To the intertextual functions of the frame of the text “Poem Without a Hero”: an echo of the English romantic poem

Abstract

The specificity of the frame complex of Anna Akhmatova's “Poem without a Hero” lies in the fact that the semantics of its components refer to several sources at once, and allusions to the works of English Romanticists, primarily to J. G. Byron, play a crucial role among the components of the Poem's frame. The authors show that Akhmatova often “hides” Byron's allusions in the reception of Pushkin's poems (mainly “Eugene Onegin”), placing them in a frame text. The article proves that this technique is used by Akhmatova to build a genre genealogy of her own poem, which is based on the tradition of English Romantic poems and the genre experience of Alexander Pushkin. According to the authors, the reason for turning to the romantic tradition lies in the tragic personal and epochal conflicts, which were reflected in the genre of the romantic poem, transformed by Akhmatova, whose ancestor was Lord Byron.