Tag Archives: Pushkin

A New Pushkin?

Pushkin’s The Snowstorm shows us a completely different side of Pushkin, than what we’ve previously seen. In reading works like “Echo”, “Sing not, my love…”, “Autumn,” and “The Hills of Georgia,” we gained an appreciation for Pushkin’s ability to find beauty in every-day imagery. I perceived him as a very classically romantic poet. However, now as we read The Snowstorm, Pushkin seems like an unfamiliar and different writer altogether: a comedian!

To me it seems that Pushkin colors The Snowstorm in a comical way, through the narrator’s sarcasm, and through the inconsistent passage of time through the piece.  (Although it’s possible that I read the whole story in the wrong tone,) I got the sense that the narrator himself leads us to ridicule some of the story line. In the very first paragraph, he chooses to carry us down a logical, yet silly progression, beginning with Gavrila Gavrilobich R—-, then jumping to his “kindheartedness”, to the neighbors who “play ‘Boston’ at five copecks with his wife”, and finally to the true protagonist of the story Marya Gavrilovna.  She “had been brought up on French novels, and consequently was in love” (488). This odd progression to  to an introduction to Marya’s love (the centerpiece of the plot), seems to poke fun, both at the French novels, and perhaps even at the legitimacy of Marya’s love. As he carries on, the narrator still presents Masha’s love in such a way that we are (or at least I am) not fully convinced about her true commitment to him. She “urged the invincible strength of passion as an excuse for the step she was taking” in her letter to her parents. An “excuse” is far from a reason!

The other thing that I found odd, and thus took as a sort of humor, was the varying passage of time. There is the jump from focusing on Masha to Vladimir, which is key to the story’s ultimate “punchline.” However, beyond that, some passages are in real-time, while others jump from 2 weeks to multiple years. These sudden jumps seemed disjointed and thus, comical to me. It seems like Pushkin takes on a completely different writing style, through the use of this narrator character.

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A completely different topic that I would talk more about with space: the difference in the “use” of snow across the different works today. In this work, the snow storm is like a blank page itself, which enables a completely unexpected storyline to take place.

Repetition of Stanza and Repetition of Line: One Rhetorical Technique that Yields Two Interpretations of Romantic Poetry

In this week’s short poems “Sing Not, My Love,” by Alexander Pushkin and “Farewell to Russia” by Mikhail Lermontov, I took note of stanza and line repetitions, both of which contribute to a recursive, and almost nostalgic, perspective on each author’s life during their periods of exilement. To begin with some background from earlier class discussions: both of these authors had dominated the Russian literature produced in the mid 19th century. Their contributions to lyric poetry during the literary era of Russian Romanticism remain as some of the most significant additions to recorded Russian poetry (Gillespie). I found that a large component of Russian Romanticism revolves around nostalgia for the past. This “longing for the past” is expressed not only through the subject matter of these two poems— which references old Russia whilst written from exile—but is also expressed through form—whether that be the repetition of entire stanzas, or the couplet repetition evident in Lermontov’s “Farewell to Russia.”

 

To begin, the most prevalent stylistic choice utilized by Alexander Pushkin in “Sing Not, My Love,” is his entire duplication of the first stanza at the end of the poem, in which he expresses a sadness and distance from the memories of his childhood. Note that Pushkin begins this lyrical poem with a rejection of his childhood memories, symbolically represented as “Georgia’s songs” (Pushkin 1). His memories from his youth from the small southern province Georgia become encapsulated and represented by a channel of mixed emotions that possess a “mournful grace” (6). These memories harbor the fondness of his early years all while reminding him of his loss, specifically the “poor maiden’s face,” which we later learn is a “reference to Maria Raevskaya,” one of Pushkin’s first loves who had “followed her husband to Siberia when he was exiled” (129). I find it interesting that Pushkin invokes this historical character that followed her husband, Prince Sergey Volkonsky, who had been previously exiled to Serbia before Pushkin. The main difference between Volkonsky’s exile and Pushkin’s is that Volkonsky was trailed by the same lover that Pushkin had lost year’s prior. This detail, along with the repetition of the entire first stanza leads me to believe that Pushkin remains unresolved regarding his exile. He rejects the recognition of his old life, as it is no longer attainable nor pleasant for him. His lover most distinctly has chosen a different man who had inexcusably similar circumstances to Pushkin. What is most interesting is that this reference is closely followed by the aforementioned repeated stanza, as if the initial and ultimate presence of this stanza bounds Pushkin into isolation, leaving him handcuffed to the “haunting force—“ the recursive and seemingly eternal sentence to Siberia (11,12). The resolve of this stanza is rhythmically pleasing, precise, and accurate: it seems almost natural that instead of thinking forward, or looking back to his past childhood, he should remain both symbolically and physically entrapped between not only the bookends of repeated stanzas, but also the between the isolating forests of his Siberian exilement.

 

Furthermore, I found a similar stylistic choice utilized by Mikhail Lermontov in his “Farewell to Russia,” produced in 1840, which was promptly before his second exile (Manuylov, V.A. The Life of Lermontov). This shorter poem features a resolved narrator who begins with a quatrain referencing negative characteristics of Russia, calling it the “land of the masters— “the land of the unwashed” (Lermontov 2,1). Unlike Pushkin, Lermontov does not look nostalgically towards the past: he instead calls his very Russian’s “cringing slaves,” clearly rejecting them (4). Also, notice the clear sense of direction in Lermontov’s narrative. Instead of remaining encapsulated by a mix of mourning and rejection as does Pushkin in “Sing Not, My Love,” Lermontov hopefully lists his wishes for his exile: “peace[ful]” skies, and distance from “tsars” and “everspying eyes”(7,8). His clear and assured direction in thought is supported by the emphatic usage of couplet repetition in each adjacent phrase: “Land of…”, “You…”, and “Far from” (1-2,3-4, 7-8). Each of these repetitions reference a strong sense of movement away from “unwashed Russia, and towards the “peace beneath Caucasian skies” (6). Finally, I find it very interesting that this poem precedes Lermontov’s second exile from Russia, and within this poem, Lermontov utilizes duple line repetition in order to emphasize direction of thought. It is arguable that this is a clear reference between style and meaning; I think it is safe to at least presume that with an experience of previous exilement, this line repetition could perhaps just represent his sureness to move on from his contentious Russian past.

 

In sum, I think that both of these poems, each by Pushkin and Lermontov, represent how different uses of rhetorical style can offer various interpretations of each poem’s relationship with exilement and nostalgia for the past. In my analysis, Pushkin’s repetition of a stanza informs my assumptions that Pushkin had perhaps felt entrapped by his exile and his isolation form society. His style seems to reflect both a physical and emotional isolation from both his past childhood and his future aspirations. Meanwhile, Lermontov’s anaphoric repetition at the beginning of each two lines in his “ Farewell to Russia” functions as an emphatic and resolute method to dismiss his past and move towards his future exile. Lermontov’s strong rhetorical technique establishes a strong sense of direction to which he envisions a peace in isolation. Thus, even though both of these lyric poems regard Romanticism, including its themes of nostalgia, each poem utilizes various repetitive styles, which inform various interpretations of each author’s perspective on exile.

One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure

A major theme that emerges from the readings this week is the idea of the Russian peripheries as distant lands filled with misunderstood and unappreciated natural purity. Tolstoy’s The Cossacks most strikingly reveals this through Olenin’s journey to the Caucasus mountains and his gradual attitude shift towards life in the empire’s periphery. Olenin’s friends initially question his decision to go to the Caucasus, saying that they themselves “wouldn’t do it for anything,” which reveals the important perspective the city dwellers have on these distant lands (7). While Moscow society is preoccupied with establishing one’s social status and speaking French, the periphery is viewed as undesirable (8). Olenin to some extent still embodies these characteristics at the start of his journey, as upon viewing the mountains for the first time he comments that “he could not find anything attractive in the spectacle of the mountains of which he had read and heard so much” (15). This is in line with Moscow society’s blasé attitude towards the periphery; however, Olenin’s attitude quickly changes the next day when he clearly sees the “enormous, pure white masses with their delicate contours, [as if it were an] apparition” (15-16). This marks a turning point for Olenin, where he starts to reject his city ways and embrace what the periphery has to offer.

Olenin’s embrace of natural purity makes him “quite a different man,” as he turns over a new leaf and adopts the Circassian way of life (48). Through his immersion in the majestic nature of the Caucasus mountains, he is reborn with more vigor than he ever had while living in Moscow (52). Olenin’s transformation critiques Moscow society while at the same time extols the splendor of the empire’s periphery that goes unappreciated by many. The Caucasus mountains serve as a physical, cultural, and societal escape from the Russian interior that Tolstoy brings to light through Olenin’s embrace of the land and its people.

Pushkin’s poem, Farewell to Russia, also touches on the interior peoples’ perspectives of distant Russian lands. What is most surprising by this poem is narrator’s mention of his “exile… beneath the Caucasian skies,” as it highlights how the Russian authority punishing him obviously viewed the Caucasus region as a vile punishment (5-6). The narrator, on the other hand, is greatly pleased to escape the undesirable conditions of the interior, which further emphasizes the varying interior perspectives of the periphery. To conclude, one question I have is whether those in the interior considered the empire’s periphery part of Russia, or more as foreign non-Russian regions?

Autumn the New Spring?

Pushkin’s poem “Autumn (A Fragment),” examines human attitudes toward seasons by rejecting common characteristics associated with them. One aspect of particular interest is the narrators apparent disdain for spring. In the second stanza, the narrator describes himself as “bored with nature’s thaw” and rendered “ill” by the advent of spring (10-11). While spring is commonly associated with ideas of rebirth, youth, and vitality, the narrator rejects this notion and instead assigns these characteristics to other seasons. In the eighth stanza, for example, the narrator describes how with the return of autumn he is “young again… and full of life once more,” which is in stark contrast to the traditional thought of autumn as the final chapter in the natural lifecycle before the dead of winter (62-63).

In the ninth and tenth stanzas, the narrator again plays with traditional seasonal characteristics by describing his intellectual creations in relation to agricultural production. By late autumn and early winter, he describes how he is allowed to “nourish in [his] soul[‘s] expansive dreams” and “bring forth at last the fruit of free creation… the harvest of [his] dreams” (71,78,80). Pushkin’s use of “fruit” and “harvest” allude directly to agriculture and bounty from the land, but it is to some extent surprising that he uses these words while describing creation during late fall and winter, when the agricultural harvest has long passed.

While these terms create a stronger bond between intellectual creation and products of the natural environment, the narrator points to the rift between humans and the natural environment not only by the seasonal misalignment of when intellectual vs agricultural harvest occurs, but also through a comparison to other natural occurrences. In the third stanza, the narrator asserts that “[t]he bear himself must hate so long a sojourn in a cooped-up place,” which presents itself in contrast to the narrator’s love for both autumn and winter (21-22). As the natural environment’s vitality begins to wane throughout autumn and winter (exemplified by the bear going into hibernation), the narrator to the contrary becomes invigorated and reaps the products of his intellect. The narrator may simply be describing the attitude of a writer who relishes in the calmness of autumn and winter, but his view of the natural environment through the seasons may reveal what the writer sees in the environment that the common person fails to see.