THE BOOK OF POEMS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ... - TopReferat

circumcision of the heart. This combination of traditions is typical of Shvarts's verse as a
whole, and particularly her book Lavinia. 191
By titling the book Труды и дни, Shvarts suggests an affinity to or descendance
from Hesiod's poem, an example of "exhortation to wisdom" poetry which provides
advice on how to live. This suggestion is reinforced by the book's first epigraph, an
imperative first bit of advice on how to be wise: "Хочешь быть мудрым в веке сем,
будь безумным." Already in the title, Shvarts has provided a reference point for
Lavinia's book within the poetic tradition. Throughout the book she will continue to
explore Lavinia's role as poet and the role of poetry itself.
The choice of the non-Russian name Lavinia emphasizes the heroine's exceptional
nature and seems to provide her with a pre-Christian heritage. 192
In Roman legend
Lavinia was the daughter of King Latinus, the wife of Aeneas, and the ancestor of the
Roman people. Lavinia also suggests a feminine inversion of the name Livanii
(Ливаний), the Russian equivalent of Libanius, a pagan fourth-century rhetorician from
Antioch who wanted to pass on his school to his prized pupil, Ioann Zlatoust, "еслибъ
его не похитили христiане." 193
Both Antioch and Ioann are important to Shvarts: she
cites Ioann in her third epigraph and makes frequent reference to Paul, whose missionary
work in Antioch opened up the Christian church to the Gentiles. Paul's ecumenical vision
191 It is difficult to know to what extent Shvarts endows her many references with particular meaning. She
has described herself as an autodidact who has read widely but not in depth. Heldt, "The Poetry of Elena
Shvarts," 381. Catriona Kelly has described her use of "head-spinning mosaics of citations" as "patchwork,
rather than appliqué." They are "not hierarchically ordered in terms of either values or perspectives."
Catriona Kelly, A History of Russian Women's Writing 1820-1992 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 413.
Similarly, Sandler does not consider Shvarts's references to have the kind of intricate subtextual patterning
typical of the Acmeists; rather, "Shvarts relies on more fleeting associations, and typically mixes sources
very freely." Sandler, "Elena Shvarts and the Distances of Self-Disclosure," 102. This said, when
contained within a novel-like structure, the references have more resonance and interplay within the
fictional, mythical world which Shvarts creates.
192 This is not unique in Shvarts's verse. She has previously taken on the persona of a legendary Roman
woman poet in her cycle "Kinfiia."
193 Entsiklopedicheskii slovar', vol. 34, (Moscow: Terra, 1990-94), 644.
144