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A Double Life
Polite and perfect all day, a whole poet at night. A Russian woman wrote the masking novel in 1848. 🎭
Who it's for
Pavlova builds the book in two registers: satirical prose chapters of drawing-room life, where Cecily is managed by her mother and others scheme over her marriage, and verse passages of her night-time dreams, where a freer inner voice speaks.
Feelings it meets
What it is
Karolina Pavlova's A Double Life, completed in 1848, is a ten-chapter Russian novel that mixes prose and poetry. It follows Cecily von Lindenborn, a young woman in aristocratic society, whose outer life is governed by strict propriety. Society regards a woman poet as a pitiable, abnormal thing, so her secret longing for poetry has no outlet.
Where to find it
Not public domain in English: Barbara Heldt's translation is in print from Columbia University Press (Russian Library, 2019) and in e-book; available through some libraries (OverDrive/Libby). The Russ.
Before you start
Heads up: Emotional manipulation by parents.
Age: Ages 14+
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Leaves of Grass
