"Romantic Flowers" is the second collection of poems by Nikolai Gumilyov , released in Paris in January 1908 at his own expense.
The first edition of Romantic Flowers came out with a dedication to Anna Andreevna Gorenko . The collection includes 32 poems [1] . Three of them were not included in further editions; one was included in a greatly reduced form.
The collection was presented for the rather conservative Pushkin Prize , but did not receive it: “the small volume of the book, together with the unknown author and the lack of translations, led to the fact that the“ Romantic Flowers ”had no chance not only in their modernist orientation” [2] .
Gumilyov considered the “second” edition to be the section under the same name that ended the 1910 collection of Pearls.
The “second” edition (as part of the “Pearls”) included 21 poems, 20 of which were reprinted from the first edition, and one was new (“Neo-romantic Tale”). In addition, one poem from the first edition (“I dreamed we both died”) was included in the “Pink Pearls” section, but in 1918 it was returned to “Romantic Flowers”.
The third edition included 45 poems, including: three from The Way of the Conquistadors , 29 from the first edition of the Romantic Flowers of 1908 , four transferred from the Pearls of 1910 , one of the second edition of Romantic Flowers in a greatly reduced form and eight poems that were not previously included in any of the collections [3] .
Poems included in the third edition of the collection:
- Sonnet (Like a conquistador in an iron shell ...)
- Ballad
- Ossian
- Rat
- Dawn
- Death
- In the sky
- Thoughts
- Cross
- Masquerade
- After the victory
- The choice
- Clever devil
- Renouncement
- Memory
- Dreams
- Glove
- I dreamed
- Yakko Gardens
- Suicide
- Princess
- Sleep cave
- In love with the devil
- Lovers
- Spell
- Hyena
- Ship
- Jaguar
- Horror
- Beyond the coffin
- Lion bride
- Gardens of the Soul
- Infection
- Sinbad Eagle
- Giraffe
- Rhinoceros
- Lake chad
- Pompey the pirates
- Founders
- Manly
- Games
- To the emperor
- Caracalla
- Mariner Pausanius ...
- Neo-romantic tale
Criticism
Among the others V. Ya. Bryusov , I. F. Annensky and V. V. Hoffman responded to the first edition of the collection.
From a review by V. Ya. Bryusov in the journal Libra, 1908 :
Poems by N. Gumilyov are now beautiful, elegant and mostly interesting in form; now he sharply and definitely draws his images and with great thoughtfulness and refinement he chooses epithets ... Maybe, continuing to work with the same stubbornness, as now, he will be able to go much further than we have planned, he will discover the possibilities that we don’t suspect.
From the review of L. F. in "Education", 1908 :
... as a poet N. Gumilyov is very uneven and often knows how to deftly destroy a good whole with two or three little things.
From a review by Victor Hoffmann in Russian Thought, 1908 :
His present book is only the threshold, only a promise, which, however, is worth listening to; the real work of the poet is yet to come.
Notes
- ↑ Zakhariev I. The leitmotifically coded poetry of N. Gumilyov (collection of "Romantic Flowers") // Russian poets of the twentieth century: phenomenal aesthetic structures. Sofia, 2007.S. 60-69
- ↑ Filicheva V.V., “Everyone ruined the“ wallpaper ”” (Collection by N. Gumilyov presented at the Pushkin Prize), Literary fact, Moscow, 2017, 6
- ↑ Gumilev, Nikolai Stepanovich. Favorites. - M .: Education