Innokenty Annensky: biography, creative heritage

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The fate of the poet Annensky Inokenty Fedorovich (1855-1909) is unique in its kind. He published his first poetry collection (and the only one during his lifetime) at the age of 49 under the pseudonym Nick. T-o.

The poet at first was going to title the book "From the Cave of Polyphemus" and choose the pseudonym Utis, which means "no one" in Greek (Odysseus introduced himself to the Cyclops Polyphemus). Later the collection was called "Quiet Songs". Alexander Blok, who did not know who the author of the book was, considered such anonymity doubtful. He wrote that the poet seemed to bury his face under a mask that made him get lost among the many books. Perhaps, in this modest confusion, one should look for too much "painful anguish"?

The origin of the poet, early years

The future poet was born in Omsk. His parents (see the photo below) soon moved to St. Petersburg. Innokenty Annensky in his autobiography reported that his childhood passed in an environment in which landlord and bureaucratic elements were combined. From a young age he loved to study literature and history, felt antipathy for everythingbanal-clear and elementary.

First verses

Innokenty Annensky began to write poetry quite early. Since the concept of "symbolism" was still unknown to him in the 1870s, he considered himself a mystic. Annensky was attracted by the "religious genre" of B. E. Murillo, a 17th-century Spanish artist. He tried to "formulate this genre with words".

The young poet, following the advice of his older brother, who was a well-known publicist and economist (N. F. Annensky), decided that it was not worth publishing before the age of 30. Therefore, his poetic experiments were not intended for publication. Innokenty Annensky wrote poems in order to hone his skills and declare himself already as a mature poet.

University studies

The study of antiquity and ancient languages in the university years for a time supplanted writing. As Innokenty Annensky admitted, during these years he wrote nothing but dissertations. "Pedagogical-administrative" activity began after university. In the opinion of fellow antique scholars, she distracted Innokenty Fedorovich from scientific studies. And those who sympathized with his poetry believed that it interfered with creativity.

Debut as critic

Innokenty Annensky made his debut in print as a critic. He published in the 1880s and 1890s a number of articles devoted mainly to Russian literature of the 19th century. In 1906, the first "Book of Reflections" appeared, and in 1909, the second. This is a collection of criticism, which is distinguished by its impressionisticperception, Wilde's subjectivism and associative-figurative moods. Innokenty Fedorovich emphasized that he was only a reader, and not a critic at all.

Translations of French poets

Annensky the poet considered the French Symbolists as his forerunners, whom he willingly translated a lot. In addition to enriching the language, he also saw their merit in increasing aesthetic sensitivity, in that they increased the scale of artistic sensations. A significant section of Annensky's first collection of poems was made up of translations of French poets. Of the Russians, Innokenty Fedorovich was closest to K. D. Balmont, who aroused reverence in the author of Quiet Songs. Annensky highly appreciated the musicality and "new flexibility" of his poetic language.

Publications in the symbolist press

Innokenty Annensky led a rather secluded literary life. During the period of onslaught and storm, he did not defend the right to exist of the "new" art. Annensky did not participate in further internal symbolist disputes either.

By 1906, the first publications of Innokenty Fedorovich in the symbolist press (magazine "Pass") belong. In fact, his entry into the symbolist environment took place only in the last year of his life.

Recent years

Critic and poet Innokenty Annensky gave lectures at the Poetry Academy. He was also a member of the "Society of Zealots of the Artistic Word", which operated under the journal"Apollo". On the pages of this magazine, Annensky published an article that can be called programmatic - "On Modern Lyricism".

Posthumous cult, "Cypress Casket"

Wide resonance in symbolist circles was caused by his sudden death. Innokenty Annensky died at the Tsarskoye Selo railway station. His biography ended, but his creative destiny after his death was further developed. Among young poets close to "Apollo" (mainly of the acmeist orientation, who reproached the Symbolists for their inattention to Annensky), his posthumous cult began to take shape. 4 months after the death of Innokenty Fedorovich, the second collection of his poems was published. The poet's son, V. I. Annensky-Krivich, who became his biographer, commentator and editor, completed the preparation of The Cypress Casket (the collection was so named because Annensky's manuscripts were kept in a cypress box). There is reason to believe that he did not always follow the author's will of his father punctually.

Innokenty Annensky, whose poems were not very popular during his lifetime, gained well-deserved fame with the release of "The Cypress Casket". Blok wrote that this book penetrates deep into the heart and explains to him a lot about himself. Bryusov, who had previously drawn attention to the "freshness" of phrases, comparisons, epithets, and even just the words that were chosen in the collection Quiet Songs, already noted as an undoubted advantage the impossibility of guessing two words from Innokenty Fedorovich.the next stanzas according to the first two verses and the end of the work according to its beginning. Krivich in 1923 published in the collection en titled "The Posthumous Poems of In. Annensky", the remaining texts of the poet.

Originality

Its lyrical hero is a man who solves the "hateful rebus of being". Annensky carefully analyzes the "I" of a person who would like to be the whole world, spill, dissolve in it, and which is tortured by the consciousness of the inevitable end, hopeless loneliness and aimless existence.

Annensky's poems are given a unique originality by "sly irony". According to V. Bryusov, she became the second person of Innokenty Fedorovich as a poet. The writing style of the author of "The Cypress Casket" and "Quiet Songs" is sharply impressionistic. Vyacheslav Ivanov called it associative symbolism. Annensky believed that poetry does not depict. She only hints to the reader about something that cannot be expressed in words.

Today, the work of Inokenty Fedorovich has received well-deserved fame. The school curriculum includes such a poet as Innokenty Annensky. "Among the Worlds", the analysis of which is given to schoolchildren, is perhaps his most famous poem. We also note that in addition to poetry, he wrote four plays in the spirit of Euripides on the plots of his lost tragedies.