both for authors and for characters. Russian women poets appear to
have experienced as much “genre anxiety” in relation to the Romantic
poema as did their Western counterparts in relation to the epic. While four
out of the seven canonical men poets we have been considering
(Pushkin, Baratynsky, Lermontov, Iazykov) and four of the noncanoni-
cal ones (Maikov, Khomiakov, Guber, Miller) wrote at least one work that
they titled or referred to as poema,not one of the fourteen women did
so.^16 At a time when writing a poemawas considered essential to be taken
seriously as a poet, the gender norms of the genre made it almost im-
possible for women write one.
Some clarifications are necessary. V. M. Zhirmunsky notes that the termromanticheskaia poemawas not used consistently by poets and that only at
the end of the 1820 s did the term begin to be used in its present-day mean-
ing. Perhaps for this reason, Zhirmunsky, in his study of Byron’s influ-
ence on Pushkin and Pushkin’s imitators, treats the subtitle poemaas in-
terchangeable with povest’ (tale), turetskaia povest’ (Turkish tale), finliand-
skaia povest’(Finnish tale), and so on. He considers Kavkazskii plennik—
which Pushkin subtitled povest’,corresponding to Byron’s subtitle of “a
tale” for “The Corsair”—to be the first romanticheskaia poema(Bairon i
Pushkin,238–39, 28 ). Nonetheless, it does seem significant that none of
these women poets used the term poemaas a generic subtitle, whereas sev-
eral of the men did. Even Pushkin, whose Kavkazskii plennik: povest’in-
troduced the genre of Byron’s Eastern Talesto Russia, apparently liked
the prestige of the term poema.In 1827 , he referred to selections from
Bakhchisaraiskii fontan—certainly as much an Eastern tale as Kavkazskii
plennik—as “Otryvki iz poemy, Bakhchisaraiskii fontan” (Excerpts from
the poemaThe fountain at Bakhchisaray). And although Pushkin origi-
nally published chapter 1 of Evgenii Oneginin 1825 with the generic sub-
title roman v stikhakh(novel in verse), in 1824 and 1826 parts of chapter
2 appeared as “Otryvki iz Evgeniia Onegina:Poema” before Pushkin
changed it back to roman v stikhakhin 1827. Excerpts from Tsyganyalso
appeared with the generic subtitle poemain 1826 , although as stikhotvore-
niein 1827 and as part of Poemy i povesti Aleksandra Pushkinain 1835.^17
Baratynsky used the generic subtitle poemafor Tsena iz poemy Verai neverie( 1835 ) (Scene from the poema Faith and lack of faith), Nalozh-
nitsa(The concubine, 1831 ), and Piry: Opisatel’naia poema(Feasts: A de-
scriptive poema, 1820 ), although the last is not a poema in the sense
discussed earlier. It would appear that for Baratynsky such generic sub-
titles as povest’ v stikhakh(verse tale) were matters of style rather than
Gender and Genre 63