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Bride of Ice: New Selected Poems Translation Edition
Author(s): Marina Tsvetaeva (Author), Elaine Feinstein (Author)
- Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd
- Publication Date: 26 Jun. 2009
- Edition: Translation
- Language: English
- Print length: 180 pages
- ISBN-10: 1847770606
- ISBN-13: 9781847770608
Book Description
When Elaine Feinstein first read the poems of Marina Tsvetaeva in Russian in the 1960s, the encounter transformed her. ‘What drew me to her initially,’ she writes, ‘was the intensity of her emotions, and the honesty with which she exposed them.’ Her translations, first published to great acclaim in 1971, introduced Tsvetaeva to English readers. It was the start of Feinstein’s continuing engagement with a poet who has been an enduring, challenging inspiration to her, and whose life she has written. To this enlarged edition Elaine Feinstein adds five major pieces. ‘Girlfriend’, a sequence of lyrics, was written for Tsvetaeva’s lover Sofia Parnok. In ‘New Year’s Greetings’ she responded to the death of Rainer Maria Rilke. ‘On a Red Horse’ is a dramatic fairytale of power and cruelty. ‘Wires’, of which two lyrics were included in the earlier edition, now appears in full; and a previously omitted lyric from ‘Poem of the End’ has been translated. With a new introduction, notes and bibliography of works in English, “Bride of Ice” brings Tsvetaeva to a new generation of readers.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘Like numerous English readers, I owe my discovery of Tsvetaeva to the multi-talented poet and writer, Elaine Feinstein… Feinstein’s translations prove that a poem can be re-born in its adoptive language’. – Carol Rumens –Carol Rumens
About the Author
Marina Tsvetaeva is considered one of Russia’s most important postrevolutionary poets. She is the author of The Demesne of the Swans, Evening Album, and The Rat-Catcher. Elaine Feinstein is the author of many novels, radio plays, television dramas, and five biographies, including Anna of all the Russias, A Captive Lion: The Life of Marina Tsvetaeva, and Pushkin. She was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the recipient of a Cholmondeley Award for Poetry.
