The outstanding Russian poet Alexander Alexandrovich Blok (1880-1921) during his lifetime became an idol of both the Symbolists, the Acmeists, and all subsequent generations of Russian poets.

At the beginning of his poetic career, the mystical romanticism of Vasily Zhukovsky’s work was closest to him. This “singer of nature” with his poems taught the young poet purity and elation of feelings, knowledge of the beauty of the surrounding world, unity with God, and faith in the possibility of penetrating beyond the boundaries of the earthly. Far from theoretical philosophical doctrines and the poetry of romanticism, A. Blok was prepared to perceive the basic principles of the art of symbolism.

Zhukovsky’s lessons were not in vain: the “sharp mystical and romantic experiences” he nurtured attracted Blok’s attention in 1901 to the work of the poet and philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, who was the recognized “spiritual father” of the younger generation of Russian symbolists (A. Blok, A. Bely, S. Soloviev, Vyacheslav Ivanov, etc.). The ideological basis of his teaching was the dream of the kingdom of divine power, which arises from the modern world, which is mired in evil and sins. He can be saved by the World Soul, the Eternal Femininity, which arises as a unique synthesis of harmony, beauty, goodness, the spiritual essence of all living things, the new Mother of God. This Solovyov theme is central to Blok’s early poems, which were included in his first collection “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” (1904). Although the poems were based on a real living feeling of love for the bride, over time - the poet’s wife - L. D. Mendeleeva, the lyrical theme, illuminated in the spirit of Solovyov’s ideal, takes on the sound of the theme of sacred love. O. Blok develops the thesis that world love is revealed in personal love, and love for the universe is realized through love for a woman. Therefore, the concrete image is covered by abstract figures of the Eternally Young Wife, the Lady of the Universe, etc. The poet bows before the Beautiful Lady - the personification of eternal beauty and harmony. In "Poems about a Beautiful Lady", there are undoubtedly signs of symbolism. Plato's idea of ​​contrasting two worlds- earthly, dark and joyless, and distant, unknown and beautiful, the holiness of the elevated unearthly ideals of the lyrical hero, he was brought to them, a decisive break with the surrounding life, the cult of Beauty - the most important features of this artistic movement, found vivid embodiment in Blok’s early work.

Already in the first works there were main features of poetic manner Block: musical-song structure, attraction to sound and color expressiveness, metaphorical language, complex structure of the image - everything that theorists of symbolism called impressionistic element, considering it an important component of the aesthetics of symbolism. All this determined the success of Blok’s first book. Like most symbolists, Blok was convinced: everything that happens on earth is just a reflection, a sign, a “shadow” of what exists in other, spiritual worlds. Accordingly, words and language turn out to be for him “signs of signs,” “shadows of shadows.” In their “earthly” meanings the “heavenly” and “eternal” are always visible. All the meanings of Blok’s symbols are sometimes very difficult to count, and this is an important feature of his poetics. The artist is convinced that there must always remain something “incomprehensible”, “secret” in a symbol, which cannot be conveyed either in scientific or everyday language. However, something else is characteristic of Blok’s symbol: no matter how polysemantic it is, it always retains its first - earthly and concrete - meaning, bright emotional coloring, immediacy of perception and feelings.

Also in the poet's early poems features such as intensity of lyrical feeling, passion and confession. This was the basis for Blok’s future achievements as a poet: unstoppable maximalism and unchanging sincerity. At the same time, the last section of the collection contained poems such as “From the Newspapers”, “Factory”, etc., which testified to the emergence of civil sentiments.

If "Poems about a Beautiful Lady" appealed primarily to symbolists, then the second book of poems " Unexpected joy"(1907) made his name popular among wide readership. This collection includes poems from 1904-1906. and among them are such masterpieces as “The Stranger”, “The Girl Sang in the Church Choir...”, “Autumn Will”, etc. The book testified to the highest level of Blok’s skill, the sound magic of his poetry captivated readers. Substantially The theme of his lyrics also changed. Hero of the Block acted no longer as a hermit monk, but as a resident noisy city streets who looks greedily into life. In the collection, the poet expressed his attitude towards social problems, the spiritual atmosphere of society. Deepened in his mind the gap between romantic dream and reality. These poems of the poet reflected impressions of the events of the revolution of 1905-1907,“which the poet witnessed. And the poem “Autumn Will” became the first embodiment of the theme of the homeland, Russia in Blok’s work. The poet intuitively discovered in this theme what was most dear and intimate to him.

The defeat of the first Russian revolution had a decisive impact not only on the fate of the entire poetic school of symbolism, but also on the personal fate of each of its supporters. A distinctive feature of Blok’s creativity in the post-revolutionary years is strengthening civic position. 1906-1907 were a period of revaluation of values.

During this period, Blok’s understanding of the essence of artistic creativity, the purpose of the artist and the role of art in the life of society changed. If in the early cycles of poems Blok’s lyrical hero appeared as a hermit, a knight of the Beautiful Lady, an individualist, then over time he began to talk about the artist’s duty to the era, to the people. Blok's change in social views was also reflected in his work. At the center of his lyrics is a hero seeking strong ties with other people, realizing the dependence of his fate on the common fate of the people. The cycle “free thoughts” from the collection “Earth in the Snow” (1908), especially the poems “On Death” and “In the North Sea”, shows a tendency towards democratization of the work of this poet, which is reflected in the state of mind of the lyrical hero, in his attitude, and in the end, in the lyrical structure of the author’s language.

Nevertheless, a feeling of despondency, emptiness, complicated by personal motives, fill the lines of his poems. Awareness of the environment began reality as a "terrible world"", which disfigures and destroys Man. Born in romanticism, the traditional theme of classical literature of the collision with the world of evil and violence found a brilliant successor in A. Blok. Blok concentrates the psychological drama of personality and philosophy of existence in the historical and social sphere, feeling first of all social discord On the one hand, he strives to change society, and on the other, he is frightened by the decline of spirituality, the element of cruelty that increasingly engulfed the country (the cycle “On the Kulikovo Field” (1909)). In his poetry of those years, the image of a lyrical hero appears, man of crisis era who has lost faith in old values, considering them dead, lost forever, and has not found new ones. Blok’s poems of these years are filled with pain and bitterness for tormented destinies, a curse on a harsh, terrible world, the search for saving points of support in a destroyed universe and gloomy hopelessness and found hope and faith in the future. Those included in the cycles “Snow Mask”, “Scary World”, “Dances of Death”, “Redemption” are rightly considered the best of what Blok wrote during the heyday and maturity of his talent.

The topic of the death of a person in a terrible world was covered significantly by Blok wider and deeper than his predecessors, nevertheless, at the top of the sound of this theme is the motive of overcoming evil, which is important for understanding Blok’s entire work. This, first of all, was manifested in the theme of the homeland, Russia, in the theme of Blok’s hero finding a new destiny, who seeks to bridge the gap between the people and that part of the intelligentsia to which he belonged. In 1907-1916. a cycle of poems “Motherland” was created, where the paths of development of Russia are comprehended, the image of which appears either attractively fabulous, filled with magical power, or terribly bloody, causing anxiety for the future.

We can say that the gallery of female symbolic images in Blok's lyrics ultimately finds its organic continuation and logical conclusion: Beautiful Lady - Stranger - Snow Mask - Faina - Carmen - Russia. However, the poet himself insisted later that each subsequent image is not just a transformation of the previous one, but, first of all, the embodiment of a new type of worldview of the author at the next stage of his creative development.

The poetry of A. Blok is a kind of mirror that reflects the hopes, disappointments and drama of the era of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. Symbolic richness, romantic elation and realistic specificity helped the writer discover a complex and multifaceted image of the world.

1. Poet A. A. Blok.
2. The main themes in Blok’s work.
3. Love in the poet’s poetry.

...A writer who believes in his calling, no matter what the size of this writer, compares himself with his homeland, believing that he suffers from its diseases, is crucified with it...
A. A. Blok

A. A. Blok was born into a noble intellectual family. According to Blok, his father was a connoisseur of literature, a subtle stylist and a good musician. But he had a despotic character, which is why Blok’s mother left her husband before the birth of her son.

Blok spent his childhood in an atmosphere of literary interests, which early awakened in him a craving for poetry. At the age of five, Blok began writing poetry. But a serious turn to poetic creativity dates back to the years when the poet graduated from high school.

Blok's lyrics are unique. With all the variety of themes and means of expression, it appears before the reader as a single whole, as a reflection of the “path” traveled by the poet. Blok himself pointed out this feature of his work. A. A. Blok went through a difficult creative path. From symbolist, romantic poems - to an appeal to real revolutionary reality. Many contemporaries and even former friends of Blok, having fled from revolutionary reality abroad, shouted that the poet had sold out to the Bolsheviks. But that was not the case. The bloc suffered from the revolution, but was also able to understand that the time of change was inevitable. The poet felt life very sensitively and showed interest in the fate of his native country and the Russian people.

For Blok, love is the main theme of his creativity, be it love for a woman or for Russia. The poet's early work is distinguished by religious dreams. The cycle of “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” is filled with anxiety and a feeling of an approaching catastrophe. The poet yearned for the ideal woman. Blok's poems are dedicated to his future wife, D. I. Mendeleeva. Here are the lines from the poem “I enter dark temples...”:

I enter dark temples,
I perform a poor ritual.
There I am waiting for the Beautiful Lady
In the flickering red lamps.
In the shadow of a tall column
I'm shaking from the creaking of the doors.
And he looks into my face, illuminated,
Only an image, only a dream about Her.

The poet’s love for his future wife in “Poems about a Beautiful Lady” was combined with a passion for the philosophical ideas of V. S. Solovyov. The philosopher's teaching about the existence of the Great Feminine, the Soul of the World, turned out to be closest to the poet. Inextricably linked with the Great Feminine is the idea of ​​saving the world through its spiritual renewal. The poet was especially struck by the philosopher’s idea that love for the world is revealed through love for a woman.

In “Poems about a Beautiful Lady,” the ideas of dual worlds, which are a combination of the spiritual and the material, are embodied through a system of symbols. The appearance of the heroine of this cycle is ambiguous. On the one hand, this is a very real woman:

She is slim and tall
Always arrogant and harsh.
On the other hand, this is a mystical image.
The same applies to the hero.

Blok's story of earthly love is embodied in a romantic symbolic myth. “Earthly” (lyrical hero) is contrasted with “heavenly” (Beautiful Lady), there is a desire for their reunion, thanks to which complete harmony should come.

But over time, Blok’s poetic orientation changed. The poet understood that when there is hunger and devastation, struggle and death around, one cannot go to “other worlds.” And then life burst into the poet’s work in all its diversity. The theme of the people and the intelligentsia appears in Blok's poetry. For example, the poem “Stranger” shows the collision of a beautiful dream with reality:

And slowly, walking between the drunken,
Always without companions, alone,
Breathing spirits and mists,
She sits by the window.

Blok wrote in his diary: “She is a certain ideal of beauty, capable, perhaps, of re-creating life, of expelling from it everything ugly and bad.” Duality - the contact between an ideal image and a repulsive reality - is reflected in this poem. This was even reflected in the two-part composition of the work. The first part is filled with anticipation of a dream, an ideal image of the Stranger:

And every evening my only friend
Reflected in my glass...

But the meeting place with the ideal is the tavern. And the author skillfully escalates the situation, preparing the reader for the appearance of the Stranger. The appearance of the Stranger in the second part of the poem temporarily transforms reality for the hero. The poem “Stranger” reveals the image of the lyrical hero in a surprisingly psychological way. The change in his states is very important for Blok. Love for the homeland is clearly manifested in Blok’s poetry. Blok’s love for his native country clearly echoes his deep feeling for a woman:

Oh, my Rus'! My wife! To the point of pain
We have a long way to go!

Blok sought to continue the traditions of Russian classical literature and saw his task as serving the people. In the poem “Autumn Will” Lermontov's traditions are visible. M. Yu. Lermontov in his poem “Motherland” called love for the fatherland “strange”; the path for the poet was not “glory bought with blood”, but “the cold silence of the steppes”, “the trembling lights of sad villages”. The same is the love of Blok:

I will cry over the sadness of your fields,
I will love your space forever...

Blok's attitude towards his homeland is more personal, intimate, like his love for a woman. It is not for nothing that in this poem Rus' appears before the reader in the form of a woman:

And far, far away it waves invitingly
Your patterned, your colored sleeve

In the poem “Rus,” the homeland is a mystery. And the solution to the mystery lies in the soul of the people. The motif of a terrible world is reflected in Blok’s poetry. The hopelessness of life is most clearly manifested in the well-known poem “Night, street, lantern, pharmacy...”:

Night, street, lantern, pharmacy,
Pointless and dim light.
Live for at least another quarter of a century -
Everything will be like this. There is no outcome.
If you die, you'll start over again,
And everything will repeat itself as before:
Night, icy ripples of the channel,
Pharmacy, street, lamp.

The fatal cycle of life, its hopelessness are surprisingly clearly and simply reflected in this poem.

Blok's poems are tragic in many ways. But the time that gave birth to them was tragic. But the essence of creativity, according to the poet himself, is in serving the future. In his last poem, “To Pushkin’s House,” Blok speaks about this again:

Skipping the days of oppression
A short-term deception

We saw the days to come
Blue-pink fog.

To understand the poet’s work, the image of his lyrical hero is in many ways important. After all, as we know, people reflect themselves in their works.

In the poem “Factory” we see the symbolist poet’s appeal to reality, to social themes. But reality correlates with symbolic philosophy, the lyrical hero’s awareness of his place in life. Three images can be distinguished in the poem: a crowd of people gathered at the gate; a mystical character (“motionless someone, black someone”) and a lyrical hero who says: “I see everything from my top...”. This is typical of Blok’s work: to see everything “from the top,” but at the same time the poet himself acutely felt life in all its diversity and even in its tragedy.

Features of creativity
“He said: “I have been writing poetry since childhood, but in my entire life I have not written a single poem while sitting at my desk. You wander somewhere - in a field, in a forest or in the hustle and bustle of a city... And suddenly a lyrical wave surges... And poetry flows line after line... And memory retains everything, to the last point. But sometimes, so as not to forget, you write it down on scraps of paper as you go. One day there was no piece of paper in my pocket - I had to write down sudden verses on a starched cuff. “Don’t write poetry when there is no call from the soul - that’s my rule.” (Karpov, 1991, p. 309.)

Characteristics of Blok's creativity

The first volume of Blok’s poems (1898-1903) included three cycles:

“Ante lucem” is the threshold of a future difficult path. The general romantic mood of the cycle also predetermined the antinomian attitude of the young Blok to life. On the one hand, there are motives of gloomy disappointment, which seem so unnatural for a nineteen-year-old boy. On the other hand, there is a craving for life, acceptance of it and awareness of the high mission of the poet, his future triumph.

“Poems about a Beautiful Lady” is the central cycle of the first volume. This is that “moment of too bright light” about which Blok wrote to A. Bely. This cycle reflected the young poet’s love for his future wife L. D. Mendeleeva and his passion for the philosophical ideas of Vl. Solovyova. What was closest to him at that time was the philosopher’s teaching about the existence of the Soul of the World, or the Eternal Feminine, which can reconcile “earth” and “heaven” and save a world on the verge of disaster through its spiritual renewal. The philosopher's idea that love for the world itself is revealed through love for a woman received a lively response from the romantic poet. Solovyov’s ideas about “two worlds”, the combination of the material and the spiritual, were embodied in the cycle through a diverse system of symbols. The heroine's appearance is multifaceted. On the one hand, this is a very real, “earthly” woman. The hero sees her “every day from afar.” On the other hand, in front is the heavenly, mystical image of the “Virgin”, “Dawn”, etc. The same can be said about the hero of the cycle. To enhance the mystical impression, Blok generously uses epithets, such as “ghostly”, “unknown shadows” or “unknown sounds”, etc. Thus, the story of earthly, very real love is transformed into a romantic-symbolic mystical-philosophical myth. It has its own plot and its own plot. The basis of the plot is the opposition of the “earthly” to the “heavenly” and at the same time the desire for their connection, “meeting”, as a result of which the transformation of the world, complete harmony, should occur. However, the lyrical plot complicates and dramatizes the plot. From poem to poem there is a change in the hero’s moods: bright hopes - and doubts about them, expectation of love - and fear of its collapse, faith in the immutability of the Virgin’s appearance - and the assumption that it can be distorted.

“Crossroads” is a cycle that concludes the first volume, which is characterized by dramatic tension. The theme of the Beautiful Lady continues to be heard in this cycle, but something new also arises here: a qualitatively different connection with “everyday life,” attention to the human hero, social issues. “Crossroads” outlines the possibility of future changes in the poet’s work, which will clearly manifest themselves in the second volume.

The lyrics of the second volume (1904-1908) reflected significant changes in Blok’s worldview. The social upsurge, which at that time embraced the broadest strata of the Russian people, had a decisive influence on Blok. He moves away from the mysticism of Vl. Solovyov, from the hoped-for ideal of world harmony, but not because this ideal became untenable for the poet. He forever remained for him the “thesis” from which his path began. But the events of the surrounding life powerfully invade the poet’s consciousness, requiring their own understanding. He perceives them as a dynamic principle, an “element” that comes into conflict with the “unperturbed” Soul of the World, as an “antithesis” opposing the “thesis”, and plunges into the complex and contradictory world of human passions, suffering, and struggle.

“Bubbles of the Earth” is a kind of prologue to the second volume. The poet unexpectedly and polemically turns to the image of “low-lying” nature, recognizes the regularity of the existence of this elemental world and the right of its inhabitants to honor “their field Christ.”

“Miscellaneous Poems” and “City” - these two cycles expand the coverage of the phenomena of reality. The poet plunges into the anxious, acutely conflicted world of everyday life, feeling himself involved in everything that happens. These are the events of the revolution, which he perceived, like other symbolists, as a manifestation of the people’s destructive element, as the struggle of people of a new formation against the hated kingdom of social lawlessness, violence and vulgarity. It is characteristic that the lyrical hero, despite all his solidarity with those who come to the defense of the oppressed, does not consider himself worthy to be in their ranks. In these cycles, one of the main problems for the Bloc begins to emerge - the people and the intelligentsia. In addition to motives associated with revolutionary events, these cycles reflect many other aspects of the diverse and endlessly changing Russian life. But poems where the poet develops a “wide-ranging” image of his homeland and emphasizes his inextricable connection with it acquire special significance. Blok’s hero is not a random passer-by, but one of the sons of Russia, walking a “familiar” path and participating in the bitter fate of those who “die without loving,” but who strive to merge with their homeland. The image of the fatherland is revealed differently in the poem “Rus” (1906). Rus' is a mystery - here is the initial and final summary, emphasized by the ring composition of the poem. At first it seems that the mystery of Rus' stems from “legends of antiquity.” But the solution to the mystery lies in the “living soul” of the people, which has not tarnished its “original purity” in the vastness of Russia. To comprehend it, one must live one life with the people.

Immersing himself in the elements of everyday life, Blok also creates a number of poems, which researchers of his work call the “attic cycle.” The lyrical hero of the cycle is a representative of the urban lower classes, one of the many “humiliated and insulted,” an inhabitant of city basements and attics. The titles and beginnings of the poems, and to an even greater extent, the details of the situation surrounding the hero seem unexpected in the mouth of the singer of the Beautiful Lady. But what is surprising is that the lyrical hero is perceived as the author’s “I.” And this is not an acting technique of the poet playing the corresponding role. This reveals an essential feature of Blok’s lyricism, which he not only recognized, but also actively defended. The self-disclosure of Blok’s lyrical hero in a number of cases occurs through the “dissolution of himself” in other people’s “I”, through his “co-expansion” with these other people’s “I”, thanks to which the acquisition of oneself occurs.

Poem "Twelve"

Poem "Scythians"

“Snow Mask” and “Faina” - these cycles reflect Blok’s sudden feeling for the actress N. N. Volokhova. The elements of nature and everyday life are now replaced by the elements of intoxicating, sizzling passion. Surrendering to his feelings, the hero of “Snow Mask,” “overtaken by a blizzard,” plunges into “snow whirlwinds,” into “snowy darkness of eyes,” revels in these “snow hops,” and in the name of love is ready to burn “on a snowy bonfire.” Symbols of wind and blizzard will run through all of Blok’s poetry right up to the poem “The Twelve,” marking the elemental, dynamic side of life. The heroine of the cycle is almost devoid of specific signs, her features are romantically conventional. In the “Faina” cycle, the image of the heroine is enriched with new properties. She is not only the embodiment of the “element of the soul,” but also an expression of the element of people’s life. However, the artist emerges from the world of the elements, “raging purple worlds,” as Blok himself defines the period of “antithesis,” reflected in the second volume, not so much with losses as with gains. Now “behind my shoulders is everything “mine” and everything “not mine”, equally great...” (Blok to Bely)

“Free Thoughts” is the final cycle of the second volume, which reflects the poet’s new worldview. It is here that words are heard that foreshadow the transition to the third, final stage of his “incarnation.”

The third volume is the final, highest stage of the path traveled by the poet. The “thesis” of the first volume and the “antithesis” of the second volume are replaced by “synthesis”. Synthesis is a new, higher level of understanding of reality, rejecting the previous ones and at the same time combining some of their features in a new way.

"Scary world." The theme of a “terrible world” is a cross-cutting theme in Blok’s work. It is present in the first and especially in the second volume. It is often interpreted only as a theme of denunciation of “bourgeois reality.” But there is another, deeper essence of it, perhaps even more important for the poet. A person living in a “terrible world” experiences its harmful effects. At the same time, moral values ​​also suffer. The elements, “demonic” moods, destructive passions take possession of a person. The lyrical hero himself falls into the orbit of these dark forces. His soul tragically experiences the state of its own sinfulness, unbelief, emptiness, and mortal fatigue. There are no natural, healthy human feelings here. There is no love either. There is “bitter passion like wormwood”, “low passion”, rebellion of “black blood”. The hero, who has lost his soul, appears before us in different guises.

“The Life of My Friend” is based on the technique of “doubleness.” This is the story of a man who, “in the quiet madness” of meaningless and joyless everyday life, squandered the treasures of his soul. The tragic attitude and “sullenness” characteristic of most of the poems in the cycle find their extreme expression in those of them where the laws of the “terrible world” acquire cosmic proportions. “Very unpleasant verses. It would be better if these words remained unsaid. But I had to say them. Difficult things must be overcome. And behind it there will be a clear day.” (Block)

"Retribution" and "Iambics". The word “retribution” is usually understood as punishment for a certain crime. Moreover, the punishment comes from the outside, from someone. Retribution, according to Blok, is, first of all, a person’s condemnation of himself, the judgment of his own conscience. The main guilt of the hero is betrayal of the once sacred vows, high love, betrayal of human destiny. And the consequence of this is retribution: spiritual emptiness, weariness of life, resigned expectation of death. If in “Retribution” a person who has allowed himself to be exposed to the destructive poisons of the “terrible world” is subject to retribution, then in “Iambics” retribution is no longer threatened by an individual person, but by the “terrible world” as a whole. The semantic and rhythmic basis of the cycle was the “angry iambic”.

"Italian Poems" (1909). In this cycle, Blok defines the position of “pure art” as a “creative lie.” “In the light shuttle of art” one can “sail away from the boredom of the world,” but true art is “a burden on the shoulders,” a duty, a feat. Another question that deeply concerns the poet and which he posed in the cycle is about the relationship between civilization and culture. In modern civilization, the poet sees a spiritless, and therefore destructive, beginning. True culture, according to Blok, is inextricably linked with the “elements”, i.e. with the life of the people.

The section “Miscellaneous Poems” contains poems that are “different” in content. Several of them are devoted to the theme of “poet and poetry.”

“Harps and Violins” - the name of this cycle is associated with Blok’s concept of music as the inner essence of the world, its organizing force. “The soul of a real person is the most complex and most melodious musical instrument. There are out-of-tune violins and tuned violins. An out-of-tune violin always disrupts the harmony of the whole; her shrill howl bursts like an annoying note into the harmonious music of the world orchestra. An artist is the one who listens to the world orchestra and echoes it without being out of tune” (Blok). If violins can be out of tune and in tune, then for Blok the harp is a symbol of music that always sounds in unison with the “world orchestra.” The thematic range of the cycle is very wide. A person’s loyalty or infidelity to the “spirit of music” can be expressed in a wide variety of manifestations: from the high rise of the soul to its subordination to the “dark elements”, fall, capitulation to the “terrible world”. Therefore, many poems in the cycle seem to be in opposition to each other.

“Carmen” - this cycle reflects the “gypsy element”, love, music, art, “sadness and joy”. On the one hand, it vividly resembles “The Snow Mask” and “Faina” due to the similar circumstances of its creation (the cycle is dedicated to the opera singer L.A. Delmas) and the cross-cutting theme of all-consuming spontaneous love. And the poet himself admitted that in March 1914 he “surrendered himself to the elements no less blindly than in January 1907,” when “Snow Mask” was written. However, “Carmen” is not a repetition of what has been done. The hymn of spontaneous love sounds here already on a new turn of the spiral of Blok’s path. The poet's image of Carmen is multifaceted and synthetic. Carmen is both the heroine of Bizet’s opera and a modern woman. She is both an independent, freedom-loving Spanish gypsy, and a Slavic woman, whom the hero is doomed to “wait by the fence until the sunset of a hot day” under the “filling cry of a crane.” The spontaneous principle is expressed in it in its most varied manifestations - from the element of burning passion, the element of nature and space - to the creative element of “music”, which gives hope for future enlightenment. This is how the heroine of the cycle is close to the lyrical hero. “Carmen” - Blok’s last cycle about love - is not only connected with the “Harps and Violins” that preceded it, but is a kind of transition to the poem “The Nightingale Garden”, which was Blok’s new step in searching for the meaning of life and man’s place in it.

"Motherland". Leaving the vicious circle of the “nightingale’s garden,” the poet enters a wide and harsh world that contains that genuine and lofty truth, which he strove to comprehend throughout his entire creative career. This is how the “Motherland” cycle arose, perhaps the pinnacle cycle not only of the third volume, but of all of Blok’s poetry. The theme of the homeland, Russia, is a cross-cutting Blok theme. At one of his last performances, where the poet read a variety of his poems, he was asked to read poems about Russia. “It’s all about Russia,” Blok answered and did not bend his heart, because the topic of Russia was truly comprehensive for him. However, he most purposefully turned to the embodiment of this theme during the period of reaction. “Motherland” for Blok is such a broad concept that he considered it possible to include in the cycle both purely intimate poems and poems directly related to the problems of the “terrible world.” But the semantic core of the cycle consists of poems dedicated directly to Russia.

“What the Wind Sings About” is a short cycle full of sad, elegiac reflections. “By completing the composition of the third volume with this twilight - with rare gaps - finale, Blok, apparently, sought to ensure that ... the internal movement in the book did not stretch into a straightforward and steeply ascending line suspicious of this straightforwardness” (D. E. Maksimov).

Poem "Twelve"

The poem “The Twelve” is not formally included in Blok’s “trilogy”, but, connected with it by many threads, it became a new and highest stage of his creative path. “...The poem was written in that exceptional and always short time when a passing revolutionary cyclone creates a storm in all seas - nature, life and art.” It was this “storm in all the seas” that found its condensed expression in the poem. All its action unfolds against the backdrop of wild natural elements. But the basis of the content of this work is the “storm” in the sea of ​​life. When constructing the plot of the poem, Blok widely uses the technique of contrast.

Poem "Scythians"

In this poem, Blok contrasts the “civilized” West and revolutionary Rus' and, on behalf of the revolutionary “Scythian” Russia, calls on the peoples of Europe to put an end to the “horrors of war” and sheathe the “old sword.” The poem ends with a call for unity.

Characteristics of Blok’s creativity, features of Blok’s poetry, General characteristics of Blok’s creativity, block general characteristics of creativity, the essence of Blok’s creativity, features of the cycle of poems about a beautiful lady

A.A. Block
Main themes of the lyrics
A. A. Blok interpreted his work in its unity, calling everything written a novel in verse, and the three-volume work, which included poems, dramas, poems, “the trilogy of incarnation.”
1. Poems about the “Beautiful Lady”2. Poems about Russia3. Poem "Twelve"1. Poems about "Beautiful Lady"
A beautiful lady is the embodiment of eternal femininity, the eternal ideal of beauty.
The lyrical hero is a servant of the Beautiful Lady, awaiting the transformation of life.
The poet is ready to renounce everything real and earthly, to isolate himself on his experiences: I have a presentiment of You. Years pass by - I still foresee You in one form. The whole horizon is on fire - and unbearably clear, And I wait silently, yearning and loving. The poems of this cycle contain a motif of anxiety, a feeling of imminent catastrophe, loneliness, and melancholy.

Features of poetic speech:
The fantastic and mysterious nature of what is depicted.
Vaguely personal proposals.
Special epithets: “invisible hands”, “impossible dreams”, “non-existent steps”.

2. Poems about Russia
In Blok's lyrics one can hear a constant appeal to Russia. Not only in the airless space of fantasy, but also in a certain Russian air, in the vastness of Russian fields, he places his lyrics. Blok does not think of the content and spirit of his lyricism outside of the deepest connection with Russia. He derives a special imprint of his soul from recent history.

Poems Features of content and style
“Russia” (1908) The theme of the homeland in this poem is rooted in the deep past. This is a filial confession about the era, the times of “dark and deaf years,” but already foreshadowing the elemental winds of revolution - with a bandit whistle, the destruction of estates. But this theme is “freedom without of the cross” passes only as a hint, an unconscious premonition:
And the impossible is possible, the long road is easy...
“On the Kulikovo Field” cycle (1908) The spiritual result of all previous years is a new philosophy of life, a new understanding of its essence, as if a synthesis of the previous concepts of “temple” and “elements”: And eternal battle! We only dream of peace Through blood and dust... The steppe mare flies, flies And crushes the feather grass...
In “Field Kulikovo” a female image appears - special, consistent with everything else. There is nothing from earthly women in this image; it is like a return to Blok’s poetry of the Eternal Femininity itself - but transformed, with a different face:
Oh, my Rus'! My wife! The long way is painfully clear to us!..
...Sizzling years!
There is muteness - then the sound of the alarm
Is there madness in you, is there hope in you?
He forced me to stop my mouth.

From the days of war, from the days of freedom -
In hearts that were once delighted,
There is a bloody glow in the faces.
There is a fatal emptiness.
Blok seeks to fill this void with Russia; he speaks of Russia with some kind of painful groan of love and longing. He calls her his wife, his poor wife, his life; he takes his poor country and the circle of its low, poor villages deeply into his heart and madly wants to solve its riddle and its sobs.

3. Poem "Twelve"
The poem “The Twelve” was written in three days, in January 1918. Putting a period at the end of the poem, Blok wrote in his diary: “Today I am a genius.”
The poem contains the music of the unfolding elements; the entire poem is filled with it. Music can be heard in the whistle of the wind, in the marching step of the “twelve”, and in the “gentle tread” of Christ. Music is on the side of the revolution, on the side of the new, pure, white. The old world (black) is devoid of music.

The main artistic device is antithesis, contrast. What is contrasted in the poem?

Old world New world
bourgeois Red Army soldiers
writer-vitia wind
comrade pop snow

Dog
Element of color “Black evening. White snow" Black is old, passing away, white is new, looking towards the future. Cruel division - this is the time, no halftones. And the color red appears in the poem - the color of the banner, blood, revolution.
Element of Music Chapter 2 - march rhythm; Chapter 3 is a ditty, chapter 9 is an urban romance.
Element of nature Unrestrained, cheerful, cruel. “The wind is all over God’s world!” Cosmic scale, the wind knocks down, drives representatives of the old world into snowdrifts. “The wind is cheerful and angry and happy. Twists hems, mows down passers-by, tears. He crumples and carries a large poster: “All power to the Constituent Assembly.”
The wind accompanies “The Twelve” (“The wind is blowing, the snow is fluttering, twelve people are walking”). The wind plays with a red flag. The snow swirls, flutters, turns into a blizzard, “the snow curled like a funnel, the snow rose in a column.” A snowstorm in Petrukha's soul. A snowstorm begins.
The element of human souls Unrestrained, cruel, incomprehensible in the “twelve”: “There’s a cigarette in your teeth, you’ve got a cap, you need an ace of diamonds on your back” (the ace of diamonds is the sign of a convict) Freedom, freedom, Eh, eh, without a cross!”, i.e. that is, everything is permitted. Hatred for the old world results in the call “Let’s fire a bullet into Holy Rus' - into the kondovaya, into the hut, into the fat-assed one.”
Chapter 8 The most terrible chapter. Boring! Everything without measure: grief, joy, melancholy. Boring is gray, gray is faceless.
Chapter 11 They walk without the name of a saint
All twelve - into the distance.
Ready for anything
I don't regret anything.
The element of permissiveness All this is cruel, incomprehensible, uncontrollable, scary! But still ahead of the “twelve” is Christ. It’s as if he takes them out of the snowy streets of Petrograd into other worlds.
The Appearance of Jesus Christ With the appearance of Christ, the rhythm changes: the lines are long, musical, as if there is universal silence:
With a gentle tread above the storm,
Snow scattering of pearls,
In a white corolla of roses -
Ahead is Jesus Christ.

In the article “Intellectuals and Revolution,” written almost simultaneously with the poem, Blok exclaimed: “What is planned? Redo everything. Arrange so that everything becomes new, so that our deceitful, dirty, boring, ugly life becomes fair, clean, cheerful and beautiful.”

BOU "Samsonovskaya secondary school" Omsk region, Tara district

Themes and images of A. Blok's early lyrics.

"Poems about a Beautiful Lady"

Prepared by the teacher

Russian language and literature

Gapeeva Raisa Nikolaevn

Alexander

Aleksandrovich

Block

1880 - 1921

• get acquainted with the features of the poet’s early lyrics;
• know the features of A. Blok’s poetics based on the works included in the collection “Poems about the Beautiful Lady”;

- develop associative thinking and skills in analyzing poetic text.

False day shadows are running. The bell's call is high and clear. The church steps are illuminated, Their stone is alive - and awaits your steps. You will pass here, touch a cold stone, Dressed in the terrible holiness of the ages, And maybe you'll drop a flower of spring Here, in this darkness, near the strict images. Indistinct pink shadows grow, The bell's call is high and clear, The darkness falls on the old steps.... I am illuminated - I am waiting for your steps.

2. What word could you add?

3. Who elected the Ladies of the Heart and at what times?

Symbolism – This is a literary and artistic movement of the early 20th century, which considered the goal of art to be the comprehension of world unity through symbols with the help of intuition.

The symbolists did not accept the surrounding world and sought to create a picture of the ideal world.

Vladimir Solovyov - poet, critic and philosopher who lived at the end of the 19th century. A feature of his philosophical views was the desire to express man’s belonging to two worlds - the earthly and the divine. In poetry, this idea was expressed by the symbols of “Eternal Femininity”, “Soul of the World”, etc.

A. Blok with his wife L.D. Mendeleeva (1903)

Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva (1898)

We met you at sunset

You cut through the bay with an oar.

I loved your white dress

Having fallen out of love with the sophistication of dreams.

The silent meetings were strange.

Ahead - on a sand spit

The evening candles were lit.

Someone thought about pale beauty.

All six years are about one thing:

from 1898 to 1904,

The block dedicated to the theme of love

687 poems!

3. Is the appearance of the Beautiful Lady drawn? Can we highlight specific, earthly features of the heroine’s appearance? ?

4. What does the lyrical hero call the one to whom he dedicates this poem? ?

5. Calling the Beautiful Lady with such epithets, how does the hero compare the Beautiful Lady?

1. What is the emotional atmosphere of the poem? What is the mood of this piece?

2. How does the lyrical hero of the poem appear? What is his internal state?

3. Is the appearance of the Beautiful Lady drawn? Do earthly features of the heroine appear?

4. What “human” traits can be found in the poem?

• What new appears in the psychological state of the lyrical hero of this poem?
• What do you think explains the hero's fear?

Name

Peculiarities

"I enter dark temples"

Year of writing

“I, a lad, light the candles”

The presence of specific features in the image

"I have a feeling about you"

Perception of the Beautiful Lady by the lyrical hero (main motive)

The motive is the optimistic expectation of the Beautiful Lady, whose image merges with the image of the Mother of God. The Beautiful Lady is a “dream”, a dream, an ideal, she is unattainable. The hero is fascinated and trembles in anticipation of the meeting.

The Beautiful Lady already seems quite earthly and acquires some features. And although she continues to remain just as unattainable, the poet sincerely believes in the possibility of her earthly incarnation.

The hero's dream is pure, clear and beautiful, it is close. The hero lives in anticipation, anticipation of Her appearance. A motive of melancholy, fear, and anxiety appears. The poet is afraid that Her “habitual features” will suddenly change, he will not recognize his ideal, and his dreams will turn out to be just a dream.

• How does A. Blok depict the feeling of love?
• What evolution does the image of the Beautiful Lady undergo?

Love is depicted by Blok as a rite of service to something higher. The fictional world is contrasted with the events of real reality. At the beginning, the Beautiful Lady is the bearer of the Divine Principle, Eternal Femininity. Then this image decreases, becomes earthly, and acquires real features.

Homework:

learn A. Blok's poem by heart