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Biographical note: SchmidtPaul: Paul Schmidt is the winner of the Max Hayward Prize for his translation of Velimir Khlebnikov, The King of Time: Selected Writings of the Russian Futurian (Harvard). Dubbed by his fellow Futurists the "King of Time," Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922) spent his entire brief life searching for a new poetic language to express his convictions about the rhythm of history, the correspondence between human behavior and the "language of the stars." The result was a vast body of poetry and prose that has been called hermetic, incomprehensible, even deranged. Of all this tragic generation of Russian poets (including Blok, Esenin, and Mayakovsky), Khlebnikov has been perhaps the most praised and the more censured. This first volume of the Collected Works, an edition sponsored by the Dia Art Foundation, will do much to establish the counterimage of Khlebnikov as an honest, serious writer. The 117 letters published here for the first time in English reveal an ebullient, humane, impractical, but deliberate working artist. We read of the continuing involvement with his family throughout his vagabond life (pleas to his smartest sister, Vera, to break out of the mold, pleas to his scholarly father not to condemn and to send a warm overcoat); the naive pleasure he took in being applauded by other artists; his insistence that a young girl's simple verses be included in one of the typically outrageous Futurist publications of the time; his jealous fury at the appearance in Moscow of the Italian Futurist Marinetti; a first draft of his famous zoo poem ("O Garden of Animals!"); his seriocomic but ultimately shattering efforts to be released from army service; his inexhaustibly courageous confrontation with his own disease and excruciating poverty; and always his deadly earnest attempt to make sense of numbers, language, suffering, politics, and the exigencies of publication. The theoretical writings presented here are even more important than the letters to an understanding of Khlebnikov's creative output. In the scientific articles written before 1910, we discern foreshadowings of major patterns of later poetic work. In the pan-Slavic proclamations of 1908-1914, we find explicit connections between cultural roots and linguistic ramifications. In the semantic excursuses beginning in 1915, we can see Khlebnikov's experiments with consonants, nouns, and definitions spelled out in accessible, if arid, form. The essays of 1916-1922 take us into the future of Planet Earth, visions of universal order and accomplishment that no longer seem so farfetched but indeed resonate for modern readers. Review text: The King of Time…represents a deft feat of translation…It offers readers the chance to imagine, experience and restore the full analogy between pictorial and verbal creation.Modern Russia's most brilliant, imaginative, and eccentric poet, Khlehnikov produced a body of literature that still amazes. Combining features of the avant garde (which he vigorously promoted with the Cubo--Futurists) and a scholarly interest in ancient Slavic roots and folklore, his work is a complex fabric appealing to the intellect, the imagination, the Russian national tradition, the ear (and often the eve), and the reader's sense of humor and the bizarre…Paul Schmidt [has] produced a brilliant tour de force a collection of poetry, prose fiction, declarations, and the theatrical 'supersaga' Zangezi, that gives both the general reader and the specialist (especially those interested in modern poetry) a very good idea of the range of Khlehnikov's extraordinary creativity.Surely one of the most remarkable practitioners in language who has ever written. [Khlebnikov] seems to inhabit the very heart of his language, exploring its roots, making it send up new and wonderful growths…In this volume we are given the extraordinary 'supersaga' Zangezi, in which the languages of birds and of gods, of prophecy and of street banter, join with 'beyonsense' sound poetry (zaum,) and large visions of historical change to produce a summa, a kind of crazier Zarathustra. That Schmidt can deal so confidently with this bodes well for his larger enterprise…A fine achievement.It is good that Velimir Khlebnikov, too long ignored or neglected by the general literary public...should at last be receiving the recognition he deserves. Called by Mandelshtam 'a citizen of the whole of history, of the whole system of language and poetry' and by Mayakovsky 'a Columbus of new poetic continents', he is without a doubt the most exciting and original Russian poet of the twentieth century, and has even been called Russia's greatest poet since Pushkin...[This is] the first volume, sumptuously produced, and immaculately translated and edited, of a translation into English of Khlebnikov's complete works...This new edition will...allow poets other than Russians to acquaint themselves with his genius.This first volume of a long-awaited three-volume set of Khlebnikov's collected works contains selected letters, autobiographical materials, and all his theoretical writings. Khlebnikov (1885-1922) enjoyed the reputation of a poet not of this world, a seer with an extraordinary talent and diversity. This volume starts to give us the reason why. The letters are a fascinating mixture of mundane details and statements about art, time, mathematics, sounds, semantics, and history...A wordsmith of unparalleled complexity, Khlebnikov offers theories on the relationship between sound and meaning, so-called 'beyonsense' (zaumny) language, the meaning of time and the relationship between the dates of major world events. This reflects an intimate marriage of a creative imagination to a highly structured scientific methodology. Artists, poets, biologists, historians, and linguists, will all find here an enchanting display from one of the most original minds of the 20th century. Beautifully produced with 22 pages of photographs and drawings, this fine book is highly recommended.
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