Reflections on Osip Mandelstam’s Poem Erected on a Wet Stone … (1909)

Occupation: Professor
Affiliation: Institute of Asian and African Countries of the Lomonosov Moscow State University
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow

Journal name

Izvestiia Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. Seriia literatury i iazyka

Edition

Volume 82 Issue 5

Pages

15-21

Abstract

The poem “Erected on a wet stone …” was sent in the Autumn of 1909 first to Max Voloshin and them to Vyacheslav Ivanov and is part of “poems in letters” which were only published in the second half of 20^th century. The central theme of the poem is the juxtaposition of love and death. Cupid finds himself standing on a tombstone (“green moss and wet stone”) and being surprised by what he discovers tries to avenge on death through love (“illegal flame of the heart”). The poetics of the poem represents another step in the development of Mandelstam’s inherent technique of subtexts and contexts. The “mentioning keys&8j1; here are combinations of nouns with uncommon adjectives (“illegal flame&8j1;, “naive valleys&8j1;, etc.), as well as pairs of rhymes: “nagoi – nogoi” (naked – foot), “kamen – plamen” (stone – flame), “grubiy – gubi” (rough – lips). The subtexts of the poem might be read on two levels, so that the motifs of classical poetry shine through the symbolist associations, linking together the poetry of the Russian Golden and Silver Ages. The key image of Cupid for the poem (the only context in the author's poetry) has, apparently, a literary origin.

Keywords

Max Voloshin, Mikhail Gasparov, “poems in letters”, Cupid, “keyboard of subtexts”, Heidelberg, Fyodor Tyutchev, Paul Verlaine

Received

22.01.2024

Publication date

29.01.2024

Number of characters

22656

Cite

GOST	Frolov D. Reflections on Osip Mandelstam’s Poem “Erected on a Wet Stone …” (1909) // Izvestiia Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. Seriia literatury i iazyka – 2024. – V. 82. – Issue 5 C. 15-21 [Electronic resource]. URL: https://izv-oifn.ru/S160578800028323-1-1 (circulation date: 20.05.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S160578800028323-1
MLA	Frolov, Dmitry V. "Reflections on Osip Mandelstam’s Poem “Erected on a Wet Stone …” (1909)." Izvestiia Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. Seriia literatury i iazyka 82.5 (2024):15-21. DOI: 10.31857/S160578800028323-1
APA	Frolov D. (2024). Reflections on Osip Mandelstam’s Poem “Erected on a Wet Stone …” (1909). Izvestiia Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. Seriia literatury i iazyka 82(5), pp.15-21 DOI: 10.31857/S160578800028323-1

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