Mythological Poetics of Russian Symbolism and Plato’s Cosmology: Vyatcheslav Ivanov’s Poem <i>Melampus’ Dream</i> in the Light of the Dialogues <i>Timaeus</i> and <i>Republic</i>
Melampus’ Dream is one of Vyacheslav Ivanov’s most prominent works, featuring a synthesis of Dionysian-Orphic mythology with the cosmological dialectic articulated in Plato’s Timaeus and Republic. Ivanov distinguishes three domains: metaphysical, mystical, and empirical. The cosmos’ prototype, the metaphysical domain, is shown as two serpents (Zeus and Persephone), one embracing the other, from whom the sacrificial god Dionysus Zagreus is created. This mythological emblematics echoes the structure of Plato’s World Soul, which is formed from an X-shaped combination of the circles of Same and Other. The World Soul’s cruciform symbolism serves as the foundation for a number of subtexts in Ivanov’s poem, including Schiller’s Mountain Stream ,Goethe’s Faust, and Leibniz’s Monadology. The temporal structure of Ivanov’s poem reflects the dialectic of eternity and time in the Timaeus: the metaphysical domain relates to eternity, the mystical, to “eternal” time, and the empirical, to the temporal flow in the sublunary world. The mystical triad of Goals - Reasons - Time replicates the structure of the World Soul and the spindle of Ananke. The Goals, such as the circle of Same and the outer shaft of Ananke’s spindle, rotate in one direction, while the Reasons, such as the circle of Other and the inner shaft of the spindle, in the opposite direction. The titanic element, which expresses the principle of individuation in Ivanov’s poem, is linked with the action of the senses in the Timaeus, which hinder the intelligent circulation of the World Soul and are compared by Plato with the toppling of the living being in reflection, in which the right and the left are inverted. The article concludes by contrasting Ivanov’s antiquated cosmology with Stephen Hawking’s model of the universe.