Symbolism: the use of symbols to represent ideas, people, things, etc - 4J Blog ...

symbolism: the use of
symbols to represent ideas,
   people, things, etc.

Symbolism:
    th
a 19 C. artistic movement

France, 1857:
Publication of
Charles
Baudelaire’s Les
fleurs du mal
(Flowers of Evil)

Baudelaire sparked a dark, neo-Roman3c
movement in French poetry, influencing poets
like Mallarme and Valery. This movement is
some3mes referred to as the French Decadent
movement.

He was also censored and condemned for what
some deemed obscenity in his poetry.

The French Symbolist movement influenced
ar3sts throughout Europe.

In Russia, a Russian Symbolist movement
centered in St. Petersburg flourished at the end
of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

Russian Symbolist poetry is characterized by
  •Mys3cism: cosmic consciousness, prophecy,
  secret knowledge, dreams; the “eternal
  feminine/divine wisdom/Divine Sophia”
  •Obscure allusions to mythology and history;
  •Arcane vocabulary;
  •The horror of modern reality contrasted
  with pure visions of an ideal world;
  •Experimental poe3c forms; musicality;
  •Rejec3on of realism and embrace of
  intui3on…

Aleksandr Blok

There’s a morn demon. He’s of gauze and light,
The happy one – with golden hair.
Like skies, is blue his tunic’s airy flood,
All – in a play of brilliants, fair.

But like through azures some3mes look dark nights,
Thus through his face some3mes looks something horrid,
Something dark-red – through his curls’ shining gold,
Through his so[ voice – forgo\en tempests’ blasts.

Aleksandr Blok, 1914
Tr. Yevgeny Bonver

Flaming signs of the mystery grow
On the wall, that is solid and grim,
And the tulips of purple and gold
All the night hang o’er me in my dream.

 I hide self in the caves’ dark and coldness,
Loose remembrance of miracles, past,
At a sunrise, the vast bluish monsters
Look at me from the heaven’s bright glass.

I run back to the past’s early edges;
Full of fear, I close my eyes,
On the cooling book’s whitening pages,
Gold of maiden’s plait fatally lies.

The sky’s firmament’s lower here
The black dream strongly squeezes my breast.
My life’s fatal end’s u\erly near –
And a war and a fire come next.

Aleksandr Blok, 1902      Tr. Yevgeny Bonver

The Symbolists were
                          super-duper
                          important in Russian
                          poetry in the early
                          20th C., but only Blok
                          is read much now.
Andrei
Bely

                                                   Aleksandr
                                                   Blok

         Valery Bryusov

As you might imagine, people got 3red of
arcane, obscure poetry that only the writers
and their closest friends could understand. A
new movement, influenced by Symbolism
but also reac3ng against it, began to emerge.

ACMEISM…a new literary movement, brief
but influen3al

From “akme,” Greek for “the highest,”
“pinnacle,” “perfec3on.”

Ideals: Clarity of expression and
compactness of form
Favored Apollonian calm over the Dionysian
frenzy of Symbolism

Acmeist aim, according to a manifesto by
Acmeist poet Osip Mandelstam:

“DIRECT EXPRESSION THROUGH IMAGES”

This 3ed the Acmeists closely to English-
speaking poets like Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell,
who were collec3vely known as Imagist poets.
Acmeism can be seen as a Russian form of
Imagism.

The Acmeist movement was
founded by two men, Nikolay
Gumilyev and Sergei Gorodetsky.

Forget Gorodetsky—history
pre\y much has. Gumilyev you
should remember. He was the
son of a naval physician—a
member of the literate middle
class—and was well educated
(though not par3cularly studious
in school) and well traveled.

You’ll hear more about Gumilyev later, but for now, it’s most important to know
that in 1910 he married a young woman named Anna Gorenko, whom he had
met five or more years earlier. Anna Gorenko, publishing under the name Anna
Akhmatova, would ul3mately far surpass her husband’s fame as a poet.

Acmeist poets had their own magazine, the “Apollon,” and hung out at a smoky, noisy
basement cabaret in St. Petersburg called the “Stray Dog.” Akhmatova’s poem “We’re
All Drunkards Here” seems to take place at the Stray Dog (see page 21 of your packet).

They may have been living a rakish,
bohemian life, but these poets and
ar3sts were members of an elite
intelligentsia drawn from the lower
aristocracy and wealthy middle class.
The overall literacy rate in Russia was
about 30% in 1897. For women, it was
lower—22% overall (13% for rural
women)*.

Nonetheless, the Russian Empire was
huge (1897 pop. 125,640,021, vs. US
pop around 75 million and French pop
of 38 million), so there were millions
of literate women—and they were
eager for something new.

Mironov, Boris N. “The Development of Literacy in Russia
and the USSR from the Tenth to the Twen3eth Centuries.”
History of Educa3on Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 2, 1991, pp.
229–252. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/368437.

“Silver Age”
• The period from about 1890 un3l around the
  beginning of World War I is known as the
  “Silver Age” of Russian literature. (The
  “Golden Age” would be the 3me of Pushkin—
  though that term isn’t really used much.)

Anna Akhmatova
Born Anna Andreyevna
Gorenko in 1889. Her
father didn’t want her to
sully the “respectable”
name Gorenko by
publishing poetry under
that name. She chose to
publish under her
grandmother’s Tatar
name, Akhmatova. (She
also had an ancestor
named Akhmat who was
said to be descended from
Genghis Khan.)

Akhmatova became
famous not only
because of her poetry,
but as a personality.
She was painted by
famous ar3sts
(including Modigliani)
and counted great
writers and poets
among her friends and
admirers.

Akhmatova painted by
Modigliani

Akhmatova’s Silver Age
poetry is characterized by
roman3c themes;
melancholy; clear imagery;
and a strong feminine
voice. It inspired
thousands of women to
write poems imita3ng her
style. (Akhmatova didn’t
think much of their efforts
—she said “I taught our
women how to speak, but
don’t know how to make
them silent.”)

Akhmatova painted by Olga della-Vos-
Kardovskaia

(ARE YOU PUTTING DATES IN YOUR
TIMELINE?)

Anna Akhmatova

(Anna
Andreyevna
Gorenko)

born 1889

died 1966

Family: Descended from Russian
nobility; upper middle class at time of
Anna’s birth (her father was a naval
engineer)

Anna was proud of her family
heritage and intrigued by stories of
an ancestor who was said to be
descended from Genghis Khan.

Anna started writing poetry at age 11.
Her father did not want poetry published
under the family name, so in her teens she
chose a pseudonym…

             Anna Akhmatova

She chose the Tatar-sounding “Akhmatova,”
her grandmother’s name.

In 1910, Akhmatova
married the poet
Nikolay Gumilyev.

Gumilyev had courted
her for years, first
proposing marriage in
1905.

In 1912,
their son
Lev
Gumilyov
was born.

Akhmatova’s marriage to Gumilyev was
complicated and unhappy. They divorced
in 1918 and Akhmatova married Vladimir
Shilejko…and was involved with other
men.

Throughout this time, Akhmatova was
writing poetry.

One of her poetic influences was…

Alexander
Pushkin
(1799-1837)

Pushkin is
considered the
father of Russian
literature and the
greatest of all
Russian poets.

Pushkin lived in Tsarskoe Selo, or Tsar s
Town, a town near St. Petersburg where
the imperial family and nobility had palaces
and summer homes. An important
  Lyceum, or high school, was also located
in Tsarskoe Selo, and Pushkin studied there.

 Akhmatova grew up in Tsarskoe Selo (and
in Kiev, a[er her parents separa3on).

Palace at Tsarskoe Selo

Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum

NARRATOR: Who is the speaker of the poem? How do you
know who it is?
CHARACTERS: Are there other characters? If so, who are
they?
SITUATION: What situation does the poem describe? What
has happened or is happening in the poem?
ATMOSPHERE: What is the emotional atmosphere of the
poem, and how is that atmosphere created?
IMAGERY: What specific imagery do you notice, and how
does it contribute to the mood of the poem?