I loved you is a reversible text

Pushkin’s Invention of "Reversible  text".  Case Study:  “I Loved You”
Марина Сапир

Keyword: Pushkin, "I loved you", lyrics, ambiguity, textual analysis, "Eugene Onegin"


This article introduces  a concept of a reversible text: a literary text intended for two types of readers and having  two incompatible interpretations, such that each interpretation available for one type of  readers only. The concept is illustrated using Pushkin's poem "I Loved You" as an example. Literary devices that create a reversible text are described.
Introduction

I want to start with a large quote from B. Gasparov's text "Pushkin and Romanticism" [1]. He compares the ironic ambiguity of a romantic poem  with the type of ambiguity  one can find in Puskin's works:

"Ambiguity of Pushkin’s discourse is of a different kind. It is exclusionary rather than inclusive. Pushkin's works do not play “hide-and-go-seek" with the reader; they simply do not bother to offer a reader any clue to what he is supposed to seek, and what he may eventually find. One cannot detect on the immaculately clean and clear surface of Pushkin’s text any indication that its message may imply something that goes far beyond, and possibly in the direction opposite to what looks as its self-evident meaning."


I plan to illustrate this thesis using  the example of Pushkin's most famous poem, "I loved you" (ILY).  It is almost universally  understood as a story of “unrequited  love”:  a lyrical confession of a speaker to the  woman who rejected him. Everything seems to be clear in these beautiful verses. But when semioticians [2,3,4]  tried to  justify the interpretation by analysis of the text, they encountered anomalies which  "may imply something that goes far beyond, and possibly in the direction opposite to what looks as its self-evident meaning."  Still,  neither of them rejected the popular interpretation.   A. Zhlochevsky, S. Senderovich  attempted to  update it . In my view, the attempts were not successful: somewhat muddy new interpretations still did not reconcile all contradiction and are devoid of touching simplicity of the "self-evident meaning".

The anomalies detected by semioticians appear to be significant.  Yet we do not know why these anomalies are not detected by readers on the  "immaculately clean and clear surface of Pushkin’s text", and  where these anomalies would lead us, if we pursue them.

V. Nepomniashy [5] is the only one, as far as I know, who  admitted the ambiguity of the poem, while not rejecting the popular interpretation outright:

We will never be able to decide what prevails, what is expressed here: contained jealousy or self-sacrifice, acceptance or resentment, bitterness of undervalued – and, therefore -  fading love or a concealed flame, "I loved" or "I love" .

Niepomniashy  extends the traditional interpretation, allowing a mixture of feelings, expressed by the speaker. Yet, his general idea does not contradict the traditional  understanding, and it does not  explain the strange anomalies discovered by the semioticians.

The researchers  who studied the poem had no doubt that various interpretations of the poem may be different in some details, but not in overall concept: a confession of unrequited love.  However, from the point of view of B. Gasparov, a Pushkin's  work may have irreconcilable  meanings. In the same article  [1] he wrote:

No amount of literary sensitivity or general knowledge on the part of the reader would allow him to penetrate into this world of intended paradoxes and hidden, often acutely sarcastic shifts of meaning, unless he carries a membership card of a certain hermetic circle for which, and for which only, those paradoxes were supposed to make sense.


In other words, Pushkin creates some of his works in such a way that the meaning you perceive depends on the "circle" where you belong.  If the "shift of meaning" is "deeply sarcastic",  for example,  no reconciliation between the meanings is possible by design.

B. Gasparov argues that this specific type of ambiguity in Pushkin's works cannot be associated with Romanticism, pre-Romanticism, or realism. This type of ambiguity  (when each "circle" gets its own meaning) places Pushkin outside of all these movements. Most likely, Pushkin invented this literary device. But Pushkin might have followers.  For example, Chekhov's works are perceived differently depending on the reader's beliefs.

 It's convenient to introduce the general concept of a text that has irreconcilable meanings for two different groups of readers (in principle, this concept could be extended to cover even more groups).

I call this type of text "reversible" after  a reversible coat:

(1) both "sides" of the poem  have "patterns", images,
(2) which "side" you see depends on  your point of view, the "circle", where you belong. 
(3) Looking at any of the patterns you have no clue about the existence of the other side.   

I intend to demonstrate that this is true of the ILY: the poem has two irreconcilable  interpretations, "two sides" for two expected  types of readers.

In the first section, I give definitions of reversible text and describe expected properties of  some of Pushkin's reversible texts, as well as the procedure for identifying such a text. 

In the second section I show two sets of poetic devices in ILU leading to two meanings in the poem for two different "hermetic circles".

1. Definitions


1.1. Reversible text

Here I am talking about the reader - response relationship, studied by W. Iser and others. Yet, Iser's  terminology turned out to be inconvenient for this complex case: the concept of "implied reader" includes correspondence between the properties of the expected readers and the structure of the text.  But to discuss two types of the expected readers, and two corresponding sets of literary devices,  as well  the expected interpretations, it is better  to split  the concept of implied reader into separate parts. 

Let's introduce  the general terminology.

 For any reader, the meaning the work conveys to him is  called his interpretation of the text.  If a reader feels that  he does not understand the text, we say that he does not interpret it. Two interpretations of a text are said to be irreconcilable if any one of them makes the other one implausible. Otherwise they are called reconcilable.

An author intends his text to have a  certain  kind   (kinds) of  interpretations and   a certain type(s) of readers. Interpretations of any one kind are considered to be  reconcilable with each other.  The text is designed so that any intended reader can interpret it.

Definition: Reversible text  is a literary text which satisfies three conditions:
(1) There are   two types of intended  readers and two corresponding kinds of intended interpretations.
(2) The author designs the text  in such a way that  a reader of a given type can come  to an interpretation of the corresponding kind only.
(3) Interpretations of different kinds are irreconcilable.

Even though a reversible text assumes   irreconcilable interpretations, its integrity is guaranteed by the fact that each intended reader comes to only one interpretation (point 2 in the definition). Therefore, he  cannot guess the existence of irreconcilable interpretations.

For completeness, we can add that any reversible text allows a Super- reader:   the one who can see the trick of reversibility, understand  both irreconcilable  interpretations and how they are created.  There is always at least one Super-reader: the author of the text. But there may be others.  For example, here I plan to show two irreconcilable  interpretations of ILY, announcing    myself as a Super-reader for this poem.  A Super-reader is not an intended  reader of a reversible text:  by the definition they are supposed to see a single meaning.

Using ambiguity in a literary text is nothing new. Reversible text  as a device is different from other devices which rely on ambiguity, double meanings (such as irony, satire, allegory, subtext). Those devices assume that a reader can  grasp contradictory meanings.   The reversible text,  by contrast, is designed so that each intended reader  can NOT find both meanings.

Let us notice that such a device as reversible text is particularly useful in Russia, where it plays a role of trojan horse.   In cases of censorship, for example, this may help to smuggle in forbidden ideas, hiding them from censors.  In a case of a strong domineering mass culture, a dissident poet may want to pacify mass readers, making the text look agreeable on  the first glance, while it is delivering the author's  ideas  to a sympathetic reader. Those adversarial circumstances were always major Pushkin's concerns.

1.2. Pushkin's reversible texts

1.2.1 Two types of intended readers

A reversible text requires for its functioning  two types of intended  readers with  distinct views and tastes. To understand  the design of Pushkin's reversible text we need to figure out the  types of intended readers 

Fortunately, Alexander Sergeevich himself  defined  two types of people, distinct by their mode of perception.

Namely, Pushkin wrote in "Eugene Onegin"  (Chapter 4, stanza L1):

Hundred times blessed is the one who is devoted to his faith,
Who lulled his cold mind
And rests in his  heart's bliss
As a drunk traveler on an overnight  stay,
Or, more tender, as a butterfly on a spring flower;
But pitiful is he who foresees everything
Who does not feel giddy
Who hates the translation
Of every word, every move
Whose experience has cooled  his heart
And forbade him to be carried away.

Methods of perception differ depending on a person's faith. The "blessed" is the one whose faith allows him to "rest in his  heart's bliss" and "lull his cold mind" The "pitiful" are those whose beliefs and doubts prevent them from getting carried away, whose minds are therefore alert. Most people will belong to one group or the other, and it is impossible to belong to both.




One might expect that these two modes of perception apply not only to reality but also to literary texts. Accordingly, two types of intended readers of Pushkin's text can be identified: a "Dreamy" reader (" lulled his cold mind ") and a "Cool-minded" reader ("Whose experience has cooled  his heart").

It's clear that Dreamy readers believed in a just world order, believed in their safety: that's why they could "rest in the bliss of their hearts." Such readers were always in the majority.  Because they have "calmed their cold minds," they perceive the world intuitively, emotionally, and directly. Irony, ambiguity is alien to these readers; they don't notice it.

Cool-minded readers are not inclined to idealize the world. They are able to read a text with a cool head, recognizing hints and ambiguities that Dreamy readers miss. Easy to see that Pushkin himself considered himself a Cool-minded reader. Cool-minded readers are a minority.

Dreamy readers in Pushkin's time (and after) love sentimental novels. Cool-minded readers are skeptical of the feelings expressed there.


1.2.2. Literary devices in a reversible text

The purpose of writing a work of fiction is to convey a specific meaning and evoke proper emotions in the intended reader. All of this is part of the reader's interpretation of the work. Pushkin could expect an understanding of his views from Cool-minded readers. He also knew that his worldview was alien and hostile to the Dreamy readers who had "lulled their  cold mind." Pushkin's task was to convey his message to the Cool-minded readers without provoking total rejection from the Dreamy  readers.

How could Pushkin have solved this problem? Pushkin received a classical education at the Lyceum, and for him, artistic methods could have been associated with rhetoric: the art of using speech to persuade listeners and evoke a desired emotional response.

Aristotle identified three different modes of persuasion: pathos, logos, and ethos. Aristotle assumed that each person could be influenced by all three modes, although he recommended selecting the appropriate combination of techniques for each audience.

Pushkin needed different modes  of persuasion to influence different groups of people and, at the same time, to convey different messages.

It can be assumed that Pushkin used pathos and logos to create a reversible text. Pathos is an emotional appeal to the audience's values ;;and beliefs. Logos is an appeal to people's rational faculties. Pathos in Pushkin's reversible text is intended for Dreamy readers. Cool-minded  readers do not share the same beliefs as Dreamy   readers, so the same pathos appeal should have no effect on them. The logos appeal of a reversible  text is intended for Cool-minded readers. It is inaccessible to Dreamy readers, who have "lulled their cold minds."

 Based on this hypothesis, I propose  the next Reversibility rule to test reversibility of a Pushkin's text:

(1) Find in the text  the literary  devices which appeal to emotions, the beliefs of   a Dreamy   reader, while leaving a Cool-minded reader indifferent.
(2)  Find   anomalies in  the text which make the text ambiguous for a Cool-minded  reader but could not be noticed without  conscious intellectual efforts.

If the search on any step fails,  the text may  not be reversible. If both steps are successful,  the first meaning can be derived based on the results of the step (1) and the second meaning shall be based on the results of the step (2). If the interpretations contradict each other, the text is reversible.

2. Case Study: “I loved you.”

I start with my literal translation:

I loved you:  the love, still, possibly, 
In my soul is extinguished not quite;
But  let it no longer disturb you;
I  do not want to sadden you at all.
I loved you wordlessly, hopelessly,
Languishing with timidity, with jealousy.
I loved you so tenderly, so sincerely,
God help you to find   some other love like this. 



2.1 The popular  meaning

Here I describe popular understanding of the poem among regular Russian readers and researchers.
The poem is  understood literally as Pushkin's own sincere  confession of love to a  woman he knew, as a direct  address to this woman.  It is customary  for a commentator  to express regret that an addressee of the poem is unknown. Here are some quotes:
“‘I loved you’ is one of Pushkin’s most beloved poems. These simple eight lines teach self-sacrifice, for there is no place for egotism and disrespect in love.”
“The final lines show the nobility of the hero: he wishes his beloved woman to be happy with another man, even though he still loves her.”

This understanding is exported abroad, and is accepted universally. For instance, the authors  [6] are interested in literary devices in this text that create “the illusion of simplicity,” while at the same time express “the deepest emotions to which lovers are able.”
In short, the only commonly accepted interpretation of “I loved you”  is a sweet expression of eternal, selfless love by A.S. Pushkin to some of his acquaintances. This is the interpretation R. Jakobson [2], for example,  accepted before any analysis  and never rejected.

2.2. Application of the Reversibility Rule. Step 1
 The process consists of two steps.
On the first step  we need to "Find in the text  the devices which act to evoke emotions, appeal to the beliefs of   a Dreamy   reader".

The first such device is an accumulation (accumulation is a literary device that involves gathering related words, phrases, or ideas to build intensity and emphasize a point). The poem accumulates a large  semantic  cluster  of words and expressions related with the concept of  "love",  love-cluster.

The love-cluster:
to love, love (five times in eight lines, the verb's tense is not relevant here)
wordlessly, hopelessly
languishing
timidity
jealousy
so tender
so sincerely
you find   some other love

For a Dreamy  reader, each of the elements in the love-cluster points to    an image of sentimental love, acting subconsciously  as  a strong positive emotional stimuli. 
The Cool-minded  readers are not supposed to be charmed  by the idea of sentimental love. 

The second artistic device of this kind is the phonetics of the poem with all its repetitions of sounds, internal rhythms, parallel syntactic constructions, etc. Lotman associated rhythm, rhyme, and repetition in poetry with “autocommunication”[9]: these devices do not convey new information, they organize information. And this is precisely what happens in the inner monologue. Therefore, Dreamy readers, who perceive the text largely unconsciously, read  it as a confession, a communication with oneself, not with the other.


The third poetic device of this sort is the absence  of metaphors or visual images in the text.  This "simplicity"  further appeals to  Dreamy readers, increasing  the emotional effect of the semantic love-cluster. They  feel  like the speaker expresses himself artlessly,  directly, from  his heart.  The device  does not make a difference for the Cool-minded  reader, who does not care much about the semantic love-cluster.

Absence of visual images does not mean that the poem  does not have poetic images,   as  R. Jakobson[2]  and S. Senderovich [4]  claim. In general sense, an artistic image in a poem is a mental image which the author, through literary devices , evokes in the reader to prompt an emotional response.

In ILY,  Pushkin creates an image of sentimental, selfless love. The image is not visual, but rather a mental representation of a concept or an idea. The image is created through the technique of accumulation, a combination of elements of the love cluster.

2.3 Application of reversibility rule, step 2

This step calls  to discover anomalies of the text first.  I call the narrator in the poem "hero". The woman here is called "addressee".

Here is the list of the anomalies.

(1) Love in the past tense.  The expression "I loved you" is an anomaly in the Russian language: "true love" is forever. The expression "I loved you" has two opposing meanings: love in the past and an undefined feeling in the present. One thing is certain: the hero is not speaking of "true" love (in Russian sense), but of some other kind of love that can fade. The use of the verb "to love" in the past tense is an anomaly  both in Romanticism and in sentimentalism, regardless of the language used.
(2) Quantifiers of uncertainty: there are three such quantifiers in the second sentence: "still", "possibly",  "not quite".  All of them  quantify the chance of existence,  and the degree of expiration  of the hero's love. It looks like the hero taunts the addressee: get it while it lasts.
(3) Advice to calm down. The hero says about his love: "But  let it no longer disturb you". The line implies that
--The hero's attention was previously noticed by the addressee,   it disturbed her, and she made it clear for the hero.
--The interactions with the  addressee happened recently, otherwise she would  have stopped worrying already, without the hero's prompt. So, the first line takes the meaning: "I loved you just recently", which sounds frivolous, like a folk story about lieutenant Rzhevsky (поручик Ржевский).
--Knowing that the  addressee  does not want  his attention,  the hero addresses her with the confession of his (past) love.  Polite in form, the address  is inconsiderate, impudent.
--The hero wants the addressee to stop worrying about  his advances, to put her at ease;
--The attempt to mollify the addressee in this line means that the addressee is  not an image of a woman, but a real woman, the hero attempts to manipulate.
(4)   Sincerity of love:   Love cannot be insincere. "Sincere love" is a tautology. The hero claims that his love is not just sincere, but exceptionally sincere ("so sincere"). This sounds like  he went a bit too far praising his love.
(5)  The punch line. The last lines "I loved you so tenderly, so sincerely, God help you to find   some other love like this"  mean:
-- "My love was exceptional. Good luck for you to find such a love like mine again". The hero expresses doubt that the addressee can be so lucky again. "The text deliberately opens the door to two different interpretations of the final line. …, the established expression "may God grant you" … can be interpreted as a kind of "unreality" mode, meaning that without God's intervention, the addressee is unlikely to encounter another such love. In the latter case, the line can be understood as an example of "hidden denial"…[2]
-- The comparison of possible  "loves" and the idea that the two "loves" may be identical brings up the impersonality of the poem. It also is an anomaly in Russian.
-- There is a strong cultural belief that a romantic love, or "the love of one's life," is always unique and special.  Relationships and the feelings for each pair   are distinct. Talking about another love like his, the hero implies impersonality of relationship.
-- The hero suggests that the addressee is seeking exactly the kind of love he is offering, and it should  not matter to her, from whom she gets it. Rather than as an insult, it is, probably, intended as yet another way of persuasion.
(6)  Addressee. The ultimate uncertainty in the poem is the addressee. There is nothing personal about this poem: it could be sent to any  woman who did not respond to the hero's attention yet. We do not know any specifics about their relationship except that she was disturbed  by his advances.

Now, I am ready to give the  second interpretation  of the poem, which takes into account all the anomalies  above.

The poem is not a lyrical one,  rather this is a dramatic monologue. There are two characters: the adventurous hero (smooth operator) and an intended addressee.  A short time ago, they had some superficial interactions,  and the addressee showed her concern over the hero's attention.  In the (written)  monologue, the hero makes another attempt to win her over by trying to calm her apprehension, by praising  unique qualities and rarity of his love, by pressuring her to act fast  while the fading love lasts ("Today or never, … Tomorrow it' ll be too late", as Elvis sings). 

Typically, one of the hallmarks of dramatic monologue is an unreliable narrator. Indeed, the hero speaks of love, but his boldness, the reminder of his fading love, allows the reader to see that he is not referring to love (as it is usually understood in Russia), but to some temporary, impersonal, mutually beneficial relationship.

Each meaning of the text makes another one implausible. It confirms that ILY is a reversible poem.  Q.E.D.

It is clear now, why the semioticians [2,3,4] had difficulty to come up with a consistent interpretation: they were not the intended readers. On one hand, they believed the popular interpretation is the only possible one. On another hand, they applied  their "cold mind" to the text and discovered anomalies there. So, they were not Dreamy or  Cool-minded readers. To be come a Super-readers,  they should be open-minded from the start.

The poem turned out to be  an illustration to a recurring theme of "Eugene Onegin": high  society's  "love games" . See, for example, Ch 1, X:

How early learned  he to be hypocritical,
To hide his hope, be jealous,
To dissuade, to assure,
To appear gloomy, to languish,
To appear proud and obedient, 
Attentive or indifferent,
How  fiery eloquent he was,
How careless he was  in his love letters!
…..
The poem could be one of those  "careless" love letters Onegin wrote in his youth. The hero, too,  tries "to dissuade, to assure" at the same time,  stressing both unusual "sincerity"  and the fleeting nature of his love.
As Pushkin said, in Russia,  a Dreamy  reader "who is devoted to his faith" is  "Hundred times blessed", while  pitiful is   a Cool-minded reader. It was so during Pushkin's time, and it did not change. Dreamy   readers of ILY dominate, Cool-minded   readers do not get to publish academic articles about ILY.

But it does not mean that Cool-minded   readers do not exist. Nepomniashy [7]  published  a  report about an interesting empirical study:
"a professor at a philosophy department asked students how they understand the last two lines of Pushkin's poem:  "I loved you so tenderly, so sincerely,  God help you to find   some other love like this.  " Out of 20 students, 19 said that this is an irony, and the twentieth said: "It is a mockery". "

Professor  Nepomniashy was very angry about these results: "This is an unhuman understanding of a clear text which has  unbelievably many meanings  ("многозначен невероятно") . " This quote can give a reader a clue that the sentimental interpretation of the poem ILY  is perceived in Russia as existential in the  fight for preserving the national heritage and the Russian national character. But Pushkin gets a chance  to be understood.

Despite the efforts of authoritative critics to canonize the sentimental popular meaning, the second, cynical,  meaning in Pushkin’s reversible text remains visible to those who are sensitive to the poem as a whole — to the play of words, sentences, and tone, rather than just to emotional buzzwords. Other poets are often such readers.
Consider the parody by Kirill Veprikov, which begins:

I loved you, but, maybe, not very much,
Who knows, perhaps I loved somebody else?
Possibly, it was not even me, but another man.
Regardless — who cares now?

The parody works because it exaggerates what  lies in the text beyond the love-cluster. Veprikov exposes the second interpretation.

Naum Korzhavin wrote an article where he fully supported the common interpretation of the poem ILY. Yet, he also wrote a poem, which can be literally translated like this:

Earthly language is very brief.
It will be like this forever.
With another one: it means, the same, as with me,
But with another one.

I have overcome the pain,
Turned my back and went away
With another one… It means: the same as with you,
But with another one.
1945

The poem addresses the two last lines of ILY, stressing intended indifference both by the hero and by the addressee, impersonality of the poem.


3. Conclusion

I introduced the concept of reversible text and demonstrated that Pushkin, indeed, wrote the poem ILY as a reversible text so that the two categories of readers he clearly described in the stanza L1 in chapter 4 of  "Eugene Onegin" see different meanings there: one is depiction of sentimental love, another is a hypocritical   letter Onegin in his youth could write to one of his interests. I confirmed B. Gasparov's thesis that Pushkin does not make all his ideas available  to every reader equally. We are just scratching the surface trying to reach  the true  meaning of this heritage.
I want to end with the long quote from M. Gershenzon [8]

"Beauty is a lure, but beauty is an obstacle. A beautiful form of art tempts everybody to gather and look.  It does not deceive, but weak attention is swallowed by beauty; for weak eyes it is not transparent. .. Only a  tense and sharp gaze can penetrate it and see the depth under it. Nature protects its little children, like puppies,   with blessed  blindness. Art gives each person only what he can withstand: to one it gives the whole of its truth, because he is mature, to another it gives a part, and to a third it shows only its brilliance, the charm of its form, … Pushkin's poetry, too, conceals profound revelations, yet the crowd glides effortlessly through it, rejoicing in its smoothness and brilliance, mindlessly reveling in the music of the verses, the clarity and vividness of the images. Only now, after so many years, are we beginning to see these depths."

Bibliography

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(The Pushkin Handbook, ed. by David Bethea. Madison: University of Wisconsin press, 2005)
2. Р. Якобсон  Поэзия грамматики и грамматика поэзии// Семиотика. - М.: Радуга,  1983.- С. 462-482.
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7. "Нет истины, где нет любви" (из интервью с В. С. Непомнящим) https://www.manwb.ru/articles/arte/literature/nepomniashy/
8. М. Гершензон. Мудрость Пушкина . Том 1.
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