A Science Not for the Earth

Baratynsky, a 19th-century Russian poet and friend of Pushkin who approached his art as a means of understanding the world, looked toward nature and the ways that it is reflected in the imperfections and passions of mankind. "I now am hungering, O Ocean, for your storms!" he writes. "So toss and churn, rise up against your stony borders:/ your wild and terrible roar fills me with joy." His lyrics and selected letters expose him as a captivating figure whose work also functions as a commentary on the futility of writing project itself. "I am not dazzled by my muse%E2%80%94nobody/ would ever say that she is beautiful," Baratynsky writes in "My Muse," before asserting that "sometimes the world is struck, for just a moment,/ by the uncommon expression of her face,/ the peaceful simplicity of her words." Baratynsky bridged the Enlightenment and modernity, and was at his core a humanistic investigator and consummate observer. In a letter to Pushkin, he writes acutely of the writerly struggle: "Our marvelous language is capable of everything%E2%80%94I feel this although I am unable to bring it to fruition." Baratynsky has long been admired in Russia; Grau's fine translation reveals him to the wider world. (Dec.)