The image of saint Teresa of Avila in the female lyrics of the Silver Age. Article 1

This article deals with the ways and means of coming to understand the image of the 16th century Spanish nun, Saint Teresa of Avila, and how to perceive her personality in the lyrics of Russian Romanticism (I. Kozlov, V. Benediktov), as well as individual authors’ interpretations of this image in the female lyrics of the Modernist era. In the first part of the article, we will analyze the refraction of the facts of the biography and visions of St. Teresa in E. Dmitrieva’s (Cherubina de Gabriak’s) early and late lyrics. The Russian poetess actively relied on both the original works (autobiography “My Life”) of the Spanish nun, and her mythologized cultural and historical image to create her own vivid personal myth and literary mask of the mysterious Catholic beauty Cherubina de Gabriak. The forbidden love of God forms the image of antinomian femininity in the poetess’ early lyrics: the saint is a sinner, the nun is a witch. At the same time, the mystical experience of the Communion with God becomes an important link in building the author’s identity and subjectivity of one’s own: the right to creativity is reinforced by the awareness of being chosen by God. In the later lyrics, free from the elements of mystification, Dmitrieva again refers to the famous episodes from the life of the Spanish ascetic. In her predecessor’s life, she sought the basis for her own spiritual search. Saint Teresa being “married” to God, (the act of piercing the body with a flaming spear) is interpreted by the poetess as a painful initiation that allows the soul to be freed from the power of the flesh.