Tristia et autres poèmes

by Osip Mandelstam

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Genres: Poetry, Russia

219 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 4, 1994

About the author

Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam (also spelled Osip Mandelshtam, Ossip Mandelstamm) (Russian: Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам) was a Russian poet and essayist who lived in Russia during and after its revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets. He was arrested by Joseph Stalin's government during the repression of the 1930s and sent into internal exile with his wife Nadezhda. Given a reprieve of sorts, they moved to Voronezh in southwestern Russia. In 1938 Mandelstam was arrested again and sentenced to a camp in Siberia. He died that year at a transit camp.

Reviews

[philosophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tristia


The essence of farewell I have extracted
From hatless laments of the sleepless night
As oxen chew, and waiting grows protracted,
And end of city vigil is in sight -
And I recall the rooster night with fear
When lost in doleful journey for too long
Into the void the tear-drenched eyes did peer
And woman's cry mingled with muse's song.

Who yet again can say farewell, unknowing
What longing and what sorrow waits for us,
What good is it to judge the rooster's crowing
When fire is burning in Acropolis;
And on the somewhere dawn of some new lifetime,
While in the shed the oxen calmly stall,
Why does the rooster, herald of new lifetime,
Flap his flamboyant wings on city wall?

And yet I love the way fate weaves her gown:
The shuttle runs, the spindle turns apace,
And straight ahead, look now, for like swan's down
The barefoot Delia is flying in your face!
Oh, of a life is but a shoddy structure
When tongue is starved so utterly for light!
All was before, all will repeat then rupture
And only recognition brings respite.

Thus it will be: A figurine, transparent,
Stands on an earthen dish that's clean and wide,
And like a snow-white winter squirrel pelt
A girl leans over wax and looks inside.
Ours not is to divine the Greek Erebus:
Wax is to her what bronze is to her mate.
Our dice falls only in the field of battle;
With divination women seal their fate.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Osip Mandelstam's Tristia is an early collection of the Russian poet's work. It is dripping with classical Greek allusions. Curiously, the point is not made that Tristia was also the name of the poems of Ovid, which he wrote in forced exile on the Black Sea.

The poems are so allusive that, unlike Mandelstam's later work, I had difficulty following them.

[Matthieu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Light and airy (and yet full of earthdeathcreakingaxlessnow). Some secret of breath and weight.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edition is hardcover, published by Station Hill in 1987.

[ninon · Rating 3 out of 5]

lui c est sur qu il pense souvent a l empire romain (3.5/5

[Sophia Grace Payne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good translation!

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Besonders schön: die Bienen-Gedichte!

[Edward Rathke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some real beautiful poems in here. Most of them are quite short and some are sort of too obsessed with Greek allusions, but they're all well worth the read.

[Gregoire]

Découvert récemment, une révélation ! dans la simplicité des mots et de la forme quelle puissance évocatrice Un grand monsieur de la poésie