Article

Name: “Another Speech Will Be a Shell for Me...”: I. W. Goethe’s “Erl-King” at O. Mandelshtam’s

Authors: Elena Yu. Kulikova

Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section On the Occasion of the Centenary of Yury Chumakov

Abstract:

Osip Mandelstam’s lyrics are inconceivable without connection with Goethe’s motives and plots. The article considers I. W. Goethe’s ballad “Erl-king”, the images and motives of which were reflected in Mandelstam’s poem “On the high pass...” (“Phaeton driver”) and in some others (“That evening the ogival forest of the organ did not hum”, “To German speech”).

The poem “Phaeton driver” can be called a ballad or a text endowed with ballad features. From the beginning, Mandelstam sets a ballad code: the lyrical character sees a fantastic dream, spins in a mystical carousel arranged by the “devil’s day laborer”. The plot is based on Goethe-Zhukovsky’s “Erl-king”. The characters find themselves at the mercy of a terrible creature that draws them into his creepy world. The composition of the poem gives reason to consider this parallel. The phaeton driver is described as the Erl-king, Mandelstam lists important points from Goethe’s text and creates his demon, describing his appearance, voice (sounds), movement features (circling / round dances), the terrible fear of the character that kills him.

In the poem “That evening the ogival forest of the organ did not hum” the first lines refer to Goethe’s “Erl-king”. The organ is reminiscent of a forest space and, although this is a metaphor, the metaphor is bright and filled with materiality, as is always the case with acmeists. Schubert – the author of the music for Goethe’s ballad “Erl-king” becomes a direct indication of the reference.

In the famous Mandelstam’s “To the German Speech” Goethe is mentioned as not yet «come», like the “unborn” author himself, existing only in the form of a letter, a grape line, a dream book. At first glance, the intertext of the poem does not refer to Goethe’s “Erl-king”. Moreover, all possible references are rather to Zhukovsky than to the German classic (the motive of flight, dream). However, implicitly this ballad becomes one of the primary sources of the text “To German speech”. Galloping Goethe’s horses at Mandelstam’s turn into lyrics, into letters. So the whole German culture comes through in Russian poetry, melting into its flesh and blood.

Keywords: J. W. Goethe, “Erl-king”, Osip Mandelstam, V. A. Zhukovsky, F. Schubert, ballad, intertext

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