The image of (Black?) Sea in two (pre-/post-)symbolisms: Valerian Gaprindashvili and Peiu Iavorov
The image of (Black?) Sea in two (pre-/post-)symbolisms: Valerian Gaprindashvili and Peiu Iavorov

Author(s): Yordan Ljuckanov
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Bulgarian Literature, Georgian literature
Published by: Сдружение „Транспонтика“
Keywords: Bulgarian (proto)symbolism in poetry; Georgian (post)symbolism in poetry; marine imagery; marine sensibility
Summary/Abstract: This article is a possible starting point for comparative motive/ thematic exploration of two (proto-, post-)symbolisms. Peiu Iavorov belongs to the emblematic interpersonal alliance within Bulgarian modernism (of its protosymbolist phase), ‘Thought’; Valerian Gaprindashvili – to the emblematic one within Georgian modernism (of its symbolist phase), the so translated “Blue horns”. It is assumed that any motives and themes appear unevenly throughout an oeuvre, and this unevenness invites scholars to recognise its different patterns from author to author. Analysis of marine imagery is focused on but not limited to a couple of poems under the revealing titles ‘(The) sea’, ‘To the sea’ and ‘At the sea’ in the oeuvre of Iavorov and Gaprindashvili: it might turn that the potential supratextual entities composed by all works containing marine motives within an oeuvre have unexpected centres of gravity. In the analyses, the following distinctions are applied: (1) the respective poetic text reveals/suggests a “spectacle” vs. a “symphony” vs. a “drama” “of Nature”; (2) marine imagery is introduced with vs. without reference to embeddedness in ‘real’ (memorised and bodily) experiences of the implicit or explicit author; (3) marine imagery reproduces ancient topoi vs. brings out current experience; (4) it refers to Black Sea vs. to a sea. Some attention is paid to the proximity (‘synonymisation’ and distinction) between marine imagery (in particular, the motive of sailing) and imagery of homelessness.

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