Poetic Pranks of Dovid Knut (Three Notes)

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https://doi.org/10.22455/Emigr.3034-3518-2024-1-481-506

https://elibrary.ru/YGYCKY

Abstract: The émigré poet Dovid Knut is almost unknown to the reader as an author of humorous epigrams, funny parodies and laughable literary jokes and pranks. The reason is that the poet did not publish this corpus of laughter during his lifetime, apparently, treating it as something marginal and not deserving attention. However, at the same time he kept it in his papers which were only recently discovered in Israel. These Knut’s mischievous poems, perhaps, not rising to some high level of the comic in poetry, are nevertheless of undoubted interest because, like any “poetry in case”, they let out some curious details from the history of emigrant literary life. The article contains three humorously parodic dedications written by Knut to his colleagues, émigré writers and poets — V. Ianovskii, Vs. Fokht and Ant. Ladinskii.

Key words: comic layer of émigré poetry, parodying the “sacred” and its transformation into the “profane” as part of literary life, comical modifications of the poetic word, verse jokes as a form of reflection on “serious” in historical, social and biographical contexts.

Information about the author: Vladimir I. Khazan, PhD, Professor, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7937-5790

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

For citation: Khazan, V.I. “Poetic Pranks of Dovid Knut (Three Notes).” Emigrantica. Issue 1: In memory of Oleg Korostelev, ed.-comp. E.R. Ponomarev, sci. ed. E.R. Ponomarev, M. Schruba, ed. M.S. Shchavlinskii, D.V. Zaitsev. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2024, pp. 481–506. (In Russian) https://doi.org/10.22455/Emigr.3034-3518-2024-1-481-506

REFERENCES

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Received: December 12, 2021
Approved: June 16, 2022
Date of publication: October 07, 2024

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