Olja Tielkes

ЧЕТВЕРТАЯ СИМФОНИЯ АНДРЕЯ БЕЛОГО: ТОЧКИ "ЗАТЕМНЕНИЯ ФОКАЛИЗАЦИИ" И НЕОМИФОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ ПОРЯДОК ДЕЙСТВИЯ.*

Приближение к цели наиболее полного символического раскрытия действительности и есть мифотворчество.

Вячеслав Иванов

The central issue of this project deals with the narratological and intertextual relationships between literature and music in "The Goblet of Blizzards", the fourth and last symphony of Andrej Bely, first published in 1908. As a Symbolist writer, Bely was a foremost representative of a literary school which declared music as the supreme form of art (as a matter of fact, almost all the Symbolists were interested in that: we need only think of Verlaine's - "de la musique avant toute chose" or Walter Pater's description of music as an art form towards which all arts aspire). Bely not only repeats these ideas in his writings on the arts, but also endeavours to bring literature closer to music, composing a literary work according to musical principles and applying musical forms. This attempt became evident in Bely's literary debut, the Second Symphony, published in 1902.

In the period 1899-1907 he wrote three more symphonies - prose works specifically associated with music through the use of sonata form and constant repetition of various leitmotifs. This musical orientation caused reproaches for incomprehensibility and lack of a clear plot. Bely was called "the most incomprehensible of those incomprehensible moderns". In a review on the First Symphony, one critic alleges that "on someone unused t
o decadent prose, the symphony makes an impression of the ravings of a madman"; even "Return", the third and the most traditional of all the symphonies, was seen as "a whole flood of delirious lava, a whole sea of uncontrollable, disconnected, incoherent pictures and images".

Although in the first three symphonies Bely used musical devices as well, it was in the Fourth Symphony, "The Goblet of Blizzards", that he took the structural analogy between music and literature to its furthest limit. The musical orientation, present in the first three symphonies, becomes here the most dominant feature and determines its whole structure. In its introduction Bely points out that, while he entitled his preceding three works "symphonies", he did not consciously attempt to approximate the symphonic form in any direct way. In the Fourth Symphony, however, he makes a conscious attempt at this: "I was interested in the constructional mechanism of that vaguely conceived form in which my preceding "symphonies" had been written (...) I did not have a distinct conception of what a "symphony" in literature was supposed to be. In the present "symphony" I tried most of all to be precise in the exposition of themes, in their counterpoint, combination, etc". Alluding to his last Symphony in his
memoirs Bely describes the motives he was driven by while working on it: "In 1906 in Munich I took the text of the symphony wishing to rewrite it, dreaming of various technical tricks: I hoped to arrange the material of the phrases in the same way as Wagner had done with melody; I saw the themes as a strict rhythmic line: the subsidiary themes (...) emerging (...) according to the laws not of logic, but of counterpoint". It was these "technical tricks", whereby a musical "formula" was applied to literature, that caused the crushing criticism of the Symphony. The consensus of opinion was the same: the incomprehensibility.

The Symphony was regarded as "a mystic algebra", "a goblet of talentless pretension", "a morbid muddle and confusion". Present-day critics also note the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of telling the story of "The Goblet of Blizzards". Roger Keys, who sees the last symphony as "the less intelligible of Bely's experimental works", writes: "There are no clear outlines, no concrete perspectives. Characters merge with the objects around them as well as with each other. The same words - verbs, nouns, adjectives - are repeated as leitmotifs in relation to different people and things. For the average, the result is a curious interpenetration of all in everything. There is no recognizable grid of reference, no criterion of relevance.
There are symbols everywhere, of course - but what do they symbolize?"

It was tried to show that the 'narratological' charges of incomprehensibility and difficulty are all inseparably linked with the attempt to create a literature which aspires towards music. The desire not to name, but to hide the meaning, characteristic for all Symbolist literature, is, in Bely's work, a direct consequence of his views on music as an art not representing images of reality. Repeating the classification of the arts according to Schopenhauer in his essay "The Forms of Art" (1902), Bely upholds this classification, but with different arguments than those proffered by Schopenhauer. While according to the Schopenhauerian hierarchy of the arts, based on the degree to which they represent Ideas, Music stands above all other
arts because it is not a representation of any Idea, but a pure expression of Will, Bely, who also regards music as the highest art form, based his classification of the arts on their (dis)connection with the images of reality: the less connection, the higher the mode of art: "In architecture, sculpture and painting the images of reality play an important role. There are no such images in music. In approaching music a work of art becomes deeper and broader".

The idea of music as a form of a non-representing art is linked in "The Forms of Art" not so much to the name of Schopenhauer as to that of Eduard Hanslick, an Austrian music critic, whose tiny book "The Beautiful in Music" ("Vom Musikalisch-Schonen", 1854) made a great impression oil Bely. This book appeared during the Romantic period in music, with its catchphrase "the renewal of music through its unity with poetry", at a time when Liszt introduced the term "program music" and when innumerable "programmes" were written telling the story behind the music, when literary works were widely used for music and a large number of operas were based on the principles of the dramatic theatre. Hanslick expresses his disapproval of this "subjection of music to words" and defends the autonomy and
self-sufficiency of music, its independence from other arts, literature in particular. His key statement "Der Inhalt der Musik sind tonend bewegte Formen" meant that the essence of music is nothing more than sound and motion, the value of music lying in its formal relations. Music was for Hanslick an end in itself, never a means to the end of a poetic or dramatic expression. There is no other content in music than music itself.

The idea that the very essence of music was not a representation of reality but sound and motion certainly affected Bely. So, in order to bring literature closer to music one must increase its link sound and motion and abandon (or decrease) its link with image, with a "story". And that is exactly what Bely is trying to do in his Fourth Symphony.

The abatement of the plot line, its diminishment and reduction is achieved by the application of various devices which could be called - if we invert Shklovsky's "device of illumination" (прием высветления) - "devices of obscuration" (приемы затемнения). To those "devices of obscuration" in the Fourth Symphony we can assign fragmentation, the absence of traditional description or definition of the characters, complex metaphors, ellipses, etc.

On the compositional level the "darkening" of the plot is accomplished by the splitting up the text the four parts of the Symphony are divided into chapters which are cut up into fragments of different length separated from each other by empty space. The length of a fragment varies from a page to sentence. The thematic link between the fragments is optional and in many cases is lacking. The fragments are divided into small paragraphs of a couple of sentences. The paragraphs, like the poetry lines, are placed one under the other. The thematic links between the paragraphs are also often reduced. The "obscuration" of the plot is also created by many dreams, hallucinations, visions, etc. which represent the Symbolist idea of the two corresponding worlds, the world of realia and the world of realiora. The function of "obscuration" is also fulfilled by the elliptical constructions when the subject of the action is not mentioned, by the negation of a statement or description or negation of the negation and by frequent use of "as if", "as though", "like", "it seemed", etc. The fragmentation is also achieved by numerous insertions of existing texts, in particular passages from romances and fragments from the Russian orthodox liturgy.

On a stylistic level the fragmentation is represented by stylistic shifts. The first chapter of the Symphony opens with the enchanting picture of the dancing snowflakes. Most of the images of this chapter are poetic: "the singing ribbons of silver" (певучие ленты серебра) "whitewinged fliers" (белокрылые лентуны), "the white dead" (мертвец и белая смерть). The second chapter begins with a short, business-like, summing-up "So. The moon has risen". This summarizing "so" is continually repeated not only at the junctures of the chapters but also within the chapters, splitting the "lyric" fragments of the text. These stylistic shifts coincide with the description of the style of literary decadence given by Nietzsche in "Der Fall Wagner" (and it may be not out of place to mention that Bely saw his Symphony as "the most decadent" of all his works).

On a rhythmical level the most important device of fragmentation is the shifting from strictly rhythmical, even metrical prose to non-rhythmical prose. As in the case of the stylistic
Shifts, the place of the metrical shifts can be anywhere: sometimes a piece of metrical prose forms a fragment, while sometimes the change from metrical to non-rhythmical prose occurs within one fragment - and these are the most striking metrical shifts. The use of meter on the one hand brings the Symphony closer to poetry but on the other hand the metrical shifts split
the text into pieces.

The same can be said about the rhymed passages which are sporadically inserted into the prose. The device of mixing prose and poetry is not new - it was used often enough before Bely, but whereas in "Boris Godunov" it was used as a sort of "rhyming italics" in order to emphasize the most dramatically important moments, or as by Shakespeare in order to mark the end of a part or a whole, the Symphony bears no traces of any of these or other functions. The rhyme occurs spontaneously and can just be a rhyme of two similar parts of a sentence, or can be retained through the whole fragment or it can even go through a couple of fragments. The very specific feature of Bely's rhyme is the instability of its position. Bely's rhyme is unsettled and wandering, not confined to the end of the line. The rhymed passages can be found at the beginning as well as in the middle or at the end of a fragment.

The orientation of the literary text towards imageless music and the resulting incomprehensibility is counteracted by the large number of references to various myths. The allusions to Christian, Gnostic and classical mythologies give structure and provide a certain direction to the seemingly chaotic text. They serve as a deciphering, decoding key to an endless sequence of repetitions, Doppelganger, ghostly apparitions: the characters of the Symphony, lacking the traditional "literary" characterteristics, can hardly be identified but through their correspondence with the mythical heroes, and especially with the characters of the New Testament, this being the most important myth in the Symphony: rebirth through Christian Love
corresponds to Adam and Christ, the second Adam; Svetlova - to Eva, Maria, apocalyptical "woman clothed with the sun" (жена облеченная в солнце), to Maria Magdalena; colonel Svetozarov, in all his appearances of sorcerer, dragon, bishop, dog's shadow, dried membrane, street-lamp, etc., corresponds to the figure of Satan. The orientation of the Symphony towards the Christian myth is also sustained by references to the prayers and songs of the Orthodox liturgy which illustrate the main idea of the Symphony: rebirth through Christian love. The themes of these references - the last days of Christ, his resurrection and Second
Coming - determine the choice of the services: Bely mainly makes use of the services of the Holy Week and the Easter Sunday.
The references to the Gnostic myth of 'Sophia' broaden the mystical orientation of the Symphony and break through the boundaries of solely (Orthodox) Christian religion. The struggle between the spiritual and the earthly which forms the main theme of the Symphony could be seen as a version of the myth of Sophia, and the combination of "the holy and the sinner" in the character of Svetlova recalls Sophia's ambivalent nature.

The references to the classic Greek myths relate Svetlova with her sensuality and "heavenly love" with Aphrodite Urania and Aphrodite Pandemos. The allusions of Svetozarov to Minotaurus confirm once again the inner connection of the character with Satan.

It must be said that all the references to the myths have a structural function only when the reader can identify them as such and connect them to one or other myth. Otherwise they do not clarify the text but do just the opposite: they make it more 'incomprehensible'.

In his attempt to create a truly musical text in literature Bely not only weakens its link with reality, with the imagery, not only discards traditional literary devices, but tries to replace these with typically musical ones. The title of his first literary attempts as well as Bely's frequent statements that he was composing his symphonies according to musical form and principals testify to his desire to bring literature closer to music.

And here we inevitably come to the problem which divides Bely scholars into two camps: can musical devices be used in literature? Is the whole musical terminology of Bely and some of his devotees not just a metaphor adding nothing to our understanding of a basically literary text?
The different natures of literature and music make it impossible just to transfer musical devices into literature. Used in literature, the musical device is never identical with the original. Thus, all the musical devices used in literature are no more than a metaphor. But in the symphonies where Bely consciously intended to bring literature closer to music the use of musical devices helps us to determine their special features and artistic effectiveness. For example, counterpoint is, strictly speaking, impossible in literature, where sonoric 'polyphony' does not exist. But the rapid change of themes in Bely's Symphony gives an illusion of simultaneous sound. Practically impossible in literature is the sonata form as there is no tonality in literature. But if we understand tonality as the main emotional mood, we can notice the
difference in tonality of the second theme in its exposition and its recapitulation. The comparison of the first part of Bely's Symphony with Medtner's F minor Piano Sonata also reflects his attempt to follow the sonata form.

The different nature of literature and music determines the difference in the use of repetition in general, music demands far more repetition than literature can tolerate. This difference in quantity is accompanied by the difference in the forms where repetition is used: while in literature the repetition is confined to shorter and slighter forms as ballade, rondeau, triolet, etc., in music it forms an inalienable structural part of the longer and more imposing forms: prelude, nocturne, bagatelle can be defined without any mention of repetition, but it is impossible to describe sonata form, rondo, passacaglia, or fugue without telling what is repeated and when. The repetitions in the Symphony have all the distinctive features of musical repetition: repetitions, exact or with variation, form the whole texture of the Symphony, which is a long prose work and not a relatively short poetical form. The repetitions of the
Symphony are not the repetitions of the content expressed in other words but the repetitions of the form of the verbal structure.

Much closer to music than to literature is Bely's use of the motif. In literature a motif is a rather vague term denoting images as well as action. Though the relations with music is referred to in all the definitions of the literary "motif", the most important is its denotative function. In music the motif is commonly regarded as the shortest subdivision of a theme or phrase; having one metrical accent the mot if is usually a bar long. The development of the motif is realized in its various repetitions, unchanged or in another harmony or sequence, in its transformations, variations, introduction of the contrasting motifs.

In Bely's Symphony we can distinguish many literary motifs (the motifs of divine love, death, resurrection, swan, shadow, etc), but the whole development of the Symphony is based on structures similar to musical motifs, their development, repetition in another context, variation, connection and juxtaposition of various motifs and groups of motifs. The motif structure determines the structure of the Symphony.

The specific character of the literary text makes it impossible to equate the motifs and the way of their development in the Symphony of Bely to musical motifs. On the one hand, the verbal motifs have a much more denotative function than musical motifs; on the other hand, the possibilities of variation with verbal motifs are not as wide as with musical motifs: the verbal motif cannot be repeated in another tonality, another harmony, another pitch. The possibilities of the development of the verbal motif are limited to exact repetition or repetition in variation, repetition in another context, diminishing or extension. Bely tries to approach musical motifs by elimination of these two differences: firstly the denotative meaning of the verbal motifs is reduced, so that the motif becomes the shortest formal figure, secondly the small variety of the motifs is compensated for by their quantity: the whole Symphony is based on variation/derivation of the motifs.

Bely's use of leitmotifs in the Symphony is clearly influenced by a musical leitmotifs, especially those of Wagner. Like the leitmotifs of Wagner the leitmotifs in the Symphony have great 'symbolic' value. Primarily they are connected with some concrete meaning, but being repeated the meanings of all their variations, so their suggestiveness and associative power increases and the meaning becomes more and more abstract.

As we can see, Bely realizes his idea of creating a symphony in literature by approaching an imageless music and by using musical devices. The praises of the music critics would seem to prove the immediate success of his attempt. Yet it was the following of musical principles and musical structure which made his last symphony a failure in the eyes of many contemporary literary critics. Bely himself also had doubts about the 'literary' side of "The Goblet of Blizzards" which he expressed in its introduction. Not knowing if his "symphony" is a "paradox" or not, he recommends his readers to study, read and reread it - and we must bear in mind that reading for him always meant "reading aloud". His advice, which reflects his approach to the work as a piece of music, turns out to be correct. Indeed, just as after the first hearing of a long piece of music we cannot grasp the whole, and after we listen to it again and againwe hear
more, after the first reading of the Symphony it probably would seem "a mystic algebra", a "morbid muddle and confusion", but after re-reading we become more accustomed to following its themes and motifs, their variations and connections. The irritation caused by incomprehensibility and unintelligible repetitions gives way to acknowledgement of Bely's courage in daring to express "imageless experiences and emotions" in the form of repeating themes and of his undoubted skills in creating a whole range of motifs, every repetition of which enriches and clarifies their meaning.

The narratogenic devices developed in the Fourth Symphony were of great importance for Bely's later work and for the whole school of ornamental writers. Sergej Solov'ev writes in his review of the Fourth Symphony: "Even if he had written nothing more, the name of the author of the four symphonies would not be forgotten in Russian literature".

Full text of the article in Russian (1.451 KB)