A coat of many colors osip mandelstam and his mythologies of self presentation

title author publisher isbn10 | asin print isbn13 ebook isbn13 language subject publication date lcc ddc subject cover next page > cover next page > : : : : : : : : : : : < previous page page_i next page > Page i A Coat of Many Colors < previous page page_i next page > < previous page page_ii next page > Page ii Osip Mandclstam (early 1930s) < previous page page_ii next page > < previous page page_iii next page > Page iii A Coat of Many Colors Osip Mandelstam and His Mythologies of Self-Presentation Gregory Freidin < previous page page_iii next page > < previous page page_iv next page > Page iv University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd London, England © 1987 by The Regents of the University of California Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Freidin, Gregory A coat of many colors Bibliography: p Includes index Mandel'shtam, Osip, 18911938Criticism and interpretation I Title PG3476.M355Z64 1986 891.71'3 ISBN 0-520-05438-5 (alk paper) < previous page 85-16440 page_iv next page > < previous page page_v next page > Page v For my parents and in memory of Ivy Litvinov < previous page page_v next page > < previous page page_vii next page > Page vii Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xv I The Charisma of Poetry and the Poetry of Charisma Nomen Est Omen; Siamese Twins; The Holy as Paradigm; In Place of a Biography II Mysteries of Breathing: 19091912 34 On a Lone Winter Evening; Conjugal Conjugations; A Most Ineligible Bachelor; Between Law and Grace III Le Nouvel Hippolyte and Phaedra-Russia: 19151916 56 The Theater of the Lyric; Le Nouvel Hippolyte; Phaedra-Russia and the Night Sun; Mandelstam Between Stone and Tristia IV Setting the Stage: Prolepsis in Tristia, 19151917 84 Three Books; An Ending and a Beginning; Exchanging Gifts: Tsvetaeva and Mandelstam < previous page page_vii next page > < previous page page_viii next page > Page viii V The Question of Return: Themes and Variations, 19181920 124 Flight from Ilium; The Addressee as Reader; Two More Readers Reading; Extended Family; Variations VI Revolutions and the Poetics of a Dying Age 154 History's Wheels; The Inner Form of Fin de Siècle; Poetics, Scholarship, Ideology; The Word's Suffering and Magic VII Dying as Metaphor and the Ironic Mode: 19201930 187 Mandelstam's and the Commune's Trains; An Offering of Dead Bees; Oedipus, Antigone, and the Forgotten Word; The Irony and the Prose of the NEP; What Happened to the Coat VIII History and Myth: 19301938 222 Between the Wolfhound and the Wolf; Hippolytus and Hephaestus; Hoofprints in the Black Earth; The Story of the "Ode"; Two Josephs; Image and Likeness Appendices 273 I The Mandelstam-Gornfel'd Affair II A Note on Pasternak Notes 277 Bibliography 385 Index 411 < previous page page_viii next page > < previous page page_ix next page > Page ix Preface At this moment the fate of the Russian writer has become the most intriguing, the most fruitful literary topic in the whole world: he is either being imprisoned, pilloried, internally exiled, or simply kicked out ANDREI SINIAVSKII,"Literary Process in Russia" I wish to present the poet Osip Mandelstam as the focal point of a complex cultural phenomenonperhaps a cultin which art extends effortlessly into biography, history, politics, and above all the sphere of communal values held sacred by the poet's readers There are few authors in this century whose works are so thoroughly identified with their days, and both together with the expectations and catastrophes of modernity Even among the great poets of his generation (Akhmatova, Maiakovskii, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak), Mandelstam has come to define the fullest complement of features making up Russia's symbolic authorial figure: a poet of genius, a witness, a man who began at the culture's periphery and soon moved into its center, a dervish indifferent to worldly success, a fearless fighter for the dignity of man, and finally, a persecuted outcast, an exile, a prisoner, a victim, and in the end a martyr to Stalinist terror This reputation notwithstanding, most students of Mandelstam are aware that the poet's life was not endowed with this sort of unity What unusual coherence it had came from his poetry and prose (both written in the person of the "lyric I") and from a common temptation to attribute to exceptional figures some of the culture's most prized human qualities on an extraordinary scale A Coat of Many Colors offers a perspective that helps to ground Mandelstam's poetry and prose in the patterns of his culture and the events of his time, to account for the remarkable narrative integrity of his writings, and, most important, to < previous page page_ix next page > < previous page page_x next page > Page x examine his career in light of modern Russian authorship, an institution with strong charismatic propensities Like other poets of his own and preceding generations (foremost among them Aleksandr Blok, as the Formalist critics were first to point out), Mandelstam was the author of his own "myth," or, rather, "myths of the poet." He worked consistently at designing a figure that could serve as a unifying epic or dramatic center for a variety of lyric gestures He was thus able to satisfy a major condition for being a lyric poet in contemporary Russia, namely, to compose poetry capable of projecting a powerful, integrative self Such a self had to be grounded not only in the particular circumstances and consciousness of the poet as an individual but also in the consciousness of the audience; in short, in the culture of the body social to which the poet appealed Furthermore, the self had to be flexible, able to respond to the rapidly changing world, yet stable enough to remain recognizable, allowing the poet to maintain narrative continuity in self-presentation Such a figure had to create the possibility for "naturalizing" the new, for integrating or joining it with the familiar Contemporary poets, beneficiaries of the nineteenth-century comparative mythology, understood that this was to be accomplished in large measure by having the protagonist project narrative patterns intentionally designed both to emulate ancient myth and to absorb modern historical matter How Mandelstam, with his particular circumstances and background, went about satisfying these desiderata of modern Russian poetry constitutes the subject of this study Although I not limit myself to any one aspect of the Mandelstam phenomenon, I focus precisely on these partially overlapping and often homologous patterns of self-presentation Of crucial importance for the understanding of Mandelstam's poetic project as a historical phenomenon, these patterns have functioned as a source from which readers have spun the threads of Mandelstam myths and his mythologies, that is, the rationalizations of the poet's stance Hence the title of this book, with its echoes of Roland Barthes's study Mythologies, which first alerted me to the interaction between verbal imagination, ideology, and social practice Modern Russian poetry, with its incredible power over readersmany of whom would admit to their profound puzzlement over its senseoffers a tantalizing case study for anyone interested in this interaction Trying to understand the nature of the extraordinary symbolic power of modern Russian poets, I have conceptualized Russian literary authorship as a "charismatic institution," drawing on the work of Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Edward Shils I aim to provide a system- < previous page page_x next page > < previous page page_420 next page > Page 420 Said, E., 297n28, 314n104 Salvation, theme of, 60 Sappho, 41 Saturn, 150, 151 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 25, 170, 172, 283n61 Saussurian structuralism, 13 Savinkov, Boris (Ropshin), 23 Schiller, J C F von: ''Ode to Joy," 87, 210 Schism (17th century), 101, 108 Schlegel, A W., 67, 80; Comparaison entre le Phèdre de Racine et celle d'Euripide, 63 Schlott, W., 315n114, 322n38, 324n53 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 156 Sechenov, 37 Segal, D., 297n32, 319n14, 327n77, 338n67, 342n7, 361n24, 371n114 Self-mockery, genre of, 215 Self-presentation, 30, 33 See also Mandelstam, Osip Seneca, 91 Sergei, Grand Duke, 23 Shakhty trial, 22324 Shamanistic quality in poetry, xi, 7, 14, 181, 182, 199, 284n65 Shershenevich, Vadim, 167, 300n57, 346n34 Shestov, Lev, 183, 185, 289nn116, 118 Shils, Edward, x, 11, 17, 128 Shklovskii, Viktor, 8, 161, 162, 175, 178, 194, 237, 284n65, 289n116, 345n31, 346n37, 349n54, 351n69, 353n93, 361n25; Resurrection of the World, The, 122 Silenus, 58, 304n5 Sinani, Boris, 2122, 24, 327n76 Siniavskii, A., 368n74 Skriabin, Alexsandr, 7071, 91; Mysterium, 96; "Poem of Fire, The," 24 See also Mandelstam, Osip: Prose Slavic Review, 252 Socialism, 171 Socialist-Revolutionary Party, 22, 23, 24 Sodom, 138, 139 Sologub, Fedor, 35 Solov'ev, Vladimir, 53, 69, 80, 185 Sophocles, 77, 78, 111, 136 Spengler, Oswald, 156, 319n14, 342n8, 343n14 Stalin, Joseph, 230, 254, 263; background for ode to, 25055; in other works by Mandelstam, 237, 24142, 24546; poetic iconography and poet's persona, 26871 Stalinist era, 13, 229 Stalin revolution, 14, 20, 32, 227, 228, 229 Starchestvo, institution of, 16 Starets See Holy men Stars imagery, 57, 1023, 166, 167, 193 Stein, Gertrude, 148 Stone imagery, 41, 42, 95 Struve, Gleb, 20 Struve, N., 303n80, 326n69, 339n73, 352n85, 355n112 Sturm und Drang, 44, 155 Suicide, 10 Sun imagery, 74, 75, 142, 143, 180, 198, 310n76; in Phaedra poems, 9699; in "Return" poem, 137, 13839 Superfin, G., 306n23 Surikov, Vasilii (painter): Boiarynia Morozova, 10910 "Susanna and the Elders," 150, 152 Swallow imagery, 208, 216, 332n23 Symbolist movement, 28, 29, 40, 54, 10819, 17475; revolt against, 6, 57, 58, 6061, 64 Synecdoche, 110, 141, 144, 146, 182, 247 Syntax in Mandelstam's poetry, 35 T Taranovsky, Kiril, 51, 131, 134, 135, 311n76, 312n77, 320n23, 322n37, 329n109, 333n33, 335n42, 359n8, 366n62, 367n67, 372n8, 379n69, 382n97 Tenishev School, 21, 22 Terras, V., 365n54 Terrorism, 2325 Theosophy, 70, 71, 76 Theurgy, 61, 7778, 158, 173; theurgos, 27 "Third Testament," 69, 71, 72, 115 Thomas the Apostle, 168 Tikhonov, Nikolai, 275 Time, 119, 146, 194, 204 Timenchik, R., 286n90, 287n107, 293n34, 303n81, 306n23, 314n105, 319n14, 342n7, 354n98, 361n24, 363n42, 380n81 < previous page page_420 next page > < previous page page_421 next page > Page 421 Time of Troubles, 101, 105 Tintoretto: "Susanna and the Elders," 150, 152 Tiutchev, Fedor, 51, 90, 191, 193 Todd, W., 283n60, 286n83, 301 n59 Toddes, E., 302n70, 339n75, 359n8 Tolstoy, Lev, 17, 18; War and Peace, 82; "What Is Art," 11 Toporov, V., 319n14, 342n7, 361n24 "Tower" salon, 25, 28 Trenin, Vl., 348n49 Trotsky, Leon, 194, 261; Art and Revolution, 175 Tsiv'ian, T., 319n14, 342n7, 361n24 Tsvetaeva, Marina, 89, 10, 83, 119, 316n118; "Dmitrii! Marina! V mire," 1012; "Iz ruk moikh-nerukotvornyi grad," 1034; "Mimo nochnykh bashen," 105 Tsygal'skii, Colonel, 126 Turgenev, Ivan, 18 Twins and doubling, image of, 11, 145, 147, 264, 266, 268 Tynianov, Iurii, 260, 261, 281n34, 282n47, 291n145, 295n16, 306n22, 344n21, 353n95, 357n129, 359n20, 361n25, 367n74; "Space Between, The," 210, 211 U Underworld, descent into, 227 See also Orphic mysteries; Persephone myth V Vaginov, Konstantin, 237; Goat Song, 215 Vainshtein, E., 287n95 Venice, 15051 "Verbal magic." See Magic Verlaine, Paul: "Art poétique," 199200, 201, 218, 364n44 Veselovskii, A N., 99, 113, 141, 176, 182, 195; Historical Poetics, 15960; "Psychological Parallelism and Its Forms from the Perspective of Poetic Style," 15859 Vetlugin, G., 287n95 Vico, Giambattista, 88, 108, 156, 305n14, 319n14 Villon, Franỗois, 44, 45, 99 Vipper, B., 319n14 Virgil, 112, 157, 201 Voloshin, Maksimilian, 201 Vol'pe, Tsezar', 237 Voronezh Theater, 252 Voronskii, A K., 86, 273 Vygotskii, D., 46 W Waller, Fats: "Honeysuckle Rose," 148 War Communism, 229, 235 Wasp imagery, 267 Weber, Max, x, 3, 4, 1112, 60, 181, 211 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U von, 67, 80 Wilde, Oscar: Salome, 67 William of Ockham, 173 Wing imagery, 172 Wolf imagery, 233, 23637 Wrangel, P N., 126, 142, 147, 228 Writers' commune, 178 Writers' Union, 252 Z Zabolotskii, Nikolai, 237 Zaslavskii, D I., 274 Zenkevich, Mikhail, 60 Zeus, 100, 268, 270 Zhirmunskii, Viktor, 4647, 18788 Zhukovskii, Vasilii, 80 Zielinski, Tadeusz, 141, 155 Zoshchenko, Mikhail, 31; Mishel' Siniagin, 215, 217, 21819; "Pleasantries of Culture," 235 Zvezda, 237 < previous page page_421 next page > < previous page page_422 Page 422 Designer: Sandy Drooker Compositor: G&S Typesetters, Inc Text: 10/12 Bembo Display: Bembo < previous page page_422 ... illuminating analogy to the phenomenon of Mandelstamthe totality of his art and his life in the imagination of his readers Mandelstam was and still is a charismatic poet, just as Joseph was a charismatic... inspiration and selfabandonment Mandelstam'' s homely, unassuming face had become the face of a visionary and prophet Aleksandr Aleksandrovich [Blok] was also astonished by this 20 He was indeed Himself... sophistication (italics are mine): Mandelstam is the only consolation He is a poet of genius, of valor, a heroic man A gray-bearded patriarch, Mandelstam presided as shaman for two and a half