Innocent Annensky: biography, creative heritage

The fate of the poet Annensky Inokentiy Fedorovich (1855-1909) is unique in its kind. He published his first poetry collection (and only during his lifetime) at the age of 49 under the pseudonym Nick. T-oh.

The poet was originally going to head the book "From the Cave of Polyphemus" and choose the alias "Utis", meaning in translation from Greek "no one" (Odysseus introduced himself to the Cyclops Polyphemus). Later the collection was called "Quiet Songs". Alexander Blok, who did not know who the author of the book was, found such anonymity dubious. He wrote that the poet seemed to bury his face under a mask that made him get lost among the many books. Perhaps, in this modest lostness, one should seek too "a painful tear"?

The origin of the poet, young years

The future poet was born in Omsk. His parents (see in the photo below) soon moved to St. Petersburg. Innocent Annensky in his autobiography reported that his childhood passed in an environment in which the landlord and bureaucratic elements were united. He loved to study literature and history from a young age, he felt antipathy to everything that was banal-clear and elementary.

The First Poems

Innocent Annensky began to write poetry quite early. Since the concept of "symbolism" in the 1870s was still unknown to him, he considered himself a mystic. Annensky was attracted by the "religious genre" of B. E. Murillo, a Spanish artist of the 17th century. He tried to make out this genre with words.

The young poet, following the advice of his elder brother, who was a well-known publicist and economist (NF Annensky), decided that up to 30 years it was not worth publishing. Therefore, his poetic experiments were not intended for printing. Innocent Annensky wrote poems in order to hone his skills and declare himself already as a mature poet.

University studies

The study of antiquity and ancient languages in university years temporarily replaced writing. As Innokenty Annensky admitted, during these years he did not write anything, except for dissertations. "Pedagogical-administrative" activities began after the university. According to colleagues antichnikov, she distracted Innokentiy Fedorovich from scientific studies. And the sympathizers of his poetry believed that she interfered with creativity.

Debut as a critic

Innocent Annensky debuted in print as a critic. He published in the 1880s and 1890s a whole series of articles devoted mainly to Russian literature of the 19th century. In 1906 appeared the first "Book of Reflections", and in 1909 - the second. This collection of criticism, which differs impressionism of perception, Wilde subjectivism and associative-imaginative moods. Innocent Fedorovich emphasized that he was only a reader, and not a critic at all.

Translations of French poets

Annensky-poet for his forerunners considered the French symbolists, who willingly translated a lot. In addition to enriching the language, they saw their merit in the increase of aesthetic sensitivity, in that they increased the scale of artistic feelings. A significant section of the first collection of poems Annensky composed translations of French poets. Of the Russians closest to Innokenty Fedorovich was KD Balmont, who evoked awe from the author of "Quiet songs." Annensky highly appreciated the musicality and the "new flexibility" of his poetic language.

Publications in the symbolist press

Innocent Annensky led a rather solitary literary life. During the onslaught and storm, he did not uphold the right to the existence of a "new" art. Annensky did not participate in further intrasymbolistic arguments.

By 1906 the first publications of Innokentiy Fedorovich in the symbolist press (the magazine "Pass") are included. In fact, his entry into the symbolist environment took place only in the last year of his life.

Last years

The critic and poet Innokentiy Annensky delivered lectures in the Poetic Academy. He was also a member of the Society of Zealots of the Artistic Word, which operated under the journal Apollo. On the pages of this journal, Annensky published an article that can be called a program article, "On Modern Lyrism."

Posthumous cult, "Cypress casket"

A wide resonance in the circles of the Symbolists caused his sudden death. Innokenty Annensky died at the Tsarskoye Selo station. His biography ended, but the creative fate after death was further developed. Among the young poets close to the Apollo (mostly Acmeist orientation, which the Symbolists reproached for neglecting Annensky), his posthumous cult began to take shape. Four months after the death of Innokentii Fedorovich, the second collection of his poems was published. The son of the poet, VI Annensky-Krivich, who became his biographer, commentator and editor, completed the preparation of the Cypress Casket (the collection was named so because the Annensky manuscripts were kept in a cypress box). There is reason to believe that he did not always follow the author's will of his father punctually.

Innokenty Annensky, whose poems during his lifetime did not enjoy great popularity, with the release of "Cypress Casket" gained well-deserved fame. Blok wrote that this book penetrates deeply into the heart and explains to him a lot about himself. Bryusov, who had previously paid attention to the "freshness" of the turns, comparisons, epithets and even just the words that were chosen in the collection "Quiet Songs", already noted as an undoubted merit the inability to guess from Innokentii Fedorovich two following stanzas on the first two verses and the end Works on its beginning. Krivich in 1923 published in the collection under the title "Posthumous Poems of In. Annensky", the remaining texts of the poet.

Peculiarity

His lyrical hero is a man who unravels the "hateful rebus of being." Annensky subjects a careful analysis of the "I" of a man who would like to be an entire world, spill, dissolve in it, and which is tortured by the consciousness of the inevitable end, of hopeless solitude and aimless existence.

To the verses of Annensky, a unique originality is attached by "crafty irony". According to V. Bryusov, she became the second person of Innokentiy Fedorovich as a poet. The manner of writing the author of the "Cypress Casket" and "Quiet songs" is dramatically impressionistic. Associative symbolism was called by her Vyacheslav Ivanov. Annensky believed that poetry does not represent. It only hints at the reader that can not be expressed in words.

Today, the creativity of Inokentiy Fedorovich got well-deserved fame. The school program included such a poet as Innokenty Annensky. "Among the worlds," the analysis of which is asked to conduct to students, is perhaps his most famous poem. Note also that, in addition to poetry, he wrote four plays in the spirit of Euripides on the subjects of his lost tragedies.