Translate this page:
Please select your language to translate the article


You can just close the window to don't translate
Library
Your profile

Back to contents

Litera
Reference:

The idea of eternal femininity in the poetry of A.M. Sharonov (based on the poem "Valentine")

Sharonova Elena Alexandrovna

ORCID: 0000-0003-0221-4427

Doctor of Philology

Professor, Department of Russian and Foreign Literature, National Research Mordovia State University

430034, Russia, Republic of Mordovia, Saransk, Bolshevistskaya str., 68, office 503

sharon.ov@mail.ru
Other publications by this author
 

 
Savonina Nataliya Anatol'evna

Postgraduate Student, Department of Russian and Foreign Literature, National Research Mordovia State University

430005, Russia, Republic of Mordovia, Saransk, Bolshevistskaya str., 68, office 503

cozlov.natalya2015@gmail.com

DOI:

10.25136/2409-8698.2023.5.40677

EDN:

YQSLWY

Received:

03-05-2023


Published:

10-05-2023


Abstract: For centuries, world culture has been thinking about the essence of the idea of Eternal femininity, manifested in philosophy and art. The idea of Eternal femininity is formed from a set of concepts that define a Woman, beauty, love, motherhood, chastity, wisdom, harmony. The purpose of the work is to consider the idea of Eternal femininity in the work of a modern Russian poet – A.M. Sharonov. The goal is realized in the process of analyzing the poem "Valentine" dedicated to the poet's wife. The lyrical heroine is the embodiment of femininity for A.M. Sharonov. The research is based on the application of a set of methods ‒ cultural-historical, comparative-historical, method of holistic analysis of a work of art. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the analysis of A. M. Sharonov's poem "Valentina" in the proposed context for the first time. The article proves that the image of Eternal femininity is formed by A.M. Sharonov through the mythological perception of femininity, which has demiurgic features peculiar to a woman by right of her birth as a woman. She is a demiurge because she was created to give birth (= create), for her this is not goal-setting, as for a man, but a given. A. M. Sharonov's woman is not secondary, not passive, not only an object of admiration and worship, but also a subject who energetically carries out life. According to A.M. Sharonov, a Woman contains wisdom, beauty, love, creative power that contributes to the transformation of the world and gives a person the opportunity to ascend to the heights he has chosen, which determines for him the idea of Eternal femininity.


Keywords:

the idea of eternal femininity, Sharonov, poetry, beauty, lyrical heroine, antique code, harmony, chastity, motherhood, lyrical plot

This article is automatically translated.

The modern poet, no less than the poet of the XVIII?XX centuries, seeks to comprehend the idea of Eternal femininity, relying for this on the cultures of different civilizations, and primarily on ancient culture, in search of a new word and a new form for artistic expression. A poet with extensive cultural interests, provided he has a high talent, is a carrier of unlimited creative potential. A. M. Sharonov, having extensive spiritual, intellectual and emotional experience and experience of scientific research in the field of humanities, seeks to apply it in his literary work. His prose and poetry actively include ancient, Russian and Finno-Ugric literary, historical and philosophical contexts. Images of Homer, Plato, Socrates, Aesop, Aristotle, Lennroth, Pushkin and Greek, Erzya and Russian gods and epic heroes form the field of his creative reference points in such poems as "Homer gives me his hand...", "Interrupting a thousand-year dream...", "I'm knocking on the door, which Homer...", "In a land where everyone is like Sisyphus...", "For wisdom to Aesop and Krylov...", "Achilles' heel", "The heavens opened, the abyss opened to the eye...", "There was a hero Svyatogor in Russia...", "I'm walking along the Murom road...", "Anastasia", "I'll make a crown out of rainbows...", "Valentine" and others.A. M. Sharonov's poetry arouses research interest due to its responsiveness to world and all-Russian requests.

First of all, the attention of scientists is attracted by the epic "Mastorava" created by him [19], existing in the Erzya, Russian, Moksha, Hungarian, Finnish languages: see A. A. Arzamazov [1; 2], A. A. Gagaev [4; 5], O. P. Ingle [11; 20], R. A. Kudryavtseva [12], V. P. Minichkina, E. S. Ruskina [15], V. V. Naumkin, E. A. Sharonova [16], etc.; prose and poetry presented in the books "Planet Era", "On the Earth of Ineshkipaza", "Monologues" [18] are analyzed in the works of G. G. Gorlanov [6], S. P. Gudkova [7; 8; 9; 10], A. A. Arzamazova [1; 2], E. A. Sharonova [20], A.V. Kho zaykina [17], etc.In an effort to explain the meaning and nature of the interpretation of the idea of Eternal femininity in the poetry of A.M. Sharonov, we will focus on the poem "Valentine" (2015):

You are Aphrodite in your beauty,

Athena is in wisdom, Demeter is in bliss.

The radiance of your midnight blue stars' eyes,

When there are no clouds and clouds in the sky.

 

The rakitov bush is sad and gloomy,

The birch tree is bright and festive…

Words, like nightingales, fly from your lips,

In your hands, any flower is like a rose.

 

I'm sad. But what is my sorrow?

Despondency when you pass by.

If you leave , I 'll be orphaned in a moment,

I will become miserable, unbearably angry.

 

Centuries are born from days and years

And all-time magic numbers…

A river is born from a spring,

From beauty – love and life meanings.

 

Everything gets a name on earth,

When you're Aphrodite and Athena.

And the light of happiness shines on the forehead

Your husband, your daughter, and your son [18].

The poem is dedicated to Valentina Vasilyevna Sharonova – the poet's wife, the mother of his children, his companion and assistant. She always walked by his side, saving him from loneliness on the battlefield of life; rushing into battle, he could be sure that she would rush too, support and protect him with her presence by his side. Their union has always been perceived as an ideal union. Dedication to his wife creates the conditions for the appearance of external and internal plots in this poem. The external plot is connected with the actualization of the idea of Eternal femininity, which brings the context of the poem into being and outer space. The plot is internal, "everyday", grows out of a specific situation that was the reason for writing the work: in 2015, the poet's wife was in the hospital. The days spent without her, visits to the hospital, reflections on the forced separation were at the heart of lyrical reflection. The internal plot, becoming an integral part of the external plot, leads to the following "dislocation" of images: the image of a Woman rises to the image  The Goddess, in turn, the image of the Goddess contains the features of the image of a Woman.

The image of the wife is present in many poems by A.M. Sharonov, directly or indirectly he refers to it, reflecting on the idea of Eternal femininity like Dante, Petrarch, Goethe, Pushkin, representatives of European philosophy and the era of the Russian Silver Age. In search of a verified definition of Eternal femininity, let us turn to the article by A. E. Makhov in the Literary Encyclopedia of Terms and Concepts (2001), in which Eternal femininity is understood as "a transcendent force that lovingly lifts a person into the realm of eternal creative life. The ability of eternal femininity to "pull to itself" testifies to its kinship with the force of attraction ruling in the world and manifesting itself in the highest way in love; the feminine and the force of attraction hidden in it governs "us", i.e. the world of men <...> Prototypes   Eternal femininity in the aspect of the love forgiveness granted by her ? the Mother of God as the "heavenly queen" and intercessor for sinners, Beatrice from Dante's "Divine Comedy", also attracting the sinner to the higher spheres <...>  In the Russian poetry of the Silver Age, Eternal femininity is the face of an eternal mystical beloved, not identical to any of the earthly faces and existing only in anticipation and hope <...>  Eternal femininity marks the overcoming of male egoism in the female element of love, the arrival of a man to the eternal ideas of beauty, goodness and truth, which have always appeared to humanity in a female form, since it is with a woman that a "reconciling, calming, enlightening principle" is associated, opposing the "rushing forward of a man's life" [13, pp. 119-120]. N A. Berdyaev writes: "... the feminine element is the cosmic element, the basis of creation, only through femininity does a person join the life of the cosmos. Man in his fullness is the cosmos and personality" [3, pp.325-326]. The philosopher and poet V. Solovyov in the poem "Das Ewig-Weibliche" gives a textbook definition of Eternal femininity, which combines the divine and the earthly:

Know this: eternal femininity is now

He goes to earth in an incorruptible body.

In the unfading light of the new goddess

The sky merged with the depths of the waters.

Everything that Aphrodite of the world is red with,

The joy of houses, and forests, and seas,?

Unearthly beauty will combine everything

Cleaner, stronger, and livelier, and fuller (1898).

It is obvious that A.M. Sharonov in understanding the idea of Eternal femininity follows the tradition established in Russian and world culture [Cf. about this: 14], but finds his own image, symbolizing for him the highest principle of femininity, the image of his own wife.

The idea of Eternal femininity, personified by A.M. Sharonov in Valentine, is based on a combination of many different principles, which form an eternally attractive, full of beauty and wisdom, passion of Eve (sophisticated and tempting) and chastity of the Mother of God (combining innocence and motherhood) harmonious image of a Woman.

The image of Eternal femininity is formed in A. M. Sharonov through the mythological perception of femininity, which has demiurgic features peculiar to a woman by right of her birth as a woman. She is a demiurge because she was created to give birth (= create), for her this is not goal-setting, as for a man, but a given. In the poem "Valentine", the image of the lyrical heroine incorporates the features of such Greek goddesses as Demeter, Aphrodite, Athena and Chlorida (Flora), and possesses them with full right, because they are hers too, she is their heiress and bearer.

A. M. Sharonov's Valentina is the embodiment of femininity – earthly and heavenly, the Cosmos is subject to her ("The radiance of your midnight stars is blue") and the Earth, she embraces the whole world as the gods do. The list of divine names filling the name of Valentina is not accidental: "You are Aphrodite in your beauty, /Athena in wisdom, Demeter in bliss." These goddesses, each in her own hypostasis, embody the most important creative feminine principles. For clarity, let us recall the well?known: Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty, performing the cosmic functions of love that covers the whole world; she also appears as the goddess of fertility, eternal spring and life, is surrounded by flowers; she is thought of as the goddess of marriages and childbirth.

Athena is the goddess of wisdom and just war, the defender of chastity, has an authority equal to that of Zeus. 

Demeter is the goddess of fertility and agriculture, the bearer of true motherhood, has a beautiful appearance, appears with hair the color of ripe wheat.

Chlorida (Flora) is the goddess of flowers, blossoming, spring and field fruits, her breast exudes flowers spreading everywhere. 

It is obvious that the lyrical heroine of A.M. Sharonov, like the Greek goddesses, is feminine, beautiful, full of love and a deep, very powerful maternal principle, chaste, wise, intellectual, endowed with creative power. By her unintentional efforts, the world comes to life and is decorated, her every movement is accompanied by a beautiful transformation: "Words, like nightingales, fly from your lips, / In your hands any flower is like a rose."

The reason for such a wonderful effect of Valentina on people and nature is the immense feeling of love that possesses her. Her feminine essence is Beauty, which consists of love, is fertilized by love and gives birth to love. And this love creates and comprehends life in general, life as such: "A river is born from a spring, / From beauty – love and life meanings."

Valentina personifies Life for the poet: without the first, the second will become impossible ("If you leave, I'll be orphaned in a moment, / I'll become miserable, it's unbearable"), her departure is associated for him with the end of the world, with the loss of himself, with the renunciation of the possibility of being without her.

And, on the contrary, Life becomes full-blooded, begins to pulse and be filled with content when It returns: "Everything gets a name on earth / When you are Aphrodite and Athena. / And the light of happiness shines on the forehead / Your husband, your daughter, and your son." Here the poet literally deifies the lyrical heroine, endowing her with the main divine function – to give a name to the created world. Naming a creation is just as important as creating. The world as such can take place only when everything in it finds a name, because only the named is relevant.

The ideal Femininity embodied by the image of Valentina is manifested in her maternal (she gave birth to a son and a daughter, outside of the fulfillment of this mission, a woman cannot be thought of as a woman) and in marital (she creates a husband and father from a man, influencing the realization of his main purpose) hypostases. Beauty, according to A.M. Sharonov, produces "love and life meanings", i.e. it harmonizes the existence of the world and man. Nothing is possible outside of beauty. And a woman embodying and creating beauty symbolizes the fruitfulness and non-finality of Life.

The poem is constructed in such a way that the first stanza states the main idea of the poem: the beautiful is nourished from different sources, but is personified by a Woman who contains all the features of the beautiful, being embodied beauty. In the second, third, and fourth stanzas there is a proof of the affirmative first stanza. In them, the second couplet develops and enhances the content of the first. At the same time, the stanzas themselves are equivalent in meaning and in the degree of disclosure of the topic in relation to each other, each contains a complete thought. The second stanza asserts the optimistic and active naturalness of the Woman (Valentina) compared with nature as a human habitat; this is explained by the gift of a woman to tirelessly implement the world. The third stanza explains the impossibility of a world without a Woman, its reverse metamorphosis leading to non-existence. In the fourth stanza, the poet endows a woman with universal affirmative power, fueled by her creative abilities. The fifth stanza represents a positive conclusion from the whole course of reasoning about the essence and high significance of a Woman and is the culmination of the poem. It captures the main idea of the work and completes the image of the lyrical heroine, which determines that the highest degree of femininity is manifested in giving happiness to her husband and children, which forms an endless chain of beneficial consequences.: happy people begin to produce a happy world decorated with flowers and great meanings; in such a world, beauty never ends, because a happy person sees it in everything and is able to turn everything into beautiful.  

In the poetic world of A.M. Sharonov, a happy man, likening himself to God in the ability not to abolish evil, but to aim it at the service of good (in the Erzya myth of the creation of the world, included by the poet in the "Mastorava" and played a plot-forming role in it, the god of gods Ineshkipaz, having created an ideal world, faces the resistance of the devil ? Idemevs, who also thinks of himself as a creator and intervenes in the creative process, causing damage to the work of Ineshkipaz. God, unable to return the earth to its former state, transforms the deformities committed by Idem into beauty: black clouds in a cloudless sky, which appeared through the efforts of the devil, fills with life-giving moisture, which, falling on the earth in the form of rain, makes it fruitful; ravines that have arisen on a perfectly flat surface of the earth, fills with gold and precious stones. metals, etc.), becomes a "little god", an "earthly god".  This turns out to be possible for him thanks to the divine influence of a Woman.

A. M. Sharonov's woman is not secondary, not passive, not only an object of admiration and worship, but also a subject who energetically carries out life. According to A.M. Sharonov, a Woman contains wisdom, beauty, love, creative power that contributes to the transformation of the world and gives a person the opportunity to ascend to the heights he has chosen, which determines for him the idea of Eternal femininity.

References
1. Arzamazov, A. A. (2018). Contexts of artistic renewal of national literature. Izhevsk, Russia: Limited Liability Company Shelest Publishing House.
2. Arzamazov, A. A. (2020). The artist who created the epic. Feedback on the epic «Mastorava» by A. M. Sharonov. Yearbook of Finno-Ugric Studies, 14, 3, 557–559. doi: 10.35634/2224-9443-2020-14-3-557-559.
3. Berdyaev, N. A. (1998). Self-knowledge: Works. Moscow, Russia: CJSC Publishing House EKSMO-Press; Kharkov, Ukraine: Folio Publishing House.
4. Gagaev, A. A., Gagaev, P. A., Bochkareva, O. V. (2014). Philosophy of the Erzya epic «Mastorava» by A. M. Sharonov. Science and Culture of Russia, 1, 88–90.
5. Gagaev, A. A., Gagaev, P. A. (2017). «Mastorava» by A. M. Sharonov in the linguistic theory of discourse and text. In Russian language and onomastics in the multicultural educational space of the South of Russia and the North Caucasus: problems and prospects (pp.140‒145). Maikop, Russia: Publishing house «Magarin O.G.».
6. Gorlanov, G. E. (2022).«Mastorava» is a unique phenomenon in the culture of Russia. In Mastorava (pp. 495‒496). Saransk, Russia: State Treasury Institution of the Republic of Mordovia «Scientific Center for Socio-Economic Monitoring».
7. Gudkova, S. P. (2016). Artistic comprehension of Erzya-Moksha mythology and folklore in the heroic poem of Mordovia (on the material of A. Sharonov’s poem «Kudadey». In Polyethnic world of Eurasia: problems of mutual perception (pp. 415–422). Izhevsk, Russia.
8. Gudkova, S. P. (2020). The image of Erzyania in the poetic interpretation of A. M. Sharonov. Finno-Ugric world, 12, 1, 107–109.
9. Gudkova, S. P., Khozyaikina, A. V. (2021). Features of the development of the book of poems in modern Russian-language poetry of Mordovia (on the material of the poetic books of A. M. Sharonov «Monologues» and S. Yu. Senichev «Vinogradvshokolade, or Compounding»). Bulletin of Ugric Studies, 11, 1, 16–24. doi: 10.30624/2220-4156-2021-11-1-16-24.
10. Gudkova, S. P. (2016). «Final» book of poems as a meta-genre formation in the Russian-language poetry of Mordovia (A. Sharonov «Planet Era» and V. Gadaev «Late Revelations»). Philological Regional Studies, 2(18), 40‒46.
11. Ingle, O. P. (2016). The problem of the crisis of patriarchal rule in the epic Mastorava. Finno-Ugric world, 3, 40–43.
12. Kudryavtseva, R. A., Kuznetsova, M. N. (2020).The Mordovian epic «Mastorava» by A. Sharonov (to the question of the typological features of the book form of the epos of the Finno-Ugric peoples). Bulletin of Ugric Studies, 10, 3, 479–488. doi: 10.30624/2220-4156-2020-10-3-479-488.
13. Literary encyclopedia of terms and concepts (2001). Moscow, Russia: NPK «Intelvak».
14. Mazina, E. I. (2009). Eternal femininity as the main idea of Russian sophiology. Bulletin of the Vyatka State University, 1‒4, 130‒132.
15. Minichkina, V. P., Ruskina, E. S. (2019). Epos as a factor in the formation of ethnic identity of a person (on the example of the Republic of Mordovia). Finno-Ugric world, 11, 1, 93‒106. doi: 10.15507/2076-2577.011.2019.01.093-106.
16. Naumkin, V. V., Sharonova, E. A. (2022). «Mastorava» ‒ space and society. In Mastorava (pp. 3‒15). Saransk, Russia: State Institution of the Republic of Mordovia «Scientific Center for Socio-Economic Monitoring».
17. Khozyaikina, A. V. (2022). Features of the representation of national folklore and mythology in the poetry of A. M. Sharonov. In Russian folklore of Mordovia in the context of national culture: collection of materials of the All-Russian Scientific Conference (180‒183). Saransk, Russia: Publishing House of Mordov. un-ta.
18. Sharonov, A. M. (2019). Monologues. Saransk, Russia.
19. Sharonov, A. M.(2022). Mastorava . Saransk, Russia: State Treasury Institution of the Republic of Mordovia «Scientific Center for Socio-Economic Monitoring».
20. Sharonova, E. A., Ingl, O. P. (2017). «Kalevala», «Kalevipoeg», «Mastorava»: epic-historical dialogue. Saransk, Russia: Publishing House of Mordov. un-ta.

Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

The article "The idea of Eternal femininity in the poetry of A.M. Sharonov (based on the poem "Valentina")" reveals one of the conceptually significant ideas in the work of A.M. Sharonov, poet, novelist, creator of the heroic epic "Mastorava". However, as shown in the article, A.M. Sharonov is also a subtle lyricist, while his poems on deeply personal topics have philosophical overtones. The author of the article reveals this feature of the poet's lyrics by analyzing one poem, "Valentine". His task was to reveal the meaning and nature of the interpretation of the idea of Eternal femininity in the work of A.M. Sharonov. In fact, the author of the article consistently considered the biographical, historical-literary, philosophical, mythopoetic contexts of the work, revealed the features of its composition, showed the logic of the development of the lyrical plot, and through this substantiated the thesis about the "responsiveness to world and all-Russian requests" of A.M. Sharonov's poetry. A real-biographical commentary on the poem is of particular value, since it is based on facts that can be obtained either from the poet's inner circle or from the archive. Meanwhile, without this comment, the reader would not have fully realized the tragic subtext of the poem, one of its most important "plots". As the author of the article writes, "dedication to his wife creates the conditions for the appearance of external and internal plots in this poem. The external plot is connected with the actualization of the idea of Eternal femininity, which brings the context of the poem into being and outer space. The internal plot, "everyday", grows out of a specific situation that was the reason for writing the work..." The article shows in detail how two types of plot interact, how they relate: "The internal plot, becoming an integral part of the external plot, leads to the following "dislocation" of images: the image of a Woman rises to the image of a Goddess, in In turn, the image of the Goddess contains features of the image of a Woman." This circumstance is due to the combination of the earthly and heavenly in the image of Valentina, the inclusion of an expanded chain of comparisons (likenesses) of the heroine with mythological goddesses. As the author of the article writes, "the idea of Eternal femininity, personified by A.M. Sharonov in Valentine, is based on a combination of many different principles, which form an eternally attractive, full of beauty and wisdom, the passion of Eve (sophisticated and tempting) and the chastity of the Mother of God (combining innocence and motherhood) harmonious image of a Woman." In fact, the poem reflects the ideal image of a Woman, as the poet understands it, and it is important that for him a woman is a core, an inspiring and organizing force, or, as the article says, "a subject who energetically carries out life." The article is interesting because it shows how the idea of Eternal femininity has developed in modern literature (the poem was written in 2015), how the modern author interacts with the tradition of world literature (the author of the article fits the work of A.M. Sharonov into a very solid literary series – "Dante, Petrarch, Goethe, Pushkin"). And one more important point – the work shows how this poem reflects the idea of evil, which aims at the creation of good, which was most fully expressed in the author's main work – the epic "Mastorava". Through this connection, the unity of the author's artistic world is revealed, the implementation of ideas and key images significant for his work in various genre forms. The article consistently maintains a scientific style and presents a representative list of references. The article is recommended for publication.