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Idealism and Decadence in Russian Symbolist Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Evelyn Bristol
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Extract

Statements of doctrine by Symbolists both in France and in Russia indicate that the literary movement was based on a form of philosophical idealism, often Neo-Platonism. But its theoreticians were silent about the decadent themes which appear in Symbolist poetry. Symbolists liked to represent themselves as attuned to the ineffable—or if mystics, to the divine—but their works reveal an inclination to philosophical pessimism and other forms of melancholia. Indeed, a tension between belief and cynicism can be noted in their works which resembles, and sometimes overlaps with, a juxtaposition of good and evil. Among the French, Charles Baudelaire called the opening section of Les Fleurs du mal (1857) “Spleen et Idáal.” Paul Verlaine dedicated his collections of verse alternately to Christian ideals of purity, as in Sagesse (1881), and to self-indulgent bohemianism, as in Parallélement (1889). Stáphane Mallarmá's satyr in “L'Apràs-midi d'un faune” (1876) is the emblematic representative of amorality brought to glimpse the world of Platonic Ideas. And Joris-Karl Huysmans's archdecadent hero, des Esseintes, exhausted himself in sensual delights before being brought near to a Catholic conversion.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , June 1980 , pp. 269 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1980

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References

1. Charles, Baudelaire, “Théophile Gautier,” Oenvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1966, p. 686.Google Scholar

2. Probably the single poem “Correspondences,” in which nature is pictured as a “forêt des symboles,” did more to codify Swedenborg's central idea as a part of the new current in its initial stages than did any essay by Baudelaire.

3. The poem is programmatically entitled “Art poétique” in Paul Verlaine, Oeuvres poétiques complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1968), p. 326.

4. Mallarmé, Stéphane, “Crise de vers,” Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1965, p. 368.Google Scholar

5. See Mallarmé, “Ballets,” in ibid., p. 306.

6. Bowra wrote of “those poetical activities which are variously known as Symbolist and Decadent” in Bowra, C. M., The Heritage of Symbolism (London: Macmillan, 1951, p. 1.Google Scholar Western literary historians have generally not tended to distinguish between Symbolism and decadence as literary movements (see Kenneth, Cornell, The Symbolist Movement [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951]Google Scholar; Lehmann, A. G., The Symbolist Aesthetic in France 1885-1895 [Oxford: Blackwell, 1950]Google Scholar; and Anna, Balakian, The Symbolist Movement. A Critical Appraisal [New York: Random House, 1967]).Google Scholar

7. A study of the transmission of Symbolism to Russia and of similarities to poets of the French school can be found in Georgette, Donchin, The Influence of French Symbolism on Russian Poetry (The Hague: Mouton, 1958 Google Scholar. Victor Erlich's article on Briusov and Blok, “The Maker and the Seer: Two Russian Symbolists,” in Victor, Erlich, The Double Image: Concepts of the Poet in Slavic Literatures (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1964)Google Scholar, is a wider study of the moral implications of the differing versions of the Symbolist aesthetic exemplified by the two poets. Johannes Holthusen's Studien sur Ǎsthetik urid Poetik des russischen Symbolismus (Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 1957) is an early general record of the Symbolists’ theoretical pronouncements and technical practice.

8. The title of Volynskii, A. L.'s book, Bor'ba sa idealism: Kriticheskie stafi (St. Petersburg, 1900)Google Scholar, is indicative of their aspirations.

9. Fedor, Sologub, Stikhi, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg, 1896)Google Scholar ; Fedor, Sologub, Rasskazy istikhi, vol. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1896)Google Scholar.

10. Bal'mont, K. D., Stikhotvoreniia, Biblioteka poeta, Bol'shaia seriia, 2nd ed. (Leningrad, 1969), p. 79.Google Scholar

11. Recent surveys of Bal'mont's poetry include V. N. Orlov's introduction to K. D. Bal'mont, Stikhotvoreniia; and Hildegard Schneider's study of his metaphors in Hildegard, Schneider, Der Frühe Bal'mont (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1970.Google Scholar

12. A valuable early study of Briusov is Tynianov's article “Valerii Briusov,” in Iurii, Tynianov, Arkhaisty i novatory, reprint of Leningrad 1929 edition (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1967, pp. 521–40 Google Scholar. Subsequent accounts of Briusov's life and works include the following: Mochul'skii, K., Valerii Briusov (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1962)Google Scholar ; D., Maksimov, Briusov: Poeziia i pozitsiia (Leningrad, 1969)Google Scholar ; Burlakov, N. S., Valerii Briusov: Ochcrk tvorchestva (Moscow, 1975)Google Scholar ; and Rice, Martin P., Valery Briusov and the Rise of Russian Symbolism (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1975.Google Scholar

13. Fedor, Sologub, Stikhotvoreniia, Biblioteka poeta, Bol'shaia seriia, 2nd ed. (Leningrad, 1975), p. 161.Google Scholar

14. The centrality of idealism for all of Sologub's work was shown by Johannes Holthusen in Fedor Sologubs Roman-Trilogie (Tvorimaja legenda) (The Hague: Mouton, 1960). Surveys of his poetry can be found in Evelyn, Bristol, “Fedor Sologub as Lyric Poet,” Russian Revieiv, 30, no. 3 (July 1971): 268–76 Google Scholar; and in M. I. Dikman's introduction to Fedor Sologub, Stikhotvoreniia.

15. Zinaida, Gippius, Sobranie stikhov, 1889-1903 (Moscow, 1904)Google Scholar. Gippius's Christian idealism is the subject of a study by Temira, Pachmuss, Zinaida Hippius: An Intellectual Profile (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971.Google Scholar

16. Gippius, Sobranie stikhov, p. 33.

17. Valerii, Briusov, “Kliuchi tain,” Vesy, 1904, no. 1, p. 20.Google Scholar

18. A survey of Ivanov's poetry was made by Carin Tschöpl in Vjačeslav Ivanov: Dichtung und Dichtungstheorie (Munich: Otto Sagner, 1968). His theory is surveyed in James West, Russian Symbolism: A Study of Vyacheslav Ivanov and the Russian Symbolist Aesthetic (London: Methuen, 1970). A study of poetry and aesthetics together appears in Susan Olson, “The View of Man in the Poetry of Vjačeslav Ivanov” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 1976).

19. Viacheslav, Ivanov, Prozrachnost': Vtoraia kniga liriki (Moscow, 1904), p. 157.Google Scholar

20. Belyi's life and works are surveyed by Oleg Maslenikov in The Frenzied Poets: Andrey Biely and the Russian Symbolists (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1952; and by K. Mochul'skii in Andrei Belyi (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1955). A history of his writing and publication appears as an introduction in John Malmstad, “The Poetry of Andrej Belyj: A Variorum Edition” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1968). A recent survey of the works is Boris Christa's The Poetic World of Andrey Bely (Amsterdam, 1977). Gerald, Janecek, ed., Andrey Bcly: A Critical Review (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1978 Google Scholar, is the record of a recent symposium.

21. Recent general studies include the following: Mochul'skii, K., Aleksandr Blok (Paris: YMCA-Press, 1948)Google Scholar ; Helen, Muchnic, “Alexander Blok,” From Gorky to Pasternak: Six Writers in Soinet Russia (New York: Random House, 1961, pp. 104–84 Google Scholar: Reeve, F. D., Aleksandr Blok: Between Image and Idea (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1962)Google Scholar ; Lidiia, Ginzburg, “Nasledie i otkrytiia,” O lirikc, 2nd ed. (Leningrad, 1974), p. 245–310.Google Scholar

22. Aleksandr, Blok, “O sovremennom sostoianii russkogo simvolizma,” Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 5 (Moscow and Leningrad, 1960), pp. 429–30;Google Scholar emphasis in original.

23. Andrei, Belyi, “Druz'iam,” Stikhotvoreniia i poemy, Biblioteka poeta, Bol'shaia seriia (Moscow and Leningrad, 1966), p. Leningrad.Google Scholar

24. Valerii, Briusov, “Kon’ bled,” Stikhotvoreniia i poemy, Biblioteka poeta, Bol'shaia seriia, 2nd ed. (Leningrad, 1961), p. 284.Google Scholar

25. Viacheslav, Ivanov, “Poet i chern1,” Po zvezdam (St. Petersburg, 1909), p. 41.Google Scholar

26. Andrei, Belyi, “Apokalipsis v russkoi poezii,” Lug zelenyi: Kniga statei (Moscow, 1910), p. 222–47.Google Scholar

27. Aleksandr, Blok, “Na pole Kulikovom,” Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 3 (Moscow and Leningrad, 1960), p. Leningrad.Google Scholar

28. While reserving for “decadence” other, if related, meanings, Vladimir Markov has shown that the current survived Symbolism, precisely in the works of the Futurists and Imaginists (see Vladimir, Markov, “K voprosu o granitsakh dekadansa v russkoi poezii [i o liricheskoi poeme],” in Terras, Victor, ed., American Contributions to the Eighth International Congress of Slavists, vol. 2 [Columbus, Ohio: Slavica, 1978], pp. 485–98).Google Scholar