Boris Poplavskiy and Arthur Rimbaud: a poetic dialog

The purpose of this study is to examine different forms of presence of A. Rimbaud's myth in B. Poplavskiy's poetry. This research draws upon such sources as opinions of Poplavskiy's contemporaries, which marked his closeness with French "poete maudit", and works of contemporary researchers as well. After this, it becomes clear that Poplavskiy's prose in the aspect of reception of French poetry (Rimbaud, Verlaine, Lotreamont, and others) is studied closer than poetry. This determines the exigency to treat Pop-lavskiy's poetic world in this aspect. A. Rimbaud is present in the lyrical texts as a particular type of artist. In this work Poplavskiy's poem "To Arthur Rimbaud" is analyzed, in which the myth of Rimbaud and Verlaine as poets-wonderers that do not accept the bourgeois society is realized. Besides that, there is a dialog with Rimbaud's poem "Feasts of Hunger" which contains the theme of self-realization, of search in versification field. The lyrical subject of Poplavskiy's poem is built as a stream of visions, when lyrical hero's consciousness is invaded by predecessor's images and rhymes. Rimbaud's Genius catalyzes the reflection of the lyrical hero, which states the closeness of destinies and the fear of not becoming a poet. In the aspect of correlation between Poplavskiy's poetic world and Rimbaud's poetry, some texts are marked out as Rimbaud's "Ballad of the Hanged" and Poplavskiy's "Vos'maya sfera" ("The Eighth Sphere"). The genealogy of Rimbaud's text is clarified, it hearkens to the poems of Francois Villon and Theodore de Banville. However, the article claims that Rimbaud does not follow the same poetic logic of his predecessors. The world view is presented as death of society, which has lost genuine values and the genius is persecuted. In Poplavskiy's poem the theme of the ball of dead men is present too; the lyrical situation acquires plot length, artistic space becomes dynamic. This research highlighted that the poetic dialog between Poplavskiy and Rimbaud is a polemic one. Rimbaud's poem expresses the idea of an artist-creator and his text gaining victory over reality. The plot logic in Poplavskiy's poem leads to poet's self-destruction during the creation process; the chimeras of consciousness objectify and they have power over the author.

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