Echi pastorali da Longo a Kuzmin

Tradizione e rinnovamento nel ciclo poetico “Le stagioni dell’amore”

Abstract

This study analyses how Longus’s Hellenistic novel The Pastoral Adventures of Daphnis and Chloe (3rd century) influenced Mikhail Kuzmin’s Kuranty lyubvi (1910), a central figure of twentieth-century Russian Symbolism. For Kuzmin, classical antiquity represented a source of expressive freedom. His pastoral cycle, organised into four seasonal sections, harmoniously blends poetry, music, and visual arts, reflecting his prominent position in Symbolist culture and his collaboration with intellectuals such as Vyacheslav Ivanov and Alexander Blok. Comparative analysis reveals significant parallels between the works: both depict the amorous initiation of young adolescents guided by mythological figures, attribute to music and dance the role of privileged vehicles for emotional expression and feature a fragmentary narrative structure like a mosaic of interconnected scenes. Longus’s influence is also evident in the choice of the name “Chloe” for one of the key characters in Kuranty lyubvi and in the general setting of the story. The interdisciplinary dimension constitutes the core of the research: just as Longus defines his work starting from the description of a fresco, Kuzmin integrates poetry, music (composed by himself), and visual arts (illustrated by S. Sudeikin and N. Feofilaktov), demonstrating how a classical model can be regenerated through creative interpretations.