«I Do not Participate, I do not Exist in the World ...»: a Dialogue with Symbolism and Existentialism in Boris Poplavsky’s Poem «Again in a Wreath of Wax»

Abstract

The article discusses aesthetic and philosophical synthesis in the late lyrics of B. Poplavsky, namely the combination of the features of symbolism and existentialism in the poem «Again in a Wreath of Wax» (1931-1934) from the posthumous book of poems «Snowy Hour». It has been revealed that the work of the poet of the “Paris note” is an example of the “borderline” poetics. Its motive-shaped system and space-time structure are considered. Time and its death-refraction are the central motifs of the miniature, which correlate with the symbolist themes of intoxication, the delimitation of the external and internal worlds, etc. In this case, the ek-stasis situation plays a special role, setting the development of a lyrical plot based on the hero's understanding of the surrounding reality and his presence in it as non-being and non-existence. The core motive of the work is overcoming the world and self-immersion. The borderline (double-world) situations of the lyric hero are examined in the light of the philosophical and literary searches of the poet himself, as well as on the basis of their comparison with the ideas of J.P. Sartre and N. Berdyaev. The poem, in accordance with its name, is a wreath with two "knots". The latter are borderline situations working as the limits for the development of some lines of the lyrical plot. The hero of the poem is ultimately presented as dissolved in time, melted like snow, and under-embodied, as an anthropomorphic soul without a full shell, which, building on the traditions of Russian symbolism, acts as a living dialogue and a form of existentialist reasoning.