Love, Pity, Mercy in the Poetry of O. Mandelstam

Abstract

The article investigates diverse semantics of the concepts “love” and “pity” in Mandelstam’ s poetry, revealing the functions of autoquotations, literary and biographical pretexts. The special attention is paid to two poems written in 193, they are “As I'd ask for charity and mercy…” (“Ya mol’u kak zhalosti i milosti…”) and “Charlie Chaplin”, in which these concepts are taken as the principle of the plot development and the opposition of “king” (the bearer of pity and mercy) and “fool” receives dual solution.

Keywords

• semantics, love, mercy, poetry, o. mandelstam, pity