28C: December 28, 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Slot: 28C-1 Dec. 28, 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Panel: Poet, Poetry and Poetics in the 19th
Century
Chair: Kerry Sabbag, University of Kansas
Title: Muse or Anti-muse? The Concept of the
Creative Act in the Poetry of Karolina Pavlova
Author: Olena Chervonik-Bearden, University of
Kansas
The shift from understanding creativity
as skillful mastery of generic conventions to a state of being divinely
inspired was a hallmark of Romanticism in European literature. Accordingly,
poetry on metapoetic subjects such as the nature of inspiration, the essence of
the poet, the nature of the creative act was well represented in the works of
the Romantic poets. Because in the 19th century writing was viewed as a male
occupation that was inappropriate or shameful for women, the concepts
underlying the creative act were drawn from male-oriented discourse. Thus, the
poet was most often conceptualized as a prophet or a priest, the muse as a
submissive female Other, and the creative act as symbolic sexual intercourse.
For obvious reasons such a perception of the creative act was ill-suited for
any female poet who ventured to raise her voice in the male-oriented world of
Romantic poetry.
This paper
analyzes those poems of Karolina Pavlova that describe the creative
process. Building on the research
of scholars such as Mary DeShazer and Diana Greene, I will demonstrate the ways
in which Pavlova reconceptualized the male-oriented understanding of the
creative act. In doing so, I will
place Pavlova’s works in the broader context of the woman poet’s conception of
poetry and the poet, drawing parallels between her writing and that of
Dickinson and Bronte.
All three poets
reversed the traditional male poet-female muse trope, but found that the male
muse overpowered the woman poet, denying her the authority of the creator. The male muse emerges as an
“anti-muse”: not inspiring but questioning the creative power of the woman poet.
My study of the concept of creative inspiration in women’s poetry, with
particular emphasis on Karolina Pavlova, addresses the various ways in which a
woman poet could reinterpret the poet-muse relationship.
Title: “Death of the Citizen” and Iambic
Pentameter in Nekrasov’s Poetry
Author: Viktoriya Kononova, University of
Wisconsin-Madison
In his article on Brodsky, G. Levinton
discusses a specific cycle “death of the poet,” which can be found in Russian
poetry as a whole. Levinton defines the characteristic features of these poems
and gives examples from Lermontov, Pushkin, and the 20th century.
Interestingly, it seems that in the 19th century after Lermontov there is a gap
in the succession of this type of poems. There can be several reasons for this,
and this paper will concentrate on one of these, namely, that the epoch had
other heroes to commemorate – that is, using Nekrasov's opposition, citizens.
This paper will argue that there is a whole cycle “death of the citizen” that can
be singled out in Russian poetry of the second half of the 19th century, the
appearance of which was historically determined. It was forbidden to mention
the names of some of these people, and thus the poems served as “obituaries.”
Nekrasov
contributed most to the appearance of the cycle, writing poems about the deaths
of Belinsky, Dobroljubov, Pisarev, “civic death” of Chernyshevsky, etc. It is
noteworthy that some of these poems seem to form a separate “ensemble,” having
specific intertextuality, tonality, time of creation, and, which is most
important, meter – iambic pentameter. The paper will address this issue in
relation to Mikhail Gasparov’s theory of “semanticheskii oreol.” According to
Gasparov, meters acquire certain thematic and suggestive “auras” in the course
of their historical existence. Thus, this paper will discuss the origins of the
usage of iambic pentameter for the meaning in question and the connection of
Nekrasov’s ensemble to similar poems of some of his precursors, contemporaries
and followers (Benediktov, Palmin etc.).
Finally, the
paper will consider the place of this "ensemble" among the other
Nekrasov's poems written in iambic pentameter, especially its connection to
those about the "weak, struggling and penitent author/poetic persona."
The paper will show how the poem "Poet (Pamjati Shillera)" enabled
Nekrasov to symbolically include himself to the circle of heroes whose
mythology and canon he had already created.
Title: Writing the Plastic Arts: Ekphrasis in
the Poetry of A. A. Fet
Author: Molly Thomasy, University of
Wisconsin-Madison
Ekphrasis, defined by James Heffernan as
“a verbal representation of a visual representation” occurs when a writer uses
language to describe or incorporate a plastic work of art—a painting or
sculpture, for example—into his or her text. Scholarship devoted to the poetry of Afanasii Fet (Bukhstab,
Gustafson, Klenin) identifies visual orientation as a key element in the
aesthetic system of this poet.
However, very little has been written specifically on ekphrasis in Fet’s
oeuvre. In her monograph Crossroad of Arts, Crossroad of Culture, Maria Rubins surveys the importance of
ekphrasis in pre-Acmeist Russian literature, making brief mention of Fet and
his poem dedicated to the Venus De Milo.
However, as this paper will demonstrate, Fet’s treatment of painting and
sculpture in the more than ten works of ekphrasis he produced—inspired by such
works as Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, Briullov’s “Diana, Endymion and Satyr,” and
Vitali’s bust of Pushkin—is quite varied and complex.
The present
study traces the development of Fet’s ekphrastic poetry, examining the manner
in which the poet renders several works of painting, sculpture and photography
in poetic form. In particular, I
will consider the spatial and temporal poetics of these works, as well as the
orientation of the lyrical speaker to the figures or events depicted in the
original work of art. The aim of
this study is to gain a fuller understanding of Fet’s aesthetic approach to the
plastic arts, but also to demonstrate subtle changes in the poet’s aesthetic
philosophy. Referencing Gotthold
Ephraim Lessing’s seminal work of art criticism, Laocoon: An Essay on the
Limits of Painting and Poetry
(1766), I will argue that over time, Fet developed a perspicacious awareness of
the limitations of poetic expression compared to the expressive powers of the
fine arts.