Abstract
The article for the first time considers the range of meanings generated by the artistic sign “the wheat” in the first book of poems “The Wild Porphyry” (1912) by M. A. Zenkevich. The desire to understand the naturalmaterial integrity of the universe in its various manifestations determines the actualization of the facts of the plant world in the poet’s verses. Central among species of flora in the poetics of “The Wild Porphyry” is “the wheat”, placed in a strong position of structural-semantic organization of a number of poetic texts of the third section of the book (“Lyrics”). Expressed the hypothesis that “wheat” symbolics connects the natural, mythological and Christian contexts of “adamistic” world outlook approved in M. Zenkevich’s works. Despite the “material” version of acmeistic adamism explicated in the poet’s lyrics, the semantic potential of the studied element of poetic flora contributes to the verification of the ways of spiritualization of the world order. The structural-semiotic analysis of the four poems of the poet, which depict “the wheat” and its derivatives, shows that this sign produces the ideologeme of the opposition of life and death in their axiological unity. Revealing the solar meanings of ontological transfiguration of the created world, “wheat ears” are the conductor of Christian axiology. The emerging range of semantic correspondences “wheat – sun – Christ” generates the ideologeme of the way to the convergence of material and spiritual principles of being. At the same time, the actualization of hristian connotations in M. Zenkevich’s poetics not only does not exclude, but, on the contrary, strengthens the mythopoetic meanings of agrarian-natural reality. Symbolizing the cyclical relationship between the vital and mortal aspects of ontology, “the wheat ear” reveals the unity of earthly matter and the solar spirituality of the universe. The conclusion is made about the combination of natural, mythopoetic and Christian meanings in the artistic symbolism of “the wheat”, the interaction of which discloses the essential foundations of the artistic axiology explicated in the poetics of “The Wild Porphyry”. The search for the unity of life and death manifested by “the wheat” signs is obviously the highest value in the “adamistic” universe of M. Zenkevich.
Keywords
Lyrical Subject, M. Zenkevich, Poetics of Adamism, Poetical Flora, Structure of Plot, Christian Axiology, Artistic Symbolics