What images and symbols are typical for the poetry of the block. Full analysis of the bloc's poem "Russia"

Alexander Blok lived and worked at the turn of two eras: he turned out to be the last great poet of old Russia, who completed the poetic quest of the entire nineteenth century, and his name, as the author of the poems “The Twelve” and “Scythians,” opens the first page of Russian poetry of modern times. By the nature of his genius, A. Blok was a lyricist: if his most famous plays and poems over time have undergone different attitudes, from admiration to rejection, then his best love poems have always been considered an example of perfect poetry on a par with the masterpieces of A. S. Pushkin and M. Yu. Lermontov, F. I. Tyutchev and A. A. Fet. The main feature of his lyrical poems is that they have always been inextricably linked not only with the immediate events of the poet’s personal life, but also with history, the time in which he happened to live. “The personal passion of a poet,” believed A. Blok, “is always saturated with the spirit of the era.” He himself went through many trials, deceptions, temptations before he fully realized what love becomes in the inhuman conditions of a “terrible world.”
The cycle of “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” (1901-1902) marked the beginning of A. Blok’s creative path as an already established and original artist. This cycle was inspired by the poet's lover and wife - the daughter of the great Russian scientist Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva. At that time, A. Blok was strongly influenced by the ideas of Plato, the idealistic philosophy of the poet Vladimir Solovyov, in whose poems the divine power, called upon to revive and transform humanity, was embodied in the image of the Eternal Feminine. So A. Blok sees in his beloved not an ordinary earthly girl, but a hypostasis of the Divine - the Virgin, the Dawn, “the Woman clothed in the sun.” At the same time, he feels like a knight who has made a vow of eternal service to his beloved, his Beautiful Lady:
I enter dark temples,
I perform a poor ritual.
There I am waiting for the Beautiful Lady
In the flickering red lamps.
The poet imagined himself as the “god of the mysterious world” and thought that the entire universe was contained in his dreams.
Already in the earliest poems of A. Blok, the image of the lyrical hero bifurcates. This is not only a “joyless and dark monk” humbly performing his service in the name of the Beautiful Lady, but also simply a “handsome and tall” young man, full of vitality.
Gradually, the experiences of the boy, who found his highest purpose in lighting candles in front of the face of his beloved, are replaced by other passions, completely earthly, stormy, rebellious. The Beautiful Lady gives way to an earthly woman “with the living fire of winged eyes” - the embodiment of love-passion that filled the poet’s entire soul, which “is faithful to no one, nothing.” This is “The Stranger,” who, “breathing spirits and mists,” sits alone by the window in a restaurant on Ozerki, a lyrical masterpiece of the early Blok, and the heroine of “The Snow Mask,” and Faina.
The cycles “Snow Mask” and “Faina” are associated with A. Blok’s passion for the Meyerhold theater actress Natalya Nikolaevna Volokhova. “Silver nights”, melodious blizzards, dark distances, flying stars, “brilliant running of a sleigh” - all this merged into an indissoluble artistic unity in “Snow Mask”, which A. Blok, emphasizing its internal integrity, called in the manuscript “Lyrical Poem” . It enshrines the typical features of the poet’s artistic style of that time - a metaphorical style and the bewitching music of the verse.
If in “Snow Mask” the female image acts as a kind of symbol of elemental tragic passion, then in “Faina” the specific character of a “dark woman”, “snake woman” already appears:
But there is immensity in your name,
And the red twilight of your eyes
Conceals serpentine infidelity...
An important aspect of Faina’s image is the embodiment of freedom and prowess of the national Russian female character. The lines sound almost Nekrasov-like:
I look - I threw up my hands,
She began to dance widely.
She showered everyone with flowers
And it came out in song.
The time will come, and A. Blok will understand that “you can’t love gypsy dreams - or you can only burn out” (as he writes in his diary). Awakening from these dreams will form a new chapter in his love lyrics.
The endless confusion of relations with Lyubov Dmitrievna, stretching from year to year, for which the poet himself was largely to blame, having succumbed to the temptations of his cynical age, was a source of severe mental torment for A. Blok. But she also fueled his creativity, and we owe to her the emergence of many lyrical masterpieces. The image of “the only one in the world”, sweet and bitter memories of the “wonderful” that happened in 1898-1902, the consciousness of one’s guilt and the hopelessness of what happened - this thread in A. Blok’s lyrics does not break until the very end. Everyone is familiar with such poems directly addressed to his wife as “About valor, about exploits, about glory...” (1908), “The sound is approaching...” (1912) and, of course, “Before the Court” (1915 g.), where there are lines full of the highest wisdom and endless, hard-won love:
Not only do I have no right,
I can't blame you
For your torment, for your evil one,
Many women are destined to...

This strand is so golden
Isn't it from the old fire? -
Passionate, godless, empty,
Unforgettable, forgive me!
But this is not just a reflection of personal drama in poetry. The poet's drama, transformed into a phenomenon of art, organically entered into the general historical and ideological-moral context of A. Blok's poetry. This is especially obvious in those poems where the image of the beloved is combined with the image of the Motherland, Russia. Moreover, for A. Blok, unlike the old Russian poets, the homeland is most often not his mother, but his wife or bride. Here is the final stanza of the poem “Autumn Day”:
Oh, my poor country,
What do you mean to your heart?
Oh my poor wife
Why are you crying bitterly?
The poet realizes that no happiness is possible until the answer to these questions is found, he affirms the unity of love with the whole world of human experiences and thoughts, sees their interconnection and interpenetration.
Even while painting pictures of a “terrible world,” he cannot rid himself of the memory of his personal drama, which, as he understands, is also a product of this world, which has crippled the souls of people and undermined their moral foundations. Reflections on the hopelessness of existence in the poem “Night is like night, and the street is deserted...” are complemented by a piercing note of personal misfortune:
To whom were you innocent?
And proud?
Thus, an enthusiastic young man, immersed in mystical fantasies, over the years turned into a stern and angry artist, a strict judge, merciless to all kinds of lies and irresponsible “light fun.”
A true pearl of A. Blok’s love lyrics is the “Carmen” cycle (1914), ten poems addressed to the opera singer Lyubov Alexandrovna Delmas. The poet wrote a lot about the powerful liberating passion that lifts a person high above the world of everyday life, but never before has the experience of such passion reached such intensity in his poems as in “Carmen”:
And I forgot all the days, all the nights,
And my heart began to bleed
Everything is music and light...
In all his lyrics it is difficult to find more sonorous, jubilant and enthusiastic notes. At the same time, Blok would not have been Blok if he had not introduced tragic notes into his broad, major-sounding symphony:
But how the azure shines through the darkness of the night,
So this face sometimes looks terrible,
And the gold of the curls is red and red,
And the voice is the roar of forgotten storms.
The cycle “Carmen” was written on the famous story of Merimee, written in a publicly accessible language - in glorification of living, human passion, incompatible with aestheticism, or with anything artificial or invented.
Thus, on the way “from the personal to the general,” in the words of the poet, the content of his love lyrics changed significantly. If at first love for the lyrical hero A. Blok is something ethereal and unearthly, then it is a reckless element, “a storm of gypsy passions,” then later bright and truly human, harmoniously beautiful features appear in it more and more. Over the years, the poet’s lyrics increasingly became a call to the future, a call to heroism, to free his beloved, bride, Russia, to bring her “spring at the tip of the spear.” This evolution determined her special place in world literature and earned her the love of many, many generations.

Composition

I. A. Blok is a representative of Russian symbolism.

II. The evolution of Blok's poetic symbolism.

1. Blok’s early work.

2. Symbolism of the poem “Factory”.

3. The symbolic meaning of the image of the Stranger.

4. “The Twelve” is a poem about the revolution.

III. From the singer of the Beautiful Lady to the singer of Russia.

Every poem is a veil, stretched on the edges of a few words that glow like stars.

Alexander Blok is one of the brightest representatives of the “Silver Age” of Russian poetry. He began his creative journey among the symbolists, and soon turned out to be not only the brightest star in the constellation of talents, but also took a special place in this direction, often contradicting the laws of symbolism with his poems and literary and social position. Symbolism is one of the most complex and controversial trends in Russian literature. Many of the symbolists relied on the ideas of Plato and liked to repeat: “Everything is transitory, except the symbol.”

A. Blok had the opportunity to live and work in one of the most tragic eras of Russian history. And the deep imprint of this time lies on his work. The despair that sometimes floated over Blok like a cloud cannot be crossed out or erased. Without him, he would not be Blok. In addition, his poems are musical. They must contain symbols. And, despite the fact that Blok broke with the symbolists, the use of symbols in poems is one of the main features of his poetry. In the early period of his creativity, Blok was greatly influenced by the poetry of Vl. Solovyov, who believed that the basis of the world is the “divine principle.” It manifests itself in the “world soul”, in the Eternal Feminine. For Blok, as for Vl. Solovyov, the world process is also the embodiment of Eternal Femininity. These views were reflected in A. Blok’s early collection “Poems about a Beautiful Lady.” The Beautiful Lady is a symbol of love, a symbol of life itself with all its dramatic contradictions. However, in “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” the beloved is devoid of earthly features, she is endowed with the signs of a real deity. In serving the Beautiful Lady, who must transform the world, the poet saw his main feat of life.

I have a feeling about you. The years pass by.
All in one form I foresee You.
The entire horizon is on fire and unbearably clear,
And I wait silently, yearning and loving...

Over time, the former image of the Beautiful Lady fades. Blok has other symbols that reflect the surrounding reality and the contradictions of the capitalist city. Thus, in the poem “Factory” a “motionless someone, a black someone” appears, who counts people in silence, a symbol of the culprits of human grief, a force that brings suffering to people. People silently and humbly endure this suffering. And the silence that is present in the poem is a symbol of submission.

One of the famous poems by A. Blok is “Stranger”. In this poem the female image appears again. Blok tried to find in every woman the ideal of Eternal Femininity, a symbol of beauty and love. A stranger is a symbol of the beautiful, the desired, the ideal. Blok contrasts the world of vulgarity with the world of a sublime ideal. In some ways, the Stranger resembles a Beautiful Lady. But this is already the image of a living woman with her intoxicating beauty.

The poem “The Twelve,” which is dedicated to the revolution, also has many symbols. The wind, a symbol of change, passes through the entire work, constantly accompanying the main characters of the poem, the twelve Red Army soldiers. The image of Christ, who leads the Red Army soldiers, is also symbolic. Blok could not find another image that could, in its capacity, symbolically express the idea of the birth of a new world. Christ is a preacher of high moral truths, the embodiment of holiness, humanity, justice, and purity. This is exactly how Blok wanted to see the future Russia, the Russia to which he devoted his entire life.

Blok’s work is the bright final chord of Russian symbolism. Blok’s path is the path from the singer of the Beautiful Lady to the singer of Russia. But the mature Blok does not cross out the young Blok. The poet always remained true to himself, but moved forward in search of an ideal. Blok’s overcoming of symbolism and abandonment of it did not mean abandonment of the symbol. From mystical, vague symbolism, the poet moved towards symbols of a realistic and romantic nature.

To better understand how Alexander Blok is connected with symbolism, you need to understand the very concept of “symbolism”.

Russian symbolism is a complex phenomenon. At different stages of development and in the work of different poets and writers, symbolism is revealed in different ways. The first symbolists, led by J. Moreas, appeared in France in the 1880s-1890s. Bryusov took the first steps to establish symbolism in Russia. All Russian symbolists were different. Another person who influenced the worldview of the Symbolists was Vladimir Solovyov. It was his influence that affected the work of Blok, Bely, and Ivanov. They were later called “Solovievites”. Solovyov first appeared such terms as “Beauty”, “Eternal Femininity”, which we will later meet in the poems of A. Blok. In general, among the Symbolists, “Beauty” is the only force that can save the world, it is the only thing that can resist chaos. “Beauty” is above all: ethics, duty, honor.

Vladimir Solovyov borrowed all these terms from the German romantics, who viewed everything earthly through its relationship to the heavenly, eternal, and infinite. Another important feature of the “Soloviev” worldview was the idea of Plato’s “two worlds,” that is, the existence of other worlds. Also an important feature of symbolism was “mythologism” - the perception of the world as a myth. It is also interesting that the symbolists, describing the phenomena of the earthly world. At the same time, they also meant everything that corresponds to this phenomenon in other worlds. Both earthly reality and other worlds are in complete harmony with each other.

In Russia, the division of symbolists into “senior” (“decadants”) and “younger” (mystics - “Solovievites”) is used. “Senior” symbolists made their debut in the 1890s, these included Bryusov, Balmont, Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Sologub. In the 1900s, new forces joined symbolism, these were the “young symbolists”, these included Blok, Bely, Ivanov and others.

The “senior” and “younger” symbolists were separated not only by age, but also by the difference in worldviews and direction of creativity. In the formation of Russian symbolism, three stages (periods) can be distinguished. The first stage is the 1890s. A.A.Blok is not associated with this stage. From the late 1890s to the early 1900s, Blok began to be interested in “new art.” The second stage in the development of symbolism was the 1900s - 1907s. The third stage, 1908-1910, is the “crisis of symbolism.” The “crisis” is manifested in the fact that many symbolists are turning away from the “new art”. Since the mid-1910s, it was possible to talk about symbolism in the past tense.

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok was born in 1880. The poet's name means a lot for Russian literature. With his work he completed the poetic quest for everythingXIXcentury and discovered poetryXXcentury, combining Russian classics and “new art”.

As you know, the future life of any person is influenced by his family and upbringing. Blok was no exception. He was greatly influenced by the “Becket” culture. Many of the poet's relatives were directly connected with literature. Alexander Alexandrovich’s great-grandmother moved in the circles of famous Decembrist poets, his aunt and mother were engaged in translations, and also wrote poems themselves. Blok himself began writing very early, at the age of five. Alexander Blok showed his first poems only to his mother and aunt. A serious turn to literary creativity occurred during the years of graduating from high school and entering the university in 1898.

From childhood, Alexander Alexandrovich began to instill a love not for “new art”, but for classical literature. In the “Becket family”, in general, ancient concepts about literary values and ideals dominated. The family did not accept and did not want to accept the “new art”. Because of this, the poet’s initial attitude towards the “new art” was negative. But, despite this, Alexander often denied the “Becket” traditions and at the same time returned to these traditions.

The poet's first poems were lyrical poems, and by the time the first book, “Poems about a Beautiful Lady,” was published, they had accumulated up to 800. The first book included only 100 poems. Before entering the university, Alexander Alexandrovich did not know what symbolism and “new art” were. The first people who read Blok's poems from outsiders were Mikhail Sergeevich and Olga Mikhailovna Solovyov. Blok did not have to worry about writing poems. He could write from three to five poems a day; once he wrote twenty-six poems - this was almost the entire collection “Snow Mask”.

The first poems of Alexander Blok (1897-1900), subsequently combined into the cycle “AnteLucem”, did not foretell a conflict with the “Becket” culture. These poems indicate that the poet learns a lot from Russian romantics (Pushkin, Lermontov) and mid-century lyricists (Fet, Tyutchev). Although even then he created a style that largely gravitated towards symbolism. In 1898-1900, Blok was not yet a representative of the “new art”. In the cycle "AnteLucem“includes the poems: “Let the moon shine - the night is dark...”, “There is in a wild grove, by a ravine...”, “Every evening, as soon as the dawn goes out...” and others.

The next stage in the work of Alexander Alexandrovich was the time of creation of the collection “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” (1901). The influence of “Becket” traditions was replaced by a deep feeling for L.D. Mendeleeva, the pre-revolutionary sentiments of the people and impressions of the mystical lyrics of Vladimir Solovyov. All this dramatically changed the world of Alexander Blok.

The beginning of the 1900s immediately determined Blok’s place as a junior symbolist. In 1900-1901, Alexander Alexandrovich was not associated with either the “decadents” or the “Solovievites”. Only in 1902 did Alexander Alexandrovich meet Merezhkovsky, and through the Solovyov family he became close to A. Bely. Since the beginning of the century, the poet has been internally resisting the influence of “Becket” culture.

“Poems about a Beautiful Lady” is one of the most profound phenomena of symbolist art in Russia and at the same time a surprisingly original and unique work. In his collection, the poet managed to create a real poetic unity of various symbols. The poems show a combination of two worlds opposed to each other: the “mystical” and the “real”. On the one hand, “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” are an artistic description of the poet’s very earthly experiences and love torments, but on the other hand, they reveal a symbolist sense of the world, its understanding and the ways of development of the universe.

Working on his collection of poems, the poet turns to the poetry and philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov. It was from his works that Alexander Alexandrovich borrowed the idea of an approaching world catastrophe and the doctrine of the World Soul or Eternal Femininity, called upon to renew the world. The poems are a kind of lyrical diary of the intimate, love experiences of the poet himself. The collection of poems is completely autobiographical; the real basis of events is carefully encrypted and translated into a special mystical language.

The main character of the poems is Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva, the daughter of the famous chemist D.I. Mendeleev. The poet met Mendeleeva on the Shakhmatovo estate, and he immediately liked her. Blok tried to look after her, but for a long time she was unapproachable to him and did not pay much attention to him. Alexander Blok wrote “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” until he declared his love to Mendeleeva and proposed to her. The last poem of the cycle was written on November 5, 1902. Just as other representatives of symbolism came up with their ideal of a beloved woman in poems, so A. Blok came up with his own ideal of a woman, and this ideal was Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva.

In Alexander Alexandrovich, the meaning of some poems penetrates into the texts of others. As a result, love, psychological, landscape, mystical plans of the narrative are inextricably linked. Many poems refer to both mystical and real experiences. Sometimes in poems, depictions of earthly feelings push mysticism into the background. One of the significant features of the cycle is that “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” leads us not into the world of mystical utopias of the Symbolists, but into a secluded world, the paradise garden of first love, where only two people live: the lyrical hero and the object of his high love. The reader feels all the feelings and experiences of the characters. In all poems, the Beautiful Lady appears before us as the embodiment of something divine, unknown, magical. The poet in none of the poems gives us a clear portrait of the Beautiful Lady; her image is unclear, foggy. How Alexander Alexandrovich Blok describes the Beautiful Lady and his feelings for her, which is symbolic in the cycle of poems, all this can be understood by analyzing one of the poems from this cycle.

Let's analyze the poem “I Enter Dark Temples...”, written on October 25, 1902.

* * *

I enter dark temples,

I perform a poor ritual.

There I am waiting for the Beautiful Lady

In the flickering red lamps.

In the shadow of a tall column

I'm shaking from the creaking of the doors.

And he looks into my face, illuminated.

Only an image, only a dream about Her.

Oh, I'm used to these robes

Majestic Eternal Wife!

They run high along the cornices

Smiles, fairy tales and dreams.

Oh, Holy One, how tender the candles are,

How pleasing are Your features!

I can't hear neither sighs nor speeches,

But I believe: Darling - You.

The poem is completely permeated with a mysterious, magical, enigmatic atmosphere. The main character of this poem is Alexander Alexandrovich Blok himself. The author writes that he is standing in some temple and waiting for his beloved. The hero loves her very much, while waiting for her he experiences anxiety, he worries. The hero is almost motionless, he is tense. We see the hero’s excitement in these lines - “...In the shadow of a high column // I’m trembling from the creaking of doors...”. The poet depicted the bride, his beloved girl, in the poem as the earthly embodiment of Eternal Femininity. The image of the Beautiful Lady is one of the key ones in the poetry of Alexander Alexandrovich. For him she was the ideal of spiritual beauty, a deity, a symbol of harmony and light. Blok does not give her portrait; the Beautiful Lady appears before us as a vision, a dream. The image of the girl is unrevealed, unsaid, vague, illuminated, divine, holy and unclear. The portrait of the main character is devoid of all human features; her image exists only in the imagination and dreams of the poet. Alexander Blok does not give one name to his beloved, the poet gives her many names: Beautiful Lady, Lady of the Universe, Eternal Femininity. A. Blok is expecting some kind of miracle, this miracle is the appearance of Mendeleeva. Alexander Alexandrovich, standing in the temple, dreams of the Lady becoming his wife. Blok's poem is very melodious, this is due to the use of a trilobed.

Another poem included in the collection “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” is the poem “I, a youth, light candles...”.

I, a lad, light the candles...

He who has a bride is a groom;
and the groom's friend, standing and
listening to him with joy
rejoices hearing the groom's voice.
From John, III, 29

I, a lad, light the candles,
Censer fire on the shore.
She is without thought and without speech
On that shore he laughs.

I love evening prayer
At the White Church above the river,
Before sunset village
And the dusk is dull blue.

Submissive to the tender gaze,
I admire the mystery of beauty,
And beyond the church fence
I throw white flowers.

The foggy curtain will fall.
The groom will come down from the altar.
And from the tops of the jagged forests
The wedding dawn will dawn.

The hero in this poem devoted himself to waiting for the Beautiful Lady. Again, as in the last poem, we do not have a clear portrait of the heroine, her image is unclear, unknown. There is a symbolic color in the poem - this color is white, in the previous poem the red color - symbol was used.

Many poets used color symbolism in their works. With the help of symbolic colors, symbolists expressed their thoughts and feelings. Alexander Alexandrovich also used color symbolism in his poems. The symbolic colors are red, white, blue and shades of these colors. White color emphasizes the spiritual beauty, purity, innocence of the image of the Beautiful Lady, her divine origin. White color is a symbol of the unknown, the unknown, openness, and divine wisdom. Red is the color of mercy, Divine love. The shade of red is pink, it is the color of the resurrection of a person, raising him to a higher level in the spiritual and moral sense, the color of flesh, that is, of something tangible, really existing. Blue is the color of the sky, meaning air, the Holy Spirit and eternal Divine truth. The word "blue" comes from the word "shine", but unlike white it means something dark, an opaque gloomy glow. Also, the blue color symbolizes piety, sincerity, and prudence. The color blue is associated with something unpleasant, close to earthly life.

All of the above symbolic colors are mystical colors that accompany the appearance of the Beautiful Lady. The color black is least likely to be encountered by the reader in Alexander Alexandrovich's poems. Black color is used in contrast to white and denotes earthly life. The color yellow in “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” is not a symbolic color, it is used in its literal meaning. Yellow is the color of nature, autumn. Sometimes Blok uses color contrasts in poems, for example, white and black, yellow and red. In the last poems of the poet there is a struggle between two colors, this is a struggle between black and white, a struggle between death and something supreme.

A. Blok in “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” is still under the strong influence of Vladimir Solovyov. The cycle reflected the ideals of embodied Beauty. But still, Blok’s strong ties with Russian culture also played a big role in the creation of the cycle.XIXcenturies, which arose long before Blok’s turn to “new art”.

The next stage in the formation of A.A. Blok and a new stage in his attitude to symbolism is 1903-1906. On the one hand, it is now, during the years of writing poems that later formed the “Crossroads” cycle, the formation of the texts of Blok’s second collection - “Unexpected Joy” (1907), the creation of a trilogy of lyrical dramas, the poet’s real departure from mystical utopias begins - the first step towards the future an attempt to break with symbolism. On the other hand, for the poet the time of “lonely delight” is ending. He was introduced into his circle by the “meters” of symbolism: in the spring of 1902 he became a visitor to religious and philosophical meetings; he becomes close to Vyacheslav Ivanov and becomes fascinated by the ideas of “mystical anarchism.” In 1904, after a trip to Moscow, Alexander Alexandrovich became close to the Moscow symbolists: with Bryusov and especially with the circle of young Moscow symbolist poets (A. Bely, S. Solovyov and others). Thus, Blok was an enthusiastic follower of the “new art” in the years when his name remained almost unknown in symbolist circles and among readers, and the time of fading of the mystical dawns coincided with the fact that an increasing number of people began to perceive the poet as a bright and promising poet -symbolist.

The awakening interest in revolutionary modernity, in people and social problems, urgently raised the question of the relationship between reality and Blok’s poetic ideal.

University unrest, impressions of lonely walks through the devilish, but at the same time alluring St. Petersburg - all this determined the affiliation of A.A. Blok. New literary impressions also played a certain role - primarily from Bryusov’s collection “Urbiteetorbi" Bryusov showed Alexander Alexandrovich a new poetic path to depicting the reality of modern urban everyday life of a modern person.

At this time, the poet criticizes Merezhkovsky’s “Solovievism” and “Petersburg mysticism”. However, during these years the poet criticizes “decadence” both in Russian symbolism and in himself. But in 1903-1906, unlike the subsequent stages of Blok’s evolution, the rejection of “decadence” often meant an attempt to return to the utopia of world-saving Beauty.

The same contradictions are found in Blok’s work: Blok in the “Crossroads” cycle steadily moves away from belief in the “Beautiful Lady.”

1903-1906 was one of the most dynamic periods of Blok’s evolution.

Alexander Blok begins his journey as an ardent supporter of symbolism, experiences and overcomes the influence of the “St. Petersburg mystics,” and then turns to those symbolist works that are most clearly associated with the mood of the pre-revolutionary years. By the end of the period, Alexander Alexandrovich, as it were, completes the circle of searches within symbolism. His quest is now associated with aspiration from symbolism - to Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy - and, ultimately, to Pushkin. On this path, a new Blok artist is being formed, who revealed all the best creative inclinations of symbolism, which led him to new roads of Russian culture, and at the same time, abandoned everything that prevented other symbolists from entering these roads.

Such poems as “Factory” (1903), “Bubbles of the Earth” (1904), “City” (1904), “Night. The city has calmed down...”(1906) entered the period of creativity of A.A. Blok, which lasted from 1903 to 1906.

Poem "Factory" (1903).

Factory

In the neighboring house the windows are zsolt.

In the evenings - in the evenings

Thoughtful bolts creak,

People approach the gate.

And the gates are silently locked,

And on the wall - and on the wall

motionless someone, black someone

Counts people in silence.

I hear everything from my top:

Bend your weary backs

There are people gathered below.

They will come in and disperse,

They will pile the coolies on their backs.

And they will laugh in the yellow windows,

What did these beggars do?

This poem is written on the topic of social injustice and social inequality. Real events are given by the author conditionally, the images are blurry and vague. The poet draws in the poem the figure of a certain monster with a “copper” voice, the reader sees the bent backs of the workers, the yellow factory windows, in which we can see people laughing at the deceived workers.

The poem tells about a factory where workers come; the reader can imagine the following picture: the factory is like a terrible building that swallows workers as they come. The factory is a symbol of mystical evil. The poem contains the color yellow, this is a symbolic color that symbolizes evil, evil forces, and this color is also associated with sickness, unhealthy fever. In addition to yellow, the reader may come across black - this is a symbol of tragedy.

From the poem “City” (1904), the reader can learn about a small piece of city life. The poet describes the evening time, the time of sunset.

The block describes what is happening in the city at this moment. On the street we can meet a janitor and workers coming from the factory. The city in this poem is a realm of chaos and evil.

The next step in Blok’s evolution, which dramatically changed his attitude towards symbolism, was 1907 - early 1909, the time of the creation of articles about the people and intelligentsia, the cycles “Free Thoughts” (1907), “Faina” (1906-1908), the drama “Song” Fates" (1908). At this time, the realism of the past becomes for Blok the point of view external to symbolism from which he evaluates the “new art.” At this time, Alexander Alexandrovich wrote the article “Intellectuals and Revolution.”

Now the position of Alexander Alexandrovich Blok is difficult, and he himself feels it. CultureXIXcenturies, his native, “Beket” culture, the culture of his grandfathers. But Alexander Alexandrovich also constantly feels his kinship with symbolist culture; one might say that he feels “infected” by it.

Most in cultureXIXcentury, Alexander Blok was attracted by the image of man. In 1906, many writers and poets began to peer into the image of the “little man.” The image of the “little man” in literatureXIXcentury included for Blok two trends that were generally alien to symbolism: interest in social problems and the idea of a “beautiful man.”

In 1908, the poet declared that true art is art for the people. Now the poet rejects not only individual trends of the “new art”, but also all symbolism as a whole. Blok begins to criticize himself and his past. It is also interesting that the religious and mystical directions of symbolism, mainly associated with the traditions of Solovyov, now do not satisfy the poet. Alexander Alexandrovich reproaches symbolism for mystical rationalism.

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok in 1907-1908, despite the extreme harshness of his criticism of symbolism, remains a symbolist. Symbolism gives A. Blok ways to combine disparate ideas into a single whole. He surprisingly subtly highlights what is common to the culture of late romanticism, realism and “new art” - the idea of art as a reflection of non-personal values and ideals.

Alexander Blok hoped for one of the very characteristic phenomena of our era, for a meeting between realists and symbolists. The very first dreams of the movement of symbolism towards realism met with rebuff from symbolist criticism, especially from Bely.

The articles of 1908 show the poet’s complete disappointment in symbolism. Blok believes that symbolism is not interesting to the reader; it does not bring anything interesting or instructive to the reader. In 1908, A.A. Blok found himself almost completely isolated from symbolism. This was influenced by the criticism of V. Ivanov. The only thing that connected the poet with the “new art” was friendly relations with Bryusov and Merezhkovsky.

The years 1909-1911 are rarely singled out as a special stage in the evolution of the Bloc. However, during this period, the poet’s relationship with the Symbolists and his assessment of symbolism changed again.

In the spring of 1909, the upsurge experienced by the poet in 1907-1908, faith in the nearness of revolution, and the desire for social activity were replaced by apathy and a feeling of hopelessness in the struggle.

A. Blok's ideas of 1909-1911 differ significantly from previous ideas. Now the poet speaks not about mystical, heavenly beauty (“Poems about a Beautiful Lady”), but about earthly beauty: nature, art, love. For Blok, the world is not just beautiful, it is like art.

Poems “What a wondrous picture” (March 1909), “Late autumn from the harbor...” (November 14, 1909), “The Gray Twilight Has Lay Down” (February 11, 1910) are part of the period of the poet’s work, which lasted from 1909 to 1911. Poems about Russia also belong to this period. With the advent of the theme of the Motherland and Russia, the poet appears in images of the road and the steppe. These images act as a symbol of Russia, its path through time, its endless expanses and inexhaustible beauty and strength. The poems included in the cycle “On the Kulikovo Field” were written on the theme of the Motherland, Russia. One of the poems included in the cycle “On the Kulikovo Field” is “The river spread out...”

The river spreads...

The river spread out. Flows, lazily sad
And washes the banks.
Above the meager clay of the yellow cliff
The haystacks are sad in the steppe.

Oh, 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.

Our path is steppe, our path is in boundless melancholy -
In your melancholy, oh, Rus'!
And even the darkness - night and foreign -
I'm not afraid.

Let it be night. Let's get home. Let's light up the fires
The steppe distance.
The holy banner will flash in the steppe smoke
And the Khan's saber is steel...

And eternal battle! Rest only in our dreams
Through blood and dust...
The steppe mare flies, flies
And the feather grass crumples...

And there is no end! Miles and steep slopes flash by...
Stop it!
The frightened clouds are coming,
Sunset in the blood!
Sunset in the blood! Blood flows from the heart!
Cry, heart, cry...
There is no peace! Steppe mare
He's galloping!

Blok writes to us about separation from his homeland, his native land. The poet tells us about a night in a foreign land. Alexander Alexandrovich shows us Russia as a great and powerful country. In the poem, the image of Russia is presented not as an image of a mother, but as an image of a wife. One of the themes of the poem is the theme of love for the Motherland. Alexander Alexandrovich is overwhelmed with anxiety for the fate of Russia; all poems are imbued with faith in the future of Russia. Blok relates to the Motherland like a husband to his wife. There is not an ounce of fantasy in the poems dedicated to the Motherland. When writing these poems, the poet turns to the past of Russia, but creates a work about modernity.

Poem "What a wonderful picture" (March 1909).

* * *

What a wonderful picture

Yours, oh my north, yours!

Always a barren plain

Empty like my dream!

Here is my spirit, angry and stubborn,

Disturbs the silence with laughter;

And, responding, the black raven

Rocks the dead pine tree;

Waterfalls bubble below,

Sharpening granite and tree roots;

And the naiads sing on the stones

A sexless hymn of husbandless maidens;

And in this roar of cold waters,

In the hateful cry of a crow,

Under the fishy gaze of barren maidens

My life is slowly smoldering!

This poem is written on the theme of nature. The poem talks about the earthly beauty of nature; there is not a drop of mysticism in the poem. Blok writes about the plain, which he compares to a dream (...a barren plain, Empty, like my dream!), about a pine tree, about waterfalls. Blok, describing nature, talks about his life, about how his life goes (And in this roar of cold waters, In the hateful cry of a crow, Under the fishy gaze of barren maidens, My life is quietly smoldering!).

The most perfect tool for understanding the world, the most accurate echo of world music is art: for penetrating into the essence of being there are no other means other than art.

This understanding of the nature and tasks of art is deeply symbolistic. Blok has something in common with the early Andrei Bely, with all the “younger symbolists,” especially with V. Ivanov and Bryusov.

Blok in 1909-1911, as in his early youth, declared symbolism the most significant of the trends in modern art, contrasting it with naive realism.

Symbolism for A.A. Blok is again a school, although just a year or two ago he claimed that there was no school and there never was. Now the poet again speaks of the original prophetic mission of symbolism.

When comparing A.A. Blok of 1909-1911 and the period of articles about the intelligentsia, an interesting pattern emerges. Blok’s general understanding of the nature of the world, the relationship between reality and art remains almost unchanged.

Ideas about the theme of art, about ways to comprehend other worlds and the earthly embodiment of the ideal are changing. In 1909-1911, Blok’s understanding of the theme of symbolism simultaneously narrowed and partially expanded. We also see that Blok returned to symbolism again, albeit assessing it in a new way, from a different point of view.

By the end of 1911, the views of Alexander Alexandrovich Blok changed significantly. The feeling of the beginning of social upsurge revives confidence in the imminence of unprecedented changes.

On December 1, 1912, the poet began work on the drama “Rose and Cross”. As the poet himself said, the theme of the drama is not “a rose and a cross,” but human fate. Events in the drama proceed as in life. We can conclude that A.A. Blok again moves away from mystical symbols and is inclined to evaluate reality from the point of view of realism.

In 1918, a new stage in Blok’s work began and a year of testing for Russia.

These years were very difficult for Russia, these were the years of revolution.

Many symbolists at this time turned to the theme of revolution in their works. A.A. Blok wrote the poem “The Twelve” on November 28, 1918. In this poem, Alexander Alexandrovich managed to capture a turning point in the history of Russia. When writing this poem, the poet used his usual language of symbols in order to convey the full significance of the events that took place in the country at the time of the revolution. This poem combines both symbolism and realism. The poem consists of 12 chapters. The main characters are 12 Red Army soldiers. From the poem the reader can learn about the events that took place in Russia during the revolution, about murders and devastation. The revolution made people forget about their personal lives. The entire poem is built on the contrast of two colors, white and red. White color means something holy, noble, pure, this color also means light, red is the color of revolution, bloodshed.

After the publication of the poem, relations with the Symbolists were completely broken. Relations with Merezhkovsky and Vyach ended abruptly. Piast, one of the poet's closest friends.

In the mid-1900s, Blok became disillusioned with Bryusov’s poetry and stopped communicating with him.

After breaking with the Symbolists, Blok changed his views on symbolism. A.A. Blok realizes that Russian symbolism did not fulfill its plans. During these years, the symbolists differed among themselves in their views and worldviews. This is a well-known situation called the “crisis of symbolism.”

Blok continued to write articles and reviews about symbolism for some time after his break with the Symbolists and Symbolism.

I. A. Blok is a representative of Russian symbolism.

II. The evolution of Blok's poetic symbolism.

1. Blok’s early work.

2. Symbolism of the poem “Factory”.

3. The symbolic meaning of the image of the Stranger.

4. “The Twelve” is a poem about the revolution.

III. From the singer of the Beautiful Lady to the singer of Russia.

Every poem is a veil, stretched on the edges of a few words that glow like stars.

I have a feeling about you. The years pass by.
All in one form I foresee You.
The entire horizon is on fire and unbearably clear,
And I wait silently, yearning and loving...

The theme of the homeland is one of the eternal ones in poetry. Artists of words have turned to it at all times. But in the works of A. Blok this theme takes on a special resonance. After all, the poet lived at the turn of the century, and he said about himself and his contemporaries: “We are children of terrible years...

Many people have spoken and will continue to speak about Alexander Blok, because he is one of the best poets of the Silver Age. The poems and poems of Alexander Blok are one of the versions in Russian poetry, despite the fact that his work came at a turning point...

The central cycle of the first volume of Blok’s lyrical trilogy is “Poems about a Beautiful Lady”. It was these poems that remained Blok’s most beloved until the end of his life. As you know, they reflected the love affair of the young poet with his future wife L. D. Mendeleeva...

In the poem “Windows to the Courtyard,” yellow is consonant with feelings of melancholy and the futility of existence; this is the color of candles forgotten by someone, unnecessary already in the morning: From this initial boundary - the mood of sadness, melancholy - a wide amplitude of feelings arises: and in the direction of escalation...

Among the Symbolists, the creative path of A.A. also began. Blok (1880-1921). Blok's early poetry was defined by isolation from reality, analysis of personal emotional experiences, and mystical elements. In the collection “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” (1904) he acted as a lyricist - a symbolist, strongly influenced by the philosophy of Vl. Solovyova.

As already mentioned, symbolism is distinguished by an interest in the other world, in the ideal world. Already in “Ante lucem” (1898-1900) and “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” Blok is struck by the variety of shades of perception of otherness. All his subsequent work is no less rich in perceptions of otherness. The phenomena of the Eternally Young illuminated all manifestations of the Universe for Blok. He chivalrously carried Her image through his entire life, through all his work.

In the poem “Introduction,” each visible image contains a symbol. We see a tall tower, unusually beautiful, with patterned carvings. The dome of this tower is directed upward. The tower is surrounded by gates and a steep road leads to it. A tall tower surrounded by gates is a symbol of the unattainable and something romantic and fabulous. The dome is directed into the azure heights - this is the dream of the lyrical hero about the unusual, eternal, imperishable.

Color also has its own symbolism. The dominant color in the poem is fire. It is expressed in nouns (dawn), and in adjectives (red secret), and in verbs (set fire). Here both “blush” and “lit up”. This is the fiery dream of the hero, this is the fire in his soul, the fire of love for the unearthly, mysterious and unattainable Princess. The lyrical hero strives for this tower, reaches it and knocks on the gate. He is close to realizing his dream. The one he strives for resembles a fairy-tale heroine, Princess Nesmeyana. We don’t see her, but the tower in which she lives helps us create the image of a mysterious, enigmatic, unearthly woman.

In the poem “I Anticipate You” The color dominant is also light, fire: “the horizon is on fire”, “unbearably clear”, “radiance is close”. The hero's dream is pure, clear and beautiful, it is close. The hero lives in anticipation, anticipation of Her appearance. She doesn’t even have a name, doesn’t have any specific features, only a stream of light surrounds Her, flows over Her, emanates from Her, as if from a saint, like a halo over the head of the Mother of God. She unites with this image in “one form.” For the lyrical hero, the beloved is the bearer of Eternal Femininity, spirituality, and beauty. This is the ideal. He awaits Her coming, “yearning and loving.” Not even loving, but idolizing. Melancholy and fear seize the hero when he feels her approaching appearance. The image of Her is associated with such a semantic range as “fire”, “radiance”. And with the symbol of collapse - “suspicion”, a sad fall and a “deadly dream”.

In the poem “You are burning above a high mountain” P In front of us is again a high mountain, a tower, evening. And the same colors, among which the bright one dominates, the color of fire, combustion: “burning”, “making a fire”, “fire game”, “Sparks”, “fire circles”. The lyrical hero is intoxicated with his dream, faithful to fate, completely subservient to it, wants to comprehend the secret, merge with his dream and “overtake it in the mansion.” He is confident that his dream will come true, he will be able to merge with eternity, become a particle of the eternal fire and achieve the ideal. She, his dream, is inaccessible, like the Princess, but still she is waiting for him, preparing a meeting for him.

IN In the poem “I Enter Dark Temples,” the real dissolves into the mystical, symbolic. Church, the image of the Mother of God, twilight, illuminated icons, silence, reverence - and the dream of an ideal Wife, and unearthly happiness.

In the lines “Ascending to the first steps...” each of the verbal combinations in their connection acquires an expansive meaning, although there are no complications. The “first steps” in the “neighborhood” with the “lines of the earth” lose their specific content, becoming saturated with symbolic content - an ascent to beauty, love, etc. “Rose distances” become at the same time an attribute of earth and life. “Sea of Fire” next to “stellar depth” takes on a different sound, etc.

In the poem “Evening Twilight, Believe...” an equally complex function is performed by completely everyday expressions: “the door will open”, “face features” when they find themselves in the vicinity of “responses from previous worlds”, a running “living boat”, etc. .

Blok creates his own “kingdom” of signs of one or another mental state. They move from one poem to another, acquiring stable content even with constant variation in its nuances. Outside of the special meaning of seemingly “passing” moments, the depth of poetic confessions is obscured. There are a lot of key words for it.

Sometimes folklore or biblical concepts come to life in a new way. “Quiet tower” as a designation of high, above-ground existence; “news”, “messengers” as a destiny or an echo of the past. “Writings were opened in the soul” - “holy writings”, “Golden Verb” indicate the awakened inner vision of the individual.

More often, Blok resorts to his own original notation. There are many of them: a circle, a ring, a call, a voice, a country... Each, seemingly simple, “embraces” the author’s most intimate feelings and often has ambiguous use. The "Secret Circle" guards the kingdom of the Virgin; “unbreakable circle” - a sign of human captivity; “a brilliantly closed circle” is the lot of vulgar people having fun at the ball; “Muddy ring”, “frost ring” - a symbol of death. The concept of “country”, “coast” varies freely, but always with an emphasis on the spiritual aspirations of the heroes towards the ideal. The leitmotif of all these images allows us to embody the movement of moods within the cycle (and later - beyond it).

Subsequently, social trends associated with the revolution of 1905-1907 intensified in the poet’s work. His poem “The Twelve” (1918) became the first poem about the revolution in which humanistic pathos and the historicism of the author’s thinking were combined with optimistic form.

In 1912, Blok wrote an article “Art and Newspaper” for the newspaper “Russkaya Rumor”. Here Blok explained how he understood the literary situation in Russia in the early 1910s, a situation that both he and his contemporaries defined as a crisis of symbolism. Blok precisely pointed out the reasons for this crisis situation in literature and, more broadly, in Russian culture in general: “Great things in the world are always accompanied by disasters, diseases, plagues. The wonderful thing that hovered over us in 1905 and enriched us with great possibilities brought with it into the ranks of literature a detachment of people plagued by the plague, “wasted talents,” hooligans in the deepest sense of the word.” Blok A. Art and Newspaper. // Block A. Collection. Op. in 8 volumes. - M.-L.: GIHL, 1962. - volume 5. - p. 477

Blok himself did not consider himself affected by this crisis and, as is known, he was not mistaken in this. And yet Blok followed with interest and some alarm the struggle against the symbolism of the new poetic schools - Acmeism and Futurism. Where others saw a crisis, Blok saw a “moment of transition,” and the danger, as it seemed to him, came from outside: “there are few of us and we are surrounded by enemies.”

One of the consequences of the clogging of the “ranks of literature,” according to Blok, is the preference for the beautiful over the beautiful, and art should serve only the beautiful. It, art, “avenges itself, like an ancient deity or like the soul of the people, incinerating, erasing from the face of the earth everything that contains a sign of vanity, which is trying with its small, hasty, breathless rhythms to drown out its only rhythm in the world” Blok A. Art and newspaper. // Block A. Collection. Op. in 8 volumes. - M.-L.: GIHL, 1962. - volume 5. - p. 475

Of course, Blok had seen this confrontation between the beautiful and the wonderful in the world of poetry, including his own. And he himself did not always maintain the necessary distance and followed the seductive path that leads to a confusion of these concepts. Even in the lyrical article “The Girl of the Pink Gate and the Ant King” (1907) - for Blok the rose is a symbol of German romance, something beautiful, but alien. And this foreignness is not only in its “foreignness,” but also in its vulgarity, which is, as it were, the other side of this world.

The poem “The Nightingale Garden” appeared at the wrong time - in December 1915. Minds and hearts were already filled with impressions of the war. Blok’s appeal to such traditional symbolic themes as “nightingale” and “rose” could seem both strange and untimely, something of a poetic anachronism. However, Blok, who always knew how to listen to the hum of history, the music of events, worked on this poem with some special persistence in 1914-1915. He published it in December 1915, repeated the publication in November 1917, and released it as a separate edition in July 1918.

Blok defiantly built The Nightingale Garden on the affirmation and demonstration of familiar and familiar images of Russian romantic poetry, which received a new, complicated meaning from him. Blok, without abandoning his musical and lyrical perception of the universe, found for himself in the poem a new form of poetic differentiation of the world of things, living beings, natural phenomena and what one can only guess about and what lies in the depths of the universe of life.

“The Nightingale Garden”, with its apology for work and a faithful comrade in this work - the donkey - in the language of classical Russian lyrics and Russian fables and through no less classical and already forbidden themes-symbols (nightingale and rose) expressed one of the most important for Blok in 1912- 1915 civic topics.

One of the main themes of this poem: escape not from life, but escape into life, despite all its ugliness, cruelty, etc. The poem, which its author liked so much, is built on the contrast between what surrounds the hero and the inhabitants of the nightingale garden , in it there is a struggle between the voices of life and the world of ideal beauty. Against the backdrop of the very specific features of the hero’s work and living conditions, the nightingale’s garden seems quite real. Its fence is “high and long”, it is “shady”, rose flowers hang over the fence, the garden has a “gate”, a “carved” lattice, “thorny” roses descend “under the draft of dew”. Moreover, the escape from the garden occurs in a completely prosaic way:

“And, going down the stones of the fence,

I broke the flowers' oblivion.

Their thorns are like hands from the garden

They clung to my dress” Blok A.A. Nightingale Garden. // http://az.lib.ru/b/blok_a_a/text_0010.shtml

The other world, the “garden,” is not included in the world (space) of the sea and the shore, rocks, stones, work, a worker with his donkey - the garden exists separately, on its own. In the garden, time is measured differently, while on the shore there is a change of day and night and time flows, in the garden there is no time, there it is as if the well-known prediction to Blok is coming true that “there will be no more time,” that is, eternity will come. But this is an imaginary eternity, not a real one.

For Blok, the nightingale garden itself is not only a place of action; the nightingale garden, like the sea, is not only two spatially localized stage areas on which the action takes place. They themselves participate in this action, they influence the fate of the hero of the poem, they are forces, not passive decorations.

The poem is built on the contrast of the garden and the sea, but not the sea of pirates and adventurers, but the earthly, coastal sea, that sea that is inextricably linked with work, labor, hard, continuous and yet no less beautiful in its symbolic essence than the nightingale garden with his mistress and his roses.

Researchers are interested in the image of a donkey in the poem. Here is what A.V. writes about this. Lavrov: “It seems... that the image of a donkey in the poem - embodying humility, diligence, meekness and patience, and not the qualities that are traditionally attributed to it (stupidity, stubbornness, ignorance) - absorbs other subtexts - from sacred, going back in particular to the biblical-evangelical circle of ideas (among the ancient Jews, the donkey was a symbol of peace and salvation; the peoples of antiquity revered the donkey as the deity of heat and productive forces) to the humorous and intimate" Lavrov A.V. "The Nightingale Garden" by A. Blok . Literary reminiscences and parallels. // Scientific notes of Tartu State University. - Vol. 857. - Biography and creativity in Russian culture of the early twentieth century. Blok collection IX. In memory of D. E. Maksimov. - Tartu: TSU, 1984. - P. 75.

The donkey in “The Nightingale Garden” not only works to transport stones, it also plays a special literary role - it parodies the exotic menagerie in Gumilyov’s poems. The parody in this case is carried out in a very curious way. Blok’s donkey does not replace a person and is not used for comparison. He is humanized in the sense that he works together with a person and is more devoted to work than a person who is ready to betray him under the influence of love.