Information about the author:
Svetlana P. Sorokina
Svetlana P. Sorokina, PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, Moscow 121069, Russia.
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Abstract:
The article examines the early poems of S. Esenin: “Under a Wreath of Forest Chamomile...” (1911), “The Night is Dark, I Can’t Sleep…” (1911), “Tanyusha Was Good, there Was No Prettier Girl in the Village…” (1911), “Imitation of a Song” (“You Watered the Horse...”) (1910), “The Scarlet Light of Dawn was Woven on the Lake…” (1910). The author aims to show the connection of these works with such genre of folklore as cruel romance. The article reveals the plot and compositional elements of a cruel romance, on which Esenin relies; parallels are drawn with specific folklore songs, which were most likely known to the poet. At the same time, the author shows that the poems in question are not folklore stylization, but that Esenin is searching for his individual poetic “voice” in them, which is confirmed by the absence of stylistic parallels between the cruel romance and Esenin’s poems. The article suggests why the genre of cruel romance was in demand by Esenin in the early period of his work, as well as why, when publishing Collected Poems (1925), he could have shifted the dates of creation of the poems in question.
