Major Russian Poets and Poetic Movements: Post-Symbolist Poets

This seminar is devoted to major writings of Russian poets during the post-Symbolist period up to the Stalinist era. Close readings of selected poetry and prose of Acmeists Akhmatova and Mandel'shtam, Cubo-Futurists Mayakovsky and Khlebnikov, and the unaligned Tsvetaeva and Pasternak serve as points of departure to discuss hallmarks of Russian modernism and issues relating to emigration, art and politics, gender, and the negotiation of novelty and tradition. The art of self-presentation and the act of reading - how they both shape and are shaped by the texts and their authors - is considered over the course of the entire semester.