The Black Sun: Orphic Imagery in the Poetry of Osip Mandelstam

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The black sun is one of most striking images in Mandelstam's poetry. It is identified as an symbol by Kiril Taranovsky, but only casually, in a chapter entitled Bees and Wasps: Mandel'stam and Vjaceslav Ivanov (87), with reference to a poem by Ivanov1 and no mention of black sun image in Mandelstam.2 Iu. P. Ivask, in an introductory essay to third volume of Mandelstam's Collected Works3 mentions that black sun image is found in Gerard de Nerval's sonnet El Desdichado, and observes that this is hardly a coincidence, as the entire poetics of Mandelstam is akin to Nerval, though it has not been proven that former had read latter (3: xi). Gerard de Nerval is French poet who was closest to German Romanticism and its Naturphilosophie.4 But neither Ivask nor lengthy essay on black sun image (Chernoe solntse, SS 3:404-411) explicitly identifies this image as orphic. A definition of is in order. The myth of Orpheus has him, a Thracian prince and son of Muse Calliope, attain a power of song that would charm even wild beasts. When his wife Euridice died, Orpheus descended to Hades and charmed guardians of nether world into allowing Euridice to return to world of living, under condition that he would not cast a glance at her before leaving confines of Hades. Orpheus forgot this stipulation and lost Euridice forever. The myth of Orpheus and Euridice has found an echo in many works of world literature, including Russian.5 It also appears in Mandelstam, but it is not per se source of orphic imagery, such as that of a black sun.6 Rather, orphic imagery is derived from religious cults founded by Orpheus. The evidence on these cults from classical antiquity is sparse and contradictory. In particular, Orpheus's relation to Dionysus is problematic. Legend has it that Orpheus was torn to pieces by Maenads for favoring Apollo over Dionysus, but then, too, he is often identified with Dionysus, the suffering god. The pursuit of moral and physical purity is orphic, but so are Dionysian revels. The orphic tendency to a dualist worldview