Selected Essays: (Studies in Russian Literature and Theory)

A poet, critic and theoretician during the Silver Age of Russian poetry, at the turn of the 20th century, Viacheslav Ivanov was dubbed ""Viacheslav the Magnificent"" by his contemporaries for his erudition, sumptuous and elusive poetry and brilliant essays. He provided Russian Symbolism with theoretical underpinnings based on classical and biblical mythology, the aesthetics of music, philosophy ranging from Plato and Kant to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and a profound knowledge of classical and modern European poetry. In choosing material for this volume of essays, Robert Bird and Michael Wachtel have covered a broad range of Ivanov's interests: the aesthetics of Symbolism, theatre, culturalogical concerns and such influential figures of the period as Nietzsche, Solovyov, Tolstoy and Scriabin. Also included are extensive notes on the essays in which classical, biblical and poetic citations and allusions are identified, the aesthetic and theoretical contexts are clarified and certain translation problems are briefly discussed.

Table of Contents:
Part I Symbolism: The Symbolics of Aesthetic Principles; Two Elements in Contemporary Symbolism; The Testaments of Symbolism; Thoughts on Symbolism; Manner, Persona, Style; On the Limits of Art. Part II The Games of Melpomene: Presentiments and Portents: The New Organic Era and the Theatre of the Future. Part III On Cultural History: On the Joyful Craft and the Joy of the Spirit; On the Russian Idea; Ancient Terror - Leon Bakst's Painting ""Terror Antiquus""; On the Crisis of Humanism - Toward a Morphology of Modern Culture and the Psychology of Modernity. Part IV Pilot Stars: Nietzsche and Dionysus; The Religious Task of Vladimir Solovyov; Lev Tolstoy and Culture; Scriabin's View of Art.

About the Author :
VIACHESLAV IVANOV (1866-1949) is considered the preeminent thinker of Russia's Symbolist movement and an influential figure in prerevolutionary Russian culture. While abroad as a scholar, Ivanov met Lidia Dimitrievna Zinovieva-Annibal, the woman who would inspire much of his work, and gave up a career in academia to be a poet. In 1924 he left the USSR and settled in Rome, where he died in 1949. ROBERT BIRD (1969-2020) was professor of Russian literature and film at the University of Chicago. He was the author of books on Fyodor Dostoevsky, Viacheslav Ivanov, and Andrei Tarkovsky, and published widely on the aesthetics of Russian modernism. MICHAEL WACHTEL is professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton University. He is the author of Russian Symbolism and Literary Tradition and The Development of Russian Verse.

Review :
"Robert Bird and Michael Wachtel deserve to be congratulated for the enormous amount of careful work that has gone into this volume. Northwestern University Press should also be commended for undertaking to produce a work of such quality so beautifully. This book offers far more than a translation of Ivanov's essays; it is a valuable scholarly edition, which supercedes previous efforts. It can be highly recommended to students and specialists alike, as well as to anyone with an interest in the genesis and formation of Russian modernism." --The Russian Review "Those who know little Russian or who are specialists in other literary traditions will now have access to the works of Viacheslav Ivanov, which encompass much of Russian Symbolism. While they clearly will benefit from the appearance of this book, even those who have studied Symbolism for years will enjoy not only rereading the essays, but will also delight in the scholarly excellence of the introduction and notes that accompany them." --Slavic and East European Journal