Culture, Philosophy, Poetry, Uncategorized
Tagged Alexander Pushkin, error, insight, relativism, T. S. Eliot, truth, William Blake
Posted by Diana Senechal on September 21, 2018
https://dianasenechal.wordpress.com/2018/09/21/the-truth-of-seeking-truth/
More on "Free Relation"
Over the past two days I struggled with the post on The Stone Guest and statues; I realized that the topics were too large and the connections too weak. After revising it many times, I finally let it stand. But something came out of it, at the end: the idea that a "free relation" to a statue or other work of art comes through a spirit of learning. It consists of movement beyond misconceptions, limited understandings, and errors; not only that, but it yearns for such movement. It is the opposite of ignorance, which rests on self-satisfaction and becomes a rut. As Diotima tells Socrates in Plato's Symposium, "If someone doesn't think he's in need of something, he can't desire what he doesn't think he needs."
I think about my relation to Pushkin's novel-in-verse Eugene Onegin, which I first encountered as a fourteen-year-old in Moscow, through Tchaikovsky's opera. I loved the opera (which I saw as many times as possible) but in a limited way; I saw myself as Tatiana and understood the work primarily from that perspective.
In brief: Tatiana falls in love with Onegin and writes him a letter; he rejects her; he flirts with Olga, Tatiana's sister, and ends up killing Lensky in a duel; and five years later, he attends a ball in Petersburg, only to discover that Tatiana is married to a prince. He suddenly falls in love with her–and writes her a letter–but she explains her resolve to be faithful to her husband forever. That's a crude summary, with many details missing, but I was drawn, in any case, to Tatiana's torment and courage.
While in Moscow, I obtained the sheet music for the opening duet "Slykhali l' vy" between Olga and Tatiana and practiced it, hoping to sing it beautifully one day. Here's a recording of a 2011 performance by the Bolshoi Theatre, with Galina Vishnevskaya as Tatiana and Larisa Avdeeva as Olga:
Seeing myself in the opera, I missed a great deal; even when I read the poem that year, I understood it in terms of the opera (which I saw in terms of me). But at least the opera was in my life; I would return to it many times later.
In graduate school, I read the poem carefully and came to see its subtleties, ironies, and play; it had humor and bite that the opera lacked. I learned that Nabokov considered Tchaikovsky's libretto "an absurdity and an abomination," full of "vulgar and … criminal inanities." I thought my teenage enthusiasm for the opera had been naive.
Still later, I came to love and admire Tchaikovsky's Onegin again, but on different terms. I saw it most recently at the Metropolitan Opera last April and was moved by the entire performance, but especially by Prince Gremin's aria, performed by Štefan Kocán, in which he tells Onegin of his love for his wife, Tatiana, whom Onegin previously rejected. This aria, rich in life and tranquility, is nowhere in the poem itself; the narrator has some of these words but gives them different meaning. I have found no recording of Kocán's performance online, but here's one with Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and here's the sheet music:
I outgrew both the teenage attachment to Tatiana and the later deference to Nabokov (whom I also questioned and satirized, even then). Pushkin's novel in verse and Tchaikovsky's opera are two distinct works, each to be taken on its own terms, over a lifetime. Sometimes the understanding is intellectual, sometimes visceral, sometimes learned, sometimes intuitive; but it builds and changes over time. I have much to learn about both works; I returned to them today to see how much I had missed before.
So a "free relation" to art is one that moves beyond error, safety, and limitation. A person returns to a work, learns from it, learns about it, and understands it in a different way from before, all the while staying alert to more. Maybe, like Gremin, the person moves toward simple joy, the joy of not needing to own or sum up what one loves, the joy, sometimes difficult, of living among things that change in beauty and meaning.
Image: Photo of a statue of Pushkin at Tsarskoe Selo. Courtesy of the MadOpera Blog.
I made a few changes to this piece after posting it.
by Diana Senechal on August 15, 2017 • Permalink
Posted in Education, Literature, Music, Poetry, Uncategorized
Tagged Alexander Pushkin, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Eugene Onegin, Galina Vishnevskaya, Larisa Avdeeva, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, The Stone Guest, Vladimir Nabokov, Štefan Kocán
Posted by Diana Senechal on August 15, 2017
https://dianasenechal.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/more-on-free-relation/
When the Statue Nods
In anticipation of Don Giovanni, which the Budapest Festival Orchestra will perform at Lincoln center on August 17, 18, and 19, I reread Alexander Pushkin's dramatic poem The Stone Guest, which was inspired by a Russian-language version of Mozart's opera. I had not read it in years; this time, I was amazed by the part where Don Juan (spelled "Дон Гуан" in Russian) orders Leporello to invite the statue of Dona Anna's* deceased husband (whom he himself murdered) to come watch Don Juan meet with her in her home. (In Don Giovanni, it is the father of Donna Anna, not the husband, whom Don Juan has murdered and who later appears as a statue.) Leporello starts to speak to the statue but can't finish; the scene is rendered in tense, broken iambic pentameter, where the silences hold little time and great weight. Leporello finally works up the nerve to invite the statue, who nods his assent. Don Juan does not see this; he finally invites the statue himself and, seeing him nod, cries, "Oh God!" Leporello: "What? I tried to tell you…" Don Juan: "Let's get out of here."
Here's the Russian text of this passage (you can see the trepidation in the broken lines themselves). You can listen to a recording too; the quoted lines begin at 35:38 and end around 37:45. This is from a 1962 performance by the Alexandrinsky Theatre.
Лепорелло
Охота вам
Шутить, и с кем!
Дон Гуан
Ступай же.
Ступай.
Преславная, прекрасная статуя!
Мой барин Дон Гуан покорно просит
Пожаловать… Ей-богу, не могу,
Мне страшно.
Трус! вот я тебя!..
Позвольте.
Мой барин Дон Гуан вас просит завтра
Прийти попозже в дом супруги вашей
И стать у двери…
Статуя кивает головой в знак согласия.
Ай!
Что там?
Ай, ай!..
Ай, ай… Умру!
Что сделалось с тобою?
(кивая головой)
Статуя… ай!..
Ты кланяешься!
Нет,
Не я, она!
Какой ты вздор несешь!
Подите сами.
Ну смотри ж, бездельник.
(Статуе.)
Я, командор, прошу тебя прийти
К твоей вдове, где завтра буду я,
И стать на стороже в дверях. Что? будешь?
Статуя кивает опять.
О боже!
Что? я говорил…
Уйдем.
There's comedy and horror in this scene; both Leporello and Don Juan must each experience the statue alone; hence the eruptions and ellipses. Yet for all its jagged appearance, this dialogue keeps up the iambic pentameter as if propelled along. In the recording, the statue's nod is signaled by music, which both interrupts and intensifies the rhythm. There are references to nonsense, death, God, and madness; exclamations of "ay!"; and a simple yet terrifying nod. The statue is more than a likeness, more than a stone carving. It holds hidden life; it traps time in a solid.
Having started to think about statues, I think of Charlottesville, yet the connection here seems tenuous. For Don Juan, the statue becomes his witness and demise; confronting it, he spirals into himself. It's the poetry itself that nods. This statue moves in verse.
For us today, in the U.S. and elsewhere, a statue holds the history that will not go away, that shows up at the door. Even without great historical significance, even at its most mundane, a statue pulls at the imagination. Because of its dimension and its presence among us, because of its gesture (sometimes seeming in motion), it tempts us to sit on its lap, shake its hand, take pictures with our arms around it, put a cap on its head, and so on. Or it can offer much more. Simulating a body, it simulates hidden thoughts.
The white supremacist protesters in Charlottesville claim that nonwhite and non–"Aryan" groups (e.g., blacks and Jews) have robbed them of their rights, that life would be much better for them if others were put in their place or destroyed. For people who hold this view, a Confederate statue may express the restitution they desire. To move the statue is to rob them of their perceived rights; some will sooner kill others than let that statue go. The statue becomes their defender–theirs, not other people's. It is their fantasy, oxidized and towering, astride a seemingly permanent horse.
A statue strangely joins life and death; it takes something that can never walk again in the world and puts it in our midst. But it matters how we regard it. We can have a free relation with it, taking it on its own terms and coming to understand it better. Or we can see it as an emblem of our rights and wishes, in which case we are bound to it. At its best, education moves toward the many languages and forms of free relation.
Image credit: V. Favorsky, to "The Stone Guest" by A. Pushkin.
I revised this piece substantially after posting it. I am still not satisfied, but the dissatisfaction itself is on the right track.
*A spelling correction: In the Russian text, it's Dona Anna, not Donna Anna. In Spanish it would be Doña Ana.
Posted in Literature, Music, Philosophy, Uncategorized
Tagged Alexander Pushkin, Alexandrinsky Theatre, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Confederate statues, Don Giovanni, racial violence, statues, The Stone Guest, white supremacy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
https://dianasenechal.wordpress.com/2017/08/13/when-the-statue-nods/
"Goe, and catche a falling starre…."
The summer after eighth grade, I read most of a poetry anthology for my required summer reading. I was supposed to pick out a few favorites; I remember choosing John Donne's "Song: Goe, and catche a falling starre." I didn't understand much of it, but it beguiled me. Today it is still one of my favorite poems, and it still beguiles me, though I understand it much better. I will comment a little on it now. This isn't a thorough analysis, just a look at a few things that fascinate me.
Why not start with the most peculiar moment in the poem: the first four lines of the final stanza? The poem is presumably "about" the impossibility of finding a woman who is both "true, and faire." But what a strange twist!
If thou findst one, let mee know,
aaSuch a Pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet doe not, I would not goe,
aaThough at next doore wee might meet,
In other words, "If you find such a woman, let me know… then again, don't bother to tell me; it isn't worth your trouble or mine." There's something mischievous about this change of mind, and humorous, too, despite the bitters. What role does it play in the rest of the poem? Let's look at the first stanza.
Goe, and catche a falling starre,
aaGet with child a mandrake roote,
Tell me, where all past yeares are,
aaOr who cleft the Divels foot,
Teach me to heare Mermaides singing,
aaOr to keep off envies stinging,
aaaaAnd finde
aaaaWhat winde
Serves to advance an honest minde.
Much has been said about the assemblage of images and suggestions here. They seem like a rather arbitrary collection of impossibilities, until one looks closer and sees how well orchestrated they are. Each impossibility is of a different kind: physical, sexual, philosophical, theological, mythological, emotional, or, finally, intellectual and spiritual. (These are rough characterizations; each impossibility holds more, of course.) The elusive last three lines, with their playfulness and prolonged trope, make one wonder what kind of "winde" is at stake. Is it a wind that propels sails? Is it false knowledge, false rumor? Is the implication that an honest mind needs something other than wind for advancement (something more substantial), or is it that an honest mind cannot advance, because of the ways of the world?
The second stanza seems to answer the implicit question: it proposes that someone "borne to strange sights" take a voyage until old age and then return with a verdict.
If thou beest borne to strange sights,
aaThings invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand daies and nights,
aaTill age snow white haires on thee,
Thou, when thou retorn'st, wilt tell mee
All strange wonders that befell thee,
aaaaAnd sweare
aaaaNo where
Lives a woman true, and faire.
This voyage appears as a complement to the impossible marvels of the first stanza. The traveler may "ride ten thousand daies and nights," see "strange wonders," and yet come back with snow-white hairs to tell of nothing: there is no "true and faire" woman to be found. The parallel with the "winde" and the "honest minde" of the first stanza suggests that the travel itself will bring no advancement of mind. In other words, the juxtaposition of "And finde / What winde / Serves to advance an honest minde" with "And sweare / No where / Lives a woman true, and faire" leads one to associate the "winde" with the travel, and the speaker's own "honest minde" with the outcome. The "honest minde" cannot move forward because there is nothing simultaneously enticing and trustworthy–in particular, no woman with both beauty and truth.
Or is something else keeping the "honest minde" in its place? Now we come to those four lines that I quoted at the outset. Is it possible that the world-weary mind keeps itself from advancing–because as soon as it considers a possibility, it turns back on itself? Is this gesture "Yet doe not" the crux of the poem?
aaThough at next doore wee might meet.
It seems so, as the speaker sees through the illusion that deceives the traveler (and for that reason, he won't even go next door). The traveler may think he has found a woman "true, and faire"–but the speaker knows better.
Though shee were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
aaaaYet shee
aaaaWill bee
False, ere I come, to two, or three.
Look at the play of "true" and "false" and the numbers one, two, three (and the implicit zero). There's also a hidden "first" in the combination of "last" and "false"; so one can also hear "first, next, last" in jumbled order (though "last" appears here in the sense of "endure"). This, and the play of true and false in this and the previous stanza, gives a sense of card-and-number tricks (not entirely unlike those in Alexander Pushkin's "Queen of Spades").
What does all of this mean? I wouldn't go so far as to say that the "honest minde" isn't honest at all–that its act of turning back on itself is a sign of falsity. That doesn't seem to be Donne's intent, nor would I go so far beyond his intent. No, this mind is honest but reduced to itself, set against the falsity of woman (and, in a larger sense, the world and its wonders). It need not venture out; after all, if it does, it knows what it will find. Still it conveys this in an adventurous way.
The implicit conundrum is this: to advance, a mind must be somewhat naive, for the mind that considers things rightly has already made its voyages. Yet it goes ahead and sings of them, thus voyaging anyway.
Note: I made some edits to this piece after its initial posting.
by Diana Senechal on January 17, 2013 • Permalink
Posted in Literature, Poetry
Tagged Alexander Pushkin, Goe and catche a falling starre, honest minde, John Donne, poetry, Queen of Spades
Posted by Diana Senechal on January 17, 2013
https://dianasenechal.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/goe-and-catche-a-falling-starre/
More Pushkin: "The day's luminary has died out…."
I enjoyed recording and commenting on Alexander Pushkin's poem "To the Poet" yesterday, so I will do the same with another favorite, "The day's luminary has died out." Recording it was a bit like Living in Oblivion; again and again, something went wrong, and I thought I might end up retaking it into infinity. I was on the verge of completing a good recording when my cat jumped on the desk and started playing noisily with paper clips. Finally I recorded it from start to finish.
Pushkin wrote this poem in 1820, when traveling by ship across the Black Sea. It is full of sea and memory; it has to do with seeing a shore in the distance and recalling past friends, sensual encounters, betrayals, vices, wounds. The speaker calls on the sail and the sea–for the sake of voyage, then for the sake of memory, and finally in order to forget.
I could not find an acceptable translation online, so I translated it literally for the purposes of this post. Unfortunately, I have not found a way to preserve the indentation in WordPress (I can do it in HTML, but it disappears here), so the English translation will appear without indentation. For the Russian, I scanned the text as an image so that I could display it properly.
When looking for a translation, I came upon Andrew Kahn's commentary on the poem: "Pushkin wished to inject enough personal detail to satisfy the demand for autobiographical disclosure that travels with the Romantic persona. With the familiar topoi of premature ageing"–
Stop right there! With all due respect to Kahn, I find this interpretation limiting. I heard this kind of thing in graduate school. It has been fashionable to view Pushkin as a self-fashioner, acutely aware of the poetic trends and capable of playing with them cleverly. There's an element of truth to this, but as a dominant interpretation, it misses something. Yes, Pushkin is aware of Romantic tendencies; yes, he plays with them, and cleverly, too. But he also makes them come to life. How does he do this?
Look at the poem. Its shape suggests the ocean, with shorter and taller waves, and irregular lapses between them. There is a refrain–"Rumble, rumble, obedient sail, / Morose ocean, stir up under me" ("Shumi, shumi, poslushnoe vetrilo, / Volnuisia podo mnoi, ugriumyi okean")–that occurs three times and changes meaning profoundly with the repetitions. The first time, it is literal, as the speaker is sailing over the sea. The second time, the "stirring up" is the excitement of old memory and emotion, a mixture of excitement and regret. The final time, this "stirring up" is the rumbling needed to bury the old pain. I hear those last two lines as something close to a hush.
In poetry, refrains should change meaning, however subtly, with the repetition, or they become tedious–but the changes in this particular poem stand apart. The "stirring up" seems to go deeper down into the water (and into the soul) each time. The first time, it is on the surface, or close; the second time, somewhere in the middle; and the third time, so far down that it can barely be felt.
Also, this refrain is built on word-play. The refrain's first line, "Шуми, шуми, послушное ветрило" ("Make noise, make noise, obedient sail") has the word "poslushnoe," "obedient," which has the root "slukh-" ("hearing" or "ear"; "slushat'" is "to listen"). Thus in the noise of the sail there is also a sense of listening. In the second line, "Волнуйся подо мной, угрюмый океан" ("Stir up beneath me, sullen ocean"), the word "volnuisia" ("stir up") suggests "volna," "wave." Thus in telling the ocean to stir up, the speaker is telling it to make waves, or, rather, to be itself. All of this gives the sense of an internal conversation.
I will not comment any more on the poem. Here is the Russian (as a picture, with formatting preserved), and here is my recording (in MP3 format).
And here's my rough English translation (unperfected, just intended to give readers a sense of the poem):
The day's luminary has fallen into dark;
An evening fog has spread across the sea.
Rumble, rumble, obedient sail,
Morose ocean, stir up under me.
I see a shore from far away,
Enchanted vistas of the land of noon;
With agitation and yearning I strive toward it,
Intoxicated with memory…
And now I feel: the tears are born again;
The soul boils up and then subsides;
A familiar dream flies around me;
I remember the mad love of past years,
And everything I suffered, and all things I hold dear,
The wearying deception of desires and hopes…
Fly, ship, take me to the distant limits
By the stormy whim of the deceptive seas,
Only not to the sorrowful shores
Of my foggy native land,
The country, where with passion's flame
Feelings for the first time burst in fire,
Where tender muses slipped me secret smiles,
Where, early on, my lost youth
Wilted away in violent wind and rain,
Where light-winged joy showed me its other face
And my cold heart committed itself to pain.
A seeker of new sights and sounds,
I ran from you, paternal lands,
I ran from you who drink the milk of pleasures,
Unlasting friends of my unlasting youth;
And you, mistresses of depraved delusion,
To whom I lovelessly devoted all,
My peace, my fame, my freedom and my soul,
You too have left my mind, unfaithful dames,
Secret intimates of my golden spring,
You too have left my mind… But the old wounds of the heart,
The deep wounds of love, nothing has ever healed…
Note: I made some minor improvements to the translation since the initial posting, but it is still rough.
by Diana Senechal on November 3, 2012 • Permalink
Tagged Alexander Pushkin, Andrew Kahn, Living in Oblivion, poetry, refrain, Russian literature, Russian poetry
Posted by Diana Senechal on November 3, 2012
https://dianasenechal.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/more-pushkin-the-days-luminary-has-died-out/
"Poet! do not cling to popular affection…."
So begins Alexander Pushkin's sonnet "To a Poet" (which could also be translated "To the Poet"). The gist of the poem is clear: don't cherish popular opinion or affection; live alone; enjoy the freedom of integrity. But what makes the poem memorable is the sternness and liberty of the language. I have been thinking about how this sternness and liberty go together. The liberty is hard won and all too easily surrendered–especially through careless language. Here there is nothing careless.
I recorded and uploaded the poem so that anyone can hear how it sounds–in my reading, at least. (I found an online recording by someone else, but it has an awful rock beat in the background.)
This sonnet has a rhyme scheme of ABAB ABBA CCD EED. The C rhyme has the same vowel sound as B, and D rhymes obliquely with A. Thus the final sestet carries sonic hints of the first two stanzas–as well as interesting word associations and contrasts: for example, "narodnoi" (popular), "kholodnoi" (cold), "svobodnoi" (free), "blagorodnyi" (noble), "khudozhnik" (artist), and "trenozhnik" (tripod).
The first stanza can be translated literally as follows:
Poet! do not cling to popular affection.*
The temporary noise of ecstatic praises will pass;
You will hear the fool's judgment, the laugh of the cold crowd,
But you must remain firm, calm, and morose.
In Russian, it's much more majestic and severe:
It's in a slow-paced iambic hexameter, with word ordering that English does not allow (e.g., in the second line, "Of the ecstatic praises will pass the momentary noise"). The last word "угрюм" ("ugrium, " "morose") stresses the seriousness of the matter. This is no pleasant conversation-piece.
In the second stanza, the emphasis shifts to the poet's internal liberty, once he has established the conditions for it. The language is gentler and more whimsical, with repetition of the word for "free":
You are a tsar; live alone. By way of the free road
Go wherever your free mind draws you,
Perfecting the fruits of your beloved thoughts,
Not asking any rewards for your noble feat.
In Russian, you can hear the stanza's fluidity:
Then the final sestet reflects the first two stanzas in a kind of skewed symmetry. The first tercet continues to refer to the artist and his work; then the final three lines, like the first four, return to the crowd and its judgments, contrasted with the poet's work. In Russian:
And in an literal English translation:
They are inside you. You are your highest judge;
More strictly than anyone can you appraise your work.
Are you satisfied with it, exacting artist?
Satisfied? Then let the crowd treat it harshly
And spit on the altar, where your fire burns,
And rock your tripod with childlike friskiness.
This translation does not come close to capturing the last two lines: the plosive of sound of "plyuyet" ("spits") and the tripod wavering through friskiness. To me, everything builds to that final line, which is as strange as it is vivid.
As I was reciting the sonnet this morning, I heard the combination of liberty and severity in the sounds themselves. The poem is didactic but goes far beyond its overt lesson; one comes close to that tripod and feels it wavering–not out of hesitation, but out of vitality.
*Note: I have been dissatisfied with my literal translation of the first line. I changed it to "Poet! do not cling to popular affection"–which, though not literally exact, feels much less awkward than the previous "Poet! do not cherish the love of the people."
Update: Thanks to Galina Lazareva for the correction of the last line. Of course: "колебать" is transitive!
Tagged Alexander Pushkin, popularity, Russian literature, Russian poetry, solitude, sonnet
https://dianasenechal.wordpress.com/2012/11/02/poet-do-not-cherish-the-love-of-the-people/