Insect symbolism in the oeuvre of B. Poplavsky: Cicadas and grasshoppers

Analyzed in the study is the symbolic meaning of the images of a cicada/grasshopper in the prose and poetry by Boris Poplavsky in the context of classical antiquity and of the Silver Age art. These insects are often understood as one image, which is the poet’s homage to the antique tradition; the image of a cicada/grasshopper is liminal, implying mediation between the two worlds and connection between the past and the present, which allows one to experience the condition of harmonic unity with the Universe and the feeling of natural primeval being. Both the cicada and the grasshopper are related to music, but the cicada is to a greater extent an Apollonian and sacral creature, a votary of the muses, whose singing is heard against the background of a bucolic summer landscape. Whereas the image of the cicada is closer to the pole of the Apollonian, the image of the grasshopper, in the case when they diff er, tends to the pole of the Dionysian, the exuberant creative element and the energy of inspiration. The grasshopper turns into a fantastic chimeric creature, the visible personification of other living (a grasshopper among gnomes and elves, the horse-automobile-grasshopper and the grasshopper-train associations). A special case is the symbolization of sounds produced by a cicada and a grasshopper as a force of its own: this chirr/rattle represents certain natural buzz, the thundering proto music of inspiration over which the poet has no power. While the holistic image of these insects in the spirit of antiquity was the sign of experiencing the integrity of being and their chirr was enchanting, here the exponentially intensified startling sounds contribute to the description of the Poet’s “muse” as having the appalling features of a giant insect, and his poetic oeuvre becomes not only the blessing but also a curse, in which B. Poplavsky shows his affinity to A. Blok.

B. Poplavsky, symbolism of the cicada and grasshopper, Apollonian, Dionysian, element of creativity