Ekphrasis by Aleksandr Kushner and the Reception of Antiquity in the Russian Poetry of the 21st Century

Abstract

The article examines some of the features of A. Kushner’s reception of antiquity. The antique layer is an important component of the poetry of the St. Petersburg poet, starting with his very first poems of the 1960s. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the poem “Перед лучшей в мире конной статуей…” (“In front of the world’s best equestrian statue”, 2008) in connection with the problem of literary ekphrasis. The theoretical part of the article clarifies the meaning of “ekphrasis” and gives a brief overview of the most significant concepts that exist in modern science. The term appeared in antiquity, in the XIX century it was used in classical philology, and from the twentieth century it was applied to the analysis of the literature of modern times. The actualization of the term has significantly expanded the scope of the concept and its application. Modern authors use the possibilities of ekphrasis in different ways. In its most common form the emphasis is shifted from describing the work of art itself to describing a subjective impression (in poetry, works of art are usually mentioned more often than described in detail). The analytical part confirms the relevance of the ekphrastic principle in relation to different levels of the poem. The cultural-historical paradigm of the poetic image of an equestrian statue/statues that are present in Kushner’s poem in explicit or implicit form is reconstructed. The specificity and functions of antique intertexts are revealed. The article exposes not only obvious allusions correlated with the monument to Marcus Aurelius, but also implicit reminiscences referring to the philosophy of the Roman Stoics.

Keywords:

Russian Literature, Aleksandr Kushner, Reception of Antiquity, Stoicism, Marcus Aurelius, Equestrian statue, Ekphrasis, Intertextuality