A KNIGHT AND A HOLY MAIDEN (HOW «THERE ONCE LIVED A POOR KNIGHT» BY A. S. PUSHKIN WAS CONCEIVED)
- Authors: Dmitrieva N.L1
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Affiliations:
- Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkinskij Dom), Russian Academy of Sciences
- Issue: No 4 (2025)
- Pages: 27-33
- Section: History of a Poem
- URL: https://journals.rcsi.science/0131-6095/article/view/356058
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.31860/0131-6095-2025-4-27-33
- ID: 356058
Full Text
Abstract
The article suggests new potential sources of Pushkin's poem «There Once Lived a Poor Knight…» through the biographical context of its iterations. The collection of Old French fablios and novels by Legrand d'Aussy that Pushkin became familiar with no later than 1828 features the image of a galloping knight in full armor, very similar to Pushkin's sketch on a draft of «Poltava», the sketch being related, according to V. B. Sandomirskaya, to Pushkin's work on a poem about a knight. The autobio-graphical motive of a Mediaeval knight's platonic love to an unattainable ideal, connected by Pushkin and his milieu with the events of his wooing of N. N. Goncharova, might have been one of the reasons why the poet had never published the poem in the Northern Flowers almanac, dedicated to the deceased A. A. Delvig.
About the authors
N. L Dmitrieva
Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkinskij Dom), Russian Academy of Sciences
Author for correspondence.
Email: ninalvovna@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1925-3721
Senior Researcher
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