Abstract

This article seeks to bridge the gap between sociohistorical and aesthetic readings of Russian occasional verse by arguing that patronage itself can be seen as engendering its own poetics. The author focuses on hitherto unanalyzed features of Vasilii Petrov's lyrics addressed to various patrons. The close readings of Petrov’s odes and epistles call attention to the poet’s coordinating syntax as structuring the subordinative relationships between poet and patron, and articulating discourses of friendship, community, and the public, of civic virtue, and of social and lyric interdependence. The essay ultimately arrives at a definition of the poetics of patronage, in which the poet claims agency without insisting on his autonomy (as would his successors in the Romantic period), and in which the lyric voice relies upon an other, drawing inspiration from conditions of relationship rather than isolation.

Highlights

  • This article seeks to bridge the gap between sociohistorical and aesthetic readings of Russian occasional verse by arguing that patronage itself can be seen as engendering its own poetics

  • Eighteenth-century Russian panegyric poetry is widely seen as hard to appreciate on its artistic merits; perhaps most incriminating in this regard is its open propagation of patronal rhetoric

  • The prevailing bias that the Russian ode is deficient in aesthetic value, and implicated in a system of exchange corrupting to poetic “purity,” is in large part owed to lasting transformations wrought by the Romantics in conceptions of literary value and creativity.[2]

Read more

Summary

Introduction

Eighteenth-century Russian panegyric poetry is widely seen as hard to appreciate on its artistic merits; perhaps most incriminating in this regard is its open propagation of patronal rhetoric.

Results
Conclusion
Full Text
Paper version not known

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call

Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.