Boris Pasternak and Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (about Pasternak’s Poem The Starry River of a Week Ago)

Roberta Salvatore

Boris Pasternak and Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (about Pasternak’s Poem The Starry River of a Week Ago)

Roberta Salvatore

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that Boris Pasternak’s poem The Starry River of a Week Ago (1917) is a description of the creation process and a reflection on the nature of this process. To support this view, attention will be drawn to some significant sets of images and themes in this text that are found also in a group of five poems by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, in which ice-skating functions as a metaphor of creation. These poems will give rise to a specific tradition within German poetry where ice-skating is symbolic of both the rapture and the risk of inspiration. In the last part of the paper it will be shown that, although there is no evidence of Pasternak’s acquaintance with Klopstock’s poetry, his thorough knowledge of German language and literature leaves little doubt about this acquaintance. Moreover, it is possible to find a number of affinities in the way of thinking of these two writers.

Keywords

Boris Pasternak; Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock; ice-skating as a metaphor of creation; poetics

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