Information about the author:
Bengt Jangfeldt
Bengt Jangfeldt, literary critic, translator and publisher, author of books and studies dedicated to Mayakovsky, Member of the Editorial Board of the Complete Works of V.V. Mayakovsky in 20 Vol., Sweden.
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Abstract:
The metaphorical system of the poem “About That” is closely related to the life and poetry of Goethe. The poet’s identification with a bear is borrowed from Goethe’s poem “Lilis Park”, where the main hero is a jealous poet-bear. The name of the heroine is also the same: just like in Mayakovsky’s poem, the object of the poet’s love is called Lili. Another important source of the poem is the book “Venus im Pelz” by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1870), published in Russian in 1908. If the metaphorical system of “About That” was influenced by Goethe, the main theme of the poem — the painful separation, the result of a contract agreed upon by the lover and his mistress — comes from Sacher-Masoch’s book, the plot of which is based on such a contract.
