Author: Diyana Nikolova
Paisii Hilendarski University of Plovdiv
Published in Slavyanski dialozi, X, 2013, 14
Abstract: The text examines the “cicada” myth and its presence in the literature and art of the Silver Age. Since Antiquity the image of the cicada was conceived as a symbol of the poet, of Apollonian art, music and song. It was also steadily associated with the bucolic locus, with the otium of the artist. The argument traces the ancient idea of the cicada and its connection with honey — bee — song, with Eros, love, with the idea of time and creative immortality in the works of Homer, Hesiod, Plato, alongside other Hellenic and Roman artists. Its place and presence in the culture of the Silver Age is analyzed in view of the various translation choices related to the token lexeme τέττιξ among Russian artists from the 18 th until the 20 th century (up to the first generation of the Russian avant-garde).
Key words: cicada (τέττιξ), Grasshopper, A striking clock, Anacreon, Plato, Callimachus, Theocritus, Yakov Polonsky, Vyacheslav Ivanov, M. Kuzmin, M. Voloshin, V. Khlebnikov