Poems Selected From Karamzin, Pushkin, Tyutchev, Lermontov, Count a Tolstoy, Nikitin, Pleshcheyev, Nadson, and Sologub #267514

This collection of typical Russian lyrics is meant to aid learners who have passed the first stage in their study of the language. Mr. Rudzinsky's "Russian Reader," issued in 1916, has furnished them with specimens of Turgeniev's prose, accompanied by useful notes and vocabularies. His second volume will introduce them to some of Russia's national poets, and to a number of the poems in which the Russian outlook and temperament find expression. The short critical and biographical notices will serve to indicate each author's place in the literary history of his country. The prose renderings of his verse are of design made severely literal. A freer and more idiomatic version might hinder rather than help a student whose first concern is with the Russian language and its grammatical structure. When he has mastered the translation of a poem, and gained some insight into its meaning and mood, he will do well to learn it by heart, so that he can sing or recite it aloud. This method will give him first of all a store of beautiful words in their idiomatic settings and forms.