Question by Fitgirl: Is Alexander Pushkin the world’s greatest poet?
When I was young; doing a semester abroad in Sweden, we took a tour to St. Petersburg, Russia.
The tour guide told us repeatedly about how Pushkin is the world’s greatest poet, architect, thinker etc…. (Kind of like Chekov on Star Trek, everything Russian is better!)
Even to this day, our family jokes that anything good must have been created by “The World’s Greatest Poet, Pushkin!” (if you use a bad Russian accent it sounds even better!)
So tell me, is Alexander Pushkin the world’s greatest poet, and what are good examples of his work?
Aleksandr Pushkin is the correct spelling for his name.
Paolo and Drew have both provided thoughtful responses to the question. Tough call on this one! I am going to keep watching your contributions to Yahoo! Answers.
Answers and Views:
Answer by Paulo
As great a poet as he may be, Pushkin is not the world’s greatest poet. It is almost ridiculous to compare one great poetic mind with another. However, the Russians are very proud of their literary and artistic achievements, and great artists they are. They are given to hyperbole regarding their poets and composers and they certainly have given the world colossal works of art.
Generally speaking, Shakespeare is often considered the greatest of poets. The English language has given to the world a profound heritage with Shakespeare as our crowning glory. This is because of the immense breadth and depth of his original work, his humanity and observation of the human condition and because he is just so amazingly, comprehensively and relentlessly brilliant.
The Italians, Germans and French would probably not agree and name of their illumined poets as the greatest of them all.
The Chinese regard an 8th Century Tang Dynasty poet as their greatest. His name is Du Fu. Kenneth Rexroth, the American poet and translator named him the greatest non-epic, non- dramatic, non-narrative poet who ever lived. In Rexroth’s opinion, Du Fu was the greatest lyric poet who has ever lived.
But all this is a matter of taste, culture, opinion and national pride. There are so many awe-inspiring poets to read because POETRY SAYS IT BEST. Great question. Good Luck.
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Drew says
Many countries have a national "great poet." In English-speaking places, it's Shakespeare; in Russia, it's Pushkin; in Chile, it's Neruda; in France, it's Rabelais; in Greece, it's Homer. In a few countries the foundation of literature is not a poem but a novel; this is the case with Spain, where Cervantes is the national literary hero.
As to being the best poet that ever lived, anywhere, that's a bit hard to judge. But it's not an implausible claim; Pushkin is certainly the equal of Shakespeare in depth and (from what I understand, although I don't speak Russian) lyrical proficiency. Someone has written in the comment before mine that he prefers Frost, which is all well and good, except that claiming that Frost is the best poet the world has ever seen is ridiculous in a way that claiming Pushkin is the best is not. Frost is a minor poet who is chiefly interesting to people who don't read much poetry. Pushkin's claim to greatness is quite legitimate.
What I mean to say is that although it's impossible, for various reasons, to prove beyond all doubt that one poet is better than every other (the criteria are simply too subjective, among other things), Pushkin is a pretty good choice. It would be like claiming that Newton is the greatest physicist, or Chateau Mouton-Rothschild the greatest wine, or Tesla the greatest inventor, or rib-eye the greatest cut of beef. Impossible to prove. . . but plausible, depending on one's preferences.
A good example of Pushkin's work is "Eugene Onegin." Generally, if someone has read one work by Pushkin, it's this one. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Onegin
And you can actually read it (in translation) here: http://lib.ru/LITRA/PUSHKIN/ENGLISH/onegin_j.txt
wi_saint says
While I do not enjoy most poetry much, I still know the dominant writers, and considering that I have never really heard much about him, I would have to answer in the negative.
I would think that the tour guide was a "little" biased.
Poetry and verse is too subjective to name one writer as the "worlds greatest". He may very well have been the greatest to come out of St. Petersburg, and therefore their "world"
but for my world, I prefer Robert Frost.