Two Female Images by A. Tennyson: Biblical Keys and Interpretation Facets (the Pre-Raphaelites, K. Balmont, I. Bunin)

Abstract

The article examines two female images by A. Tennyson, the Lady of Shalott and Godiva from the eponymous poems, through the prism of biblical and iconographic allusions. The former (Shalott) alludes to the plot and iconography of The Annunciation, the latter (Godiva) – to the motifs of The Old Testament and The Apocalypse. Picturesque paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites, among which were a number of those related to these Tennyson plots, provide even more reassurance with regard to the significance of biblical plots and iconographic canons in the specified Tennyson’s works. Sufferings, fatalism, sensuousness, antinomicity, picturesqueness – all this made the Tennyson female images magnetic to Russian Modernist writers, the images which were in harmony with the spirit of the turn of the twentieth century. K. Balmont and I. Bunin in their translations of the Tennyson’s poems made their own interpretations of the images of the Lady of Shalott and Godiva, accentuating (and even adding) details and nuances of meanings important for symbolist aesthetics.