Formation of a romantic poem (Coleridge. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”). The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

SamuelTaylorCOLERIDGE

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Source: Poetry of English Romanticism. M., 1975.

THE TALE OF THE ANCIENT SAILOR

IN SEVEN PARTS

“Facile credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles quamvisibiles in rerum universitate. Sed horum omniam familiam quis nobis enarrabit? et gradus et cognationes et discrimina et singulorum munera? Quid agunt? Quae loca habitant? Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanut, nunquam attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque in animo, tanquam in tabula, majoris et melioris mundi imaginem contemplari: ne mens assuefacta hodiernae vitae minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas cogitationes. Sed veritati enterea invigilandum est, modusque servandus, ut certa ab incertis, diem a nocte, distinguamus.” - T. INurnet. Archeol. Phil., p, 68.

SUMMARY

About how the ship, having crossed the Equator, was carried by storms into the country of eternal ice at the South Pole; and how from there the ship proceeded to the tropical latitudes of the Great or Pacific Ocean; and about strange things that happened; and how The Old Mariner returned to his homeland.

	PART ONE
The Ancient Mariner meets three young men invited to a wedding feast and stops one of them.	Here is the Ancient Mariner. Out of the darkness He glared at the Guest. "Who are you? What do you want, old man? Your eyes are burning! Live! The wedding feast is in full swing, The groom is my close friend. Everyone has been waiting for a long time, the wine is boiling, And the noisy circle is cheerful." He holds it with a tenacious hand. “And there was,” he says, “a brig.” “Let go, gray-bearded jester!” - And the old man let go.
The Wedding Guest is enchanted by the Ancient Mariner's eyes and is forced to listen to his story.	He holds with a burning gaze, And the Guest does not enter the house; As if enchanted, he stands Before the Ancient Mariner. And, subdued, he sits down On the stone at the gate, And his gaze cast lightning And the Sailor said: “There is noise in the crowd, the rope creaks, The flag is raised on the mast. And we sail, this is our father’s house, Here is the church, here is the lighthouse.
The sailor says that the ship sailed to the south, and there was a fair wind, and a calm sea, and then they approached the Equator.	And the sun on the left rose, Beautiful and light Shining upon us, it descended to the waves And it went deeper to the right. The sun is getting higher every day, It's getting hotter every day..." But then the Wedding Guest rushed forward, Hearing trumpet thunder.
The Wedding Guest hears wedding music, but the Sailor continues his story.	The bride entered the hall, fresh, Like a lily in spring. In front of her, swaying to the beat, The intoxicated choir walks. The Wedding Guest rushed there, But no, he won't leave! And his gaze cast lightning And the Sailor said:
A storm takes the ship to the South Pole.	“And suddenly from the kingdom of winter blizzards A fierce squall rushed in. He beat us viciously with his wings, He bent and tore the masts. Like from chains, from slave bonds, Afraid of the scourge to taste it, He runs, abandoning the battle, a coward, Our brig flew forward, All in a storm of torn gear, In the expanse of raging swells, In the darkness of polar waters. Here the fog fell on the ocean, - Oh, miracle! - the water burns! They float, burning like an emerald, Sparkling blocks of ice.
A land of ice and frightening noise, where there is not a single living creature.	In the midst of whiteness, blinded, Through the wild world we walked In a desert of ice where there is no trace No life, no land. Where there is ice on the right and ice on the left, Only dead ice all around, Only the crackle of breaking blocks, Only roar, hum and thunder.
And suddenly a large sea bird called the Albatross flew through the snowy fog. She was greeted with great joy, like a dear guest.	And suddenly, drawing a circle above us, The Albatross flew by. And everyone is happy about the white bird, As if it were a friend or brother, He praised the Creator. He flew to us, from our hands Took unusual food And with a roar the ice opened up, And our ship, entering the span, Left the kingdom of icy waters, Where the storm raged.
And listen! The albatross turned out to be a bird of good omens. He began to accompany the ship, which through the fog and floating ice headed back to the north.	A fair wind rose from the south, Albatross was with us, And he called the bird and played with it, The sailor fed her! Only the day will pass, only the shadow will fall, Our guest is already at the stern. And nine times in the evening hour The moon, accompanying us, Arose in white darkness."
The Ancient Mariner, breaking the law of hospitality, kills a beneficent bird that brings happiness.	“How strange you look, Sailor, Is the demon bothering you? The Lord is with you! - “With my arrow Albatross was killed.
	PART TWO
	And on the right is the bright disk of the Sun Ascended into the sky. At the zenith he hesitated for a long time And on the left, stained with blood, Fell into the abyss of water. The wind rushes us, but it won’t fly away On the ship Albatross, To give him food, to play with him, The sailor caressed him.
The Mariner's companions scold him for killing the bird of good omens.	When I committed the murder The friends' gaze was stern: Like, cursed is the one who beats the bird, Lady of the winds. Oh, how can we be, how can we resurrect Lady of the winds?
But the fog cleared, they began to justify the Sailor and thereby joined in his crime.	When the luminary of the day rose, Light as God's brow Praises poured in: Like, happy is the one who beats the bird, Bad bird of darkness. He saved the ship, he brought us out, He killed the bird of darkness.
The wind continues. The ship enters the Pacific Ocean and sails north until it reaches the Equator.	And the breeze played, and the shaft rose, And our free rabble sailed Forward to the limit of silent waters, Untraversed latitudes.
The ship suddenly stops.	But the wind died down, but the sail lay down, The ship slowed down And everyone suddenly started talking, To hear at least a single sound In the silence of dead waters! Hot copper sky Heavy heat flows. Above the mast the Sun is all covered in blood, The size of the moon. And the plain of waters will not splash, " The face of heaven will not tremble. Or the ocean is drawn And the brig is drawn?
And revenge for the Albatross begins.	There is water all around, but how it cracks Dry board! There's water all around, but nothing to drink Not a drop, not a sip. And it seems that the sea began to rot, - Oh God, there's trouble! They crawled, grew, intertwined in balls, Slugs stuck together in clumps On slimy water. Winding, spinning, it lit up all around The lights of death are hazy. Water is white, yellow, red, Like oil in a sorcerer's lamp, It burned and bloomed.
They are pursued by the Spirit, one of those invisible inhabitants of our planet who are not souls of the dead and not angels. To learn about them, read the learned Jew Josephus and the Constantinople Platonist Michael Psellus. There is no element that is not inhabited by these creatures.	And the Spirit that pursued us Appeared to us in a dream. From the kingdom of ice he swam after us He's in the blue depths. And everyone is looking at me But everyone is like a corpse. Tongue swollen and dry Hangs from black lips.
The sailors, having fallen into despair, want to put all the blame on the Ancient Mariner, as a sign of which they tie a dead Albatross around his neck.	And every glance curses me. Although the lips are silent, And the dead Albatross is on me Hangs instead of a cross.
	PART THREE
	Bad days have come. Larynx Dry. And darkness in the eyes. Bad days! Bad days! What darkness in the eyes!
The Ancient Mariner notices something strange in the distance above the water.	But suddenly I'm at the dawn of something Spotted in the sky. At first it seemed like there was a spot Or a clot of sea mist. No, not a spot, not a haze - an object, Is it an object? But which one? Spot? Fog? Or a sail? - No! But it’s getting closer, floating. Give or take, the elf plays, Dives, twists loops.
And when the mysterious spot approaches, he discerns a ship. And at a great price he frees his speech from the captivity of thirst.	Not a cry from our black lips, No laughter escaped at that moment, My tongue was also silent in my mouth, The mouth just twisted. Then I bit my finger I watered my throat with blood, I shouted with all my might: "Ship! The ship is coming! They look, but their gaze is empty* Their black lips are silent,
Ray of joy;	But I was heard And as if a ray flashed from the clouds, And everyone took a deep breath, It was as if he was drinking, drinking...
And again horror, for what ship can sail without waves and wind?	“Friends (I shouted) someone’s bark! We will be saved! But he goes, and the keel is raised, Although there are hundreds of miles around No wind, no waves.
He sees only the outline of the ship.	The sunset was burning in the west Blood gold. The sun was blazing - red circle Over the red water And the black ghost was strange Between sky and water.
And the ribs of the ship turn black, like prison bars before the face of the setting Sun.	And suddenly (Lord, Lord, listen!) The rods crawled across the Sun With bars, and for a moment As if to a prison window, Ready to sink into the depths, A burning face fell. Floating! (I thought, turning pale) After all, these are miracles! There's a web of cobwebs shining there - Are they really sails? And what kind of bars are there all of a sudden? Has the sun's light dimmed? Is this the skeleton of a ship? Why are there no sailors?
Only the Phantom Woman and her assistant Death, and no one else is on the ghost ship.	There is only one woman there. That's Death! And next to her Another. It's even scarier More bony and paler - Or is she also Death?
As is the ship, so are the shipmen!	Bloody mouth, sightless gaze, But the hairs burn with gold. Like lime - skin color. That's Life-and-in-Death, yes, it is! A terrible guest in a sleepless night, Blood-curdling delirium.
Death and Life-and-in-Death play dice, and they bet on the crew of the ship, and she (the second) wins the Ancient Mariner.	The bark was approaching. Death and Death They played dice, sitting on a pole. I saw them clearly. And she cried out with laughter, Whose lips are red like blood; “Mine took it, mine!”
There is no twilight after sunset.	The sun went out - at the same moment Darkness gave way to light. The ship sailed away, and only a wave She made a menacing noise after me.
And the Moon rises.	And we look, and there is fear in our eyes, And fear squeezes our hearts, And the helmsman is pale. And darkness and sails splashing, And dew drips loudly from them, But from the east it spilled golden hue, And the Moon rose from the clouds With one star between the horns, Green star.
One by one	And one after another all around Suddenly they turned to me In terrible silence And expressed a silent reproach Their dull gaze full of torment, Stopping at me.
his comrades fall dead.	There were two hundred of them. And without words One fell, then another... And the sound of falling clay The sound of them falling reminded me Short and dull.
And Life-and-in-Death begins to exact punishment on the Ancient Mariner.	And two hundred souls left their bodies - To the limit of good or evil? Whistle like my arrow Heavy air cut through Invisible wings."
	PART FOUR
The Wedding Guest is frightened, thinking that he is talking to the Phantom.	“Let me go, Sailor! Yours is scary Withered hand. Your gaze is gloomy, your face is darker Coastal sand. I'm afraid of your bony hands, Your burning eyes!
But the Ancient Mariner, having convinced him of his bodily life, continues his terrible confession.	“Do not be afraid, Marriage Guest, - alas! I survived the terrible hour. Alone, alone, always alone, One day and night! And God did not heed my prayers, Didn't want to help!
He despises the creatures born of Tranquility,	Death took two hundred lives, I cut off their thread, And worms, slugs - they all live, And I have to live!
and is angry that they are alive, while so many people died.	If I look into the sea, I see rot And I look away. I look at my rotting brig - But there are corpses lying around. I look at the heavens, but no Prayers on the lips. The heart has dried up, as in the steppes Ashes burned by the sun. I want to fall asleep, but it’s a terrible burden It caught my eye: The whole breadth of the skies and the depth of the seas They are crushed by its weight, And the dead are at your feet!
He reads his curse in dead eyes.	The sweat of death glistened on their faces, But decay did not touch the bodies. Like in the hour of death, only anger from the eyes He looked into my eyes. Fear the orphan's curse - The saint will be thrown into hell! But believe me, the curse of dead eyes A hundred times more terrible: For seven days I read death in them And he was not taken by death!
And in his loneliness and in his torpor he envies the Moon and the Stars, which are at rest, but are always moving. Everywhere the sky belongs to them, and in the sky they find shelter and shelter, like desired rulers whom they eagerly await and whose arrival brings quiet joy.	And the bright moon floated by In the deep blue And a star floated next to him, Or maybe two. The water sparkled in their rays, As in frost - fields. But, full of red reflections, The wave resembled blood In the shadow of the ship.
In the light of the Moon, he sees God's creatures born of great Tranquility.	And there, behind the shadow of the ship, I saw sea snakes. They rose like flowers And their footprints lit up Millions of lights. Wherever there was no shadow, My gaze distinguished them. Sparkled in and above the water Them black, blue, gold And a pink pattern.
Their beauty and happiness.	Oh, the happiness of living and seeing the world There is no strength to express it! I saw a key in the desert - And blessed life.
He blesses them in his heart.	I saw the mercy of heaven - And blessed life.
And the spell ends.	And the soul dropped the burden, I said a prayer And at that very moment it fell from me Into the abyss Albatross.
	PART FIVE
	Oh, sleep, oh, blessed sleep! He is sweet to every creature. Praise be to you, Most Pure One, You gave people a sweet dream, And sleep overcame me.
By the grace of the Most Pure Mother the Ancient Mariner is refreshed by the rain.	I dreamed that the heat was weakening, The firmament darkened And water splashes in the barrels. I woke up and it was raining. My tongue is wet, my mouth is fresh, I'm soaked to the skin And every time the body drinks Life-giving juice. I get up - and it’s so easy for my body: Or did I die in my sleep? Or has he become a disembodied spirit? And heaven opened up to me?
He hears some sounds and sees a strange movement in the skies and in the elements.	But the wind rustled in the distance, Then again, again, And the sails moved And they began to swell. And the air came alive above! Lights came on all around. Near, far - a million lights, Above, below, among the masts and yards, They hovered around the stars. And the wind howled and the sails They made noise like a wave. And the rain poured from the black clouds, The moon floated among them. The depths of the clouds opened up like a thunderstorm, The crescent moon was nearby. A wall of lightning has been erected, It seemed like she was falling I'm flowing down the steep side.
Life is infused into the corpses of the ship's crew, and the ship rushes forward;	They sighed, stood up, wandered off, In silence, in silence. I'm on the walking dead I looked like I was in a bad dream. And the wind died down, but our brig sailed, And the helmsman led our brig. The sailors did their thing, Who is used to where and how. But everyone was like a mannequin Lifeless and faceless. My brother's son stood Shoulder to shoulder with me. We pulled the rope alone, But he was there - a dumb corpse."
but not human souls, not demons of the earth or the middle sphere of air, inhabit them, but heavenly spirits, blessed spirits sent through the intercession of the saints.	"Old man, I'm scared!" - “Listen Guest, And calm your heart! Not the souls of the dead, victims of evil, Entered, returning, into their bodies, But there is a swarm of bright spirits. And that’s all, leaving work at dawn, They gathered around the mast, And the sounds of sweet prayers It flowed from their lips. And every sound floated around - Or flew to the Sun. And down they rushed in succession, Or merged into a chorale. The lark trilled From the azure heights, There are hundreds of other chirps, Ringing in the forest thickets, In the fields, above the swell of water. But everything fell silent. Only sails They made noise until noon. So between the roots of a forest stream Runs, barely ringing, Cradling the silent forest And putting him to sleep. And until noon our brig sailed, I walked forward without wind, So smoothly, as if someone was driving It's on the surface of the waters.
Obedient to the heavenly powers, the lonely Spirit of the South Pole leads the ship to the Equator, but demands revenge.	Under the keel, in the dark depths, From the kingdom of blizzards and darkness The Spirit was sailing, he drove us north From the southern kingdoms of winter. But at noon the sails fell silent, And immediately we began. The disk hung at the zenith of the Sun Over my head. But suddenly, as if from a shock, Moved a little to the left And right away - should you believe your eyes? - Moved a little to the right. And like a struggling horse, He jerked to the side. At that very moment, I lost my senses, He fell as if knocked down.
Demons obedient to the Spirit of the South Pole, invisible inhabitants of the elements, talk about his vengeful plan, and one of them tells the other what a long and difficult penance the Polar Spirit, now returning to the south, has assigned to the Ancient Mariner.	I don't know how long I lay there In a heavy, dark sleep. And only with difficulty opening my eyes, Through the darkness I heard voices In the air above. “Here he is, here he is,” said one, “ Christ is a witness - The man whose evil arrow Albatross is ruined. The powerful Spirit loved that bird, Whose kingdom is darkness and snow. And he himself was the guardian of the bird, A cruel man."
	PART SIX
	"Don't be silent, don't be silent, Don't disappear in the fog - Whose force is driving the ship so fast? What can you see in the ocean?
	“Look, how a slave stands before the lord, He froze humbly, And a huge eye on the moon Calmly directed. Whether the path is destructive or clear - Depends on the Moon. But she looks kindly At the sea from above."
The sailor lies unconscious, for a supernatural force is pushing the ship north faster than human nature can withstand.	“But what, without wind and without waves, Are we driving the ship forward? “Before him the air is open again Closes behind him. Back, back! It's too late, brother, And soon the day will return, The ship will go slower and slower, When the Sailor wakes up."
The supernatural movement slowed. The sailor woke up, and the penance assigned to him was resumed.	I got up. We were at full speed Under the Stars and the Moon. But the dead wandered again, They wandered towards me again. It's like I'm their undertaker Everyone stood in front of me. Pupils of petrified eyes Sparkled under the moon. The death fear froze in the eyes, And on the lips - a reproach. And I couldn't pray Nor turn away my gaze.
The frantic running stopped.	But the punishment is over. Clean There was water all around. I looked into the distance, even though there were terrible spells There was no trace, - So the traveler, whose deserted path Leads into dangerous darkness Once it turns around and then He hurries, quickening his pace, Without looking back, so as not to know The enemy is far or near. And here is a silent, light breeze I was suddenly overcome Without wavering, without disturbing the surface, Dozing around. He played in my hair And it refreshed my cheeks. Like the May wind, it was quiet, And my fear disappeared. So fast and light, the ship sailed, Keeping peace and quiet. So fast and light, the breeze blew, Touching only me.
And the Ancient Mariner sees his homeland.	Am I dreaming? Is this our lighthouse? And the church under the hill? I'm back in my homeland, I recognize my home. Shocked, I burst into tears! But we entered the harbor... Almighty, wake me up Or extend your sleep forever! The whole coast is dressed in moonlight, And so the water is clear! And only shadows here and there The moon spread out. And the hill and the church are so bright In the shining night. And the sleeping weather vane is silvered Heavenly rays. The sand was white from the light, And suddenly - oh, a wonderful moment! -
Heavenly spirits leave dead bodies	In crimson robes a host of shadows Emerged from whiteness.
and appear in their own radiant form.	Not far from the ship - A crimson host of shadows. Then I looked at the deck - Oh God, on her There were corpses lying, but I swear I swear by your cross: Stood above everyone's heads Heavenly Seraphim. And each seraph with his hand He silently waved to me, And their greeting was wonderful, Their unspeakable, strange light, Like a path to your home country. Yes, everyone waved to me And he called me without words. Like music in my soul There was a silent call. And I heard a conversation I heard the splash of an oar And, turning around, he saw: The boat was following us. A fisherman and his son were sitting in it. Oh, the kindness of the Creator! - Such joy will not kill Curse of the dead man! And the third was the Hermit there, Friend of the lost hearts. He is in praise to the Creator Spends his leisure time. He will wash away the Albatross' blood From my criminal hands.
	PART SEVEN
Forest Hermit	The hermit lives in the forest On the seashore. He praises God's grace And he's not averse to talking With a visiting sailor. He prays three times a day, He has mastered the language of grass, And for him a mossy stump - Luxurious down jacket. The canoe was approaching, and the Fisherman Said: “But where are the lights? There were so many of them! Like a lighthouse They were burning here."
the ship approaches in amazement.	“You’re right,” the Hermit answered, “ And the heavens see: Nobody responds To our voices. But how tattered the whole ship is, The sails have decayed, - Like dead leaves in the forest, That lie along the stream, When the snow covered the shoots, And the owls scream And the wolf howls more often in the frozen And eats his wolf cubs." “What fear! - muttered the Fisherman. Lord, do not destroy! "Row"! - The hermit ordered And he repeated: “Row!” The shuttle sailed, but I couldn't Neither speak nor stand. The shuttle sailed up. And suddenly water The surface became agitated.
Suddenly the ship goes down.	Thunder struck in the abyss, water Soared into the heights Then it opened up, and the ship He sank like lead.
The Ancient Mariner is rescued and lifted into the Fisherman's boat.	Stunned when the blow The granite of the earth shook, I'm like a seven-day corpse Was carried away by the wave. But suddenly I felt through the darkness, That I am in the boat and my Fisherman He leaned over me. I opened my mouth - the fisherman fell, He looks like a corpse himself. The hermit, sitting where he sat, Prayed to heaven. I took the paddle, but there's a baby Stupid with fear. He rolled his eyes and laughed And he was as pale as chalk. And suddenly he yelled: “Ho-ho! The devil sat on the oars! And I'm back in my homeland again, I can walk on the ground I will enter my home again! The hermit, leaving the boat, I got to my feet with difficulty.
The Ancient Mariner begs the Hermit to listen to his confession.	“Listen, listen, holy father!” But he knitted his eyebrows: “Tell me quickly - who are you? And from which sides?
And here retribution overtakes him.	And here I am, caught in a snare, Worried and in a hurry, He told me everything. And from the chains From its terrible gravity The soul was delivered.
And constant anxiety makes him wander from one place to another.	But from then on, on time The pain is squeezing my chest. I have to repeat the story To shake off this pain. I wander like night from end to end And with a word I burn hearts And among thousands I will recognize Who should confess my Listen to the end. What a noisy feast, however! The yard is full of guests. The bride and groom sing The choir picks up. But do you hear the bell calling? For matins in the cathedral. O Wedding Guest, I have been to the seas Desert lonely. In such seas where even God He couldn't be with me. And may this feast be wonderful, Much nicer - understand! - Go to pray at God's temple With good people. Go with everyone to the bright temple, Where God listens to us Go with fathers and sons, With all the good people, And pray there.
And by his own example he teaches people to love and honor every creature that the Almighty created and loved.	Farewell, farewell, and remember, Guest, My parting words: Prayers will reach the Creator, Prayers will give peace to the heart, When you love everyone And all kinds of animals. When you pray for them For everyone, both small and large, And for any flesh, And you love everything you created And the Lord loved.” And the old Sailor wandered off, - The burning gaze went out. And the Wedding Guest left, Bypassing the noisy courtyard. He walked insensitive, deaf For good and bad. And yet others are smarter, sadder I woke up in the morning.

“I readily believe that there are more invisible beings in the universe than visible ones. But who will explain to us all their multitude, character, mutual and family ties, distinctive features and properties of each of them? What are they doing? Where do they live? The human mind has only glided around the answers to these questions, but has never comprehended them. However, without a doubt, it is pleasant sometimes to paint in your mind's eye, like in a painting, an image of something greater and better world: so that the mind, accustomed to the trifles of everyday life, does not close itself within too narrow boundaries and is not completely immersed in small thoughts. But at the same time, we must constantly remember the truth and observe due measure, so that we can distinguish the reliable from the unreliable, day from night.” - T. Barnett. Philosophy of antiquity, p. 68 (lat.)»

Plot

Monument to the Ancient Mariner in Watchet

“The Poem of the Ancient Mariner” tells the story of supernatural events that happened to a sailor during a long voyage. He tells about this much later to a random interlocutor, whom he distracted from the wedding procession.

...After leaving the port, the protagonist's ship was caught in a storm, which carried him far to the South, to Antarctica. An albatross, considered a good omen, appears and leads the ship out of the ice. However, the sailor kills the bird with a crossbow, without knowing why. His comrades scold him for this, but when the fog that shrouded the ship clears, they change their minds. But soon the ship falls into a dead calm, and the sailor is accused of bringing a curse on everyone. (Quotes translated by N. S. Gumilyov).

Days after days, days after days
We are waiting, our ship is sleeping,
Like in painted water,
The drawn one is worth it.

Water, water, just water.
But the vat is upside down;
Water, water, just water,
We don't drink anything.

As a sign of his guilt, the corpse of an albatross was hung around his neck. The calm continues, the team suffers from thirst. Eventually a ghost ship appears, on board of which Death plays dice with Life-in-Death for the souls of the ship's crew. Death wins everyone except the main character, who goes to Life-in-Death. One by one, all two hundred of the sailor's companions die, and the sailor suffers for seven days, seeing their eyes full of eternal damnation.

In the end, he sees sea creatures in the water around the ship, which he previously called nothing more than “slimy creatures,” and, having regained his sight, blesses them all and all living things in general. The curse disappears, and as a sign of this, the albatross falls from his neck:

At that moment I could pray:
And finally from the neck
The Albatross sank
Into the abyss like lead.

Rain pours from the sky and quenches the thirst of the sailor, his ship sails straight home, not obeying the wind, led by angels who have inhabited the bodies of the dead. Having brought the sailor home, the ship disappears along with the crew in a whirlpool, but nothing is finished yet, and Life-in-Death makes the sailor wander the earth, telling his story and its lesson everywhere for edification:

He who prays who loves everything -
Creation and creature;
Because God who loves them
There is a king over this creature.

References

Based on the poem, with quotes from it, the English metal band Iron Maiden wrote a 13-minute song “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in 1984, which was released on the album Powerslave. The song completely retells the plot of the poem and quotes two fragments from it as verses.

Links

• 1797 version (English)
• 1817 version (English)
• Russian translation in the library of Maxim Moshkov (Russian)
• Audiobook "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" on Project Gutenberg (English)
• Literary criticism of the poem (English)

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

• Dynamic data type identification
• Ozerki (metro station)

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THE POETRY OF THOMAS MOORE TRANSLATED BY A.A. KURSINSKY AND V. Y. BRYUSOV

D. N. Zhatkin, T. A. Yashina

The article deals with a comprehensive analysis of ten translations of lyric compositions of the Irish poet Thomas Moore that were done by A.A. Kursinsky. These translations were included into his collection of verses “Polutyeny (penumbra). Lyric poems of 1894-1895.” The article presents Bryusov’s perception of typical peculiarities of this poetic collection. Bryusov, noting Kursinsky’s tendency to slavish imitation of Bal’mont together with the outer form and the very essence of his poetry, offers his own translations of Thomas Moore’s poems. Comparative analysis of Kursinsky’s and Bryusov’s translations of Thomas Moore’s poetry makes it possible to form an idea about characteristics of Russian translators’ perception of ideas, images, and artistic details peculiar to the original texts of Thomas Moore.

Key words: Thomas Moore, Irish poetry, poetic translation, crosscultural communication, tradition, reminiscence, artistic detail, comparative analysis.

D. N. Zhatkin, A. A. Ryabova “THE TALE OF THE ANCIENT SAILOR” BY S. T. COLERIDGE IN TRANSLATION INTERPRETATIONS BY F. B. MILLER, N. L. PUSHKAREV, A. A. KORINTHSKY AND N. S. GUMILEV (COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS)*

The article is the first to carry out a comparative analysis of translations of the famous poem by S. T. Coleridge “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1797-1798), carried out in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. F. B. Miller (1857), N. L. Pushkarev (1878), A. A. Korinfsky (1897) and N. S. Gumilev (1919). The authors of the article come to the conclusion that, despite the fact that each of the translators has their own reasons for turning to the work of S. T. Coleridge (starting with the proclamation of the need to atone for sin through suffering and ending with the desire to show the infinite

Zhatkin Dmitry Nikolaevich - Doctor of Philology, Professor, Head of the Department of Translation and Translation Studies of the Penza State Technological Academy. Email: [email protected]

Ryabova Anna Anatolyevna - Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Translation and Translation Studies of the Penza State Technological Academy. Email: [email protected]

* The article was prepared under the project NK-583(3)p “Conducting exploratory research work in the direction of “Philological sciences and art history”, carried out within the framework of activity 1.2.1 “Conducting scientific research by groups under the guidance of doctors of science” of direction 1 “Stimulating consolidation youth in the field of science, education and high technologies" Federal Target Program "Scientific and scientific-pedagogical personnel of innovative Russia" for 2009-2013 (state contract P379 dated 05/07/2010).

ity of worlds - both external and internal), all Russian interpretations are united by the rejection of significantly increased individualistic tendencies that led a person to self-isolation and internal loneliness.

Keywords Keywords: poetic translation, international literary connections, comparative studies, tradition, artistic image.

Among the best poetic works created in different years by representatives of the “lake school” can rightfully be included “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, written by S. T. Coleridge in November 1797 - March 1798 . especially for the collection “Lyrical Ballads”, 1798, composed of poems by W. Wordsworth and S. T. Coleridge.

When creating this work, Coleridge consciously imitated the style of the authors of medieval folk ballads, familiar to him from the popular collection of Thomas Percy “Monuments of Ancient English Poetry” (1765). From here the poet borrowed the so-called “ballad meter” - four- and three-foot lines rhyming according to the abcb, and sometimes abcbdb, pattern, and a special melodious intonation of the verse. In addition to Percy’s collection, Coleridge was aware of W. Scott’s “The Pursuit of William and Helen” (1796), written under the influence of this collection, and the earlier “Lenore” (1775) by the German poet G. A. Burger, which by that time had already been translated into English language. The preface to the first edition of Lyrical Ballads stated that The Ancient Mariner was created in imitation of “the style and spirit of the ancient poets.” Accordingly, the action of the poem took place at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, when, according to Coleridge’s contemporaries, folk ballads were composed and recorded. The fact that “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” reflects the spirit of a medieval ballad is even indicated by the fact that the old man killed the albatross with an arrow from a crossbow (“With my crossbow / I shot the Albatross”). The atmosphere of the Middle Ages is conveyed using characteristic pleonasms (“The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast”, “fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest”, “I tell to thee, thou Wedding-Guest”, “be calm, thou Wedding” -Guest") and a large number of archaisms ("spake", "loon", "eftsoons", "bassoon", "uprist", "wist", "countree", "anear", "shrive", "afeard", etc. .). In the spirit of the “old poets,” Coleridge initially stylized the spelling of the title of the poem - “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere.” However, in the subsequent edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800), the spelling was modernized. In the second edition of the poem, Coleridge reduced the number of archaisms, shortened more than forty lines and added several new ones. In the edition of Lyrical Ballads (1802) it was omitted short summary content (Argument). In the collection “Sibylline Leaves” (1817), Coleridge included glosses in the text of the poem, which he stylized in the spirit of early 17th-century prose, shortened nine lines and added eighteen new ones. In the final edition of 1834, the English poet made a few more minor changes.

Coleridge spoke about the history of the creation of the poem in the XIV chapter of his “Literary Biography” (“Biographia Literaria”, 1817): “In the first year of our neighborhood<1796 г.>Mr. Wordsworth and I often touched in our conversations on the two most important principles of poetry: the ability to arouse the reader's interest,

diligently following the laws of nature, and the ability to make things new with the help of a wide palette of imagination. An unexpected miracle, each time arising from the play of light and shadow, when the moon or sunset transforms a well-known landscape, seemed to confirm the possibility of combining two principles. Both of them reveal the poetry of nature. The idea arose (I don’t remember which of us) to create a cycle of poems of two kinds. In some, the events and persons would be, albeit partly, fantastic, and the art would consist in evoking in the reader, through the authenticity of dramatic experiences, the same natural response that similar situations would have caused if they had been real. In this case, they would be considered real by those who have ever had the illusion of encountering supernatural circumstances. The themes for another group of poems would be borrowed from life around us; the characters and plots would be no different from those that an inquisitive and sensitive heart discovers on occasion in any village and its environs. This idea formed the basis of the concept of “Lyrical Ballads”. It was decided that I would take on supernatural or at least romantic characters and characters in such a way that these shadows cast by the imagination would arouse lively interest in the soul, and some semblance of reality would for a moment give rise to a desire in us to believe in them, which is the poetic truth<.. .>Based on the task at hand, I wrote “The Tale of the Ancient Mariner”1.

W. Wordsworth's memories of the memorable event have been preserved: “In the autumn of 1797, before dusk, Coleridge, my sister and I left Alfocksden with the intention of visiting the Stone Valley; and since our general savings were very small, we decided to pay the expenses of this excursion by writing a poem<...>It was during this walk that we drew up the plan for The Ancient Mariner, based, according to Mr. Coleridge, on a dream that his friend Mr. Cruickshank had.<Круикшенк сообщил Кольриджу, что ему приснился корабль-призрак, на борту которого двигались какие-то фигуры>. Almost everything in this story was invented by Mr. Coleridge, but some details were suggested by me, for example, that some crime must have been committed in order to expose the Ancient Mariner to<...>persecution of otherworldly forces, which punish him for this crime and condemn him to wandering. A day or two before I had read in Shelvock's book<«Путешествие вокруг света через Южные моря» («Voyage Round the World by the Way of the Great South Sea» (London, 1728))>that, while rounding Cape Horn, they often saw in those latitudes albatrosses, huge seabirds whose wingspan sometimes reaches twelve or thirteen feet. “Perhaps,” I said, “you will describe how a sailor killed one of these birds when he sailed into the South Sea, and how the guardian spirits of these places took upon themselves the burden of avenging the crime?” We considered this episode quite suitable and included it in the plan. I also came up with a scene where the ship is piloted by dead sailors, but I don't remember any other additions to the plot of the poem. At that time, none of us thought about the glosses that subsequently appeared next to the text of the poem. We started writing together that memorable evening: I came up with two or three lines at the beginning of the poem, in particular: “And listens

1 Coleridge 1978, 197-198.

like a three years’ child / The Mariner hat his will"<строки «And thou art long, and lank, and brown, / As is the ribbed sea-sand» также сочинены Вордсвортом> <...>While we tried to continue writing together (I still remember that same evening), it became clear that our poetic manners were so different that it would be very immodest on my part not to stop participating in an enterprise that I was only interfering with.”2

An excerpt from George Shelvock's book, which Wordsworth recalled during a walk with Coleridge, provides a colorful description of Antarctica and creates a symbolic image of an albatross: “The heavens were constantly hidden from us by dark, sullen clouds<...>One could imagine that no living creature could exist in such a harsh climate; and indeed we<...>not a single fish or bird was seen, with the exception of a disconsolate albatross, which accompanied us for several days, circling above us as if it were lost, until Hartley (my second captain) noticed in one of his fits of melancholy that this bird is constantly circling above us, and I did not imagine, having seen its color, that this should be an omen of any misfortune. The stormy wind that has constantly pursued us since we got into this sea, it seems to me, especially strengthened his suspicions. Be that as it may, after several unsuccessful attempts, he still killed the albatross, apparently without doubting that the wind would then change direction.”3 Most likely, Coleridge was quite familiar with this book, although, according to Wordsworth’s instructions, it was he who came up with the idea to shoot the albatross, which arose after reading Shelvock’s work4. Be that as it may, Coleridge's poem was based on a story based on the superstition of sailors, for whom the black albatross was as much a harbinger of fate as the Flying Dutchman.

The Ancient Mariner's voyage took place sometime around 1500, after Columbus's discovery of America but before Magellan rounded Cape Horn in 1522, passing from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The fact that the Ancient Mariner's ship rounded Cape Horn can be understood from the text of the poem - if at the beginning of the journey the sun rises on the left: “The Sun came up upon the left, / Out of the sea came he!”5<здесь и во многих других эпизодах «Старого морехода» поэт олицетворял солнце, тем самым следуя традициям средневековой поэзии>- “Here is the sun from the wave on the left, / Blazing, rising”6, then after killing the albatross it already rises on the right: “The Sun now rose upon the right: / Out of the sea came he”7 - “Here is the sun on the right side / It rises from the sea."8 N. L. Pushkarev supplemented his translation with a description of the sun: “...The fiery circle of the sun / Floated majestically from the waves to the left”9; “The sun is again, but now on the other side, / As if full of sorrow and anger, / Directly

2 Gettmann 1961, 45-46.

3 Quoted from: Gorbunov 2004a, 476.

4 See about this: Zherlitsyn 1914, 185.

5 Coleridge 2004, 46.

6 Miller 1875, 213.

7 Coleridge 2004, 52.

8 Miller 1875, 214.

9 Pushkarev 1878, 11.

sometimes into a gray fog, rose from the waves”10. A. A. Korinfsky, in his translation, initially did not attach much importance to this fact: “From the waves of the sea, the luminary of the day / Has now risen above us”11, but later he accurately recreated the intent of the original: “The sun comes out of the water, / On the right, illuminating our path”12 . In this regard, the translation by N. S. Gumilyov was significantly more successful: “Here is the sun on the left from the wave / Rising into the heights”13 and “Here is the sun on the right from the wave / Rising into the heights”14. Moreover, Gumilyov not only accurately conveys the meaning, but also observes repetition, which is important for Coleridge. In these lines one can see a reminiscence from Herodotus, who wrote from the words of Phoenician sailors that while sailing in the southern seas, the sun rose to the right, and not to the left. These same lines also confirm that the journey took place even before Magellan’s expedition: “He<корабль>here the first rushed along these waves, / In this sea, known only to God.”15 from Pushkarev, “We were the first that ever burst / Into that silent sea”16 - “...waters / To which sailors have not sailed in the old years"17 from Korinthsky or "We were the first to enter the space / Of those silent waters"18 from Gumilyov. In Miller’s translation, there is a palpable doubt that the sailors were pioneers: “Probably no one has been / to those waters before us”19.

The action of the poem takes place in Catholic England, which is proven by the hero’s prayers, impossible for Protestants, addressed to the Virgin Mary and the saints, for example: “Heaven’s Mother send us grace!”20; “To Mary Queen the praise be given!”21; “Suie my kind saint took pity on me”22 - “Hear us, Mary!”23, “Eternal praise to Mary!”24, “My saint took pity on me”25 translated by Gumilyov<Миллер, Пушкарев и Коринфский перевели соответственно только вторую из приведенных фраз: «Тебе и слава и хвала, / Святая Дева!..»26, «О, хвала тебе, Дева святая!»27 и «Хвала Тебе, Матерь Христа»28>. In Coleridge's work, the figure of a Catholic hermit monk also appears, absolving the sins of the Sailor. At the same time, glosses, stylized in the spirit of 17th-century prose, which none of Coleridge’s literary predecessors had, create a double perspective, which emphasizes the complexity and ambiguity of the action.

1Q Pushkarev 1878, 12.

11 Corinthian 1897, 2.

12 Ibid., 3.

13 Gumilev 2QQ4, 439.

14 Ibid., 441.

15 Pushkarev 1878, 12.

16 Coleridge 2QQ4, 54.

17 Corinthian 1897, 4

18 Gumilev 2QQ4, 442.

19 Miller 1875, 214.

2Q Coleridge 2QQ4, 62.

23 Gumilev 2QQ4, 446.

24 Ibid., 451.

26 Miller 1875, 217.

27 Pushkarev 1878, 35.

28 Corinthian 1897, 8

The motif of wandering has a long literary history. It is present in Homer's Odyssey, where the hero, like the Ancient Mariner, also outlived all his companions and then wandered alone until returning home. In the Christian era, this motif acquired a new meaning of pilgrimage, the earthly journey of the soul. This is how Coleridge’s famous predecessors perceived him - John Bunyan (“The Pilgrim’s Progress”) and Geoffrey Chaucer (“The Romance of the Rose”)<в строках «How they seemed to fill the sea and air / With their sweet jargoning!»29 можно видеть реминисценцию из «Романа о Розе» («Romaunt of the Rose») Джефри Чосера: «Layis of love full well souning / Thei songin in their jar-goning»>; This is how Coleridge himself partly interpreted it30. But in the poem, the characteristic understanding of wandering is intertwined with many ideas that occupied the poet at that time, in particular, with the ideas of creating an epic about the origin of evil in the spirit of J. Milton and writing hymns to the sun, moon and elements, the material for which, as Coleridge’s notebooks show , was actively gathering at this time.

The terrible story of the hero of the ballad, who challenged nature, awakening mysterious forces that take revenge on him for his crime against the world of harmony and true beauty, was, as it were, projected onto the poetic outline of a hymn to the elements. All the poet’s thoughts about the conflict of faith and reason, God and nature, the mechanistic and transcendental understanding of the world, the mysteries of life and the pangs of conscience in an allegorical form found their place in the text of the poem, as if forming two layers of the narrative - “geographical”, telling about the voyage of the Old Sailor from the Atlantic to the Pacific<американский исследователь Дж.Л. Лоуэс отмечал, что балладе присуща «точность отчета, составленного адмиралтейством»31>, and symbolic-fantastic, describing the revenge of otherworldly forces for the murder of an albatross. It is surprising that Coleridge wrote The Ancient Mariner before his journey by sea to Germany and Malta. Despite the fact that the poet did not know the sea, the extraordinary power of imagination helped him create “a majestic, incomparable picture of the Arctic Ocean with huge floating ice floes, gloomily (dismal) shining in the light of the moon with an emerald (emerald) green sheen, a picture of a roaring snow hurricane bending the masts with the groaning roar and cracking of blocks, finally, colorful pictures of the tropics and the equator, which<...>the poet surpassed not only people, but also nature itself.”32 The “Ancient Mariner” not only “opens new sea routes”, but also makes a “journey into the unknown depths of his soul”33. It was thanks to the organic combination of real and fantastic images that the poem made an extremely strong impression.

Comparing the poet's notebooks with the text of The Ancient Mariner, J.L. Lowes established a huge number of sources - from the Bible to the Scientific Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.<из последних заимствован образ «рогатой луны» («The horned Moon, with one bright star / Within the nether tip»), - в то время Лондонское королевское общество активно обсуждало

29 Coleridge 2004, 82.

30 See for more details: Volkova 2001, 73-79.

31 Lowes 1959, 114.

32 Zherlitsyn 1914, 186.

33 Quoted. according to article: Gorbunov 2004, 26-27.

a strange natural phenomenon - the appearance of a light similar to a star in the dark part of the Moon on March 7, 1794> - Coleridge relied on when writing the poem34. It is quite possible that the plot line was partly borrowed by Coleridge from “Macbeth” by W. Shakespeare, where “the old witch goes under sail, on a sieve, to Al-Lepo to take out her terrible anger there on one sailor. She decided to drive his ship, God knows where, forever take away his sleep and, having dried him like hay, release him on all four sides with the mark of a “cursed man.” From there the ghosts as passengers, the terrible “Nightmare” and the image of “Death” could have been taken. "Demons<.. .>were here before, but only Coleridge, with his hand, created human images from them.”35

The structure of the poem reflects the combination of Coleridge’s poetic gift and his penchant for logical and philosophical generalization: on the one hand, “The Ancient Mariner” is built according to a clear plan and reveals a clearly formulated thought, on the other hand, it consists of individual visions that go beyond limits of rational thinking. The Latin epigraph, taken from the work of the English prose writer Thomas Burnet "Philosophical Antiquities" ("Archaeologiae Phylosophicae sive Doctrina Antiqua De Rerum Originibus") and preceding "The Ancient Mariner" in the collection "Sibylline Leaves" (1817), indicated the many creatures that are full of the world around us - this was done in order to push the minds of compatriots accustomed to ordinary everyday life to think: “I willingly believe that in the universe there are more invisible than visible beings. But who will explain to us all their multitude, character, mutual and family ties, distinctive features and properties of each of them? What are they doing? Where do they live? The human mind has only glided around the answers to these questions, but has never comprehended them. However, without a doubt, it is sometimes pleasant to paint in your mind’s eye, as in a painting, an image of a bigger and better world: so that the mind, accustomed to the trifles of everyday life, does not become too confined and immersed entirely in petty thoughts. But at the same time, we must constantly remember the truth and observe due measure, so that we can distinguish the reliable from the unreliable, day from night.”36 It was from Burnet that Coleridge found the exact definition of his creative mission, which consisted in recognizing the need to emphasize invisible properties that the human mind had never yet comprehended, to realize a “supernatural life” while preserving “poetic truth”37. From Russian translators of the 19th century. Only A. A. Korinfsky paid attention to the epigraph.

The “summary” that preceded the poetic text largely suggested the adventure nature of the story, but from the very beginning it was not the action itself that captured the attention, but rather the general dramatic background of the story and the demonic image of the sailor. External history unfolded step by step in prosaic exposition (glosses). Unfortunately, none of the Russian translators of this poem in the 19th century: neither F. B. Miller (“The Old Sailor”, 1851)<перевод был опубликован в «Библиотеке для чтения» в 1851 г., а затем перепечатан Н. В. Гербелем в 1875 г.

34 See for more details: Lowes 1959, 112-113.

35 Zherlitsyn 1914, 184.

36 Quoted. from: Gorbunov 2004a, 475.

37 Mackail 1984, 68.

in the popular anthology he compiled “English poets in biographies and examples”>, nor N. L. Pushkarev (“The Song of the Old Sailor. Coleridge’s Poem”, 1878)<перевод увидел свет в 1878 г. в журнале «Свет и Тени», который издавал сам Н. Л. Пушкарев>, nor A. A. Korinfsky (“The Old Sailor”, 1893)<перевод был издан в 1897 г. отдельной книгой «Старый моряк. Поэма Кольриджа в стихотворном переводе Аполлона Коринфского»>- I did not translate the gloss and summary, which are important for understanding this poem.

Translated by N. S. Gumilyov (“Poem about the Old Sailor”, 1919)<опубликован отдельной книгой под названием «Сказание старого морехода» в петроградском издательстве «Всемирная литература» в 1919 г.>there are glosses. Nearby, in poetic stanzas, a dramatic action takes place with two heroes. The image of the gloomy Ancient Mariner with his fiery gaze contrasts with the image of the young Wedding Guest, striving for joyful fun. The sailor's story in the first part is interrupted by the Wedding Guest three times, but after the old man talks about his crime, the young man falls silent - not a single remark interrupts the sailor's story in the second and third parts of the story. A new remark from the young man follows only when the old man tells about the death of two hundred crew members. Finally, the Wedding Guest makes the last timid exclamation in the middle of the fifth part, after which it is no longer heard until the very end of the poem. At the same time, the internal drama of the sailor's monologue increases; Coleridge introduces a dialogue of spirits at the end of the fifth - beginning of the sixth part, after which he conveys the conversation between the Fisherman and the Hermit.

The Ancient Mariner's ship calmly crosses the equator, but then a storm carries the ship to the South Pole, to the land of ice, from where there seems to be no escape; However, an unexpectedly appeared albatross helps the ship escape from the kingdom of ice. In glosses, the albatross is called “the bird of good omens”, “the bird of good fortune”, “the bird of good luck” (“a bird of good omen”, “the pious bird of good omen”, “the bird of good luck”). According to some scientists, the albatross embodies the beneficial forces of nature, the “single being” mentioned in the Aeolian Harp; others see Jesus Christ himself in this bird38. But, most likely, for Coleridge the albatross is important as the reason for the punishment that his murder entails. The murder of the albatross by the Ancient Mariner was carried out unexpectedly and without any motivation. This evil defies reasonable explanation, and therefore is the result of original sin, which led to the corruption of human nature. This is precisely what Coleridge wrote to his brother in March 1798, when the first version of the poem had just been completed: “I believe very firmly in original sin; in the fact that from the moment of birth our mind is damaged, and even when our mind is bright, our nature is vicious and our will is weak”39. Despite the fact that Coleridge does not give the albatross any assessments in his poems (“The Albatross did follow”), Miller, Pushkarev, and Corinthsky, relying on glosses, characterize the bird in translation as a good sign: “The albatross flew to us ... / He brought us happiness”40; “.The albatross began to circle. / He flew off the ice spur / And, as if

38 Knight 1979, 85.

39 Coleridge 1, 1957, 396.

40 Miller 1875, 214.

if an angel descended from heaven, / Everyone would recognize him as the messenger of God”41; “The white albatross is spinning / And the air beats with its wings... / Oh, it was a good sign - / A harbinger of the end of the road”42. Gumilev has glosses, and therefore in his translation he is faithful to the original here too.

Having killed the albatross, the Ancient Mariner joins evil and is left alone with the natural world, now hostile to him. At first, the superstitious sailors condemn the Ancient Mariner for committing “a hellish thing,” but then praise him, also joining in with his crime: “For all averred

I had killed the bird / That made the breeze to blow. / Ah wretch! they said, the bird to slay, / That made the breeze to blow! /<.>/ Then all averred, I had killed the bird / That brought the fog and mist. / 'Twas right, they said, such birds to slay, / That bring the fog and mist"43 - “They reproached me: “You killed / The one who was welcomed to us, / Who sent the wind to us!” /<.> / <.>and everyone said: / “You are right that you punished / The one who was dangerous to us, / Who sent us the fog”44 - “. and everyone said with sadness: / “Oh, unfortunate one! Did he really kill that bird, / That she commanded the good winds to blow?” /<.>/ And then everyone began to praise my action. / Everyone shouted: “You did great / That you decided to kill this bird!” / These birds that love to create fog so much / It’s never dangerous to kill.”45; A. A. Korinfsky’s interpretation here is not entirely correct: “They tell me: / - You are a murderer / of the friend of our misfortune!<непонятно, почему несчастья> / <.>/ They tell me: / - It’s a crime / To shoot the one who is with us / Shared our wanderings / Above the boundless waves! /<.>/ They tell me: / - You killed the evil spirit, brave comrade. / Bringing fog and cold / This white ghost of death...”46. The translation by N. S. Gumilyov is strikingly accurate in the repetition of phrases: “I heard: “You killed the bird, / That the wind brought; / Unhappy, you killed a bird / That the wind brought” /<.>/ I heard: “You killed the bird, / That sent the fog, / You were right, you killed the bird, / That sent the fog.”47.

As a result, the ship stops at the equator “in a strip of dead calm<всю плачевность положения Кольридж показал позаимствованным у Спенсера сравнением: «’Twas sad as sad could be» («То было прискорбно, как прискорбно может быть»)>, when the boards on the deck began to shrink and crack from the unbearable heat, when stinking green mold appeared in the tubs, when at noon on the copper sky, like a red-hot forge, the bloody sun breathed with searing fire, when from with unbearable thirst, they began to wheeze, as if their throats were filled with soot, and stuck out their tongues, as if they wanted to lick black baked lips; when at night they moaned and raved about some polar ghost that had driven them here from “the land of mist and snow” and was now tormenting them, sitting at a depth of nine arshins; when the sea itself began to rot and decompose (to rot), and some sticky reptiles appeared on it; when at night the death-fires danced in a crowd around the ship, and the water burned like the witch’s oils,

41 Pushkarev 1878, 12.

42 Corinthian 1897, 3.

43 Coleridge 2004, 52-54.

44 Miller 1875, 214.

45 Pushkarev 1878, 12.

46 Corinthian 1897, 3-4.

47 Gumilyov 2004, 442.

green, blue and white"48. This eerie picture reproduces the hero’s state of mind, embodying his feelings of guilt and inner loneliness: “All in a hot and copper sky< при описании раскаленного неба Кольридж использовал собственные воспоминания об ужасной жаре в Англии в 1783 г. В этой связи Дж. Л. Лоуэс цитирует следующие строки английского натуралиста Гилберта Уайта, так описавшего лето 1783 г.: «Лето 1783 г. было удивительным и ужасным, полным устрашающих явлений, ибо <...>a peculiar haze, or smoky fog, which shrouded our island for many weeks<...>had a very unusual appearance, unlike anything familiar to human memory<...>The sun at noon was as pale as the moon, hidden by clouds, it cast a rusty, reddish-brown light on the ground and the floors of the rooms; but it became especially ominous blood-red at sunrise and sunset. It was hot all this time<...>unbearable”49>, / The bloody sun, at noon, / Right up above the mast did stand, / No bigger than the Moon. / Day after day, day after day, / We stuck, nor breath nor motion; / As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean. / Water, water, every where, / And all the boards did shrink; / Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink. / The very deep did rot: O Christ! / That ever this should be! / Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs / Upon the slimy sea<описание рыб-слизняков Кольридж заимствовал из книги немецкого мореплавателя Ф. Мартенса «Путешествие на Шпицберген и в Гренландию» (1694)>. / About, about, in real and rout / The death-fires danced at night; / The water like a witch’s oils, / Burnt green, and blue and white”50.

J. L. Lowes cites, for comparison with the quoted fragment, the following passage from Captain James Cook's book "A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean in 1776-1780", 1784, a reference to which is in Coleridge's notebooks: "During the calm<...>certain areas of the sea seemed covered with something like sticky silt; and small sea animals swimming there<...>had a white or shiny color<...>Swimming, which they did with equal ease on their backs or bellies, they emitted a brilliant light, like the sparkling of precious stones.<...>Sometimes it was various shades of blue<...>But usually it was a beautiful pale green light with a purplish glow; and in the darkness it slightly resembled a smoldering fire.”51 In this fragment you can see the tradition of the witches' round dance from Shakespeare's Macbeth. Coleridge also read about luminous and seemingly burning sea water in Joseph Priestley’s book “Optics” (1772) in the chapter “The Glow of Decaying Bodies.” These influences are clearly manifested not only in the above fragment, but also in the further text of “The Ancient Mariner”: “And some in dreams were assured / Of the Spirit that plagued us so; / Nine fathom deep he had followed us / From the land of mist and snow. / And every tongue, through utter drought, / Was withered at the root; / We could not speak, no more than if / We had been choked with soot”52.

Translated by F. B. Miller, this significant fragment of The Ancient Mariner

S. T. Coleridge acquired a slightly different sound: “In copper-colored skies,

48 Zherlitsyn 1914, 188.

49 Lowes 1959, 145-146.

50 Coleridge 2004, 54-56.

51 Lowes 1959, 75.

52 Coleridge 2004, 58.

/ At midday, / The bloody ball of the sun burns / The size of the moon. / And so days go by; / Silent silence all around... / And we all stand here alone, / And wait in vain for the wind. / There is water everywhere, only water, / And the heat is scorching; / There is water everywhere, only water, / And thirst torments us! / The depths are covered with green mud, as if with moss, / And millions of slugs / Swarm around. / And at night, here and there, / As if there were a line of demons, / A swarm of fornicating fires plays and gallops across the waters. / And many saw in their dreams, / That hell was punishing us; / That an evil spirit sits at the bottom, / At a hundred-arshin depth, / And holds our frigate. / From terrible thirst / None of us could speak: / The tongue in our mouths became numb / And the foam became caked.”53. Miller did not translate the vivid comparison “As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean”54 [As motionless as a painted brig / In a painted ocean]. The comparison “The depths are covered with green mud / Covered as if with moss”55 did not show all the disgustingness of the rotting sea. Miller also omitted the characteristic association of water with “witch oil.” The depth of nine fathoms was replaced by him with a depth of one hundred arshins. Instead of withered tongues in his translation, “the tongue is numb,” instead of soot in the mouth, “the foam is caked.”

N. L. Pushkarev in his translation omitted the lines about the rotting of the sea and slugs: “In the red-hot, as if cast bronze / Minted sky, the sun shone / Also the sun, but dimly, like a blood ball. / It floated just opposite the masts and with the moon, / In terms of volume, it was almost equal. / Day after day passed, day after day left, / And our ship in that dead desert, / Know, stood and stood without movement or strength, / Like a fake ship in a picture. / Everything is water, everything is water, and the sides / With a hellish crackle from the heat; / Everything is water, everything is water and water, but my lips / If only a drop of water would refresh it. / At night, the light of living, sweeping lights / Lighted up over the entire ocean, / And all the waters, like the oil that the sorcerer burns, / In it shone all around, now in crimson, / Now in green, now in white, now in blue fire. .. / The spirit, avenging the death of its bird, / appeared in many of us’s dreams: / He stood under water, at great depths, / Menacingly clenching his icy hands. / We were baking in the heat, we were languishing in agony / A terrible thirst, all our mouths were / Infernally dry and it was as if our whole throat was suddenly / filled with dusty, acrid soot.”56 Also, instead of the epithet “copper” (copper) in describing the sky, he used the comparison “as if the sky was minted from cast bronze”, “witch’s oils” was translated as “the oil that burns the sorcerer”, did not indicate the depth at which he was located spirit.

A. A. Korinfsky interpreted this passage completely differently: “In the red-hot, copper-red, / Firmament of the sky - like on a throne - / The sun is shining, like a ghost / In a bloody crown... / Calm... We stand day after day ; / Waves - in conspiracy with the sky; / Our ship - as it is drawn / In the drawn sea... / The heat is unbearably scorching, / What should we drink?!.. / The tongue to the larynx / Dries up in another... / What should we do?! / Great God, / Give us strength, give us strength! / Oh, don’t let us - like mollusks / Find graves in the kingdom of waves! haunted by the stern / Spirit of the land of snow-

53 Miller 1875, 214-215.

54 Coleridge 2004, 58.

55 Miller 1875, 215.

56 Pushkarev 1878, 12-13.

gov of the polar, / Chained us in chains... / The days passed; there was a sea; / The sun poured fire into the water... / Both from thirst and from the heat / My tongue became like a stone”57. As we see, Corinthian translated “bloody Sun” as “as on a throne<...>like a ghost in a bloody crown,” significantly embellishing the image of the sun, but at the same time not very successfully conveying Coleridge’s idea that there was water around, but nothing to drink. Slugs are called just molluscs, nothing is said about the rotting of the sea. There is also no mention of the influence of dark forces (witch) on the appearance of lights in water. Corinthian did not indicate the depth at which the spirit was located, and the sailors’ tongue did not dry up, but became “like a stone.”

The most original in the interpretation of the given fragment from the work of S. T. Coleridge is N. S. Gumilyov: “In the hot, copper skies / At midday / Above the mast, the Sun is like blood, / As big as the Moon. / Days after days, days after days / We wait, our ship sleeps, / As in painted water, / The painted one stands. / Water, water, just water. / But the vat lies upside down; / Water, water, just water, / We don’t drink anything. / How rotten it smells - oh, Christ! - / How the wave smells, / And slimy creatures crawl / From the viscous depths. / In the night they weave a round dance / Stray lights. / Like witches’ candles, they are green, / They are red and white. / And many dreamed of a terrible spirit, / For us, worse than the plague, / He swam after us under the water / From the lands of snow and darkness. / In the larynx of each of us / The tongue dried up, and so / We remained silent, as if we all / had our mouths full of soot.”58 In Gumilyov's translation, instead of withered boards, a vat lying upside down is mentioned; the phrases “It smells like rottenness - oh, Christ!” and “What the Wave Smells” again do not convey the disgusting picture of the rotting water; "witch's oil" is translated as "witch's candles"; instead of blue lights, red is mentioned; the depth at which the spirit was located is not indicated.

The sailors of the ship silently accuse the Sailor with their glances and, instead of a cross, hang a dead albatross on his neck. Obviously, Coleridge had in mind not so much the pectoral cross, which for Christians was a symbol of deliverance from original sin, but rather the cross as an ordeal59. This image is also associated with the “seal of Cain,” a cross burned, according to legend, on the forehead of Cain and the Eternal Jew. The myth of Cain, who killed his brother Abel, as well as the myth of Agasphere, the Eternal Jew, convicted of outrage against Christ, occupied Coleridge's imagination while working on the poem. The poet also recalled that in 1798 he and Wordsworth began composing the story “The Wanderings of Cain.” Coleridge wrote the second chapter, the first was promised to be written by Wordsworth, who, after spending a sleepless night and composing only a few lines, reneged on his promise60. According to Coleridge, this idea “ended in jest; and instead of the story “The Old Mariner” was written61.

The torment of loneliness experienced by Cain and Agasfer is similar to the fate of the Ancient Mariner. Coleridge was one of the first in English romantic poetry to create the image of a hero alienated from the world and suffering from loneliness; this image influenced the works of P. B. Shelley, W. Scott, J. G. Byro-

57 Corinthian 1897, 4.

58 Gumilev 2004, 442-444.

59 See Saintsbury 1951, 63.

60 Zherlitsyn 1914, 192-193.

61 Lowes 1959, 183.

on, including the latter’s widely known mystery “Cain” (“Cain, a Mistery”). It is also known that W. Scott described a ship in distress in a phosphorescent sea with elven light in “Lord of the Isles”, and Byron painted a picture of a rotting sea with exhausted sailors in “The Darkness” as a prototype of the death of the world and the return to the original chaos.

So, the dead bird becomes for the Sailor a sign of his guilt and the punishment pursuing him. The world surrounding the Ancient Mariner is now in chaos, personified by the ghost ship. At first, the sailors were delighted at the appearance of the ship, which is shown by the exclamation “Gramercy!” - this was the only word that the sailors could utter with their parched black lips and thirsty throats: “With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, / We could neither laugh nor wail<не могли ни смеяться, ни выть>; / Through utter drought all dumb we stood!<. немые мы стояли!>"62. It is symbolic that when describing the pangs of thirst experienced by the sailors, Coleridge used his own experience - during a walk in the mountains of Wales in 1794, the poet and his friends were so tired of thirst that they could not utter a single word until they drank water.

In the majestic mystical picture created by the imagination of the Ancient Mariner, there is no distinction between real images and materialized ghosts. “The fiery disk of the sun stood on the horizon, touching the waves engulfed in crimson flame, and suddenly thin yards quickly flashed against its red background - a prison grate (dungeon-grate) covered the sun, and the curved ribs of the ship were immediately outlined, and through the bars they sparkled in the sun transparent sails made of cobwebs. The ship was approaching. “Death” stood on the deck, and next to her was a naked beauty with red lips and golden curls; she “played with her eyes” (“Her looks were free”), and her skin turned white like leprosy (“leprosy”). “Like vessel, like crew!” (“Like the ship, so is the crew!”). “The naked hulk” passed side by side, both (“the twain”) threw dice onto the deck, and the sailors were their bets. “I won! I won! - the beauty exclaimed and “whistles three times”: she got the old man”63. This episode can be considered one of the most remarkable in the English poem: “And straight the Sun was flecked with bars, / (Heaven’s Mother sends us grace!) / As if through a dungeongrate he peered / With broad and burning face. /Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud) / How fast nears and nears! / Are those her sails that glance in the Sun, / Like restless gossameres? / Are those her ribs through which the Sun / Did peer, as through a grate? / And is that Woman all her crew? / Is that a Death? And are there two? / Is Death that woman’s mate? / Her lips were red, her looks were free, / Her locks were yellow as gold: / Her skin was as white as leprosy, / The Night-mate Life-in-Death was she, / Who thicks man’s blood with cold. / The naked hulk came alongside, / And the twain were casting dice; / “The game is done! I've won! I’ve won!” / Quoth she, and whistles thrice”64.

Realizing the full significance of the description of the ghost ship, Russian translators, however, offered interpretations that differed significantly not only from each other, but also from the English original: “And the black masts stand, / As if a row

62 Coleridge 2004, 59.

63 See: Zherlitsyn 1914, 189-190.

64 Coleridge 2004, 62-64.

shadows, / Burn with a crimson flame / All the wells of the gear. / And horror seized me: / Across the slumbering waters - / I see the skeleton of a ship / Floating ever closer to us. / Everything sleeps on it in the sleep of the grave, / In the silence of the night; / Not a sound can be heard on it, / Not a soul can be seen. / But here is the wife on the deck / In coffin clothes - / Scary, gloomy and pale - / And with her is another / Terrible ghost. As if in the darkness / His eyes burn - / And his heart burns and crushes me / His heavy gaze. / Who is this pale wife? / Whose is that terrible face? / Oh, God! This is death itself / And the wall is its double! / They came and stood side by side, / And they cast lots for us in silence among themselves... / We wait. Terrible hour! / We are waiting. And then I suddenly see / My lot has fallen. / “Yeah! he’s mine!” - the spirit exclaimed / And whistled terribly”65 - “And then, at that same moment, the fiery circle of the sun / The whole was dotted with rows of stripes, / Long, black stripes. It’s as if this circle suddenly / found itself behind prison bars. / “Oh, how fast,” I whispered (and my heart / Was beating terribly), “how quickly / He rushes towards us, everyone towards us, on a brilliant wave!.. / Shouldn’t he be tackled there, in the distance, all on fire, / twisting like cobweb threads?” / “Isn’t it through the mast, splitting up like through a window frame, / The sun pours out waves of light in such a wonderful way? / And she. this spirit, this shadow. who is she? / Is this really death? And she is not alone, - / There are two of them. Isn’t this death too?” / Her mouth was crimson, her gaze was glass, / Her hair was yellow from centuries, / Her hands were red, her body was white. / It was a nightmare, there was something that could / Freeze a person’s blood in his veins: / There was life, there was death. / Their unearthly ship / Sailed past just in front of us. / We saw them all, engrossed in the game / And throwing dice with points. / “Six and six! Third time! You must, you must / Give in to me,” said life to death. / And we all heard how at the same time she / Whistled three times in triumph”66 - “I see a dark row of gear, - / Like the ribs of a monster of the seas, / To the golden bride of the sea / They raised their frame. / As if behind the bars of a prison, / We all see the luminary of the day... / Closer, closer!.. Straight towards us / The ship is rushing along the waves... / Here are the sails - like white vestments / Brocade - hanging down everywhere... / The sun pierces them brightly / With the arrows of its burning eyes; / Blood-red rays, / They are as hot as lava!.. / The ship is sailing... And along the sides / As if someone is wandering there... / That is the ghost of death!.. Someone else / Through it looks at the shoulder?!.. / Her lips are in blood; she / is full of mysterious melancholy; / Like leprosy, everything is white / Her tall forehead... / That fairy of the night, death’s friend. .. / Their gaze suddenly freezes / All the blood... Oh, God!.. Their ship stood nearby / foaming the blue shaft... / I look and see: the two of them / Terrible friends on it / Playing dice, - between themselves / Dividing us... My God, / What I see!.. A terrible lot has fallen, / And the ghost of death has taken us all; / And only I went to that - / His young friend.”67 - “Through the gear, the Sun is visible to us / (Hear, Mary, us!) / Like behind the bars of a prison / A burning, round eye. / Alas! (I thought and trembled) / He continues to swim! / And is it really the sails / This thread is on the Sun? / The sun is burning like in a prison / Is it really between the lights? / And the woman laughs at us? - / Isn’t it death? And the second one is there? / Isn’t that Death that’s with her? / The mouth is red, yellow-gold / The terrible gaze burns: / The skin is frightening with its whiteness, / That is Life after Death, the spirit of the night, / That the heart

65 Miller 1875, 215-216.

66 Pushkarev 1878, 19-20.

67 Corinthian 1897, 5-6.

chilling. / They came close, they came close / And they got busy playing, / And whistling three times, the spirit shouted: / “I won, he’s mine!”68.

As we can see, in Miller’s translation the comparison of masts with prison bars and sails with cobwebs is omitted, but a description of grave silence is introduced. Miller gives a personified description of “Death” that is absent from Coleridge (terrible, gloomy and pale), and in the description of “Life-in-Death” the main attention is paid to the eyes and nothing is said about lips, hair, skin. Miller does not use the title “Life-in-Death” itself. In his translation, the spirits do not play dice, but cast lots, and the one who wins the sailor’s soul “whistles terribly,” and does not whistle three times. In his translation, instead of comparing the hair of “Life-in-Death” with gold (“Her locks were yellow as gold”), Pushkarev claims that they were yellow from time to time, that is, from old age; he also adds that her hands were red. Pushkarev does not use the title “Life-in-Death”; he plays dice with life and death. In Korinthsky’s translation, to the image of the rigging in the form of prison bars against the backdrop of the blazing sun, a comparison with “the ribs of the monster of the seas” is added, and the sails are compared with “a brocade of white vestments.” Instead of the blank look of Life-in-Death, she<фея ночи, подруга призрака смерти>full of mysterious melancholy.” Corinthian says nothing about the fairy's hair and her whistle. In Gumilyov’s translation, “gossameres” (web, thin fabric) is presented as “thread”, which is not very successful; “Death” in the interpretation of the Russian poet “laughs”, and the phrases “her looks were free” and “Her locks were yellow as gold” are combined into one judgment about the look.

After Life-in-Death (the exact image of the hero's inner state) won the soul of the Ancient Mariner, all the sailors fell dead on the deck one after another - “too quick for groan or sigh”, and each of them cursed the old man with a look: “Cursed me with his eye.” The Ancient Mariner was destined to outlive his comrades, but at the same time he experienced all the monstrous horrors of a nightmare, “for Life-in-Death began its work.”69 For seven whole days (in the Bible, the number seven is a symbol of completeness), the Sailor was left alone with the corpses among the rotting waters of the sea: “I looked upon the rotting sea, / And drew my eyes away; / I looked upon the rotting deck, / And there the dead men lay!<.. .>/ The cold sweat melted from their limbs, / Nor rot nor reek did they: / The look with which they looked on me / Had never passed away”70. “Cold, melted sweat had already appeared on the bodies, and the motionless glass eyes of the dead looked straight at the old man, and he saw in them a dying melancholy and a terrible curse.”71 In Russian translations, this episode is presented as follows: “I look at the sea - all around / Animals are teeming; / I’ll look at the deck later - / Here the dead lie! /<.>/ On their blue face / Cold sweat glistens; / The open, motionless gaze / Still curses me.”72 - “I looked at the sea - everything was rotting there, / I looked at the ship - there lay / the corpses of dead friends. I secretly / cast a glance at the sky, full of torment and sadness /<...>/ Large icy sweat

68 Gumilyov 2004, 446.

69 Zherlitsyn 19І4, 191.

70 Coleridge 2004, 70.

71 Zherlitsyn 1914, 191.

72 Miller 1875, 216.

dripped from their faces like hail, - / But their bodies did not smell, did not rot. / Their mute eyes and now the same look, / A look of reproach, are still preserved”73 - “I looked at the sleepy sea / And I turned away... / I looked at the deck, - the family was silent / Of my comrades... /<.>/ The death sweat froze on them, / They are dead; but in them / The curse of the living pursues me everywhere...”74 - “I look at the rottenness of the teeming waters / And I turn my gaze away; / I look at the deck later, / There the dead lie /<.>/ Cold sweat pours from their faces, / But decay is alien to them, / And the look with which they look is / Forever inevitable.”75

Coleridge's moon rising from the sea becomes a symbol of spiritual renewal. Under the influence of the magic of moonlight, the Ancient Mariner realizes that the creatures that inhabit the ocean, which previously seemed to him disgusting slugs, are in fact beautiful; his heart is filled with love, and he blesses them: “A long shadow fell from the ship, and the old man saw how, wriggling in it in shining zigzags, sea snakes raised their heads, and the elven light fell from them in white flakes. Blue, glossy green and velvet black they swam towards the ship, wriggling in rings, and their tracks shone with golden flames"76: "Beyond the shadow of the ship, / I watched the water-snakes: / They moved in tracks of shining white<здесь можно видеть реминисценцию из библейской «Книги Иова», где Левиафан описан следующим образом: «He maketh a path to shine after Lime; one would think the deep to be hoary»>, / And when they reared, the elfish light / Fell of in hoary flakes. / Within the shadow of the ship / I watched their rich attire: / Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, / They coiled and swam; and every track / Was a flash of golden fire"77. In Russian interpretations, this fragment of the poem is not so bright and expressive: “And where the shadow of the ship / Lay on the sea, I saw / Huge sea serpents: / Playing merrily, they / Sparkled their skin in the moonlight / In golden tides. / Oh, how it seemed to me then / Their lot was enviable! / How happy they were / In their free depths, / In the streams of their relatives.”78 - “That night for the first time, hundreds of water snakes / Played above the shining water. / They swam in the distance and, when one of them / Rising from the waves, whitish sparks sparkled above their heads. / Sometimes a swarm of those snakes swam up to me... / And then I couldn’t get enough of / their brilliance. They swam, circled, / Twisted, curled near the very sides, / And everywhere, following the traces of their shiny tails, / Golden grooves glowed.”79 - “Where the ship sailed, where its shadow fell on the streams, - / There is always a strange flame / It sparkled, night and day... / In its rays my gaze caught / Sea snake beauties: / They hung on the waves / Among living lights... / On the foam of the waves, their scales / Changed all colors; / Their beauty beckoned, calling to me / They flashed here and there - / Along the golden streams... / Lucky ones! I would like / To go to you forever...”80 - “Where the ship did not cast a shadow, / I saw sea serpents: / They rushed after the rays, / Reared on their hind legs, and the light / Was in shreds of snow. / Where the ship did not cast shadows, / I saw their outfit - / Green, red, blue. / They slid-

73 Pushkarev 1878, 27-28.

74 Corinthian 1897, 7.

75 Gumilyov 2004, 449.

76 Zherlitsyn 1914, 191.

77 Coleridge 2004, 73-74.

78 Miller 1875, 217.

79 Pushkarev 1878, 28.

80 Corinthian 1897, 7.

or above the water, / There the stream sparkled.”81. Miller added that the snakes were huge and that they sparkled “in golden hues” instead of “elfish light”; the translator did not say anything about their “rich attire” (rich attire), but instead asserted that the old man was jealous of the snakes’ happiness. Pushkarev translates “elven light” as “whitish sparks”, “golden fire” as “golden grooves”, and nothing is said about the multi-colored snakes. In Corinthian, the snakes are called “beauties,” and again they curl not in elven light, but “among living lights” and “along golden streams”; their scales are capable of changing all colors, but which ones are not reported. Gumilyov also does not mention the elven light, and the color of the snakes is different than in the English original, for example, red instead of velvet black.

So, at the climax, when the old man blesses the sea serpents, the fatal spell comes to an end - the Ancient Mariner regains the gift of prayer, and the dead albatross falls from his neck into the abyss of the waters. Then “a heavy black cloud appeared, thunder struck, fiery lightning tore the sky with white lights, the wind howled menacingly in the distance, the sails trembled, thousands of fire-flags rushed around the ship, and under the pouring rain the corpses groaned and moved (''They groaned , they stirred, they all uprose''), slowly rose and pulled the ropes. The helmsman stood at the helm, the sailors ran along the shrouds - the ship trembled and rushed forward like an arrow.”82 But now the bodies of the sailors were controlled by bright spirits: “’Twas not those souls that fled in pain, / Which to their corses came again, / But a troop of spirits shine”83. It is traditionally believed that this scene was invented by W. Wordsworth; As another probable source, J.L. Lowes points to the Latin letter of Paulinus, Bishop of Nola (IV century), which set out a similar story in detail.

Dawn brought to the Ancient Mariner the song of a lark, the chirping of birds, and then the sounds of a lonely flute and the song of an angel. And in the evening, at sunset, he heard “two voices in the air”, flying over the ship at dusk and conducting a mysterious conversation. According to M. Zherlitsyn, the mystical words of the second voice carry the most significant and deep thought of the ballad: “The air is cut away before / And closes from behind”84, designed to show how supernatural life is intertwined with real life85. Perhaps only A. A. Korinfsky managed to correctly interpret these lines: “There is a secret of movement / In the picture of peace, / In the eternal picture... / Nothing prevents the mysterious force / From falling asleep...”86. F. B. Miller in his translation could only show that the spirits were in a hurry: “But, dear brother, it’s time for us: / The horizon is becoming clearer”87; N. L. Pushkarev omitted these lines; N.S. Gumilyov translated accurately, but did not preserve the depth of thought: “The air sounded ahead, / It closed behind”88.

81 Gumilyov 2004, 450.

82 Zherlitsyn 19І4, 191.

83 Coleridge 2004, 80.

85 Zherlitsyn 1914, 193.

86 Corinthian 1897, 11.

87 Miller 1875, 218.

88 Gumilyov 2004, 457.

The ship returns to England, the Ancient Mariner sees his home and, as a sign from above, angels near each corpse. A further description of the death of the ship (“Under the water it rumbled on, / Still louder and more dread: / It reached the ship, it split the bay, / The ship went down like lead”89) echoes canto XXVI (verses 137-142 ) “Hell” from Dante’s “Divine Comedy”: “A whirlwind arose from the new countries, from the raid / Hit the ship, turned it / Three times in the rapids of the whirlpool: / The stern shot up for the fourth time, / The bow sank down, as Someone had appointed - then / And the sea, gushing in, swallowed us up” (translation by M. L. Lozinsky)90. This scene was witnessed by a fisherman with his son and a hermit monk to whom the Ancient Mariner confessed his sin. However, the sailor’s guilt is not completely forgiven: he is forced to wander the world (“I pass, like night, from land to land”), with which Coleridge again emphasizes the similarity of the Sailor’s punishment with the curse of Agasphere.

The Ancient Mariner is oppressed by melancholy, and when the pain returns, he must tell his story to someone he recognizes by sight. Such a person in Coleridge's poem turns out to be the Wedding Guest, from whose meeting with the sailor the story begins. The Wedding Guest seems hypnotized by the words of the Sailor (“He holds him with his glittering eye”), and this detail probably goes back to the “Gothic novel” by M. Lewis “The Monk” (“The monk, a Romance”, 1796), where one of the heroes was endowed with the power to hypnotize people. The very next morning, the Wedding Guest wakes up as a different person: he has joined evil, moving from ignorance to knowledge. This knowledge makes him “sadder and smarter”: “A sadder and a wiser man, / He rose the morrow morning”91.

Before parting, the Sailor gives a very symbolic parting word to his interlocutor: “He prayeth well, who loveth well / Both man and bird and beast. / He pray-eth best, who loveth best / All things both great and small; / For the dear God who loves us, / He made and loveth all”92. In Russian translations, this wish is presented generally correctly: “... he only prays completely, / Who loves everyone equally: / People, animals and birds, and all / with the Love of the Father”93 - “Only the one who can pray to God well / loves everyone equally - both people, / And animals, and birds, and all other animals, / And all reptiles, and everything that flies, / Walks, swims, crawls, breathes, grows. / Of all sinful prayers, He who creates everything / And gives everyone the right to life and happiness, / Only accepts this one.”94 - “He can pray with a timid soul, / Who sees in everything the manifestation of the soul... / Who loves not only those like himself, / But all - both great and small creatures - / Who knows that in a world of anxiety and wanderings / All are equal before God in the final struggle!..”95 - “He prays who loves everyone, / Be it a bird or an animal. / He prays who loves everything - / Creation and creation; / Because God, who loves them, / Is king over this creature.”96 When conveying the meaning of this phrase, only N.S. Gumilyov retained repetitions, of which there are a lot in Coleridge’s poem and which are traditionally used to give significance

89 Coleridge 2004, 100.

90 Quoted. from: Gorbunov 2004a, 474.

91 Coleridge 2004, 108.

92 Ibid., 106-108.

93 Miller 1875, 220-221.

94 Pushkarev 1878, 52.

95 Corinthian 1897, 16.

96 Gumilyov 2004, 465-466.

and dramatic storytelling. With these repetitions, Coleridge seemed to emphasize the gap between the main character and all the other people who lived ordinary joys and sorrows. In addition, as is known, without repetitions of half-stanzas there is no full-fledged ballad description, to which F. B. Miller and A. A. Korinfsky did not pay much attention. The moral of love for everything and everyone, so important for the Sailor, does not exhaust the meaning of the poem; it is balanced by the pain that the hero has not fully overcome, the feeling of guilt, and deep spiritual loneliness: “Alone, alone, all, all alone, / Alone on a wide wide sea! / And never a saint took pity on / My soul in agony”97 - “Alone, alone I am left / On the dead surface of the waters. / Which saint will / offer a prayer for me?”98 - “I am alone, I alone remained throughout / This dead, mysterious sea; / Not one of all the souls flying around / wanted to understand my grief”99 - “I swam alone with the dead / In the deserted bosom of the waters! / And deaf and dumb to all prayers / The burned firmament.”100 - “Alone, alone, always alone, / Alone among the swells! / And there are no saints so that my soul / will be remembered.”101. In Pushkarev's translation, instead of a saint, it speaks of souls flying around. The Corinthian translation is far from the original: his hero sails not “alone”, but “with the dead”; instead of "saint" the "burnt firmament" is mentioned. The translations by Miller and Gumilyov are quite adequate. The feeling of loneliness of the Old Mariner (“... this soul hath been / Alone on a wide wide sea: / So lonely 'twas, that God himself / Scarce seemed there to be”102) was successfully conveyed by Gumilyov: “... I was in seas / Desert lonely, / As lonely as perhaps / Only God can be.”103. Miller did not translate this phrase, and Pushkarev and Korinfsky excessively expanded the idea of ​​the English original: “I am alone, I am alone in the whole world / Remained on everything boundless, like him, / The ocean, where there were so many / Dead men, and which was so distant / From everything that he seemed to be deprived of even / And the presence of God himself”104; “Wandering in the deserted sea, / I confided my suffering to the waves!.. / I was alone, so always alone, / With a tormented heart, a sorrowful soul / I saw only destruction before me / And I could not feel the closeness of God...”105 . Coleridge believes that the reader, having read his poem, will feel, like the Wedding Guest, that he too is “good-hearted and wiser / Woke up in the morning”106. The same idea is accurately conveyed in other translations: “And although, when I got up in the morning, I was much sadder, / But I was also smarter”107; “I woke up in the morning<...>with a new thought - / O<...>ski-tanyas in the depths of the sea..."108; “...deeper and wiser / Woke up in the morning”109.

To awaken the sleepy consciousness of ordinary people from the prose of their petty everyday life, to show the infinity of worlds - both external and internal -

97 Coleridge 2004, 68.

98 Miller 1875, 216.

99 Pushkarev 1878, 27.

100 Corinthian 1897, 6.

101 Gumilev 2004, 448.

102 Coleridge 2004, 106.

103 Gumilyov 2004, 465.

104 Pushkarev 1878, 52.

105 Corinthian 1897, 15.

106 Miller 1875, 221.

107 Pushkarev 1878, 52.

108 Corinthian 1897, 16.

109 Gumilyov 2004, 466.

Coleridge created all these terrible images of the rotting sea, the ghost ship, the sinister players, two hundred dead in the brig. The idea of ​​the need to atone for sin through suffering arose as a connecting compositional idea after the choice of visual material. But most likely it is the human tragedy of loneliness and pangs of conscience experienced by those who have torn themselves away from people that embodies the morality of The Ancient Mariner. And indeed, the Sailor, in essence, is not so much the main character as “the personified sick conscience of a person for whom there is no forgiveness”110.

Let us note a number of significant features of the Russian translations of “The Tale of the Ancient Mariner”. Thus, from the lines of the original, describing, under the undoubted influence of Thomas Chatterton111, the picture of the wedding (“The bride hath paced into the hall, / Red as a rose is she; / Nodding their heads before she goes / The merry minstrelsy”112 [The bride entered into the hall, / She is as red as a rose; / Nodding their heads, / Merry minstrels walk ahead of her]), Miller removed the comparison of the bride with a rose in the translation: “The bride goes into the hall to the ball, / With modestly downcast eyes, / And in front of her a crowd of guests / And a choir of musicians”113.

Among other things, Miller very sparingly translated the episode where the hermit monk’s perception of the ship is described: “The planks looked warped! and see those sails, / How thin they are and sere! / I never saw aught like to them, / Unless perchance it were / Brown skeletons of leaves that lag / My forest-brook along; / When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, / And the owlet whoops to the wolf below / That eats the she-wolf’s young”114 [The trim looks warped! And look at these sails, / How thin and dry they are! / I have never seen anything like them, / Unless, perhaps, / The brown skeletons of leaves that strew / My forest stream; / When the ivy is covered with snow, / And the owl cries to the wolf, / Which eats the wolf cubs] - “- Look how the sails hang, / How dull everything is on it! / Has the entire frigate really died out? / Or is everything engulfed in sleep?”115.

Coleridge wanted to give the language of his ballad a certain nautical flavor, as evidenced by the use of numerous terms: “prow” (bowsprit), “helmsman” (helmsman), “fathom” (fathom), “keel” (keel), “tack” "(turn on a different tack), "veer" (change direction, move a rope), "hulk" (hull of an old ship), "shroud" (shrouds), etc. Miller is the most consistent, compared to other translators, in rendering marine vocabulary. The translator also managed to keep the number of lines close to the original (in the original - 623, in the translation - 631), but he changed the structure of Coleridge's poem, moving the beginning of the dialogue of spirits from the fifth part to the sixth.

In Pushkarev's translation, compared to Miller's translation, there are even more lines (641 lines). Pushkarev paid special attention to the image of the Ancient Mariner, repeating six times that he had magnetic, fiery eyes, when translating the English phrases “glittering eye” and “bright-eyed”

110 Quoted. according to the article: Gorbunov, Solovyova 1981, 370.

111 See for more details: Birs 1962, 369-370.

112 Coleridge 2004, 46.

113 Miller 1875, 213.

114 Coleridge 2004, 98-100.

115 Miller 1875, 220.

eyes) at the very beginning of the work: “By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, / Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?”116 - “Who are you, gray-haired traveler, / With a magnetic fiery gaze?”117; “He holds him with his glittering eye”118 - “.but the power / Of the old man’s magnetic, fiery eyes / And without the hands of the brave man pacified”119; “And thus spake on that ancient man, / The bright-eyed Mariner”120 - “.the old, wonderful sailor began again / With a magnetic, fiery gaze”121; “But the fire of magnetic, fiery eyes, / Against your will, forces you to sit”122; “And again the sailor starts his story / With a magnetic, fiery gaze”123; "The Mariner, whose eye is bright,<...>/ Is gone.”124 - “And the sailor with a magnetic gaze, like a shadow, / Quietly, quietly disappeared behind the wall”125. Then the sailor, according to the version of the English original, gradually becomes an increasingly “dark”, negative character in Pushkarev: “I’m afraid, I’m afraid of you, old sailor! / You are blacker than the sand at low tide, / You are so thin, so tall... / The coldness of the grave and darkness / Blows from your lips, yellow as a plum...”126.

Distinctive feature Pushkarev's translation is that it is replete with comparisons. For example, when describing the behavior of the Wedding Guest during a meeting with the Ancient Mariner in the first part, instead of one comparison of Coleridge’s “The Wedding-Guest. / .listens like a three years’ child”127 the translator uses six at once: “He trembles like a child, like an embarrassed poor man /<.>/ The best man beats himself on the chest - and is silent like a rock, / Wants to get up - and sits like a statue. / And he is silent, and sits, and trembles, like a poor man, / Like a miser over the treasure he has found.”128. In the last part of the work, Pushkarev follows the original more closely: “He went like one that hath been stunned, / And is of sense forlorn”129 [He left as if stunned, / And reason left him] - “He went all night, until dawn, like a madman , / I rushed about, sleepless, on my bed”130. As for other comparisons, Pushkarev is basically faithful to the original, although not exact: “It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, / Like noises in a swound!”131 - “This noise could only be compared with the noise / In the head of a poor man who has lost his mind, / Or lying in a gloomy crypt”132; “A wicked whisper came, and made / My heart as dry as dust”133 - “But the tongue was only irritated by the blasphemy. / And the heart became callous, like sand

116 Coleridge 2QQ4, 44.

117 Pushkarev 1878, 11.

11S Coleridge 2QQ4, 44.

119 Pushkarev 1878, 11.

12Q Coleridge 2QQ4, 44-46.

121 Pushkarev 1878, 11.

122 Ibid.

123 Ibid.

124 Coleridge 2QQ4, 1Q8.

125 Pushkarev 1878, 52.

126 Ibid., 27.

127 Coleridge 2QQ4, 44.

128 Pushkarev 1878, 11.

129 Coleridge 2QQ4, 1Q8.

13Q Pushkarev 1878, 52.

131 Coleridge 2QQ4, 5Q.

132 Pushkarev 1878, 12.

133 Coleridge 2QQ4, 7Q.

mine.”134; “The ship went down like lead”135 - “And we all, like lead, sank to the bottom”136. Sometimes the Russian translator omits comparisons used in the English source, in particular, “And ice, mast-high, came floating by, / As green as emerald”137 and “I pass, night like, from land to land”138. However, he has many of his own, original comparisons: “The severe frost burned like hellish fire / Our faces and hands.”139; “And, like the gaze of a dead man, dull, lifeless and dumb / Everyone had a look in those minutes”140; “This noise, these sounds, rushed like a wave; /<.>/ Now thundering like an orchestra, now ringing like a string”141.

In Korinthsky's translation, the descriptions of the suffering of the sailor and his crew underwent significant changes. By greatly increasing the use of appropriate vocabulary, the translator transformed the ballad description into a gothic one. For example, the description of the internal state of the Ancient Mariner at the beginning and end of the poem is presented by Corinthian as follows: “And thus spake on that ancient man, / The bright-eyed Mariner”142 [And the old man said, / The sailor with fiery eyes] - “And again , without taking his dark eyes off him, / As if languishing in an unsolved thought, / The gray-haired sailor, the gloomy alien, / told his sad story”143; “And till my ghastly tale is told, / This heart within me burns”144 [And until I tell my terrible story, / My heart burns] - “Fire burns in my soul, / Fire in my chest, / On the heart of hundreds black snakes / And everyone hisses: “Go!..”145.

At the beginning of the fourth chapter, the Corinthians convey the horror that the sailor’s story produces at the Wedding Guest: “I fear thee, ancient Mariner! / I fear your skinny hand! /And thou art long, and lank and brown, / As is the ribbed sea-sand"146 [I'm afraid of you, old Sailor! / I'm afraid of your emaciated hand! / And you are tall, and thin, and dark, / Like veined sea sand] - “I’m scared!.. Go away, gray-haired stranger!.. / Your hands smell like a cold grave... / You’re scary; you are pale, like a dead ghost, / You are gloomy, like the shore of a barren desert... / I’m scared!.. Leave me, old swimmer! / I read horror in the sparkling gaze...”147.

The lines "All stood together on the deck, / For a charnel-dungeon fitter: / All fixed on me their stony eyes, / That in the Moon did glitter. / The pang, the curse, with which they died, / Had never passed away: / I could not draw my eyes from theirs, / Nor turn them up to pray"148 [All<мертвецы>stood together on the deck, / In front of the undertaker, / They all fixed their petrified eyes on me, / Which

134 Pushkarev 1878, 27.

135 Coleridge 2004, 100.

136 Pushkarev 1878, 52.

137 Coleridge 2004, 48.

139 Pushkarev 1878, 12.

140 Ibid., 19.

141 Ibid., 36.

142 Coleridge 2004, 46.

143 Corinthian 1897, 2.

144 Coleridge 2004, 104.

145 Corinthian 1897, 15.

146 Coleridge 2004, 68.

147 Corinthian 1897, 6.

148 Coleridge 2004, 90.

sparkled under the moon. / The pain, the curse with which they died, / Never disappeared: / I could neither take my eyes off theirs, / Nor raise them to heaven to pray] translated by Corinthian far from the original, but at the same time vividly and figuratively: “ And there - all two hundred on their feet... / Oh, if only you slept in coffins!.. / They flocked around me, / They glared with dead eyes - / Into mine... More transparent than glass / Eyes, sharper than an arrow.. . / I was in awe of them; / And the ray of the moon played in them... / I saw in each dead man / An evil curse on the face, / In the lips with which he died, / Giving the waves his last groan... / Mortal fear seized me; / There are no words of prayer on my lips..."149. When describing the thunderstorm in the fifth chapter, Corinthian surpassed the original in its colorfulness: “The upper air burst into life! / And a hundred fire-flags sheen, / To and fro they were hurried about! / And to and fro, and in and out, / The wan stars danced between. / And the coming wind did roar more loud, / And the sails did sigh like sedge; / And the rain poured down from one black cloud; / The Moon was at its edge. / The thick black cloud was cleft, and still / The Moon was at its side: / Like waters shot from some high crag, / The lightning fell with never a jag, / A river steep and wide”150 [The air above came to life! / And a hundred lights lit up, / They rushed here and there! / And back and forth, in and out, / Dim stars danced among them. / And the wind that appeared roared louder, / And the sails sighed like sedge; / And rain poured down from one black cloud; / The moon was on the edge of her. / A dark black cloud opened up, and was silent / The moon was on the edge of it / As if waters were falling from a high cliff, / Lightning fell without zigzags, / Like a steep and wide river] - “A vague rumble / On the deck, in the sky and in the sea - / It sounds and floats and grows; / In the distance - in the vast expanse / Flames rose from the waters... / The whole sky is on fire... In the clouds / Serpentine lightning flares, - / As if to fear wanderers, / There demons breathe flames... / Sometimes from torn clouds / Before the gaze constrained by timidity / A ray of light from the stars / Will flash like a golden meteor... / Not the wind, but the storm roars; / Not rain, but an angry downpour / Through the sail, as if through a sieve, / It pours onto the deck in waves... / A thunderstorm... Ooh, a blow!.. And another / Isn’t the sky collapsing on the waters?!.. / A blow behind the blow... I haven’t heard such a thunderstorm for years!.. / The edge of the month shines from the clouds; / A stream, a mighty rapid, / That falls from rocky cliffs, / The water rushes towards us like an avalanche... / Behind the lightning - lightning... Strikes / Our ship with gray shafts”151.

Trying to bring the description of the sounds heard by the old man at dawn after a thunderstorm closer to Russian reality, Korinthsky writes about swallows and the rustling of birch leaves: “Sometimes a-dropping from the sky / I heard the sky-lark<жаворонок>sing"152 - “In the mysterious sounds I sometimes caught / That swallows chirping beloved”153; “.yet still the sails made on / A pleasant noise<приятный шум>till noon"154 - “Only sails, / Which before hung powerlessly, / Half a day, until the hot afternoon always, / Like birch leaves - rustled”155. As a result of such transformations, the semantic and figurative structure of the original was disrupted, and

149 Corinthian 1897, 11.

150 Coleridge 2004, 76-78.

151 Corinthian 1897, 8-9.

152 Coleridge 2004, 82.

153 Corinthian 1897, 9.

154 Coleridge 2004, 82.

155 Corinthian 1897, 9.

Corinthian in no way sought to preserve the number of verses (in the translation there are 865 instead of 623) and the poetic size.

Gumilyov's translation is close to the original both in the number of verses (624 verses), and in meter, size and rhymes, and in the nature of the dictionary, and in conveying the meaning. Gumilyov missed some sentences in the glosses, but this did not affect the semantic side of the translation. However, one can cite an episode that was extremely poorly translated by a Russian poet: “There passed a weary time. Each throat / Was parched, and glazed each eye / A weary time! a weary time! / How glazed each weary eye, / When looking westward, I was held / A something in the sky"156 [A dreary, exhausting time has come. / Each throat / Was scorched, and each eye glittered. / Exhausting time! exhausting time! / How everyone’s eyes shone, full of melancholy, / When, looking to the west, I saw / Something in the sky] - “The days go by so boringly. Everyone / Has a glassy shine in their eyes. / How bored we are! How bored we are! / How terrible is the sparkle in the eyes! / I look ahead, and suddenly something / flashed in the sky.”157. In Coleridge’s original, the sailors were not just bored from idleness, as in Gumilyov’s, but they endured suffering, felt immense homesickness, and experienced debilitating thirst.

Of course, N. S. Gumilyov’s translation of S. T. Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is almost flawless - the poet strictly observes the “nine commandments of the translator” that he had previously established158. But at the same time, it is worth paying tribute to the translators of the 19th century. - F. B. Miller, N. L. Pushkarev, A. A. Korinfsky, who were the first to introduce the Russian reader to the beautiful English poem, in which “poetic thinking in images<.. .>rose to its apogee"159.

LITERATURE

Volkova E.I. 2001: The plot of salvation. M.

Gorbunov A. N. 2004: Imaginative voice // Coleridge S. T. Poems. M., 7-42.

Gorbunov A. N. 2004a: Notes // Coleridge S. T. Poems. M., 471-479.

Gorbunov A. N., Solovyova N. A. 1981: Afterword // Coleridge S. T. Verse and Prose. M., 361-396.

Gumilev N. S. 1991: On poetic translations // Gumilev N. S. Collected works: in 4 volumes. T.4. M., 191-199.

Gumilyov N. S. 2004: Poem about the old sailor // Coleridge S. T. Poems. M., 438-466.

Zherlitsyn M. 1914: Coleridge and English Romanticism. Odessa.

Coleridge S. T. 1978: Literary biography // Literary manifestos of Western European romantics. M., 195-202.

Korinfsky A. A. 1897: Old Sailor. Coleridge's poem in a poetic translation by Apollo of Corinth. Kyiv.

Miller F. B. 1875: Old sailor // English poets in biographies and examples / N. V. Gerbel (comp.). SPb., 213-221.

Pushkarev N. L. 1878: Song of the Old Sailor. Coleridge's poem // Light and Shadows. 2, 1113; 3, 19-20; 4, 27-28; 5, 35-36; 6, 43-44; 7, 51-52.

Birs R. 1962: A History of English Romanticism in the 18th Century. Oxford.

156 Coleridge 2004, 58.

157 Gumilev 2004, 444.

158 Gumilev 4, 1991, 196.

159 Zherlitsyn 1914, 189-190.

SEVASTYANOVA

Coleridge S. T. 1957: Letters. London.

Coleridge S. T. 2004: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner // Coleridge S. T. Poems. M., 42108.

Gettmann R.A. 1961: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: A Handbook / R. A. Gettmann (ed.). San Francisco.

Knight G. W. 1979: The Starlit Dome. London.

Lowes J. L. 1959: The Road of Xanadu. A Study in the Ways of the Imagination. New York. Mackail 1984: Mackail Poetic Faith. Coleridge's Criticism. New York.

Saintsbury L. 1951: A History of Nineteenth Century Literature. London.

S. T. COLERIDGE’S “THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER" IN THE INTERPRETATION OF F. B. MILLER, N. L. PUSHKAREV,

A. A. KORINFSKY AND N. S. GUMILEV (COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS)

D. N. Zhatkin, A. A. Ryabova

The article pioneers comparative analysis of translations of S. T. Coleridge's famous poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" made in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries by F. B. Miller (1857), N. L. Pushkarev (1878), A. A. Korinfsky (1897) , and N. S. Gumilev (1919). The authors come to the conclusion that despite each translator's personal reasons to turn to the work by S. T. Coleridge (from proclaiming a need for atonement through suffering to the pursuit of depicting the infinity of both inner and outer worlds ) all of the Russian interpretations are similar in their disregard of increasing individualistic tendencies leading to self-isolation and lonesomeness.

Key words: poetic translation, international literary connections, comparativistics, tradition, literary image.

V. S. Sevastyanova NON-BEING IN RUSSIAN POETRY OF THE 1920s.

The article explores the understanding and artistic embodiment problems of non-being in Russian poetry of the 1920s. As the author of the article demonstrates, the idea of ​​the non-existence of the world and man in the works of Russian modernists of the 1920s. is realized primarily in the images of nothingness and emptiness. At the same time, artists’ ideas about non-being evolve from non-being as an absolute to non-being as an “empty” nothingness, directly related to the idea of ​​annihilation.

Key words: poetry, being, non-being, nothingness, emptiness, annihilation.

Sevostyanova Valeria Stanislavovna - Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Foreign Languages, Magnitogorsk State University. Email: [email protected]

N.A. Petrova

Difficulty genre definition poems (like any other genre in the process of development) can be explained by the constant renewal and mobility of the genre canon. In eras of historical change, the formation of a new worldview, new varieties of already established genres arise; the genre's own content, accumulated in the process of its evolution, enters into a dialogical relationship with the content of historical time. “That is why the genre is able to ensure the unity and continuity ... of the development” of literature.

Genetically, the poem has an epic nature. The romantic worldview radically rethinks the relationship between the world and man. A person ceases to feel himself only as an object of influence of circumstances - fate, chance, fortune - but recognizes himself as an active subject of life, its creator and transformer. N. Fry notes that before the era of romanticism, everything that existed was imagined as created by God, but now the role of the creator was assigned to man, and, in contrast to creation, “madeness,” the concept of an organic, self-developing world was developed, perceived by human consciousness in all its dynamic integrity. A poet is the embodiment of vital activity (“In modern conditions, only a true poet, a universal artist can consider himself an ideal person,” wrote F. Schlegel). The poet, extremely objectified, hidden behind a self-developing narrative, in the classical epic, in the romantic poem, strives for self-disclosure through identifying himself with the hero or “I”-narrative. The poem acquires features characteristic of the lyrical genre of literature - centripetal structure, focus on the spiritual life of a person. The formation of a new lyric-epic type of poem begins.

Concentrating attention on the life of consciousness leads to a weakening of the role of the plot in the plot construction of the poem. Fabular and non-fabular narration represent two simultaneously developing sides literary process. The necessity and need to capture any event in the cultural memory of mankind requires a plot organization of the work; understanding the causes and consequences of this event can realize itself in non-fabular forms. Recreation and comprehension are inherent in each individual literary work, but the general attitude (in this case set by romantic aesthetics) emphasizes one or another aspect. A romantic poem is formed not without the influence of the ballad with its narrative organization and the ode, in which the event is only a pretext for an emotional reaction.

In a romantic poem, the plot may be absent (Blake), dotted (Byron's Oriental Poems), expanded and full of twists and turns (Coleridge) - in any case, it is of secondary interest. External events are only a background for the manifestation of the activity of a romantic hero, signs of his spiritual activity. Coleridge - not only a poet, but also a theorist of Romanticism - formulates this with sufficient certainty: "In looking at the objects of nature, I rather sought ... a symbolic meaning for something within me that had always existed, than observed something new." In Shakespeare's plays, he highlights moments close to romantic aesthetics, noting that their plot is interesting only to the extent that it allows the characters to reveal themselves. The conflict and event in a romantic poem are transferred to the sphere of consciousness of the subject, who can be a “collective personality”, a representative of the era, embodying the objective integrity of universal human consciousness (“let him go with a collective name, a bandage around a full sheaf”), in which case the poem will retain the epic dominant (in a work of mixed generic nature we can only talk about the predominance of any of the generic principles).

Most often the plot is epically oriented romantic poem associated with the motif of travel, easily amenable to allegorical reinterpretation as a “journey of the soul”, similar to it, which organizes Dante’s “Comedy”. Coleridge defines allegory “as the use of a certain set of characters and figures, realizing themselves in appropriate action and circumstances, for the purpose of setting forth in a mediated form some moral categories or speculative ideas ... in such a way that the eye or imagination constantly sees the features of difference, and the mind guessed the similarities; and all this, ultimately, must be so intertwined that all the parts form a single whole.”

Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is a work of such an allegorical plan, combining a series of events with a "symbolic system and moral teaching. It is stylized as a medieval ballad, but is not actually a ballad. Researchers consider the “Tale” to be more of an epic poem, indicating that Coleridge, who first included it in the collection of “Lyrical Ballads,” was inclined towards this point of view. K.X. Abrams notes the epic mania of this time, from which Coleridge did not remain aloof. The epic attitude is explained by the desire to create a universal work that embraces the entire integrity of the cultural consciousness of the era. Dante turns out to be a guide in this sense too. Schelling called Dante a model, “for he expressed what a poet of a new era must do in order to concentrate in one poetic whole the entirety of the history and education of his time, that is, the only mythological material that was at his disposal.” In the trichotomy of Dante's poem, Schelling saw “a general type of contemplation of the universe,” uniting “nature, history, art.” The ballad retains the meter and stanza, which are not always strictly consistent, the mystical, “terrible” nature of the event, the interrogative sentences that drive the transition story, the spasmodic development of the action, the narrator’s lack of distance from the story telling event, the introduction of dialogue and the dramatic depiction of emotions. The Sailor's story itself is a ballad, but it is included in a broader context, organized according to a different genre principle - an epic poem. The switching is carried out by a complex system of imagery that reveals the absolute meaning of phenomena (“A poem is a picture of life, depicting what is eternally true in it,” Shelley), repeated repetition of the plot scheme and the storytelling event itself, and a change in the relationship between the author and the hero. The development of a ballad into a poem can be traced in the very structure of the work.

The plot of "The Tale" is organized around the story of crime - punishment - redemption. This plot outline coincides with Schelling's trichotomy and Hegel's judgment on the development of the epic plot. In a romantic poem, the conflict is conceptualized as the disintegration of the integral unity of the world and man, the separation of human consciousness from the world whole, which threatens the integrity of consciousness itself, the resolution of the conflict is the return of man to the world and to himself.

The epic plot scheme is repeated many times in the poem, but the nature of the conflict changes, it gradually switches to the plane of spiritual existence. In the "Tale", in essence, there are two events - the storm and the murder of the Albatross. The first is not provoked by human actions; here he is dependent on the play of nature. The change of her states is natural, the suddenness of the danger and the mysticism of salvation give the incident a mysterious coloring, as is typical of a ballad. The murder of Albatross is also not motivated, but it is an act of conscious human will that requires retribution. Retribution is accomplished in a cyclical alternation of losses of harmony and insights, practically incomplete and incomplete. Incompleteness is fundamental; it is associated with the understanding of harmony in romantic aesthetics, in particular in Coleridge.

When characterizing romantic art, it is customary to talk about its inherent two-worlds (and even “three-worlds” - I.F. Volkov proposes to highlight the subjective world of the romantic hero), the opposition of the due, ideal world to the existing, unacceptable. The statement of the split is not the final position of the romantics; it is accompanied by the desire to overcome discord and synthesize opposing principles. Two worlds - the real and the transcendental - exist simultaneously, only the poet and those to whom the “supernatural” has been revealed see the absolute in the ordinary, and the idea of ​​the whole in the particular. The “ideal poet,” according to Coleridge, is the one “who creates an atmosphere of harmony in which spirit and reason merge.” The task of bringing these worlds together was posed in “Lyrical Ballads” (“a cycle of poems of two kinds” - fantastic, seemingly reliable, and everyday - open to a sensitive heart). Harmony in the understanding of the romantics is not something established once and for all, but eternally becoming; its stability is ensured by the balance of opposite principles, the antinomy of which is not removed by synthesis - “the absolute synthesis of absolute antitheses” (F. Schlegel). The impossibility of the final formation of harmony explains the plot incompleteness of the Tale; at any moment of the poem, the dynamics of transition manifest themselves (“All parts of the whole must be consistent with the main functional parts.” Coleridge): antagonisms that balance each other are transformed” (Coleridge), loss and restoration of harmony are embodied in a system of figurative oppositions.

The sailor sets sail from his “father’s house” (lighthouse, church, house) and returns to it. “The sea” is contrasted with home as a world of strange incidents that tear a person out of the real space-time continuum. Precise landmarks (the movement of the sun, counting the passing days), a detailed description of the suffering of the heroes, the storm, the calm (N.Ya. Berkovsky spoke of “romantic naturalism”) are designed to give authenticity to this fantastic world. Concreteness turns out to be illusory: the ship either freezes in the middle of a frozen sea, then rushes at incredible speed, changes direction, obeying higher powers, and returns as if the voyage had lasted for years; the time of the Sailor's wanderings after the death of the ship is also uncertain and, obviously, endless; he himself is not subject to the influence of time (his age at the beginning of his voyage is unknown, he is forever old). The ship moves first south, then north, towards the equator (the life-saving line of balance between the two poles). The South Pole is the kingdom of ice and darkness, deprivation of life, sending misfortunes. The spirit of the South Pole causes a storm, but it also demands revenge for the Albatross, who kept the ship from destruction. The figurative oppositions in Coleridge's poetics are morally ambivalent. The albatross is a bird of good omen; it appears at night to protect sailors from the Spirit of “darkness and snow,” but is perceived by them from polar opposite positions - either as a good “mistress of the winds” or as a “bad bird of darkness.” The opposition of symbols is not absolute; their ethical content is revealed in the process of plot development.

The main opposition of the poem, which includes all symbolic characteristics, is the opposition of rest and movement. The concept of peace is clearly associated with death: the murder of the Albatross is followed by calm - “the silence of dead waters”, the death of sailors. The concept of movement seems to be connected with life: the wind - “revived air” - brings the Sailor and the ship back to life. At the same time, the storm - continuous movement - threatens death; the frantic movement of the ship, drawn by good spirits, cannot be endured by a person (the Sailor loses consciousness, he comes to his senses when the movement slows down). Sea creatures, “generated by Calm,” evoke the contempt of the Sailor, but after loneliness and suffering, they, generated by the “Great Calm,” awaken love in him and lead to salvation. Extremes are equally unacceptable, each of them - dead chaos or unstoppable movement - is complete in itself, finite and therefore disastrous. The symbol of harmony is the month and the stars - “being at rest, but always moving”, bringing “quiet joy”.

If the loss of harmony is accompanied by the disappearance of any elements, abilities, opportunities, then their restoration is a gain. These processes occur in stages, echoing the closure of the plot ring of the poem. Albatross is a good sign, the ship of Death is a bad omen (the meaning of both is not immediately clear); the wind dies down, the sailors fall dead - the air “comes to life”, “heavenly spirits” move into the dead bodies; dryness, thirst, inability to pray are replaced by rain and prayer. Each member of the opposition must find its own countermember. From this point of view, the connection between the Spirit of the South Pole and the Albatross becomes clear. With the murder of the Albatross, the balance between good and evil is disrupted; The spirit seems to split into two, trying to combine both principles in itself: it thinks about revenge, but continues to drive the ship towards the equator. When the ship reaches the equator, the Spirit retires to the pole, but his demons explain the meaning of the act and the punishment assigned. The confrontation subsides gradually; when the Sailor experiences love, “heavenly seraphim” appear on the ship, the disturbed harmony is restored, and the Sailor can return home.

Oppositional couples are drawn together by a love that embraces the whole world (for Dante, love was also the prime mover of the universe):

The powerful Spirit loved that bird,
Whose kingdom is darkness and snow.
And we preserve the life of a bird, he himself,
Cruel man.

The love bequeathed by God is comprehended by the Sailor through suffering, loneliness, half-death (sleep, fainting), it contributes to his return home, to people, to the world, but the penance assigned by the Spirit does not end with his return. According to popular beliefs, a bird is the embodiment of the soul; Coleridge has direct and indirect (the souls of dead sailors fly away with the same whistle as the arrow that killed the Albatross) indications of the possibility of such an interpretation of the symbol. He who kills the Albatross loses his soul, is alienated from the world, and finds himself entirely in the power of the transcendental (Death, Life-in-Death - the forces of death are also paired). The restoration of harmony turns out to be at the same time a search for the soul, a restoration of subjective integrity. This process is marked by an allusion to Dante’s hell, purgatory, and paradise, through which the soul passes and which it carries within itself. “Dead ice” and the darkness of the pole, “the copper horizon” and the bloody sun, “seven days” (like the seven deadly sins) among the dead sailors, and after prayer and blessing of all living things, sleep (“Or did I die in a dream? Or as a disembodied spirit became And paradise opened to me?”) - “a swarm of bright spirits”, “sounds of sweet prayers”, heavenly seraphim and music of the heavenly spheres. The theme of spiritual rebirth is also reinforced by the change of seasons that slips through the comparisons (April, June - this is not conveyed in translation).

The sailor, who came into contact with the supernatural and survived (he was won by Life-in-Death from Death), unites two worlds, the real and the transcendental. He is the bearer of the transcendental in the real world (like “night”, he wanders from edge to edge). The violation of world harmony remains in him a recurring “agony of the soul,” which can only be resolved by telling a story, teaching about the need for love, community, and prayer. The story is repeated many times in the same situations: from the three people who met him - the Helmsman (or Pilot, in Russian translations: Kormshchik for Gumilyov and Fisherman for Levik), his son and the Hermit - the Sailor chooses the “holy father”; of the three young men rushing to the wedding feast, one is the Wedding Guest.

At the level of the hero, the poem ends with a plot - a return: plot completion, the storytelling event is projected into an endlessly unfolding world whole, devoid of temporal characteristics (except for the cyclical change of day and night, where the night contributes to gradual insight - “And yet others - smarter, sadder - Woke up in the morning "). At the level of the author, the poem is completed didactically and also through the process of repeated storytelling. The theme of the poem is already revealed in the epigraph, the series of events is reproduced in the “Summary”, which precedes the poem (and stylized as the expanded titles of medieval short stories), the Sailor’s story to the Guest is accompanied by a commentary (actually also a retelling in the margins of the poem). II.Ya. Berkovsky believed that Coleridge marginalized the plot, leaving “lyrically meaningful” in the text, and saw in this a romantic liberation from the contours that limit the free manifestation of life. This is unlikely to be the case. The sailor as a narrator is not distanced from the event of the story; each time he again experiences the “agony of the soul,” recording both the facts and the emotional reaction as a chronicler. In his story there is no place for reflection or comprehension; moral assessment is introduced by supernatural forces (demons); but the Sailor’s involvement in two worlds functionally brings him closer to the poet (R.P. Warren sees in Albatross the embodiment of poetic power, ruined by the poet himself - the Sailor). The “I” narrator (the Sailor) and the moralizing commentator are separated in Coleridge’s poem from different interrelated texts. The commentary is distanced from the event of the story both by its temporal and evaluative position. The Sailor only reports the murder of the Albatross, his state at that moment is conveyed by the Guest’s question, and in the marginalia it is explained that the Albatross was “a beneficent bird that brings happiness.” The sailor conveys the different reactions of the sailors to the murder; the commentator concludes that in this way they “joined his crime.” The sailors are punished by death, their death is part of the retribution assigned to the Sailor, but they do not become heroes of the story; the Sailor is the only bearer of conscious will among them.

The rapprochement of the narrators' positions begins at the end of the fifth part, after the Sailor hears the conversation of the Demons; the final moral message refers to the conclusion of the Sailor's story. As soon as the story is completed, the “agony of the soul” is resolved, the narrators are separated again - outside of this state, the Sailor is deprived of prophetic power (“And the Old Sailor wandered, - The burning gaze went out”). The Sailor has listeners to whom his word is addressed (for the Hermit - confession, for the Guest - instruction), the listeners of the commentator are not subjectively expressed. Moral instruction as absolute truth (limiting the romantic concept of the world order to divine decree and grace) results in a direct appeal to the reader. The moral conclusion of the poem is summed up by the last gloss. Thirty-three years after writing The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge remarked “that its chief and only defect was the so open imposition upon the reader of a moral idea as the spring or cause of action in a work based on the imagination.”

Key words: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, criticism of the work of S.T. Coleridge, criticism of the works of S.T. Coleridge, download criticism, download for free, English literature of the 19th century, romanticism, leucists, Lake school

One 18th century traveler spoke in his book about a strange man. It was the captain's assistant, already elderly and always thoughtful. He believed in ghosts. When they were caught in storms along the way, he claimed that this was retribution for the death of an albatross, a huge white bird of the gull type, which he shot as a joke. Using this story, Coleridge created his immortal poem.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in 1772, died in 1834. He was the son of a poor village priest, and in his adolescence he showed such brilliant abilities that the school where he studied sent him to the university at its own expense, and this happened very rarely . But he spent only two years at the university - 1791-93 - the years of the most violent explosion of the Great French Revolution. The university authorities suspected the young man Coleridge of sympathizing with the ideas of the Republicans, he was forced to leave the university and became a soldier in a dragoon regiment.

Living in the barracks, he, like our poet Gabriel Derzhavin, his contemporary, wrote letters to illiterate soldiers, and in return they did his work in the stables. Four months later, his friends released him from the barracks, and then he began to engage in literary work, which was greatly facilitated by his acquaintance with Robert Southey, the most talented poet of that time. Together with Southey and several other young men, Coleridge started a trip to America to found an ideal socialist colony there, but something prevented him from realizing this idea, and he devoted himself entirely to literary activity, writing the revolutionary tragedy “The Fall of Robespierre,” which was not successful English public, gives lectures, publishes a newspaper.

A strong influence on Coleridge, as on all literature of that era in general, was the famous poet Wordsworth, who taught his contemporaries that for poetry, painting and art in general there is nothing unworthy of attention, and that a street boy rolling around a muddy pond in a dirty trough, for for a true poet, a subject as significant as the campaign of Alexander the Great in Persia.

Coleridge was one of the most talented in that group of poets who founded a new poetic school in England called “Lake School”. The closest predecessors of this school were content with descriptions, reasoning, stories, often brilliantly presented, but always superficial. Their poetry either entertained or taught the reader, but did not touch or shock. Their topics were poor, their choice of words limited, and they seemed to know no more about life than those they addressed.

The Lake School poets, Coleridge and his friends, Wordsworth and Southey, came out in defense of two closely related demands - poetic truth and poetic completeness. In the name of poetic truth, they abandoned conventional expressions, false beauty of language, too lightweight themes, in short, everything that slides across the surface of consciousness without exciting it and not satisfying the need for something new. Their language was enriched with a variety of folk sayings and purely colloquial expressions, their themes began to concern that eternal in the soul of a person that affects everyone and in all eras. In the name of poetic completeness, they wanted their poems to satisfy not only the imagination, but also the senses, not only the eye, but also the ear. You see and hear these poems, you are surprised by them and rejoice, as if these are no longer poems, but living beings who have come to share your loneliness.

The poets of the Lake School willingly left London and lived in the provinces, in Kezik, on the shores of the famous lake, which they often sang and from which they took their name. Already in those days, the whole of central England was a vast garden, where neat villages with ancient bell towers stretching into the pale blue sky were scattered among groves and waters, pastures and fields.

Everything violent, everything heroic in English life was concentrated by the sea, in port cities, from where ships departed every week for distant colonies, taking away either swearing and swearing, or arrogant and cold, strong-cheeked and muscular people. These were alien to the poets of the "Lake", the time of their chanting was... went with Byron. Coleridge and his friends fell in love with peaceful nature not so much for its own sake, but because of the opportunity to comprehend with its help the human soul and the secret of the universe. They sought the real lake, of which Kezik was only an external expression, in the depths of their spirit and, looking into it, they comprehended the connection between all living things, the closeness of the invisible and visible worlds, infinitely joyful and genuine love. Something similar was familiar to our sectarians, as can be seen from their songs. Something similar can be seen in the works of modern Russian poets.

Coleridge's "The Poem of the Ancient Mariner" is rightly considered the best poetic creation of the Lake School. It is written in the meter of English folk ballads, with repetitions also in the folk spirit. This, as it were, brings it closer to the reader who wants to sing it, as the poems that served as its model were once sung. Repetitions by emphasizing the most significant places hypnotize us, infecting us with the intense excitement of the narrator. Rhymes, sometimes appearing in the middle of a line, ringing in a short meter, like bells, enhance the magical music of the poem.

The old man, the hero of the poem, of course, comes from the depths of the country. For the sin of which every hunter is guilty, he suffers from repentance all his life. In the seas, where Byron's heroes amuse themselves with battles and the love of beautiful savages, he sees only spirits, sometimes threatening, sometimes forgiving. But how wise all this is in its apparent simplicity, what depth of thought in this view of a person as a lost child! After all, each of us at least once in our lives was lonely, like the old sailor, as lonely as perhaps

There is only God

and everyone, having read this poem, will feel, like a wedding guest, that he too is “deeper and wiser”

I woke up in the morning.

The first translation of this poem into Russian was made in the fifties by F. Miller, the second in the nine hundredths by Apollo of Corinth.

Ballads of Robert Southey

One English literary historian touchingly said about Southey: “There was not a single poet who wrote so well and so much and at the same time was so unknown to the public.” This is true of the West. In our country, thanks to the translations of Zhukovsky and Pushkin, the name Southey is much better known than in his homeland.

Robert Southey was born in 1774 in Bristol into the family of a poor textile merchant.

He owes his upbringing to his maternal aunt, Miss Tyler, in whose house he became addicted to reading and became acquainted with art, thanks to frequent meetings with local actors. He was expelled from high school for a harsh article about the education system published in a magazine published by students. Then you stayed for two years? at Oxford University, but learned little from there, being mainly involved in rowing and swimming. During the same period of his life, he met and became friends with the poet Coleridge,* who was two years older than him. Both young men, fascinated by the French Revolution, set out to establish a socialist republic in America, where the first place would be given to poets, but lack of funds prevented them from implementing their intentions. At the same time, Southey wrote the revolutionary poem "Wat Thayaer",** which appeared in print only many years later. Under the influence of the activities of Napoleon, whom Southey considered the enemy of freedom, he began to appreciate the English order and soon became an ardent supporter of church and state, which caused Byron's sharp enmity towards him.

In England there is an ancient custom of choosing from among the poets a poet laureate (crowned with laurels). In 1813, at the insistence of Walter Scott, Southey was chosen as such a poet. From then on he lived immersed in his books and manuscripts, and died in 1843, leaving behind 109 volumes of his works and one of the largest private libraries in England.

Southey is called the most typical representative of the "Lake School", *** like Coleridge - the brightest and Wordsworth - the deepest. Of the series of slogans posed by this school, Southey paid most attention to the historical and everyday truth. Exceptionally educated, he willingly chose distant eras and countries foreign to him as themes for his poems, and sought to convey the feelings, thoughts, and everything characteristic of them. little things of everyday life, taking the point of view of his heroes. To do this, he used all the wealth of folk poetry and was the first to introduce into literature its wise simplicity, variety of meters and the powerful poetic technique of repetition. However, this was precisely the reason for his non-recognition, because the nineteenth century was interested primarily in the personality of the poet and did not know how to see their creator behind the magnificence of the images. For us, Southey's poems are a whole world of creative fantasy, a world of premonitions, fears, and mysteries that the lyrical poet talks about. speaks with anxiety and in which the epic finds a peculiar logic, only in some parts in contact with ours. No moral truths, except perhaps the most naive ones taken as material, can be derived from this creativity, but it endlessly enriches the world of our sensations and, thus transforming our soul, fulfills the purpose of true poetry.

The history of literature knows two types of ballads - French and German. A French ballad is a lyric poem with a certain sequence of repeated rhymes. The German ballad is a short epic poem, written in a somewhat elevated and at the same time naive tone, with a plot borrowed from history, although the latter is not necessary. Southey's ballads belong precisely to this type.

*See World Literature Issue No. 19: Coleridge, "The Ancient Mariner's Poem."

** Wat Tyler - Chief revolutionary movement in England at the end of the fourteenth century, who was a blacksmith.

*** About the Lake School, see issue No. 19 of World Literature.