Mиф о Протесилае и Лаодамии в рецепции символистов

Abstract

Symbolists made ancient myth similar to the symbol because, unlike Richard Wagner, they ascribed many meanings to it. Myth provided fixed points of reference yet at the same time, like any “ open text,” allowed the representation of new creative thinking. In their theoretical treatises Andrej Belyj, Vjačeslav Ivanov, Valerij Brjusov gave a rationale to the Symbolists’ turn to myth “as the core of the symbolic understanding of life” (Vjač. Ivanov). Brjusov’s Notes about Tragedy, found in the poet’s archive, interpreted Aristotle’s Poetics, yet allow us to understand the structure of his own tragedy. A comparative analysis of Annenskij’s Laodamia, Sologub’s Gift of the Wise Bees and Brjusov’s Protesilaus Dead allows us to confirm that the new tragedies embody a modernist aesthetic model. The reception of ancient myth and its literary variations reflects the neomythological mind of modernism.