Marina Tsvetaeva: The concrete and the metaphoric discourse on exile (20thcentury Russian poetry)

Since discourses on exile comprise both a concrete confrontation and a simu ltaneous, metaphoric translation of one the experience, this study examines the Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva's effort to come to terms with her creat ive and linguistic isolation during her years in Paris (1925-1939). It focu ses especially on Tsvetaeva's translation of Russia into the poetic origin: a primordial sound space, where wholeness of self is assured. Insofar as T svetaeva's confrontation of exile was ultimately unsuccessful, she came to posit death, rather than writing, as the ultimate means of access to this t ranscendental poetic paradise.