"The girl sang in the church choir" - one of the saddest poems of Alexander Blok. In his work, the poet relied on the principles of symbolism. But his very first poems had a revolutionary connotation. The poet grew up in an intelligent environment, and his cherished dream was the equality of people. But when the first echoes of the revolution began, Blok asked himself the question: are such sacrifices necessary for its sake? You can read more about this in the analysis "The girl sang in the church choir".
History of writing
In the analysis of "The girl sang in the church choir" one should pay attention to the fact that the poem is connected with the fact that in 1905 a wave of rallies and uprisings of workers swept across the country. Russia was on the brink of civil war, people were in fear for their loved ones. Services were held in churches in the name of saving the Fatherland. Most likely, one of these was the poet.
Most of all, Blok was impressed by the singing girl that a bright future would come. But the poet already at that time realized that in order to change power, many lives had to be sacrificed. Therefore, he ceased to be confident in the ideals of the revolution. In the analysis of "The Girl Sang in the Church Choir" it is also worth noting: despite the fact that singing brought peace to those present, Blok realized that the revolution would not bring the truce that people hoped for.
Composition of the poem
An important point in the analysis of "The girl sang in the church choir" is the construction in the work. It is built on the antithesis of two parts, both in compositional and semantic terms. In the first part, Blok describes the girl and her singing about all the victims of the revolution, about all the ordinary people who had to defend their interests and rights with the help of the revolution.
But at the same time, her singing gives people hope for a better life, brings peace. And the purity of the temple creates the illusion of security. The beauty of the song captivates the parishioners, it seems to them that soon there will be a truce between the authorities and the people.
But already in the second part, the crying of a child is described, in which the poet hears the opposite of the singing of the girl. The baby feels what is not given to others. He foresees that the hopes of people will not come true. The revolution is impossible without victims, and, anticipating this truth, he cries, because he cannot tell people about this knowledge in another way.
The meter and rhyme of the poem
When analyzing the poem "The girl sang in the church choir", its design is important. It does not have any specific size, i.e. it is written in free form. Two-syllable parts should be read in a slightly singsong voice so as not to break the rhythm. And the fusion of sonorous and hissing sounds conveys the atmosphere of the temple, writing a verse in free form creates a feeling of purity, eternity, and reading in a singsong voice gives it melody.
means of expression
In the analysis of the verse "The girl sang in the church choir" it should be noted that a sharp transition from hope to the collapse of all illusions is achieved thanks to the antithesis. Each stanza uses anaphora and assonances, which makes the poem melodious. Epithets and metaphors give it even more expressiveness.
Poetic images
All those about whom the girl sang - the common people, the victims of the struggle for equality. The poet, who watches this service, goes from appeasement to a state of anxiety, anticipating the coming changes in the country. And he understands that it was this secret that was revealed to the child.
Alexander Blok wrote this poem as a memory of all those who sacrificed their lives for the sake of revolutionary ideas. He ended each of his public appearances with a reading. During that period, the poet rethought his attitude to the revolution and ceased to consider it an ideal opportunity for social change. Realizing all the consequences of the revolution, and that it was not worth such sacrifices, Blok abandoned the propaganda of these ideas and devoted his work to the symbolist direction.
A. Blok supported the ideas of the revolutionaries, but later he had an epiphany. The poet realized that justice cannot be done by such methods, it will bring too much pain to people. And he expressed this understanding in his poem "The girl sang in the church choir", an analysis of which is presented below.
Events leading up to the creation of the verse
The analysis of "The girl sang in the church choir" should begin with a brief background to its creation. As is known, Blok approved the ideas and views of the revolutionaries. But after the rallies of peasants and workers in 1905 were brutally suppressed, and the revolutionaries tried to achieve their goal in any way, regardless of people, the poet seemed to see clearly.
He realizes that the country has embarked on a terrible path, that a Civil War may begin. And people will be ready to cause each other suffering just because they have different beliefs. At that turbulent time for the country, services were constantly held in churches to save the Fatherland. It is possible that Blok expressed his impression of one of these services in his poem.
Composition features
When conducting an analysis of "The girl sang in the church choir," the composition of the poem should be described. It is based on an antithesis in which two parts are opposed. One of them describes the temple, the image of a girl and magical singing. The people who heard him, there is a hope that everything will be fine.
But the second part of the poet brings everyone back to reality. Suddenly, a child's cry is heard. As if the child has a premonition that the suffering of people has not yet ended. Block paid great attention to the description of the first part. Perhaps this was due to the fact that most people did not yet realize the full horror of the revolution. They continued to believe that peace would soon reign in the country and everyone would be happy.
And only a few, like a crying child, understood: the girl's song will not come true. More trials await people before peace and order reign.
The sound-rhythmic side of the work
One of the points of analysis of "The girl sang in the church choir" is the sound-rhythmic characteristic of the poem. It is written in the form of free or accent verse, which uses an alternation of different meters. Therefore, when reading, in order not to violate the rhythmic integrity, lines written in two-syllable size should be read more slowly.
In describing the temple and the image of the girl, the poet resorts to alliteration for sonorous and hissing sounds. This creates a sense of silence when reading, a sense of calm, hope. When the poet describes the crying of a child, he uses alliteration for voiced consonants. Listeners from a loud and sharp cry return to reality, from which they fled to the land of dreams, listening to the girl's singing.
image of the people
In the description of the parishioners, one can see the image of the Russian people, which should be mentioned in the analysis of the poem "The girl sang in the church choir." People came to the temple in the hope that they would find peace here. After all, prayer is all that was then left to ordinary people who did not participate in the revolution.
And in the poem there is no clear division among the parishioners. Because everyone who was in the temple, they are all one, all equal. It could be families that have already lost someone close to them. Or relatives of those who took an active part in the events of the revolution. And there were also people who simply prayed for the future of their Motherland, for the whole people, for peace to reign.
Therefore, the parishioners listened so attentively to the singing of the girl. For them, it was a beacon of hope. They believed that their prayer would be answered. Therefore, the cry of a child in that bright silence was all the more unexpected. As if only a child understood that the revolution was just beginning.
The image of a singing girl and a crying child
In the analysis of "The girl sang in the church choir" by Blok, it should be noted that the image of the girl, while singing, which is illuminated by the beam, occupies a central place in the poem. Her song about ships at sea is the epitome of the hope that they will return. Just like the people who take part in the revolution will return to their loved ones.
Her song is a ray of light that illuminated the lives of all the assembled parishioners. Her singing is filled with faith in a better future, it is beautiful because it comes from a pure heart. People, tired of rallies and civil war, felt calm and peace in their souls during the church service. The girl in Blok's poem is a symbol of hope, a brighter future.
But only a child, pure in soul and sinless in thoughts, discovers the secret: that the tragic events are not yet over. The child anticipates something terrible ahead, and from not understanding what exactly, he cries. He is sorry that the bright hopes of these people are not destined to come true. And the poet, one of the few who understands the reason for this crying, realizes that the rallies of 1905 are only the beginning of the terrible events of the revolution.
Literary devices and tropes
One of the points in the analysis of the verse "The girl sang in the church choir" is the literary tropes that the poet used. Blok used metaphors, syntactic parallelism, epithets and anaphoras to give even more expressiveness to the images, to emphasize the opposition of the two parts. The musical coloring of the work is given by assonances, due to which the reading of the lines turns out to be melodious.
Analysis of the text "The girl sang in the church choir" allows readers to see the poet's desire to show the duality of this world. This work was dedicated to the victims of the shooting at the Winter Palace. For A. Blok, it was very expensive, and he ended each of his public readings with this particular poem.
The girl sang in the church choir
About all the tired in a foreign land,
About all the ships that have gone to sea,
About all those who have forgotten their joy.
And it seemed to everyone that there would be joy,
That in a quiet backwater all the ships
That in a foreign land tired people
They got a bright life.
And the voice was sweet, and the beam was thin,
And only high, at the Royal Doors,
Involved in Mysteries, the child cried
That no one will come back.
1905
from the first collection of A. Blok "Poems about the Beautiful Lady"
Alexander Blok's poem "The Girl Sang in the Church Choir" was written in August 1905. The reason for the creation of the poem was: 1) the execution by government troops of a peaceful procession of St. Petersburg workers to the Winter Palace to submit a petition to Tsar Nicholas II in January 1905, which went down in history as "Bloody Sunday"; and 2) the memory of the Battle of Tsushima (May 1905) and the death of the Russian squadron during the war with Japan.
The poem contrasts the illusions associated with faith in a happy future; hope given by prayer and all the real horror, pain, hopeless truth of war. The poem is built on the antithesis of two compositional and semantic parts: in the first, Alexander Blok draws a temple, where in the twilight a girl, beautiful as an angel, sings about everyone whom the war forced to go to foreign lands and forget the joy of a peaceful life: the ship symbolizes those who have gone to sea; and prayer - hope for a bright and joyful future; the sorrow of those who remained in desperate and anxious expectation. The sanctity of the temple, the songs and the beauty of the girl give the illusion that everything will be fine; the singer is so beautiful that it seems as if there can be nothing bad in the world. The second part: "And only high, at the Royal Doors, / Participating in the Secrets, - the child cried / That no one will come back," - reveals the whole hopeless truth. There is no place for illusions in this lamentation; a small child symbolizes divine truth, the sorrow of God himself. The cry of a baby leaves a feeling of uncomplicated illusions, naked pain and truth. Understanding the world around them in their own way, not being able to explain what they feel, children are able to predict events. And the child is given the knowledge that "no one will come back." In the first movement, combined with the literal 'l' and 'r', the soft hissing and the silence that is part of the atmosphere of the temple, the accent verse evokes a sense of eternity, melodic melodiousness. In the last part, one can clearly feel allericium for voiced consonants, which creates a feeling of anguish. In the poem “the girl sang in the church choir…” A. Blok reveals the world in all its inconsistency. On the one hand, we see the holiness of prayer and great sorrow. On the other hand, people are capable of such a bloody and cruel act as war. And this is a contradiction cannot be resolved, it can only be grasped with a single glance.
In August 1905, Alexander Blok wrote the poem "The Girl Sang in the Church Choir":
The girl sang in the church choir
About all the tired in a foreign land,
About all the ships that have gone to sea,
About all those who have forgotten their joy.And it seemed to everyone that there would be joy,
That in a quiet backwater all the ships
That in a foreign land tired people
They got a bright life.
This poem is about the death of the Russian squadron in the Battle of Tsushima in 1905. The first stanza refers us to the litany, a prayer for those who swim and travel. The Royal Doors are the entrance to the altar of the Orthodox Church, and the child involved in the Mysteries is, apparently, the image of the Savior.
The Tsushima battle for Blok is a hot topic, a fact of his contemporary reality, it is no coincidence that he writes about these events using dolnik, a poetic meter that became popular already in the 20th century (in the 19th century, few people dared to use it).
In the dolnik, the correct alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables is disrupted, and the sound creates a special, individual rhythm. Blok once admitted: "Every poem is a veil stretched out on the points of a few words." These key words are symbolic words, in this poem - “sang” or “sang”, “white”. The distance between keywords is filled with sound, music. “The white dress sang in the beam,” it is important for Blok to keep the combination of the labial [b] or [p] and the sound [l] throughout the entire poem: “sang”, “white”, “dress”. This sound stream creates the music of the poem.
“There will be joy” is a quote from the Gospel of John, chapter 15, verse 11: “This I have said to you, that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be full.” “There will be joy” are the words of Christ, but in Blok they are framed by the words “And it seemed to everyone ...” And the Savior himself, the baby, knows that no one will come back. Ships that left and did not return are a very stable motif in Blok's poetry of 1905-1907; will come. The storm will destroy them. The hot wind carries death.
Thus, we are faced with the question of how the real fact - the death of the squadron in the Battle of Tsushima - is comprehended in Blok's poetry, which is not for nothing called symbolist poetry. For Blok, a symbol is always an earthly sign of another, unearthly world, always a sign of some high value that we on Earth can either guess or not notice. A ray, a storm, a snowstorm can become a symbol - everything can become a symbol and acquire a generalized historiosophical meaning.
Blok A.A. in his creative process, he always retained the foundations of symbolism, however, his first poems carried a strongly demonstrative, rebellious, patriotic, communist, rebellious character.
In 1905 A.A. Blok inscribed the verse "The girl sang in the church choir" during the coming fratricidal war and the Russian coup. Radiators of Russian literature say that the era of this poem was associated with the actions of the Japanese-Russian war.
A poem is written on the basis of opposition. The voice of a beautiful girl in white attire is like two drops of water to an angel, calmness and grace - all this is the antagonism of the cynical reality of fear, ruthlessness, barbarism and heartlessness during civil upheavals and wars. The face of the girl who sings in the poem communicates with the face of singing singing "carried away into the dome", and the white outfit in the poem is the image of a ray of hope that awakens hope in the soul, faith in tomorrow's silence and grace. The sadness of life representing the darkness of the church. Under the influence beautiful music, the darkness gradually crumbles to the sounds of captivating fairy-tale music.A light ray of light that falls on the girl's white robe represents hope, faith in a bright and calm life.
The second part of the poem turns out to be a line that separates hope, music, song and reality. The poet broadcasts that mortal existence is infinitely cruel; there is a place for sadness, misfortune, death, misfortune in it; while expanding the biblical expressions "Speak the truth through the mouth of a baby"
After the death penalty at the Winter Palace, as a result of countless obstacles, shows, demonstrations, Blok A.A. wrote this poem. To the poet himself, this literature carried an infinitely high price, this writer's effort was not crowned with success, after which Blok A.A. completely abandoned the writing of communist poetry. "The girl sang in the church choir ..." The poet especially finished every public performance with this verse.
Analysis of Blok's poem The girl sang in the church choir No. 2
Alexander Blok is a famous Russian symbolist poet. He grew up and was brought up in an intelligent family. In his early poems, the poet often expressed his patriotic and revolutionary thoughts. Blok was delighted with the idea of the equality of all people, idealistically believed in it. During youthful maximalism, he did not yet realize that any movement, revolution can not do without thousands of victims, or even much more.
The poet wrote this poem in 1905. It was then that the bloody events took place. Russia was swept by a wave of uprisings of ordinary workers, peasants against their oppressors. But the riots were mercilessly suppressed, drowned in blood. Blok witnessed all this and was sober, he began to think about whether even a good idea was worth many human lives. In addition to the revolution, he was also influenced by the events of the Russo-Japanese War, namely the Battle of Tsushima.
The poem, which we are considering through and through, is imbued with antithesis. Rudeness, cruelty and blood, the poet assigns a beautiful girl who sings beautifully and looks like an angel. Conventionally, the verse can be divided into two parts. The first contains the first three stanzas. They describe the beauty that the poet saw in the temple. The girl's singing is associated with prayer. The ship that has gone to sea must return, this is assumed in the motive. The girl's singing also symbolizes the power of art, which gives hope, faith in the future. There is darkness in the church, the poet used this symbol to show that all human life is often like darkness. But under the influence of music, beautiful art, the darkness dissipates. A thin beam on the girl's shoulder symbolizes a resurgent faith in a bright life.
The second part of the verse begins with the fourth stanza. Blok showed how dreams, hope, faith in beauty differ from real life. The crying child is the one who quickly sobers us up, showing the real cruel reality.
It was Alexander Blok's favorite verse. He always, when reading to the public, ended his speech with this particular poem.
Analysis of the poem The girl sang in the church choir according to plan
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