Authors

Yuchun Lan¹;  ¹ University of Oxford, UK

Discussion

Citing Osip Mandel'shtam in her essay on Rembrandt's paintings, the Russian poet Ol'ga Sedakova recognized the depth of mortality in the use of chiaroscuro, inspired by Mandel'shtam's poetry. It is not the first time she referred to Mandel'shtam in her writings, even though she never produced an essay on him. Her incorporation of his poetics, particularly in her essays on paintings, exemplifies his influence on her, and a shared theme of vision and mortality. 

My article delves into Sedakova's intertextual echo to Mandel'shtam's approach to "vision" by comparing two poems: "Гончарами велик остров синий..." by Mandel'shtam, where the poet is viewing the Greek pottery and contemplating the artwork's vitality and the artisan's mortality; "Пятыe Стансы. De arte poetica" by Sedakova, where eyesight and blindness, comprehension and revelation are woven into a reflection of death. 

In both poems, the idea of vision is developed to trace how seemingly paradoxical states complement each other. Although the poetic process motivated by developing paradox has been observed in scholarships on both poets, their shared lexicon of vision, as the core of their revelation of respective paradoxes, is under-discussed. 

My discussion is grounded on the term "the module of full time" coined by Sedakova to conceptualize Mandel'shtam's poetics. Underlining his ability to make time "seen all at once", Sedakova argues that the time in Mandel'shtam's poetry is a spatialized, vertical structure that rejects linearity. 

Her insight sheds light on the alteration of past and present tenses in "Гончарами велик остров синий...", where the past and the future fuse in a space constructed by the poet’s prophetic vision. Vitality and mortality are juxtaposed, rather than opposed, in Mandel'shtam's nonlinear poetic system. 

Sedakova's spatialized term of time is closely related to the stereoscopic impression created by Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro. Such association is reflected in the imagery of a deep vessel as a metaphor for death in "Пятыe Стансы". Mortality as a mystery to be comprehended is visualized as a depth to be seen through, and the poetic labour to reveal such mystery is encapsulated in the idea of vision.

In the close reading of two poems, this article explores the depth of mortality visualized in the poetry of Osip Mandel'shtam and Ol'ga Sedakova.