George Reavey's "Treatment" of Soviet Poetry

Two large anthologies of Russian Soviet poetry have appeared in New York in rapid succession. The texts are given parallel in the Russian and English languages. Recently this has become an established procedure in the West in editions intended for readers who love poetry and understand that verse has to be read in the original. The number of people in the world who have some knowledge of Russian is constantly increasing, and enthusiasm for Soviet poetry is growing along with an interest in our country and in the language "spoken by Lenin." The advantages of "bilingualism" to the reader are readily understandable. It enables him to evaluate or at least to deepen his sense of the authenticity and artistic success of the translation, which gives the Russian poem life in another language.