The Marsh of Gold

Major statements by the celebrated Russian poet Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) about poetry, inspiration, the creative process and the significance of artistic/literary creativity in his own life as well as in human life altogether, are presented here in his own words (in translation) and are discussed in the extensive Commentaries and Introduction.The texts range from 1910 to 1946 and are between two and ninety pages long. There are Commentaries on all the texts, as well as a final Essay on Pasternak?s famous novel Doctor Zhivago, which is looked at here in the light of what it says on art and inspiration.

After one book on a German literature topic (Lou Andreas-SalomT, Her Life and Writings) Angela Livingstone (Ph.D., Cambridge University). went on to focus on Russian literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As a researcher Dr. Livingstone has specialized mainly in the work of Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva and Andrei Platonov. For more than thirty years she taught in the Department of Literature at the University of Essex, Colchester, U.K. with which, now retired, she is still closely affiliated, holding the title of Research Professor.