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Abstract:

This article considers N. Gumilyov’s early poem “A Neo-Romantic Fairy Tale” in connection with the poet’s artistic and critical reflection on the concepts of “Romanticism” and “Neo-Romanticism.” The poem’s three editions are analyzed, as well as its place within the poetry books “Pearls” (1910) and “Romantic Flowers” (1918). The poem’s “toy-like” character, revealing its “artificiality” is discussed; the latter is enhanced by the metatextual effect of the final stanza, which creates a parallel between the poet narrating the “Neo-Romantic tale” to the reader and the captive ogre “composing fairy tales” for children. Self-irony (the identification of the poet as an “ogre” instead of a “prince”) and the self-reflexivity of this text are noted. The author investigates the sources of “A Neo-Romantic Fairy Tale”. In connection with the poem’s “Heine-esque” ending, the problem of two “ways out from Romanticism — toward Heine and toward Gautier,” which Gumilyov wrote about in one of his reviews, is examined. “The Neo-Romantic Fairy Tale” is compared with Gumilyov’s earlier poem “The Tale of the Kings” (1903–1905); it is noted that, while using the same arsenal of images in his later text, Gumilyov inverts the plot lines and changes the tone, so that the effect arises of the poet overcoming his own Romanticism.