The Silver Age of Russian Poetry

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The Symbolists

Vladimir Solovev

Aleksandr Blok

Andrei Belyi

Selections from Gold in Azure
  • The Golden Fleece and Sunsets from Gold in Azure

    Symbolism

    Symbolism was an artistic movement that swept across Europe in the late nineteenth century. Russian Symbolism has its roots in French Symbolism. The symbolist aesthetic has been expressed in painting and prose as well as in poetry in Russia.

    The Russian symbolist poets were a collection of artists who drew on deep feelings of mysticism when they gave form to the thoughts and visions that the Muse inspired in them. They felt themselves to be a link between the people (the Russian narod) and a higher spiritual realm.

    One of the earlier symbolists, Vladimir Solovev, created an entire spiritual belief system based on the worship of the Eternal Feminine. This being was the Muse from whom inspiration came, she was Nature, and her intellect and beauty became tangible in women on the temporal plane. Two younger poets, Aleksandr Blok and Andrei Bely, were entranced by Solovev's mysticism.

    Vladimir Solovev

    Vladimir Solovev (1853-1990) was integral to the growth of Symbolism in Russia. He was a philosopher, historian, theologist, and poet. He identified the Eternal Feminine that he worshipped as Sophia, the Divine Wisdom. Solovev expresses his closeness to his Muse when surrounded by the beauty of nature in his poem The Sound of A Distant Waterfall...

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    Aleksandr Blok

    portrait of Blok
    As a young poet, Aleksander Blok (1880-1921) was inspired by Solovev. Sometimes his Muse, the Beautiful Lady, was Russia, as expressed in the poem On the Field of Kulikovo. Blok had a tumultuous relationship with his Muse, the Divine Sophia. It mirrored his often shaky relationship with his wife, Liubov'. His cynicism towards his muse, the "Beautiful Lady," is expressed in the poem, The Stranger. She appears in the form of a diaphonous prostitute who entrances the poem's narrator through his drunken haze. In this poem, the moon, often a celestial symbol of the Muse, "...looks on with a mindless leer." Instead, the narrator sees the path to the eternal spiritual realm in the eyes of the earthly prostitute:


    I gaze through the dark of her lowered veil
    And I behold an enchanted shoreline
    And enchanted distances, far and pale.

    Translations of Blok's poems: To the Muse The Stranger

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    Andrei Belyi

    The early poetry of Andrei Belyi (1880-1934) was also influenced by the mysticism of Vladimir Solovev. He saw the sunset sky as a shimmering curtain between this world and the spiritual realm. Like many of his contemporaries, he incorporated the stories of classical mythology into his poetry. In Belyi's cycle of poems, Gold in Azure, Jason and the Argonauts are sailing to the other side of the setting sun in quest of the golden fleece.

    Bely also introduces the figure of the harelquin into this poetic cycle. The harlequin is the sinister trickster clown from the Italian theatrical tradition of the Commedia dell'arte, which fascinated many poets and playwrites of the early 20th century in Russia. Belyi's good friend, Aleksandr Blok, wrote a play called The Fairground Booth which starred the Commedia caste of Harlequin, Pierrot, and Columbine (the woman who always comes between them). Some critics choose to see the play as a reflection of the relationship between Blok, Belyi, and Blok's wife. Blok may have caste himself in the role of Pierrot, the sad clown. His wife, Columbine, is in love with Harlequin, who may represent Blok's good friend, Belyi, in this case.

    Belyi's portrays the harlequin in Eternal Call, which is a small peotic cycle within Gold in Azure. His image of the harlequin is quite disturbing. Belyi's harlequin is a false Christ preaching the approaching end to the masses. At the beginning of the third verse, in the second poem of Eternal Call, the crowd which has gathered around the narrator laughs "at the insanely-funny false-Christ." The crushing mob of people, the street lamps, the cabs, the "soundless rush of rubber tires" that surround the harlequin all create a harshly prosaic atmosphere which seems foreign to Belyi's verse in "Zoloto v lazuri". The symbolists could express both mystical visions and harsh reality in their verses.

    Translations of Belyi's poems:
    Selections from Gold in Azure
    The Golden Fleece and Sunsets

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    Links to other symbolist poets: