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

Epigraph/Dedication to St. Thérèse of Lisieux
From the opening page, Gippius's final book is distinct from her earlier
collections: first, for its thematic title; second, for the dedication included on the title
page. While Gippius occasionally attached epigraphs or dedications to individual poems
in her previous books (and in Сияния as well), this is the only instance where she
provided a dedication or epigraph to an entire book. This gesture, like the thematic title,
adds to the sense of the book as a unified whole—the entire book can be given a single
name and a single dedicatee.
The dedication itself is somewhat cryptic, leaving the addressee unnamed:
Тебе, чье имя не открою,
Но ты со мной всегда,
Ты мне, как горная вода
Среди земного зноя.
For you, whose name I will not reveal,
But you are with my always,
To me you are like mountain water
Amidst the intense heat of the earth.
At first the dedication seems to be a very private gesture, a concealed address from
Gippius to her dedicatee. Yet, by presenting it so publicly on the title page of her book,
and by declaring that she will not reveal the addressee, Gippius sets up a riddle for the
reader. She stresses the addressee's constant presence in her life (ты со мной всегда), a
presence which presumably will be felt in the book that follows. Uncovering the identity
of the dedicatee may provide a key to reading the book as a whole.
final words of Thomas (Нету слов об этом на свете,/Кроме слов—последних—Фомы). Even here,
Gippius does not dare to replicate those words (Господь мой и Бог мой (John 20:28)) in her own voice.
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