“THE MIDDLE OF THE JOURNEY”, “THE DARK FOREST”, AND THE FAIR LADY, OR WHY VOLOSHIN WROTE TERZA RIMA IN 1907

The article is devoted to a wide spectrum of intertextual relations in Maximilian Voloshin’s poem “In mezza di camin…” (1907). The most numerous and clearly expressed are references to “The Divine Comedy”, which include a quotation from the epic, a mention of the author’s name, similar motifs and characters, and the verse scheme of terza rima. Voloshin addressed Dante’s topics at the time of his 30th birthday which he interpreted as “the middle of the journey”, and his coming back home from abroad which reminded him of “the dark forest” especially when the poet faced the reality of the Revolution of 1905, and Russian criticism rejected his pro-European views on art. At around this time Voloshin broke up with Margarita Sabashnikova, whom he worshiped as the Fair Lady, preserving a platonic relationship with her even during their marriage. Thus another context playing a great role in the poem was the language of images worked out in the course of the poetic and epistolary exchanges between Voloshin and Sabashnikova. Its vocabulary includes such symbols as “forest” (the world of real and perfect existence), “madness” (the highest form of consciousness and a manifestation of love), “mirror” and “dream” (idealized representation of reality), and “mystery” (spiritual unity in the creative process).