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

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(I, a daughter of Russia, do not know

A southern night.)

( 309 )

She also provides personal information about herself, for example, that

she loves Moscow and has a small son.

Second, Pavlova flattens the distinction between ordinary women

and poets by having the women characters narrate their own stories,

thus emphasizing their similarity to the poet-narrator. Third, Pavlova

brings the narrative levels together syntactically by repeating in the four

women’s stories motifs and “semantic fields” from the narrator’s intro-

duction. For example, the narrator tells us:

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h

(Imagination’s spells have passed,

For a long time my dreams have not been perturbed

Either by Andalusian guitars.. .)

( 310 )

As we have seen, the Andalusian guitars reappear in Nadina’s story.

The word “detskii” (childish), which the narrator self-deprecatingly

applies to her poetry (“detskii stikh” [childish verse]), also recurs with

variations throughout the four stories, culminating in that of the countess.

Nadina’s tale:

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h

(I lived a simple and childish life.)

( 314 )

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h

(That my childish caprices were inappropriate here.)

( 319 )

Ol’ga’s tale:

162 Karolina Pavlova