Clarence Brown Papers

Brown, Clarence (1929-2015)

A scholar of modern Russian literature and translation, Clarence Brown (1929-2015) was a professor of comparative literature at Princeton University. He started at Princeton as an instructor in 1959 and became a professor in 1969, retiring in 1999. Brown first taught courses on Russian language and literature in the Department of Romance Languages and then in the Program in Slavic Languages and Literatures, which became a formal department in 1967. In 1971, he joined the Department of Comparative Literature.

Brown was most known for his scholarship on the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam (Mandelʹshtam) (1891-1938), which was facilitated by the relationship he formed with Mandelstam's widow and fellow writer, Nadezhda Mandelstam (Mandelʹshtam) (1899-1980), who was invested in preserving her husband's work. The Prose of Osip Mandelstam (1965) was nominated for a National Book Award. Brown's 1973 book Mandelstam earned him the Christian Gauss Award in Literary Criticism. Mandelstam's papers, entrusted by Nadezhda to Brown in 1976, were donated to the Princeton University Library.

Brown earned his bachelor's degree in classics at Duke University in 1950. After graduation, he was drafted and served four years in the Army Security Agency, including a year of intensive training in Russian at the Army Language School in Monterey, California, after which he was sent to Berlin as a German translator. He earned a master's degree in linguistics in 1955 from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and his Ph.D. in Russian Literature from Harvard University in 1962.

A lifelong cartoonist, Brown's work appeared in several publications, including Saturday Review, where he was cartoon editor from 1977 to 1984.

Mandelʹshtam, Nadezhda (1899-1980)

Nadezhda Mandelstam (Mandelʹshtam) (1899-1980) was a Russian writer and educator, and the wife of the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam (Mandelʹshtam) (1891-1938). She wrote two memoirs about their lives together and the repressive Stalinist regime: Hope Against Hope (1970) and Hope Abandoned (1974).

Mandelʹshtam, Osip (1891-1938)

Osip Mandelʹshtam was a Russian poet, novelist, essayist and critic. A member of the Guild of Poets, a radical faction of the acmeist movement in poetry, he criticized the literary conformity demanded by Russia's new communist government. In 1918, he narrowly escpaed execution after destroying a stack of death warrants belonging to a government official. In 1934, Mandelʹshtam was arrested after reading an anti-Stalin poem to a group of friends, one of whom informed on him. He spent three years in exile. He obtained his release in 1937 with the help of Boris Pasternak and other artists who intervened on his behalf, but was rearrested in 1938. The date and place of his death are uncertain, but many biographers believe he died in 1938 in a prison camp near Vladivostok, Siberia.

Merwin, W.S. (William Stanley) (1927-2019)

W. S. (William Stanley) Merwin is one of the most influential American poets of the latter 20th century. Graduating from Princeton University in 1948, Merwin made a name for himself as an anti-war poet during the 1960's. Later, he evolved toward mythological themes and developed a unique prosody characterized by indirect narration and the absence of punctuation. His works include A Masque for Janus (1952), The Carrier of Ladders (1970), which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1971, and Migration: New & Selected Poems (2005).

Princeton University

The College of New Jersey was initially chartered in 1746. The first classes were held in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in the parsonage of the president, the Reverend Jonathan Dickinson. Upon his death, the College moved to Newark, New Jersey, and was headed by the Reverend Aaron Burr, Sr. Since 1756, the College has been located in Princeton, New Jersey. For the first fifty years, nearly all College operations took place within Nassau Hall. Fires, fundraising difficulties, low student enrollment, and the Civil War challenged the vitality of the College in the early and middle nineteenth century, but the College grew vigorously under the leadership of President James McCosh, and it was renamed Princeton University in 1896. The Graduate School was established in 1900, although a limited graduate program had existed since the 1870s. Princeton enthusiastically supported the country (living up to its informal motto, "Princeton in the Nation's Service") during the First and Second World Wars, offering the expertise of faculty and campus space for training, as well as facilitating the early graduation of students so they could enlist. The post-World War II years brought dramatic changes to Princeton. The size and strength of the University's facilities and academic programs—especially for the applied sciences and public policy—were increased dramatically. Under President Robert Goheen, Princeton began to admit minority students in greater numbers in the 1960s and admitted women undergraduates in 1969. Today, Princeton is widely regarded as one of the top universities in the world.

This collection consists primarily of correspondence along with some travel diaries, photographs, and teaching materials of comparative literature professor Clarence Brown (1929-2015). Much of the content, with the exception of correspondence with Guy Davenport, relates to the principal subject of Brown's scholarship, Russian poet Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam (1891-1938), as well as Mandelstam's wife, Nadezhda Mandelstam (1899-1980). This includes documentation about Brown's collaborative publication, Osip Mandelstam: Selected Poems (1974); Nadezhda Mandelstam's memoir Hope Against Hope (1970); and Osip Mandelstam's personal papers, which Nadezhda donated to Princeton University Library in 1976; among other topics. Correspondents who are well represented include writer and illustrator, Guy Davenport (1927-2005); poet W. S. Merwin (1927-), Princeton Class of 1948, with whom Brown collaborated on Osip Mandelstam: Selected Poems; and Nadezhda Mandelstam.

Gift of Jacqueline Brown, 2017. (AM 2018-3)

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This collection was processed by Faith Charlton in September 2017 with assistance from Julia English '19. Finding aid written by Faith Charlton in September 2017.

Some photographic negatives were treated during 2017 processing.

Osip Mandelstam Papers (C0539)

No materials were separated during 2017 processing.

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Publisher

Manuscripts Division

Finding aids author

Faith Charlton

Date

2017

Creator

Brown, Clarence (1929-2015)

Subject

Literature and state -- Soviet Union -- 20th century -- Sources

Russian poetry -- 20th century -- Sources

Russian prose literature -- 20th century -- Sources

Translators in literature -- Sources

Russian literature -- Translations into English. -- Sources

People

Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna (1889-1966)

Davenport, Guy

Mandelʹshtam, Nadezhda (1899-1980)

Mandelʹshtam, Osip (1891-1938)

Merwin, W.S. (William Stanley) (1927-2019)

Organization

Princeton University. Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

Princeton University -- Faculty -- 20th century -- Sources

Place

Soviet Union -- Intellectual life -- 1917-1970 -- Sources

Soviet Union -- Description and travel

Occupation

Poets, Russian -- 20th century

Language

English

Russian

Form

Correspondence -- 20th century

Manuscripts