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Mythologies of Poetic Creation in Twentieth-Century Russian Verse

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Mythologies of Poetic Creation in Twentieth-Century Russian Verse MYTHOLOGIES OF POETIC CREATION IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY RUSSIAN VERSE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Ona Renner-Fahey, M.A. * * * * The Ohio State University 2002 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Angela K. Brintlinger, Adviser ___________________________ Professor Irene Masing-Delic Adviser Department of Slavic and East Professor Richard Davis European Languages and Literatures ABSTRACT In my dissertation, I address how four twentieth-century Russian poets grapple(d) with the mysteries of poetic inspiration and I propose what I consider to be their personal mythologies of the creative process. As none of these poets offers a comprehensive description of his/her personal mythology of poetic creation, my task has been to sift through the poets= poems and prose in order to uncover pertinent textual references to themes of inspiration. The four poet-subjects are Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, and Olga Sedakova. Together they represent many of the factors contributing to the remarkable genius of twentieth-century Russian poetry. By looking at these four particular mythologies of poetic creation, we are able to view notions developed by both genders, within two faiths, in both capitals, and throughout the entirety of the century. It is significant that each of these poets has turned to prose to work out his/her ideas concerning the creative process. In reconstructing these mythologies of poetic creation, I have looked to the poets= entire oeuvres and the Asingle semantic system@ working within each of them. My work aims to bring together poets= prose and poetry and to offer readings of texts that are guided by the poets own concerns and beliefs. ii For Sophie and Maeve, with much love iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am thankful to have had much help and encouragement throughout the writing of this dissertation. My adviser, Angela Brintlinger, deserves my fullest gratitude; her comments have always been extensive and perceptive, her support constant. I simply could not have had a better adviser. I am also indebted to the other members of my committee, Irene Masing-Delic and Dick Davis. These two very inspiring professors were integral to the shaping of the final piece. The initial impulse for this dissertation came from a paper I wrote in a class taught by George Kalbouss. It is in part thanks to his enthusiasm for that paper that I had the confidence to expand it into a dissertation. Many other people have contributed to my work in one way or another. I am grateful both to my good friend Aneliese Everett and to the ever-helpful Beth Myre, for their technical support. I would also like to extend my thanks to Karina Ross, Daniel Collins, and Anelya Rugaleva, for answering questions I had concerning the Russian language; and to Valentina Polukhina, Galina Slavskaia and Mary Delle LeBeau for graciously sharing their knowledge with someone they have never even met. My friends and family were a key part of this process. Their support, patience, and enthusiasm have helped me so much more than any of them realizes. This is especially true of my husband, Eamon. Finally, I dedicate my work to my daughters, Sophie and Maeve. The countless hours I poured into this dissertation was precious time away from them. iv VITA January 21, 1970 . Born - Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1994 . M.A. Russian, Middlebury College 1991 . B.A. Russian, University of Wisconsin 2001 - present . .Russian Language Instructor, Department of Modern Foreign Languages Ohio Wesleyan University 1997 - 2000 . Graduate Teaching and Research Associate, Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS 1. O. Renner-Fahey. ATsvetaeva=s Image through Symbolic Verse Biography.@ In A Festschrift for LeonTwarog: Working Papers in Slavic Studies, vol. 1 (Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures, 2001), 255-283. 2. O. Renner-Fahey. AThe Contemporary American Poet Jim Harrison and his Letters to Esenin.@ In Russia and USA: Forms of Literary Dialogue. (Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities, 2000), 54-62 (In Russian). FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract . ii Dedication . iii Acknowledgments . ..iv Vita . v Note on Transliteration and Translation . viii Chapters: Introduction: The Secrets of their Craft . .1 1. Osip Mandelstam: AШум стихотворства@ [The Noise of the Craft] . .14 1.1 The Inner Dialogue, or the Aural Image . .21 1.2 The Birth of Memory . .24 1.3 The Paradox of Silence . 29 1.4 Breathing Poetry and the Suffocating Poet . .38 2. Anna Akhmatova: AПечальная Муза моя@ [My melancholy Muse] . 50 2.1 Muse-poems . 55 2.1.1 AМуза-сестра@ [The Sister-Muse]: 1912-1916 . 60 2.1.2 AМилая гостя@ [The Kind Guest]: 1921-1927 . 68 2.1.3 AМоею Музой оказалась мука@ [Torment became my Muse]: 1940-1964 . 77 2.2 Masked Muses . .92 2.3 Secrets of the Craft: Metapoetry . 96 2.4 The Omnipresent Window . .98 3. Joseph Brodsky: AАпофеоз звука@ [An Apotheosis of Sound] . .102 3.1 Reconciling Polar Attitudes . .107 3.2 The Occidental Mode . 110 vi 3.2.1 The Voice of Language . .110 3.2.2 An Acceleration of Consciousness . 113 3.3 The Oriental Mode . 115 3.3.1 The Suffocating Poet, Revisited . .115 3.3.2 A Theology of Language: Classical Aspects, Biblical Aspects . .122 3.3.2.1 The Seraphic Muse . .125 3.3.2.2 A Tree of Knowledge . 134 4. Olga Sedakova: AТаинственная глубина@ [The Secret Depth] . .138 4.1 The Verbal Icon . .142 4.2 Service . .145 4.3 The Silence of the Heart . .151 4.4 The Birth-Giving Depth . .155 4.4.1 Inspiring Dreams . .158 4.4.2 Inspiring Music . 173 4.4.3 Inspiring Visual Objects . .183 Conclusion . .189 Works Consulted . 196 vii NOTE ON TRANSLATION AND TRANSLITERATION In order that this study be comprehensible to the general English readership, I have provided translations of all quoted material. If the translations are not referenced, they are my own. References to translations by other authors can be found in the footnotes and/or parenthetical documentation. Generally, transliterated words in this dissertation follow the Library of Congress system. Exceptions to this system are names with established English spellings. One prominent example of this is the spelling AMandelstam@ rather than the Library of Congress version, AMandel=shtam.@ viii INTRODUCTION THE SECRETS OF THEIR CRAFT Every serious work of art tells the genesis of its own creation. Roman Jakobson Artistic creation, after all, is not subject to absolute laws, valid from age to age; since it is related to the more general aim of mastery of the world, it has an infinite number of facets, the vincula that connect man with his vital activity; and even if the path towards knowledge is unending, no step that takes man nearer to a full understanding of the meaning of his existence can be too small to count. Andrey Tarkovsky This dissertation is an attempt at understanding how the creative process is viewed by four Russian poets of the twentieth century: Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, and Olga Sedakova. It is in considering the following such questions that poets generally mythologize various elements of their vocation: Do my poems come from outside of myself and, if so, how? Do I consider my experience to be of a divine nature and, if so, in what forms does it appear? Which of my senses is most active during my inspired state? How do my fears and anxieties affect my creativity and what forms do they take? At times the poets in this study address these and other such questions in essays and/or interviews, and in so doing provide valuable information about the creative process. Most often, however, it is their poetry that reveals the images and notions they have formed 1 about their creativity. My method, then, has been to extract clues from these poets= verse, essays and interviews, and then to (re-)construct their mythologies of poetic creation.1 Mythologies of Poetic Creation Just what, precisely, does Athe creative process@ mean? One definition, put forth by René Wellek and Austin Warren, refers to the process=s Aentire sequence@ but provides only the first and last elements. According to this definition, the creative process should Acover the entire sequence from the subconscious origins of a literary work to those last revisions@ (85). In order to define this process fully, we need to identify those missing elements that occur between the poet=s subconscious impulses and conscious revisions. A significantly more comprehensive definition has been offered by the creativity researcher Frank Barren. The majority of the elements he identifies as comprising the creative process will be addressed in the mythologies presented here; a few of them, however, will not be covered. What the mythologies in the present study do not tend to include are the poet=s final, conscious revisions. Barren refers to such elements as: Athe author=s conscious intentions,@ Athe choice of form,@ Aimportant revisions,@ and Aunexpected or unplanned alterations in the intentions of form@ (quoted in Fehrman 21). On the other hand, those elements which are -- to varying degrees -- addressed in the mythologies of poetic creation are what Barren terms Apreconscious and unconscious intentions@ and Asudden inspiration,@ as well as what he identifies as emotional states, 1 A similar method has been taken by Nadezhda Mandelstam in her work Mozart and Salieri. She based her approach to the study of poetic creativity on the views of her husband, the poet Osip Mandelstam, who himself Awanted to reconstruct the movement of poetic thought@ (105).
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