Description
Book SynopsisA highly significant movement within the Silver Age, harlequinade did not surface in Russian high culture until the turn of the twentieth century, when it suddenly began to attract the close attention of symbolist authors. In the present work, an attempt is made to show that the proliferation of the new cultural idiom was indicative of the fundamental concerns of the time and intimately related to the development of artistic thought. Although the theme is considered in its cultural totality (visual arts, literature and drama), the work is focused on symbolist poetry. It provides a close analysis of the ‘harlequinade’ verse of Blok and Belyi – two leading figures of the movement, in whose writings the symbolist theory found its maturity and perfection. The poems in question are conceptually centred on the dialectical unity of
self and
other – one of the key-notes in the new symbolist outlook. This is traced at various levels of poetic representation: in the imagery system and the principles of text construction, in linguistic features and poetic devices employed by the authors. Special attention is given to the sound organization of the poems, which heightens considerably the semantic potential of the text.
Trade Review«In presenting this nuanced, well-researched and elegantly written book, Soboleva has both provided a valuable and succinct overview of Russian Symbolist poetry as a whole, and provided new and original insights into its two most prominent and influential practitioners.» (David N. Wells, Australian Slavonic and East European Studies)
Table of ContentsContents: Harlequinade in symbolist art, literature and drama – Western trend internalised – Fundamental concerns of the time: harmony of the child’s soul, theatricalisation of life, grotesque dehumanisation of society, coexistence of personal and creative self – Development of artistic thought, dialectics of unity and diversity – Diversity of objective reality and uniqueness of its personal perception – The dialogue between the individual and the world – Harlequinade as an outlet for the new symbolist aesthetics: the paradigm of self metamorphosing into a multitude of disguised
others – ‘Harlequinade’ poems of Blok and Belyi – The dialogue between the
self and the
other – Christian formula of ‘inseparability and distinctness’ – Linguistic structures and poetic devices based on paradigmatic unity – Sound texture of verse as a sense generating factor which heightens semantic potential of the text – Correlation between auditory and non-auditory modes of perception.
