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Cryptoecphrasis in M. V. Lomonosov’s and G. R. Derzhavin’s anacreontic poetry

Liberal Arts in Russia. 2022. Vol. 11. No. 5. Pp. 355-363.
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Salova S. A.
Ufa University of Science and Technologies
32 Zaki Validi Street, 450076 Ufa, Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia
Email: zarubeznaya_ff@mail.ru

Abstract

The article is focused on the phenomenon of cryptoekphrasis in Russian poetry of the 18th century. Cryptoekphrasis may be interpreted as implicit and fragmentary verbalization of certain elements of the visual source as a playful, often parodic in terms of its goal, artistic device that does not have a clearly defined functional purpose. Within the intermedia discourse, cryptoekphrasis clearly correlates with unattributed allusion in the intertextuality paradigm, understood as a hint, an indirect reference designed to produce associative links with other literary texts. Similarly, cryptoekphrasis implicitly establishes an associative link between the verbal recipient text and the visual donator text without an explicit reference to it. The research object is the paraphrastic remapping of Anacreontea XXVIII by M. V. Lomonosov and the Anacreontic memoir by G. R. Derzhavin in remembrance of Empress Catherine II. Reconstruction of the paradigmatic context of these two poems made it possible to reveal their implicit mediation by the paintings of European artists, created in an amalgam of classic and rocaille styles. As possible donator artifacts of Lomonosov’s paraphrase of Anacreontea XXVIII, the author of this article considers the picturesque portraits of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna in the image of Flora, created at different times by the representatives of Rossica Louis Caravaque, Georg-Christopher Groot, Heinrich Buchholz, as well as the “Equestrian portrait of Elizabeth Petrovna with retinue” by Georg Kaspar Prenner. A hypothesis about the indirect influence of the gallant paintings by Antoine Watteau “Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera” and Joshua Reynolds “Cupid Unties the Belt of Venus” on the conceptualization of the poetic myth of Catherine II Cyprida in the poem by G. R. Derzhavin “Ruins” is put on. The idea that the expansion of Anacreontic motives and images into the conventional odic discourse of praising crowned persons strengthened the intention to intimate the attitude of panegyric subjects towards them. It is stated that approximately from the second half of the 18th century in Russian literature, “Romanophile” (imperial panegyric myths from the point of view of modus) and “Hellenophile” (private myths in pathos view) began to coexist without conflict within common poetic area, which focused on the secular sacralization of glorified persons.

Keywords

  • • intermedia comparative studies
  • • ekphrasis
  • • anacreontic poetry
  • • M. V. Lomonosov
  • • G. R. Derzhavin
  • • Conversation with Anacreon
  • • Ruins

References

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