Literary Monuments: Wallace Stevens

On December 8, 2017, the Philological Faculty hosted a presentation of the latest addition to the Literary Monuments series: Wallace Stevens, Harmonium (Moscow: Nauka, 2017).

To this day Wallace Stevens, one of the best American poets of the twentieth century, is barely known in Russia. Thanks to this new edition Russian readers can now familiarize themselves with the complete text of his most notable collection of poems, Harmonium (1923), published in this volume alongside his philosophical essays and aphorisms from his “notebooks.” 

The presentation included readings of Stevens’ poetry in Russian by Russian translator Grigory Kruzhkov, interpretations of the poems by scholars and students – Alexandra Zinovieva, Olga Panova, Ekaterina Vakhrameyeva, Marina Boroditskaya and Jed Rasula from the University of Georgia (interviewed by Anna Shvets -see:  https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KhdzauHnN7wql5q2-btWYpFwPmk2QgCp . The multi-local, multi-vocal, and multi-lingual evening was thoroughly engaging, the room brimming with Stevens’ spirit of musical mischievousness, intellectual freedom, zest for life, and love of the written word./