Reviews

""Realizing Metaphors" addresses a question that is one of the most exciting and controversial in the field of literary studies—the question of how (if at all) an artist's life relates to his or her works. . . . Bethea brilliantly succeeds in his task. . . . The result is a book that is a new word both in Pushkin studies and in the field of literary biography."— Irina Reyfman, Columbia University

"After reading "Realizing Metaphors",  I would like to express my delight, first of all, at that which, while not an academic accomplishment, is perhaps something even more rare—the author's love toward Pushkin. . . . The Pushkin that appears in David Bethea's book seems to me very much like the original, protean and elusive."—Olga Sedakova, Russian poet

"The book covers immense ground—as an essay on the blindness and insight of four major critic/thinkers (Freud, Bloom, Jakobson, Lotman) and as a rigorous and penetrating study of the relationship of two of Russia's greatest poets (Pushkin and Derzhavin). I have never read anything quite like it, either as a daring essay in critical theory or a study of Pushkin's lifelong encounter with his great predecessor."—William Mills Todd, Harvard University

""Realizing Metaphors" addresses a question that is one of the most exciting and controversial in the field of literary studies--the question of how (if at all) an artist's life relates to his or her works. . . . Bethea brilliantly succeeds in his task. . . . The result is a book that is a new word both in Pushkin studies and in the field of literary biography."-- Irina Reyfman, Columbia University

"After reading "Realizing Metaphors," I would like to express my delight, first of all, at that which, while not an academic accomplishment, is perhaps something even more rare--the author's love toward Pushkin. . . . The Pushkin that appears in David Bethea's book seems to me very much like the original, protean and elusive."--Olga Sedakova, Russian poet

"The book covers immense ground--as an essay on the blindness and insight of four major critic/thinkers (Freud, Bloom, Jakobson, Lotman) and as a rigorous and penetrating study of the relationship of two of Russia's greatest poets (Pushkin and Derzhavin). I have never read anything quite like it, either as a daring essay in critical theory or a study of Pushkin's lifelong encounter with his great predecessor."--William Mills Todd, Harvard University