Fetisova E.E. 'The Third Poets' Guild': Traditions and Innovation

Abstract: The article is devoted to one of the most important but understudied literary phenomena, The Third Poets' Guild that had a tremendous influence on the development of genres, literary schools and literature of the 20th century in general. Based on the analysis of various scientific sources, the author of the article provides the main definitions of the concept, reconstructs the history of the development of The Third Guild, its aesthetic platform and relation to traditional acmeism; and studies creative paths of poets from The Third Guild as well as the role of The Third Guild in the literary process of the 20th century. Within the framework of the traditional acmeism, the author distinguishes Nikolay Gumilev's 'Parnassian' acmeism and Vladimir Narbut's adamism. The author also describes the history of associations which belonged, on the one hand, to the acmeistic or neoclassical school of poetry and, on the other hand, to nontraditional, or alternative movements of the 20th century. Fetisova also considers the relation of the aforesaid phenomenon to other phenomena such as The First and The Second Poets' Guilds and literary and ontological categories. The researcher defines the features of traditional acmeism in the aesthetic program of The Third Poets' Guild. Through a detailed analysis of almanacs and other periodical publications of The Third Poets' Guild, the researcher outlines the main stages of their development, authors, covering, aesthetic views and public response as well as their prehistory and artistic specifics. In order to reveal the contents of acmeism as the artistic movement of the 20th century, the author examines peculiarities of its functioning as part of the internal communication with symbolism (which reached the latent phase in 1934) and neoclassicism. Comparative analysis as well as semiotic reconstruction of a poetic text are the keys to understanding internal structures of the acmeistic cultural paradigm. The author concludes that acmeism of emigrants ('neoacmeism') continued the mission of symbolism: the acmeistic movement transformed the 'bi-worldness' and the concept of the world as the 'aesthetic phenomenon' into the principle of mystical energetics and understanding the noumenal world through the 'mystical insight'. Emigrants' acmeism is described as the synthesis of the elements of modernism and realism: the poetry unites all mystical worlds, the 'real-unreal' dichotomy, the symbolic 'theory of correspondence' and clarity, historical particularities, memory of the 'past-not-in-vain' inherited from realism. This approach to viewing acmeism as the continuous paradigm of post-symbolic traditional creativity as one of the most significant trends of literary (and spiritual) growth based on the experience of Russia (metropolis) and foreign states allows to define the internal integrity of Russian literature which developed through the dialogue and interaction of different artistic systems (in particular, symbolism, acmeism and neoclassicism). Such variety of searches, artistic and stylistic trends and movements creates prospects for new discoveries in the sphere of Russian and world literature. 

Keywords: