Reinventing Romantic Poetry : Russian Women Poets of the Mid-nineteenth Century

Finally, Rostopchina’s poetry can in no way be said to embody the

sphere of domestic and maternal affection. Rather than describing the

joys of marriage and motherhood, she depicted the joys and pains of ex-

tramarital love (for example, her cycle, Neizvestnyi roman,which was

first published in its entirety in 1856 ). In the only lullaby she wrote

(“Baiu-baiu,” 1836 ) the speaker tells her own heart, soul, and imagina-

tion to go to sleep since life is meaningless.

Indeed, Rostopchina’s challenges to contemporary understandings of

woman’s role may be the reason that she incurred so much hostility from

her critics. In “Iskushenie” (Temptation, 1839 ) a young mother watch-

ing her two children sleeping wishes she could be at a ball. Here Ros-

topchina depicts a mother with feelings and desires independent of her

children, a challenge to cultural assumptions about instinctive maternal

self-sacrifice and the insignificance for women of mere pleasure com-

pared to the sacred joys of motherhood. Many critics have commented

on, and been scandalized by, this poem. They routinely identify the

speaker with Rostopchina, berating her for frivolity and immorality.^56

These critics, however, ignore the poem’s moral sophistication. The

title “Iskushenie” serves to name the speaker’s feelings and to frame

them for the reader. Rostopchina establishes the speaker as a moral

agent who can choose whether or not to act on temptation. Perhaps that

in itself frightened critics who preferred that a mother’s submersion in

her children be complete, unquestionable, and mandatory.

However, a more objective reading of the poem shows that these crit-

ics missed its point. The poem does not concern the speaker’s tempta-

tion to reject motherhood in order to glitter in high society. At the be-

ginning of the poem she says:

'       

  

    

( 

,  ,..

)u "      u 

* u .

!    ,  

 ,

! 

 

         ,..

h

(Now, you [Midnight] find me

At a book, at work,...

I listen to the rustle of two cradles

With a smile and with concern

And my feeling of peace is bright and sweet

And home doesn’t constrain me,.. .)

Evdokiia Rostopchina 107