SOURCE: "The Poetics of Authority in Pushkin's 'André Chénier'," in Slavic Review, Vol. 42, No. 2, Summer, 1983, pp. 187-203.

In the following essay, Sandier analyzes Pushkin's "André Chénier, " and observes that the poem is indicative of a significant development in Pushkin's authorial voice.

During the spring and summer months of 1825, Aleksandr Pushkin intensified his efforts to end his exile in Mikhailovskoe. Though his friends urged him to produce work that might influence imperial opinion in his favor, Pushkin doubted that his poems could win him freedom.¹ His writings increasingly were concerned with what the function of poetry should be. Pushkin's "crisis" in 1825 turned not only on political issues (the Decembrist revolt at the end of the year upset him greatly) but also on literary decisions. Politics and poetry are intertwined in one of the most problematic poems of that year, "André Chénier." A poem now virtually forgotten...