Bedside with the Symbolist Hero: Blok in Mandel'shtam's “Pust' v dushnoi komnate”

Abstract

In the formation of postsymbolist poetic movements in Russia and in the development of Osip Mandel'shtam's poetics in particular, 1912 was a pivotal year. In this article, a close analysis and establishing of the subtexts and biographical context of Mandel'shtam's highly cryptic poem, “Pust’ v dushnoi komnate, gde kloch'ia seroi vaty” (1912), illuminates a key moment in the process of Mandel'shtam's overcoming of symbolism. Through a deflation of the tragic pose of Aleksandr Blok's lyric hero, Mandel'shtam frees his own poetics from the shadow of Blok's powerful and charismatic lyric voice. This diminishing of Blok is accomplished through the collision of past and present, narrative and subtext, literary myth and biographical anecdote. Mandel'shtam's struggle with Blok is both unique and illustrative of the more universal dilemma that confronted his generation as it strove to wrest itself from the suffocating “bosom“ of symbolism.