Every person in one way or another is characterized by a sense of beauty, a desire for beauty. At all times, the personification of this was a woman, as we can judge from ancient myths and legends. A special cult of a woman, a lady, developed in the Middle Ages, in the era of chivalry. Let us recall Don Quixote, who, in the name of his Dulcinea, did a variety of, sometimes fantastic and absurd deeds. The great Dante and Petrarch in sublime, enthusiastic verses immortalized the images of their beloved Beatrice and Laura.
In Russian poetry silver age the cult of a woman was embodied primarily in the poetry and philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov. In his view, a woman personified the image of the World Soul, the Eternal Wife, Sophia the Wise, was a symbol of harmony, reason, love and beauty. The cult of the Eternal Femininity was further developed in the work of Alexander Blok, for whom Vladimir Solovyov became a spiritual teacher. It is Blok who owns unusually lyrical and tender poems about the Beautiful Lady.
Alexander Blok made his debut in poetry as a traditional romantic, and in his early poems there were corresponding motives: alienation from the crowd, disappointment in life, disbelief in happiness. And suddenly, in the darkness of unbelief, blindness, She appears - "clear", "radiant", "illumined", "golden". Blok describes it in the same way as icon painters usually depict the Mother of God surrounded by radiance. At the same time, the real, quite earth woman Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva.
At first glance, there is nothing in common between the "heavenly" Mother of God and the "earthly" beloved of the poet. But in his mind, there is a connection between them, and this connection is mystical. Just like the romantic poets, Blok recreates the image of a real woman in accordance with his ideal, turning her into a Beautiful Lady, into a Madonna. The poet himself (a lyrical hero) appears before us, according to the definition of J. Aikhenvald, “a knight and a pilgrim”.
He anticipates the Mother of God, follows “in the footsteps of her blue paths”, breaking ties with reality and transporting himself to a completely different world - the world of “dreams and fogs”, the world of dreams. Blok called the cycle of poems about the Beautiful Lady "a closed book of being", which reflected a journey through the "countries of the soul" in the "early morning dawn". "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" convey a special - prayerful - state of the soul of the hero (author), a state of inner contemplation. The lyrical hero of Blok contains the whole Universe, his soul is equal to the universe:
I don't care - the universe is in me ...
This perfect world The block contrasts the real. It is in the realm of the ideal that he seeks salvation from the vulgarity and rudeness of earthly existence:
Seeking salvation.
My fires burn on the heights of the mountains -
The whole region of the night was illuminated.
But the brightest of all is the spiritual gaze in me
And you are away.
The Beautiful Lady is the undivided mistress of the poet’s soul, the motive of insight is associated with her (“I am here at the end, full of insight”); she opens the way for him to comprehend Eternity, being her messenger:
I'm just waiting for a conditional vision
To fly off into another void ...
In many verses of the cycle, the image of the Beautiful Lady is incorporeal, unsteady, barely perceptible, perceived not so much by sight (internal) as by hearing (also internal):
The wind brought from afar
Your sound songs...
Thus, the Beautiful Lady becomes a link between the earthly (alien) and heavenly (native) worlds. We see that the lyrical hero values earthly attributes little - with all his being he strives upward. Let us turn to the poem "I enter the dark temples." The whole poem is imbued with a solemn mood, the hero is waiting for a meeting with her "in the flickering of red lamps." As you know, red is the color of fire, passion. This passion is filled with the soul of the beautiful Lady waiting for the appearance: "I'm trembling from the creak of doors." He desperately wants to see Her, but he knows that this is impossible:
And illumined looks into my face
Only an image, only a dream about Her.
This invisible presence is dearer to the hero than the real one. Moreover, he is afraid of a real meeting, which allows us to talk about, for example, a line from the poem “I foresee You”:
But I'm afraid: you will change your appearance.
The poet understands that the earthly embodiment of a dream is impossible without the destruction of the ideal.
As we can see, in the image of the Beautiful Lady there are more heavenly than earthly features: it seems sublime, absolutely inaccessible and incomprehensible. And yet the earth is present in it. This is indicated by the appeal to Her for “you”, earthly epithets (“sweetheart”), some features that make her appearance visible: “virgin robe”, “ White dress"," Pale beauty. In some poems, the image of the heroine fits the poet into a real earthly landscape:
We met at sunset
You cut the bay with an oar.
With all his striving upwards, the lyrical hero of Blok cannot completely break with the earth. Moreover, he begins to be weary of this gap, strives to "overcome dreams and fogs" in the name of gaining reality. That is why Blok called "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" the beginning of the "trilogy of incarnation."
Alexander Blok became known as one of the greatest classical poets. Contemporaries called this poet "the tragic tenor of the era." He was honored with the dedications of such brilliant personalities as:
Marina Tsvetaeva;
Boris Pasternak;
Anna Akhmatova.
Alexander Blok in his poems is very gloomy. Many of his works are fraught with a distinct understatement, which, in general, is consistent with the modern era, of which the poet became the resonator.
It should be noted that the book "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" is a collection that incorporates poems from two other books that Alexander Blok published from 1898 to 1908. This book has collected such cycles as:
"City";
"Crossroads";
"Faina";
"Bubbles of the Earth";
"Free Thoughts";
"Snow Mask"
It is noteworthy that the book was called "Poems about a Beautiful Lady" thanks to Blok's friend V. Bryusov. In addition to the works created by Alexander Blok himself, the book contains a text by Zinaida Gippius entitled "My Lunar Friend".
The name given to the book "Poems about a Beautiful Lady" actually reflects the aspirations of its author. A large number of of the works included in this book are poems created under the impression made on Blok by his beloved L. Mendeleeva. They subsequently got married.
This book is worth reading for everyone who wants to appreciate the height of the poetic style of the poet of the Silver Age of Russian literature, and also for those who want to learn a few refined works by heart and subsequently read their hearts to their chosen ones. The poems that Alexander Blok wrote are able to captivate and inspire, since the author wrote with truly inspiration. In his poems, he worshiped the Beautiful Lady, like a deity, endowed her with immortality and unlimited power, an incorruptible body and almost divinity.
If you believe the diary of the poet himself, which is no less interesting to read than his poetic works, then he was firmly convinced that his poems were a prayer. And Blok compared the work of each poet with the apostle, who is engaged in versification in "divine ecstasy." Alexander Blok equated inspiration with faith.
Researchers of Blok's poetic works identify three images of the heroine in them. This is the Soul of the world, as a cosmic image, the Queen of Heaven, as a religious image, and a gentle, albeit somewhat arrogant, girl as an everyday image.
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During his ascent to the literary Olympus, European culture experienced far from the most better times. A deep crisis arose in connection with disappointment about the former ideals that had already become a kind of public property. The death of the former social order seemed inevitable, so the question of revising the old, well-established moral values also seemed inevitable. As a result, symbolism appeared.
It represents one of the most striking literary movements in literature at the turn of the century. This direction can be called a kind of attempt by a human writer to get away from the contradictions in reality and plunge headlong into the maelstrom of eternal ideas and truths.
Block is just such a person. This is especially noticeable in "Poems about the Beautiful Lady." The collection was published in 1904. The collection in "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" consists of 129 small poems, each of which is rich in its own history. For the most part, dreams about an ideal sound here, an idea-dream that struck Blok with itself about some grandiose events. Actually, we can say that all the symbolism of the writer was concentrated in this collection. Subsequent works of the creator in the future partially change. Most often, they permeate the feeling of the need to establish a new relationship with reality, without any lofty ideals and dreams, as in the Poems of the Beautiful Lady. Blok himself spoke about this in his letter to S.M. Solovyov: “Something breaks in me, and a new one comes in a positive sense, and for me this is desirable, as when less often.”
“Let the moon shine - the night is dark.
Spring in my soul of love
Will not change the stormy bad weather.
The night has spread over me
And answers with a dead look
At the dim gaze of the sick soul,
Doused with sharp, sweet poison.
And in vain, passions hidden,
In the cold mist before dawn
I wander among the crowd
With only one cherished thought:
Let the moon shine - the night is dark.
May life bring happiness to people
Spring in my soul of love
Will not change the stormy bad weather. ”
Here Blok connects the state of mind of the protagonist with dark night. The night has stretched out over him, and the same darkness reigns and rules in his soul. Loneliness is exacerbated by the isolation of a person from real life, because main character has a characteristic romantic attitude. Despite the fact that the author does not indicate any direct opposition of "I" or "we", he still indicates that the main character is somewhere among the people. Nevertheless, they live in a completely different way, unlike our main character, who cannot break with his loneliness in any way. His position is very strange: “Let life bring happiness to people,” but he does not say this about himself. Man himself is a creative person, he is trying to comprehend the secrets of the unearthly, the universe, and the best time for such reflections is night.
The poem both begins and ends with the same quatrain. The protagonist is convinced that the night will remain dark for him, although the moon is shining.
The wind brought from afar
Songs of spring hint
Somewhere light and deep
The sky opened up.
In this bottomless azure
In the twilight of near spring
Weeping winter storms
There were starry dreams.
Timidly, darkly and deeply
My strings were crying.
The wind brought from afar
Sound songs are yours.
Before the appearance of the Beautiful Lady, the life of the protagonist is compared to winter. There is a hint that in the near future, winter should be replaced by spring, but it, as such, is not there yet. The hero feels only its harbingers, but he understands perfectly well that this spring is already close. This is also noticeable in the poem "Quiet evening shadows ...":
"Quiet evening shadows
In the blue lie the snows.
Hosts of discordant visions
Your ashes have been disturbed.
You sleep beyond the distant plain,
Sleeping in the snow...
Songs of your swan
Sounds seemed to me.
An anxious voice
Echoes in the cold snow...
Is it possible to resurrect?
Isn't the past dust?
No, from the Lord's house
Spirit full of immortality
Came out native and familiar
Song disturb my hearing.
Hosts of grave visions,
Sounds of live voices...
Quiet evening shadows
The blue touched the snows.
The collection "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" fully embodied the idea of a "double world" characteristic of most Symbolists. In such works there is a contrast between "earth" and "heaven", as well as material and spiritual state person. In the image of the Beautiful Lady, Blok embodies the Soul of the world, which in itself is a feminine nature. In general, for such a collection of poetry, some lofty feelings, a regular break of a person with the current reality, as well as the holiness of unearthly ideals and a kind of cult of beauty can be called characteristic.
If we identify all the verses in this collection, then we can say that everywhere the main character is an ordinary earthly creature who is languishing in anticipation of that very Beautiful Lady, and she, in turn, is something divine, unearthly ideal.
"Poems about the Beautiful Lady" is written in a refined and rather refined language. Each work in the collection is saturated with search, expectation of the ideal, harmony, beauty. Naturally, the main character in these works has a sharp rejection of everyday reality. He is trying to strive for excellence, waiting for positive changes and it seems that he is about to wait for them. The Beautiful Lady herself in the cycle - unearthly creature, which only remotely resembles a female appearance. In fact, this is the idea of a person, his dream, the hope that warms the soul of the protagonist, but at the same time causes a longing for the incomprehensible.
Russian poets often dedicated their poems to real or fictional objects of love and adoration. Thus, both the most ordinary women and unearthly muses from the world of dreams became them. However, there were cases when, in one harmonious unity, two hypostases of femininity merged into a symbolic whole, and this whole became extremely important, fundamental, paramount for the poet. It is to such lyrics that the present analysis will be devoted. Blok, whose "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" still excites hearts, created an imperishable, living image, and therefore it is impossible not to talk about him.
Lyrical cycle about great love, dedicated to the best of women, was created by the poet in the period from 1897 to 1904. This was the time of the development of Blok's stormy, but tense, nervous romance with Lyubov Dmitrievna Mendeleeva, the whole gamut of feelings for which Alexander Alexandrovich, as if confessing, reflected in the poems of the collection. The well-bred and well-educated Lyuba made the poet rush from coldness to jealousy, from obsession to indifference, from happiness to joy. In the poems of Blok, who attributed himself to the direction of symbolism, the whole palette of love emotions acquired even more greater value, was raised to limits inaccessible to the consciousness of an ordinary man in the street.
But this is not all that will be preceded by further analysis. Blok ("Poems about the Beautiful Lady" - this is the first poetic collection on the account of the poet) was very ambiguous about his beloved: he believed that the earthly, carnal closeness of two people is an obstacle to the merging of souls, while Love wanted simple female happiness. Perhaps such an influence on the poet was made by his negative intimate experience: according to Blok, physical communication could only take place with a prostitute, and in the case of a worthy woman, this was identified in his mind with a vice.
Be that as it may, they met in their youth: she was 16, he was 17. Their communication, friendship and even mutual sympathy were interrupted, but later fate brought them together again, and Alexander Alexandrovich saw in this a mysterious omen, a sign sent over. They got married, although their happiness turned out to be shaky, fragile: Lyuba always begged her husband to leave mysticism and kiss her not on the pages of books, but in real life.
Without a description of the character of Lyubvi Mendeleeva, the analysis itself cannot take place. Blok, whose "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" to some extent played a cruel joke on the girl, spiritualized and idealized her image so much that a real, earthly, interesting personality was lost behind him. Lyuba was serious, strict, impregnable, and at the same time witty, calm, joyful. Golden-haired and ruddy, the granddaughter of the great chemist Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev could not and did not want to spend his whole life searching for mysterious meanings love "poser with the habits of a veil," as she herself once called Blok.
The entire environment of the poet also saw in her the embodiment of eternal, ideal femininity, in connection with which they interpreted her gestures, behavior, mood, and outfits in different ways. The marriage of Alexander Alexandrovich and Mendeleev was considered a sacred mystery, capable of bestowing, according to V. Solovyov, purification of the world. There were also those who saw only negative properties in Love: for example, Anna Akhmatova called her “a hippopotamus that has risen on its hind legs,” and considered it a stuffed fool. The woman became literally a hostage to the current situation. As a result, she found what she was looking for - love, understanding, support ... But not in her husband, but in another man.
it last story, which will precede the poetic analysis. Blok, whose poems about the Beautiful Lady could not satisfy the one to whom they were dedicated, soon turned out to be “overboard”: Love, who felt unnecessary and forgotten, began a relationship with her husband’s close friend, the poet Andrei Bely. This connection was finally interrupted only in 1907. Subsequently, Lyuba entered into an informal relationship with G. Chulkov, from whom even a child was born. The block, which all this time continued to remain legal husband Mendeleeva, agreed to become the father of the baby, since he could not have his own children, but the boy died a little more than a week after his birth.
Alexander Alexandrovich himself was also not sinless: he was seen in connection with the actress N. Volokhova, whom Lyubov even asked to take care of Sashenka, because he is "nervous" and "he needs a special approach." As a result, Volokhova decided to interrupt her presence in the life of this strange family. Alexander Alexandrovich died in 1921, Mendeleev died 18 years after her husband. She did not remarry for the rest of her life.
So, how did Blok put his worldview into practice? “Poems about the Beautiful Lady” (an analysis of the poem, and more than one, will be presented later) as a collection opens with the cycle “Ante Lucem”, which in Latin means “before the light”. The lyrical hero here is a lost, lonely person wandering in the dark. He is cut off from worldly happiness and joy, unable to experience them. The concept of two worlds is clearly traced: a creator with poetic thinking and a deep romantic soul wants to know the beyond, heavenly secrets, and in this he opposes the crowd that lives in an unremarkable earthly plane.
The cycle of poems about the Beautiful Lady (Block), the analysis of which requires a careful approach, is the second and central part of the collection of the same name. There is still no sense of reality, stability, but the creator gains hope - the incorporeal, obscure, Beautiful Lady must save him, fill existence with meaning. There is a transformation of the medieval motif of knightly service.
What do the poems about the Beautiful Lady look like? Alexander Blok, whose analysis of life and work has already been partially analyzed, created, for example, the poem "The wind brought from afar ...", which is associated with the wind of change, dynamics, change, rebirth. The eternal, deadly night from the poems of the first cycle begins to play with new colors - the reader seems to feel the imminent onset of spring, hears songs, distinguishes colors. No, the Beautiful Lady is not here yet, but everything speaks of her imminent arrival, of the destruction of the shackles of loneliness of the lyrical hero, of renewal.
What are the most significant poems about the Beautiful Lady (Block)? An analysis, a brief or full description of the history of the appearance of the collection, an emphasis on the biography of the poet - none of the sections can do without the lyrical work “I enter into dark temples... ". Written in 1902, it is the quintessence of symbolism and mysticism. Here the reader is again faced with the uncertainty, the incorporeality of the described image, although certainty is sometimes found in the portrait of the Lady, for example, in the poem "She is slim and tall ...".
Here we are faced with the motive of expectation and ... fear. The lyrical hero yearns for a meeting, but is afraid of what it will bring him, afraid of being unworthy. It is no coincidence that the place of expectation in the work is the church - this only exalts the spirituality of the Beautiful Lady, her crystal purity and holiness.
The collection “Poems about the Beautiful Lady” (Block), the analysis of which was presented in detail in this article, closes with the “Crossroads” cycle. Here, the motives of hopelessness, confusion of the lyrical hero, anxiety are clearly manifested, the predominance of realistic components becomes more and more obvious. Raised social problems(in the poems "Factory", "From the newspapers", "Is everything calm among the people? ..") remain without permission.
The motive of the “end of the world” becomes dominant: the lyrical hero, and the poet himself, no longer hopes for salvation, for the arrival of the Beautiful Lady, for the possibility of purification and rebirth. He withdraws from the spiritless existence and no longer participates in what is happening.
Alexander BlokAlexander Blok was probably the most prominent symbolist of the twentieth century. His Night. The outside. Flashlight. Pharmacy ”and a cycle of poems about the Beautiful Lady are still on everyone’s lips. Behind the piercing love lyrics the poet's personal family drama. And his only love and muse.
* * *
During the day I manage the affairs of vanity,
I light fires in the evening.
Hopelessly foggy - you
You are playing a game in front of me.
I love this lie, this shine
Your alluring girlish outfit,
Eternal hubbub and street crackling,
Runaway row of lanterns.
I love and admire and wait
Iridescent colors and words.
I'll come and go again
Into the depths of flowing dreams.
How deceitful and how white you are!
I love white lies.
Completing the day's work
I know you'll be back tonight.
With Lyubov Mendeleeva, the daughter of a famous scientist, Alexander Blok met when the girl had just turned 16 years old. She loved pink color, dreamed of becoming a dramatic actress and Blok was not seduced at all. On the contrary, she called him "a poseur with the habits of a veil." However, after six years of Blok's almost manic courtship, Lyubov agreed to become his wife.
* * *
I'm scared to meet you.
It's scarier not to meet you.
I started to wonder
I caught the seal on everything
Shadows walk down the street
I don't know if they live or sleep...
Clinging to the church steps
I'm afraid to look back.
They put me on shoulders arms,
But I don't remember the names.
Sounds are heard in the ears
A recent big funeral.
And the gloomy sky is low -
Covered the temple itself.
I know you are here, you are close.
You are not here. Are you there.
"Stranger" (excerpt)
And every evening, at the appointed hour
(Is this just a dream?)
Maiden's camp, seized by silks,
In the foggy window moves.
And slowly, passing among the drunk,
Always without companions, alone
Breathing in spirits and mists,
She sits by the window.
And breathe ancient beliefs
Her elastic silks
And a hat with mourning feathers
And in the rings a narrow hand.
And chained by a strange closeness,
I look behind the dark veil
And I see the enchanted shore
And the enchanted distance.
So the earthly woman Lyubov Mendeleev turned into that very Beautiful Lady, the Stranger and the Virgin Mary of Russian poetry. Blok idolized her and saw a mystical sign in her every gesture. Of course, later the poet will accept the revolution, then become disillusioned with it and write many significant works in social topics. But in the zero years of the twentieth century, Blok is in love, young, and ready to put his wife on a pedestal, so that later he could worship her all his life. Unapproachable, immaculate and elusive - this is how he saw Mendeleev for the first time, and this is how he immortalized her in literature.
***
She was young and beautiful
And she remained a pure madonna,
Like a mirror of a calm, bright river.
She is carefree, like a blue distance,
Like a sleeping swan, it seemed;
Who knows, maybe there was sadness ...
How my heart was breaking!
When she sang to me about love,
That song resonated in my soul
But passionate blood did not know passion ...
How my heart was breaking!
