A Poet Reminisces, Reviews, and Counsels (Papers of A. Tvardovsky)

Abstract

The publication that follows consists of documents that differ in time of writing (a period of more than thirty years) and, one might say, in genre. Here are the preface to a book of his that did not see the light, with a mercilessly accurate evaluation of his own early work; "current" in-house reader's reports for publishers (among them an elegant little article on a book of translations from English); the stenographic record of a public speech; and the final judgments of an editor-in-chief. They are essentially businesslike materials, practical, which met the demands of work and probably did not aim to be anything more. But now it is as though they have been given additional significance and meaning.