- Melancholic Identities, Toska and Reflective Nostalgia
- A cura di Sara Dickinson, Laura Salmon
Melancholic Humor, Skepticism and Reflective Nostalgia. Igor’ Guberman’s Poetics of Paradox
- Laura Salmon
- © 2015 Author(s) |
- CC BY 4.0
- DOI: 10.36253/978-88-6655-822-4.06
The poetry of Israeli émigré Igor' Guberman, comprising thousands of quatrains (‘gariki’), represents a hybrid genre at the junction of Jewish aphoristic tradition, Russian oral folklore, and classical Russian poetry. The theme of toska, which is central to the gariki, may be sharply distinguished from the ‘restorative nostalgia’ theorized by Svetlana Boym (2001): Guberman's toska is a thoughtful, melancholic, and paradoxical feeling. It expresses a particular variety of skepticism that characterizes the paradoxical humor of the Ashkenazi, the purpose of which is not to ridicule others' shortcomings, but to gently make fun of the sadness and painful absurdity that impermeates human existence. Such melancholic and paradoxical humor permits Guberman to look at life, at himself, even at God, with an indulgent ‘smile of reason’ that is absolutely devoid of arrogance. A subtle melancholic and deep skeptic, Guberman "laughs through his tears", for this is what Russian-Jewish tradition teaches, a lesson that has penetrated deeply and more generally into Russian literature: when the soul is beset by excessive sadness, its has recourse only to laughter.
- Keywords:
- Guberman,
- gariki,
- paradox,
- humor,
- nostalgia,
- Russian-Jewish literature,
University of Genoa, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-2917-7630
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Informazioni sul capitolo
Titolo del capitolo
Melancholic Humor, Skepticism and Reflective Nostalgia. Igor’ Guberman’s Poetics of Paradox
Autori
Laura Salmon
Lingua
English
DOI
10.36253/978-88-6655-822-4.06
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2015
Copyright
© 2015 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Informazioni bibliografiche
Titolo del libro
Melancholic Identities, Toska and Reflective Nostalgia
Sottotitolo del libro
Case Studies from Russian and Russian-Jewish Culture
Curatori
Sara Dickinson, Laura Salmon
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
194
Anno di pubblicazione
2015
Copyright
© 2015 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/978-88-6655-822-4
ISBN Print
978-88-6655-821-7
eISBN (pdf)
978-88-6655-822-4
eISBN (xml)
978-88-9273-384-8
Collana
Biblioteca di Studi Slavistici
ISSN della collana
2612-7687
e-ISSN della collana
2612-7679