Subject
angels and demons
From
Date
Body
A Jew, probably a Komsomol member,
Decided to portray everyday life of the gentry in the old days:
Riding his mortgage[carriage], to the sound of bells,
The landowner hurries to the order for post-horses[inn].
This is Mandelshtam's epigram on Iosif Utkin, a Jewish poet, author of The Tale about Red Motele (1925). Interestingly, Utkin perished (in 1944) in an airplane accident. At the moment of his death he had in his hands a book of Lermontov's poems. In Zatish'ye ("Calm;" could VN have read it? did he knew of the circumstances of Utkin's death? has he heard of Utkin at all?) Utkin wrote: "Будто лермонтовский ангел / Душу выронит из рук" ("As if Lermontov's angel will drop the soul from his arms). The allusion is to Lermontov's poem Angel (1831) in which the angel carries the young soul in his arms. In Ada (3.7) Demon Veen perishes in an airplane disaster that is never explained.
Incidentally, Utkin comes from utka, "duck." It rhymes with shutka, "joke."
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Decided to portray everyday life of the gentry in the old days:
Riding his mortgage[carriage], to the sound of bells,
The landowner hurries to the order for post-horses[inn].
This is Mandelshtam's epigram on Iosif Utkin, a Jewish poet, author of The Tale about Red Motele (1925). Interestingly, Utkin perished (in 1944) in an airplane accident. At the moment of his death he had in his hands a book of Lermontov's poems. In Zatish'ye ("Calm;" could VN have read it? did he knew of the circumstances of Utkin's death? has he heard of Utkin at all?) Utkin wrote: "Будто лермонтовский ангел / Душу выронит из рук" ("As if Lermontov's angel will drop the soul from his arms). The allusion is to Lermontov's poem Angel (1831) in which the angel carries the young soul in his arms. In Ada (3.7) Demon Veen perishes in an airplane disaster that is never explained.
Incidentally, Utkin comes from utka, "duck." It rhymes with shutka, "joke."
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/