The myth of the angel in A. Polezhaev’s poetry

Abstract

This article considers the myth of the angel in the poetry of A. Polezhaev, a representative of the socalled “God-fighting” romanticism. The image of an angel was quite frequent in the poetry of Russian romantics in the first half of the 19 th century, in particular, it was most traditionally and fully represented in the poetry of V. Zhukovsky who worked within the framework of Christian Romanticism. Polezhaev, on the other hand, comes to consider this image from a God–fighting position, and his image of an angel is artistically comprehended through the prism of the opposition “Beauty – Death”, which is not only typical, but also meaningful for Polezhaev’s poetry. The image of an angel acquires several incarnations in A. Polezhaev's poetry: it can be comprehended through the image of a beautiful beloved endowed with angelic beauty; Polezhaev also refers to the traditional image of an angel messenger of God, but embodies it differently, through the plot of fallen angels rejected by their creator. In addition, the features of the traditional image of an angel in Polezhaevsky poetry are given to a demon capable of bringing not destruction and death, but inspiration. Thus, we can say that the God-fighting motifs in his work manifest themselves atypically and in a peculiar way, the protagonist makes attempts to fight with God both through the image of an angel, including an inverted one, and through beauty.