Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Rilke: In defense of poetry

This study describes the "triangular" literary interaction of Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, and Rilke in terms of their poetic mythologies. For Pasternak and Tsvetaeva the relevant myth was the Silver Age conception of the poet as a spokesman and a missionary for his epoch. Rilke's poetic address to Tsvetaeva, in turn, was shaped by the myth of the poet peculiar to the poetics of German Expressionism, wherein the poet remained a lonely, eternally marginal figure. The interplay of these notions or "myths" in those two distinctly different literary cultures provides a fascinating glimpse into the poets' vision of themselves at the time of "changing landmarks", as the poet in both Russia and Europe was losing privileged cultural status.The epistolary significance of the "literary triangle" has been elucidated in a number of commentaries to the published correspondence. Yet, a study of the poetic works that were completed by the three poets during and shortly after their correspondence and addressed, either explicitly or metaphorically, to one another is still lacking. While this study can by no means fill the existing gap entirely, it is intended to illuminate the important literary aspects of the triangle by tracing the mythical and cultural roots of this renowned literary exchange. To this end, the focus of this dissertation is on close readings of selected poems and prose works composed during the 1920's, the decade during which the trilateral exchange took place. By comparing these texts to the literary and historical background that nourished their emergence, the poets' response to the perceived fragility of poetic existence--central theme of the triangular exchange--will be revealed.