Poetic Cycle Research Articles

СИМФОНИЗМ ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЙ И. Л. СЕЛЬВИНСКОГО: РОМАН-ЭПОПЕЯ «АРКТИКА» И ПОЭТИЧЕСКИЙ ЦИКЛ «АЛИСА»

The article examines the interconnection of musical and verbal arts. Using the novel «Arctic» and the poem cycle «Alice» as examples, an analysis is conducted of the artistic techniques employed by I. L. Selvinsky to create verbal analogs of musical structures. It is established that the thematic depth of the works, detailed depiction of the processes of character formation and development, their spiritual quests, and the resolution of internal conflicts indicate the symphonic nature of the poet’s thinking. The reference to the symphonic works of P.I. Tchaikovsky, the disruption of the composer’s accepted symphony order, enhances the aesthetic direction of the poetic work and reveals profound meaning. The unity of thematic and imagery material, the utilization of similar principles in the development of musical and literary works allow for the poetic cycle «Alice» to be considered as a symphonic suite, with its poetic elements assessed in the parameters of musicology correlated with literary methodology.

Hybrid genre forms in Yakut poetry of the second half of the twentieth century: specifics and design features

The purpose of the study is to determine the specifics of the formation and construction of hybrid structures as original genre forms of Yakut poetry of the second half of the twentieth century. The scientific novelty consists in an attempt to comprehensively study the specifics of genre synthesis in Yakut poetry from the point of view of new methodological approaches to the systematic and typological study of the problem of stable contextual structures. As a result, it is proved that the poetic texts of Ivan Gogolev – "Writing on the tusk of a mammoth", "Song of Lena" are unique examples of synthesized, hybrid genre forms of a cycle-poem and a mounting polycyclic structure. The contamination of the genre possibilities of the poetic cycle and the poem within the framework of an integral artistic structure makes it possible to characterize texts from the perspective of a qualitatively new meta-genre status for Yakut literature

Псевдо-Хафиз В.С. Соловьева и влияние переводческой традиции Г.Ф. Даумера и А.А. Фета

The essay analyses the Russian translations of Ḥāfeẓ by V.S. Solov’ev in 1885 (24 poems in the first journal edition, reduced to 11 in all subsequent volume editions). The Russian philosopher’s interest in the Persian poet is part of European, and specifically German, Orientalism, which became popular since the publication of J.W. Goethe’s “West-Eastern Divan” (1819). This interest has a direct connection with the translations of Hafiz published by A.A. Fet in 1860. As has been shown, Fet translated Ḥāfeẓ not directly, but through the poetic imitations of him by the German poet G.F. Daumer (“Hafis. Eine Sammlung persischer Gedichte”, 1846; in particular, he used the second edition of these poems, published in 1856). Solov’ev’s lyrics have hitherto been thought to be translations of Hafezian imitations by the German poet F. Bodenstädt (1877). The essay shows how actually Solov’ev used the same imitations by Daumer as Fet, probably taking them from the same volume used by the older poet. This enables to relate the two Hafezian poetic cycles more directly and to draw some general considerations on the different intentions that drove the two poets in translating the Persian mystic: for both, Ḥāfeẓ was functional in conveying their own artistic form and philosophical meaning, although each of them had a different understanding of him. The analysis shows that Solov’ev was much closer to Ḥāfeẓ than Fet. In the Persian poet Fet saw a singer of beauty and regarded the aesthetic phenomenon as self-valuable; for Solov’ev, beauty was a conduit of the divine, as it was for Ḥāfeẓ. In his poems, the young beautiful cupbearers (replaced in Daumer by the beloved woman) are always the personification of God. It was these themes (the power of love; its dual nature, both mystical and earthly; the immanence of the divine in the world) that Solov’ev would develop in the following years and would be reflected in a series of articles key to understanding his worldview and which became the object of attention of Symbolist poets: “Beauty in Nature” (1889), “The General Meaning of Art” (1890), “The Meaning of Love” (1892), “The Life Drama of Plato” (1898), and others.

Интертекстуальные способы художественной когниции (на материале лирического цикла «Сивиллы» Р. Фэйнлайт)

The aim of the research is to identify intertextual methods of artistic cognition in the lyrics of the British poetess R. Fainlight. The research novelty lies in considering intertextuality as a method of artistic cognition. The author defines the traditional themes of British postmodern poetry, such as reinterpreting archetypes, contemporary life, political, social, and moral issues, personal experiences, while also revealing the specific characteristics of the creative thinking of poets in the postmodern era: intertextuality, non-linearity, incompleteness, fragmentariness, and interaction with the reader. In addition, the following intertextual methods of artistic cognition, as observed in the poetic cycle “Sybils”, are established. The augmented allusion is based on cultural-historical precedents that acquire new characteristics, whereas the allusive flow includes numerous references to other sources, and the double allusion juxtaposes different intertextual planes. R. Fainlight’s intertextual metaphors are typically complemented by double allusions. Moreover, falsification of the intertext is represented by fabricated quotations. As a result, the intertextuality of R. Fainlight’s poetry is defined as a distinct cognitive practice of the postmodern era.

The Zoroastrian Calendar in New Persian Poetry: “Names of Persian Days” by Masʿud Saʿd Salman

The calendar introductions were quite widespread in the Persian poetry of the Early Classical period (X–XIII centuries). The court poets on the occasion of a seasonal holiday (Nauruz, Mihran or Sade) or the beginning of a new season turned not only to the description of weather phenomena and changes in nature, but also to the Iranian names of months and days related to holidays and seasons. Such poetization of the Zoroastrian calendar became an integral part of Persian calendar poetry; references to Zoroastrian names of days and months can be found in many poets of the era: Rūdakī, Manūčihrī, ʿUnṣurī, Farruxī. In the cycle “Names of Persian days and months” by Masʿud Saʿd Salman this poetization is revealed most fully: each day of each Zoroastrian month in the poems of this cycle is heralded as a holiday. This article publishes a commented translation of the largest part of the cycle: the thirty poems devoted to the days of the Zoroastrian month. Despite the fact that the works of Masʿud Saʿd Salman are the object of scientific interest for a wide range of both national and foreign researchers, this poetic cycle is introduced into scientific discourse for the first time.

Minneskulturell avmytisering och remytisering i Snoilskys Svenska bilder

Demythicisation and Remythicisation of the Cultural Memory in Snoilsky’s Svenska bilder: The article analyses the relationship between cultural memory and myth in Carl Snoilsky’s poetic cycle Svenska bilder (Swedish Pictures). According to theoreticians, one of the primary goals of the 19th-century cultural memory is to consolidate the nation-state. Politically conservative Swedish Romanticism achieves this goal by turning Swedish cultural memory into a kind of national mythology, combining mythical and historical elements. In his cycle, Snoilsky, a democrat and a liberal, revises the Romantic construction of Swedish national memory by demythicising it. However, the author’s patriotic intentions often lead to the remythicisation of the democratically calibrated events and figures featuring in the cycle. The article analyses this dialectic, drawing on the theories of myth by Roland Barthes, Northrop Frye, Carl Gustav Jung, Ernst Casssirer, Mircea Eliade, Max Weber, et al., and supporting them with the intertextual apparatus of Gérard Genette. Among the most important demythicising strategies in Svenska bilder are mimetic devaluation, archetypal deheroisation, semiotic denaturalisation, and secularisation. Remythicisation in Snoilsky’s cycle is realised either by taking over selected elements of Romantic cultural memory, or by subjecting liberal cultural memory to mythicising strategies. The most important of these include mimetic valuation, archetypal heroisation, semiotic naturalisation, and sacralisation, i.e. strategies that are in dialectical opposition to the distinguished strategies of demythicisation.

ПРИРОДНИЙ ТА КУЛЬТУРНИЙ ЛАНДШАФТИ В КРИМСЬКОМУ ДОРОБКУ МИКОЛИ ЧЕРНЯВСЬКОГО

The article deals with the studying spatiality and the system of national spaces in Ukrainian literature. It focuses on the work of Mykola Chernyavsky, a representative of Ukrainian literary modernism, a victim of Stalinist totalitarianism. The main attention is paid to the understanding of the writer’s work, which was the result of his trip to the Crimea in the summer of 1927 for the sanatorium treatment. This trip is interpreted as an example of a modernistic pilgrimage, with its attraction to the discovery of a new space, which becomes a lever of self-discovery, and a means of self-identification. The non-fiction text of Mykola Chernyavsky, which was preserved in his diary entries, is analyzed for the first time. It is proven that the writer’s notebook became the protext of the author’s further artistic searches in poetry and prose. The Crimean routes of the author recorded in his documentary records, are traced. The main artistic toposes can be devided into three groups topos: natural (sea, mountains, vegetation), social (populations, sanatoriums), ethno-cultural. Despite the dominant imperial discourse in Crimea, which was preserved in the post-revolutionary period, the author discovers the world of the Crimean Tatars, finds areas of popularity of Ukrainian culture, reflects on its achievements and prospects on the Crimean Peninsula. The poetic cycle “Crimea” (1927-1928) by Mykola Chernyavsky testifies to the originality of the author’s artistic visions, his intensive use of toponyms, with the help of which he expresses the uniqueness of the Crimean space. In the novel “Under the Black Flag” (1928), the writer introduces the inner text – short story “Iphigenia in Taurida”, which becomes an artistic version of the writer’s diary, resorting to gender inversion: the female protagonist acts as an observer in it. The conclusions emphasize the cartographic originality of the writer’s Crimean work, the sacralization of the region's landscape, its utopian aura, which can cause catharsis in pilgrims. Arguments are given that Mykola Chernyavsky’s work is a worthy contribution to the literary geography of the modernist era, in particular, the richness of the author's marinist images is emphasized.

Matka i Syn w "Ogrodzie rozkosznym Miłości Bożej" Adriana Wieszczyckiego

The article examines family relationships shown in the poetic cycle entitled The Delightful Garden of God’s Love by Adrian Wieszczycki. Attention is drawn to the status of the Holy Family, especially to the figures of Mary and Jesus, and their role in the work of salvation was analyzed. It is noticed that the Mother of God and her Son – apart from the strictly human relationship – are connected by a bond that goes beyond the canon of the traditional family, and thus beyond the accepted patterns of behavior and relationships with other people. The author also analyzed the form of poetic expression, i.e., a combination of the following forms: cloister and emblematic, resulting in a very original and intricate construction. The poems have a meditative character, and the composition of the cycle is based on the mysteries of the Rosary that tell the History of Salvation. The poet created a literary garden in which specific flowers bloom: lilies symbolizing the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Virgin Mary and Christ, the Lover and the Beloved; roses referring to the attributes of Mary, the Passion of Christ and royal power; and amaranths, which are a symbol of immortality. The Holy Family is an inspiration and a role model for secular families, and its eternal status is constituted by the presence of angels.

Проблема интерпретации окказиональных имен собственных в цикле стихов Т. Элиота «Популярная наука о кошках, написанная Старым Опоссумом» и повести Т. Пратчетта «Кот без дураков» и особенности их передачи в русскоязычных переводах

The paper addresses the ways of naming presented in T. S. Eliot’s poetic cycle and in T. Pratchett’s novella, which are humorous encyclopaedias about the life of cats. The aim of the paper is to determine the peculiarities in the approach to the creation of proper names in these works, as well as to identify the principles of their rendering in Russian translations. The scientific novelty of the study lies in developing a contrastive classification of proper names according to the ways of their creation and in comparing their translation variants. The work discusses in detail the ways of word formation used by T. S. Eliot and T. Pratchett and offers possible interpretations of cat names. In addition, the researchers note the difficulties that translators face and the translation techniques they resort to. As a result, the differences in the naming systems created by the authors and their functions are identified, which lead to differences in the ways of formation of occasional felinonyms. Thus, Eliot’s most frequent word-formation models turned out to be compounding and blending, which creates difficulties in interpreting and translating names into Russian, while Pratchett’s occasional names are either predicative constructions or short letter-sound complexes expressing the emotion of the owner, which allows using such translation practices as semantic development and variant correspondence.

Contradictory Late Styles in Djuna Barnes's Poetic Cycles, 1969–82

Abstract Focusing on examples of Djuna Barnes's late published poetry—“Quarry” (1969), “Rite of Spring” (1982), and Creatures in an Alphabet (1982)—this article considers the contradictory ways these poems engage with theories of late style. Barnes's late output offers a unique and somewhat ambivalent case study for examining how the privileging of difficulty and discordance are met and informed by the lived realities of aging and longevity. Paying attention to the publication history of each poem, this article first examines Barnes's redrafting process for “Rite of Spring,” which has been recently reassessed as a conscious, avant-garde experiment, one this article suggests embraced lateness and continuation as a method. Second, the article considers “Quarry” and Barnes's correspondence with publishers Faber and Faber to examine her attitude toward a seemingly finalized poem. Third, this article turns to Creatures in an Alphabet as an example of a supposedly completed project that was left unendorsed by Barnes and the tensions inherent in trying to read a late style into its material. Overall, I suggest that the revisionary nature of Barnes's poetry and its unfinishing state is a late style process, which represents a formal experiment, a creative experience informed by aging, and an example of the cultural investment critics have made in her late works.

From Imperial to Soviet Power: Interpretation of Zabolotsky’s Creative Quest in the Ararat Collection

This article examines the role of Zhukovsky, a nineteenth-century ballad author, in Zabolotsky’s creative consciousness. Among the biographical facts and writings of the twentieth-century poet that reveal his constant interest in the canonic figure of his predecessor, the author pays special attention to Zhukovsky’s Ballad (1927) that has a metaliterary title. Zabolotsky included this work which looks like a riddle in the composition of Ararat, his handwritten book, and therefore is considered by the author of the article in the context of this collection. The paper aims to overcome the semantic opacity of Zhukovsky’s Ballad and to determine its place and functions in the structure of the Ararat poetic cycle. Methodologically, the analysis is based on historical poetics, which implies, on the one hand, the identification of a genre basis relevant to both Zhukovsky and Zabolotsky, and on the other hand – the transformations that the ballad underwent in the context of a “new worldview and new art”. Another theoretical reference point is B. M. Gasparov’s Poetics of the Tale of Igor’s Campaign dedicated to the interpretation of the opaque text and based on the analysis of its linguistic and genre-stylistic features. The main sources in this research are the manuscript of Zhukovsky’s Ballad as well as the cover of Ararat with drawings by the writer, and the other poems of the collection. The main result lies in the reconstruction of the cyclical plot implying the unity of all the poems of the collection through the prism of their motifs and imagery, which, in turn, revisits the biblical story of the Flood. The author analyses intertextual connections within the book and specifies their functions. In the first part of Ararat, Zhukovsky’s Ballad which completed the collection was the most conflictual work within a triad of texts dedicated to the end of the old tsarist and imperial way of life. Based on the clarified symmetrical composition of the cycle, in its second half, the author discovers the poem Movement mirroring Zhukovsky’s Ballad. Instead of the tsar in the ballad, there appears a cabman sitting “as if on the throne” as a representative of the new “proletarian” authorities. In the place of a drowned man who lived in the “round village,” the reader now sees a “poor horse” as the driving force of modernity. Thus, Zabolotsky captures the change of the social and everyday life paradigms, bringing the heroes of a new era to the fore.

The Miserable with a Human Soul: Portrayal Modes in Works by F. Dostoevsky, N. Nekrasov, and F. Reshetnikov

This article deals with the tradition of portraying “miserable”, “minuscule”, “tiny”, “poor”, “downtrodden” people in Russian literature between the 1840s and the 1860s. F. M. Dostoevsky, through the main character of The Idiot, called them “a misère” with a “human soul” and considered “the restoration” of the “ruined” the main idea of the art of the entire nineteenth century. The starting point of the research is Poor Folk, Dostoevsky’s novel of the natural school period in which the writer reversed sentimentalist poetics following the new demands of literature, emphasising the socio-economic meaning of the “poor folk” concept. In the 1860s, Dostoevsky’s sentimental-naturalistic style changed, and his feuilletons from the Petersburg Dreams, the discourse of poverty began to sound ironic; it was partly due to Dostoevsky’s polemical tasks. There is a connection with N. A. Nekrasov’s poetry in the middle of the century. It traces the change in the modality in the depiction of the “miserable” and the lower strata of the population from sympathetic drama to irony and sarcasm, which accompanies not so much the images of the poor themselves as the presence of the theme in literature, its traditionally philanthropic and sentimental personification. The material of the analysis in the article is In the Street and About the Weather, Nekrasov’s poetic cycles of the 1850s–1860s, most vividly depicting the images of the “poor folk” in St Petersburg’s streets and “Petersburg slums”. The third writer to focus on the urban poor, inhabitants of the basement slums is F. M. Reshetnikov with his story Yashka (1868). This writer’s story of entering the sphere of literature was comparable with that of the first edition of Dostoevsky’s novel. Reshetnikov himself, judging by his letters and diary, sometimes resembled the “miserable” characters of his much more famous and successful contemporary. Starting from the traditional forms of the author’s emotional experience for the character thrown to the bottom of life, Reshetnikov’s naïve and simple-hearted writing imitated normality, the commonness of the terrible life of his characters, concealed the warmth and human pain that the reader was supposed to perceive. It brought his “miserable” wordless characters closer to the author, and therefore to the reader, opening new possibilities in the literature that would be developed by writers of the turn of the century.

Night Truck Driver / Kierowca nocnej ciężarówki

Night Truck Driver / Kierowca nocnej ciężarówki

Полацк-Вільня-Масква… Паэтычныя і біяграфічныя вандроўкі Алега Мінкіна

In the context of the ideas of geopoetics, the article examines the images of three cities—Polotsk, Vilnius, Moscow—in the work of the famous Belarusian poet Oleg Minkin. Poems from two poetic cycles are analyzed: Гарады (Cities) and Гастарбайт (Gastrbayt). Attention is drawn to such categories as biographical and cultural space, therapeutic landscape and nostalgic landscape, the influence of literary tradition on the image of the city and the influence of the cultural environment of the city on the national identity of the poet. In search of the genius loci of the three cities, Oleg Minkin portrays Polotsk as a city awakening its national identity, a space of hope, Vilnius as a harmonious space for life and, at the same time, a place of nostalgia for the former glory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and Moscow as a new Babylon, a mixture of languages and peoples, a space of concentrated longing and nostalgia for the homeland.

Figurative and Motive Unity of Joseph Brodsky’s Cycle “Mexican Divertissement”

An interpretation of the semantic unity of the poetic cycle of Joseph Brodsky “Mexican Divertissement” (1975), consisting of 7 (15) lyrical texts, is proposed. If earlier researchers considered one or another poem of the cycle in isolation, then the problem of the integrity of the entire lyrical work is actualized in the work, the question of the relationship of individual cyclic texts is raised. It is shown how the same characters (emperor Maximilian, Huaretz, lyrical hero), images (ducks, parrot, lizard, cancer, etc.), motives (loneliness, death, delirium), details (geometry of figures, etc.), words and signs (explicated and implied) pass from text to text, ensuring the unity of the whole variety of melodic “pictures” of the divertissement. It is traced how “random” details appearing in one text are overgrown with additional connotations in another, providing semantic and logical support for the whole. Brodsky’s intertextual references to classical Russian literature are revealed, which translate the code of the text from “Mexican divertissement” to “Leningrad / Petersburg”, allowing one to discern the contours of the history of Russia and the fate of the hero himself (alter ego of the author) behind the exotic realities of Mexico. Some “dark places” of the cycle are deciphered, new interpretations of those already reflected by criticism are proposed. It is shown that the intention of the hero-narrator is focused not on the position of the scriptertraveler, but the creator-thinker.

Ancient Ukrainian Mythology in Andrii Harasevych’s Lyrics

Andii Harasevych in his lyrics implicitly actualizes old Ukrainian mythological images and plots which became fundamental in his fictional world. Early poems of the author contain a great number of authentic Ukrainian mythological images and plots. Almost every poem of cycles “The Steppe vision” and “Sonnets” has mythologemes in strong position, which refer to specific images of the collective unconscious. The mature lyrics of Andrii Harasevych, which includes the poems of the cycles “Old Prague”, “Loneliness” and “The Challenge”, contains less mythologemes, but they are more complicated, versatile and full of existential tension. The poet interprets the images of the Great Mother, the Tree of Life, complex of solar images and cosmogonic plots at conceptual, worldview and axiological levels. The author understands the nature of chaos and accepts it: chaotic process means life creation and continuing. Nature / world / nation / state / human experiences a constant, cyclic creation accompanied by choice, struggle, sacrifice and responsibility. All the books of Andrii Harasevych’s poems are analysed: “Sonnets” (1941) and “To the Peaks” (1959). These books contain all the author’s poetic cycles — “The Steppe Vision”, “Sonnets”, “Old Prague”, “Loneliness” and “The Challenge”. All the mythologemes were distinguished. Almost every mythologeme stands in strong position and is repeated in several texts of the author. Certain groups of mythologemes form complexes of plots and images of old Ukrainian mythology. They are illustrated by the most revealing fragments of the author’s texts and analyzed within the model of his artistic world. The research can be used for deepening of interpretation of Andrii Harasevych’s poems and for development of mythocritical method of text analysis through the prism of authentic, national mythology as a powerful source of traditional plots and images in national literatures.

«LIANOZOVIAN TEXT» IN THE GENRIKH SAPGIR’S POETICAL WORKS: METALITERARY AND INTERMEDIATE ASPECTS

The article examines the specifics of reflecting the history and artistic practice of the Lianozovo non-conformist artistic group in the G. Saphir's poetic cycles «The End and the Beginning» and «The New Lianozovo». The peculiarities of the deployment of the memoir component, fragments of biographies of the association's participants and autobiographical material are determined.To reconstruct elements of the creative strategies of the underground representatives–artists and writers Saphir applies the techniques of intermediality and metalliterature methods. A number of images, landscape sketches, reduced ekphrasis correspond with O.Rabin's minimalist painting and «concrete» poetry by the Lianozovites and reproduce the range of problems of so-called «barrack» literature –social troubles, restrictions of freedom in a totalitarian country, poor and disorderly life, extreme devaluation of human life, and ultimately, the absurdity of existence as a whole. G. Saphir uses the intertext by the Lianozovites (E. Kropivnitsky, I. Kholin and his own pretexts). The author resorts to the reconstruction of certain methods of the Lianozovo school such as minimalism, «protocol writing», grotesque, absurdism and applies them in depicting the realities of life in the 90s. At the same time, the connection with the concrete poetry is diversified by a wide range of traditions –from game poetry, known since ancient times, to the artistic practice of oberiuts and the later methodology of conceptual performances.The complex multi-layered text created by the writer is a kind of version of a poetic memoirs and at the same time reveals the characteristic features of his idiostyle –game poetics, an attitude to experiment, metaphysical viewpoint of world perception.

ТРАДИЦИЯ ДРЕВНЕЙ КИТАЙСКОЙ ПОЭЗИИВ СТИХОТВОРНОМ ЦИКЛЕ БОРИСА ВОЛКОВА «ДРАКОН, ПОЖИРАЮЩИЙ СОЛНЦЕ»

The published work analyzes the lyrics of Boris Volkov - an almost neglected poet, prose writer, memoirist of the Eastern emigration - in a dialogue with the ancient Chinese tradition. The poetry of Li Chi (690-751) and Cui Hao (704-754) is in the field of research attention. Volkov enters into an intertextual dialogue with their work in the poetic cycle “Dragon Devouring the Sun”. The cycle is included in the poetry collection «In the Dust of Foreign Roads», published in Berlin in 1934 and never reprinted. Of the entire book of poems, the cycle “Dragon Devouring the Sun” stands out for its poetic immersion in the exotic world of ancient China. In addition to poetic texts, the poet refers to Chinese legends, to the ancient history of the country.

Cykl poetycki do Hyelli ze zbioru Lusus Andrea Navagera – wstęp, przekład, komentarz

A poetic cycle on Hyella from Andrea Navagero’s Lusus: introduction, translation, commentary : The paper presents the first Polish translation of a mini-series of six short poems about Hyella by Andrea Navagero (1483–1529). The selected works are part of Navagero’s famous Latin poetry collection entitled Lusus. The translation is supplemented by an introduction and commentary notes. The Latin text reproduced in the paper is based on the edition of Lusus by Claudio Griggio (2001). The introduction presents the author’s biography and includes a brief description of the whole collection. Navagero was a diplomat, a poet and the official historian of the Republic of Venice. Collected by friends in Orationes duae carminaque nonnulla, his poems were edited posthumously in Venice in 1530. The most important part of Lusus are bucolic epigrams, a new form of Neo-Latin pastoral developed by Navagero. This minor lyric form called “pastoral play” (lusus pastoralis) gained recognition quickly and was widely imitated in 16th century. The collection also includes other literary genres – bucolic poems, elegies, and erotic poems. However, the most famous is the series of epigrams whose heroine or addressee is Hyella, a girl impossible to identify. The introduction presents a discussion about the sources and the interpretation of the love poems about Hyella (poems 21, 22, 28, 31, 32 and 37). The most important literary tradition from which Navagero draws inspiration is the Greek and Latin ancient epigram. For poem 21, the source is the Anacreontea 19, while poem 22 uses the motifs of the lamp and the night as the guardians of lovers, both popular in The Greek Anthology. For two other pieces, the direct source is the poetry of Catullus: poem 31 uses Catullus’s carmen 5, while poem 32 combines motifs from Catullus’s carmina 82, 92 and 109. In addition, in poem 28 we find similarities with Ausonius’s epigram 9. Other important sources for Navagero were the poetry of Petrarch and the neo-Catullan poets, mostly Giovanni Pontano, Michele Marullo, and Cristoforo Landino.

The elusive meanings of translation: J.de Nerval’s sonnet “El Desdichado” from the “Chimeras” cycle

The study of the inversion of meaning, which inevitably occurs during translation, has become one of the priorities of both domestic and world comparative studies in recent decades. This problem formed the basis of the theory of cultural transfer, which began to be developed in the mid-1980s among French historians-Germanists. The methodology of cultural transfer, which has taught us to see the phenomenon rather positive in those transformations of meaning that occur during direct translation from one language to another, has retouched the question of the “archaeological” side of this phenomenon, which has long received the designation “reverse translation” in science. The article is devoted to the analysis of the first sonnet in Nerval’s poetic cycle “Chimeras”. A detailed analysis of the intertextual allusions concealed by the extremely hermetic sonnet “El Desdichado” is accompanied by a parallel analysis of two translations of this sonnet into Russian, made respectively by N.Ya. Rykova and Y.M.Denisov. Despite the high quality of translation, the method of “slow reading” of the sonnet shows how in the translation, even if seemingly close to the original, the semantic trajectories of the original and translated texts diverge. Such a comparative analysis allows us to reactualise Alexander Mikhailov’s 1990s idea of reverse translation, which turns out to be absolutely necessary when reading and perceiving especially translated poetry.