Stanford Humanities Center
Intervention
Whipping the Muse
By
For the last week, I've been thinking about poetry and politics in mid-nineteenth century Russia. Writers then faced a situation similar to today in the United States, at least in one respect: critics kept prodding them to demonstrate their commitment to revolutionary social change. Good politics did not make a poem good, but it was for many readers a sine qua non.
Nikolai Nekrasov, a poet I've mentioned before, was a heroic figure at the time, just as Afanasii Fet, whom I discussed last week, was on the outs. Nekrasov's short poem "Vcherashnii den', chasu v shestom" (1848) contrasts well with Fet's "Shepot, robkoe dykhanie" (1850), the subject of my previous blog entry:
Вчерашний день, часу в шестом,
Зашел я на Сенную;
Там били женщину кнутом,
Крестьянку молодую.
Ни звука из ее груди,
Лишь бич свистал, играя . . .
И Музе я сказал: «Гляди!
Сестра твоя родная!»
* * * * * * *
Vcherashnii den', chasu v shestom,
Zashol ia na Sennuiu;
Tam bili zhenshchinu knutom,
Krest'ianku moloduiu.
Ni zvuka iz eio grudi
Lish' bich svistal, igraia . . .
I Muze ia skazal: "Gliadi!
Sestra tvoia rodnaia!"
* * * * * * *
Yesterday at six
I stopped by Hay Square;
They were whipping a woman,
A young peasant, there.
Not a sound from her breast,
Just the lash, playing, whistled . . .
And I said to my Muse:
"Look! It's your sister!"
Hay Square (Sennaia Ploshchad') is an extension of Garden Street in Petersburg where from 1737 onwards hay, firewood, and cattle were sold. One of the largest, most popular markets in the city, in pre-twentieth century times it was also a place of punishment, where criminals and other evil-doers were flogged in front of large crowds. Nekrasov informs us about one such whipping. Notice, though, that he fails to provide any backstory. All we hear about is a "young peasant" who does not cry out when the lash (bich) strikes her. He concentrates his attention solely on the act itself and the cruel way that the whip, cat-like, seem to "play" with her, as if she were prey.
One can easily turn the poem into a political allegory. It's nearing nightfall, which stands for the drawing-near of the end of an oppressive regime. The peasantry will be liberated from the landlord's yoke. Until then, as long as the lower classes are unable to speak for themselves, the poet will step in and use verse to provide a voice for the voiceless. Instead of a whip, a pen; instead of an aimless whistle, a song; etc.
It's still a poem about flagellation, though. Nekrasov erases the woman's agency. She's mute suffering flesh. Instead of being moved by the desperate circumstances that led her to this moment, he is inspired by the sight of her body under assault.
Of course, the poem is supposed to provoke outrage, not titillate. It's a melodramatic scene featuring a damsel in distress: where is the manly man who can save her from such humiliation? To enjoy the proceedings would be to identify with the sadist, to cast oneself as the villain of the piece. You're supposed to recoil from that role and -- what, become a ventriloquist?
Nekrasov's primal scene for the writing of political poetry is peculiar. The poet does not actually do anything, in the sense of saving the damsel / the downtrodden. He spreads the news about it. He--emphatically he, not she, woman are muses and silent objects--risks being associated with the powers-that-whip by retelling their actions and thereby seeming to take a voyeuristic pleasure in them.
As we saw before, Afanasii Fet's "Shepot, robkoe dykhanie" presents a catalog of observations without a well-defined speaker. The eros in that poem is scopic, insofar as it involves watching the beloved's face. There is tenderness and reciprocity. In Nekrasov's poem, violence separates the poet from the object of desire. The poem, as an act of imaginative sympathy, tries to bridge that gap, but instead it dramatizes its own failure. That is, the poet seeks to speak for the young woman, but he succeeds only in restaging her silencing.
Nekrasov has the reputation of an engagé poet. He clearly understood that gender, sex, and class were bound up in a perverse relation in the Russia of his day. To sing of such perversity, though, is to inflame listeners, perhaps in precisely the ways one would never wish. Fet's lyric, despite its sad tone, imagines a mode of interpersonal relations freed from the burden of identity and social hierarchies. Nothing particularizes his lovers--they could be anybody, from any background. The poem projects an alternative to the given world.
To do so, though, Fet removes himself from the lyric. The focus is on the things seen, not the person reporting them. In contrast, Nekrasov exposes his own complicity in what he describes. He allows us to question the purity of his motives, his role as white knight. Is that better politics? Better art?
Nikolai Nekrasov, a poet I've mentioned before, was a heroic figure at the time, just as Afanasii Fet, whom I discussed last week, was on the outs. Nekrasov's short poem "Vcherashnii den', chasu v shestom" (1848) contrasts well with Fet's "Shepot, robkoe dykhanie" (1850), the subject of my previous blog entry:
Вчерашний день, часу в шестом,
Зашел я на Сенную;
Там били женщину кнутом,
Крестьянку молодую.
Ни звука из ее груди,
Лишь бич свистал, играя . . .
И Музе я сказал: «Гляди!
Сестра твоя родная!»
* * * * * * *
Vcherashnii den', chasu v shestom,
Zashol ia na Sennuiu;
Tam bili zhenshchinu knutom,
Krest'ianku moloduiu.
Ni zvuka iz eio grudi
Lish' bich svistal, igraia . . .
I Muze ia skazal: "Gliadi!
Sestra tvoia rodnaia!"
* * * * * * *
Yesterday at six
I stopped by Hay Square;
They were whipping a woman,
A young peasant, there.
Not a sound from her breast,
Just the lash, playing, whistled . . .
And I said to my Muse:
"Look! It's your sister!"
Hay Square (Sennaia Ploshchad') is an extension of Garden Street in Petersburg where from 1737 onwards hay, firewood, and cattle were sold. One of the largest, most popular markets in the city, in pre-twentieth century times it was also a place of punishment, where criminals and other evil-doers were flogged in front of large crowds. Nekrasov informs us about one such whipping. Notice, though, that he fails to provide any backstory. All we hear about is a "young peasant" who does not cry out when the lash (bich) strikes her. He concentrates his attention solely on the act itself and the cruel way that the whip, cat-like, seem to "play" with her, as if she were prey.
One can easily turn the poem into a political allegory. It's nearing nightfall, which stands for the drawing-near of the end of an oppressive regime. The peasantry will be liberated from the landlord's yoke. Until then, as long as the lower classes are unable to speak for themselves, the poet will step in and use verse to provide a voice for the voiceless. Instead of a whip, a pen; instead of an aimless whistle, a song; etc.
It's still a poem about flagellation, though. Nekrasov erases the woman's agency. She's mute suffering flesh. Instead of being moved by the desperate circumstances that led her to this moment, he is inspired by the sight of her body under assault.
Of course, the poem is supposed to provoke outrage, not titillate. It's a melodramatic scene featuring a damsel in distress: where is the manly man who can save her from such humiliation? To enjoy the proceedings would be to identify with the sadist, to cast oneself as the villain of the piece. You're supposed to recoil from that role and -- what, become a ventriloquist?
Nekrasov's primal scene for the writing of political poetry is peculiar. The poet does not actually do anything, in the sense of saving the damsel / the downtrodden. He spreads the news about it. He--emphatically he, not she, woman are muses and silent objects--risks being associated with the powers-that-whip by retelling their actions and thereby seeming to take a voyeuristic pleasure in them.
As we saw before, Afanasii Fet's "Shepot, robkoe dykhanie" presents a catalog of observations without a well-defined speaker. The eros in that poem is scopic, insofar as it involves watching the beloved's face. There is tenderness and reciprocity. In Nekrasov's poem, violence separates the poet from the object of desire. The poem, as an act of imaginative sympathy, tries to bridge that gap, but instead it dramatizes its own failure. That is, the poet seeks to speak for the young woman, but he succeeds only in restaging her silencing.
Nekrasov has the reputation of an engagé poet. He clearly understood that gender, sex, and class were bound up in a perverse relation in the Russia of his day. To sing of such perversity, though, is to inflame listeners, perhaps in precisely the ways one would never wish. Fet's lyric, despite its sad tone, imagines a mode of interpersonal relations freed from the burden of identity and social hierarchies. Nothing particularizes his lovers--they could be anybody, from any background. The poem projects an alternative to the given world.
To do so, though, Fet removes himself from the lyric. The focus is on the things seen, not the person reporting them. In contrast, Nekrasov exposes his own complicity in what he describes. He allows us to question the purity of his motives, his role as white knight. Is that better politics? Better art?
