Navigium amoris and an Encounter in Mikhailovskoe (Pushkin—Zhukovsky—Florian—Cervantes)

Abstract

Abstract: It is well known that Pushkin's "Ia pomniu chudnoe mgnoven´e…" ("I remember a wondrous moment…," 1825) exploits recognizable motifs from Zhukovsky's "Ia Muzu iunuiu, byvalo…" ("I used to meet the youthful Muse…," 1824). This article shows that the two poems share a lyrical plot that emerged in Zhukovsky's work twenty years earlier. Almost all the relevant elements are found in his "Lad´eiu legkoi upravliaia…" ("Steering a light boat…," 1804), one of the poems in his translation of Don Quixote , which he made from Florian's French version of Cervantes's novel. The key motif of the resurrection of the past, which forms the nucleus of "Ia pomniu…" and "Ia Muzu…," is not present in Don Luis's ballad from Don Quixote , "Marinero soy de amor…"—it resulted from a chain of step-by-step transformations of its final quatrain. Despite all the metamorphoses, the proto-source of Russia's best-known love elegy was a Spanish ballad ( romance ), even though the initial metaphor of sailing across the sea of love led by a guiding star was eventually lost.