THE POETICS OF IGOR SEVERYANIN AND LITERARY PARODY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20 TH CENTURY

Journal Title: Studia Litterarum - Year 2017, Vol 2, Issue 1

Abstract

The article analyzes the specificity of the pre-emigrant work by Igor Severyanin and its poetics (absurdity, paradox, mixture of style, nonsense, and exaggeration) against the rapid development of popular literature at the turn of the 19 th and 20 th centuries and the rise of parodic genres in particular. Beginning his literary career, the young poet had to develop his own style deriving from the preceding generations of poets — elder and younger generations of Russian Symbolists. Most likely, his style developed as a conscious parody of Symbolist themes, images, masks, and stylistic devices. Critics (K. Mochulsky, W. Hovin, and О. Kushlina) already pointed at the overlaps between Severyanin and other Symbolists and featured parodic elements in the work of the former. The rapid development of the genre of literary parody in the Russian literature at the turn of 19 th and 20 th centuries was likely to inspire Severyanin to use parody techniques in his work. To prove this hypothesis, the essay compares Severyanin’s poems with those of his elder contemporaries, such as V. Bryusov and K. Bal’mont and with literary parodies by S. Gorny, K. Chukovsky, and A. Blok that were famous in the early 20 th century. I read some of Severyanin’s poems as hidden parodies or “ambiguous texts.” They are different from traditional parodies in that they may be perceived as serious and independent works in case the background knowledge about their literary context is lost and also depending on the reader’s individual viewpoint.

Authors and Affiliations

E. V. Kuznetsova

Keywords

Related Articles

The Plot and Its Modifications in the Temporal and Generic “Space”

With the loss of mythological beliefs, traditional plots become decompensated by their new interpretations. For example, when a tribe borrows a plot from a neighboring tribe but does not share the beliefs of the authen...

THE PROBLEM OF HUMANISM IN M. GORKY’S ESSAY “A. A. BLOK”

The article examines one of the most important problems of Gorky’s work — a problem of humanism. It relates the history of creation of Gorky’s essay “A. A. Blok” (1923) to the author’s reflections about deformation of t...

Universal russianness, or Gorky’s the Lower depths interpreted by Zamyatin interpreted by Renoir

This paper discusses a 1936 French film The Lower Depths based on the famous Maxim Gorky’s play and directed by Jean Renoir. The script was initially written by Evgeny Zamyatin and Jacques Companeez and then rewritten...

LE PARADOXE DU CRITIQUE D’ART: LA TENSION ENTRE PATHÉTIQUE ET IRONIE DEVANT LES TABLEAUX TOUCHANTS [PARADOX AS THE CRITIQUE OF ART: TENSION BETWEEN PATHOS AND IRONY OF THE “TOUCHING” PAINTINGS]

In his Salons, Denis Diderot pays special attention to “touching,” pathetic paintings, and his interest to J.-B. Greuze’s art is evidence to that. When Diderot turns to describe Greuze’s canvases or genre painting of J...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP26138
  • DOI 10.22455/2500-4247-2017-2-1-220-243
  • Views 315
  • Downloads 22

How To Cite

E. V. Kuznetsova (2017). THE POETICS OF IGOR SEVERYANIN AND LITERARY PARODY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20 TH CENTURY. Studia Litterarum, 2(1), -. https://europub.co.uk/articles/-A-26138