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Gumilev, World Traveler | Episode 10
PODCAST #10: GUMILEV, WORLD TRAVELER
by
Martin Bidney
Nikolay Gumilev (1886-1921) was Russia’s pre-eminent traveler poet. He has even said that his sponsor, his supernatural patroness, was the “Muse of distant travel,” the Goddess of Journeying. His journeys were adventures in self-discovery.
TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, RISK, & SELF-DISCOVERY could be the motto of his life-work. Is it a surprise that, working in the literary department of the Soviet bureaucracy to translate, compile, and publish major poems of world literature, he should focus on translating England’s greatest poem of travel, adventure, risk, and self-discovery? And this is Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” I’ll offer a few lines of each, to show Gumilev as connoisseur-translator.
Then I’ll use 97. Adam’s Dream as a frame narrative to orient us to the twofold character of Gumilev’s poetic travels: joyful self-discovery in the face of risk, peril, and death. Adam and Eve were legendary history’s first self-discovering travelers, having left a protected garden for a protracted Time of Transition.
In Romantic Flowers 35. Giraffe playfully suggests to a young person a trip to present-day Africa, and 36. Rhinoceros continues in that spirit. The poet identifies with both traveler and animals. Yet risks for travelers are shown in 33. Contagion and 52. Forest Fire. Gumilev’s travels to far-off places and cultures resulted in poems of peril and alarm. But also humor, and amusement! My favorite is one of his last lyrics, 258. Drunken Dervish, portrait of a hippie mystic. In contrast, 260. Prayer of the Masters portrays a spokesman for traditional icon painters in a Greek monastery. Gumilev, adventurer and studious literary organizer, can identify strongly with each: the rule-breaking rebel and the spiritual seeker bound to the constraints of duty. Poem 1. Sonnet presents the poet as youthful knight in shining armor, an early Spanish explorer of the Americas, triumphantly envisioning his beauty-adorned death. Then, already in 58. Old Conquistador (Pearls), the explorer plays dice with death as rival. Who can win such a game?
In 72. Antiquity boredom generates a burst of desire for visionary journeys. Gumilev’s travel gets spooky when he enters the dream world and encounters the preternatural, as in 49. Possessed.
Life and death, travel and risk, peril and self-discovery combine in Gumilev. 75. Backwaters, a poem astonishing for sudden power, contrasts with 211. Ezbekiyeh, where the hero’s life hangs in the balance between affirmation and a sudden end.
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By Martin Bidney
5
11 ratings
PODCAST #10: GUMILEV, WORLD TRAVELER
by
Martin Bidney
Nikolay Gumilev (1886-1921) was Russia’s pre-eminent traveler poet. He has even said that his sponsor, his supernatural patroness, was the “Muse of distant travel,” the Goddess of Journeying. His journeys were adventures in self-discovery.
TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, RISK, & SELF-DISCOVERY could be the motto of his life-work. Is it a surprise that, working in the literary department of the Soviet bureaucracy to translate, compile, and publish major poems of world literature, he should focus on translating England’s greatest poem of travel, adventure, risk, and self-discovery? And this is Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” I’ll offer a few lines of each, to show Gumilev as connoisseur-translator.
Then I’ll use 97. Adam’s Dream as a frame narrative to orient us to the twofold character of Gumilev’s poetic travels: joyful self-discovery in the face of risk, peril, and death. Adam and Eve were legendary history’s first self-discovering travelers, having left a protected garden for a protracted Time of Transition.
In Romantic Flowers 35. Giraffe playfully suggests to a young person a trip to present-day Africa, and 36. Rhinoceros continues in that spirit. The poet identifies with both traveler and animals. Yet risks for travelers are shown in 33. Contagion and 52. Forest Fire. Gumilev’s travels to far-off places and cultures resulted in poems of peril and alarm. But also humor, and amusement! My favorite is one of his last lyrics, 258. Drunken Dervish, portrait of a hippie mystic. In contrast, 260. Prayer of the Masters portrays a spokesman for traditional icon painters in a Greek monastery. Gumilev, adventurer and studious literary organizer, can identify strongly with each: the rule-breaking rebel and the spiritual seeker bound to the constraints of duty. Poem 1. Sonnet presents the poet as youthful knight in shining armor, an early Spanish explorer of the Americas, triumphantly envisioning his beauty-adorned death. Then, already in 58. Old Conquistador (Pearls), the explorer plays dice with death as rival. Who can win such a game?
In 72. Antiquity boredom generates a burst of desire for visionary journeys. Gumilev’s travel gets spooky when he enters the dream world and encounters the preternatural, as in 49. Possessed.
Life and death, travel and risk, peril and self-discovery combine in Gumilev. 75. Backwaters, a poem astonishing for sudden power, contrasts with 211. Ezbekiyeh, where the hero’s life hangs in the balance between affirmation and a sudden end.