The Concepts of Thought, Mind, and Cognition in the Poems of the Poets — Lovers of Wisdom and in the Lyrics of E. A. Baratynsky

Scientific study of the philosophical lyrics of Russian poets is relevant above all due to the impact of poetry on the overall development of Russian culture: it is impossible to imagine Russian culture without the poetry of the 19th century, which shaped the literary Russian language; the philosophical universe of Russian poetry influences the formation of the shared cultural space of contemporary Russia. The purpose of this study is to establish ways of conceptualizing the creative self-reflection of the poet-thinkers of the 1820s and 1830s. Its objectives include (1) identifying relevant concepts, including those that reinterpret pre-existing poetic proto-concepts, through analysis of imagery and thematic patterns, and (2) attempting to trace their evolution in the works of these poets themselves and in the nearest poetic reflections. The research materials are the poems of the poet-lovers of wisdom (D. S. Venevitinov, S. P. Shevyrev and A. S. Khomyakov), as well as their contemporary E. A. Baratynsky, who, as it is well-known, did not belong to the circle of “lovers of wisdom”, but developed themes close to their philosophical and poetic pursuits. The analysis of the selected works has previously been conducted from various scholarly perspectives. However, the philosophy of culture perspective adopted here enables a focus on the specific philosophical discourse that reveals, in early 19th-century Russian culture, the potential for understanding both independent intellectual pursuits and the search for German thought through the lens of Russian tradition. The study employs content analysis, to manually identify the presence of concepts related to philosophical self-reflection, as well as categorical analysis, supplemented in some cases by a phenomenological approach and discourse analysis. As a result of the investigation, it was established that the conceptualization of creative reflection can be traced in such concepts as mind, thought, cognition, as well as in related concepts (spirit, heavenly regions, rise, inspiration); and in binary oppositions such as light/darkness, day/night, mind/heart, life/death. Overall, this thematic line represents a kind of poetic phenomenology of the cognitive process. At the same time, the early stage of its formation (the period of the 1820s and 1830s), primarily its initial development in the poetry of the “lovers of wisdom”, is associated with the conceptualization of the figure of the ideal poet within the framework of the Romantic theme. One of the attributes of his image, along with inspiration, is a clear thought that embraces the universe in the rapture of knowledge, combined in harmonious balance with heart and soul. It is demonstrated that the concept of thought finds its detailed expression in such poems as Thought by Shevyrev, Thoughts by Khomyakov, and All thought and thought... by Baratynsky. Historical-cultural and semantic analysis of the poetic texts allows us to reveal a dramatic turn: the optimistic pathos of introducing thought to the higher world (poets-lovers of wisdom) is replaced in the second period of the development of the topic by deep skepticism: true knowledge seems unattainable (Baratynsky). In the reflections of Baratynsky's poetry, the stage of the entry of thought into a period of trials and disappointments is seen. The poet's aspiration to transcend the boundaries of the sensory world, which cools his soul toward earthly existence, encounters insurmountable obstacles, the harmony of mind and heart turns out to be illusory. This mental situation described in Baratynsky's poems is characterized as a drama of cognition. The poetic phenomenology of thought revealed in the article — lyrical reflections of the process of cognition and self-knowledge — enriches our understanding of the uniqueness of Russian poetry and culture in general. 

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