Russkoye Slovo [Russian Word]. № II. February.: [Translation by A. Fet].

First appearance of Anthony and Cleopatra in Afanasy Fet's translation (54-208 pp.).

Afanasy Fet (1820-1892) a poet, memoirist and the leading representative of the 'Parnassian' movement which propagated the ideals of 'pure' art. Fet's poetry was devoted to the topics of nature and love and was far away from any political and social issues. Apart from his lyrics, he was an important translator from German French, English, Latin and Polish. He devoted much time and effort to the translation of works by Schiller, Byron, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Musset, etc. In his translations, Fet made a consistent attempt to reproduce the literal meaning and to secure the formal elements of the original for which he was often criticized by his contemporaries. Fet was awarded a prestigious Pushkin prize for his translations of Horace in 1883 (Russian Writers on Translation. An anthology. Ed. by Brian Kames Baer and Natalia Olshanskaya. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. P. 47).

The poet translated two Shakespeare's plays: Anthony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. These translations were subjects for debate with Ivan Turgenev, one of the great Russian classic writers of the XIXth century. Fet also read this translation of Antony and Cleopatra while visiting Leo Tolstoy in November 1857 and Tolstoy wrote in his diary: '…ignited me for art with his conversations... I can't sleep'. According to his notes, this meeting has influenced Tolstoy's writing style in The Cossacks novel.

OCLC locates one copy of this issue in UK only: in the University of Oxford Library.

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