Antinomy “Eternity – Time” and the Transformation of the Elegic Chronotopos in the Poetry of V.Ya. Bryusov and K.D. Balmont

The article, using the instance of poetry of V.Ya. Bryusov and K.D. Balmont, examines how the older symbolists transform the elegy while preserving the internal measure of the genre. The argument is proposed that the main changes are found at the chronotop level – the linear duration of human existence and the cycle of nature in traditional elegy. In the article, this pair is illustrated by the concepts of “time” and “eternity”, each of which is associated with a distinct space. The concept of “time” in Bryusov’s poetry belongs to the external world, and “eternity” to the inner world of the artist’s imagination. In Balmont’s poetry this pair is integrated into the narrative of the expulsion from Paradise: the lyrical subject loses the eternity of celestial space during the transition to terrestrial time. Eternity is also present in the realm of nature, which the subject yearns to approach. The heavens remind of the idyll, which appears in the elegy as a lost locus. The idyllic place is also present in the form of the demesne lands which appears in the childhood memories. This theme is explored in the context of the narrative of the lost Paradise. In the early poetry collections of both poets, the interaction between “time” and “eternity” is primarily depicted as oppositional. The article illustrates their evolution into the category of antinomies. If at fi rst the lyrical subject chooses eternity over time, then later the contradictions are equalized in his consciousness. Both poets aspire to transcend the constraints (mortality, the irreversibility of the past) that the elegiac chronotop creates. The possibility of future comparison of these strategies of transformation of the elegy with others that arise among the symbolists seems productive.