The bronze horseman...

[Continued from last week]

These critics are of the opinion that the words display a deep confidence of newness, sparkling innovativeness; at the same time they exude a sense of tradition, of being an outgrowth of poetic convention. Similarly, one discerns in his poetry an invigorating intersection of literality and figurality.

Ninth, the inter-animation of the biographical self and the poetic self in Pushkin’s poetry deserves careful consideration.

In most poets, it needs to be said, that this interaction is present; however, in the case of Pushkin it takes on added urgency. Most readers are familiar with Pushkin’s biography. At the same time the attempt to see his poetry in terms of his life story fails to yield interesting results.

He re-made his biography through his poetry, through his privileged words; he fashioned his self carefully which indeed not a pale imitation of his biographical self. David M. Bethea who has written an insightful book on Pushkin’s life and work says that, ‘I know of no other figure in world literature with a comparably recorded biography in whom the creative tension, the ever present dialogue between literal and figurative is more robust and more alive than Pushkin.’ Tenth, we need to pay close attention to the frames of analysis that we bring to bear in interpreting Pushkin’s poetry. In what analytic terrain should we situate him? What tools of analysis, orientations and approaches should be deployed for this purpose? Broadly speaking, there are two distinct approaches that we find in the critical literature.

Europeans have sought to adopt a more biographical, and psychological approach. Pushkin’s life story is well-known, and he was, like Byron from whom he learned a great deal, a colorful personality.

Hence the tendency to read Pushkin’s poetry in terms of his biography is irrepressible. Western critics have sought to turn him into a romantic figure and read his poetry in terms of these pre-understandings.

On he other hand, Russian critics have preferred to adopt a more culturalist approach regarding him as a father figure who shaped the Russian literary tradition.

It is again this general background of think that I now wish to focus on his poetry. An aspect of the verbal texture in his narrative poetry that I find particularly attractive is his disciplined evocative power. For example, the following passage from Eugene Onegin is fairly representative of his temperament and interests.

She’s in the wood, the bear still trails her
There’s powdery snow up to her knees;
Now a protruding branch assails her
And clasps her neck; and now she sees
Her golden earrings off and whipping;
And now the crunchy snow is stripping
Her darling foot of its wet shoe,
Her handkerchief has fallen too;
No time to pick it up – she’s dying
With fright, she hears the approaching bear;
Her fingers shake, she doesn’t dare
To lift her skirt up; still she’s flying,
And he pursuing, till at length
She flies no more, she’s lost her strength.

One observes, in passages such as these, his capacity for disciplined evocation; this is evident in his shorter poems too.

His ability to combine the power of evocation and narrative energy is clearly evident in this passage. Let us consider a relative shorter poem titled To the Sea which is one of his earlier compositions.

Farewell, free element
Before me for the last time
Your blue waves roll
And you shine in proud beauty

Like a friend’s dying words
His cry in the last hour,
I have heard for the last time
Your moan, your cry, your lament

And in the middle of the poem he says

Byron vanished, mourned by freedom
Leaving us his garland.
Rage, ocean, tempest-stripped
And the death of your singer

And this is how the poem ends.

I shall bear, into the forests
And silent wilderness, your crags
And creeks, and the glitter and
shadow
And murmur of your waves.

What we find in this poem is an imaginative blending of personal emotion, historical imagination and philosophical thought. The idea of freedom as an important concept is central to the meaning of the poem.

The poem begins with certain musings on the sea and the destiny of the poet. As it unfolds, the sea becomes a metaphor for freedom as indeed was the case in Byron’s Childe Harold. The poet looks back on his life and his failure to bring to fruition various plans he had in mind.

The poem has at its core the personal emotion of the writer but it is defined in relation to the sea and to the historical world at large – a world that had seen the loss of two dominant figures, Napoleon and Byron.

As one commentator rightly pointed out, ‘To the Sea expressed a regretful conviction that with the passing of such spirits as Napoleon – his ambition and despotism notwithstanding – and Byron, the poet of freedom, the world has somehow become a smaller and emptier place.’

On the surface,’ To the Sea’ appears to be simple, but here appearances are clearly deceptive. The overt simplicity conceals, as I have suggested, a number of layers of significance. This is indeed a feature that is discernible in many of Pushkin’s poems. Poems such as 'The Prophet' and 'Autumn' are illustrative of this strength of Pushkin. For example, in the poem titled 'The Prophet', Pushkin raises in interesting ways the issue of the mission of the poet.

He sees it as one similar to Biblical prophets who go out and bring about a change in the hearts of human beings. It seems to me that here he is able to go beyond the standard romantic viewpoint regarding the role of the poet in society to highlight the centrality of the poet’s vision. The Biblical imagery aids in this effort. The poem begins as follows

Parched with the spirit’s thirst,
I crossed
An endless desert sunk in gloom,
And a six-winged seraph came
Where the tracks met and I stood lost.
And it ends on the following note .
There in the desert I lay dead,
And God called out to me and said
Rise up, prophet, rise, and hear,
and see,
And let my works be seen and heard
By all who turn aside from me
And burn them with my fiery word.’

To be continued