Article

Name: Ivan Bunin’s «Stikhovtorenija» («Echo-Poems») on Meeting and Parting

Authors: Vladimirov O. N.

In the section The Plot, Motive, Genre

Abstract: The variated ‘meeting and parting’ plotline makes up one of uncollected lyric cycles by I. A. Bunin. A number of those poems similar in subject, but written in different years can be more accurately defined as «stikhovtorenija» (the term by M. N. Epstein, to say «echo-poems» or «texts-in-between»). The nucleus and periphery of this unauthorized cycle are recognized upon the subject of meeting and parting usually connected somehow with the sea. The poems in question are as follows: «Night» («Ночь»), «A midnight frigate passed the island…» («Мимо острова в полночь фрегат проходил…»), «A meeting» («Встреча»), «A parting» («Разлука»), «The hills are reddened by the scorching heat…» («Порыжели холмы. Зноем выжжены…»), and others, eleven in all, with ten or so adjoining works. Considering each poem as a member of thematically close group we can understand more profoundly every particular text, as well as context, and I. A. Bunin’s lyrics on the whole.

Keywords: lyric plot, lyric cycle, cycle forming connections, motif.

Bibliography: