UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Los Angeles “A Fullness of Living Forces”: Viacheslav Ivanov's Poetics of Theurgy a Dissertation
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles “A Fullness of Living Forces”: Viacheslav Ivanov’s Poetics of Theurgy A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Slavic Languages and Literatures by Jeffrey T. Riggs 2018 © Copyright by Jeffrey T. Riggs 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION “A Fullness of Living Forces”: Viacheslav Ivanov’s Poetics of Theurgy by Jeffrey T. Riggs Doctor of Philosophy in Slavic Languages and Literatures University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor Ronald W. Vroon, Chair Developing poetry into a form of theurgy (“divine work,” from the Greek θεουργία) is perhaps the most heraldically proclaimed yet scantly defined preoccupation of the Russian Symbolist poet Viacheslav Ivanov (1866-1949). The Symbolist movement’s philosophical progenitor, Vladimir Solov’ev (1853-1900), sounded the clarion call for theurgic art in his treatise Crisis of Western Philosophy (1874), however the concept of theurgy dates to late antiquity, when the Neoplatonist philosophers Iamblichus (c. 245–c. 325 CE) and Proclus (412– 485 CE) posited theurgic ritual as superior to theological discourse. While it has been established that Ivanov followed Solov’evian paradigms in creating theurgic art, the Neoplatonic context of Ivanov’s engagement with theurgy has remained hitherto unexplored in Slavist scholarship. This dissertation argues for Neoplatonic theurgy as an active constituent in Ivanov’s poetics and theory of the symbol. Being an accomplished classical historian and philologist as ii well as a poet and theoretician, Ivanov incorporated both Solov’evian and Neoplatonic theurgic ideas into his highly allusive, richly symbolic, and archaically stylized poetry. Neoplatonism supplied Ivanov with a notion of the symbol as a conduit of divine mysteries, a mythopoetic device, and a functional element of ritual practice. With the aid of theurgically charged symbols, Ivanov sought to construe Dionysus and the Orphic mystery rites associated with him as predecessors to Christ and the Christian sacraments. Ivanov’s theurgic project is particularly exemplified by “Suspiria,” a poetic cycle which draws symbolic parallels between Orphic and Christian rituals. The epigraph to “Psyche,” a poem contained in the cycle, features a quotation from the Orphic gold tablets (ancient leaves of gold foil bearing hexametrical post-mortem instructions for initiates into Dionysian mystery cults), which Ivanov discusses in theurgic terms in his philological treatise Dionysus and Predionysianism. Cross-referencing Ivanov’s philological and poetic works reveals that his research on ancient theurgy provided material that he re-deployed as theurgic symbols in his poetry. The “Suspiria” cycle’s streamlining of Orphic mystery rites with Christian sacraments is not merely a representation of a historical lineage, but an enactment of theurgic ritual through symbolic poetry. iii The dissertation of Jeffrey T. Riggs is approved. David L. Blank Gail D. Lenhoff Ronald W. Vroon, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2018 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................................................................1 Bad Poet or Good Theurgist? Chapter 1 ................................................................................................................................27 “The Symbols Themselves, by Themselves”: Neoplatonic Paradigms for Ivanov’s Theurgy Chapter 2 ................................................................................................................................59 Bogoděistvie and Teurgiia: Pre-Symbolist Theurgy in Russia Chapter 3 ................................................................................................................................101 Ivanov’s Religious Philology and the Theurgy of Dionysian and Christian Strast’ Chapter 4 ................................................................................................................................132 Ivanov the Orphic: Initiatory and Sacramental Theurgy in the Poetic Cycle “Suspiria” Conclusion .............................................................................................................................178 Theurgy Outside the “Decorated Temple of Demons” Bibliography ..........................................................................................................................192 v JEFFREY T. RIGGS Education University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Ph.D. Slavic Languages and Literatures (expected June 2018) Dissertation: “A Fullness of Living Forces”: Viacheslav Ivanov’s Poetics of Theurgy Chair: Ronald Vroon Committee: David Blank, Gail Lenhoff Ph.D. Musicology (expected October 2018) Dissertation: Rimsky-Korsakov the Antiquarian: Visions and Reconfigurations of the Slavic Past in the Opera Sadko Chair: Mitchell Morris Committee: Robert Fink, Raymond Knapp, Ronald Vroon New College of Florida (Honors College of Florida) B.A. (with Honors), Russian Language and Literature, 2006 Publication Riggs, Jeffrey. “Greco-Slavonic Liturgies in Viacheslav Ivanov’s ‘Suspiria’ Cycle,” in “On Behalf of All and For All”: The Place of Liturgy in Russian Art and Culture. Edited by Sean Griffin, Jeffrey Riggs, and Ronald Vroon. UCLA Slavic Studies, New Series: Slavica (forthcoming). Invited Conferences “Bogoděistvie and Teurgiia in Viacheslav Ivanov’s ‘Suspiria’ Cycle.” Presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association for the Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL), February, 2018. “Nietzschean Inflections in Dmitrii Merezhkovsky’s novoe religioznoe soznanie.” Presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association for the Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL), January, 2012. “Obscuring the Lyric Self: Viacheslav Ivanov and the Poetic Problem of Individuation.” Presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association for the Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL), January, 2011. “The Musical Divine: Dmitrii Kastal’skii, Early Music, and Russian Metaphysical Symbolism.” Presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association for the Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL), December, 2009. “Native Subtexts: Russian Liturgical Music in Viacheslav Ivanov’s Kormchie zvezdy.” Presented at the University of Helsinki’s “Russianness” Conference, December, 2009. vi “The Center and Periphery of the Symbolist Poetic Text: Viacheslav Ivanov and Valerii Briusov’s ‘Tvorchestvo.’” Presented at the University of California, Berkeley at the California Slavic Colloquium, April, 2009. UCLA Conferences “The Problem of Musical Representation in Aleksandr Skriabin’s Third Symphony, ‘The Divine Poem’ (op. 43).” Presented at UCLA’s conference “Scriabin among the Symbolists: A Centennial Symposium,” March, 2015 (co-organized by me, Ryan Rowen, and Mitchell Morris). “Greco-Slavonic Liturgies in Viacheslav Ivanov’s ‘Suspiria’ Cycle.” Presented at UCLA’s conference “‘On Behalf of All and For All’: The Place of Liturgy in Russian Art and Culture,” October, 2012 (co-organized by me, Sean Griffin, and Ronald Vroon). Research Interests Neoplatonic theurgy in Russian Symbolism Hellenic strains in early twentieth-century Russian poetry Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of poetry and music Folkloric sensibilities in nineteenth-century Russian opera Courses Taught at UCLA as an Instructor of Record The History of Electronic Dance Music 2016 Writing about Music 2015 Old-Time and Bluegrass Performance Ensemble 2014-2015 The Beatles 2014 Courses Taught at UCLA as a Teaching Assistant, Associate, and Fellow Courses in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures Great Russian Novels 2017 Introduction to Russian Civilization 2016 Christianities East and West 2014 The Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel in Translation 2010 Beginning Russian Language 2009-2010 Courses in the Department of Musicology The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll 2016 Contemporary Jewish and Israeli Music 2016 Film and Music 2015 Music in Los Angeles 2013 The Blues 2013 Writing about Music 2013 vii Introduction – Bad Poet or Good Theurgist? 1. The “Bad Poet” I recall an informal conversation with a senior colleague several years ago, before I started working on my dissertation, that has been formative in the development of my work. I had begun doing research on Neoplatonist philosophy, and had discovered what I thought to be some astounding parallels with Russian Symbolism that had gone unnoticed in the scholarship on the Symbolist movement. Over a watery cup of campus store coffee, I excitedly hashed out my plans for delving into the notion of theurgy in Russian Symbolism further than prior scholars had attempted. What was needed, I contended, was a thorough investigation of the significance of the Neoplatonist theurgists to Ivanov and the other classically inclined Symbolists. Upon exhaustively sketching the trajectory of my proposed work – which would first review the centrality of the symbol to theurgic Neoplatonism, then uncover the earlier and previously undetected theurgic strain in Russian culture introduced through the Church Slavonic translations of the Pseudo-Dionysian corpus, and, finally, apply this philosophically, theologically and historically broadened framework for theurgy to Ivanov’s early poetry and theory of the symbol – he emitted a guffaw. Then came the succinct reply: “But you know Ivanov is a bad poet, right? Why do you need to do all