Composition
The poet created his first book under the strong influence of the philosophical ideas of Vladimir Solovyov. In this teaching, the poet is attracted by ideas about the ideal, about the desire for it as the embodiment of Eternal Femininity - beauty and harmony. Blok gives his ideal image the name “Beautiful Lady”.
The entire cycle of “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” is permeated with a sincere feeling of love. But what is this feeling? What makes it special? Despite the fact that the cycle is based on an autobiographical fact - the poet’s romance with his future wife Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva - it should be noted that the lyrical hero is in love not with the real one, but with the ideal woman, into a certain image. Religious love is also mixed in with this strange feeling. The hero loves the Beautiful Lady not as a man loves a woman, but as a man loves and worships something inaccessible to him, beautiful and great. This love can be called divine. There is not a bit of vulgarity or earthiness in it.
The motif of ideal love-aspiration runs through the entire cycle of poems, which represents a kind of “novel”. This motive is realized in the constant expectation of the hero to meet the heroine and the fear that this meeting will destroy the sublimity of feeling. The peculiarity of this cycle is the inseparability of two plans: the personal, real and cosmic-universal myth, about the ways of the earthly incarnation of the Soul of the world.
One of the most striking poems of this cycle is “I enter dark temples...”. It was written in 1902. The regularity of the rhythm, the melodious monotony of the lines, even if you don’t think about the words, evoke a high, slightly solemn feeling. It is supported by vocabulary of also high content: temple, ritual, lamps. This poem presents us with the entire first book and the world of feelings of the young Blok, who has fenced himself off from “contradictions, doubts and threats to life.” This motive of striving for light, for truth, for the transformation of the world will become one of the leading ones in the work of A. Blok.
In terms of genre, the work is a small poem, as it has a plot: the hero is in the temple, waiting for his beloved and worried strong feelings associated with this expectation. This is how the main motive of the cycle of poems is realized - the motive of expectation. Indeed, for the lyrical hero it seems more important than the meeting itself:
There I am waiting for the Beautiful Lady
In the flickering of red lamps.
Red lamps enhance the moment of tragedy. This tragedy is recognized by the hero and comes from the fact that reality does not correlate with the fragile dream, the image that lives in the poet’s heart:
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.
A poem is a condensed thought, so from one word we can guess the whole story. So in the phrase: “Oh, I’m used to these robes // of the Majestic Eternal Wife!” it becomes clear that this is not the first time the hero is waiting for his beloved in this temple. And the paraphrase - “They run high along the cornices // Smiles, fairy tales and dreams ...” - depicts the temple itself before the reader.
The poet means the glare of the sun that breaks through high windows under the roof. This light becomes a symbol of the hero's ideal aspiration.
The degree of the character’s experience is shown in the last quatrain of the poem:
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.
It says here that the heroine has not arrived yet, but will be any minute, and loving heart already has a presentiment of this imminent meeting.
In the poem “I Enter dark temples…” It’s not so much the abundance of tropes that amazes us, but rather the color scheme that the author actively uses. Thus, Blok uses the following colors to create a special atmosphere: black (“dark temples”), red (“red lamps”), gold (“illuminated… image”, “Oh, I’m used to these vestments…”, “They run high cornices", "candles"). As you can see, the predominant color is gold and all its shades (candle flame, sun, clothes embroidered with gold), and it is known to be a symbol of wealth and prosperity. Thus, the fullness of the hero’s feelings and the happiness that he found in love is emphasized. And red and black seem to indicate the tragedy of this feeling.
Female image symbolic, she has many names: Beautiful Lady, Majestic Eternal Wife, Saint, She, Sweetheart. But despite all her sublimity, this is a real woman, just as the hero is real.
The sound of Blok's poems evokes very strong emotional and aesthetic empathy. Beyond the “relationships” of the heroes, even deeper ones are read poetic discoveries. Young Blok turned out to be subject to the wisdom of life, at least in that part of it that is associated with the state of love.
One must read the verse “I enter dark temples” by Alexander Alexandrovich Blok with the full understanding that this is a deeply personal work. It was written in 1902, when the poet turned 22 years old. He was young and in love, searching for his own spiritual truth, and actively writing. The text of Blok’s poem “I Enter Dark Temples” is a kind of hymn of love, containing the tender feeling that the poet felt at that time for his future wife L. D. Mendeleeva. This is the eleventh poem dedicated to her, the most beautiful and mysterious. It has absorbed everything best motives cycle "Poems about a Beautiful Lady". It's easy to learn, it flows like a song.
In literature lessons in the 11th grade, teachers say that during this period the poet was actively searching for the ideal of Eternal Femininity, a material, and at the same time divine child of freedom and light. He strove to find something that rises above the everyday world, and having found it, to make serving this ideal a part of his life, to sing in word and deed of unearthly beauty and purity. The entire poem is permeated with melancholy and sadness because the search is in vain, that the image dear to the heart is constantly hidden behind the shadows, that it is distant and unreal, that the dream is unattainable. The lyrical hero tries, but cannot find that one, his soul mate, without whom he cannot find integrity. She constantly eludes him, although he is ready to serve her as a Divinity, as the Mother of God, as the Most Pure Virgin, as the “Eternally Young Lady of the Universe.” Even from contemplating her, the hero experiences a feeling of deep aesthetic pleasure, and he feels bad where her presence is not felt. Blok is a symbolist, and therefore the image of the temple here is not accidental. Only here can you find unearthly beauty and perfection.
You can get acquainted with this lyrical work, considered one of the most beautiful poems about love, online or download it in its entirety on our website.
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.
For Alexander Blok, a woman was a creature endowed with divine power. Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva, the poet’s wife, became for him a kind of muse, a guardian angel and a Madonna who descended from heaven. But another break with the woman he loved inspired the creator to write the poem “I enter dark temples...”.
In 1902, Alexander Blok did not yet have the happiness of calling Lyubov Mendeleeva his wife. This was the period of his passionate love and interest in the ideology of V. Solovyov. The essence of this worldview was the exaltation of femininity and the divine essence of love for the weaker sex.
When Lyubov Dmitrievna broke up with the poet, it plunged him into deep sadness. Alexander Blok himself called this period of his life insanity, since he looked for his beloved in every woman passing by. The breakup made him more devout. The writer did not miss Sunday services and often visited churches in the hope of meeting Lyubov Mendeleeva. This is how the idea for the poem arose.
Genre, direction and size
“I enter dark temples...” can be called a love letter, because the author describes the feelings and emotions that the image of his beloved evokes in him. But still in this love letter there are also features philosophical lyrics, associated with the teachings of V. Solovyov.
The poem is written in the spirit of symbolism. To better convey the excitement and trepidation of the lyrical hero, Alexander Blok used a dolnik with cross rhyme.
Images and symbols
The entire poem is permeated with a spirit of mystery. One of the main images here is the scene of action - the temple. In this holy place, the lyrical hero, reading prayers, awaits a miracle: the appearance of his beloved. The temple in the context of this poem acts as a symbol of faith and hope.
Red light runs through the entire cycle of “Poems about a Beautiful Lady,” dedicated to Lyubov Mendeleeva. It serves as a sign of passion and manifestation of that sublime love that Alexander Blok revered. The main speaker is the Beautiful Lady herself. She is the ultimate dream, the thought of happiness and eternal love. The poet himself is not afraid to compare her with the Mother of God, thereby equating his beloved with the saints.
The lyrical hero is ready to worship the image of his “holy” love. He is full of awe and hope, faith and desire to achieve an eternal and beautiful passion. His soul is alarmed and devastated, but he believes that the appearance of the Beautiful Lady can resurrect him.
Themes and moods
The main theme, of course, is the love of the lyrical hero. He is tormented by passionate feelings for his ideal lover. The motif of dual worlds inherent in the work of Alexander Blok (the proximity of the real world and the secret incomprehensible one) leads to a philosophical theme.
The poem seems to be shrouded in mystical mystery. It is awe-inspiring and mesmerizing. The whole atmosphere is just a hint, there is nothing real here. Everything is illusory.
main idea
The meaning of the poem is the need for love for the human soul. She can heal her or turn her to dust. Without it, a person cannot exist. Pain, happiness - he is ready to endure everything, just to love and be loved.
The main idea of the work reflects the poet’s worldview. If for Dostoevsky the world is saved by beauty, then with Blok it is only love. She moves everything and everyone. In it he saw the meaning of his life, and in each of his work only pure and holy passion gives hope.
Means of artistic expression
To recreate the necessary atmosphere, Alexander Blok uses epithets (dark churches, gentle candles, poor ritual, gratifying features).
They help create dynamics and emphasize the emotionality of the personification (smiles, fairy tales and dreams are running, the image is looking). The author emphasizes the excitement of the lyrical hero with exclamations, rhetorical questions. The metaphor (of the Majestic Eternal Wife) alludes to the holiness of the image of the beloved.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!The poem “I Enter Dark Temples” became one of the first in the famous cycle “Poems about a Beautiful Lady,” which Blok himself considered one of best stages of your creativity. Brief Analysis“I enter dark temples” according to the plan, used in a literature lesson in 11th grade, will help students better understand this work.
Brief Analysis
History of creation- known exact date Blok wrote this poem: October 25, 1902. Then the poet was passionately in love with his future wife L. Mendeleeva.
Subject- the love of the lyrical hero, who is waiting for his chosen one to reveal her feminine essence.
Composition– the work can be roughly divided into three parts. The first is the introduction, in which the hero doubts that his beloved is the one who embodies eternal femininity, but still looks forward to meeting her. The second part develops philosophical thought, while emphasizing that the lyrical hero treats his beloved and how an ordinary woman. The conclusion is the last stanza, in which he again brings the invisible essence of his lady to the fore.
Genre- a combination of love and spiritual lyrics inherent in Blok’s early poetic creations.
Poetic size- dolnik.
Epithets – “dark temples”, “poor ritual”, “Beautiful Lady”, “illuminated image”, “Majestic Eternal Wife”, “tender candles”, “pleasant features”.
Metaphors – “the image looks”, “the Wife’s robe”, “smiles, fairy tales and dreams run”.
History of creation
In the early period of his creativity, Alexander Blok was very passionate about the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov, and especially his teaching about eternal femininity. It made such a deep impression on the poet that one of his most famous poetic cycles - “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” - is based entirely on it.
The same philosophical thought is the basis of the poem “I Enter Dark Temples,” which Blok himself dated very precisely - October 25, 1902. At that time, the poet was passionately in love with Lyubov Mendeleeva, who would later become his bride, and then his wife. He saw the girl as the embodiment of that same eternal femininity. Blok gave his love a mystical meaning, seeing in it a special feeling.
Subject
The main theme is love. The lyrical hero experiences passionate feelings for his chosen one, he sees in her his earthly goddess. Already in this work, the dual world inherent in all of Blok’s work is manifested: there is a world that can be seen and felt, and a second one that is unattainable, divine. This is the second theme of the verse - philosophical.
In general, another feature is clearly manifested in him early lyrics Blok, when reality retreats before the illusory world. It is open only to the inner gaze of the poet himself and is invisible to no one else.
Composition
Compositionally, the poem can be divided into three parts. In the first - the beginning - the lyrical hero enters the “dark temples” to perform his ritual. He has a little doubt that the woman he has chosen really embodies eternal femininity, but he is in love, and therefore looks forward to his meeting with her.
The second part is the development of the main idea. The lyrical hero, no longer doubting, argues that he is given the opportunity to come into contact with a real deity every day. On the one hand, he understands that his beloved is the embodiment of everything divine that he cannot even imagine; on the other hand, he says that he is used to being in contact with a miracle every day, and this helps him think of his beloved not only as goddess, but also as a woman.
The work ends with Blok emphasizing not the earthly, but the sublime essence of his beloved. She embodies that lofty and beautiful thing that an ordinary person cannot comprehend.
Genre
On the one hand, it can be attributed to love lyrics, since the lyrical hero of this work talks about his feelings, talks about what emotions his beloved evokes in him. On the other hand, the poetic lines also contain a philosophical meaning that closely connects them with the teachings of Solovyov. Thus, the work is an example of love and philosophical lyrics. As for the poetic meter used, it is a dolnik. Thus, he makes its structure agitated and even somewhat dissonant, conveying the feelings of the lyrical hero. Abstract vocabulary creates a high tone.
Means of expression
To emphasize his idea, Blok uses a variety of expressive means. Among them:
- Epithets- “dark temples”, “poor ritual”, “Beautiful Lady”, “illuminated image”, “Majestic Eternal Wife”, “tender candles”, “pleasant features”.
- Metaphors- “the image looks,” “the Wife’s robe,” “smiles, fairy tales and dreams run.”
If you look at the syntactic structure of a sentence, you can see a lot inversions, for example, “I’m coming in,” “I’m waiting,” and the like. This makes it solemn and measured.
The cycle of poems “About a Beautiful Lady,” which includes the work “I Enter Dark Temples...”, Blok began on January 25, 1901 and finished in October 1902. The betrothal of lovers Alexander and Lyubov took place on May 25, 1903, and the wedding took place on August 17.
A Brief Love Story
As children, Lyuba and Sasha, who lived on estates not far from each other, saw each other often. But at an amateur performance, when Alexander was 16 years old and Lyuba was 15, they met playing the roles of Hamlet and Ophelia, and Alexander saw the unearthly in the girl.
Lyubov Mendeleev was not a beauty. A plump figure, “hippopotamus,” according to A. Akhmatova, a round face with drooping cheeks, small slitted eyes, a duck-like nose.
As the proverb says, “It’s not because he’s good, but because he’s good,” this is how the young, refined, refined Blok took it, raised it to a pedestal and carried a deep feeling for Lyubov Dmitrievna throughout his life.
The declaration of love took place in a very strange way. The poet came to the ball in the Assembly of Nobility on November 7, 1902 with a tragic note. She explained the reasons for his supposed death. Everything ended well, however. The poet has already written a collection about “The Beautiful Lady”, in which the penultimate work was the work that interests us. Now the analysis “I enter dark temples...” will be carried out. Blok, like a knight, saw only his Beautiful Lady everywhere.
A dream in reality
There is very little earthly content in the lyrical plot. It doesn't concern the hero. Before him stands only the mysterious and incomprehensible image of the Beautiful Lady. Every word and every verse is filled with significance and slowness: the hero hears nothing. The temple poor ritual does not attract his attention, he performs his own. His faith is faith in the Holy and Sweet. Let’s continue the analysis of “I enter dark temples...”. Blok encoded and obscured his impressions of meeting his beloved in St. Isaac's Cathedral.
The plot and composition of the elegy
In the first quatrain, the lyrical hero awaits the appearance of the Beautiful Lady, high love lives to her and does not find a way out, even when performing a “poor” ritual. Compared to the beloved, everything is colorless and small.
His impatient anticipation of the meeting is so great that the hero trembles even from the creaking of the doors. He does not see the image of the temple, but only her illuminated image.
The hero dressed his love in the solemn festive robes of the majestic and eternal Wife. He dreams: for him, along the cornices, which are located on high altitude, smiles and fairy tales run by.
Meeting with love does not return him to the everyday world, but only raises him even higher above it. But this is not the end of the analysis of “I Enter Dark Temples...”. Blok sees nothing, and most importantly, he doesn’t want to see anything except pleasing features.
Sentiment volatility
At first, the lyrical hero waits calmly, then begins to tremble with impatient forebodings of the meeting, then calms down in dreamy dreams and, finally, is illuminated by the joy of the meeting, blinded and deafened by it.
Love is the theme of the poem
Overflowing with love, Blok (“I enter dark temples...”) makes his unearthly, ephemeral feelings his theme, without thinking about what a real, earthly girl is experiencing.
The beloved is placed on the highest, unattainable pedestal, on which he composes poems and songs dedicated to her. She is holy for the poet, and that is enough for him. This is an exclusively lyrical love poem.
Images of eternal love
The entire cycle takes place in clarifying the image created by the imagination of the lyrical hero. The beginning of the poem in semi-darkness and the glow of lamps and candles does not allow one to see a mysterious and unearthly vision.
In all the poems she accepts worship and remains silent. In the heavenly heights where she is, according to the lyrical hero, she does not need words. Let his poems reach her. The analysis of “I enter dark temples...” (Blok) shows her divine essence for the hero: “Oh, holy,” he turns to his idol, which she has become for him. The hero himself, from the ardent and tender, but ethereal love, everything turned upside down in his head.
In a Christian church, he places his beloved at the center of the universe, creating an idol. Enveloping everything in twilight, it makes the reader feel the aroma of incense without saying a word about it. The golden, uncertain light of the candles and the red sacrificial color of the blood of the lamps wavers and flickers when, at a high column, the hero in its shadow awaits the appearance of the Beautiful Lady.
Poetic phonetics, vocabulary and syntax
The alliteration “s” occurs in every stanza. It creates an atmosphere of mystery and intimacy. Also, each stanza carries the assonance “o”, creating an overall solemn image. We will look in a little more detail at “I enter dark temples...” (Blok), a verse by the poet. In addition, inversions are used twice in the poem: “I enter, I wait.” Verbs, how strong expressive means, is given a special role that emphasizes the hero’s impatience. It is with inversion that the first verse “I enter dark temples...” begins. Blok strengthens the verse with the metaphor “dark”. The poet deepens the impression of the mystery of his feelings.
Completion
In conclusion, about poetics, it should be said that Blok (“I enter dark temples...”) uses a meter that was widespread at the beginning of the 20th century. This is a three-syllable dolver.
Love is an existential feeling. The most perfect essay about him will not bring you closer to understanding the person whom it never burned. Only personal experience will help you enter the world of someone who loves and burns with passion.