The elegy’s status as a lament of loss does, indeed, mean that elegies are often responses to death, as evidenced in the example of Vasilii Zhukovskii’s “Na smert’ Andreia Turgeneva”. The poem’s subject could not be any more evident; the speaker begins with an incantatory “O” in which he addresses his deceased friend, and immediately describes his coffin. Yet the speaker remains alone, in his own words he is “оставленный,” abandoned; he laments the loss of companionship and friendship. This pain is echoed in the ever-so-slightly irregular meter of the poem. The stanzas, despite being of four lines each, have varying meters and rhyming schemes: the first and last are ABBA whereas the middle one is ABAB, and the meter changes from 12 syllables
…show more content…
One such example is that of lost love, or unrequited love. In Batiushkov’s “Moi genii,” the poet writes a lament to a lost muse, described as “мо[я] пастушк[а] несрабвенн[ая],” an incomparable shepherdess, which holds true as Batiushkov forgoes metaphors and similes. Instead, he chooses to describe his muse as she is in his memory, as illustrated by the anaphora on lines 5-7, in which he repeats “я помню” as a sort of refrain. This [ju] sound, placed before the details which Batiushkov recollects, makes for an almost hesitant description of the woman, especially as each one is the beginning of an iamb, with the first syllable of the element being recalled at the end, creating an effect of hesitation and then certainty, almost as if the poet were trying to convince himself of what he is describing. Indeed, in the poem, Batiushkov relies on his recollection of his muse to bring her back to him; he is not describing the woman herself so much as he is creating a new muse, with a soft voice, blue eyes and golden locks just like the first. However, she seems to only be present when the speaker is sleeping, or so he hopes, as revealed at the end of the poem, “Засну ль? приникнет к изголовью // И усладит печальный сон”, further highlighting the fact that this muse is a surrogate. It seems, at least, that the speaker is recovering from his loss, as the poem closes where it opens, with sad feelings or memories (“памяти печальной” in line 2), but here the melancholy shifts towards a happier place with the term
One such example is that of lost love, or unrequited love. In Batiushkov’s “Moi genii,” the poet writes a lament to a lost muse, described as “мо[я] пастушк[а] несрабвенн[ая],” an incomparable shepherdess, which holds true as Batiushkov forgoes metaphors and similes. Instead, he chooses to describe his muse as she is in his memory, as illustrated by the anaphora on lines 5-7, in which he repeats “я помню” as a sort of refrain. This [ju] sound, placed before the details which Batiushkov recollects, makes for an almost hesitant description of the woman, especially as each one is the beginning of an iamb, with the first syllable of the element being recalled at the end, creating an effect of hesitation and then certainty, almost as if the poet were trying to convince himself of what he is describing. Indeed, in the poem, Batiushkov relies on his recollection of his muse to bring her back to him; he is not describing the woman herself so much as he is creating a new muse, with a soft voice, blue eyes and golden locks just like the first. However, she seems to only be present when the speaker is sleeping, or so he hopes, as revealed at the end of the poem, “Засну ль? приникнет к изголовью // И усладит печальный сон”, further highlighting the fact that this muse is a surrogate. It seems, at least, that the speaker is recovering from his loss, as the poem closes where it opens, with sad feelings or memories (“памяти печальной” in line 2), but here the melancholy shifts towards a happier place with the term