Jason Brooks

The Department of Comparative Literature

The Pennsylvania State University

“Directing” the Reader: Vladislav Khodasevich’s “Sorrento Photographs,” and Montage

The impact of film on prose narrative (see, e.g., Marguerite Duras’ Détruire Dit-Elle) has been well documented, analyzed, and theorized (see, e.g., Adaptations: From Text to Screen, Screen to Text, Ed. Deborah Cartmell and Imelda Wheleham). To what extent, though, can we consider the interface of film and poetry? The present paper explores the merging of filmic and poetic techniques in Vladislav Khodasevich’s poem “Sorrento Photographs.” My paper illustrates the use of the motion picture technique of montage in Khodasevich’s poem as a means of directing the reader to specific ideas and conclusions, as a filmmaker over a spectator. To this end, my argument leans heavily on the film theory of Vsevolod Pudovkin, who wrote extensively on the despotic control that a movie director holds over a viewer. Emphasizing Khodasevich’s use of montage and the juxtaposition of multiple images in different lines and stanzas, my paper explores how a poet can incorporate filmic structure and style into his or her work. The influence, then, of visual technologies on literature are also, therefore, treated. The prime significance of this study is twofold. Firstly, I contribute to the discussion of memory and exile in Russian émigré poetry. Secondly, through a close reading of this major Russian modernist poet, my essay considers the interplay of the visual and the verbal while engaging in the larger conversation about both the generic and media constraints on a poetic text.