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

an attempt to attain spiritual enlightenment. As a poet, Shvarts has tremendous respect,
even reverence for words, but her ultimate project is greater than language. 204
In the
end, it is not the words she seeks, but the revelation which can eliminate the need for
those words.
The final epigraphs to Lavinia deal with the poet's role as seeker of truth. The
seventh epigraph, from Безумный Линь, suggests Shvarts's embarkation on her journey
of discovery: У входа в пещеру/Играю с клубящимся туманом (At the entrance to the
cave/I play with the swirling fog). The entrance to the cave can be read as a metaphor for
the entrance to the book of poetry. At this stage, Shvarts is playing with swirling fog—
the words have not yet provided an overall shape or meaning. The following epigraph,
taken from Aleksandr Mironov's verse introduction to his Метафизические радости,
predicts a ruinous end to the poetic journey. In the poem, Mironov describes the
simplicity and purity of incorporeal poetic wanderings from silence to spiritual fruition:
Как бестелесны и просты/плутанья наши—/от новой страшной немоты/до Новой
Чаши. Once the Word of God has been corrupted by the flesh of letters and human
language, however, the promised Chalice turns into a small, and hollow cup, the object of
Shvarts's epigraph: И снова станет небольшой и полой чашей. Shvarts alters the
original text slightly, replacing снова with скоро, again pointing out the incipient nature
of her book. By citing Mironov's poem, she suggests that Lavinia's poems are not the
204 When asked what language means to her, Shvarts responded: Для меня язык прежде всего слуга. Я
очень люблю язык, его богатство, его возможности. К сочинению стихов я отношусь как к
сакральному, священному акту, когда происходит слияние каких-то сил, идущих не только от меня,
и даже в меньшей степени идущих от меня, а гораздо больше еще откуда-то. И постольку,
поскольку действуют совсем какие-то другие силы, они пробуждают и языковые скрытые пласты и
все, что угодно, другое, когда это нужно. Polukhina, Brodsky, 206.
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