Sadistic Stylistics: Entropy, Eros, and Epideixis in the Russian Biedermeier

• In Event: Alternative Pleasures, Alternative Compulsions: Reading Against Repetition in Russian Poetry and Prose

Abstract

This paper examines several instances of sustained, repetitive epideictic address in the early lyric of V. G. Benediktov (1807-1873)—initially acclaimed in the mid-1830s for his verbal dexterousness before his lyrics acquired a reputation for hackneyed plot-matter, turgid style, and banal self-seriousness. With an eye to the mawkish repetitions that characterize a number of his longer apostrophes early on, I aim to characterize the exhaustiveness of his addresses and descriptions as expressive of the permutative logic of Sadean eroticism—compelled to subject their object to an exhaustive and extractive verbal analysis. This framework permits us an exploration of the common pragmatic constraints animating both Benediktov’s under-theorized (and frequently dismissed) lyrics and those of earlier Russian Romantics. I argue that it also offers compelling evidence for a re-assessment of later-period “Romantic” Russian poetry along lines that consider the lyric of the 30s and 40s as distinctly symptomatic of (albeit highly idiomatic within) the broader Biedermeier phenomenon in European letters.

Author

• Zachary J. Deming, Columbia U