“THE VERSE ABOUT THE HOLY MOUNTAIN” BY VYACHESLAV IVANOV: A CLOSE READING. FIRST ESSAY
Journal Title: Studia Litterarum - Year 2016, Vol 1, Issue 3
Abstract
In the course of his literary career, Vyacheslav Ivanov repeatedly turned to the genre of spiritual verse (dukhovnyi stikh). This genre implies a specifc poetic form, certain stylistic properties, performance, and circulation. Among Ivanov’s works, there are both: texts that reproduce traditional spiritual verse with some modifcations and original works stylized as sacred poems. “The Verse about the Holy Mountain” (1900) belongs to the second group. Though the text is stylized as spiritual verse, both on the level of its poetics and content, it does not imitate any particular folkloric text. Semantic structure of the “Verse” is organized by two semantic felds. The frst one is marked by words with the roots свет- “light” and свят- “saint.” In “The Verse about the Holy Mountain,” “light” and “holiness” are interrelated not only on the verbal level but also on religious and symbolic levels of the poem. Ivanov seemed to have intended his text to be perceived not only aurally but also as a unique verbal icon by the reader’s inner vision. The second group of words refers to a semantic feld marked by the verbs видеть “to see” and ведать “to know.” Ivanov would repeatedly return to the images from “The Verse about the Holy Mountain” in the course of his later life. We encounter references to the poem’s plot in his articles “Living Tradition” (1915) and “The Face and Masks of Russia” (1917) as well as in his works The Russian Idea (1930) and Dostoevsky: Tragedy — Legend — Mysticism (1932) published in German. Certain images related to “The Verse about the Holy Mountain” may be found among the drafts of “The Tale about Tsarevich Svetomir,” a text Ivanov was working on from 1928 through 1949.
Authors and Affiliations
Andrey L. Toporkov
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP26119
- DOI 10.22455/2500-4247-2016-1-3-4-298-324
- Views 283
- Downloads 16
A FOREWORD ON THE ANNIVERSARY (ON THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF BRYUSOV CONFERENCE)
No Abstract
“THE VERSE ABOUT THE HOLY MOUNTAIN” BY VYACHESLAV IVANOV: A CLOSE READING. FIRST ESSAY
In the course of his literary career, Vyacheslav Ivanov repeatedly turned to the genre of spiritual verse (dukhovnyi stikh). This genre implies a specifc poetic form, certain stylistic properties, performance, and circ...
М. Gorky as a Theoretician of Literature
The essay focuses on the theoretical problem of M. Gorky’s artistic method claiming that Gorky’s work combines elements of realism, Romanticism, and modernism. Already at the beginning of his career, he realized that c...
“RUSSIAN REVOLUTION WAS PREPARED ON CAPRI...” MICHAIL PERVUKHIN ABOUT A RUSSIAN COLONY ON CAPRI (BASED ON THE A.M. GORKY ARCHIVE)
In his essay “The Russians on Capri” (1924), a Russian journalist Mikhail Pervukhin describes the discovery of Capri by Russian artists and writers before the events of 1905 and the development of the Russian colony on t...
New Admissions to the K.G. Paustovsky Moscow Literary Museum-Center
This is an overview of а new collection received by the K.G. Paustovsky Moscow Literary Museum-Center in 2017, the year of the 125th anniversary of his birth. The collection consists of 366 items. Among them are manusc...