the grasp of the average intelligence —nthat richness will have little effect onnChristianity in America.nE. Christian Kopff is the editor of ancritical edition of Euripides’ Bacchae.nA Private Sensibilitynby R.S. GwynnnLife Sentence: Selected Poemsnby Nina CassiannEdited by William Jay SmithnNew York: W.W. Norton;n130 pp., $17.95nAgenerous spread of four poemsnthat appeared in the New Yorkerneady in 1990 introduced many Americannreaders to the work of the renownednRomanian poet Nina Cassiann(Renee Annie Stefanescu). Evennthough her poetry has been appearingnin English versions for the better partnof a decade, the New Yorker set, translatednby such respected practitioners ofnthe art as Richard Wilbur, StanleynKunitz, Dana Cioia, and William JaynSmith, drew belated attention to a poetnwhose body of work ought to rank hernamong the foremost contemporary virtuososnof the short lyric.nNevertheless, it may be difficult fornAmerican readers to appreciatenCassian fully, the dual fault of ournrecent literary fashions and the unevennabilities of her translators. She hasnapparently been too involved with gettingnon with her life (her bibliographynlists 24 separate books of poetry, as wellnas children’s books, puppet plays, fiction,nand translations) to worry muchnabout being stylishly neurotic. Her lovenlyrics, in particular, are so healthy inntheir emotional clarity that an audiencenraised on confessional breast-beatingnmay find them old-fashioned. Hernwork is not political in any overt sense,nthough one might hasten to add that inna totalitarian society the cultivation ofnthe private sensibility, expressed in lyricalnpoetry, may in fact be considered ansubversive act. Cassian’s personal history,nas related by Smith in his excellentnintroduction to Life Sentence, is anfascinating tale in itself and one that, ifnnot entirely happy in its outcome, atnleast manages to avoid the type ofntragic ending that for years was all tooncommon in the poet’s unfortunatencountry.nCassian was born in 1924, the childnof non-practicing Jews who saw to itnthat she had piano lessons and couldnread and write before her sixth birthday.nHer father was a translator ofnFrench and German and was the authornof the Romanian version of Poe’sn”The Raven,” which may provide anfaint clue to the meaning of “ThenBurning of the Famous Castle Nevermore,”none of Cassian’s most crypticallynsurreal poems. At 18, Cassiannmarried a young Jewish Communistnpoet. She was divorced, and thennmarried again, this time to ALLnStefanescu, a critic and novelist whonwas her great love for 35 years and isnthe subject of many of her finest lyrics.nHer early poems occasioned a typicalnMarxist literary controversy, for theirnresolute aestheticism fed ammunitionnto the regime’s apologists. Smith relatesnthe case: “In one poem shendescribed’ Lenin sitting at his desknwhile the light filtering through thenwindow turned his inkwell into a greatnblue light bulb. The poem caused anscandal; she was accused of wishing tonwrite about the ink and the light bulbnand of using Lenin merely as a pretext.”nSubsequently she wrote fournbooks of politically correct poetryn(which she now disavows), books fornchildren, film criticism, and a numbern’ of musical compositions.nFollowing the death of her husband,nCassian accepted an invitation to visitnthe United States. While teaching ancreative writing course at New YorknUniversity in 1985, she learned thatnCheorghe Ursu, an old acquaintancenand confidant, had been arrested. Innhis office the police discovered a diarynin which, apparently in all innocence,nhe had jotted down his friends’ antigovernmentnremarks and verses andnidentified the sources by name.nCassian’s exile was apparently sealed innlate 1987 when she learned that hernlibrary and personal effects, left behindnin Bucharest, had been seized by thenauthorities. Smith’s introduction wasnwritten early in 1989, almost a yearnbefore the revolt that toppled thenCeausescu regime, but Cassian has notnyet ventured back to her homeland.nHer recent project, translating A MidsummernNight’s Dream into Romani­nnnan, will perhaps provide an occasionnfor her return.nSmith admits the difficulty of translatingnCassian’s poetry, which providesnsome challenges that free-verse translatorsnare ill-equipped to meet. She oftennemploys elaborate verse forms and anvariety of meters, and a range of translators’nstrategies, some more fruitfulnthan others, is evident here. Since thenvolume is not bilingual, one can onlynguess at what the originals’ formalndevices sound like to a native speaker.n”Dream Girl,” for example, appears tonhave originally been a poem in rhymednquatrains. Brenda Walker and AndreanDeletant translate it as free verse, withna hint of rhyme in the final stanza:nAnd your familiar sleepnsplintered into seven fragments,nand lips became transparentnin a kiss.nThat’s how we wanderednthrough heaven,nseven times seven . . .n— Really?n— No, just a dream. Just a dream.nOn the facing page, Fleur Adcocknrenders the exquisitely fragile “BecausenYou Don’t Love Me” with its rhymedntercets more or less intact:nI smile, and feel my feeble grinndrip like a blood-streak down mynchinnbecause you don’t love me.nI dance, and my heavy handsnjust trailnlike a pair of anchors. I am palenbecause you don’t love me.nI light a cigarette, and chokenin an Isadora-scarf of smokenbecause you don’t love me.nTwenty different translators workednon this volume, alone or in collaboration,nand Cassian herself contributednboth advice and several of her ownnEnglish versions. As one might expect,nthe overall results are mixed. Petre Solomon’snattempt to rhyme results in thisninept stanza:nSome there are who, meetingnme, have said:n”Welcome to my life, you livingnwonder!”nMAY 1991/39n