THE THEME OF CHILDHOOD IN OSIP MANDELSTAM’S “CONVERSATION ABOUT DANTE”

The “Conversation about Dante” is generally considered as Mandelstam’s poetry manifesto and its hero as his autobiographical projection. Despite the large number of scholarly works devoted to this essay, the extent to which the themes of the “Commedia” — when considered beyond the context of Dante scholarship in Mandelstam’s Russia — could have influenced Mandelstam’s image of Dante remains to be examined in a comprehensive manner. One of the main characteristics of this image is its childlikeness/infantilism. The aim of the present article is to determine to what extent the protagonist of the “Commedia” possesses this trait, what significance this has in Mandelstam and in Dante and what function this serves in the “Conversation”. To this end, I shall undertake a comparative analysis of the theme of childhood in Mandelstam’s essay and in Dante’s poem, drawing on both Mandelstam and Dante scholarship.