Autoren-Bilder

Karolina Pavlova (1807–1893)

Autor von A Double Life

5+ Werke 110 Mitglieder 11 Rezensionen

Über den Autor

Werke von Karolina Pavlova

Zugehörige Werke

The Penguin Book of Women Poets (1978) — Mitwirkender — 298 Exemplare
The Portable Nineteenth-Century Russian Reader (1993) — Autor, einige Ausgaben203 Exemplare

Getagged

Wissenswertes

Rechtmäßiger Name
Павлова, Каролина Карловна
Geburtstag
1807-07-22
Todestag
1893-12-14
Geschlecht
female
Nationalität
Russia
Geburtsort
Yaroslavl, Russian Empire
Sterbeort
Dresden, Germany
Wohnorte
Yaroslavl, Russia
Dresden, Germany
Moscow, Russia
Ausbildung
at home
Berufe
novelist
poet
salonniere
translator
Beziehungen
Mickiewicz, Adam (teacher)
Tolstoy, Aleksey Konstantinovich (friend)
Kurzbiographie
Karolina Karlovna Pavlova, née Jänisch, was born in Yaroslavl in the Russian Empire. Her father Karl Andreevich Jänisch was a German professor of physics and chemistry at the School of Medicine in Moscow, and her mother was French-English. Karolina was educated at home and grew up speaking German and French as well as Russian. She began writing at an early age. At age 19, she met met Adam Mickiewicz, who became her Polish language tutor. They began a love affair and planned to marry, but the relationship ended a couple of years later. In the late 1820s, Pavlova began translating Russian poetry into German. Her first published collection of translations, Das Nordlicht (1833), made her famous in literary circles and won praise from Goethe and others. In 1837, she married Nikolai Filippovich Pavlov, a writer, with whom she had a son. She hosted a literary salon at their home in Moscow that was frequented by both Russian "Slavophiles," of which she was one, and western Europeans. She published a volume of Russian, German, English, Italian, and Polish poetry translated into French, entitled Les préludes (1839) and a novel called A Double Life (1848) that combined poetry and prose. Her husband gambled away her inheritance, and their marriage ended in 1853. She went to live with her mother and son in Estonia, where she fell in love with Boris Utin, a law student. After her son went back to Moscow to live with his father and attend university, she followed Utin to St. Petersburg. The relationship ended, and she moved to Dresden, Germany. There she supported herself by translating works among Russian, French and German, as well as in other languages. Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, whose works she translated, also became a close friend. Although her own poetry was heavily criticized by her contemporaries, she is now considered Russia's greatest 19th-century female poet.

Mitglieder

Rezensionen

Good story, a bit boring and a lot of saying “no one liked her, but she wrote such amazing poems!” so that got repetitive and felt like I was reading the same thing over and over. Her poems were good though, I’m just not a big poem girl :(
 
Gekennzeichnet
nferrando | 10 weitere Rezensionen | Jul 14, 2023 |
Another contribution to #WITmonth.

Karolina Karlovna Pavlova (1807–1893) was a Russian poet, translator and novelist. I discovered A Double Life (1848) because I was peeved that George Saunders in his book derived from a short story course that he teaches, features Russian short stories as exemplars but does not include even one story written by a woman. I felt sure that the Russian Library imprint of Columbia University Press would offer fiction by a Russian woman writer, and I was right. I ordered A Double Life there and then. At only just over 100 pages, it turns out to be more of a short story than a novella, and would IMHO be an ideal inclusion in the Saunders' course.

Wikipedia tells me that there is also a short story called At the Tea-Table (1859), in An Anthology of Russian Women's Writing, 177-1992, Oxford, 1994, should Saunders care to rise to the challenge.)

This edition includes a lengthy Introduction by Barbara Heldt, and an Afterword by Daniel Green. Much is made of the gender barriers that Pavlova faced, and indeed she seems to have had a difficult time and in the end did the smart thing and abandoned her critics in Russia to go and live in Germany in 1858. A Double Life, however, was written when she was still in Imperial Russia, and is a witty critique of aristocratic life.

The story features Cécile, her BFF Olga, the machinations of their mothers to have them marry well, and the actions of men which doom them to a dreary fate.

Written in 10 chapters which follow the narrow confines of Cécile's life, each concludes with verses of poetry which represent her dreams of freedom and fulfilment. In other words, it is the structure of the novel itself that portrays the double life of a woman who wants more from life than the one imposed on her and all women in aristocratic Russia.
Vera Vladimirovna was, as we have seen, very proud of her daughter's successful upbringing, especially perhaps because it had been accomplished not with difficulty, but because it took time and skill to destroy in her soul its innate thirst for delight and enthusiasm. Be that as it may, Cecily, prepared for high society, having memorised all its requirements and statues, could never commit the slightest peccadillo, the most barely noticeable fault against them, could never forget herself for a moment, raise her voice half a tone, jump from a chair, enjoy a conversation with a man to the point where she might talk with him ten minutes longer than was proper or look to the right when she was supposed to look to the left. Now, at eighteen, she was so used to wearing her mind in a corset that she felt it no more than she did the silk undergarment that she took off only at night. She had talents, of course, but measured ones, decorous ones, les talents de société, as the language of society so aptly calls them. She sang very nicely and sketched very nicely as well. Poetry, as we have said earlier, was known to her mostly by hearsay, as something wild and incompatible with a respectable life. She knew that there were even women poets, but this was always presented to her as the most pitiable, abnormal condition, as a disastrous and dangerous illness. (p.29)


To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/08/27/a-double-life-by-karolina-pavlova-translated...
… (mehr)
 
Gekennzeichnet
anzlitlovers | 10 weitere Rezensionen | Aug 26, 2021 |
I’m surprised Pavlova didn’t write more in prose, because the prose sections of “A Double Life” are sparkling-bright, consistently spicy in their denunciation of the “mental corset” Cecily and her ilk are forced to wear. There’s neither the time in ten short chapters, nor the inclination here for subtlety. The scheming of the women, naivety of the girls, and oafish coarseness of the men are undisguised. There are lots of mordant cracks like this:

“This state of lively tension, the jolly noise that surrounds brides, calls to mind that accidentally deafening music and beating of drums by which soldiers are led into mortal combat.”

I disliked the verse sections less than I expected to, as well. The device of the alternating prose/verse, day/night double existence works really well. Unfortunately it’s another case of Russian poetry in translation being stripped of all rhyme and meter, so it reads as chopped up highfalutin’ prose. I get that it’s anything but easy to translate Russian poetry so I’m not gonna fault the translator too much, especially as her work on the prose sections is excellent. But for me it’s the only real tarnish on this (still, strangely) underread gem of a book.
… (mehr)
½
 
Gekennzeichnet
yarb | 10 weitere Rezensionen | Aug 22, 2021 |
This is an overlooked great work from an overlooked great author of the 19th century Russian tradition. Part poetry, part prose, insightful gender commentary especially. Read Chapter 6 as part of Books Behind Bars.
 
Gekennzeichnet
askannakarenina | 10 weitere Rezensionen | Sep 16, 2020 |

Listen

Dir gefällt vielleicht auch

Nahestehende Autoren

Statistikseite

Werke
5
Auch von
2
Mitglieder
110
Beliebtheit
#176,729
Bewertung
3.9
Rezensionen
11
ISBNs
8
Sprachen
2

Diagramme & Grafiken