[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Andrew Frisardi

I am guessing that quite a bit has been written about Pushkin and a death wish. His challenge to a duel suggests it, as do some of his poems. The morbidity of this side of his poetry seems to contrast with Eugene Onegin. Do you agree? Or is this impression just a result of my unfamiliarity with him?

Pushkin is loved for his lightness and exuberance, but also for his embrace of life as a whole, including, of course, death. It’s often called “universal responsiveness”—a term invented by Dostoevsky, but inspired by a passage from Gogol: “All our Russian poets—Derzhavin, Zhukovsky, Batyushkov—kept their own identity. Only Pushkin didn’t. […] Just try grasping his character as a man! Instead, you’ll get the same wondrous figure, responsive to everything […]. And how true his responses, how keen his ear! You can hear the smell and color of the earth, time and peoples. In Spain he was a Spaniard, in Greece a Greek, and in the Caucasus a free mountaineer in the full sense of the word […]”

Professor Pnin exaggerates Pushkin’s morbidity, but things have been written about a death wish, especially in connection with his final duel, as you mention. Some have even suggested that the duel was his form of suicide. I personally do not believe that, but the circumstances of the duel are just odd enough to keep that and other stories in circulation.

Originally Posted by Andrew Frisardi

In my first reading of this poem, before looking at the crib, the opening image struck me as odd: church, even a crowded one, is not a place I’d usually associate with “wild youths.” Sober old people is more what church seems like to me. Yet the crib says the same thing. It’s a scene I find hard to picture.

That reading never occurred to me, and I’m trying to figure out where I went wrong. Maybe the parallelism of the first three lines keeps them separate in the original: “Whether I stroll … whether I enter … whether I sit …” Maybe my active “take a seat” makes it seem like the third in a sequence of actions. Maybe it’s Pushkin’s “youths,” who are clearly young men. In short, though it can’t be proved, I’m sure he’s seated among wild youths at some sort of party.

Originally Posted by Andrew Frisardi

S1 seemed the one that needs the most work. The end-stopped lines in Pushkin’s opening stanza seem important for setting the tone of the poem, so I’d try hard to avoid enjambment. I hope you don’t mind, but I messed around with S1 using the crib … I’m not saying this is good, just that I think you haven’t exhausted the options there of getting in the rhymes and off-rhymes, the tetrameter, and the end-stopped lines.

I don’t mind at all. Someone else’s version, even if it’s not what I want for whatever reason, can get me thinking in new directions. And this stanza does, apparently, need rethinking.

Originally Posted by Andrew Frisardi

Your S2 does this well, imo. I like that stanza. I’m not sure I understand what P. means by gathering under eternal vaults, however. Does he mean in the spheres of heaven? Is there a way for that to be clearer and still stay close to Pushkin’s sense?

I don’t know exactly what he means here either, except that people aren’t gathering under eternal vaults but passing beneath them when they die. One writer says they evoke ancient notions of gates to the underworld.

Originally Posted by Andrew Frisardi

S4, too, reads nicely. I’d prefer a comma after line 3, instead of the em dash, and revising line 4 to “for you to bloom as I decline,” to avoid the repetition of “your time.”

The repetition is undesirable, but I’m not sure your suggested L4 links clearly enough back to “time” in L2. I’ll think on it

Originally Posted by Andrew Frisardi

In that same stanza, “tender child” and “caress” might have unfortunate sexual connotations, especially these days. Is another adjective possible?

I was worried about that. Can I get away with changing “tender” to “little,” or will “caress” still look suspect?

Originally Posted by Andrew Frisardi

S5: Add a comma after “see off”?

It seems to me that a comma would add an element of opposition, whereas here the idea is that one thing is happing while another is happening.

Originally Posted by Andrew Frisardi

In S6, line 2’s “trails” is not the greatest match for “remains.” Would “in battle, journeying, in waves” work? I like getting the idea of the journey in there, which “dusty trails” does not evoke.

To my ear, “trails” is, if anything, a slightly better off-rhyme than “waves,” and “dusty trails” “abroad” sound like a journey to me, though “dusty” is my own improvisation, so I do have some wiggle room here.

Originally Posted by Andrew Frisardi

The last stanza is good overall as well. “In indifference” is a little awkward, however. Would “indifferently, let nature bloom” be an option?

I’ve restored my previous version of this line, which is closer to the original and should solve your problem.

Thanks as always, Andrew. I’ve been under the weather for a few days and will get around to David’s and your further comments, and better yet, to Spaziani, when I’m feeling just a little better.