There is not a single poet who would not think about the problem of the creator's destiny, his essence, his mission on this earth. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was no exception. In his work, a significant place is given to the theme of the poet and poetry. "Prophet", "Echo", "Monument" - only a small part of the whole variety of works that reflected this topic. In this article, we will analyze the poem "The Poet", where the author also spoke about the role of a person of art in the life of the whole world.
The poem was written in 1827, when the poet arrived in Mikhailovsky, with whom A.S. Pushkin was bound all his mature life: here he was in exile, here he created.
In 1826, the exile of Alexander Sergeevich in Mikhailovsky ends, but the very next year the poet himself comes here from St. Petersburg to take a break from the secular bustle of the capital and engage in free creativity. During this period, he writes a lot, conceives his first work in prose "Arap of Peter the Great." In the village silence, the poet's muse woke up, soared, and the poem "The Poet" very accurately reflects such a fantastic awakening of the poet, when he turns from a driven layman into a Prophet.
Genre, size and direction
Genre "Poet" lyric poem. The work is written on behalf of the author, who tells about the features of such unusual people like creators. According to the author, an outstanding person may not be noticed in the crowd, but until the hand of Apollo touches him. When he plunges into the world of muses, he is completely transformed. The world around him is changing.
The poem can be clearly divided into two parts: a person in the real world, the philistine world, before the “divine verb” touches him; and a poet in the world of creativity, in the realm of the god of music and the arts. So, this work can be attributed to romantic lyrics. One of characteristic features romanticism is the principle of duality, which we observe in the poem "The Poet".
The size of the work is iambic tetrameter, which creates an even, smooth rhythm. The poem begins to be perceived as a parable. When you say the word "parable", a gray-haired old man is immediately drawn in the imagination, who calmly and measuredly tells about some beautiful and wise story. So here. Alexander Sergeevich created the atmosphere of a beautiful legend, which hypnotizes with its smoothness, immerses the reader following the lyrical hero into the world of dreams and muses.
Main characters and their characteristics
In the center of the poem is the poet, who appears before the readers in his two hypostases. At first he is pathetic and insignificant, he is part of the gray mass:
In the cares of vain light
He is cowardly immersed;
But as soon as the "divine verb" touches the poet's soul, he blossoms, he awakens from sleep. Now he does not want and cannot live as before, he is not ready to put up with a philistine existence, he is alien to petty interests, material concerns. If earlier he was the same, he was blind, but now he has received his sight, he is suffocating in the world of self-interest and lies. He runs from this vain world to freedom, space, freedom!
Topics and issues
- In his poem A.S. Pushkin touches on one of the most important topics for the poet himself, this creativity theme, the transformation of a person, which became possible thanks to art. Alexander Sergeevich shows how with one movement, with one breath, the muse can change life.
- In addition, the poet raises the problem of "blindness" of society. The first part of the work is dedicated to her. The world is indifferent, mercantile, insignificant. This is a person with a sleeping soul, an indifferent person. The poet cannot be like that, he reacts sharply to everything that happens around him, he sees the depravity of the people around him and cannot put up with it. And the world that seemed familiar opens up in a new unsightly light.
In addition, A.S. Pushkin tells about the specifics of inspiration: the muse comes and leaves the poet, she is independent, she is self-willed.
Meaning
In the poem, as already mentioned, two parts stand out: the “blind” life with a sleeping soul and the destiny of a man who has seen the light, who is not shielded behind everyday trifles from the meaninglessness of vegetation, who is ready to face all adversities directly and boldly. This is the ideal of personality, it is sung by Pushkin. the main idea work is not even that the author raises his skill, but that any person can and should strive to become higher than everyday and everyday trifles, which often replace all spiritual needs. We must not close our eyes, not reconcile ourselves with evil, but go against it, so that other people see that the situation must be changed for the better.
So, the poet calls for indifference. The poet soared like an eagle as soon as he could hear the "divine verb". The main thing is to be able to open your soul to this voice, which will reveal the world to you in all its manifestations.
Expressive means (tropes)
In the poem "Poet" A.S. Pushkin uses such expressive means as metaphors (“his holy lyre is silent”, “the soul tastes a cold dream”), which create a poetic image of something frightening. We see that the "holy lyre" is silent. When the saints are silent, the demons begin to rule. The soul does not just sleep, but “tastes”, which creates the impression of petty-bourgeois satiety, idle well-being. She is satisfied with the comfort of her blind existence, aspirations and dreams are alien to her, powerful emotions and feelings.
The epithets used by the poet are interesting (“sacred sacrifice”, “ vain light”, “cold dream”, “divine verb”). They emphasize the main principle of the construction of the poem. The work is built on the antithesis: the first part is vanity and darkness, the second is light, illumination.
Also, the author uses an inversion at the beginning of the poem (“So far the poet does not require / To the sacred sacrifice of Apollo”), which already tells the reader that the author will tell us what happens to the poet at moments of inspiration. It also indicates the temporality of the poet's stay in this sleepy, dead state, we believe that sooner or later his soul will wake up.
Criticism
The fate of A.S. Pushkin was not simple: he spent most of his conscious life in exile. And in this poem "The Poet" Alexander Sergeevich wanted to express the thirst for freedom of creativity, to show that the poet is not his own master, he is in the power of creativity, muses, art.
K A.S. Pushkin was treated differently: some admired him, others did not accept the fame of the poet on the scale that the former attributed to him. For example, he was bitterly criticized by Thaddeus Bulgarin, editor of the government magazine Severnaya Pchela.
I would like to finish with the words of a Russian poet and literary critic Apollon Alexandrovich Grigoriev:
A "poet" appeared, a great creative power, equal in makings to everything that in the world was not only great, but even the greatest: Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, - Pushkin appeared ...
Interesting? Save it on your wall!
Poet! do not value the love of the people.
Enthusiastic praise will pass a moment's noise;
Hear the judgment of a fool and the laughter of the cold crowd,
But you remain firm, calm and gloomy.
You are the king: live alone. By the road of the free
Go where your free mind takes you,
Improving the fruits of your favorite thoughts,
Not demanding rewards for a noble feat.
They are in you. You are your own highest court;
You know how to appreciate your work more strictly.
Are you satisfied with it, demanding artist?
Satisfied? So let the crowd scold him
And spits on the altar where your fire burns
And in childish playfulness your tripod shakes.
Analysis of the poem "To the Poet" by Pushkin
Pushkin repeatedly referred in his work to the role of the poet in society. Early poems were characterized by recognition of the leading role of the poet, his civic vocation. The poet acted as an angry orator, scourging social vices and calling for justice. After the suppression of the Decembrist uprising, Pushkin experienced great disappointment in society. He realized that the majority is incapable of understanding high ideals. The poet is acutely aware of his loneliness. This feeling intensified after the attacks of reactionary critics, who previously gave Pushkin loud praise. The poet had a particularly sharp controversy with Bulgarin (editor of the Northern Bee). Pushkin's response to critical remarks was the poem "To the Poet" (1830).
The author refers to a fellow writer. This appeal can be considered Pushkin's conversation with himself. In it, he expresses his main views on the fate of the poet. From the very beginning, the author declares the inconstancy of people's love. Stormy delight and glory can suddenly give way to misunderstanding and ridicule. Moreover, the poet himself will not be to blame for this. The "judgment of a fool", who is respected in society, can dramatically affect the changeable human opinion. By calling the crowd "cold," Pushkin means that it cannot have any firm convictions. The mass of people is not characterized by an independent judgment, it obeys the call of its leaders, who are most often guided by their own interests. The poet is given a free character by nature. He should be indifferent to negative statements and follow only his convictions (“stay firm, calm”).
Pushkin compares the poet to a tsar who controls the whole world. All paths and roads are open before him. The poet should not expect a worthy reward for his work. His reward is his own creativity, which can only be appreciated by the poet himself. If he himself is satisfied with his work, then the crowd can react as they like, even "spit on the altar" of the poet.
In the poem "To the Poet" Pushkin is one of the first in Russian literature to assert the intrinsic value of creativity. A poet or writer, creating another work, spends a huge amount of energy, invests his own soul. Therefore, the result in any case has significant value. Only the creator himself knows about its magnitude, but not the reader. Any opinion will be subjective and far from the true meaning.
Pushkin's priorities were not determined until about the age of thirty. Reading the verse “The Poet” by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin means, together with him, immersing yourself in thoughts about finding yourself and about your destiny.
The poem was written in 1827. Researchers of Alexander Sergeevich's work believe that it is based on the facts of his biography. Pushkin spent the winter-spring period in Moscow, diving headlong into secular metropolitan life. Holidays and receptions took up a lot of his time, he practically did not take up the pen. But already in June, Pushkin moved to his native Mikhailovskoye, where he again began to create. The work “Poet”, which takes place at a literature lesson in the 5th grade, appeared already in the first letter sent to him from the village. Soon it was published by the Moscow Bulletin.
The main theme of the poem is the historical mission of the poet. A person endowed with a poetic gift, according to Pushkin, has no right to live for himself. Being to some extent a prophet, a teacher, he must convey his point of view to people, bring them the light of truth. Poetry is for him a sacred sacrifice, a literary gift - a holy lyre. The poet is not the ruler of thoughts, he is the servant of Apollo, the patron of art. And worthless is the poet who does not use his gift. He, according to Pushkin, is more insignificant than all the "children of the insignificant world." Later, N. Gumilyov raised the theme of “sacred creativity” in his “Magic Violin”.
The text of Pushkin's poem "The Poet" can be called passionate. The second part of the work is dedicated to the euphoria caused by creativity. It completely transforms the hero, raises him above worldly amusements and empty fuss.
The poem is easy to learn. You can download it in full or read online on our website.
Until it requires a poet
To the sacred sacrifice of Apollo,
In the cares of vain light
He is cowardly immersed;
His holy lyre is silent;
The soul tastes a cold dream,
And among the children of the insignificant world,
Perhaps he is the most insignificant of them all.
But only the divine word
It touches the sensitive ear,
The soul of the poet will tremble,
Like an awakened eagle.
He yearns in the amusements of the world,
Human is alienated by rumors,
At the feet of the national idol
Does not bow a proud head;
He runs, wild and stern,
And full of sounds and confusion,
On the shores of desert waves
In broad-noisy oak forests…
This is the first line from the famous poem by A.S. Pushkin "Poet". Today we will talk about poets. The poem needs to be analyzed in detail, this is a very important text when the poet speaks about the essence and source of poetic inspiration. Since I am not a humanist, then, due to my meager understanding, I will use an authoritative source and state it as best I can. So here is the first part of the poem:
Until it requires a poet
To the sacred sacrifice of Apollo,
In the cares of vain light
He is cowardly immersed;
Silent him holy lyre;
The soul tastes a cold dream,
And among the children of the insignificant world,
Perhaps he is the most insignificant
Two things must be noted here. First, Pushkin says that a poet is a priest who makes sacrifices to Apollo. And he sacrifices himself. Apollo is the leader and patron of the Muses, who, according to ancient Greek mythology brought to him by his own aunts, in addition, Apollo is a god-healer, a soothsayer, personifying the rational principle, as opposed to the sensual, emotional, Dionysian principle. Apollo and Dionysus symbolize the opposite of the heavenly and earthly principles, respectively. And Pushkin connects his poetic inspiration precisely with Apollo and the Muses:
... In those days in the mysterious valleys,
In spring, with the cries of swans,
Near the waters shining in silence
The Muse began to appear to me.
The second is that while this channel between the poet and the divine principle is in a closed state, then the poet, as it were, is not a poet, but the last among equals - "perhaps he is the most insignificant of all." Therefore, those who like to throw mud at Pushkin's life, he deceived his wife, drank and walked, lost at fortune cards, etc. and so on. I can only say one thing. Pushkin the poet is not identical to Pushkin the man. Here is a quote from Alexander Sergeevich himself on this issue:
« We know Byron enough. They saw him on the throne of glory, they saw him in the torment of a great soul, they saw him in a coffin in the middle of resurrecting Greece. - You want to see him on the ship. The crowd eagerly reads confessions, notes, etc., because in their meanness they rejoice at the humiliation of the high, the weaknesses of the mighty. At the discovery of any abomination, she is delighted. He is small like us, he is vile like us! You lie, scoundrels: he is both small and vile - not like you - otherwise.»
So the presence of this channel is a divine gift that distinguishes the poet from ordinary person. And when the channel opens, a miracle happens:
But only the divine word
Touches the sensitive ear,
The soul of the poet will tremble,
Like an awakened eagle.
He yearns in the amusements of the world,
Human is alienated by rumors,
At the feet of the national idol
Does not bow a proud head;
He runs, wild and stern,
And sounds and confusion is full,
On the shores of desert waves
In the noisy oak forests...
Roughly speaking, we can say that Pushkin's poet is such a receiver, tuned to the frequency of Apollo. And when the receiver catches the “divine verb” (what is called inspiration), he transforms it and gives out verses, that is, something expressed in human language and therefore understandable to people. And not just understandable, but causing a lively response. At these moments, the poet does not notice everything earthly or avoids it. In a certain sense, an analogy can be drawn between a poet and a prophet. Prophets also have the ability to capture the messages of the divine and broadcast it to the people:
Spiritual thirst tormented,
In the gloomy desert I dragged myself
...
Like a corpse in the desert I lay,
And God's voice called to me:
“Arise, prophet, and see, and listen,
Fulfill my will
And, bypassing the seas and lands,
Burn people's hearts with the verb"
Since we are talking about Greek mythology, we need to say a few words about the ancient Greeks themselves. So that Pushkin's lines do not look like a metaphor or an artistic image, divorced from reality. In Plato's dialogue Ion, Socrates says of poets that they are divinely inspired:
« Here, in my opinion, God showed us everything more clearly, so that we would not doubt that these beautiful creations are not human and do not belong to people, but that they are divine and belong to the gods, poets are nothing but transmitters of the gods, each possessed by the god who will take possession of him. To prove this, God deliberately sang the most beautiful song through the lips of the weakest poet. Do you think I'm wrong, Jon?»
Socrates himself, speaking in court before the Athenians, who accused him of godlessness, said that from childhood he heard a voice that gave him advice:
« It may seem strange in this case that I give advice only in private, bypassing everyone and interfering in everything, but I do not dare to speak publicly in the assembly and give advice to the city. The reason for this is what you have often and everywhere heard from me: something divine or demonic happens to me, over which Melit laughed in his denunciation. It started with me from childhood: a kind of voice arises that every time deflects me from what I intend to do, but never persuades me to anything. It is this voice that forbids me to engage in public affairs. And, in my opinion, he does well what he forbids. Rest assured, Athenians, that if I tried to engage in public affairs, I would have perished long ago and would not have benefited either myself or you..»
and further: " But why do some people like to spend a lot of time with me? You have already heard, Athenians - I told you the whole truth - that they like to hear how I test those who consider themselves wise, although in reality they are not. It's very funny indeed. And to do this, I repeat, was entrusted to me by God both in divination and in dreams, and in general in all ways that divine determination has ever been revealed and entrusted to fulfill something to a person.»
Socrates, being engaged in philosophy, thereby fulfills the divine will, in a sense, becoming like Pushkin's prophet - he burns with a verb. Not hearts, but minds, but it doesn’t matter: Socrates is the largest figure in antiquity. After passing the death sentence, Socrates says, among other things:
« With me, judges - I can justly call you judges - something amazing happened. In fact, before all the time, the prophetic voice usual for me was constantly heard by me and kept me even in unimportant cases, if I intended to do something wrong, but now, when, as you yourself see, something happened to me that everyone would recognize - and so it is considered - the worst disaster, a divine sign did not stop me, not in the morning when I left the house, nor when I entered the courthouse, nor during all my speech, whatever I was about to say. After all, before, when I said something, it often stopped me in mid-sentence, but now, while the trial was going on, it never once stopped me from a single act, not a single word. How can I understand this? I will tell you: perhaps all this happened for my good, and, apparently, the opinion of all those who think that death is evil is wrong. I now have a great proof of this: after all, it cannot be that the habitual sign would not stop me if I intended to do something bad..»
Socrates dies, and in the sentence he sees the divine will. The authority of Socrates as a philosopher, and the authority of his student Plato, who wrote down the teacher's words, is undeniable. It is unlikely that Socrates is telling a lie about the voice that accompanied him. There are many cases of similar advice received by Socrates from his voice (daimon). In some situations, having obeyed the voice, Socrates survived, unlike his comrades. Iamblichus states that Pythagoras also had the ability to hear the divine (the music of the spheres):
« This man himself organized and prepared himself for the perception not of the music that arises from playing strings or instruments, but, using some inexpressible and difficult to comprehend divine ability, he strained his hearing and fixed his mind on the highest harmonies of the world order, listening ( as it turned out, he alone possessed this ability) and perceiving the universal harmony of the spheres and the luminaries moving along them and their consonant singing (some kind of song, more sonorous and soulful than the songs of mortals!), resounding because the movement and circulation of the luminaries, which is composed from their noises, speeds, magnitudes, positions in the constellation, on the one hand, unequal and diversely different from each other, on the other hand, ordered in relation to each other by a certain musical proportion, is carried out in the most melodic way and at the same time with a remarkably beautiful variety. (66) Feeding his mind from this source, he ordered the verb inherent in the mind, and, so to speak, for the sake of exercise, he began to invent for the disciples some similarities as close as possible to all this, imitating the heavenly sound with the help of instruments or singing without musical accompaniment. For he believed that he alone of all those living on earth understood and heard cosmic sounds, and he considered himself capable of learning something from this natural universal source and root and teaching others, creating with the help of research and imitation of the likeness of celestial phenomena, since only he alone was so happily created with the divine beginning growing in him.»
It turns out that not only poets and prophets, but also philosophers have a connection with the divine. Pushkin's words about the divine verb are not exclusively an artistic image or a figure of speech. This is a tradition that comes from antiquity. In Egyptian Nights, Pushkin describes the moment of inspiration in more detail:
« But already the improviser felt the approach of God... His face turned terribly pale, he shook as if in a fever; his eyes sparkled with a wonderful fire; he lifted his black hair with his hand, wiped his high forehead, covered with drops of sweat».
And here, as if repeating the words from a letter to Vyazemsky, he narrates how an Italian improviser in ordinary earthly life is petty and greedy.
There are examples when such inspiration was observed among the generals - Publius Scipio Africanus and Joan of Arc. Leaving aside the hypotheses that these were forms of a mental disorder, we can confidently say that if it were only a disorder, it would hardly Scipio or D'Arc were able to turn history around, and they obviously turned it around.As Appian, Polybius and other ancient authors testify, Scipio was repeatedly guided by divine revelations in battles and plans of operations. Modern people, armed with scientific knowledge, such an approach may seem naive and even ridiculous, but the ancient Greeks, and even more so the Romans (who retained their piety and religiosity when fashionable atheism ruled everywhere in Greece) reverently perceived such cases of divine intervention, and the lucky ones, involved in the secret of communication with other worlds, respected and revered.
Returning to the poets, we can confidently assert that the poets (and not rhymers, coupletists and similar artisans) are in contact with Apollo, the Muses. Alexander Blok speaks about this especially clearly and in detail. He argued that poets draw inspiration from constant communication with "other worlds." Speaking of his travels through these worlds, he writes:
« The reality I have described is the only one that gives meaning to life, the world and art for me. Either those worlds exist or they don't. For those who say “no”, we will remain just “so-so decadents”, writers of unprecedented sensations ... For myself, I can say that if I ever had, then the desire to convince someone of the existence of that that is beyond and above myself; I dare to add, by the way, that I would most humbly ask you not to waste time on misunderstanding my verses, the most respected public, for my verses are only a detailed and consistent description of what I am talking about in this article.»
Blok argues that poets are mediators between other worlds and our reality: “ We do not yet have any other means than art. Artists, as messengers of ancient tragedies, come from there to us, into a measured life, with the stamp of madness and fate on their faces.»
What Pushkin speaks of allegorically, Blok describes in plain text as a reality given to him (and to poets in a broad sense) in sensations. Novella Matveeva says roughly the same thing:
Matveev is not Ancient Greece or Russian empire where religiosity was the norm. This is the USSR with its atheism and scientific communism. Poets come from somewhere, don't they? And they bring something with them, since they can update words and objects, and most importantly, they can solve damned questions. Since we have already quoted Pythagoras with his music of the spheres, I will give one more quote from Blok:
« At the bottomless depths of the spirit, where a person ceases to be a person, at the depths inaccessible to the state and society created by civilization - sound waves are rolling, like waves of ether, embracing the universe; rhythmic fluctuations go on there, similar to the processes that form mountains, winds, sea currents, flora and fauna».
I repeat once again that it is a mistake to consider the sounds described by Blok as some kind of allegory. Blok says that a poet is not one who writes poetry. On the contrary, he writes poetry precisely because he is a poet. A poet is one who joins the sound element of the universe. And in this sense, Scipio, and Socrates, and Pythagoras were poets. The question of what kind of element this is and how to join it remains open for now...
Bobrovnikova T. A. "African Scipio" Moscow 2009 Chapter 4, "Chosen of the Gods"
Pushkin A.S. "Eugene Onegin", Chapter VIII
Pushkin A.S. Letter to P.A. Vyazemsky, second half of November 1825 From Mikhailovsky to Moscow
Pushkin A.S. "Prophet"
Plato's "Apology of Socrates"
Iamblichus "Life of Pythagoras" chapter XV
Polybius "History" X, 2, 9
Records of the indictment of Joan of Arc (
Chapter 4 Three poems
Until it requires a poet
To the sacred sacrifice of Apollo,
Into the worries of vain light
He is cowardly immersed;
His holy lyre is silent;
The soul tastes a cold dream,
And among the children of the insignificant world,
Perhaps he is the most insignificant of them all.
But only the divine word
It touches the sensitive ear,
The soul of the poet will tremble,
Like an awakened eagle.
He yearns in the amusements of the world,
Human is alienated by rumors,
At the feet of the national idol
Does not bow a proud head;
He runs, wild and stern,
And full of sounds and confusion,
On the shores of desert waves
In the noisy oak forests...
A.S. Pushkin (1827)
The driver's yard and the riser from the waters
In the ledges - the criminal and cloudy Tower,
And the sonority of horseshoes, and a cold ringing
Westminster, a block wrapped in mourning.
And narrow streets; walls like hops
Saving dampness in overgrown logs,
Gloomy as soot, and greedy as ale,
Like London, cold as footsteps, uneven.
Spirals, baggy snow falls,
Already locked up when he, flabby,
Like a slipped belly, went half asleep
Bring down, falling asleep the sleeping wasteland.
Window and grains of purple mica
In lead rims - “Depending on the weather.
But by the way ... But by the way, let's sleep in freedom.
And yet - on the barrel! Barber, water!”
And shaving, cackling, holding on to the sides
To the words of a wit, not tired of the feast
To sip through an adherent mouthpiece of a chubuk
Killer nonsense.
Meanwhile, Shakespeare
To sharpen the hunt disappears. Sonnet,
Written at night with fire, without blots,
At that table over there, where the sour will wound
Dives, hugging a lobster claw,
The sonnet tells him:
"I admit
Your abilities, but, genius and master,
Surrenders, as you, and the one on the edge
Barrel, with a soapy muzzle that suit
I am all lightning, that is, higher in caste,
Than people - in short, what I douse
With fire, as in my scent, with the stench of your knaster?
Pardon my father for my skepticism
Filial, but sir, but, my lord, we are in an inn.
What do I need in your circle? What are your chicks
Before the splashing black? I want wide!
Read this one. Sir, why?
In the name of all guilds and bills! five yards
- And you and him in the billiard room, and there - I don’t understand,
Why are you not successful popularity in the billiard room?
- To him?! Are you mad? - And calls the servant,
And nervously playing with a malaga branch,
Counting: half a pint, French stew -
And through the door, throwing a napkin at the ghost.
B.L. Pasternak (1919)
The third verse will be a little lower, but for now, conduct an experiment: read a poem by Pushkin, then Pasternak.
If Pasternak's verse is incomprehensible, then re-read Pushkin's verse, but already with the consciousness that Pushkin will explain Pasternak for us, for he speaks of the same thing with classical clarity.
I have more than once managed to help those for whom poetry is an important part of life, using the transparent Pushkin's verse, to understand Pasternak's incredibly complex stylistics.
And every time a miracle happens: Pasternak's verse suddenly acquires transparency and a completely classical clarity. And the more we read into Pasternak's verse, the more we will feel the style not only of this particular verse, but also of Pasternak's poetry, and indeed modern poetry at all.
Moreover, I want to express an idea that may seem strange at the beginning:
Pasternak's verse is Pushkin's verse a hundred years later. And it was written as a reminiscence of Pushkin. The only thing I don't dare to define is Pasternak's conscious or subconscious reminiscence.
I will commit
one awful
experiment:
I will prosaically convey the content of both verses in a simultaneous story.
Why is it terrible?
Yes, because I myself violate my staunch agreement with the brilliant statement of Osip Mandelstam that genuine poetry is incompatible with retelling. And where it is compatible, "there the sheets are not wrinkled, there poetry did not spend the night." The only thing that can justify me is that my exercise is not a retelling, but an even more unusual experiment.
What if Osip Emilievich would like him?
Seven troubles - one answer
(But maybe... there's something to it?)
So, closing my eyes, I rush into the abyss.
An episode from the life of W. Shakespeare.
(Here single out phrases and images borrowed from Pasternak's verse, and in italics the same - from a poem by Pushkin.)
Shakespeare sat at a table in a dirty tavern in a slum area of London where narrow streets, where even grim sooty walls smelled hops, among the beer tramps, drank intoxicated beer and told them obscene anecdotes.
The vagabonds laughed loudly, and most of all, one with a soapy face, who, having listened wit-Shakespeare, could not get along and at the same time decide Where he and the rest of the tramps will sleep tonight. Sleep outside (or as they usually call it, "on the loose").
Or maybe on a bench in a tavern.
Depending on the weather.
If this baggy, flabby snow falls, then you will have to neglect freedom and stay in this smoky tavern.
And Shakespeare smokes non-stop, so much so that it seems that the mouthpiece has stuck to his mouth. forever.
But what is Shakespeare doing here, in this tavern, among people who have no idea that in front of them is the greatest creator that ever existed?
Why is he spouting this senseless nonsense?
The fact is that his contact with Apollo ended. The result was a sonnet written at night with fire without blots at the far table.
And then his holy lyre fell silent.
In addition, after contact with heaven, Shakespeare was immensely tired (after all, God demands the poet to the sacred sacrifice ).
And Shakespeare wanted to relax in the circle of vagabonds.
And here is our genius faint-hearted , he not only approached the tramps, but for some reason he suddenly needed to be in the center of their attention.
After all his lyre was silent, and he felt himself in a state of cold sleep , that is, the same state in which London vagabonds often find themselves.
They do not care about the problems of the universe, and they are happy with that.
They would drink, cackle, get enough sleep, and then have a good hangover.
And Shakespeare seemed to be one of them. To an outsider it might even seem that among the children of the insignificant world, he, perhaps, is the most insignificant .
And suddenly, in the midst of laughter sensitive hearing Shakespeare caught the sound that came from the corner of the far table, where he was away from everyone, just a few hours ago he was writing his sonnet.
Then he did not hear any cackle or dirty curses, but, only the divine verb that touched his ear .
And Shakespeare hears this sound again!
Poet bored in fun- he felt uneasy.
And Shakespeare immediately lost the desire to joke.
In the next moment, he rushed to the far table.
And dumbfounded!
The sonnet tells him!!! It was you who wrote me at night, with fire,
without blots, but, Genius and master!
Why are you here?
What are you doing here?
What do I need in your circle?
Shakespeare seemed to wake up from a dream.
What does he, the Poet, do here and this whether a tramp on the edge of the barrel, with a soapy muzzle, his friend?
How can he, Shakespeare, communicate with those to whom he does not dare to read his sonnet?
How can his mouth spew words that are as filthy and stinky as this one? sour ranet in an embrace with the claw of a half-eaten lobster.
Yes, in addition to everything else and - smelly knaster(that vile cheap tobacco!)
But the sonnet has an unusual and very strange sentence. Maybe Shakespeare should take a chance go with this soapy-faced one to the billiard room and try to read him a sonnet?
Perhaps this one will understand the heavenly origin of poetry? (the sonnet is all in lightning, that is, higher in caste than people)
- To him?
Madness!!!
Pure madness!!!
Shakespeare suddenly felt how he yearns in the amusements of the world , How this is alien to him primitive rumor . He feverishly calculates how much he must pay, and, like a madman, jumps out the door.
He runs, wild and stern,
And sounds, and full of confusion.
For the divine word touched the sensitive ear .
AND along the way launched stuck to the hands napkin into some drunk ghost –
the last obstacle in the form of one of the insignificant children of this insignificant world that stood in his way to to the shores of desert waves, to broad-noisy oak forests ...
Here is a strange experiment.
But the time has come for the third poem.
It will greatly complicate our already seemingly clear enough picture. Although it is on the same topic as the previous two.
This poem Alexander Blok, like Pasternak's Shakespeare, Same grew out of Pushkin's "So far does not require a poet."
And from several of his lines.
But it was precisely this, written eleven years before Pasternak's verse, that, in turn, influenced him.
We have to understand that Pasternak's verse is a reminiscence of both Pushkin's and Blok's verses, that all three verses are vitally connected with each other.
So, Blok's poem
Outside the city grew a deserted quarter
On the soil of the marsh and unsteady.
Poets lived there, and everyone met
Another haughty smile.
In vain and the bright day rose
Over this sad swamp:
Its inhabitant devoted his day
Guilt and hard work.
When they got drunk, they swore friendship,
Chatted cynically and spicy.
In the morning they vomited. Then they locked up
They worked hard and hard.
Then they crawled out of the booths like dogs,
Watched the sea burn
And the gold of every passer-by braid
Captivated with knowledge of the matter.
Relaxed, dreamed of a golden age,
Scolded publishers together,
And wept bitterly over a small flower,
Above a small cloud of pearl...
This is how the poets lived. Reader and friend!
You think it might be worse
Your daily powerless attempts,
Your philistine puddle?
No, dear reader, my critic is blind!
At least the poet has
And braids, and clouds, and a golden age,
You don't have access to all of this!
You will be pleased with yourself and your wife,
With its short constitution,
But the poet has a worldwide binge,
And constitutions are not enough for him!
Let me die under the fence like a dog
Let life trample me into the ground, -
I believe that God covered me with snow,
That blizzard kissed me!
A. Block (1908)
After reading this verse, we can conclude that its author, the poet Alexander Blok (or his lyrical hero), a homeless drunkard, who also believes that real life is not for someone who is “happy with himself and his wife”, but for a person free from all the conventions of the world and therefore lonely.
That he lives in a booth like a dog.
That he swears friendship only when he gets drunk.
Instead of food - wine.
In the morning, instead of joyfully going to work, as a feat, he locks himself in his booth!
He vomits in the morning!
Magnificent life!
And the perspective in its end is “to die under the fence like a dog”.
Isn't it a terrible poem? And this drunkard, misanthrope, hypocrite is read as a great sovereign poet? A great role model and educator.
And connoisseurs and lovers of Blok's poetry, with good reason, will be angry with me: after all, I could choose completely different motives from hundreds of his poems. The textbook “The girl sang in the church choir” alone is worth something.
"Oh, I want to live crazy."
Or remember that when dying, Blok did not crawl to the fence like a dog, but went to say goodbye to Pushkin's house:
“That's why, at sunset,
Leaving in the darkness of the night
From the white square of the Senate...
I quietly bow to him."
I chose a very special and not at all characteristic for Blok verse. Moreover, I suggest that all readers of this book pay special attention to it.
Is he worth that kind of attention?
So, firstly, you could not help but notice that the theme of Blok's poem echoes Pushkin's verse and, of course, influenced Pasternak's verse. And here, in this verse, the principles of what Mandelstam calls instrumentality are brought to perfection.
To such perfection that the verse hides the exact opposite meaning.
Already his first line leads directly to Pushkin.
“A desert quarter has grown up outside the city.”
What is Pushkin here?
All! But not directly.
For example, the word “desert” is a very common word in Pushkin. And it means "lonely".
Remember this - "freedom sower of the desert"?
Or "desert star"?
Or “on the shore of desert waves”?
After Pushkin, no one used this word in poetry. And suddenly Blok does it, and even a hundred years after Pushkin.
Why, it's clear why!
This is nothing but a secret dedication to Pushkin, a hint of continuity not only in poetry in general, but also in a particular poem.
After all, Blok writes in his dying address to Pushkin:
"Pushkin, secret freedom
We sang after you!
Give us a hand in bad weather
Help the silent struggle!”
That is why the dedication to Pushkin in the poem "Poets" is hidden in one word! For we are talking about “secret freedom”, and the struggle is “mute”.
But why is the quarter in Blok's poem lonely, and besides, "grew outside the city"? After all, poets did not live outside the city, but in the city. In addition, from the second line it becomes clear which city we are talking about.
“The quarter has grown
On the soil of the marsh and unsteady.
It is clear that we are talking about St. Petersburg. And here again - a secret connection with Pushkin, and specifically, with his poem (or, as Pushkin himself calls it, "Petersburg Tale") "The Bronze Horseman".
And the first line of this story sounds, as you know, like this:
“On the coast of desert (!!!) waves...” (and further Peter's thought about the creation of the city).
“One hundred years have passed, and the young city, (Petersburg is built)
Midnight countries beauty and wonder
From the darkness of the forests from swamp blat
Ascended magnificently, proudly ... "
at Blok - “soil, swampy and unsteady,
Pushkin has “mossy, swampy shores” and “bog blat”.
Pushkin has “desert waves”,
and Blok has a “desert quarter”.
But again the same question: why did the quarter grow “outside the city”?
And here again - a metaphor,
for “outside the city” is not a geographical location where the poets lived, but a spiritual one.
Poets lived not where everyone else was, not in the city, but in their own world, “outside the city”.
“Poets lived there, and everyone met
Another haughty smile.”
This is completely incomprehensible: why do poets, brothers in spirit, treat each other so strangely?
In the line about the “haughty smile”, Blok encoded one of the most interesting phenomena of art: a poet, artist, composer, writer creates his own world, so deep that he is often unable to perceive other worlds, other possible forms of genius.
So, Tchaikovsky did not like the music of Brahms, Mussorgsky laughed at Debussy, and called Tchaikovsky's music "sour", "saccharin", "molasses". Leo Tolstoy believed that Shakespeare was a nonentity.
In turn, the greatest violin professor and one of the greatest violinists in the world, Leopold Auer, did not understand the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto dedicated to him and never played it. (It's hard to believe, because already through a short time and to this day this concerto is the most performed of all violin concertos.)
The two greatest Russian poets Blok and Bely hated each other, and things almost came to a duel.
When the premiere of Georges Bizet's opera "Carmen" took place, which turned out to be the worst failure in the history of music, bringing its creator to the grave (Bizet died three months after the fiasco) and the newspapers attacked its author, neither Camille Saint-Saens nor Charles Gounod stood up for their colleague, did not write a single word in the newspapers to support their friend.
In all these (and many other) cases, what Blok calls a “haughty smile” is not the result of envy or ill will of one creator towards another. Here, rather, simply - the elementary impossibility of one to go beyond the unprecedented depth that is created by him, and realize the equally great depth of the other.
I am inclined to call such behavior the PROTECTIVE FIELD OF GENIUS.
After all essential condition existence of a genius is, first of all, his deep belief in his rightness.
And then in the poem - an amazing provocation: a description of the life of the poet from the point of view of the layman- an incredible poetic device, the purpose of which is to present rumors as truth, to shock the tradesman, to oppose the creator to him. But there is another dimension here, which can be formulated as follows:
SUPPOSE THAT ALL THIS IS TRUE: drunkenness, and vagrancy, and the absurdity of the life of poets, BUT EVEN IN THIS CASE THE POET IS RIGHT,
FOR HIS PURPOSE IS TO SAVE HUMANITY FROM THE CONSTITUTION OF LIES, FALSE, PRETENSIONS, FROM BOTTOM CONTENT, FROM COMFORT.
Because instead of being well-organized and living comforts, the poet has “both braids, and clouds, and a golden age”, the poet has contact with the universality (“worldwide drinking”),
with clouds
By the way, do you know what WORLDWIDE DRINK? I think I will be the first to reveal this Blok secret.
The phrase "worldwide binge" has two meanings.
The first is what is deducted at the household level of a tradesman: an alcoholic of a worldwide scale.
But the second (and in fact the main one) comes from the phrase poet-singer.
The poet sings all over the world. And in this case, binge drinking is a phenomenal product of Blok's poetry. (Just like the ingenious Blok’s “lake-beauty”, where the lake suddenly loses its neuter gender, which this word is designated in Russian, and becomes a woman).
And if we return to the first meaning of the verse, not from the point of view of the layman, then in the verse one can very clearly trace the appeal to another poet.
To the great Persian Hafiz, in whose poetry love and wine are glorified. That's where in the short poem twice the conversation comes about the scythe.
“And the gold of every passer-by braid
Were captivated with knowledge of the matter”
“At least the poet has
And braids, and clouds, and a golden age.
But what are these clouds? Remember Lermontov?
“The clouds of heaven are eternal wanderers
You rush as if like me, exiles.
“A golden cloud spent the night
On the chest of a giant cliff.
See what happens: |
Blok's poem is not only about abstract poets, but about very specific ones, including Lermontov, Khafiz, Pushkin.
This is Lermontov crying over a cloud.
This is Hafiz singing and drinking wine.
This is Pushkin, "captivated with knowledge of the matter" by "the gold of every passerby braid."
And finally,
Blok's entire verse is a paraphrase of the first eight lines from Pushkin's poem.
The poet differs from the rest of the world "only" in one:
He has contact with God.
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