The Romantic, the Gothic, and the Visual Three Narratives about Amalia von Krüdener and the Russian Poet Fedor Tiutchev

Abstract

One poem by the nineteenth-century Russian poet Fedor Tiutchev begins with the line ‘Я помню время золотое’ (or ‘Ia pomniu vremia zolotoe’) [I remember a golden time]. It is about the poet’s early youth, a meeting with a young woman, a spring outing to castle ruins on the Danube. The poem has led to many attempts to determine the exact time and place of this moment and the identity of the young woman. The aim of the article is to show the complex relationship that exists between fiction, reality, and the scholars’ or critics’ meta-level narrative about fiction and reality. I will attempt to demonstrate
how three distinct narratives (a romantic, a Gothic, and a visual) can originate in this poem, thereby illuminating and perhaps changing our aesthetic appreciation of the poem. The first two narratives have been established by literary historians. The third and last narrative emerges from a compilation of the paintings and photographs preserved by the woman presumed to be the subject of the poem.