Introduction
We no longer need telling that Russian poetry under communism was a continuous and ungovernable stream: Blok, Mandelstam and Pasternak are poets as great as any in this century. Since the war Yevtushenko has lived a career as productive as any poet in the west. He is like Byron in that one never knows in what technical direction he will jump next. Russian women poets in this century have been more powerfull than their western contemporaries: Akhmatova and Tsvetayeva are both solidly rooted in pre-Communist Russian society, yet look wonderful and modern.
|
