Abstract

This essay examines Osip Mandelstam’s poetological theory and poetic practice in their relation to important philosophical contexts of his time—primarily Russian idealist philosophy of the Silver Age and its aftermath. I trace the ways Mandelstam’s poetics and philosophy of language and verbal art evolve from a youthful engagement with Symbolism through the famed heyday of Acmeism to post-revolutionary writings of the nineteen-twenties and nineteen-thirties. At each stage, Mandelstam’s poetry and theory are read in dialogue with relevant philosophical problems and texts. These include: Vladimir Solovyev’s “The Meaning of Art” and “Beauty in Nature,” Nikolai Lossky’s The World as an Organic Whole, Semyon Frank’s The Unknowable, and Pavel Florensky’s The Pillar and the Ground of the Truth. An avid intellectual, Mandelstam idiosyncratically intertwines and imaginatively reworks philosophical ingredients in his writings. The relationship between poetic practice, theory, and philosophical arguments thus emerges as a dynamic interplay.