S.A. Yesenin’s “To Sister Shura” as a Lyrical and Philosophical Poetic Cycle

The article is devoted to the complex analysis of the poems “To Sister Shura” by S.A. Esenin (1925), and shows that the ideological and artistic unity, the genre of the dedication message, common characters, historical and literary and author’s context, through images, motifs and metrical basis char...

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Main Author: Natalia I. Shubnikova-Guseva
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Russian Academy of Sciences, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature 2023-12-01
Series:Studia Litterarum
Subjects:
Online Access:https://studlit.ru/images/2023-8-4/09_Shubnikova-Guseva_162-181.pdf
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author Natalia I. Shubnikova-Guseva
author_facet Natalia I. Shubnikova-Guseva
author_sort Natalia I. Shubnikova-Guseva
collection DOAJ
description The article is devoted to the complex analysis of the poems “To Sister Shura” by S.A. Esenin (1925), and shows that the ideological and artistic unity, the genre of the dedication message, common characters, historical and literary and author’s context, through images, motifs and metrical basis characterize them as the last completed lyrical and philosophical cycle of the poet. The information presented for the first time from an unsent letter from S.A. Tolstoy-Esenina to M.A. and N.S. Voloshin in November 1925 and a comparative analysis of manuscripts and printed sources, as well as the dramatic circumstances of the poet’s life at that time, significantly complement the creative history of the poems, the real and historical-literary context of the cycle. The article shows that the author’s will in the order of the arrangement of poems was manifested in the texts sent to the newspaper “Baku Worker” (publication did not take place) and put in a typeset copy of the “Collection of Poems.” Built on the principle of genre cyclization, indicated in the dedication, poems “To Sister Shura” develop the idea of the unity of life-path, ancestral roots and national historical memory. The final stanza of each poem serves as a philosophical generalization, and the final one sums up the cycle as a whole. The multi-valued symbolic image of a passerby, dating back to diverse folklore-mythological, biblical and literary sources containing a dialectical idea of a person’s spiritual path, about communion with eternity and the universe, is a complex metaphor, synthesizes the meanings of the concepts, such as path, world, eternity, pilgrimage, homeland.
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spelling doaj-art-9248ca5f9a2e4d25a6403240eb7db5ad2025-08-20T01:58:19ZengRussian Academy of Sciences, A.M. Gorky Institute of World LiteratureStudia Litterarum2500-42472541-85642023-12-018416218110.22455/2500-4247-2023-8-4-162-181S.A. Yesenin’s “To Sister Shura” as a Lyrical and Philosophical Poetic CycleNatalia I. Shubnikova-Guseva0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3753-2935A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, RussiaThe article is devoted to the complex analysis of the poems “To Sister Shura” by S.A. Esenin (1925), and shows that the ideological and artistic unity, the genre of the dedication message, common characters, historical and literary and author’s context, through images, motifs and metrical basis characterize them as the last completed lyrical and philosophical cycle of the poet. The information presented for the first time from an unsent letter from S.A. Tolstoy-Esenina to M.A. and N.S. Voloshin in November 1925 and a comparative analysis of manuscripts and printed sources, as well as the dramatic circumstances of the poet’s life at that time, significantly complement the creative history of the poems, the real and historical-literary context of the cycle. The article shows that the author’s will in the order of the arrangement of poems was manifested in the texts sent to the newspaper “Baku Worker” (publication did not take place) and put in a typeset copy of the “Collection of Poems.” Built on the principle of genre cyclization, indicated in the dedication, poems “To Sister Shura” develop the idea of the unity of life-path, ancestral roots and national historical memory. The final stanza of each poem serves as a philosophical generalization, and the final one sums up the cycle as a whole. The multi-valued symbolic image of a passerby, dating back to diverse folklore-mythological, biblical and literary sources containing a dialectical idea of a person’s spiritual path, about communion with eternity and the universe, is a complex metaphor, synthesizes the meanings of the concepts, such as path, world, eternity, pilgrimage, homeland.https://studlit.ru/images/2023-8-4/09_Shubnikova-Guseva_162-181.pdfs.a. esenin“to sister shura” poemslyrical and philosophical cyclegenremanuscriptscontextsourcespoetics
spellingShingle Natalia I. Shubnikova-Guseva
S.A. Yesenin’s “To Sister Shura” as a Lyrical and Philosophical Poetic Cycle
Studia Litterarum
s.a. esenin
“to sister shura” poems
lyrical and philosophical cycle
genre
manuscripts
context
sources
poetics
title S.A. Yesenin’s “To Sister Shura” as a Lyrical and Philosophical Poetic Cycle
title_full S.A. Yesenin’s “To Sister Shura” as a Lyrical and Philosophical Poetic Cycle
title_fullStr S.A. Yesenin’s “To Sister Shura” as a Lyrical and Philosophical Poetic Cycle
title_full_unstemmed S.A. Yesenin’s “To Sister Shura” as a Lyrical and Philosophical Poetic Cycle
title_short S.A. Yesenin’s “To Sister Shura” as a Lyrical and Philosophical Poetic Cycle
title_sort s a yesenin s to sister shura as a lyrical and philosophical poetic cycle
topic s.a. esenin
“to sister shura” poems
lyrical and philosophical cycle
genre
manuscripts
context
sources
poetics
url https://studlit.ru/images/2023-8-4/09_Shubnikova-Guseva_162-181.pdf
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