The voice of topos. Reflecting on Roald Mandelstam's poetry

Abstract

Starting from Valery Savchuk's interpretation of the concept of place in Aristotle's physical and argumentative contexts, according to which there is a certain juxtaposition between them, the author of the article raises the question about the conditions of the possibility of this juxtaposition. This is rather problematic, in his view, because in the case of argumentation, place presupposes generality, whereas in the case of nature it presupposes the individuality of the body that is enclosed by this place. Obviously, place is absolutely individual, or unique. It can be regarded as a principle of individuation as such. Individuality is something that cannot be adequately reproduced by the means of reasoning logic or rhetoric. They are subject to the law of the inverse relation between the scope and content of a concept. Thus, to adequately express the uniqueness of an individual topos, they would need to enumerate an infinite number of its distinctive features. It is claimed that the speech that could really express the uniqueness of a place can only be poetic speech. In order to illustrate this thesis, the author of the article analyzes the poetic manner and some poems of the Russian poet Roald Mandelstam (1932–1961). The results of the analysis show that this poet, using singular, often fantastic signs, abstract analogies and arbitrary historical and literary associations, nevertheless makes it possible for certain locations of St. Petersburg to be recognized by the reader. It is concluded that such recognition has the form of a synthesis of identifications and, phenomenologically speaking, adequately fills the reader's intention without a comprehensive visual representation in the word of the depicted topos. Therefore, any specific toponymic indications in Roald Mandelstam's poetry appear redundant.