The article is devoted to the poetics of N. Gumilev’s poem “Under the hand of a confident poet…” (1908). This text, which was not published during the poet’s lifetime, correlates with Gumilev’s creative searches during the period of work on the book of poems “Pearls” (1910) and represents Gumilev’s dialogical perception of V. Bryusov’s symbolist ideas. The aim of the work is to identify through structural-semiotic and mythopoetic methods of artistic axiology of N. Gumilev represented in this poem, which is formed in the process of conceptual dialogue with Bryusov poetics. The analysis of this text shows that its ballad-narrative structure conceptualizes the conflict between the masculine and feminine principles. The images of “the poet”, “the tsarina” and the slave”, which are the characters of the lyrical narrative and go back to Bryusov’s ballad “The Slave” (1900), are projected onto the plot model of Bryusov’s poem, but produce a different system of values. If in the poetic world of V. Bryusov, the love passion of a man (“the slave”) and the sacrificial earthly path generated by it are brought to the fore, then in the perception of N. Gumilev poetic art glorifying such passion and doomed to sublime torments, turns out to be paramount. It is concluded that “the poet” in Gumilev’s mythology is able to transform being by the power of creativity, and his ontological experience turns out to be more real and effective than empirical reality.
V. Bryusov; N. Gumilev; lyrical narrative; the myth of the poet; poetics of a ballad; fatal femininity.
Chevtaev, A.A. “N. Gumilev’s Poem ‘Under the Confident Hand of the Poet…’: Dialogue with V. Bryusov and Artistic Axiology”. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 3(61), 2023, pp. 83–105. (In Russ.) DOI: 10.31249/litzhur/2023.61.06