Poetry
Rhyme
Рифма
Yevgeny Baratynsky · 1841
Synopsis
Once, at the Olympic Games and in the squares of the Greek cities, the poet sang before an eager people, and the applause of the crowd gave him back his inspiration; the orator, at the Greek or Roman rostrum, knew who he was and which god spoke through his mouth. Today no one asks the lyres for their secret any more: the poet no longer knows whether his flight is high or low, judge and accused at once of his own gift.
Context
The poem appeared in 1841 in the journal Sovremennik, in Saint Petersburg, then came to close the collection Soumerki, published in Moscow in 1842, of which it is the twenty-seventh and last piece. The book opens, after a dedication, with The Last Poet, which sets the poet against an age of iron; it closes on this poem, in which the poet of today has lost the echo that ancient singers and orators found. The author was then living withdrawn from literary life, between Moscow and his estate.
Who it is for
Forty-three lines, best read as the last page of the collection they close.
Prizes and reception
The collection it closes appeared in 1842 amid the indifference of critics and public, who did not see its novelty.