Reading Suicide: Tsvetaeva on Esenin and Maiakovskii

Abstract

Мне кажется, смерть художника не следует выключать из цепи еґо творческих достижений, а рассматривать как последнее заключительное звено.Osip Mandel’ shtamThe death of a poet is a theme Marina Tsvetaeva addressed frequently both in poetry and in prose. The list of poets whose deaths underwent Tsvetaeva’s artistic scrutiny is varied and includes Aleksandr Pushkin, Aleksandr Blok, Sergei Esenin, Rainer Maria Rilke, Vladimir Maiakovskii, Maksimilian Voloshin, Andrei Belyi, and Nikolai Gronskii. A number of notable lyric cycles and some of Tsvetaeva’s finest prose essays emerged as homage to deceased poets. The function of these works extends beyond commemoration and entails the elaboration of Tsvetaeva’s definition of lyric poetry and her exploration of poetic responsibility.