Martin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer Episode 25 - Supplement Poems for "Onegin"

The Be-Loving Imaginer

PODCAST #25 SUPPLEMENT POEMS FOR “ONEGIN”

In Podcast #24 I recited the first few dialogic exchanges of sonnets between Pushkin’s verse novel “Eugene Onegin,” and me, the translator and collocutor. Here I’d like to supplement our book-long con-verse-ation or interview with additional lyrics, mainly by Pushkin, which I added to clarify crucial moments in the Russian poet’s text.

I’ll begin my sampling with an introductory lyric, “Collocutor’s Preface” (26-27) that will convey my mood when beginning the innovative interview project, modeled upon my earlier exchange of sonnets with those of Shakespeare in my book “Shakespair” and with Rilke in "Rilke's Art of Metric Melody." Then I’ll read Pushkin’s poem of delight called “Winter Morning” (388), where the mood matches my own in the “Preface” poem.

“I built myself a monument” (140), based on an ode by Horace, shows Pushkin’s satisfaction with his career as inclusive poet welcoming many traditions. “Earliest memories…” (335) shows the poet in a more troubled self-presentation, written in the Dantescan terza rima to convey a solemn tone. Then we’ll highlight Pushkin’s talent as ballad writer in “Once there lived a simple knight” (327). The astonishing poem “Feast in Time of Plague” (322), from a minidrama of that name, shows a Shakespearean dramatic power. I’ll offer a couple of strophes in Russian to show the force of the original.

Lastly, I’ll sample a couple of poems on mermaids, one by Pushkin’s disciple Mikhail Lermontov, and one by the later Symbolist poet Konstantin Balmont, to which I’ll offer a final brief reply (108-109).