Bryusov as the founder of symbolism in Russian poetry. I won't tell you fairy tales, the one that mother whispers, loving
V. Bryusov wrote: "Where there is no mystery in feeling, there is no art. For whom everything in the world is simple, understandable, comprehensible, he cannot be an artist" ("Keys of Secrets"). The key to the secret is symbol.
Unlike their predecessors - the realists - the symbolists abandoned words in their direct meanings, that is, in the words of Z. Gippius, from the words "local", and turned to abstract vocabulary, "out of place" - to symbols. One of the features of symbolist poetry is the interest in the mystical content of words. "Symbolism speaks full of allusions and omissions, in the indistinct voice of a siren or the muffled voice of a sibyl, evoking foreboding" (K. Balmont "Elementary words about symbolic poetry", 1900).
Symbols are designed to help to penetrate into the essence of hidden phenomena, to penetrate from the world of everyday life into the world of being. By definition Vyach. Ivanov, symbols are "signs of a different reality." The symbol increases, expands the meaning of each word, the entire text. The symbol of the symbolists is not a reflection, but a sign of a different reality, it connects the earthly, empirical with transcendent worlds, with the depths of the spirit and soul, with the eternal. The symbol is polysemantic, indefinite, and therefore more closely connected with the realm of the secret.
A symbol always has many meanings, we catch only some of them. Vyach. Ivanov wrote that the symbol is not only "many-sided and ambiguous", but also "always dark in the last depth." That is, no matter how many meanings of a symbolic word we name, something else remains in it, perhaps the most significant.
As a rule, in understanding symbols, especially important role context plays. Many symbols in A. Blok's poems can be understood only by reading the entire first collection "Poems about the Beautiful Lady". By the way, the new principles of cyclization of poems are the discovery of the symbolists.
With the ambiguity and indeterminacy of the symbol, the symbolists also associated the features of the artistic image. The pictorial image in symbolist poetry is relegated to the background, as well as direct meaning the words. The image of the symbolists is almost absent as a visual reality. The image is often shrouded in a mystical haze, its contours and boundaries are erased. In one musical chord, as a rule, a sad and aching object, reality and an "unreal" dream, mood merge.
For the Symbolists, it is not so much the words that are important as the music of the words. Musicality is the most important principle of the Symbolists, hence the desire for musicality, harmony. The category of music is the second most important (after the symbol) in the aesthetic and poetic practice of symbolism. This concept was used by symbolists in two aspects - worldview and "technical":
- in the ideological, philosophical meaning, music for the symbolists is not a sound, rhythmically organized sequence, but a universal metaphysical energy, the fundamental principle of all creativity;
- in the "technical" meaning, "music" for the symbolists is the principle of organizing verse, it is the verbal texture of the verse, permeated with sound and rhythmic combinations, that is, the maximum use of musical compositional principles in poetry. Symbolist poems are sometimes built as a bewitching stream of verbal-musical consonances and echoes. V. Bryusov: "The purpose of symbolism is to hypnotize the reader with a series of juxtaposed images, to evoke a certain mood in him" ("Russian Symbolists"). Hence the frequent repetitions of words and whole lines, development, variation of the motives stated in the poem. V. Bryusov's poem "Creativity" 1 became textbook famous:
Twilight is a favorite time of day for the symbolist poet, since they are on the border of day and night, they are a "crack between the worlds" through which it is possible to penetrate into the world of the invisible, the unknown.
Complexity, distraction poetic language Symbolism is also due to another feature of this trend: the relationship between the symbolist artist and the reader was built in a new way. The symbolist poet does not strive to be generally intelligible, because such an understanding is based on ordinary logic. The symbolist poet addresses the "initiated", the chosen ones, the reader-creator, the reader-co-author. The poem should not so much convey the author's thoughts and feelings as awaken his own in the reader, help him to comprehend the "higher reality". (“And I call the dreamers ... I don’t call you!” - K. Balmont.)
3. Expansion of artistic impressionability
The symbol expands the meaning of the word, text, becomes the most important means of conveying mystical content, and this leads to an expansion of artistic impressionability. The reader is given the opportunity to perceive the text in its ambiguity, the reader becomes, as it were, a co-author of the work.
Of course, the aesthetic principles put forward by the Symbolists, as is always the case in art, turned out to be already objective. artistic content symbolist works. Each of the Symbolists is, first of all, a kind of poet, with his own unique the artistic world(if, of course, we are talking about true poetic talent).
Forward, dream, my faithful ox!
Unwittingly, if not willingly!
I am close to you, my whip is heavy,
I work myself, and you work!
The lines taken as an epigraph were written by Bryusov in 1902, when all reading Russia saw in him the leader of Russian symbolism, a truly decadent poet. However, in these lines, the dream, which, according to the common canons of decadence, should soar, break into the irrational, catch the departing, elusive images, turns into an ox heavily dragging its load.
Russian symbolism was firmly connected in the reader's mind with visionaryism, instability and vagueness of feelings, opinions, colors, with the desire to catch something beyond, with mysticism. In Bryusov's work, one can find many poems that seem to correspond to such ideas, poems that poetize loneliness, the isolation of a person in a human sea, and spiritual emptiness. But even in the first years of his career, he often wrote poems about the “young bustle of cities”, he is characterized by a clear picture, Flemish picturesqueness in conveying life impressions and historical images.
This contrast, the combination of seemingly incompatible features is one of the features of Bryusov's poetry and his creative path.
Perhaps none of the Russian poets so quickly and sharply felt the futility of symbolism, the limitations of its literary program; but it was Bryusov's criticism that called him a classic of symbolism. Moreover, this judgment was held even when symbolism was long dead, the community of poets who professed it broke up, and he himself clearly explained his attitude towards it and the reasons for switching to other literary positions. True, Bryusov gave a lot of grounds for such assertions. Addressing new topics, powerfully pushing horizons poetic creativity discovering new possibilities of verse, he at the same time remained an adherent of those teachings from which he himself was leaving...
For more than three decades, his creative life continued. Bryusov died when he was barely fifty years old. For these relatively short years he has traveled an unusually bright path. One of the most zealous participants in various decadent publications and demonstrations, he later becomes close to M. Gorky, after the revolution openly goes over to the side of the victorious people, not only accepts the historical turn that has taken place, but becomes one of the active builders of a new life, enters into Communist Party, is doing a lot of work on organizing publishing, preparing literary genres, and establishing literary life in the young Soviet country.
There is something in common that connected all the stages of the creative path of this outstanding writer. Conviction in the undying value of the conquests of the human spirit, faith in the strength of man, confidence in his ability to overcome all the difficulties of life, solve all the world's riddles, solve any problems and build new world worthy of human genius, - Bryusov was invariably animated. He remained true to these ideas - not only as a substantive, storyline of creativity, but as a position, point of view on history and modernity - he remained true all his life.
One of the first books published by Scorpio was Bryusov's collection The Third Guard. The verses of this book, which have become the most famous and popular, have been combined into the section “Favorites of the Ages”. This title will appear more than once in his subsequent collections. Practically in every collection there will appear a section or a cycle of poems devoted to history.
In the "Third Watch" pass before us ancient Assyria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, European Middle Ages and Renaissance, first centuries national history, Napoleonic epic. Under the poet's pen, real historical figures, and heroes of myths, nameless characters appear different eras to express character traits of his time. Bryusov's poems are written in different ways: some - as if on behalf of the heroes themselves ("Cleopatra", "Circe"), others - on behalf of the author, as if he had become a witness of certain events ("Scythians", "Dante in Venice") , or in the form of the poet's reflections on the fate of other civilizations and heroes of the past. But all these verses least of all resemble a reconstruction of the past; the desire of the poet is not at all to paint pictures on historical themes. The pulse of modernity beats perceptibly in them. Madmen and poets of our days. In a consonant chorus of laughter and contempt They meet the voice and native shadows - this is how Bryusov begins his poem about one of his favorite heroes -.
Heroes of Bryusov are united by clarity and certainty of character, boldness of thought, devotion to the chosen path, passion for serving their vocation and their historical purpose. Bryusov is attracted by the strength of the mind and spirit of these people, giving them the opportunity to rise above momentary everyday worries and petty passions, to discover the unknown, to lead the world to new frontiers. True, Bryusov's heroes are always lonely, they are driven by fate, or a personal thirst for knowledge, or a passion for power. None of them has a sense of serving people, no one goes to self-sacrifice.
In The Third Watch, Bryusov continues to develop the urban theme, the foundations of which were laid in early collections. He admires the city, bluntly says:
I love big houses
And the narrow streets of the city
but this does not drown out the cutting dissonances for him, does not close the oppressive, anti-human essence of life relations, life's disarray. The dominant feeling is loneliness, the deadness of the situation. The city subjugates a person, suppresses him, makes him defenseless and weak. In Bryusov's poems, the lines vary: “In the gorge of lifeless buildings”, “Among the immovable buildings”. Dead he calls the houses, deathly impassive - the streets. He begins to be haunted by the vision of a dead city, the end of the world, not that of frailty, but of the doom of life. Modern world it seems to be an unfinished building, where confused people move along shaky scaffolding, not knowing the meaning of this wandering.
3 years after the appearance of the “Third Guard”, at the end of 1903, Bryusov’s next collection was published - “To the City and the World” (“Urbi et Orbi”). Recalling his first appearances in the press in The Third Guard, Bryusov wrote:
Far from the first step.
Five fleeting years are like five centuries.
He sees those years even more distant now. He repeats: "The beginning is long gone," and looks at "what it used to be," as if from the sidelines.
It must be said that during these years serious changes took place in the very camp of the Symbolists. Along with the so-called “senior” symbolists (Balmont, Sologub), new names arose. in Moscow literary circles the son of the famous mathematician Professor N.V. Bugaev, a student of the natural department of the mathematical faculty of Moscow University, Boris Bugaev began to appear more and more often (he received literary fame under the pseudonym Andrei Bely); in St. Petersburg, and then in Moscow, they started talking about the young poet Alexander Blok; the nephew of the famous philosopher Vl. Solovyov Sergei Solovyov and others. They began to be called "junior" symbolists. Between them and Bryusov, significant contradictions were initially discovered. In a poem addressed to this group (it was called “The Younger”), Bryusov wrote:
They see her! They hear her!
With the bride, the groom in the illuminated palace!
Lamps sway a quiet flame,
And the reflections joyfully shine in the crown.
And I'm hopelessly wandering behind the fence
And I listen to the conversation behind a long wall.
The hungry sea is glad to be mad,
Throwing themselves on the stones, below, under me.
According to one of Bryusov's close acquaintances, P. Pertsov, the poem was written after a long conversation about Blok's first verses that had just appeared. The one they see and hear is the Eternal Feminine, Beautiful lady, World Soul. To hear it means to join some kind of irregal light that will illuminate the poet's soul, lead it along, make it possible to achieve higher knowledge and higher harmony, purification of the soul. The rationalist Bryusov could not possibly share these mystical hopes. Therefore, he draws himself behind the fence, speaks of an incomprehensible light, that he is looking in vain for a star in the sky, that he is unable to break the heavy locks in order to penetrate the temple where the sacred action is taking place. “Junior” was written at the beginning of 1903, when the literary life these writers. So far, this is not yet revealed, not cleared up opposition, but the very fact of internal separation speaks volumes.
If mysticism separates them from the “younger” Bryusov, an unearthly light that they strive to feel and see, then, in fact, one of his old associates, K. Balmont, turns out to be no closer to him by this time. Bryusov's unrevealed opposition is clearly read in the message to him:
Be a useless cloud
How does he catch the sunset!
Do not look for where the field craves,
Don't waste your dreams.
We care...
This meaningful “we care” indicates that Bryusov is already aware of the difference between his path, his work and the path and work of Balmont. He still does not judge him, he still recognizes his right to irresponsibility, intuitiveness, as a “friend and brother” he dedicates the collection “Urbi et Orbi” to him, but he already clearly understands where he is going.
The fatal seeds of aestheticism, which were originally planted in symbolism, sprouted. They led to the social indifference of verse, to immersion in the abyss of subjectivity, individualism and mysticism. This could not but disturb Bryusov. He has not yet reached the line beyond which the disengagement with former allies begins, but he is already close to it.
Bryusov feels alone in the symbolist movement. Partly from this is born his strange and unexpected confession:
I wish I weren't "Valery Bryusov"...
Bayun O.B.
creative heritage Valery Bryusov is diverse and multifaceted both in genre and in stylistic. He is the author of more than ten poetry collections, several novels, as well as novellas, short stories and short stories, dramas, essays, literary and critical articles. The main trends in the development of not only Russian symbolism, but, more broadly, of all Russian literature were reflected in the work of Bryusov. late XIX- the beginning of the 20th century.
Valery Bryusov was born on December 1 (December 13 according to the new style) 1873 in Moscow into a merchant family, where an atmosphere of materialism and atheism reigned. According to Bryusov himself, at the age of eight he read Dobrolyubov and Pisarev. He studied at private gymnasiums, graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University (1899). Since childhood, Bryusov's favorite poet was N. Nekrasov, later - S. Nadson. However, a real revelation for Bryusov was his acquaintance with the poetry of the French symbolists C. Baudelaire, P. Verlaine, S. Mallarme. Intensely searching for his own unique path in art and driven by the strongest sense of his own, in general, self-imposed mission and hypertrophied youthful ambition, Bryusov writes in his diary on March 4, 1893: “Talent, even genius, will honestly give only slow success if will give it. It is not enough! It is not enough for me. We must choose otherwise ... Find a guiding star in the fog. And I see it: it's decadent. Yes! Whatever you say, whether it is false, whether it is ridiculous, but it goes forward, develops, and the future will belong to it, especially when it finds a worthy leader. And I will be the leader! Yes I!"
And then Bryusov (together with a few associates, of whom only A. Miropolsky was a professional writer) performs an experiment unprecedented in its audacity. He is trying to plant in Russia a new literary direction, symbolism, releasing three collections called "Russian Symbolists" (1894-1895), which consisted for the most part from his own poems, placed and under fictitious names, the works of his friends, amateur poets, as well as from numerous translations. The resonance caused by the appearance of these collections exceeded the wildest expectations of the author. Paradoxically, the popularity of the movement, which had barely made itself known, was greatly facilitated by the brilliant ironic reviews and parodies of Vl. Solovyov, who, however, was revered by Bryusov as the forerunner of Russian symbolism.
Of course, such a rapid success and spread of symbolist ideas had grounds in the very literary situation of that time. A new poetics has already begun to take shape, the features of which are found in the work of the so-called pre-symbolists (they include A. Fet, A. Apukhtin, A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, K. R., Vl. Solovyov. Sometimes the names of K. Fofanov are added to this list , K. Sluchevsky, M. Lokhvitskaya). However, these features are still reduced only to the expression of the desire to resist "poor realism."
Theoretical Foundations new art were presented in D. Merezhkovsky's lecture "On the Causes of Decline and New Trends in Modern Russian Literature" (published in 1893). Merezhkovsky singled out three features that should characterize the art of the future: mystical content, symbols, and the expansion of artistic impressionability. The mystical content was understood as artistic idealism, "a return to the eternal, never dying." Symbols are a central category in the later symbolist aesthetics, developed by such prominent symbolist theorists as Vyach. Ivanov and A. Bely (only in the Emblematics of Meaning 23 definitions of a symbol are given), - Merezhkovsky determined it either through comparison with the word that limits thought, in contrast to the symbol that expresses its limitless side, then through the opposition of its allegory, which is not " taken from the depths of reality", but "artificially invented".
Art, according to D. Dolgopolov and I. Rodnyanskaya, was understood by the Symbolists as an intuitive comprehension of world unity through symbolic “correspondences” and analogies; music was considered the ancestral basis of life and art. In the work of the Symbolists, the lyrical-poetic principle dominates, based on the belief in the closeness of the poet's inner life to the absolute and in the supra-real or irrational-magical power. poetic speech. However, not all stages of the development of symbolism have these characteristics to the same extent. Thus, the older symbolists paid great attention to the poetics of "correspondences" (due to the focus on French literature) and the development of new forms and techniques of "artistic impressionability", while the younger ones - to the theory of the symbol and mystical content, embodying the idea of "new religious art".
Bryusov prefers metaphors and paraphrases to symbols and allegories, considering the latter as an optional feature of a symbolist work. After the "Russian Symbolists" he released two collections of poems: "Chefs d'oeuvre" ("Masterpieces", 1895) and "Me eum esse" ("This is me", 1896), which ends the first period of his work . In these collections, some contemporaries saw "attitude", outrageousness, which were fully manifested at the very beginning of the poet's creative path. But it is in "Chefs d'oeuvre" and "Me eum esse" that themes and motifs that are rightfully considered Bryusov's discoveries already sound.
First of all, this is the theme of the city, “ scary world"(later picked up by Blok, to whom belongs this definition). Bryusov combines the descriptive style with the style of "aesthetic transformation, re-creation of things", which in symbolism is one of the ways of liberation from the laws of reality. This goal is also served by exoticisms, which play the same role in Bryusov as stylization in K. Balmont, M. Kuzmin and A. Bely. Again, in a new way, unconventionally for Russian literature, the theme of love is revealed in the poet's erotic poems ("Kisses" (1895), "To my Mignon" (1895)) .
One of the most famous poems The collection "Chefs d'oeuvre" - "At Night" demonstrates all the features of Bryusov's style of that period. In it, the city is described through exotic correspondences, Moscow is compared with a “sleeping ostrich female”, spreading its wings and stretching out its neck (“silent, black Yauza”), the metaphor unfolds. Initially served as a comparison, figurative participation in spiritualistic seances that came into vogue at the beginning of the 20th century, and until the end of his days he retained faith in them. Bryusov combined an attraction to the mysterious and a desire to scientifically explain it. This opportunity was provided by spiritualism in combination with the occultism of African nature. independent meaning, turning the Moscow sky into a tropical one, where "the constellations sparkle brightly."
Bryusov's metaphors are distinguished by their impressionism, that is, for the poet, the perception of a thing becomes more important than the thing itself, which is thereby “rematerialized”, and the word is freed from the subject. The poetic technique is enriched with inaccurate and truncated rhymes (for example, a forest is a cross, a cloud is about). The use of exoticisms leads to the appearance of exquisite, unexpected rhymes.
In the early 900s, Bryusov created a number of prose and dramatic works. He includes short stories and the futurological drama "Earth" in the book " earth axis"(1907). In 1905-06, he wrote his most famous novel, The Fiery Angel, based on material from German history. The later novels "Altar of Victory", "Jupiter Defeated", "Rhea Sylvia" (1911-16) are devoted to history ancient rome, the period of struggle between paganism and Christianity. It was the transitional periods that interested Bryusov most of all, some of them had long been in Russian poetic vocabulary.
The second period of Bryusov's work was marked by the release of several collections of poems: "Tertia Vigilia" ("The Third Guard", 1900), "Urbi et Orbi" ("To the City and the World", 1903), "Στεφανος" ("Wreath"), 1906), " All tunes" (1909).
The beginning of the 20th century was the time when younger symbolists, poets and writers, who had a new vision of life and art, followers and preachers of the ideas of Vl. Solovyov. Bryusov, who created the symbolist literary school in Russia, could not stay away from these trends and tried to understand, or at least come closer to understanding, what owned the minds of the Young Symbolists. However, their mystical aspirations were alien to Bryusov. The notorious rationalism did not allow him to recklessly believe in one thing, surrendering to it entirely. Nevertheless, the younger generation fascinated Bryusov, influenced him, which, in particular, affected his understanding of art.
In the treatise “Keys of Secrets”, Bryusov writes: “art is what in other areas we call revelation. The creation of art is a half-open door to eternity, while in an earlier article On Art he insisted that it is only an expression of the artist's soul.
It cannot be said that Bryusov was not at all interested in mysticism. He accepted historical analogies with the state of his contemporary world and tried to comprehend modernity through these analogies (“correspondences”).
The action of the novel "The Fiery Angel" takes place in Germany in the 16th century, when Protestantism was established there and Luther's supporters fought with supporters of the Pope. According to the original intention historical events should have taken up much more space in the novel than it turned out in the final version. In "Fiery Angel" only echoes are heard religious wars, the main focus is on the love story.
The protagonist In the novel, landsknecht Ruprecht, after long wanderings around Europe and the New World, ends up in his homeland in Germany in the hope of seeing his parents, from whom he once ran away, and boasting of his successes. However, in a hotel on the Düsseldorf road, he meets a woman with whom he falls in love and who changes not only the path outlined by the hero, but his whole life.
Renata, that was the name of this woman, is looking for Count Heinrich von Otterheim, who allegedly incarnated the fiery angel who appeared to her from childhood. Ruprecht also goes in search of the count, and for him this journey turns out to be following both the path of passion and the path of knowledge. He goes to the Sabbath, meets with the author of "Occult Philosophy" Agrippa Nettesheim, with Faust, trying to understand himself and the world. But the novel is constructed in such a way that for any question that arises in it, several equal answers are given. In the end, it remains unknown who the fiery angel is - really an angel or a demon, who Renata is - a saint, a possessed or a witch, and so on. This reflected the so-called "proteism" of Bryusov - the desire to assert all possible truths about the world.
Another symbolist feature of the poetics of the novel is that what is told in it reflects the history of the real relationship between Bryusov, Nina Petrovskaya and Andrei Bely. And this is not just a description of what has already happened. Bryusov deliberately modeled situations in life that were part of the concept of his work. Life became literature, and literature became life. Only after reading the novel, Bely, by his own admission, understood the meaning of Bryusov's entire behavior and attitude towards him. Much later, Nina Petrovskaya, having converted to Catholicism, took the name Renata.
The desire for experimentation was always characteristic of Bryusov. Life, including personal life, became a kind of stage. Performances were played on it, the results of which were then “recorded” in works. In the circle of symbolists, Bryusov played the role of a spokesman dark forces(one of his poetic masks is the Old Norse god Loki) as opposed to the light god (White).
In the poetry of this period, the priority role of the theme in relation to others is clearly defined. technical means verse; impressionistic side by side with relative "thingness" (poems "Closed", "World"); contradictory tendencies of rationality and sensuality, will and desire to surrender to the power of elemental principles are combined. D. Maksimov identifies two directions in which the inner life lyrical hero Bryusov: "descent" and "ascent", in other words, self-giving to the gloomy forces of the "terrible world" and strong-willed opposition, self-affirmation. The latter prevails in mature creativity Bryusov, including in his third period, during which Mirror of Shadows (1912), Seven Colors of the Rainbow (1916), The Ninth Stone (1916-17), Last Dreams (1917-19) were created ).
After the revolution, Bryusov organized and headed the Higher Literary and Art Institute. In 1919, he joined the RCP(b), a fact emphasizing his desire to overcome isolation, to join a new society in which, as it seemed to him, the heroic ideal could be embodied, which had long occupied the poet's imagination. In creativity there is a turn to "scientific poetry" (collections "Dali" (1922), "Mea" (1924)). Bryusov supported the idea of Rene Gil about the possibility of such a thing for a long time. However, these verses were overloaded with names and terms, and the discoveries sung by the poet quickly grew old.
Bryusov's idea of creating a grandiose poetic cycle "Dreams of Mankind" was connected with the "scientific" epic of René Gil, in which the forms of the lyrics of all times and peoples were to be embodied: Australian natives, Egyptians, early Christians, German romantics, French symbolists and even inhabitants of the legendary Atlantis. This plan was not carried out in full, which, however, does not negate the brilliant stylistic talent of Bryusov, who wrote the continuation of Pushkin's Egyptian Nights and, by the way, proposed using the devination method when publishing his collected works - additional creation of drafts and sketches. The novel The Fiery Angel, stylized as an autobiographical story of the 16th century, was perceived by one German collector as a real translation of an ancient manuscript. This collector even wanted to buy the original.
Bryusov's work combined different traits: depth of thought and desire for mystification, scientific character and interest in the mysterious. Bryusov's contribution to the development of Russian poetry is enormous. He enriched it with new forms and themes, studied the theory of verse, translated a lot (from French, English, German, Latin, Armenian). Bryusov influenced such dissimilar poets as Blok, Yesenin, Zabolotsky. His work paradoxically reflected in the poetics of the futurists. The study of Bryusov's heritage, which often goes beyond the scope of symbolism itself, will help to better understand the history of Russian literature of the 20th century.
Keywords: Valery Bryusov, Russian symbolism, criticism of Valery Bryusov's work, criticism of Valery Bryusov's poetry, analysis of Valery Bryusov's poems, download criticism, download analysis, free download, Russian literature of the 20th century
Bryusov's reputation as one of the initiators and leaders of Russian symbolism has long been established and is well known to everyone. But it is no less known that this obvious truth, without explanations and fundamental amendments, becomes one-sided, that is, ceases to be the truth. Bryusov in the first half of his creative life was really deeply connected with Russian symbolism, mainly with its “decadent”, individualistic element, which prevailed, primarily in the 90s (F. Sologub, Z. Gippius, partly Balmont), but retained representation at the beginning of the new century. Hence - Bryusov's repulsion from positivist and materialistic philosophy, from democratic realism, and the struggle against naturalistic tendencies in art.
However, Bryusov's position, his worldview, aesthetics and poetics are not limited to the common features that unite him with symbolism.
When literary historian P. N. Sakulin, welcoming Bryusov on his 50th birthday, called him “the most sober, most realist” and even “utilitarian” among the Symbolists, Bryusov in his return speech strongly supported this characterization. Indeed, against the backdrop of the romantically elevated, ecstatic, mystically colored worldview of the Symbolists, which largely influenced Bryusov's work, Bryusov stood out for the rationalistic warehouse of his poetic consciousness, in which the elements of passion and the impulse to mystery (“cosmic curiosity”) were combined with creative self-control and sober thought - a combination to which Blok's formula could be applied: "the heat of cold numbers."
Moreover, the centrifugal forces that owned Bryusov, the desire for an unlimited expansion of his creative horizons, as well as familiarization with the traditions of classical art, took him beyond the boundaries of the literary school to which he belonged, prompted him over time and under the influence of time to overcome its previously established canons. Yes, and symbolism itself, many of its representatives did not remain in place, departed from the chamber, "cell" forms of their literary existence, expanded their base, mastered the broad layers of universal culture and the humanistic precepts of the Russian classics understood in their own way, that is, they also overcame their the original foundations did not hinder Bryusov's internal development in this sense either.
This complex dialectic manifested itself in all areas of Bryusov's work - in his poetry, in his artistic prose and, of course, in his criticism. It was reflected in his understanding of art, in his critical method and in his specific critical assessments.
The direction of Bryusov's theoretical and literary-critical statements, like his poetry, at that time could not be tolerated in any Russian journal. Bryusov could only hope for the future and for his own publishing initiative.
In the center of Bryusov's attention in those years was the question of symbolism, its essence and its signs. At the same time, Bryusov, in his early statements, did not so much fight for the ideas of symbolism and declared them, as the theoreticians and ideologists of the newly emerging school do, but rather inquisitively looked at the phenomena of the “new art” (mainly French poetry) and, as a historian of literature, tried to - it is still timid - to derive their generalizing principles.
Young Bryusov believes that main task This art, which is replacing realistic creativity with its striving for the objective world, is the exposure of the subjective principle, the personality of the creator, his soul as the primary element of artistic creation. In parallel with this main statement, Bryusov dwelled on the features of the “concrete poetics” of symbolism, in particular, on the “theory of allusions” (“suggestive construction”) of the French Symbolist Mallarmé, which attracted him especially.
The aesthetic views of Bryusov in the early 900s, as before, did not result in a strictly developed system. Bryusov partly developed, but partly rebuilt those thoughts about art that he had expressed in the previous period. The individualistic tendencies of the end of the century took shape with Bryusov in the slogan of "free art". At the same time, it was precisely this position, as well as the general nature of modernist predilections and tastes, that determined the most general line of Bryusov's connection at the beginning of the century with the aesthetics of early individualistic symbolism - "decadentism" - and with the literature in which these aesthetic trends were continued.
Bryusov, together with his associates, acted in those years as a critic who fought against ideological and aesthetic trends hostile to symbolism - with the philosophy of positivism and materialism, with realism, and even more so with naturalism, and also - and this is even more characteristic of his position - with all kinds of , in which he saw "tendentious", "biased" attitudes, especially with a "civil direction" in art.
The writing
1. Bryusov and Russian symbolism.
2. creative way poet.
3. Early lyrics by Bryusov.
4. Hard work is the poet's path to true mastery.
V. Ya. Bryusov began his poetic path as a “shaker of the foundations”, who, with enviable persistence and perseverance, promoted a new direction in Russian literature - symbolism. By the time Bryusov appeared on the literary scene, the main principles of symbolism had already been proclaimed - a book of poems by Merezhkovsky "Symbols" (1892) was published, but Bryusov managed to take on the role of the leader of the symbolists and, in addition, the most difficult task of forming a new type of reader. Moreover, the personal fate of the poet is so firmly intertwined with the history of symbolism that it is fair to say that Bryusov and Russian symbolism are one.
Bryusov began to write poetry at the age of eight, and in the gymnasium, together with his comrades, he published a literary magazine. And then followed the release of the first poetry collections under the name, and which the novice poet made an attempt to explain the essence of a new direction called symbolism. Bryusov said that this new direction is "poetry of shades", which should replace the "poetry of colors". However, in criticism, his collections caused not only misunderstanding, but also ridicule. V. S. Solovyov spoke critically about the new author and his poems. Subsequently, he did not miss a single issue of Bryusov's poems, and every time he mercilessly criticized the poet. In one of his reviews, Solovyov wrote: "... even if I were animated by the most infernal malice, it would still be impossible for me to distort the meaning of these poems - due to the complete absence of any sense in them." After such a response, Bryusov could, of course, feel not only crushed, but not at all successful as a poet. But he managed to turn the defeat in his favor, and the scandalous debut only confirmed the poet's determination to move in the chosen direction. He publishes a collection of poems, writes theoretical works, collaborates with the World of Art, which brings Bryusov fame.
Bryusov not only writes poetry, but also tries his hand at prose. In 1908, his best prose work, the novel The Fiery Angel, was published. In addition, the poet takes on many other things: he manages the Scorpion publishing house, organizes the Northern Flowers almanac, and is the leading author of the symbolic magazine Libra. The pinnacle of Bryusov's fame was the first decade of the 20th century, after which his popularity slowly but steadily declined.
Most of his contemporaries not only did not accept early lyrics, but also considered complete nonsense. For example, Bryusov's poem "Creativity". The same V.S. Solovyov was especially annoyed by the lines:
The naked moon enters
Under the azure moon...
The critic wrote on this occasion: “It is not only indecent, but completely impossible for a naked month to rise with an azure moon, since the month and the moon are only two names for the same object.” Yes, and the very beginning of the poem seemed utter nonsense, and moreover, pretentious:
Shadow of Uncreated Creatures
Swaying in a dream
Like blades of patching
On the enamel wall.
purple hands
On the enamel wall
Sleepily draw sounds
In resounding silence.
And transparent stalls
In resounding silence
Grow like glitter
Under the azure moon ..,
But this, at first glance, unrealistic picture - exact description what the poet saw every evening before him. V. F. Khodasevich, who often visited Bryusov’s house, wrote: “The house on Tsvetnoy Boulevard was old, awkward, with mezzanines and outbuildings, with dim rooms and creaking wooden stairs. There was a hall in it, the middle part of which was separated from the side ones by two arches. Semicircular ovens adjoined the arches. The paw-shaped shadows of large patches and the blue of the windows were reflected in the tiles of the stoves. These patches, stoves and windows give a deciphering of one of Bryusov's early poems, at one time proclaimed the height of nonsense.
That is, the symbolist Bryusov did not paint an intricate picture - he just reliably depicted the situation in which he passed creative process. In those moments when images are born in the poet's mind, the real and fictional worlds merge into one and the "shadow of uncreated creatures" is clothed in real forms. In these forms - the unity of fantasy and reality:
The naked moon rises
Under the azure moon...
The sounds are half asleep
Sounds caress me.
Secrets of the created creatures
caress me with affection,
And the shadow of patching trembles
On the enamel wall.
In the Novosti newspaper, Bryusov explained his poem: “... what does it matter to me that two moons cannot be simultaneously visible on earth, if in order to evoke a certain mood in the reader, I need to admit these two moons, on the same sky." M. I. Tsvetaeva wrote that Bryusov would be more likely to be understood and accepted by descendants than by contemporaries: “Bryusov's creation is more than a creator. At first sight flattering, at the second - sad. The Creator, this is all tomorrow's creations, all the Future, all the inescapability of possibility: unrealized, but not unrealizable - inaccurate - invincible in its irreverence: tomorrow. However early lyrics is not limited to "incomprehensible" poems. In his lyrics, there also appear those in which both images and sound combinations are subject to a certain logic, and the poet manifests himself as a sculptor, improving his verse:
I believe, bold! You will put
Rows of sails across the Earth.
You guide with your hand
The run of the planet between the stars ...
And in other verses we can hear notes of romanticism:
The pale stars trembled,
The poplar leaves trembled,
And, like a quiet dream of sadness,
You walked along the cherished alley.
You walked along the alley and disappeared ...
I waited for the desired dawn,
And misty sadness lit up
Mary's silver rhyme.
Often among critics there was an opinion that Bryusov, not having a special talent as a poet, achieved true mastery through hard work. B. L. Pasternak wrote a poem for the 50th anniversary of Bryusov, in which he said:
What can I say? That Bryusova is bitter
Widespread fate?
That the mind is stale in the realm of the fool?
What is not a trifle - to smile, tormented?
What is the sleepy civil verse
You were the first to open the door to the city wide open?
That the wind swept away the husk from citizenship
And we tore our wings on feathers? ..
K. V. Mochulsky wrote about him after Bryusov’s death: “His historical meaning huge. He set the craft as the footstone of art: by persistent and hard work he reached mastery, and forever protected poetry from amateurism ... He was a kind of Lomonosov, and all modern Russian poetry owes a lot to him.
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