Information about the author:

Abstract:

The article examines the tradition of comparing Mayakovsky with Dante, as well as the symbolist perception of his work, adopted by the poet. “The Divine Comedy” represents the metalanguage of the era of symbolism and post- symbolism, and Mayakovsky draws on Dantean motifs to expand the meaning of his works to the timeless. The frequent use of indirect motifs — allusions to Dante through the prism of another author — is a feature of Mayakovsky’s poetics. Symbolists mythologized Dante as an ideal poet, the creator of the poetry of “heavenly ascent”. Mayakovsky makes references to Vyach. Ivanov and his “Cor ardens”, articles “Thoughts on Symbolism” and “On the Boundaries of Art”, in which the latter examines the nature of symbol using examples from Dante’s “Comedy”; “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” and the essay “The Critic as an Artist” by Oscar Wilde, who recreated the plot of “The Divine Comedy” in prose. The title “About That” is akin to the poetics of obscure meaning used by Dante. Pushkin (“this and that”) used it in a playful form, and younger symbolists actualized the secret path of the initiate, captured by Dante with its help. Also considered is the motif of sleep (referring to Pushkin’s “Tatyana’s Dream”), motifs of the river, animals (bear, skin / lynx, lion and wolf), the lower animal nature of love (the crime of Paolo and Francesca / Raskolnikov) in contrast to higher love (Mayakovsky’s beloved / Beatrice); ice as the absence of love, a marker of hell; the motive of the prophetic and saving poetic gift, effective in the cause of the universal salvation of mankind; the elevation of man and human nature. These motifs, characteristic of both poets, sound like Dante’s even in the lyrical poetry of V. Bryusov and A. Blok. The motif of hope also stands out. The images of Paradise were also created with reference to Dante: they include a ship/ark/poetry; a gaze, the Sun (God) and its connection with the SATOR square and the concepts of Truth, Goodness and Beauty; the chemist and the problem of bodily resurrection. Mayakovsky’s Paradise compositionally echoes Dante’s: the finale of the poem is built on the emotional affirmation of his own credo (the chapters “Faith”, “Hope”, “Love”, the image of the Universe-as-a-book).