Doubling matter (notes on architectural motifs in the lyrics of F. I. Tyutchev)

Abstract

The paper focuses on the range of lyrical works by F. I. Tyutchev, which involve architectural images and motifs. Tyutchev’s interest in these motifs and images — from the “ruins of Ilion” to the “Tsarskoe Selo palaces” and Moscow churches — has been observed for more than half a century. Tyutchev’s poems discussed in the paper are studied taking into account their connections with the “architectural” poetry of their predecessors. First of all, the connections with G. R. Derzhavin and P. A. Vyazemsky are traced. Among the heirs of this tradition, the author singles out O. E. Mandelstam. A special place in the work is given to the comparison of architectural images and motifs in Tyutchev’s lyrics with those of A. S. Pushkin, possible Pushkin sources of a number of Tyutchev’s works are found. The author’s special attention is devoted to a group of poems (“Dream at Sea”, “Morning in the Mountains”, “Unexpectedly and Brightly...”), in which the presence of architectural images is involved in solving completely different lyrical and philosophical issues that are not related to direct poet’s impressions from works of architectural art. The specific Tyutchev’s distrust towards the plastic arts (architecture, sculpture), in contrast to the poet’s always benevolent attention to music, is associated with the most profound, fundamental features of Tyutchev’s personality and worldview. The author argues that the distrust of the plastic arts is caused by the poet’s more general skeptical attitude towards the objects of the man-made world (in this respect, Tyutchev is close to N. V. Gogol).

Keywords:

F. I. Tyutchev, O. E. Mandelstam, architectural motifs, Russian lyrics of the 19th century