Savchenko T.K.

Non-canonical triptych by S. A. Yesenin (Letter to Mother, Letter from Mother, and Reply): assessment in lifetime criticism and poetic responses. Pp. 129–138.

UDC 821.161.1-1.09″19″

DOI 10.37724/RSU.2025.86.1.014

 

Abstract: The article considers three poems by S. A. Yesenin: Letter to Mother, Letter from Mother, and Reply as parts of a non-canonical triptych. The poems are brought together by their common themes and motifs (the main one is the maternal theme), the motif of returning to the sources as the artistic basis of the works, the determining principle of temporal distance (then vs. now) and common associative links. Intertextual links between the poems and other works by Yesenin related to the maternal theme are shown. We study the poetics of the triptych, which combines the traditions of philosophical and elegiac poetry, urban folklore, “cruel romance” and estate lyrics. Within the triptych, the Letter from Mother and Reply were often published as companion pieces during the poet’s lifetime, as they are closely connected. The ideological and thematic unity of both poems is supported by their compositional similarity and stylistic uniformity; they share colloquialisms, syntactic “irregularities,” incomplete constructions and ellipses, addresses and interjections. We analyze the evaluations of the non-canonical triptych in the poet’s lifetime criticism, showing that the reviews are mostly positive, with the exception of RAPP and LEF critics. This is due to the bitter ideological confrontations in the literature of the 1920s. A number of poetic responses of the 1920s to Yesenin’s triptych are also traced (especially to Letter to Mother).

 

Keywords: S. A. Esenin, non-canonical triptych, “Letter to Mother”, “Letter from Mother”, “Reply”, lifetime criticism, poetic responses.

 

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