Second Nature: Poems by Boris Pasternak

by Boris Pasternak, Andrei Navrozov (Translator)

In this collected volume of Pasternak’s poetry Andrei Navrozov seeks to transport the English-language reader into the Russian poet’s mysterious lyric universe. Both inventive and exact, the poems in Second Nature are inspired by life and scenery from the natural world. Unavailable for some time, Second Nature has been acclaimed by leading Pasternak scholars and enthusiasts.

Genres: Poetry, Russia

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was born in Moscow to talented artists: his father a painter and illustrator of Tolstoy's works, his mother a well-known concert pianist. Though his parents were both Jewish, they became Christianized, first as Russian Orthodox and later as Tolstoyan Christians. Pasternak's education began in a German Gymnasium in Moscow and was continued at the University of Moscow. Under the influence of the composer Scriabin, Pasternak took up the study of musical composition for six years from 1904 to 1910. By 1912 he had renounced music as his calling in life and went to the University of Marburg, Germany, to study philosophy. After four months there and a trip to Italy, he returned to Russia and decided to dedicate himself to literature.

Pasternak's first books of verse went unnoticed. With My Sister Life, 1922, and Themes and Variations, 1923, the latter marked by an extreme, though sober style, Pasternak first gained a place as a leading poet among his Russian contemporaries. In 1924 he published Sublime Malady, which portrayed the 1905 revolt as he saw it, and The Childhood of Luvers, a lyrical and psychological depiction of a young girl on the threshold of womanhood. A collection of four short stories was published the following year under the title Aerial Ways. In 1927 Pasternak again returned to the revolution of 1905 as a subject for two long works: "Lieutenant Schmidt", a poem expressing threnodic sorrow for the fate of the Lieutenant, the leader of the mutiny at Sevastopol, and "The Year 1905", a powerful but diffuse poem which concentrates on the events related to the revolution of 1905. Pasternak's reticent autobiography, Safe Conduct, appeared in 1931, and was followed the next year by a collection of lyrics, Second Birth, 1932. In 1935 he published translations of some Georgian poets and subsequently translated the major dramas of Shakespeare, several of the works of Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, and Ben Jonson, and poems by Petöfi, Verlaine, Swinburne, Shelley, and others. In Early Trains, a collection of poems written since 1936, was published in 1943 and enlarged and reissued in 1945 as Wide Spaces of the Earth. In 1957 Doctor Zhivago, Pasternak's only novel - except for the earlier "novel in verse", Spektorsky (1926) - first appeared in an Italian translation and has been acclaimed by some critics as a successful attempt at combining lyrical-descriptive and epic-dramatic styles.

Pasternak lived in Peredelkino, near Moscow, until his death in 1960.

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is hard to write a review here. I read these poems and found them hard to get my head around - or some of them. The obliqueness of the language and the telescoping of images into almost abstraction makes them a puzzle. But you get the feeling that if you can crack that puzzle it will be worthwhile.

I think I mostly failed to do so. I will come back to this though and give a little more time to reflection on each poem than perhaps I have done this first time. Not everything should be simple.

As an aside it is worth reading Andrei Navrozov’s introduction. Navrozov translated these poems into English and does a fine job of contextualising Pasternak in relation to the English poetic tradition and in revealing his approach as a translator.

So, one to think about and one to revisit.

[Anjalique · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I dreamt of autumn in the dim glass light,
Of friends, with you, in their motley love,
And like a falcon, tasting blood in flight,
The swooping heart alighted on your glove.

But time would grow old, and dead, and pass”

• Boris Pasternak, excerpt from Träumerie

This volume is already slim, and yet a good third or fourth of it is comprised of foreword and notes. It’s hard to complain of those, though, as they are so well written. The translator seems to have done a thorough, effective job; I felt that I was reading the poet’s words and not a stilted, awkward translation.

[Sinan Öner]

Soviet Russian Poet, Story Writer, Novel Writer Boris Pasternak's poetry book, "Second Nature". Pasternak wrote poetry of "human kind-nature relations" in Russian geography. When Pasternak writes his novels, he is very "realist" and he thinks "human relations" in detail and deeply like in "Doctor Zhivago". But in his poetry, Boris Pasternak is more "lyric", "romantic" and "mystic". Pasternak, in poetry, is very "individualist" and "egocentric". In "Second Nature", we see Pasternak's poetic culture and experiences - with his very "complex" and "aesthetically good lived" life!

[Gary Watts · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the most fascinating aspect of this book is reading the translators perspective of how all the poems are obviously in Russian and their task of translating that to English while trying to maintain the essence (and rhyme in keeping with Pasternak). Seems like an impossible task. I found myself reading and wishing I knew what the original poems were like, unfairly to the translator perhaps. The poems are good, a bit sombre, only a few stood out to me - but I am not an aficionado of poetry so can't be considered a good critic - some of the beauty of this may have gone over me.

[Karolina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This guys complicated, you need someone smart to explain him to you, and clearly loves autumn. Loved the metaphors though. My favourites were A definition of Poetry, Summer and the Riddle.

[Jade Levi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will be re reading Pasternak often!

[chels · Rating 3 out of 5]

Are there any Russian writers who aren’t depressed?