Visual aspects of Death in V. Bryusov’s poem “Dance of Death”

Abstract

The article is an analysis of the key image of Death in V. Bryusov’s poem “Dance of Death”. The research is focused on the figurative and subjective structure, composition, and plot of the poem. These elements reveal the connection to the visual sources of the poem, They are precisely what allow one to trace the connection with the visual primary sources of the poem – the series of engravings by Hans Holbein the Younger and the Medieval tradition of the Dance of Death. The changes Bryusov made to Holbein’s engravings are not incidental; they serve their specific artistic purpose. Thus, the poem features a transgression of perspective combined with neo-syncretism, as well as the use of a composite and universal “we”. It allows for an artistic expression from the perspective of Death itself, and also draws the reader into the dance,endowing him with a transgressive vision and transforming into another participant in the circle. The plot unfolds not only within the Dance, but also the well-known motif of the Triumph of Death. Finally, the image of Death sheds its allegorical details and appears before the reader-as-viewer as a skeleton in a black robe. All that allow for making the conclusion on specifics of Bryusov’s adaptation of the memento mori concept, which gained renewed popularity among both poets and artists at the turn of the century.