Review

Reviewed Work(s): The Speech of Unknown Eyes: Akhmatova's Readers on Her Poetry by
Wendy Rosslyn
Review by: Jennifer Baines
Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 87, No. 2 (Apr., 1992), pp. 537-538
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3730778
Accessed: 16-01-2020 01:57 UTC

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 Reviews 537

Although
Although the book is meticulously
the book edited, its
isappearance
meticulously
reflects the publishers'
edited, its a
laudable
laudableattempts toattempts
keep the price within
to reasonable
keep bounds.
the Unfortunately,
price these within reaso
efforts
efforts mean that mean
four plates, two
that of themfour
hitherto unpublished
plates, photographs
two of of them h
Artsybashev's
Artsybashev's grave in Warsaw, resemble
grave nothing
in soWarsaw,
much as smudgy photocopies.
resemble nothin
Nevertheless,
Nevertheless,this book should go
this
some way
book
towards ensuring
should that Artsybashev's
go some way to
reputation
reputationis not only defended
is not but enhanced.
only defended but enhanced.
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER MICHAEL PURSGLOVE

The Speech of Unknown Eyes: Akhmatova's Readers o

2 vols. Cotgrave: Astra Press. 1990. 342 pp
The wide range of the 1989 Nottingham centena
sections dealing with Rekviem, Poema bez geroia,
intertextuality, and assorted themes in Akhmato
disparate and uneven quality of the contribution
subjects, such as the influence of the classics or
now being treated in detail points up the extent t
in many ways still in its infancy. Until all archi
also be a sense of the provisional in the most con
work.
Inevitably, given the absence of a unifying the
certain amount of repetition; with a few exception
in stimulating and constructive discussion am
rather one of complacent mutual courtesies; ther
and thought-provoking contributions. The cas
midal structure for the Requiem poems, in which
the second to the penultimate and so forth, 'a la
peak of the ninth poem', is closely argued and th
'Twinned' poems are enriched by their correspon
walls, the woman who suffers alone, her dissociat
retain her sanity, her overwhelming feeling
reappearance in different guises on the 'down' si
has been less fortunate in his graphics, but is pe
ment of Chetki to reflect the conflict between th
and poet, and his wife, woman and poet, for eac
Equally enlightening is Wendy Rosslyn's quietly
relationship between the Poema bez geroia and ba
might be suggested by the references scattered
the Poema's transformation into a tragic ballet h
These 'sibling works with a common origin' never
existing only as subordinate variants paraphrasing
could possibly be needed to emphasize the intens
the Poema, the realizing of the projected scenes (
of Spring, a ghosts' ball, marches, part of Sn
Nijinsky: in the tradition, as Rosslyn says, of
Fokine) would provide a brilliant counterpoint to
carnival associations by Olga Michalewska ra
definitive identity for the mysterious third per
irritant to present as to previous critics. Her re
among Blok, Maiakovskii, and Khlebnikov fo
verstoi', in favour of 'the timeless figure of the
evading the issue by those contributors who late
(in his striped convict's garments) and Gumilev

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 538 Reviews

Akhmatova scholarship has been gr

subtext which has blighted Mandel's
in Jerzy Faryno's excursion into the
celebration, Slavonic folklore plus a
Such displays of erudition can all
irrelevance: however ingenious the m
cation here ofJohn the Baptist ('birt
charovnitsa' in the Poema is as unlik
Roman deities and Christian saints
Akhmatova's use of the date of M
perverse refusal to accept a single an
Pamela Davidson's subtle analysis
a model of intertextual analysis. The
never seem less than probable a
considerably enhanced by awareness
notion of a triangle formed by space
as a prism through which time is ap
transmitted' is particularly fruitf
archetype of the poet's city') and he
when viewed from their respective
writes interestingly of Lydia Chuko
whose Zapiski evolve as an attempt t
ethical norms and honest speech'. Ch
Akhmatova, the way in which she r
deference which consigns instances
are the highest compliment she coul
contrast to this, the non-meeting of
to fate, clearly demonstrated by She
the poetic personae imposed on the
tions as by their underlying persona
her own freedom from the demea
chronicler of non-freedom.
Framed by Brodsky's affectionate obeisance to her, 'obretshei rechi dar v
glukhonemoi vselennoi', and the Oxford Public Orator's graceful allusions to her
making present the past, lightening the present, and offering hope for the future, the
collection gives the final word to Akhmatova. Opposite Richard McKane's trans-
lation from her seventh 'Severnaia elegiia' on the silence which has almost wolfed
her soul: 'But one day I shall destroy it, in order to call death to the pillar of shame', a
photograph of her magisterial figure in doctoral robes triumphantly bears out this
defiant prophecy.
OXFORD JENNIFER BAINES

How Are Verses Made? with A Cl

MAYAKOVSKY. Trans., with
Bristol: Bristol Press. I990. v
In his knowledgeable and wide-r
recommends Maiakovskii's I926
Brechtian subtlety in its politici
theory of literary production mu
Formalists' (p. i).
Maiakovskii's treatise serves a t
poet's craft, and, more specifical

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