The Image of the Flâneur in the Early Lyrics of Valeriy Bryusov

The article analyzes four collections of V. Bryusovʼs poems – “Chefs dʼeuvre,” “Tertia vigilia,” “Stefanos,” and “All Melodies” – by focusing on the special figure of the observing poet, who closely follows the scenic city life and reflects on his consequent states of mind. The most notable poems are compared with the works of Sh. Baudelaire, and first of all, with the texts included in the infamous collection the “Flowers of Evil” (Les Fleurs du mal), as well as with some poems by N. Nekrasov. The analysis of the established echoes demonstrates an interesting interplay, within Bryusov's early urban lyrics, of poetics, themes and motifs taken from both the French cursed poet and the master of Russian civil poetry. The first book of the Russian symbolist reveals his apprenticeship to Baudelaire (Bryusov creates translations, poetic paraphrases of and variations on the works of the author of the “Flowers of Evil”) and his gradual interiorization of the image of the flâneur-the artist, which proved extremely productive for creating new symbolist lyrics. The lens of the flâneur-the visionary allows him not only to describe the rapidly changing urban reality, but also to multiply its projections: cultural, historical and phantasmagoric. Under the influence of the French poet, Bryusov comes to recognize beauty in ugliness and sweetness in suffering; however, it is not an acute mental anguish and misery, but rather mild melancholy that defines Bryusov’s take on the flâneur figure

Aesthetics · Art · Beauty · Lament · Literature · Lyrics · Poetics · Poetry · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · European Cultural and National Identity · History