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Abstract: The article discusses the concept and design of the collection of poems “The Pumpkin” compiled by the poet E. Horvat. The aim of this study is to characterize both formal and content-based features of the publication. The research material embraces limited edition publications prepared by E. Horvat, as well as original dummy copies of books from his archive. The object of analysis – “a poet’s book as an artist’s book” – is a synthetic phenomenon located at the junction between literature and the art of book; therefore, the study also uses hermeneutic, cultural and historical methods along with the structural, comparative and historical approaches. The specificity of the Pumpkin collection consists in the fact that this publication establishes self-publishing forms of existence of the text as a norm for a printed book: the book is anonymous, it is impossible to determine which text belongs to which author, and at the same time it carries comprehensive knowledge about the time and circumstances of its creation. As a result, the collection turns out to be an artistic manifesto, a literary fact, and a performance script at the same time. A dialogue between motifs, meanings, and sounds is felt in the texts of different authors. Horvat tries to create a “choir” of voices, and he perfectly succeeds in this. For A. Volokhonsky, the pumpkin is a metaphor for godforsakenness, going back to the story of the prophet Jonah. The Christian meanings of pumpkin as a sign of humility, forgiveness, pilgrimage etc. are added to this meaning. For J. Beuys, mentioned in the book, the pumpkin is a natural object in the space of art problematising its boundaries. Horvat sees a metaphor for art (equal to nature) and the artist’s consciousness (spontaneous and creative) in the pumpkin. The conceptual structure of “The Pumpkin” determines its graphical and construction solution. Thus, “a poet’s book as an artist’s book” is a phenomenon in which, unlike in a “usual” artist’s book, the poetic content is fundamentally important, and unlike in a “usual” poet’s book, the substantive embodiment is fundamentally significant. All the expressive elements of the book and its very construction are used to unravel the author’s idea, which balances its literary and artistic constituents.

About the author(s) :

Aleksandr A. Zhitenev
Voronezh State University (Voronezh, Russia)
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6365-4138

 

Acknowledgments: Research is accomplished with financial support of the Russian Science Foundation, Grant No. 19-18-00205.

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 03.03.2023;; date of publication: 30.06.2023

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