I/we - Rubtsov: Everyday practices of appropriating poetry

Abstract

The authors analyze the reader’s interaction with the texts and the image of a poet whose authority is not questioned. The models for legitimizing literary authority (according to B. V. Dubin) may differ. One model presupposes an institutionally supported attitude towards an author as a guarantor of literary and moral norms (“poet-classic”), while the other focuses on public recognition and the reader’s ability to establish an emotional connection with the author’s texts and his figure (“poet-star”). Both instances lead to the appropriation of texts by readers, including the actualization of these texts at the time of reading. The poems of a poet-classic work as canonical art (according to Iu. Lotman) - they do not carry information but refer to a set of values, realities, and idioms. They require a different mode of perception than poetic texts perceived within the framework of the author-star model when personal understanding and feeling becomes necessary. Tactics of actualization help the reader when he needs to actualize the texts of the canon (author-classic) or create a personal interpretation (author-star). The article was written on the basis of participant observations and interviews in one of the “literary” places (the “spiritual home” of Nikolai Rubtsov). Assessments of the poet’s creativity and personality given by readers, as well as situations of reading poetic texts and spontaneous comments on them are interpreted through the prism of sociology and anthropology of literature.