The image of Saint Teresa of Avila in the female lyrics of the Silver age. Article 2

In the second part of the paper, we investigate the reflections of the image of Teresa of Avila in the lyrics of A. Herzyk, M. Tsvetaeva and Z. Gippius, each of whom transformed the most famous episodes from the life of a Spanish nun in their own way. The vision of piercing the body (heart) of a saint with a fiery spear, which marked an act of God-Marriage, becomes an artistic example for solving religious and gender contradictions of the Silver Age era: creating a personal and emotionally-colored attitude to God (new religiosity) and understanding the pair Teresa - Christ as an ideal union of masculine and feminine, which can be considered as an alternative to the union of a Beautiful Lady (Sofia) - Knight (Poet), created in the «male» lyrics of Russian symbolism. Herzyk describes the love of God as a yearning of the spirit, as the highest mystical communication that grants the right to write. Tsvetaeva denies mystical love for Christ, contrasting it with full creative self-realization. For Gippius, the life story of the Spanish saint was important in the light of her philosophy of love, as an example of the unity of Spirit and Flesh, proving the possibility of finding genuine love and sincere faith to the full mutual union of man with the Absolute. In their special closeness to God Russian poetesses see the source and justification of their creative activity. They are the chosen ones of Christ, and this gives legitimacy to their texts. The poetic vocation becomes a form of religious asceticism, and the reinterpreted monasticism in the world becomes an ideal of intense inner life and spiritual growth.