Mirror of the Soul: A Life of the Poet Fyodor Tyutchev By John Dewey

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Russians have long recognised Fyodor Tyutchev (1803-1873) as one of the brightest stars in their literary firmament. For Dostoyevsky he was 'our great poet', for Turgenev (who published his first volume of verse) 'one of our most remarkable poets'. He was the favourite poet of Leo Tolstoy, who declared: 'One cannot live without him'. In the considered judgement of Afanasy Fet he was quite simply 'one of the greatest lyric poets ever to have existed on this earth'. According to Vladimir Nabokov, ‘his short lyrics belong to the greatest ever written in Russian’. Yet outside Russia Tyutchev's name remains curiously unknown.

John Dewey's new biography is the first in English, and one of the most comprehensive to date in any language. Providing a long overdue introduction to this major figure, it tells the story of a fascinating life and personality as reflected in the poems, presented here in the author's own verse translations.

Written with the general reader in mind, the book also makes important new contributions in the field of Tyutchev studies. For its account of Tyutchev's life it draws on an extensive range of sources, including much previously unpublished archival material. Datings, addressees and circumstances of composition are established for a number of the poems which have hitherto proved problematic in this respect. Tyutchev's poems, and his relationship to the major intellectual and political movements of his age, are subjected to detailed analysis and reassessment.

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