O. Mandelstam’s reference to Dante in The Fourth Prose [Chetvyortaya proza] and Journey to Armenia [Puteshestvie v Armeniyu

Abstract

The article explores Mandelstam’s reception of Dante’s poetic legacy manifested in the former’s books from the late 1920s – early 1930s: The Fourth Prose [ Chetvyortaya proza ] (late 1929 – early 1930) and Journey to Armenia [ Puteshestvie v Armeniyu ] (1931). In The Fourth Prose , Mandelstam turns to Dante again after a three-year break, his new book an epitome of his profound fascination with the Florentine poet. In her examination of the poetic references to the Divine Comedy in The Fourth Prose , the author points out what she believes is a deliberate inaccuracy in Mandelstam’s allusion to the Comedy’s first line and hypothesizes on the reasons for the misquotation. Her analysis and interpretation of Dante allusions in Journey to Armenia focus on the context of such quotations: namely, the biological metaphors, in which Dante’s imagery looks natural. Also the author discusses the reasons for Dante’s image to converge with that of Lamarck in Journey to Armenia , for which purpose she considers Mandelstam’s other works from the same period.