FIRE AND WATER, ASPIRATION AND OBLIVION: BAL'MONT'S RE ENVISIONING OF EDGAR
tinct memory of Edgar Allan Poe's original lyric on that theme will realize that something extraordinary has happened to Poe's text. Even before Rachmaninoff reconceived "The Bells" as a majestic choral symphony, Poe's lyric had already been extensively refashioned in Rachmaninoff's libretto, the translation provided by the Russian Symbolist K. D. Bal'mont. It was Bal'mont's conviction that Poe's "immortal poem, which one cannot fail to remember whenever one hears a resounding bell," may be best comprehended as a "requiem mass for the poet himself, who scarcely suspected the prophetic significance of the lines he was creating" when he wrote the lyric not long before his death "bessmertnaja poema, o kotoroj uie nel'zja ne vspomnit' sly'a zvuk kolokola javilas' zaupokojnoju sluiboj po samom po'te vrjad li podozrevavsem predveSdatel'nuju znabitel'nost' strok, kotorye on sozdaval" (SSEP V, 97) And so (as we shall see) Bal'mont adds to Poe's sketched out requiem some new thoughts about the ending of the martyr's torment, about the lasting peace of the grave. But for Bal'mont "The Bells" represented more than a prophecy of Poe's death; it was also a symbolic record of his life Poe's autobiographical self portrait. And it is this self portraiture, above all, that Bal'mont tries to dramatize and clarify in his own rendition of Poe's unwitting requiem. "Kolokol'Eiki i kolokola" is a twofold Bal'montian re envisioning. The Russian poet reconceives the poem as he re envisions the man who wrote it. Bal'mont provides plenty of surrounding context for his reimagining of Poe, and the contextual contributions are wide ranging. Bal'mont translated five volumes of Poe's lyrics, tales, dialogues, essays, and correspondence; his devotion to the American writer's memory and achievement influenced an era in Russian literary culture (Grossman, passim) Moreover, all this intensive work on Poe gave rise to some superb original verse