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    Selected Poems of Vladimir Nabokov

    Author Vladimir Nabokov
    Introduction by Thomas Karshan
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    Hardcover
    $30.00 US
    Knopf
    On sale May 29, 2012 | 240 Pages | 9780307593351
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    Though we know Vladimir Nabokov as a brilliant novelist, his first love was poetry. This landmark collection brings together the best of his verse, including many pieces that have never before appeared in English.

    These poems span the whole of Nabokov’s career, from the newly discovered “Music,” written in 1914, to the short, playful “To Véra,” composed in 1974. Many are newly translated by Dmitri Nabokov, including The University Poem, a sparkling novel in verse modeled on Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin that constitutes a significant new addition to Nabokov’s oeuvre. Included too are such poems as “Lilith”, an early work which broaches the taboo theme revisited nearly forty years later in Lolita, and “An Evening of Russian Poetry”, a masterpiece in which Nabokov movingly mourns his lost language in the guise of a versified lecture on Russian delivered to college girls. The subjects range from the Russian Revolution to the American refrigerator, taking in on the way motel rooms, butterflies, ice-skating, love, desire, exile, loneliness, language, and poetry itself; and the poet whirls swiftly between the brilliantly painted facets of his genius, wearing masks that are, by turns, tender, demonic, sincere, self-parodying, shamanic, visionary, and ingeniously domestic.

    Introduction

    Poems Translated by Dmitri Nabokov

    MUSIC
    REVOLUTION
    PETER IN HOLLAND
    THE LAST SUPPER
    EASTER
    THE RULER
    THE GLASSES OF ST. JOSEPH
    “LIKE PALLID DAWN, MY POETRY SOUNDS GENTLY”
    SHAKESPEARE
    CUBES
    ST. PETERSBURG
    EVENING
    FORTUNE-TELLING
    THE DEMON
    THE SKATER
    SPRING
    DREAM
    THE TRAIN WRECK
    UT PICTURA POESIS
    A TRIFLE
    THE UNIVERSITY POEM
    BUTTERFLIES
    TOLSTOY
    “I HAVE NO NEED, FOR MY NOCTURNAL TRAVELS”
    TO THE GRAPEFRUIT
    THE HAWKMOTH
    “FORTY-THREE YEARS, FORTY-FOUR YEARS MAYBE”
    TO VÉRA

    The Russian Poems from Poems and Problems

    THE RAIN HAS FLOWN
    TO LIBERTY
    I STILL KEEP MUTE
    HOTEL ROOM
    PROVENCE
    LA BONNE LORRAINE
    THE BLAZON
    THE MOTHER
    I LIKE THAT MOUNTAIN
    THE DREAM
    THE SNAPSHOT
    IN PARADISE
    THE EXECUTION
    FOR HAPPINESS THE LOVER CANNOT SLEEP
    LILITH
    THE MUSE
    SOFT SOUND
    SNOW
    THE FORMULA
    AN UNFINISHED DRAFT
    EVENING ON A VACANT LOT
    THE MADMAN
    HOW I LOVE YOU
    L’INCONNUE DE LA SEINE
    AT SUNSET
    WE SO FIRMLY BELIEVED
    WHAT HAPPENED OVERNIGHT
    THE POETS
    TO RUSSIA
    OCULUS
    FAME
    THE PARIS POEM
    NO MATTER HOW
    ON RULERS
    TO PRINCE S. M. KACHURIN
    A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER
    IRREGULAR IAMBICS
    WHAT IS THE EVIL DEED
    FROM THE GRAY NORTH

    The English Poems from Poems and Problems

    A LITERARY DINNER
    THE REFRIGERATOR AWAKES
    A DISCOVERY
    THE POEM
    AN EVENING OF RUSSIAN POETRY
    THE ROOM
    VOLUPTATES TACTIONUM
    RESTORATION
    THE POPLAR
    LINES WRITTEN IN OREGON
    ODE TO A MODEL
    ON TRANSLATING “EUGENE ONEGIN”
    RAIN
    THE BALLAD OF LONGWOOD GLEN

    English Poems Not Included in Poems and Problems

    HOME
    REMEMBRANCE
    THE RUSSIAN SONG
    SOFTEST OF TONGUES
    EXILE
    A POEM
    DREAM
    DANDELIONS
    LUNAR LINES

    Vladimir Nabokov studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, writing prolifically in Russian under the pseudonym Sirin. In 1940, he left France for America, where he wrote some of his greatest works—Bend Sinister (1947), Lolita (1955), Pnin (1957), and Pale Fire (1962)—and translated his earlier Russian novels into English. He taught at Wellesley, Harvard, and Cornell. He died in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1977. View titles by Vladimir Nabokov

    About

    Though we know Vladimir Nabokov as a brilliant novelist, his first love was poetry. This landmark collection brings together the best of his verse, including many pieces that have never before appeared in English.

    These poems span the whole of Nabokov’s career, from the newly discovered “Music,” written in 1914, to the short, playful “To Véra,” composed in 1974. Many are newly translated by Dmitri Nabokov, including The University Poem, a sparkling novel in verse modeled on Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin that constitutes a significant new addition to Nabokov’s oeuvre. Included too are such poems as “Lilith”, an early work which broaches the taboo theme revisited nearly forty years later in Lolita, and “An Evening of Russian Poetry”, a masterpiece in which Nabokov movingly mourns his lost language in the guise of a versified lecture on Russian delivered to college girls. The subjects range from the Russian Revolution to the American refrigerator, taking in on the way motel rooms, butterflies, ice-skating, love, desire, exile, loneliness, language, and poetry itself; and the poet whirls swiftly between the brilliantly painted facets of his genius, wearing masks that are, by turns, tender, demonic, sincere, self-parodying, shamanic, visionary, and ingeniously domestic.

    Table of Contents

    Introduction

    Poems Translated by Dmitri Nabokov

    MUSIC
    REVOLUTION
    PETER IN HOLLAND
    THE LAST SUPPER
    EASTER
    THE RULER
    THE GLASSES OF ST. JOSEPH
    “LIKE PALLID DAWN, MY POETRY SOUNDS GENTLY”
    SHAKESPEARE
    CUBES
    ST. PETERSBURG
    EVENING
    FORTUNE-TELLING
    THE DEMON
    THE SKATER
    SPRING
    DREAM
    THE TRAIN WRECK
    UT PICTURA POESIS
    A TRIFLE
    THE UNIVERSITY POEM
    BUTTERFLIES
    TOLSTOY
    “I HAVE NO NEED, FOR MY NOCTURNAL TRAVELS”
    TO THE GRAPEFRUIT
    THE HAWKMOTH
    “FORTY-THREE YEARS, FORTY-FOUR YEARS MAYBE”
    TO VÉRA

    The Russian Poems from Poems and Problems

    THE RAIN HAS FLOWN
    TO LIBERTY
    I STILL KEEP MUTE
    HOTEL ROOM
    PROVENCE
    LA BONNE LORRAINE
    THE BLAZON
    THE MOTHER
    I LIKE THAT MOUNTAIN
    THE DREAM
    THE SNAPSHOT
    IN PARADISE
    THE EXECUTION
    FOR HAPPINESS THE LOVER CANNOT SLEEP
    LILITH
    THE MUSE
    SOFT SOUND
    SNOW
    THE FORMULA
    AN UNFINISHED DRAFT
    EVENING ON A VACANT LOT
    THE MADMAN
    HOW I LOVE YOU
    L’INCONNUE DE LA SEINE
    AT SUNSET
    WE SO FIRMLY BELIEVED
    WHAT HAPPENED OVERNIGHT
    THE POETS
    TO RUSSIA
    OCULUS
    FAME
    THE PARIS POEM
    NO MATTER HOW
    ON RULERS
    TO PRINCE S. M. KACHURIN
    A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER
    IRREGULAR IAMBICS
    WHAT IS THE EVIL DEED
    FROM THE GRAY NORTH

    The English Poems from Poems and Problems

    A LITERARY DINNER
    THE REFRIGERATOR AWAKES
    A DISCOVERY
    THE POEM
    AN EVENING OF RUSSIAN POETRY
    THE ROOM
    VOLUPTATES TACTIONUM
    RESTORATION
    THE POPLAR
    LINES WRITTEN IN OREGON
    ODE TO A MODEL
    ON TRANSLATING “EUGENE ONEGIN”
    RAIN
    THE BALLAD OF LONGWOOD GLEN

    English Poems Not Included in Poems and Problems

    HOME
    REMEMBRANCE
    THE RUSSIAN SONG
    SOFTEST OF TONGUES
    EXILE
    A POEM
    DREAM
    DANDELIONS
    LUNAR LINES

    Author

    Vladimir Nabokov studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, writing prolifically in Russian under the pseudonym Sirin. In 1940, he left France for America, where he wrote some of his greatest works—Bend Sinister (1947), Lolita (1955), Pnin (1957), and Pale Fire (1962)—and translated his earlier Russian novels into English. He taught at Wellesley, Harvard, and Cornell. He died in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1977. View titles by Vladimir Nabokov

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