Poetics of the northern space in poems by А. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky

Abstract

The relevance of the topic is dictated by the fact that the problem of the northern space in the poems by A. A. Bestuzhev, written during the period of exile in Yakutsk, has almost not been considered. The subject of interest of researchers, both Yakut and Russian, has become the prose works and lyric-epic poems of the writer. Meanwhile, it is the small forms of the Decembrist poet’s lyrics that demonstrate the beginning of the formation of the sacred image of Yakutia in Russian literature. The purpose of the article is to consider the poetics of the northern space in the poems by A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky. The northern locus becomes the spatial point at which the lyrical hero opens up the prospect of mythological otherness. A textual analysis for the purpose of studying the poetics of’ lyrics by A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky allows us to write out a system of images in the author’s artistic picture of the world, which are determined both by the worldview and the worldview of the romantic poet. The poet uses a variety of techniques as tools for creating a system of images: from tropes to the author’s words. The specific combination of the categories of time and space, subordinated to the main motives of the author’s poetic works, is also of considerable importance. This work examines not only how the means of artistic expression convey a picture of the poetic world of the lyrical hero, but also form the attribution of northern spaces. Northern spaces, through the prism of romanticism, represent an ideal situation in which the category of home is most often conveyed through the categories of memories or dreams. It is through the contrast of the topoi of the house and the North that the final picture of the surrounding world is built, within which the lyrical hero finds himself. Also in the poet’s artistic world, one can trace the difference between external (real) and internal (perceptual) space. However, in this case, the space of reality often merges with the pictures of introspection, blurring the boundaries between the external and the internal. Associations that endow the ideal inner world of the lyrical hero with real pictures of nature (the space of the North) perform the function of achieving harmony between the internal and external spaces.