The article discusses the mechanisms of action of the antique code present in Khodasevich’s poem “House” (collection “By the Way of Grain” (1920)). Its functions and ways of artistic embodiment are characterized. It is noted that the philosophical concept represented in the poem “House” is largely in solidarity with the ancient interpretation of the category of “fate”. It is proved that the motif of the blasphemous violation of the secret of personal existence, voiced in The House, will later become central in Khodasevich’s essay “The Horror of Pompeii” (1925). The picture of catastrophic destruction both in the poem and in the essay is associated with the “Hades of Modernity” and is characterized by the author as a reminder of the ever-returning “antique twilight”. In the fourth part of the poem “House” Khodasevich rethinks the concept of “four elements” (“air”, “water”, “earth” and “fire”), which goes back to the natural philosophy of antiquity and is in great demand in world literature. At the same time, the poet introduces into the structure of traditional ideas about the “elements” as the primary elements of the universe, an echo of the ancient myth about the salamander living in fire, as well as his own mythopoetic “version” about the “fifth element”, “time”. The article concludes that the antique code in the poem “House” performs not only a semantic, but also a communicative function. It dialogically interacts with other cultural codes: biblical, Pushkin’s, post-symbolist. In addition, the antique code also gives impetus to the individual author’s myth-making of Khodasevich.
For citation:
Koptelova N.G. Antique code in V.F. Khodasevich’s poem “House”, Ivanovo State University Bulletin, Series: Humanities, 2022, iss. 4, pp. 26—35.