SOLOGUB, Fyodor.

£300 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Charodeinaya Chasha: stikhi ("The Magic Cup: Verses"). First edition of 24 lyric poems by the leading Russian Symbolist Fyodor Sologub, of which 20 are printed here for the first time. Sologub's first book of lyrics, which was published in 1895, "features longing for the grave, sadness, poverty, 'black thoughts', life as a 'mute, gray prison,' shadows, a fantasy goddess, and a 'queen of joyful evil'" (Peterson), a world also evoked in his most famous novel, The Petty Demon. In contrast, the present collection is far more romantic in tone, and engages with a lost world of ancient Russian legends and popular traditions. Sologub drew heavily on studies of Siberian shamanism and witchcraft, reproducing the linguistic features of popular magic spells. The overarching theme is poetry itself, and the fate of the poet, who is depicted immured in a mountain in the poem "In a Dank, Distant Cave", and as a fugitive from Heaven in "I Left Through a Hidden Door".

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