Abstract
The impact of neither Andrei Belyi nor Velimir Khlebnikov has been fully comprehended, and their legacies are joined in unusual combination in the work of the contemporary visual poet Elizaveta Mnatsakanova. Her poetry appeals to both eye and ear, expanding on innovations introduced by Belyi and Khlebnikov, and it raises broad questions about the integration of sensory experiences by readers of visual poetry. Mnatsakanova uses illustrative handwriting, calligraphy, and images of a hand or a face in her one-of-a-kind albums and books, and her poems are set out in symmetrical columns or other spatial arrangements. Repetition is the central rhetorical device in her work, yet her unique albums emphasize individualized aesthetic production and anticipate highly charged reader reaction. Special attention is paid to “Das Hohelied,” a partof Das Buch Sabeth,which engages both the literary tradition and the immediacy of a reader's experience with the text.
Highlights
Can we think about twentieth-century Russian poetry as anything other than the Age of MandelЈshtam? The charismatic effect of Osip MandelЈshtam, fully described and analyzed by Gregory Freidin more than twenty years ago, remains unmatched.[1]
The turn to singular alternatives, may not take us very far in any fundamental revision of early twentieth-century poetry, for it stays with the unitary model of cultural dominance that has long held its own traps for Russian culture
One tsar, one faith—these insistent acts of primacy have limited our grasp of the complexity of cultural activity in Russia, to say nothing of their disastrous political consequences
Summary
Sandler, Stephanie. 2008. “Visual Poetry after Modernism: Elizaveta Mnatsakanova.” Slavic Review 67 (3): 610-641. This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-ofuse#LAA
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