Glossolalia
Andrei Bely
Russian original.Edited by Taja Gut. Translated into English, annotated and
introduced by Thomas R. Beyer, Jr.
German translation by Maka Kandelaki.
(Pforte Verlag)
ISBN 3-85636-148-0
Glossolalia: A Poem about Sound (Glossalolija: Poema o zvuke) was published in Berlin 1922. It is a complex construct of philosophy and poetry.Glossolalia is an extended exploration, both hermeneutic and hermetic, of the relationship between sound and sense. As Belyj emphasizes in his title, this is a poem. In his introduction he identifies it as "an improvisation on sound-themes," and "a poem of sound" [zvukovaja poema] and cautions against applying the principles of scientific truth to his text, which he considers "completely senseless" (1922a: 9, 10). But it is simultaneously a treatise on the origins of language, an essay on the relationship between sound and meaning and the origins of language based on an examination of common Indo-European roots.