NEKRASOV'S FRAME LYRIC AS SOCIAL POETICS: STOPPING IN THE VILLAGE ON THE ROAD TO POETOPIA.

This essay places Nikolai Nekrasov's poem "V derevne" ("In the Village") in the context of two other Nekrasov poems that share its peculiar discursive structure, for which I coin the term "frame lyric." I argue that viewing these three frame lyrics as a sequence reveals a process spanning eighteen years (1845-1863), by which Nekrasov parodied gentry lyric subjectivity, while innovatively developing dialogic subjectivity and lyric form as social categories. This social poetics was newly relevant to the rift between the intelligentsia and the peasantry, of which Nekrasov was acutely conscious, and tended toward an imagined horizon of ideal poetic communion between the two classes, which I term "poetopia." Crucial to the analysis is the lyric specificity inherent in Nekrasov's endeavor, which deliberately departed from the prose narrative genres whose emergence dominated the literary scene during this period and which also addressed the social rift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]