"This last poem by Russia's greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin, should form an essential part of all courses in Russian literature. It combines praise of Peter the Great and his city of St Petersburg with a dramatic account of the devastating flood of 1824, and a lowly individual's consequent insanity. The political, historical, religious, ecological, and metaphysical-existential questions which Pushkin formulates with dazzling power and concision have been the subject of endless critial debate." "This new student edition contains stressed text and vocabulary, with copious literary and cultural commentary, and annotations on matters of language and style. A detailed introduction considers the poem's central themes and images; there is also a separate short essay on its Petersburg background."-- From Jacket.