Open AccessMOTIFS OF THE “MIRACLES OF OUR LADY” IN PUSHKIN’S POEM “THE LEGEND”
Author(s) -
Mikhail Rogov
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
vremennik puškinskoj komissii
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 0236-2481
DOI - 10.31860/0236-2481-2020-34-78-101
Subject(s) - legend , poetry , literature , mysticism , narrative , motif (music) , art , knight , folklore , deed , interpretation (philosophy) , history , philosophy , linguistics , physics , astronomy , political science , law , aesthetics
This study is devoted to the identification of sources of Pushkin’s original poem “There Lived a Poor Knight ...” (“The Legend”). Through revealing the “traces” of a literary source in the drafts of “The Legend,” the details of the narrative “Will Taken for Deed,” going back to a Middle French transcription of the poetic collection “The Miracles of Our Lady” by Gautier de Coinci, have been found. Perhaps, while working on “The Legend,” the poet used a motif of the Virgin Mary’s mystical names in the collection of Marian miracles by Caesar of Heisterbach. Both “The Legend” and Franz’s song in “Scenes from Knightly Times” consistently moved away from the Marian narrative. This substantiates the interpretation of both versions as an evolution in the same direction originally chosen by the poet.