Talk:Symeon of Polotsk

"...stultified Russian verse for over a century."

Michaeanto (talk) 03:25, 6 April 2014 (UTC) I find the following sentence in the current version of the entry very problematic: "By adopting syllabic verse, he is said to have stultified Russian verse for over a century."

In his introduction to Russian Poetry Under the Tsars: An Anthology, Burton Raffel indeed wrote that Simeon's importation of syllabic verse "stultified Russian verse for over a century" (xvi). However, readers should be aware that Raffel's views on the early history of Russian verse do not reflect today's scholarly consensus. Raffel presents several of Nabokov's own prejudices as statements of fact on Russian poetry throughout the introduction; for example, he repeats Nabokov's remark that Derzhavin was "by universal agreement 'the first real poet in Russia'" (xvi), stating that "Russian poetry begins... in about the middle of the eighteenth century, when a workable prosody was first evolved" (xvi). By defining the start of Russian poetry only after syllabo-tonic verse had been widely adopted in the mid-eighteenth century, Raffel discredits nearly a century of Russian poetry, from Simeon Polotskii to Antiokh Kantemir. Mikhail L. Gasparov credits Simeon with influencing the next generation including Sil'vestr Medvedev, Karion Istomin and even up to Feofan Prokopovich, all of whom he influenced either directly or indirectly (see Gasparov's "Ocherk istorii russkogo stikha," M., 2000, page 32).

Raffel cannot help but simply echo Nabokov, believing him when he says "unendurable dullness settles upon him who peruses these imitations of structures, mediocre in themselves and completely alien to the rhythms of live Russian" (xvii). I think a more up-to-date viewpoint on syllabic poetry in general that attempts to avoid reinforcing modern prejudices can be found in Gasparov:

Этого обзора достаточно, чтобы видеть: силлабика никоим образом не была случайной заемной модой, будто бы не соответствовавшей «духу» русского языка. Это был стих широко употребительный, хорошо разработанный и гибкий. Если он и отступил перед натиском силлабо-тоники, то только потому, что та своей однообразной строгостью лучше подчеркивала противопоставление стиха и прозы. ("Ocherk istorii russkogo stikha," 33)

For more Simeon Polotskii, see the work of Anthony Hippesley and Lydia Sazonova. For a short discussion of Polotskii and his importance in anticipating the eighteenth century solemn ode, see Harsha Ram's The Imperial Sublime: A Russian Poetics of Empire (Madison: U of Wisconsin Press, 2003), 34-39.

The "Works" section in this entry for Simeon Polotskii seems to discredit him at nearly every turn - first it's implied he was hardly a writer in Russian, then the entry states that he "clung" to Polish versification rules (as if there were no merit in adapting a foreign versification system for Russian verse - which, by the way, could equally describe the adaptation of German syllabo-tonic verse into Russian several decades later)... It would be nice to see some evidence of the ongoing scholarly re-evaluation of Russian syllabic verse reflected in the relevant Wikipedia entries.

I'm new to Wikipedia so I apologize for any breaches of conduct. Thanks to all who contributed to the entry.

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