In modern times, specific people are called muses; as a rule, these are women, friends of artists (poets), but sometimes men. They inspire the artist to create with their personality, charisma, aura, friendship or eroticism. Some of the muses themselves left a noticeable mark on cultural history.
In a certain sense, the image of the Muse is a tool for creating a poetic context. When identifying the fact of the presence of the image of the Muse in the works of various poets, the idea of its universalism arises, i.e. the image of the Muse acts as a universal poetic principle. Like any mythological image, the Muse also has a unique life meaning. It is also a tool for learning and relating to the world. The text is read through the image of the Muse, on many levels, and, most importantly, on the semantic level. Where the image of the Muse appears in the context, a kind of “clot of poetry” appears. The muse is a sign of the presence of divine poetic substance. There are simple and complex structures with the image of the Muse - this is the expression of poetry, which can be defined as the Muse. The author translates the Muse as a sign into a poetic text, and it is through the Muse that the universality of his poetry is proven. A muse is a key, a certain set of concepts that opens layers of meaning, it is a universal artistic, poetic code.
Initially, the Muse was an image ancient mythology, and, having “moved” into literary works, she “moved” further and further from the folklore environment. The system of images of ancient mythology was to some extent preserved and transferred to the literature of classicism. Focus on antiquity as a model did not allow changing the images of ancient mythology, which had nothing to do with folklore and was literary in nature. We can talk about the gravitation of images towards a purely literary environment or towards a more folklore environment. In this case, the image of the Muse naturally entered the literary environment. Of course, “literature is connected with mythology...primarily through fairy tales and folk epics,” but not all images organically merged from mythology into folklore works. There are transitional images that operate both in folklore and in pure literary works. The image of the Muse is an example of a “purely” literary image that has found its place in the fabric of literary works.
The image of the Muse is a personal image. It belongs to the creative individuality of the writer. It functions in the text as an independent element of poetics, but at the same time, it is inextricably linked with its creator. If we turn to the diagram representing all the transformations of the image of the Muse, we will see that all levels of the image are in one way or another connected with the personality of the poet. Whether the Muse is the patroness of poets or a symbol of creativity, whether she participates in the characteristics of the addressees of messages or in mythologization, whether she is personified in a real image, there are always threads connecting the poet and his Muse. She is his creation in all the diversity of her incarnations and in her independence. And the Muse functions in works permeated with the personality of the poet, where the image of the author is one of the main ones, and his dialogue with his Muse is one of the key moments of the poetics of the work.
It can be noted that the image of the Muse is not compatible with the national flavor of the works. As an image of ancient mythology, the Muse will naturally function in a work addressed to antiquity, when she appears in her original meaning as a patron goddess. Examples of this are found when analyzing the image of the Muse in lyrics. A whole level is allocated for the image of the Muse - an ancient symbol. Mythologization through the image of the Muse is also acceptable, when, through it, the poet integrates his image into the mythological context of the work. When personified in context, details of ancient mythological flavor may appear. But the image of the Muse is completely neutral in relation to the national color, which is associated with the artistic time and space of the work. In works in which the plot predetermines the appearance of national coloring, the image of the Muse can only appear in the author’s digressions, since it is completely alien to any national coloring of the work.
In addition, the plot itself may not allow the appearance of the image of the Muse, as, for example, in “Gavriliad,” which is a parody of the Gospel story. But this “prohibition” is strengthened if the national flavor is “included,” because the image of the Muse is non-national. The same thing happens in works whose genre belongs to folklore. A striking example is Pushkin's fairy tales.
The genre of the poem allows for the author’s insertions, as if “personally,” and the image of the Muse may well appear in the text precisely in them. But artistic time and space, predetermined by the plot, may not allow this. An example of this is the poem “ Prisoner of the Caucasus" In the text of the poem itself, the image of the Muse is not found, but the “Dedication” and “Epilogue” of the poem organically include the image of the Muse; the poet’s personality is more manifested in them. In the lines that we consider as an author’s digression, there is no Muse. Although thematically related to the text, this digression is still relatively independent and can be considered as a separate passage. These are the poet’s thoughts that are not specifically related to the poem. But even here the image of the Muse does not appear, since this would violate a certain integrity, because this passage is still in the text of the poem, and therefore should not stand out from the general context. And in the text of the poem itself, artistic time and space, predetermined by the plot, do not allow the image of the Muse to appear.
Another example is the poem “The Robber Brothers,” where the absence of the image of the Muse is explained by the following reasons: a real plot basis, which provides artistic time and space that does not allow the image of the Muse, the absence of author’s digressions where the Muse could appear (which, however, is also associated with plot), and the presence of folklore techniques.
In general, what can connect the image of the Muse with reality? The Muse, correlated with creativity or any work, participating in the characterization, symbolizing the source of inspiration and personified in someone’s image - these are all those cases when the image of the Muse is, to one degree or another, included in reality. An interesting question is about the “relationship” of the image of the Muse with reality, or more precisely, with the real plan of the work. The Muse, as an ancient symbol, as the Helikonian patron goddess of creators, brings the real plan closer to “her” mythological plan. But the image of the Muse of the second level behaves differently at different sublevels. The muse as a symbol of creativity, a symbol of works (including the poet’s own creativity and works), as if she herself is approaching the real plan due to connection with the realities of life. These realities, in the form of creativity and its manifestations, “attract” the image of the Muse to the real plane. But the image of the Muse, participating in characterization and, especially, in mythologizing, on the contrary, “mythologizes” real personalities and the realities of life, that is, the real plan in this case is somewhat “closed” by the mythological plan, to which the image of the Muse originally belongs. The image of the Muse, symbolizing the source of inspiration, is “attracted” to the real plane, as is the image of the Muse, participating in personification.
Thus, it turns out that either the mythological or the real plane comes first in the work. If the mythological plane comes forward, it means that the image of the Muse plays an active role, bringing closer, “pulling” the real plane to its mythological one. If the real plan dominates in a work where the image of the Muse functions, it means that the Muse is “attracted” to it, without, of course, becoming a passive image, but, following the poet’s plan, acquires the features of life realities or, in certain cases, real personalities.
Finishing the first chapter of the study, we can draw the following conclusion. The image of the Muse is traditional for Russian poetry. Each author, having retained elements of tradition, nevertheless subordinates this image to himself, adapting it to his own creative individuality. For many poets, the Muse ceases to be just a symbol, but becomes a double image. This did not happen right away. For example, in Lomonosov and Derzhavin, an appeal to the Muse is a kind of stylistic device, convention. It only fixes the work’s belonging to a certain cultural tradition: classicists treated with respect ancient art and introduced his images into their texts. With the passing of classicism, such an image of the Muse should have disappeared from Russian poetry as a sign of a “dead” tradition, as a rudiment of the past. But a completely different fate awaited this image: it was “revived” and filled with new meanings.
Having revealed the image of the muse as a tool for creating a poetic context, let us move on to consider the images of the muse in specific works by A.S. Pushkin and A.A. Akhmatova.
Muse Pushkin Akhmatova
The image of the Muse, her magic flute that gives inspiration, is very important for any poet. Each creator represents his “helper and tormentor” in his own way. Nekrasov does not have many poems dedicated to the Muse, but they are quite detailed and large in size.
For example, a poem that is called “Muse”. It begins with a negative, the first word is “no.” Nikolai Alekseevich contrasts his own with all other Muses. Others are affectionate, sweet-voiced, charming... They fly from heaven and sing fairy-tale lullabies to the baby poets... And then they leave them their pipe. And now the grown-up poet delights people’s ears with his poems. Or it happens that a poet is born together with his first love, that is, this feeling gives him inspiration to sing about his beloved. It’s not like that with Nekrasov!
Above Nekrasov is the bond of another “mythical” creature: sad, unkind, mournful, sick, humiliated... And the poet calls him “Muse” for simplicity. This Muse came to him from the poor, and together with them she dreams only of gold, like a hungry man dreams of food. Since childhood, she, hunched over from work, sang to Nikolai about the hardships of life of ordinary people. And they cried together... It happened that the Muse sang it recklessly, but it was out of despair, like a drunkard yelling in a tavern.
Through his youthful dreams, Nekrasov heard the curses of his Muse, who threatened to start a battle with the enemies and called on the gods to take revenge on the offenders of the people. But after shouting, she calmed down and wanted to forgive the insults to her enemies... That is, her image is also contradictory.
In the finale, Nekrasov calls her an incomprehensible maiden who worries him. But, having matured, he entered the battle on her side - for the people.
In another poem about the Muse, the poet shouts at her from the first lines to shut up. He reproaches her for cursing people for too long and disturbing their sleep. The author says that everything is over, everything disgusted him - both her songs and his own moans. His path with her was dark and stormy. Yes, he called her before, but now he lets her go, because because of her hatred, he never recognized the love that so inspires other poets.
Nekrasov never considered himself an esthete poet who describes beauty, glorifies love or praises heroes. And therefore, he did not hear the beautiful songs of the Muse that Pushkin had, for example: sweet, playful, joyful... Nikolai Nekrasov felt like a “herald” whose task was to attract society’s attention to problems and somehow correct them. I think that this is a very worthy goal, which the poet successfully realized, and with all this, his poems are also beautiful.
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Introduction
Over the quarter century of its development (1892-1917), non-realistic literary movements put forward a number of major talents, whose work expressed the essential features of the artistic consciousness of the time and made a unique contribution to Russian and world poetry and prose. Like the entire spiritual life of Russia during the era of three revolutions, these movements were characterized by tense, conflictual dynamics. It was determined by the contradiction between aesthetic individualism and social quests. At the same time, the long-cherished thought of the Russian writer about social harmony and a free person outweighed, no matter what utopian forms this thought sometimes took.
Among Russian non-realistic movements - symbolism, acmeism, futurism - the first in time and the most significant in artistic results was symbolism. It arose at the turning point from the timelessness of the 80s to the socio-political rise of the 90s. In 1892, D. Merezhkovsky, in a lecture “On the causes of decline and new trends in modern Russian literature,” called for enriching its content with a mystical idea and updating poetics with the help of symbolic forms and impressionism. At the same time, Merezhkovsky’s book of poems “Symbols” was published; to her he prefaced Goethe’s words about the transitory as a symbol of the eternal. In 1894-1895 Three editions of Bryusov’s sensational collections “Russian Symbolists” appeared, demonstrating the theory of new lyrics and its samples.
The image of the Muse in the lyrics of A. Akhmatova
In 1940, talking with L. Chukovskaya, A. Akhmatova noted: “... To get to the essence, one must study the nests of constantly repeating images in the poet’s poems - in them lies the personality of the author and the spirit of his poetry.” Constantly recurring in A. Akhmatova’s lyrics is the image of the Muse - “sister”, “double”, “foreigner”, “executioner”; “strange”, “slender”, “dark”, “wearing a holey scarf”, “mocking”. He reveals to us the ethical and aesthetic attitudes of the poet in different years: the search for “his” voice and following the tradition of the young A. Akhmatova, subsequently - the awareness of the importance of the civil theme and, when summing up the results of his work, the author’s comprehension of the fact of his own image and destiny being captured in the mirrors of art. In the poetry of A. Akhmatova, the motif of the double is important, connected with the theme of creativity and creating tragic pathos.
The lyrical heroine of the poem “Muse” (1911) contrasts herself with all “girls, women, widows” who are given the opportunity to experience ordinary female happiness. The heroine’s state of unfreedom (“not these shackles”) arises from the need to make a choice between love and creativity. The muse-sister takes away her ring (“the first spring gift”, “God’s gift”), which is a symbol of blessed earthly love. The heavenly messenger gives creative power to the artist, but in return deprives him of the opportunity to concentrate on the fullness of life itself, transformed into the primary source of poetic fantasy.
Tomorrow the mirrors will tell me, laughing:
“Your gaze is not clear, not bright...”
I will quietly answer: “She took away
God's gift."
The poem “Three times I came to torture...” (1911) was called “Double” in the draft autograph. The one who came to torture is not called the Muse, but it is with her that the motif of the double is associated in Akhmatov’s early poems. For the lyrical heroine, earthly joy is impossible, but even more terrible is that her love brings death to her beloved. Moral guilt arises in the soul of a woman poet without any objective reason; in the poem there is only a hint of a premonition that punishment will follow for a sinful craft.
Oh, you didn't laugh in vain,
My unforgiven lie! .
From A. Akhmatova’s early work, she particularly singled out the poem “I came to replace you, sister...” (1912), saying that she herself did not fully understand it, even though “it turned out to be prophetic.” The work consists of two monologues, indicated by quotation marks, and a small “afterword”. The muse comes to the heroine to take away from her earthly happiness, accessible to everyone except the artist. Poetry is associated with the feeling of a “high fire”: in order for a poem to be born, the poet must fall out of love, suffer, and burn. A. Akhmatova wrote about the connection between the personal and the universal in creativity: “There is one less hope, / There will be one more song.” For poetry, love is no longer a “bonfire” guarded by one person, but a “white banner”, a “beacon light” that burns for everyone, showing people the way. The artist perceives the birth of a song as a rite of burial for himself and his feelings. The muse-sister takes the place of the suffering woman, becomes her double, lives her life:
Put on my clothes
Forget about my worries
Let the wind play with your curls.
The heroine yields her “bonfire” to the Muse without complaint, because she understands: the worst thing for her is “silence.” In the last stanza, the images subtly merge together; there is only one path - the fate of the artist, who renounces personal happiness in order to illuminate the path for others:
And everything seemed to her like a flame
Close... the hand is holding the tambourine.
And she's like a white banner
And she is like the light of a beacon.
The image of the Muse in A. Akhmatova’s poetry changed. In the poems of the second half of the 1910s, a “barely audible” voice becomes a characteristic detail of her portrait; singing “drawn-out” and “sad”, holey handkerchief; “exhausted”, bowed “in a dark wreath” head. N. Gumilev’s review of the poem “After all, somewhere there is simple life and light...” is noteworthy: “... But the last stanza is magnificent; only [isn’t this] a typo? - “The voice of the Muse is barely audible...” Of course, “clearly or distinctly audible” should have been said. Or better yet, “heard so far.” The muse that dictated Dante's Inferno, stern, taciturn and strong, will appear in A. Akhmatova's lyrics later, only in the mid-1920s. The image of a double losing power, leaving the lyrical heroine (“Why are you pretending…”, 1915; “The Muse left along the road…”, 1915; “Everything has been taken away: both strength and love...”, 1916), gives the poet the opportunity to convey almost “ tangible" human suffering, and at the same time a premonition of even more terrible historical changes. The “reckless” wind of time has already begun to cut off the voices of life.
And we live solemnly and difficultly
And we honor the rituals of our bitter meetings,
When the wind is reckless
The speech that had just begun is interrupted...
(“After all, somewhere there is simple life and light...”, 1915)
The ability to experience guilt for uncommitted crimes, the willingness to atone for the sins of others characterize the lyrical heroine of A. Akhmatova as an “integer” personality, disposed to play a tragic role. After the First World War and the revolution, the death of N. Nedobrovo, A. Blok, N. Gumilyov, the situation of the death of a lover will receive social motivation and will be associated in the poet’s work with: the theme of the fate of a generation; the lyrical heroine will more than once experience guilt for the crimes of her age (“I called upon my dear ones to die…”, 1921; “New Year’s Ballad”, 1922).
At the moment when “worlds collapse,” A. Akhmatova assigns a special role to the artist. He must discover “superpersonal connections of existence” (Vyach. Ivanov), defeat chaos with form - the form of his life and creativity. A. Akhmatova, who believed that poetry would play the role of “a great comforter in a sea of grief” in people’s lives in the 20th century, believed in the necessity of the poet’s personal feat, in the “ideality” of his fate. Her constant concern for the artist’s biography is called today the construction of a myth - about herself, about Modigliani, about Mandelstam, etc. The work of A. Akhmatova restores faith in the moral support of the world, the artist undertakes to reconstruct history. Certain things and places associated with bright events, immortal names, connect time with eternity, in which the past is in the same “space” with the current and coming. In the 1920s, their function in Akhmatova’s life and poetry became more complex: they served not just as signs of the connection of times, but justified and filled the world with meaning. Things begin to speak when words reach the limits of silence, when tragedy is destroyed by horror. The “sacred city of Peter” becomes an “involuntary monument” to everyone who suffered in their homeland during resolutions, wars, and repressions, and Tsarskoe Selo is perceived as a “wreath” to dead poets.
Researchers consider “Muse” (1924) to be an indicative, landmark poem that reveals the essence of the evolution of the theme of the poet and poetry in the post-revolutionary work of A. Akhmatova. The connection between Akhmatova’s work and the “voice” of Dante has been noted more than once, however, in our opinion, the allusion to Pushkin’s “Prophet” in the text is no less important. A. Akhmatova also tries to emphasize the continuity and transtemporality of culture. The muse is a being of divine origin, she came from eternity, which does not know such earthly conventions as past, present and future; she is like a six-winged seraph. It is difficult to agree that “in the first lines of the eight-line “Muse” of 1924 appearance“a dear guest with a pipe in her hand” is still idyllically deceptive,” and in the latter “an abyss opens” (V. Vilenkin), because main image the poem is not a “guest”, but a lyrical heroine waiting for the Muse, who rapidly “transforms” in the second stanza. The work is “plot-based”, and all the most important structural components of both the canonically biblical and Pushkin situations are present: spiritual longing - the appearance of a messenger - the discovery of truth. The poet experiences a moment of spiritual insight, shock.
In the first half of the poem, A. Akhmatova seemed to sum up her early work, in which she called the Muse her sister, double, rival and characterized her as a sweet, dark-skinned guest. A mysterious creature came to torture the heroine, deprived her of the happiness of loving and being loved, giving her the ability to create. The muse took away freedom, but the lack of freedom that she left seemed sweetest of all. We can say that a “personal” relationship has been established between the lyrical heroine and her double. This is the kind of guest the poet expects:
When I wait for her to come at night,
Life seems to hang by a thread.
What honors, what youth, what freedom
In front of a dear guest with a pipe in hand.
And a Muse appears, not equal, not sweet, not verbose. She does not even reveal the truth to the poet in word, as she does to the seraphs in A. Pushkin’s “Prophet” (“rise”, “see”, “hearken”, “be fulfilled”, “burn”), but with a gesture (“And then she entered. Throwing back blanket, / Looked at me carefully"). Mz "za appears under a veil, like Beatrice in " Divine Comedy» Dante. Silence means that She is the Muse of tragedy, that where she came from, everyone is silent from grief, that there can be no more struggle between her and the lyrical heroine. The muse is now something super-personal; she will not accept the words “I can’t” from the artist, but will demand one thing - “I must.” The heroine recognizes her, understands everything without evil (“I say to her: “Did you dictate to Dante / The pages of Hell?” She answers: “I”).
By the beginning of the 1920s, it became clear that Akhmatova’s heroine did not imagine herself outside the historical coordinate system. The poet’s lyrics are almost always situational and autobiographical, but through modern history and personal life a certain “higher” plan is visible, showing the heroine a “way out” of the chaos of what is happening. The artist contrasts “emptiness” and unconsciousness with “eternal” images and subjects. Gradually, Christian motifs and “alien voices” from the near and distant past will sound even louder in A. Akhmatova’s work, and “strong portraits” will appear. The dialogue between the lyrical heroine and the Muse gives way to an appeal to Dante, Shakespeare, Pushkin (“Dante”, 1936; “In the Fortieth Year”, 1940; “Pushkin”, 1943). Since the 1920s, A. Akhmatova has carefully and professionally studied their lives and works, translated, and commented on the texts.
Since the mid-1950s, a “fruitful autumn” of Akhmatov’s lyrics began. The poet gazes intently at the logic of the fate of his heroine, who suffered for half a century. historical events as facts of one’s own biography. Acting as a competent “Akhmatov expert,” the poet creates an artistic version of understanding his life path and the evolution of creativity. The image of the Muse, on the one hand, testifies to the connection of the author’s life and work with the tragic events of the 20th century; it is to a certain extent documentary and political (“To whom and when did I say...”, 1958; “My Muse turned out to be flour...”, 1960; “As if daughter of blind Oedipus...", 1960). However, the unearthly nature of the eternal companion of poets is emphasized in those works where A. Akhmatova is focused on studying the psychology of creativity and reader perception, on understanding the results of personal and collective (cultural) memory. The lyrical heroine acquires a double, endlessly residing in the reader’s mind; now she herself is “silence,” a Song, or perhaps. Muse of another poet (“Almost in an album”, 1961; “Everything in Moscow is imbued with poetry...”, 1963; “Midnight Poems”, 1963-1965). So, the image of the Muse in A. Akhmatova’s late lyrics allows us to note the gradual switching of the author’s interest from the topic of history to thinking about time as a philosophical category, about human memory as the only possibility of overcoming it.
The image of the Muse in the lyrics of A. Blok
Muse Akhmatova block lyrics
Few Russian poets nurtured their life and artistic ideal as carefully as Alexander Blok. Even another great poet, Alexander Pushkin, cannot, perhaps, compare with him in this. Blok formed his ideal very early, filled it with deep content and was faithful to it for a very long time. And although the aesthetic appearance of this ideal changed over the years, its essence remained unchanged.
The lyrical hero also becomes a constant admirer and admirer of the “Mistress of the Universe”. He escapes from real world cruelty, injustice, violence in the unearthly “Nightingale Garden”, in the world of the Beautiful Lady, which is mystical, unreal, full of secrets and mysteries.
The cycle of poems opens with an “Introduction”, in which a traveler is depicted, unstoppably marching to where the heroine is. It is interesting that here the poet also places her in a Russian wooden tower, decorated with carvings, a ridge, and a high dome. It seems to me that Blok is relying here on a folklore source, on the song: “My joy lives in a high tower...” Only the poet makes this song “joy” into a fairy-tale Princess, he begins to write this word with a capital letter, and he himself penetrates the gates of an inaccessible tower through the flames of a glowing fire.
This lady is very vague, ethereal, it is difficult to see her face, figure, clothes, gait. But she's beautiful. It is not for nothing that the word Lady is preceded by the corresponding epithet. The light coming from her is beautiful, the rustling of her steps is mysterious, the sounds of her appearance are wonderful, the signals of her approach are promising, the voices accompanying her are musical. In general, everything connected with it is filled with the spirit of music.
This image is not accidental. After all, Blok was creating at this time as a symbolist. He does not use realistic images, but symbols. In each symbol there is something from an object image, but something from an identifying sign, a sign, an indication of the meaning of the phenomenon. If you understand this, then you can see in the image of the Beautiful Lady the image of Eternal Femininity. This symbol is devoid of flesh, but there is nothing in it from naturalism, from vulgarity, from earthiness; there is a lot of mysterious and sublime in it. That’s why there is so much allegory, conventions, and omissions here. Let's consider how the attitude towards this image, the image of the Beautiful Lady, the lyrical hero in Blok's poems, is changing. Once in “paradise”, he does not realize all the charm of the Lady, his feelings for her are still vague, the flame of future passions is only emerging in the soul of the young romantic. He wants to clarify the image of the fantastic Virgin, “casts spells” on her:
Fortune-filled days
I cherish the years - don’t call...
Will the lights go out soon?
Enchanted dark love?
But soon the “epiphany” comes by itself. The lyrical hero already admires the beauty of the Beautiful Lady and idolizes her. But this image is vague, because it is the fruit of the hero’s incessant fantasies. He creates the “Maiden of the Rainbow Gate” only for himself, and often earthly features are visible in the mythologized image:
Your face is so familiar to me
It's like you lived with me...
...I see your thin profile.
The young man is directed towards her with his whole being, happy only from the mere consciousness that she exists, all this gives him a supersensible perception of the world. The relationship between the Beautiful Lady and the hero “I” - an earthly being, whose soul aspires to the heights of heaven, to the One who “flows in the row of other luminaries”, is complex. The princess is not just an object of veneration, respect, young man, she captivated him with her extraordinary beauty, unearthly charm, and he is madly in love with her, so much so that he becomes a slave to his own feelings:
I am defeated by your passions,
Weak under the yoke.
Sometimes - a servant; sometimes - cute;
And forever - a slave.
The lofty love of the lyrical hero is love-admiration, through which only a timid hope for future happiness glimmers:
I believe in the Sun of the Covenant,
I see dawns in the distance.
I'm waiting for the universal light
From the spring land.
The lyrical hero is blissful and suffers in the ecstasy of love. The feelings are so strong that they overwhelm and overwhelm him, he is ready to accept even death meekly:
Behind short nap what I'm dreaming about today,
And there is no tomorrow,
Ready to submit to death
Young poet.
The life of a hero - a poet of his Muse - is an eternal impulse and desire for the World Soul. And in this impulse his spiritual growth and purification occurs.
But at the same time, the idea of a Meeting with the Ideal is not so radiant. It would seem that it should transform the world and the hero himself, destroy the power of time, and create the kingdom of God on Earth. But over time, the lyrical hero begins to fear that their reunion, that is, the arrival of the Beautiful Lady in real life, reality, can turn into a mental disaster for himself. He is afraid that at the moment of incarnation, the Virgin may turn into an earthly, sinful creature, and her “descent” into the world will be a fall:
I have a feeling about you. The years pass by -
All in one form I foresee You...
How clear is the horizon: and the radiance is close.
But I’m scared: You will change your appearance.
And the desired transformation, and the world, and the “I” of the lyrical hero does not happen. Having incarnated, the Beautiful Lady turns out to be “different” - faceless, and not heavenly. Having descended from heaven, from the world of dreams and fantasies, the lyrical hero does not cross out the past; in his soul the melodies of the “past” still sing:
When despair and anger die away,
Sleep descends. And we both sleep soundly
At different poles of the earth...
And I see your image in dreams, your beautiful one,
How angry and passionate he was before the night,
What he was like to me. Look:
You are still the same as you once bloomed.
The result of the lyrical hero’s stay in the world of the Beautiful Lady is both a tragic doubt in the reality of the ideal, and loyalty to the bright youthful hopes for the future fullness of love and happiness, for the future renewal of the world. The presence of the hero in the world of the Beautiful Lady, his immersion in her love forced the young knight to abandon selfish aspirations, overcome his isolation and separation from the world, and instilled him with a desire to do good and bring good to people.
The theme of art in the poetry of the era of symbolism was one of the leading ones. The early Blok is no stranger to this topic:
The muse in the attire of spring knocked on the poet's door,
Covered in the darkness of the night, whispering unclear speeches...
This poem from 1898 contains a very interesting image, which, like a mirror, reflects the philosophical concept of symbolism:
Let the body be destroyed - the soul will fly over the desert.
The soul and spirit here are absolute and eternal, just like art is eternal. This poem is very characteristic of the young Blok: the poet is convinced that art is absolute, and only it is capable of improving the world. Over the years, Alexander Blok’s point of view on art will seriously change, and the Russian Revolution of 1905 will play an important role here, “ scary world", bursting into the bright and harmonious world of the poet. In 1913, Blok created the poem “The Artist,” which reflected his new concept of art. “A light, hitherto unheard ringing” is the beginning of creative inspiration, the voice of space, time, and the Muse. But the artist of words no longer experiences joy, because he is obliged to “understand, consolidate and kill” the image that arose in his fantasy. The poet becomes a collector of images, one who turns words into exhibits of a poetic panopticon. This bitter work is hopeless:
Wings are clipped, songs are memorized.
Do you like to stand under the window?
You like the songs. I'm exhausted
I'm waiting for something new - and I miss it again.
The story of earthly, very real love develops in Blok’s work into a romantic-symbolic mystical-philosophical myth. It has its own plot and its own plot. The basis of the plot is that the “earthly” (the lyrical hero) and the heavenly (the Beautiful Lady) oppose each other and at the same time strive for unity, a “meeting”, which will mark the transformation of the world, complete harmony. The lyrical plot complicates and dramatizes the plot. From poem to poem there is a change in the hero’s mood: bright hopes give way to doubts, the expectation of love - the fear of its collapse, faith in the immutability of the Virgin’s appearance - the fear of losing it (“But I’m afraid you will change your appearance”). Years pass, and Blok’s Lady, changing her appearance, being exposed to the strange influence of terrible reality, will go through the cycles “City”, “Snow Mask”, “Faina”, “Carmen”, “Yamba”. But every time she will be Beautiful in her own way, for she will always carry within herself high light Blok's ideal.
Conclusion
silver Age began with Russian symbolism at the turn of the century and was immediately perceived as decadence, that is, decline. From the very first steps, the fight against decadence began, overcoming decadence, denying decadence. Symbolism was perceived similarly in the West. Decline - in relation to what? In relation to the classical tradition and social objectives art. The discussions were very heated and, in terms of the development of artistic ideas, natural. But later the term acquired a negative ideological meaning as a synonym for reactionary art (bourgeois ;decaying, etc.). Artistic argumentation has lost its meaning, but it is absolutely necessary for understanding the process itself.
The syncretic culture of the early 20th century, which was based on literary symbolism, was marked by new trends in the development of the arts, manifested in the emergence of synthesized forms artistic creativity. Despite all the controversy theoretical foundations symbolism, the new culture he created was still reformist in its aspirations. The desire to find new laws for a form that expresses a new aesthetics united the symbolists in search of possibilities for the synthesis of poetry and other arts. When determining the properties and patterns of interaction different types arts, the dominant role was given to music. Connecting with the experience of French symbolism, poets “test” lyric poetry in bringing it to music in a rhythmic-intonation structure - in what constitutes the musical element of speech. “Musicality” becomes the most important aesthetic category in the poetics of symbolism, and music is the rhythmic-intonation and figurative-thematic basis of poetic works. Often they are simply called as musical works - preludes, minuets, songs, sonatas, symphonies
List of used literature
1.Akhmatova A.A. Op. in two volumes / Cont. art., comp., note. MM. Kralina. T. 2. - M.: Citadel, 1997.
2.Akhmatova A. Collected works: In 6 volumes / Compiled, prepared, text, commentary. and article by N.V. Queen. - M.: Ellis Luck, 1998-2002
.Beketova M. Alexander Blok, ed. 2. L., “Academia”, 1930, 236 p.
.Blok Alexander. Collected Works in eight volumes. T. 3. M.-L., Goslitizdat, 1960-1963, 589 p.
.Vilenkin V.Ya. In the one hundred and first mirror (Anna Akhmatova). - M.: Sov. writer, 1990. Ed. 2nd, supplemented.
.Gumilev N.S. Collection op.: In 3 volumes / Intro. art., comp., note. ON THE. Bogomolov. T. 3. - M.: Khudozh. lit., 1991.
.Mayakovsky V. Complete works, vol. 1. M., GIHL, 1955, 670 p.
.Piast V. Memories of Blok. P., “Athenaeus”, 1923, 297 p.
.Razmakhnina V.K. Silver Age. Essays for study. Krasnoyarsk, 1993. - 190 p.
.Toporov V. On the echoes of Western European poetry in Akhmatova // Slavic Poetics. Essays in honor of Kiril Taranovsky. - Mouton (The Hague-Paris), 1973. - P. 467-475.
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The theme of the poet and poetry is eternal in literature. In works about the role and significance of the poet and poetry, the author expresses his views, beliefs, and creative goals.
In the middle of the 19th century in Russian poetry, the original image of the Poet was created by N. Nekrasov. Already in early lyrics he speaks of himself as a poet of a new type. According to him, he was never a “darling of freedom” and “a friend of laziness.” In his poems he embodied the simmering “heartache.” Nekrasov was strict with himself and his Muse. About his poems he says:
But I’m not flattered that in people’s memory
Any of them survived...
There is no free poetry in you,
My harsh, clumsy verse!
The poet claims that his poems consist of “living blood”, “vengeful feelings” and love.
That love that glorifies the good,
What marks a villain and a fool
And gives a crown of thorns
A defenseless singer.
Nekrasov writes about composing poetry as hard work. He does not have sublime, poetic intonations, like, for example, Pushkin. In life, Nekrasov had to work hard and painfully to earn money, and his own poems helped him escape from compulsory conscription at least for some time. Left without family help, Nekrasov was a “literary laborer” from his youth. To survive in St. Petersburg, he had to write reviews, couplets, feuilletons and much more. Such work exhausted the poet, took away his strength and health. Nekrasov’s poems are “severe poems”; they contain the power of love and hatred for the rich who oppress the people.
On Gogol’s death, Nekrasov wrote the poem “Blessed is the gentle poet...”. In it, the hero-poet is a “crowd accuser” who follows a “thorny path”, is misunderstood and cursed.
At a new stage in history, in the second half of the 19th century, Nekrasov wrote the poem “Prophet”. His poet-prophet sacrifices himself for the sake of people, their happy and fair life in the future. The poem is written in the form of a dialogue between a prophet and a man from the crowd. Prophet Nekrasov is ready to sacrifice:
It is possible to live for yourself only in the world,
But death is possible for others.
The prophet is confident that one can serve good if one sacrifices oneself, like Christ. The poet was sent to remind people about God. Nekrasov calls God himself “the God of anger and sadness.”
In the poem “The Poet and the Citizen” a purely Nekrasovian image of “love-hate” appears, which neither Pushkin nor Lermontov had:
I swear I honestly hated it!
I swear, I truly loved!
Unlike his great predecessors, Nekrasov has no motive for resentment or opposition to the whole world. His poet is not a titan or an otherworldly being chosen by God. The poet Nekrasova pronounces “hostile words of denial” in the name of love for people. Nekrasov defended the right of civil poetry to expose the riots public life:
Who lives without sadness and anger,
He doesn’t love his homeland...
Nekrasov's innovation lies in the fact that he rethought the role of the poet and poetry. If Pushkin’s poem “A Conversation between a Bookseller and a Poet” is about creative freedom, then Nekrasov’s is about the poet’s duty to society and its citizens.
The poem “The Poet and the Citizen” talks about the decline of poetry, about a time when poets are at a loss and don’t know what to write about. A citizen who comes to the sad poet demands poetry from him for “business and benefit”:
You may not be a poet
But you have to be a citizen.
You can choose the path of a “harmless” poet, or you can bring benefit to the country. The citizen says that there are “money-grubbers and thieves” or “inactive sages” and various irresponsible talkers around. Right now, accusatory verses can bring a lot of benefits and become a real “deed.” The poet makes excuses and quotes Pushkin’s lines: “We were born for inspiration, / For sweet sounds and prayers.” But the citizen answers him:
No, you are not Pushkin. But for now
The sun is not visible from anywhere,
It’s a shame to sleep with your talent...
The son cannot look calmly
On my dear mother's grief...
In the final part of the poem, Nekrasov talks about his talent, about the Muse. These lines sound like a confession. The drama of the poet, who “stands at the door of the coffin,” is not in the approaching death, but in the fact that the Muse has left him, he has lost inspiration. Nekrasov imagines his life as a tragic “romance” with Muse. The muse left the poet because he did not become a hero in the fight against tyranny, he is “the son of a sick century” and is unworthy of her. The poet turned out to be a weak person and did not live up to the talent given to him.
The image of the suffering Muse is shown in the poem “Yesterday, at about six o’clock...”:
Yesterday, at about six o'clock,
I went to Sennaya;
There they beat a woman with a whip,
A young peasant woman.
Not a sound from her chest
Only the whip whistled as it played...
And I said to the Muse: “Look!
Your dear sister!..”
Nekrasov's muse is not an ancient creature, but a simple girl who is subjected to shameful public punishment. She bears him proudly, calling for revenge.
Nekrasov’s self-criticism towards himself is not always justified. His civil lyrics really was a weapon, called for struggle, brought confusion to the ranks of the enemies of freedom.
For the first time Nekrasova this paradoxical image appears back in 1846 in the poem “Yesterday at about six o’clock I went to Sennaya...”. The “sister” of his Muse turns out to be a peasant woman - humiliated, disgraced, beaten with a whip. This sounded unexpected and wild to the Russian reader, who until then knew the Muse - a “bacchante”, a “district young lady” “with a sad thought in her eyes” - the divine inspirer of poets.
Which other Russian poet could admit that his Muse is a slave?! From that time until the days when the poet completed “Last Songs,” his dying collection, the image of the Muse in his work is unchanged - unhappy, defeated, The Muse of revenge and sadness, proud, steadfastly enduring her fate, and at the same time fallen, “humiliatingly asking” - all this is merged in the image that Nekrasova ceases to be a symbol, the embodiment of high creativity, but becomes a completely visible character who has acquired flesh, character and destiny. The muse is given the features of a folk character: the people speak through her mouth - asking for mercy, demanding justice. Depriving the Muse of an aura of mystery, he (literally) lowers her from heaven, from inaccessible Olympus to earth (“Muse”, 1852). And she showed him “the dark abysses of violence and evil, labor and hunger” - the artist was given the task of telling the world about the people’s suffering, about the abysses into which man falls.
The main feature of the complex image of the Muse is always the constant long-suffering torment, in which the people's suffering simultaneously merged (“I was called to sing of your suffering, amazing the people with patience.”), and the suffering of the author himself - from dissatisfaction, from the fear of death, from the feeling of the aimlessness of the work to which he devoted his life. Muse Nekrasova- sometimes angry, sometimes patient - an eternal sufferer. And this applies not only to main topic his creativity, the theme of the people. The poet has no rest either in love or in nature (“When tormented by rebellious passion...”, “And here the soul is overcome with despondency,” “Return”). For him, moments of peace of mind and freedom from pain are too rare. Therefore, poetry - his second life - is also filled with the torment of a sick soul.
The former high goal of serving art Nekrasov replaced by another: the subordination of art to social necessity. Such a goal could only be inspired by the Muse of revenge and sadness. The Muse, a guide in a great cause, the service of which brought the poet not only a sense of civic satisfaction, but also the torment of giving up creative freedom (in the usual, Pushkin sense), is unchanged in Nekrasov’s lyrics. Subordinating his gift to “conscious necessity” and affirming this goal as the highest, he killed his verse and suffered, feeling it
And yet, in spite of everything, this is exactly the kind of Muse - stern, cheerless - that seemed Nekrasov the guarantee of his inextricable connection with the people and with his homeland, for he did everything inspired by it for the good of Russia. Sadly, but with inescapable hope, the poet says goodbye to his Muse in his dying poem. (“Oh Muse! I am at the door of the coffin!”, 1977)
Lyrical hero:
Nekrasov's lyrical hero, possessing many of the author's traits (civicism, democracy, passion, honesty), embodies the traits of the time, advanced ideals and moral principles of the “new people”.
If the poet himself was a landowner in his village, then his lyrical hero is cleared of these weaknesses characteristic of man. If Nekrasov believed that he “walked toward the goal with a hesitant step, did not sacrifice himself for it,” then the lyrical hero of his poems, suffocating along with the people “without happiness and will,” rightly rejecting these thoughts, calls up a storm.
It is the lyrical hero who tells us what a powerful revolutionary spirit lived in Nekrasov, what made his muse “the muse of revenge and sadness,” what a thirst for struggle burned in him, what honesty, purity, and self-demandingness this man had!
In the works of N. A. Nekrasov, certain themes can be distinguished: the depiction of the hard working life of the Russian people, the satirical exposure of all kinds of oppressors, the creation of sublime images of “people's defenders”, themes of love, nature, the purpose of the poet and poetry. The lyrical hero of each cycle deeply sympathizes with the people, sees life through their eyes, and calls for struggle.
Thus, the lyrical hero of all Nekrasov’s works is a citizen. That is why many poems are so full of pain for the oppressed and unjustly offended. Nekrasov saw blatant injustice everywhere, when everyone in power tries to deceive the peasant. And the people, the Russian peasants, in whom you will find such daring and resourcefulness in the complete absence of boasting, such hard work, kindness, responsiveness, wit and, most importantly, courage - these people endure
The lyrical hero and the author are united in the cycle of poems dedicated to Belinsky, Dobrolyubov, Pisarev, Chernyshevsky, Shevchenko. The poet bowed to those who went “into the fire for the honor of the fatherland, // For conviction, for love.” The image of the “people's defender” always inspired Nekrasov, his lyrical hero was like that. His “teacher” was Belinsky, who “taught many people to think humanely.”