The main motives of the block's lyrics briefly. The main motives of the lyrics A

A. Blok was born on November 28 (16), 1880 in the family of a law professor and the daughter of the rector of the University of St. Petersburg. Since the parents separated, from the age of three, Blok lived and was brought up by his father's parents, who belonged to the "cream" of the St. Petersburg intelligentsia. Constant rotation in a bohemian environment formed Blok's special worldview, which manifested itself in the future in his literature. Blok began composing at the age of five (!) years, so it is not surprising that poetic expression became the norm of his life.

In 1903, Blok married Lyubov Mendeleeva, daughter of the great Russian chemist D.I. Mendeleev. In the same year, the first collection of poems by the poet was published, written under the impression of first love and the first months of happy life. family life. The initial stage of Blok's work was greatly influenced by Pushkin and Vl. Solovyov. Blok experimented at that time with poetic rhythm, inventing more and more new forms. For him, the sound and music of the verse were paramount in poetry.

The first collection of Blok's poems "Poems about a Beautiful Lady", 1904, represented the poet's Platonic idealism, the realization of divine wisdom in the image of the world soul in a female guise.

In the next poetry collections Blok, "City", 1908, and " snow mask", 1907, the author concentrated on a religious theme, and his muse of their mystical lady turned into an unfamiliar courtesan.

Blok's later poems are a mixture of the author's hopes and despair about the future of Russia. In the unfinished "Retribution", 1910-1921, the collapse of the author's illusions about the new Bolshevik regime was manifested. It is worth noting that Blok was optimistic about October revolution 1917, laying great expectations to the new government. However, the subsequent actions of the Bolsheviks were so contrary to what Blok assumed and what they themselves promised, that the poet could not help but despair from his own self-deception. Nevertheless, he continued to believe in the exceptional role of Russia in the history of mankind. This opinion was confirmed by the works "Motherland" and "Scythians". In "Scythians" Blok used gypsy folklore, leaps of rhythms, sharp transitions from the intensity of passions to quiet melancholy. He seems to warn the West that if he takes up arms against Russia, then in the future this will lead to a response from Russia, united with the militant East, that this will lead to Chaos.

The latest work Blok became his most controversial and mysterious poem "The Twelve", 1920, in which the author used polyphony of rhythms, hard, even rude language so that the reader could imagine what was written on paper: a detachment of 12 soldiers of the Red The army is coming through the city, sweeping away everything in its path and carrying Christ in front of him.

Alexander Blok died on August 7, 1921 in St. Petersburg, abandoned by many friends of his youth and deprived of his last illusions about the new government.

The main themes of creativity. Motherland Theme. Blok defined Russia in two ways - sometimes as "poor" and "beautiful" Russia, then as " New America":" He could not, and did not want to combine these two principles, he palpably opposed them to each other as hostile, asserting in this opposition the romance of his work. "Blok created a special image of the Motherland. This is the image of a beautiful Woman, beloved bride. Her face bright, “bright forever”, she preserves the original purity of the poet’s soul.This is a woman with beautiful features, “robber beauty”, tied in a “patterned kerchief to the eyebrows”.

Theme of love. In the work of A. Blok, this topic is one of the most important. In the first book of the poet - "Poems about beautiful lady”, published in 1903, gives a romantic interpretation of love as a feeling that in an incomprehensible way helps to connect the ideal world with the real world. The love in "Poems of the Beautiful Lady" is not directed towards any particular object. The object of love is the Eternal Wife, the Virgin of the Rainbow Gates, this is the embodiment of the ideal essence female soul. Therefore, love here is an impulse, an expectation, an unknown.

City theme. One of the leading topics lyrical creativity poet is an urban theme - an octopus city that takes hostages, absorbing personalities, individualities, even physical bodies its inhabitants. The city of Blok is not real Petersburg, although the reader can easily recognize in his poems northern capital. It is rather a "landscape of the soul" of a lyrical hero. The mention of the city is already found here - in poems of the late 90s of the XIX century. The city is opposed natural life nature, and the advantage in this comparison is clearly not on the side of the first. Early Blok is a true romantic, he is attracted by everything beautiful and sublime. The lyrical hero still clearly separates himself from the noisy, bustling city, physically he is a part of it, but spiritually he is the opposite. If in his early works Blok clearly separates himself - the lyrical hero - from the rest of the inhabitants of St. Petersburg, now (1903) the poet is no longer a romantic loner, not an individualist, he subtly feels the misfortunes and misfortunes of the city, its inhabitants, cannot turn a blind eye to them and continue to describe the unreal, fairy worlds seeking in them their own peace and personal happiness. For example, the poem "Stranger" is filled with details of urban life; reading it, we not only see pictures of St. Petersburg life, but also clearly hear drunken shouts, children's crying, women's screeching, the creaking of an oarlock. Describing the streets, back streets, taverns of St. Petersburg, Blok shows the tragedy of the Russian people of the early 20th century, the fate of the inhabitants of the poet's native city.

Lyrical heroine . A beautiful lady at Blok - symbolic meaning refined, beautiful, spiritual essence of the world. Speaking in letters to Andrei Bely about Her, the poet had in mind the Soul of the World, Eternal Femininity, which in his poems appeared in the form of a Beautiful Lady. Her image in the lyrics young poet symbolized the inseparability of his love for the beauty of the earthly woman and the beauty of the Eternal Femininity, marked the harmony of nature and culture, sensual and spiritual perception of the world. In the poems of this poet there are no specific images of either a woman or a lyrical hero. There are no concrete actions of him, and his experiences are elusive. All images only create a specific situation. The lyrical hero, in his desire to find moral support, is ready to believe any deception. The Beautiful Lady becomes such a welcome deception for him. This can be seen in all of Blok's poems, including "The Stranger".

When a poet is truly talented, his poetry is all-encompassing and it is very difficult to single out the main themes of his work. So it is with the poetry of A. Blok. As a symbolist in his early work, he considers three themes: Life, Death, God. In one form or another, these themes are interpreted in different periods creativity and appear either in vague images-symbols of the cycle “Poems about the Beautiful Lady”, or in the ironic lines of later poems. The typical images-symbols of the early Blok were the star, spring, fogs, wind, semi-darkness, shadows and dreams. All this, used in a metaphorical sense, became symbols, with the help of which the poet learns the eternal secret of life. But after blue mists early creativity come romantic admiration for the purely earthly features of life. This is how the Stranger appears - the embodiment of Femininity, accessible not only to the Soul of the World, but also to a real woman.

It is interesting that A. Blok also depicts the Motherland as a woman. So in the poems "Rus", "Russia", "On the field of Kulikovo" we meet the image of Russia-Women, Rossi-wife. Homeland is hope and comfort for him. He believes in her resilience, just as he believes in the resilience and courage of a Russian woman, capable of loving recklessly, forgiving generously and worthily enduring life's trials. So the theme of the Motherland is intertwined with eternal themes Life, Death, God.

Blok also says a lot about love as the basis of being. The poet objects to the gross interference in the poetry of love of any calculations, love is an element, it is a storm. It is no coincidence that Blok conveyed it with these images-symbols. The search for harmony in the life of the poet is connected with the images of love. Moral problems in society are solved through the search for unity with the world. Dividedness, the search for balance lead at times to sad conclusions: “That happiness was not needed, that this pipe dream was not enough for half a lifetime.” However, a connection with the world is found. And in the later poems of A. Blok, the question of the meaning of being, of Life, Death and God, is again resolved. These themes are eternal, no matter how they appear in the work of A. Blok.

“After all, my theme, I now know it firmly, without any doubt - alive, real theme; she is not only bigger than me, she is bigger than all of us and she is our universal theme... I consciously and irrevocably dedicate my life to this theme.”

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok completely, entirely, immensely loved Russia, gave her soul as a beloved woman. His life was forever intertwined with the Motherland, he sacrificed a part of himself to her, and she healed his soul with her “healing space”.

Blok saw Russia as Gogol saw it - above the clouds and beautiful. She is a child of Gogol, his creation. “She opened up to him in beauty and music, in the whistle of the wind and in the flight of an extravagant troika,” wrote A.A. Blok in the article "Child of Gogol". The poet sits in the same three, in which he flies through the boundless fields, blurred and dirty paths of Russia. And along the way, Blok sees what squeezes his heart - the wretchedness and humiliation of the Fatherland.

And in the patches of her rags

Souls hide nakedness.

The poet's soul is naked, like a naked country. “This is the harmonious dance of Russia, which has nothing to lose; she gave her whole body to the world and now, freely throwing her hands into the wind, she went to dance throughout her aimless expanse, ”wrote Blok in the article“ timelessness ”. And it is precisely with aimless expanse that Russia heals a person. One must fall in love with her, “one must travel around Russia,” Gogol wrote before his death.

I will cry over the sadness of your fields,

I will love your space forever ...

Shelter you in the vast expanses!

Us and live and cry without you.

A.A. Blok created his own commandment of love: “If only a Russian falls in love with Russia, he will fall in love with everything that is in Russia. Without the illnesses and sufferings that have accumulated in her in such quantities and of which we ourselves are guilty, none of us would have felt compassion for her. And compassion is already the beginning of love ... ”Blok lived with love for Russia, and this gave him strength.

In Blok's poetry, there is a prophetic prediction and a sense of the fate of the Fatherland in the past. Of great importance are the verses "Scythians" and "On the field of Kulikovo." The poem "Rus" is saturated with magical and fabulous motifs. Before us appears such Russia as Gogol created it, full of rituals and secrets. Russia for Blok is a special country, doomed to endure horrors and humiliation, but a semi-victorious one. Key to victory A.A. Blok saw in the revolution, in it, as he believed, lofty ideals. He viewed revolution as an element capable of changing the world. But this did not happen, and the poet's dream was dispelled like an obsession, leaving in his soul only a bitter residue of hopes that did not come true.

"Fatherland is life or death, happiness or death." Life according to this principle for Blok is not fanaticism, but canceled the complete devotion to Russia. The poet believed that the time would come when a ray of sun would fall on the country, and it would sparkle with all the colors of the rainbow. Today, at the turn of the third millennium, only we can choose between life and death and thereby determine our own destiny.

Oh, I want to live crazy

Everything that exists - perpetuate,

Impersonal - to humanize,

Unfulfilled - to embody!

The work of Alexander Blok, the great poet of the early 20th century, is one of the most remarkable phenomena in Russian poetry. By the power of talent, passion for defending his views and positions, by the depth of penetration into life, by the desire to answer the biggest and most pressing questions of our time, by the significance of innovative discoveries that have become an invaluable asset of Russian poetry, Blok is one of those figures of our art who make up his pride and glory.

What attracts me to Blok's poetry? First of all, the fact that all the phenomena of the surrounding world and all the events of history, all the legends of the centuries, people's grief, dreams of the future - everything that became the subject of experiences and food for thought, Blok translated into the language of lyrics and, above all, perceived as lyrics. Even Russia itself was for him a “lyrical magnitude”, and this “magnitude” was so huge that it did not immediately fit into the framework of his work.

It is also extremely important that the big patriotic theme, the theme of the Motherland and its destinies, enters Blok’s lyrics simultaneously with the theme of the revolution, which captures the poet to the most hidden depths of his soul and gave rise to a system of completely new feelings, experiences, aspirations that arose as if during lightning discharges, in their dazzling light - and the theme of the Motherland becomes the main and most important in Blok's work. One of his most remarkable poems, written during the days of the 1905 revolution and inspired by it, is “Autumn Will”. In this poem, which will be followed by the Motherland cycle, which is huge in its inner meaning and artistic perfection, those experiences and the thoughts of the poet, which gave his lyrics new and unusually important features.

All the same, the same, and at the same time a completely different beauty native land opened to the poet in the most inconspicuous for the “foreign gaze” plain, which does not strike any bright colors, not with colorful colors, calm and monotonous, but irresistibly attractive in the eyes of a Russian person, as the poet acutely felt and conveyed in his poem:

I go out on the road, open to the eyes,

The wind bends the elastic bushes,

The broken stone lay down on the slopes,

Yellow clay meager layers.

Autumn roamed in the wet valleys,

She laid bare the cemeteries of the earth,

But thick mountain ash in passing villages

The red color will dawn from afar ...

It would seem that everything is monotonous, familiar, has long been familiar in these “wet valleys”, but in them the poet saw something new, unexpected and as if echoing the rebellious, young, perky that he felt in himself; in the severity and even scarcity of the open space that opened before him, he recognized his own, dear, close, grasping the heart - and could not help but respond to the red color of the mountain ash, reddening in front of him, calling somewhere and pleasing with new promises that the poet had not heard before. That's why he is experiencing such an unprecedented rise internal forces, the charm and beauty of the fields and slopes of his native land arose before him in a new way:

Here it is, my fun, dancing

And ringing, ringing, missing in the bushes!

And far, far away waving invitingly

Your patterned, your colored sleeve.

Before him there are real forests, fields, slopes, he is attracted by the path that disappears in the distance. It is about this that the poet speaks in his “Autumn Will” with some kind of inspired joy, bright sadness and extraordinary breadth, as if accommodating the entire native expanse:

Will I sing about my luck

How I ruined my youth in hops ...

I will cry over the sadness of my fields,

I will love your space forever ...

The feeling that scorches the heart of the poet and his work, invariably mixed with every thought, every experience, is, in addition to love for the Motherland, and love for the mother. Mother, in the feat of whose son the radiance of the sun itself is seen, and let this feat cost the son of his whole life - the heart of the mother is overwhelmed with “golden joy”, for the filial light defeated the surrounding darkness, reigns over her:

The son did not forget his own mother:

The son returned to die.

His lyrics became stronger than himself. This is most clearly expressed in his love poems. No matter how much he kept saying that the women we love were made of cardboard, against his will he saw in them the stars, felt in them extraterrestrial distances, and - no matter how much he himself laughed at it - every woman in his love poems combined for him with clouds, sunsets, dawns, each opened gaps in the Other, that's why he creates his first cycle - “Poems about the Beautiful Lady”. The Beautiful Lady is the embodiment of eternal femininity, the eternal ideal of beauty. The lyrical hero is a servant of the Beautiful Lady, waiting for the coming transformation of life.

Hopes for the advent of "eternal femininity" testify to Blok's dissatisfaction with reality:

I anticipate you. Years pass by...

The beautiful Lady, one and unchanging in her perfection, in her wondrous charm, at the same time constantly changes features and appears before her knight and servant either “Virgin, Dawn”, then “Wife clothed in the sun”, and this is what the poet calls to her. in the expectation of times foretold in ancient and sacred books:

To you, whose Twilight was so bright,

Raise the heavenly arches

All descending vault.

Love itself collects ideal, heavenly features in the eyes of the poet, and in his beloved he sees not an ordinary earthly girl, but the hypostasis of a deity. In the verses about the Beautiful Lady, the poet sings of her and endows her with all the attributes of divinity - such as immortality, infinity, omnipotence, incomprehensible to earthly man wisdom, - the poet sees all this in his Beautiful Lady, who now “goes to earth in an incorruptible body”.

Even when the lyrics of Blok spoke, it would seem, only about the private, intimate, personal, because in it, through the personal, the unique, the great, the world breaks through. “Unity with the world” - this motive, common to all of Blok's lyrics, is extremely important for understanding the meaning of Blok's works, his work, even going beyond the immediate response to this or that event.

Poet, explored many fields human relations and experiences, experienced the whole cycle of feelings, passions, aspirations, matured and tempered in trials and struggle - all this constitutes the content of that “novel in verse”, which is Blok’s lyrics, taken as a whole:

I bless everything that was

I was not looking for a better share.

O heart, how much you loved!

Oh mind, how you burned!

Let both happiness and torment

They laid their bitter trail

But in a passionate storm, in a long boredom -

I have not lost the old light...

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok
(1880-1921)

According to the memoirs of M. Gorky, "Blok was very handsome, both as a poet and as a person." Blok's public and literary authority was high and undeniable. In the difficult year of 1919, when many even well-established reputations were burned in the fire of the revolution, M. Gorky confidently said: “Believe Blok, this is a real - by the will of God - a poet and a man of fearless sincerity.”

Blok was convinced that "great works of art are chosen by history only from among works of a 'behavioral nature'." Blok's poetry is a lyrical confession: sincerity and honesty for Blok - the necessary conditions creativity. But move own life Blok perceived on a "worldwide" scale. According to Blok, and this is one of the main, fundamental features of his aesthetics, for a real artist, the personal is inextricably linked with the public. Especially in a thunderstorm revolutionary era“in the poetic sense of the world there is no gap between the personal and the general; the more sensitive the poet, the better he feels “his” and “not his”, for, in the era of storms and anxieties, the tender and intimate aspirations of the poet’s soul are also filled with storm and anxiety.”

Patriotism, humanism and high culture, revolutionary and uncompromising - all these qualities inherent in Blok make him a striking phenomenon in the history of Russian literature and social thought. Blok's critical view sharply noted the tragedy of the life around him. But it would be wrong to perceive his lyrics as a diary of a person, only horrified " scary world". According to the memoirs of the poet's wife, in Blok there was the same source of joy as pessimism.

A. Blok is a poet of the transitional era. His work was a kind of link between the Russian classical poetry and poetry revolutionary world is born. And along the way he went through a very complex searches, through overcoming the influence of idealistic teachings in philosophy and symbolism in art.

Blok's early lyrics were associated with symbolism, a decadent literary and artistic movement. late XIX- beginning of the 20th century. Philosophical basis symbolism was mysticism, an idealistic doctrine, according to which, along with the imperfect the real world there is an ideal world. To comprehend it is this world that is worth striving for. From here and at the Block at the beginning creative way- detachment from public life, mystical alertness in anticipation of unknown spiritual events. For the symbolists, the main thing was the reflection subjective feelings personality. real image in symbolist poetry it is replaced by a symbol - an image in which, along with the original, concrete beginning, another, "ideal" content is also provided.

The main category of art, artistic image is a form of reflection of reality by the artist. The image is a concrete and at the same time a generalized picture of life. The symbol is basically figurative meaning. Examples of traditional symbols are known: the dawn is a symbol of youth, bread and salt is a symbol of hospitality.
The image expresses the object concretely, and the symbol - conditionally. Exactly ancient Greek word, which caused this term, is translated as a sign, sign, password.
The image-symbol conveys in the phenomenon the idea that defines it.

For example, in the work of M. Gorky one can find specific images of birds. But the Falcon in the "Song of the Falcon" is already an image-symbol, it is the embodiment of an idea, the idea of ​​struggle, disobedience, love of freedom.

Bright modern example the transformation of the image into a symbol - the dove of peace. Russian symbolism arose in a deep social and spiritual crisis. Confusion before the contradictions of reality, before the revolution, which was growing, which is understood by individual representatives of art unilaterally, as a destructive principle, caused the rejection of social activities. Symbolism encouraged to leave social reality and revolutionary movement into the world of fantasy. Blok, striving to comprehend the truth of life, could not follow this path. "Poems about the Beautiful Lady". The poet was born on November 16 (28), 1880 in St. Petersburg in a noble family, distinguished by the breadth and depth of cultural interests.

His mother - the daughter of the famous Russian scientist A.N. Beketov - was the first educator and friend of his son, forever retained affection for her. Higher education Blok received at St. Petersburg University, which, according to him, gave him the knowledge and skills that helped in literary work. But special role in the development of the young poet, he played “a corner of paradise near Moscow”, where, among the beautiful Central Russian nature, there was the estate of his grandfather Shakhmatovo, the doors of the house opened right “at the linden tree and into the lilac, and into the blue dome of the sky ...”.

A. Blok's love for L.D. Mendeleeva, the daughter of the great Russian scientist, who later became the wife of the poet, was expressed in romantic admiration for him.
In "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" (1904), love appears as a feeling, connecting the real world and the ideal world in an incomprehensible way.

The figurative structure of Blok's early poems is saturated with symbolism. Expanded metaphors play a particularly significant role. They convey not so much the real features of the depicted as the feelings, moods of the poet: the river “sings”, the snowstorm “whispers”, love “blooms”. More often the metaphor develops into a symbol. The image goes beyond its original meaning. So, the images of the wind, blizzards, snowstorms embody the motives of homelessness, mental anxiety.

A new stage in Blok's work is associated with the years of preparation and accomplishment of the first Russian revolution. At this time, the collection “Poems about the Beautiful Lady” (1904) was published, poems were created that were later included in the books “Unexpected Joy” (1907) and “Snow Mask” (1907), a trilogy of lyrical dramas (“Puppet Show”, “King on the Square "," The Stranger - 1906). The work of the poet in the field of criticism and literary translation begins, literary connections arise, mainly in the symbolist environment (Vyach. Ivanov, D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius - in St. Petersburg; A. Bely, V. Bryusov - in Moscow). Block's name is gaining popularity.

In 1903-1906. Blok more and more often turns to social poetry. He consciously leaves the world of lyrical isolation to where "many" live and suffer. The content of his works becomes reality, "everyday life" (although sometimes interpreted through the prism of mysticism). In this "everyday" Blok more and more persistently singles out the world of people humiliated by poverty and injustice.

In the poem "Factory" (1903), the theme people's suffering comes to the fore (previously, she only glimpsed through the images of the city's "devilry" - "A black man ran around the city ...", 1903). Now the world is divided not into “heaven” and “earth”, but into those who, hidden behind the yellow windows, force people to “bend their weary backs”, and into the impoverished people.

In the work, intonations of sympathy for the "poor" are clearly heard. In the poem "From the Newspapers" (1903), the social theme is even more noticeably combined with vivid sympathy for the suffering. Here the image of a victim of social evil is drawn - a mother who could not endure poverty and humiliation and "lay down on the rails herself." Here, for the first time, Blok appears the theme of the kindness of “little people”, which is characteristic of the democratic tradition.

In the poems "The Last Day", "Deceit", "Legend" (1904), the social theme turns in another direction - a story about the humiliation and death of a woman in cruel world bourgeois city.

These works are very important for Blok. In them feminine appears not as “high”, heavenly, but as “fallen” to the “sorrowful earth” and suffering on earth. The lofty ideal of Blok now becomes inseparable from reality, modernity, and social conflicts.

Artworks on social topics, created during the days of the revolution, occupy a significant place in the collection "Unexpected Joy". They end with the so-called "attic cycle" (1906), recreating - in direct connection with Dostoevsky's "Poor People" - already quite realistic pictures of the hungry and cold life of the inhabitants of the "attics".

Poems in which the motives of protest, "revolt" and the struggle for new world, were also originally painted in mystical tones (“Is everything calm among the people? ..”, 1903), from which Blok gradually freed himself (“They went on an attack. Right in the chest ...”, 1905; “Rising from the darkness of the cellars. ..", 1904, etc.). In the literature about Blok, it has been repeatedly noted that the poet most clearly perceived in the revolution its destructive (Meeting, 1905), nature-like, spontaneous side (Fire, 1906). But the more important the experience of the first Russian revolution became for Blok, a man and an artist, the more complex and diverse were its poetic reflections.

Blok, like other symbolists, is characterized by the notion that the desired popular revolution is the victory of new people and that in beautiful world the future has no place lyrical hero and people close to him in the socio-psychological warehouse.

Here they are, far away
They swim merrily.
Only us with you
That's right, they won't!

Civic lyrics were important step in the understanding of the world by the artist, while the new perception was reflected not only in poems with revolutionary theme, but also on a change in the general position of the poet.

History of Russian literature: in 4 volumes / Edited by N.I. Prutskov and others - L., 1980-1983