Abstract

The paper analyzes para-incestual motifs in O. Mandelstam’s poem “Venetian Life” (1920). Using the mirror symmetry principle that underlies the structure of the poem and the mirror-related semantics of literary and artistic “portraits” of Venice that the poem makes use of, the paper investigates the connection between the two main narrative collisions of the poem: the conspiracy by Marino Faliero, the Doge of Venice, in the classical texts by E. T. A. Hoffmann and Lord Byron, and the Biblical story of Susanna and the Elders. These collisions form a meta-narrative basis of the poem which can be verified by the analysis of its two-layered subtext: “A New Rolla” by Mikhail Kuzmin and “Rolla” by Alfred de Musset.