Sárospataki Füzetek 2. (1998)
1998 / 2. szám - Dr. Frank Sawyer: Star of the Nativity
•Sároópatahi füzetei FAIRY TALE: heroic & mythical romantic mystery AUGUST: on parting and a farewell to creativity WINTER NIGHT: on love PARTING: tom apart by fate ENCOUNTER: imagined return of the one loved STAR OF THE NATIVITY: the birth of Christ DAWN: the joy of life in human relationships MIRACLE: Christ’s cursing of the barren fig tree; God’s miraculous presence EARTH: Spring, human warmth, secret streams of sorrow EVIL DAYS: Christ’s triumphal entry, his judgment before Pilate, hope of resurrection MAGDALENE I: the anointing of Jesus’ feet, sin & confession, forgiveness MAGDALENE II: the greatness of Christ’s love, the triumph of grace GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE: the cosmic meaning of the coming of Christ After reviewing the foci of the poems it is evident that the coming of Christ is very central to them. For Pasternak, poetry is very important as the means to express the deepest truths; and at the heart of truth is the coming of Christ. When Pasternak describes Zhivago writing poetry, he portrays a deep and divine inspiration taking place: „At such moments Yurii Andreievich felt that the main part of the work [poetry writing] was being done not by him but by a.superior power which was above him and directed him, namely the movement of universal thought and poetry in its present historical stage and the one to come.” (437). This is like the Hegelian absolute descending into the finite expressions of human culture and history. But at other times in the poems the secret behind all this seems to be the Advent of Christ. One could say that Pasternak borrows this Advent theme - and the theme of resurrection - as a parallel symbol to his own message about individual freedom, the poetic depths of life and death, the celebration of life and the hope for better times. But we cannot say that it is only a symbol. At crucial points the reminder of eternity is strong in the novel. And when Yurii and Lara part for the last time, he says: „Farewell, Lara, until we meet in the next world, farewell, my love, my inexhaustible, everlasting joy.” (451) This combination of the carnal and the spiritual is one of the strongest themes in the nvoel. The whole story begins and ends with a funeral. Zhivago as a person in the novel ends up ‘going to seed’, losing the skills and depth of interest he had as a doctor, a poet, and philosopher. The novel is an exercise in both the celebration of life and a mourning of the sadness of finitude and the political tragedies of false ideological choices. The poems continue to speak about divine grace, help, and the triumph of Christ over death in the face of a broken, sinful, unjust and rather hopeless world. Pasternak wrote about the Russian Revolution as „a god come down to earth from heaven” (454), but he chose the Advent of 49
