Reception of Horace's ode (Carm. I 1) in Sergei Zavyalov's cycle Epigraphs

The article investigates the artistic functions of Horace's quotations in Sergei Zavyalov's cycle Epigraphs. Zavyalov, in his poetry, essays and scientific works, comprehends the work of a wide range of predecessors - representatives of Russian and foreign literature. Already in the first book, fixing the metapoetic position of the lyrical subject, in addition to many other "voices", the subject of the lyrical subject's relationship to ancient poetry and - more broadly - culture becomes central. A special place in Zavyalov's work belongs to the reception of Horace's heritage. The comprehension of Horace's poetry becomes the subject of depiction and reflection not only in individual poems, but also in several cycles. Zavyalov pays close attention to Horace's translations; in 2022 a collection of his authorial translations Horace's Odes and Epodes, on which he worked for forty years, was published. In 2023 a translation was published with commentaries on the Roman odes of Horace. The reasons for the reference to Horace's ode "To Maecenas" (Hor. Carm. I 1), the peculiarity of the author's interpretation and the nature of the use of intertext are revealed; their connection is established with Zavyalov's aesthetics, his ideas about the purpose of poetry in human culture, the fate of the classical heritage in the modern world, and the role of the poet. The aim of this article is to analyse the Horatian text in Zavyalov's Epigraphs cycle (1993-1995), which was included in two books with the same title Melika, published in 2003 and 2017. Quotations from the ode "To Maecenas" (Hor. Carm. I 1) are in two poems of the cycle, "Statue in the Park" and "’Eroloyog". In the poem "Statue in the Park" the appeal to tradition becomes an independent subject of Zavyalov. The lyrical subject of the poet in the situation of social and humanitarian catastrophe turns to the classical examples of world poetry, subjecting them to poetic reflection. Zavyalov's ode is both praise of the muse and a plea to her for the possibility of a song, it is the song itself, but frozen in a new world hostile to poetry. The quotation from Horace is necessary as the beginning of the lyrical plot of the poem "’Eroloyog" because the plot itself is connected with the comprehension of the process of creating a poem, which appears as a unity of imagination and poetic language, conscious and unconscious, ontological and existential. The heroes (actants) of this process are Polyhymnia (metaphysical source of inspiration), pauses, clauses, harmony (rhythmic pattern and poetic language), Jupiter (ontological law), consciousness of the lyrical subject, and culture. Thus, in the cycle Epigraphs the quotations from Horace's odes, the meanings of which are woven into the semantic pattern of Zavyalov's odes, fulfil various functions. In the poem "Statue in the Park", the lyrical situation is organised as a meeting between a contemporary poet and his muse in a situation of crisis of classical culture. The epigraph from Horace embodies the author's idea of the possibility of high art in a world hostile to poetry, when returning to the meanings of the original sources. In the poem "’Eroloyog", the quotation from Horace becomes the beginning of the lyrical plot and is necessary as an appeal to an authoritative interlocutor in the process of reflection on the act of creation. The heroes of this plot are ontological and metaphysical forces (Jupiter, Polyhymnia, poetic language, the text of culture). Citation becomes for the consciousness of the lyrical self a way of incorporating tradition into the context of modernity and appears as an act of recognising the immortality of poetry as a form of proper human existence. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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