Color in Anna Akhmatova's Early Poetry

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966), a Russian post-Symbolist §poet, published a variety of poems in the Russian §language, which were later translated into English. §The book focuses on her early poetry collections §Evening (1912), Rosary (1914), White Flock (1917), §and Anno Domini (1922) and the semantics of color §used as the medium conveying the essence of the §persona s self in Akhmatova s early poetry at §various temporal stages of past and present. The §book focuses on basic colors, such as white, yellow, §red, green, blue, gray, and black, because their §usage is predominant in Akhmatova s poetry. The §study of her early poetry and its translations (by §Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward, Richard McKane, §D.M.Thomas, Judith Hemschemeyer, Jane Kenyon and §Vera Sandomirsky Dunham) anchored in the semantics §of color, its etymology, and relation to various §objects reveals the stylistic devices the poet uses §to show how the persona finds herself in the objects §through concrete visual sensations and the §exploration of things past, present, and future.