Alexander Blok is the great poet of old, pre-October Russia, who completed with his work the poetic quest of the entire 19th century. Anna Andreevna Akhmatova wrote: “Blok is not only the greatest European poet of the first quarter of the 20th century, but also a man of the era.” In his work, Alexander Blok reflected the essential features of this turbulent, turning point era. The reflection of the Russian revolution lies in his poems and poems.
Sizzling years!
Is there thoughtlessness in you, is there hope?
From the days of war, from the days of freedom
There is a bloody glow in the faces.
We can say that Blok’s historical mission as a poet, critic, and publicist was to bring the culture of the past into direct contact with his time. The poet was the link between the literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This is probably why Blok’s work and appearance combine incompatible personality traits and qualities.
Blok is classic, restrained, deeply intellectual and intelligent. He is the most prominent representative of one of the most fashionable modernist movements - symbolism, in which he saw the expression of the rebellious quest of his time. In the content of his work, Blok went far beyond the limits of the symbolist doctrine, but he remained faithful to the aesthetics and poetics of symbolism until the end of his days, acutely aware of the “anxieties of his time.”
In the passionate, musical language of his poetry, Blok brilliantly expressed his premonition of an approaching turning point in world life.
And black earth blood
Promises us, swelling our veins,
All destroying boundaries,
Unheard of changes
Unprecedented riots.
In the poetic world of Blok, who, as a creator, was looking for compressed poetic forms, concrete images turned into capacious symbols that spoke of the infinite. One or two “magic” words could mean infinitely many things to him. We find the most famous, classic examples of this in the poems “Beautiful Lady”, “Stranger”, “Unexpected Joy”. Moreover, the multidimensionality and depth of the implied meanings acquires particular significance.
Blok’s symbolism does not remain unchanged; it is reinterpreted in a new way, crossed with new symbols. In the early poems, for example in “The Stranger,” we have one symbolic series: “a hat with mourning feathers,” “bowed ostrich feathers,” hiding “in a foggy... window,” behind a “dark veil,” “stranger.” In the late poem “About valor, about exploits, about glory...” the image of tragic love, the memory of past happiness and youth is associated with another pictorial series.
The image of the beloved in the portrait appears before us without any haze: “your face in a simple frame. Details associated with the world of everyday life are symbolically generalized: “and he threw the treasured ring into the night,” “the blue cloak,” “the days flew by, spinning in a cursed swarm.” The poem mentions the only detail of the toilet - the “blue cloak”. It is not just worn by the beloved - “she wrapped herself in sadness” in it. Reappearing in a dream, this image takes on the meaning of a symbol. In this poem we find neither stars nor secrets, no mysterious disappearance. “... You left home on a damp night,” - the departure of your beloved is tangible and concrete. But this does not make the perception of the poem mundane; although it is sad, it envelops it in a romantic haze; the symbolism remains deep, with many subtexts .
A similar perception is expressed in Blok’s metaphors. After all, metaphor is, according to Blok, the sister of symbol.
Sunset in the blood!
Blood flows from the heart!
Cry, heart, cry...
There is no peace! Steppe mare
He rushes at a gallop.
("On the Kulikovo Field")
Alexander Blok created a special type of lyric poetry. This poetry is imbued with a keen sense of history and reality. Blok’s lyrical style is not the destruction of old, traditional forms, but the free combination and rearrangement of elements of a wide variety of styles: from romance-elegiac to couplet-ditty. The poet filled the romance with psychological content and created it as a phenomenon not just of “gypsyism”, but of a large literary style:
Spring trembling, and babbling, and rustling,
Eternal, wild dreams,
And your wild beauty
Like a guitar, like a tambourine of spring!
("You are like the echo of a forgotten hymn...")
The melodious and emotional intonation of the romance is adjacent to the colloquial poetic ditty:
Postponed by the young lady
Winter tow...
See how much fun
It's April outside!
Spun over the river
Red sundress,
Happiness, daring, melancholy
The fog began to breathe.
(From the series "Unnecessary Spring")
The principle of contrast and antithesis is Blok’s favorite artistic principle of poetics. Thus, the prologue to the poem “Retribution” is entirely built on the opposite of antonymic words: “Life is without beginning and end. Chance awaits us all...” Or: “He, while affirming, denied, And he affirmed, while denying...”
In plot poems, Blok often uses parallelism to increase the tension of the narrative:
The carriages walked in the usual line,
They shook and creaked;
The yellow and blue ones were silent;
The green ones cried and sang.
("On the railway")
The poet skillfully uses color metaphors: “yellow and blue” (cars of the 1st and 2nd classes), “green” (cars of the 3rd class). Here the “yellows and blues” personify the upper class and its indifferent attitude towards the world of the disadvantaged.
Blok rightly believed that the poet was assigned a special, great and responsible role: “Three tasks are entrusted to him: firstly, to free sounds from the native, beginningless element in which they reside; secondly, to bring these sounds into harmony, to give them form ; thirdly, to bring this harmony into the outside world."
The great attractive power of Blok's verse and the powerful internal energy of its rhythms have been tested by time. These subtle, varied musical rhythms excite, disturb, delight, sadden and inspire. These rhythms make you feel again and again the harmony brought into the world by the great poet. Decades later we hear his prophetic voice:
Perhaps the young man is cheerful
In the future he will say about me:
Forgive the sullenness - is it really
Its hidden engine?
He is all a child of goodness and light,
He is all a triumph of freedom!
The theme of the Motherland in Blok's poetry
The poetic metaphor is well known: “Motherland”. Russian artists often depicted the Motherland in the form of a woman-mother, for example, on posters from the Great Patriotic War. In literary criticism, this method is called “personification.” Thus, the image of Truth can appear in the form of a woman in rags, which symbolizes her persecution and restlessness, and the image of Justice can appear in the form of a woman with scales in her hands and blindfolded, to emphasize her impartiality.
The image of the Motherland in the poetry of Alexander Blok emerges differently. Blok, being a symbolist poet, could not stoop to the level of cheap allegory. The symbolist always pointed to a higher reality, more real than the one we encounter every day.
Here is his poem “Russia” from the cycle “Motherland”: “And you are still the same - a forest and a field, / Yes, a patterned cloth up to the eyebrows...” At first it is as if the earth, a country, space - a forest and a field. But right there, without transition, without the desire for personification - “a patterned board up to the eyebrows.” Before us is a woman - and at the same time a country, this is land - and a beloved, this is a mother - and a wife.
She protects and needs protection. She is humiliated and unapologetically slutty. She is different - and always recognizable: a bright wife - and an enchantress, waiting - and called upon. The one who waits for the departing, in an eternal series of departures and returns. And the one that, with its unsteady appearance, gives stability to existence, confidence in inviolability among the fluctuating reality:
You'll be completely lost in the thick grass.
You can enter a quiet house without knocking...
Hug with his hand, braid with a scythe
And, stately, she will say: “Hello, prince.”
Blok’s homeland is also the one that fights alongside the knight in the cycle “On the Kulikovo Field”:
O my Rus'! My wife! To the point of pain
We have a long way to go!
Our path is an arrow of the ancient Tatar will
Pierced us through the chest.
She is a comrade-in-arms and intercessor:
And with the fog over Sleeping Nepryadva,
Right at me
You came down, in clothes flowing with light,
Without spooking the horse.
The silver waves flashed to a friend
On a steel sword
Freshened up the dusty chain mail
On my shoulder.
She is a poor princess, enchanted and free, she is a “robber beauty,” but she is also a monstrous mask from the poem “My Rus', my life...”. “The numb face looks wild, the Tatar eyes are darting with fire...” Her image sometimes appears as the image of a very specific woman. The poem “On the Railroad” is also included in the “Motherland” cycle, but at the same time dedicated to Maria Pavlovna Ivanova.
The poem “To sin shamelessly, endlessly...” was written partly in polemic with M. Yu. Lermontov’s poem “I love the Fatherland, but with a strange love...”. Blok, as it were, absolves those sins from which Lermontov turns his face away. Or, rather, Lermontov loves in spite of “glory bought with blood,” in spite of the sins of his native country. And Blok loves for his very sins. He loves any of her more than anything in the world, she is the only one for him.
And no matter what masks frightened the poet when they appeared on his beloved face, most often he had the courage to appeal to her for help:
Appear, my wondrous wonder!
Teach me to be bright!
Blok cried out until his beloved face was completely distorted. Then the poet died. Yes, there was a moment when Blok tried to see the beginning of cosmic transformation and the Beautiful Lady in the Bolshevik revolution. Then he was repulsed by her ugliness.
Russian philosopher and publicist Nikolai Berdyaev wrote that Alexander Blok “...belongs to the eternal, transformed Russia, the Russia of the new heaven and new earth, like Pushkin. It is prepared not only by saints, ascetics, those who have purified themselves, who have seen the Divine light, but also by those who yearned, tormented, seduced and fallen, but striving for heights, for life transformed in beauty.”
Alexander Blok is a poet, playwright, literary critic, translator, an outstanding representative of the so-called “younger” symbolism, the largest Russian poet of the 20th century. The first book of poems, “Poems about a Beautiful Lady,” was published in 1904, followed by “Unexpected Joy,” “Snow Mask” (both 1907), “Earth in the Snow” (1908), “Night Hours” (1911), “ Poems about Russia” (1915), etc. He combined most of his poetic heritage into a lyrical “trilogy” (Poems. Book One, 1916; Poems. Book Two, 1918; Poems. Book Three, 1921), which was not included, but adjacent to it are the poems “The Twelve” (1918), “Retribution” (1910-21), “Scythians” (1921) and a number of other works. He wrote several lyrical dramas: “The Showcase,” “The King in the Square,” “The Stranger” (all 1906), the dramatic poem “Song of Fate” (1908), the play “The Rose and the Cross” (1913). He is the author of a number of literary critical articles and essays in which he expressed his aesthetic, historical and cultural views.
Blok’s views on the essence of culture were formed gradually and were most fully revealed in his cultural and historical essays of 1918-21. (“Intellectuals and Revolution”, “Art and Revolution”, “Catilina” (all - 1918), “The Collapse of Humanism”, “On Romanticism” (both - 1919), “On the Purpose of the Poet” (1921), etc. ).
Blok’s culturology combines the traditions of humanistic rationalism, coming from the 19th century with mystical and eschatological trends, the main source of which for B. were the works of Vl. Solovyova. The formation of the cultural concept of B. was significantly influenced by the work of the romantics, R. Wagner, F. Nietzsche, as well as Russian and foreign symbolist contemporaries (M. Maeterlinck, D.S. Merezhkovsky, A. Bely, etc.).
The concept of culture is one of the key ones in views on the essence and dynamics of history, civilization, existence in general, as well as on the problem of the value and meaning of human existence.
The symbolist worldview determines the system of views on culture; he has repeatedly declared his commitment to symbolist ideological and artistic principles. Symbolism for Nevo is expressed in the universal symbolic essence of phenomena, in the affirmation of the theurgic principle in the creative act, in the substantiation of the idea of discovering hidden “other worlds” through artistic and poetic activity, from which follows the prophetic destiny of the artist.
In Blok’s symbolic dualism, the world appears not so much with clearly defined poles (ideal - reality, etc.), as it was in the romantic tradition, but in “the tragic consciousness of the non-merger and inseparability of everything - irreconcilable contradictions that demanded reconciliation” (poem “Retribution”, Preface, 1919). Comprehension of the unity of the world is possible through creativity, which is tragic in nature: overcoming the individual-personal separation of the artist from the integrity of existence is a process filled with courageous and selfless heroism.
The category of life is marked by B. with the aesthetic characteristic of beauty, and here the influence of Nietzsche can be traced, since this category combines the entire fullness of being, refracted in individual experience. Hence the actualization of B. of the motive of the path in the meaning of entry, immersion in being, reunification with it. B. considers artistry, understood as an organic experience in individual experience of the fullness and beauty of life, to be the ideal of human existence.
In his concept of culture, Blok constantly operates with stable oppositions such as: integrity - fragmentation, being - society, chaos - space, elements - civilization, people - intelligentsia, etc.
Blok's historical and cultural position is eschatological. He contrasts the external, eventful course of things with the mysticism of life, the mysticism of history, identified through artistic vision. The world, in the concept, is in anticipation of an eschatological catastrophe, the essence of which lies in the self-discovery of the elemental-chaotic fundamental principles of existence, in their “retribution” in relation to civilization, which formalizes and limits the mystical-spiritual principles of integral life. The essential reveals itself in the “spirit of music,” which synthesizes chaos and space, element and harmony.
The measure of the greatness of a particular cultural and historical era depends on its proximity to catastrophic shocks. History is conceived as an arena of struggle between the elements and civilization, and culture is the identification and demonstration of this hidden struggle. B. is an opponent of progressivism, arguing, on the one hand, the explosive nature of the historical process, and, on the other hand, the value stability of being, revealed and materialized in culture.
Eschatologism determines the peculiar “engagement” of his positions, the consciousness of himself and the world “at the door.” The future is read by the signs of the present, and the latter, in turn, is mystically organized and directed by the essential energies of existence, symbolically captured by culture.
In the ontological aspect, culture is thought of as a humanized, humanized other being of primordial chaos: “Chaos is a primitive, elemental lack of beginning; space - arranged harmony, culture; out of chaos the cosmos is born; the elements contain within themselves the seeds of culture; harmony is created from anarchy” (“On the Purpose of a Poet”, 1921). The spontaneous, according to him, manifests itself in natural phenomena (wind, blizzard, etc.), which carry within themselves the “spirit of music.” The spontaneous and mystical form a unity, conceptualized as reality, “the only one that gives meaning to life, the world and art” (“On the modern state of Russian symbolism”, 1910). Based on the idea of the “beginninglessness” of the elements, it asserts the indestructibility of culture, since it captures the “spirit of music” in its symbolic images.
He even interprets the revolution not in a narrow social way, but likens it to a natural element. For him, revolution is a cleansing force that directly reveals the essential existential values embodied in culture: “I think that life will not protect, but will cruelly destroy everything that is not welded together, not illuminated by the spirit of true culture” (“The Collapse of Humanism”).
In the socio-historical aspect, cultural studies highlights the opposition between culture and civilization. “There are, as it were, two times, two spaces; one is historical, calendar, the other is innumerable, musical. Only the first time and the first space are invariably present in the civilized consciousness; in the second we live only when we feel close to nature, when we surrender to the musical wave emanating from the world orchestra” (“The Collapse of Humanism”, 1919). In his early works (1906-08), B. does not distinguish between the concepts of culture and civilization. In a number of articles (“The People and the Intelligentsia”, “Irony”, “Element and Culture”, all - 1908, etc.) culture is characterized as mechanistic, formalized, limited, socio-historical and therefore contrasted with “raging elements”.
However, already in 1909 (“Lightning of Art”) clearly separated the concepts of civilization, characterizing it negatively, and culture, revealing its kinship with the elements. and later insisted on the need to separate these two concepts (“On historical paintings”, 1919). If in culture there is a balance between the material and spiritual, then in civilization this balance shifts towards the material. Blok considers civilization to be the result of the degeneration of a particular culture. Civilization is mechanistic and unspiritual, its progress enslaves people, which prepares for it “retribution” from the elemental principle. Civilization is hostile to the “spirit of music.” Culture occupies an intermediate position between it and the elements, and this allows, in the romantic tradition, to establish a double opposition: culture opposes civilization as spirit opposes matter; culture is in confrontation with the elements as space is with chaos (“On Romanticism”, 1919). Here again Blok’s idea of “inseparability - non-fusion” finds its expression.
The opposition traditional for Russian culture of the 19th century: the people - the intelligentsia - remains relevant for B. In the 1900s. B. consistently pursues the idea of the unity of the people's life and the people's spirit, correlated with the elemental, natural principle. The intelligentsia, especially the artistic and creative intelligentsia, is a conglomerate of uncoordinated and isolated individual wills. At the same time, Blok speaks of the intelligentsia’s craving for the people as a manifestation of the “instinct of self-preservation,” which, however, turns into suicide for it (“People and Intelligentsia,” 1908).
The self-denial of the intelligentsia means for them the recognition and acceptance of the primacy of the spontaneous-spiritual principle over the fragmentation and alienation generated by civilization. B. indicates the intermediate position of the intellectual - cultural figure - between the elements and civilization. However, already in the early 1910s. and especially after the revolution, he affirms the idea of deep spiritual unity of the intelligentsia and the people in the face of the catastrophic nature of the world (“On the modern state of Russian symbolism”, 1910, “Intellectuals and Revolution”, 1918, etc.). At the same time, the functions of a bearer of culture are not the exclusive privilege of the intelligentsia: “If we talk about introducing humanity to culture, then it is still unknown who will associate whom with greater right: civilized people of barbarians or vice versa: since civilized people have become exhausted and have lost their cultural integrity; in such times, the unconscious guardians of culture turn out to be the more recent barbarian masses” (“The Collapse of Humanism”, 1919). The poem “Scythians” (1918) is imbued with the same thought.
B. paid considerable attention to the problem of Russian culture and its destinies. In poetry and critical prose, he demonstrates his involvement in the historical destinies and mystical destiny of Russia. In his later articles (1918-21), B. compares the fate of European culture - which has degenerated into civilization and is losing its organic nature - and Russian culture.
The theme of the eschatology of Russia - a country carrying a message to the world - in Blok's concept is combined with the construction of a historical series of national cultural patterns. The full expression of the Russian national spirit was revealed in the Pushkin era, “the only cultural era in Russia of the last century” (“On the appointment of a poet,” 1921). Then, in the “nineteenth, iron century” (“Retribution”), the “terrible abyss of intellectual timelessness” (The Fate of Apollo Grigoriev, 1915), marked by the dominance of civilization over culture, ideology over spirit, is revealed. History of culture of the 19th century. B. calls it the history of the struggle of civilization with the “spirit of music” (The Collapse of Humanism). However, he traces a prophetic trend in Russian spiritual life of the 19th century. Gogol, Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, Vl. Soloviev is a kind of messenger of the mystery of the coming transformation of Russia. Turn of the 19th-20th centuries. signified by a premonition of disaster, from which both decadently desperate and tragic-heroic moods follow. On the eve of grandiose upheavals, Russian culture reveals qualities of majesty and pan-humanity. Russian culture of the future, according to B., should become an organic synthesis of national and universal, artistic and prophetic, individually creative and spontaneous.
Literature:
- 1. Lakshin V.Ya. Fates: from Pushkin to Blok. M., 1990; Avramenko A.P. A. Blok and Russian poets of the 19th century. M., 1990; Beketova M.A. Memories of
- 2. Alexandre Blok.M.. 1990; Alexander Blok: Research. and materials. L., 1991; Novikova T.L. Fine art in the early work of Alexander Blok. M., 1993; Alexander Blok: New materials and research. In 5 books. M., 1980-1993; Zhigach L.V. A. Blok and Russian culture. Tver, 1993.
Oh, I want to live crazy:
All that exists is to perpetuate,
The impersonal - to humanize,
Unfulfilled - make it happen!
Alexander Blok
Alexander Blok was a poet of the greatest historical milestone. He is a great poet of old, pre-October Russia, who completed with his work the poetic quest of the entire 19th century. Anna Andreevna Akhmatova wrote: “Blok is not only the greatest European poet of the first quarter of the 20th century, but also a man of the era.”
In his work, Alexander Blok reflected the essential features of this turbulent, turning point era. The reflection of the Russian revolution lies in his poems and poems.
Sizzling years!
Is there thoughtlessness in you, is there hope?
From the days of war, from the days of freedom
Bloody reflection in. there are faces.
We can say that Blok’s historical mission as a poet, critic, and publicist was to bring the culture of the past into direct contact with his time. The poet was the link between the literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This is probably why Blok’s work and appearance combine incompatible personality traits and qualities.
Blok is classic, restrained, deeply intellectual and intelligent. He is the most prominent representative of one of the most fashionable modernist movements - symbolism, in which he saw the expression of the rebellious quest of his time. In the content of his work, Blok went far beyond the limits of the symbolist doctrine, but he remained faithful to the aesthetics and poetics of symbolism until the end of his days, acutely aware of the “anxieties of his time.”
In the passionate, musical language of his poetry, Blok brilliantly expressed his premonition of an approaching turning point in world life.
And black earth blood
Promises us, swelling our veins,
All destroying boundaries,
Unheard of changes
Unprecedented riots.
In the poetic world of Blok, who, as a creator, was looking for compressed poetic forms, concrete images turned into capacious symbols that spoke of the infinite. One or two “magic” words could mean infinitely many things to him. We find the most famous, classic examples of this in the poems “Beautiful Lady”, “Stranger”, “Unexpected Joy”. Moreover, the multidimensionality and depth of the implied meanings acquires particular significance.
Blok’s symbolism does not remain unchanged; it is reinterpreted in a new way, crossed with new symbols. In the early poems, for example in “The Stranger,” we have one symbolic series: “a hat with mourning feathers,” “bowed ostrich feathers,” hiding “in a foggy... window,” behind a “dark veil,” “stranger.” In the late poem “About valor, about exploits, about glory...” the image of tragic love, the memory of past happiness and youth is associated with another pictorial series.
The image of the beloved in the portrait appears before us without any haze: “your face in a simple frame. Details associated with the world of everyday life are symbolically generalized: “and he threw the treasured ring into the night,” “the blue cloak,” “the days flew by, spinning in a cursed swarm.” The poem mentions the only detail of the toilet - the “blue cloak”. It is not just worn by the beloved - “she wrapped herself in sadness” in it. Reappearing in a dream, this image takes on the meaning of a symbol. In this poem we find neither stars nor secrets, no mysterious disappearance. “... You left home on a damp night,” - the departure of your beloved is tangible and concrete. But this does not make the perception of the poem mundane; although it is sad, it envelops it in a romantic haze; the symbolism remains deep, with many subtexts .
A similar perception is expressed in Blok’s metaphors. After all, metaphor is, according to Blok, the sister of symbol.
Sunset in the blood!
Blood flows from the heart!
Cry, heart, cry...
There is no peace! Steppe mare
He rushes at a gallop.
("On the Kulikovo Field")
Alexander Blok created a special type of lyric poetry. This poetry is imbued with a keen sense of history and reality. Blok’s lyrical style is not the destruction of old, traditional forms, but the free combination and rearrangement of elements of a wide variety of styles: from romance-elegiac to couplet-ditty. The poet filled the romance with psychological content and created it as a phenomenon not just of “gypsyism”, but of a large literary style:
Spring trembling, and babbling, and rustling,
Eternal, wild dreams,
And your wild beauty
Like a guitar, like a tambourine of spring!
("You are like the echo of a forgotten hymn...")
The melodious and emotional intonation of the romance is adjacent to the colloquial poetic ditty:
The young woman put aside the Winter tow...
See how much fun it's April outside!
The Red Sundress unfurled over the river,
The fog breathed with happiness, daring, and melancholy.
(From the series "Unnecessary Spring")
The principle of contrast and antithesis is Blok’s favorite artistic principle of poetics. Thus, the prologue to the poem “Retribution” is entirely built on the opposite of antonymic words: “Life is without beginning and end. A case awaits us all...” Or: “He, while claiming, denied. And he asserted, denying...”
In plot poems, Blok often uses parallelism to increase the tension of the narrative:
The carriages walked in a familiar line.
They shook and creaked;
The yellow and blue ones were silent;
The green ones cried and sang.
("On the railway")
The poet skillfully uses color metaphors: “yellow and blue1 (1st and 2nd class carriages), “green” (3rd class carriages). Here “yellow and blue” personify the upper class and its indifferent attitude towards the world of the disadvantaged.
Blok rightly believed that the poet was assigned a special, great and responsible role: “Three tasks are entrusted to him: firstly, to free sounds from the native, beginningless element in which they reside; secondly, to bring these sounds into harmony, to give them form ; thirdly, to bring this harmony into the outside world."
The great attractive power of Blok's verse and the powerful internal energy of its rhythms have been tested by time. These subtle, varied musical rhythms excite, disturb, delight, sadden and inspire. These rhythms make you feel again and again the harmony brought into the world by the great poet. Decades later we hear his prophetic voice:
Perhaps the young man is cheerful
In the future he will say about me:
Forgive the sullenness - is it really
Its hidden engine?
He is all a child of goodness and light,
He is all a triumph of freedom!
The tragedy of the lyrical hero in a “terrible world.” The originality of lyrical intonation.
Subject "scary world"- cross-cutting in Blok’s work.
A person living in "terrible world" experiences its harmful influence. At the same time, moral values suffer, destructive passions take possession of a person. The lyrical hero himself falls under the influence of these dark forces: his soul tragically experiences the state of its own sinfulness, unbelief, emptiness, and mortal fatigue.
The tragic attitude takes on cosmic proportions:
Worlds are flying. The years fly by. Empty
The Universe looks at us with dark eyes.
And you, soul, tired, deaf,
You keep talking about happiness - how many times?
"In the restaurant"
I will never forget (it was, or was not, this evening): the fire of dawn burned and parted the pale sky, And in the yellow dawn - lanterns.
And now, in response, the strings struck something, the bows sang frantically... But you were with me with all the contempt of youth, a barely noticeable trembling of the hand...
I was sitting by the window in a crowded room. Somewhere the bows were singing about love. I sent you a black rose in a glass as golden as the sky, ah.
You rushed with the movement of a frightened bird, You passed as if my dream was light... And the spirits sighed, the eyelashes dozed off, The silks whispered anxiously.
But from the depths of the mirrors you cast your glances at me And, casting them, you shouted: “Catch!
You looked. I greeted the arrogant gaze with embarrassment and daring and bowed. Turning to the gentleman, you deliberately said sharply: “And this one is in love.”
There is no love among the people surrounding the lyrical hero of this poem: the lines sound rude “...the monist strummed, the gypsy danced and screamed at the dawn about love.” But the girl who confused the hero "with an arrogant gaze" and words "And this one is in love", it becomes a pity.
We understand that this behavior of hers is only ostentatious: she talks "deliberately harsh" noticeably "hand trembling" and she leaves "the movement of a frightened bird." The desire to love and be loved is hidden somewhere in the depths of her soul.
“Night, street, lantern, pharmacy...”
Night, street, lantern, pharmacy,
Pointless and dim light.
Live for at least another quarter of a century -
Everything will be like this. There is no outcome.
If you die, you'll start over again
And everything will repeat itself as before:
Night, icy ripples of the channel,
Pharmacy, street, lamp.
The main idea of the poem is the thought of the fatal cycle of life, of its hopelessness.)
This is facilitated by the ring composition of the work, precise and succinct epithets (“meaningless and dim light”, “icy ripples of the canal”) and unusual hyperbole (“If you die, you start over again”)
"On the railway".
This poem is interesting because it combines real and symbolic .
Find signs of reality in the text.
“An unmown ditch,” “a platform,” “a garden with faded bushes.”
The carriages walked in the usual line,
They shook and creaked;
The yellow and blue ones were silent;
The green ones cried and sang.
Here we see not just real signs of a moving train (yellow, blue, green - cars of 2, 1 and 3 classes), but symbols of differently shaped human destinies.
This is a young woman who experienced the collapse of hopes for possible happiness... “So the useless youth rushed, // Exhausted in empty dreams...”. And now “she is crushed.” And what – “love, dirt or wheels” – is not important: “everything hurts.”)
Under the embankment, in the unmown ditch,
Lies and looks as if alive,
In a colored scarf thrown on her braids,
Beautiful and young.
Isn’t this the desecrated, “crushed” Russia itself? After all, in Blok she often appears in the guise of a woman in a colorful or patterned scarf.
The theme of the “terrible world” is continued by two small cycles - "Retribution" and "Iambics".
Retribution is a person’s condemnation of himself, the judgment of his own conscience. The payback is mental devastation, fatigue from life. Poem "Retribution" consonant "urban" Blok's lyrics: it contains the theme “machine civilization”, “the tireless roar of the machine, forging destruction day and night”, warnings against it.
The city for the Bloc is an indictment against the social order:
To the impenetrable horror of life
Open quickly, open your eyes,
Until the great thunderstorm
I didn’t dare everything in your homeland... -
"Yes. This is how inspiration dictates...” (1911).
In a loop "Iambics" retribution no longer threatens the individual, but the whole "terrible world"
Thus, the poet affirms the triumph of humanity:
Oh, I want to live crazy:
All that exists is to perpetuate,
The impersonal - to humanize,
Unfulfilled - make it happen!
Blok himself said: “Very unpleasant poems... It would be better for these words to remain unspoken. But I had to say them. Difficult things must be overcome. And behind it there will be a clear day.”
IN "clear day" The poet continues to believe in Russia and dedicates the best poems to his homeland.
Homework.
1. Trace the end-to-end images and symbols in Blok’s poems (sea, wind, blizzard).
2. Individual message on the topic “Blok’s poem “Russia”. Perception, interpretation, evaluation."
Artistic features of Blok's lyrics
Oh, I want to live crazy:
All that exists is to perpetuate,
The impersonal - to humanize,
Unfulfilled - make it happen!
Alexander Blok
Alexander Blok was a poet of the greatest historical milestone. He is a great poet of old, pre-October Russia, who completed with his work the poetic quest of the entire 19th century. Anna Andreevna Akhmatova wrote: “Blok is not only the greatest European poet of the first quarter of the 20th century, but also a man of the era.”
In his work, Alexander Blok reflected the essential features of this turbulent, turning point era. The reflection of the Russian revolution lies in his poems and poems.
Sizzling years!
Is there thoughtlessness in you, is there hope?
From the days of war, from the days of freedom
Bloody reflection in. there are faces.
We can say that Blok’s historical mission as a poet, critic, and publicist was to bring the culture of the past into direct contact with his time. The poet was the link between the literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This is probably why Blok’s work and appearance combine incompatible personality traits and qualities.
Blok is classic, restrained, deeply intellectual and intelligent. He is the most prominent representative of one of the most fashionable modernist movements - symbolism, in which he saw the expression of the rebellious quest of his time. In the content of his work, Blok went far beyond the limits of the symbolist doctrine, but he remained faithful to the aesthetics and poetics of symbolism until the end of his days, acutely aware of the “anxieties of his time.”
In the passionate, musical language of his poetry, Blok brilliantly expressed his premonition of an approaching turning point in world life.
And black earth blood
Promises us, swelling our veins,
All destroying boundaries,
Unheard of changes
Unprecedented riots.
In the poetic world of Blok, who, as a creator, was looking for compressed poetic forms, concrete images turned into capacious symbols that spoke of the infinite. One or two “magic” words could mean infinitely many things to him. We find the most famous, classic examples of this in the poems “Beautiful Lady”, “Stranger”, “Unexpected Joy”. Moreover, the multidimensionality and depth of the implied meanings acquires particular significance.
Blok’s symbolism does not remain unchanged; it is reinterpreted in a new way, crossed with new symbols. In the early poems, for example in “The Stranger,” we have one symbolic series: “a hat with mourning feathers,” “bowed ostrich feathers,” hiding “in a foggy... window,” behind a “dark veil,” “stranger.” In the late poem “About valor, about exploits, about glory...” the image of tragic love, the memory of past happiness and youth is associated with another pictorial series.
The image of the beloved in the portrait appears before us without any haze: “your face in a simple frame. Details associated with the world of everyday life are symbolically generalized: “and he threw the treasured ring into the night,” “the blue cloak,” “the days flew by, spinning in a cursed swarm.” The poem mentions the only detail of the toilet - the “blue cloak”. It is not just worn by the beloved - “she wrapped herself in sadness” in it. Reappearing in a dream, this image takes on the meaning of a symbol. In this poem we find neither stars nor secrets, no mysterious disappearance. “... You left home on a damp night,” - the departure of your beloved is tangible and concrete. But this does not make the perception of the poem mundane; although it is sad, it envelops it in a romantic haze; the symbolism remains deep, with many subtexts .
A similar perception is expressed in Blok’s metaphors. After all, metaphor is, according to Blok, the sister of symbol.
Sunset in the blood!
Blood flows from the heart!
Cry, heart, cry...
There is no peace! Steppe mare
He rushes at a gallop.
("On the Kulikovo Field")
Alexander Blok created a special type of lyric poetry. This poetry is imbued with a keen sense of history and reality. Blok’s lyrical style is not the destruction of old, traditional forms, but the free combination and rearrangement of elements of a wide variety of styles: from romance-elegiac to couplet-ditty. The poet filled the romance with psychological content and created it as a phenomenon not just of “gypsyism”, but of a large literary style:
Spring trembling, and babbling, and rustling,
Eternal, wild dreams,
And your wild beauty
Like a guitar, like a tambourine of spring!
("You are like the echo of a forgotten hymn...")
The melodious and emotional intonation of the romance is adjacent to the colloquial poetic ditty:
The young woman put aside the Winter tow...
See how much fun it's April outside!
The Red Sundress unfurled over the river,
The fog breathed with happiness, daring, and melancholy.
(From the series "Unnecessary Spring")
The principle of contrast and antithesis is Blok’s favorite artistic principle of poetics. Thus, the prologue to the poem “Retribution” is entirely built on the opposite of antonymic words: “Life is without beginning and end. A case awaits us all...” Or: “He, while claiming, denied. And he asserted, denying...”
In plot poems, Blok often uses parallelism to increase the tension of the narrative:
The carriages walked in a familiar line.
They shook and creaked;
The yellow and blue ones were silent;
The green ones cried and sang.
("On the railway")
The poet skillfully uses color metaphors: “yellow and blue1 (1st and 2nd class carriages), “green” (3rd class carriages). Here “yellow and blue” personify the upper class and its indifferent attitude towards the world of the disadvantaged.
Blok rightly believed that the poet was assigned a special, great and responsible role: “Three tasks are entrusted to him: firstly, to free sounds from the native, beginningless element in which they reside; secondly, to bring these sounds into harmony, to give them form ; thirdly, to bring this harmony into the outside world."
The great attractive power of Blok's verse and the powerful internal energy of its rhythms have been tested by time. These subtle, varied musical rhythms excite, disturb, delight, sadden and inspire. These rhythms make you feel again and again the harmony brought into the world by the great poet. Decades later we hear his prophetic voice:
Perhaps the young man is cheerful
In the future he will say about me:
Forgive the sullenness - is it really
Its hidden engine?
He is all a child of goodness and light,
He is all a triumph of freedom!
