The Curving Shore of Time and Space: Notes on the Prologue to Pushkin’s Ruslan and Ludmila

Abstract

This chapter approaches that question, albeit with respect to the Prologue to Ruslan and Ludmila ; rather than the larger poem: Is there the possibility of a profound, symbolic, spiritually fulfilling meaning? One starts with a cursory survey of the history of the text, its literary context, and its reception; this is followed by a close reading. One then employs an illustration of the poem after Pushkin's death by the rather obscure artist Ramazanov to establish a visual structure, as though the poem were ekphrastic, travelling from left to right and up and down, onto the temporally sequential scene established by Pushkin. The chapter also explores the work of several visionary Russian writers after Pushkin: Vladimir Nabokov, Velimir Khlebnikov, and Daniil Kharms - who have been inspired by elements of the Prologue . Keywords:Daniil Kharms; Prologue to Ruslan and Ludmila ; Pushkin; Ramazanov; Russian poetic art; Velimir Khlebnikov; Vladimir Nabokov