Review

Reviewed Work(s): The Poetry of Anna Akhmatova: A Conquest of Time and Space.
(Slavistische Beiträge Bd. 196) by Sonia Ketchian and F. D. Reeve
Review by: Christopher R. Fortune
Source: Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes, Vol. 29, No. 2/3 (June-
September 1987), pp. 341-342
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40868795
Accessed: 16-01-2020 02:08 UTC

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 Vol. xxix, Nos. 2 &3 Book Reviews | 341

As a result the gulf between the poet's life and her art seems to be q
able. It is a pity too that the play Fedra still does not receive anythin

R. D. B. Thomson, University of Toront

Sonia Ketchian. The Poetry of Anna Akhmatova: A Conquest

Space. Verse translation by F. D. Reeve. (Slavistische Beitr
Munich: Verlag Otto Sagner, 1986. viii, 225 pp. n.p.

Anna Akhmatova's poetry continues to offer a rich field of investi

modern scholar. In this latest study Sonia Ketchian discerns three pr
underlie the creative ethos in Akhmatova's seven collections of verse and several
long poems. Simply stated, these three principles are: fire imagery, metempsychosis,
and the device of intertextuality. By interweaving these principles in her entire
artistic output Akhmatova achieved a unity and design typical of the greatest
literature. To understand this accomplishment one must unravel the pattern of
these principles and reveal the element of mystery which surrounds Akhmatova's
poetry.
The first of these principles, the theme of fire, constitutes the basis of her
poetic world. According to Ketchian, "fire seems to be present everywhere and in
all emotions in Akhmatova - in life, love, grief, worship and creation" (p. 8). After
discussing the traditional role of fire imagery in literature, she traces its literal and
symbolic qualities in Akhmatova's verse. Fire imagery is not a coincidence but a
determined element that is present in the poet's life and loves, and then transformed
through complex stages into verse.
The second principle, metempsychosis, is a phenomenon which allows
Akhmatova to form links with people and writers of past generations, to experience
several stages of life, and even to experience non-human forms of life. This process
involves the poet's persona in various incarnations and is the means by which she
extends the limits of her verse and conquers time. Space, on the other hand, is
overcome through "dreams, music, fever and non-meetings." Metempsychosis
employs such devices as similes, metaphors, rhetorical questions, and apostrophes
which are related to allusions of a layered past and evident only through multiple
subtexts.

Intertextuality, the third principle, involves Akhmatova's transformation

of the literary legacy into her own poetry through artistic imitation of her masters
and through stylized interpolations of their work. By incorporating literary allu-
sions, correspondence, and subtexts, Akhmatova shows her indebtedness, specifi-
cally in two poems, to Innokentii Annenskii. Ketchian's close study of these poems,
with examples of similarities in other poems, reveals a dual-layered structural and
thematic correspondence with Annenskii which often leads back to their common
source in Pushkin.

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342 I Revue Canadienne des Slavistes Juin-Septembre 1987

The investigation concludes with a discussion of the function of titles and

epigraphs in Akhmatova's poetry and the factors that determined their choice,
as well as the appropriateness ofthat choice for the poems themselves. As Ketchian
states: "Clearly, for the poet Akhmatova, poetry does not spring up in an imaginative
void nor exclusively from life but largely from man's vast literary and cultural
heritage" (p. 3).
This excellent study, parts of which have been published previously in scholar-
ly journals, is the first to use such an approach. It goes beyond investigation of
individual poems to trace their interconnection in the poet's oeuvre and as part of
a literary continuum. By examining the gist of Akhmatova's poetics and the sub-
textual connections of her poems with world culture, Ketchian achieves a deeper
comprehension and better appreciation of a great poet.

Christopher R. Fortune, University of Victoria

Pekka Tammi. Problems of Nabokov's Poetics. A Narratological Analysis.

Helsinki: Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, Ser. B, vol. 231,
1985. x, 390 pp. n.p.

Tammi's monograph on Vladimir Nabokov is a remarkable achievement in its

scope and in its theoretical standard. It covers the entire Nabokov corpus, both
Russian and English, and displays a thorough familiarity with the immense body
of Nabokovian criticism. Tammi is aware that Nabokov's is an original ludic
narrative structure. Faced with such non-standard "unique" writings, critics tend
to rely on intuition rather than on theory. Tammi does not succumb to this tempta-
tion, although his subject - Nabokov - was one of the most forceful and eloquent
claimants of uniqueness. The Finnish poetician has mastered contemporary narrative
theory (narratology) and demonstrates its analytical utility: Nabokov's highly
idiosyncratic work is not beyond theoretical understanding. To bring about such
theoretical understanding, the critic himself has to pass a test of originality: to
transcend a mechanical "application" of the available theoretical framework by
developing it critically and creatively. Let me illustrate Tammi's attitude to modern
narrative theory by one example: it is chic to evoke Bakhtin's concept of "poly-
phony" with respect to almost any modern novelist. Instead of following the
fashion, Tammi submits the concept to a rigorous analysis and then confronts it
with Nabokov's writings. The result is an original characterization of Nabokov's
narrative as "anti-polyphonic," a narrative radically different both from Dostoev-
skian polyphonism and from Tolstoian and Turgenevian monologism (pp. lOOff.).
The aim of Tammi's meticulous study is to arrive at a comprehensive presenta-
tion of Nabokov's poetics, of the "recurrent, distinctively Nabokovian literary
devices" (p. 14). These devices form a system shaped by "a common denominator,
an organizing principle or a predominant 'theme'" (thematic dominant) (p. 17).

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