(M. Tsvetaeva “Poems to Blok”)
Literature is an art that requires its own interpretation, often analytical research. Literary studies deal with these issues.
Literary criticism as a science
Literary criticism– a science that comprehensively studies fiction, its essence, origin and social connections; a body of knowledge about the specifics of verbal and artistic thinking, the genesis, structure and functions of literary creativity, about local and general patterns of the historical and literary process; in a narrower sense of the word - the science of principles and methods of research fiction and the creative process.
(“Short Literary Encyclopedia”,
M., “Sov. Encyclopedia", 1967, vol. 4, p. 331)
Literary criticism as a science includes:
- history of literature;
- literary theory;
- literary criticism;
Auxiliary literary disciplines: archival science, library science, literary local history, bibliography, textual criticism, etc.
From the history of literary science
1. Until the beginning of the 19th century, literary thought did not have a pronounced scientific character. Reflections on literature most often acquired a philosophical, ethical or purely aesthetic connotation (Boileau, Lessing, Kant, Herder, etc.)
2. The main methods (systems) of studying literature developed in Europe in the 19th century.
3. The method (scientific) involves the establishment of objective criteria in art from the point of view of the unity of individual and public interests, the desire to systematize the principles of analysis of works of art.
4. Literary science in various cultural and historical periods
resorted to various methods, such as:
- biographical (Sainte-Beuve, G. Brandes);
- philological (G. Paul, V. Peretz);
- mythological (the Brothers Grimm, F. Buslaev, etc.);
- psychological (A. Potebnya, D. Ovsyanikov-Kulikovsky);
- psychoanalytic (Z. Freud, I. Ermakov);
- intuitionist (A. Berges, M. Gershenzon);
- cultural and historical (the Veselovsky brothers, Vs. Miller);
- formal (V. Zhirmunsky, V. Shklovsky)
- sociological (V. Perevezev)
- structuralist (Yu. Lotman)
- Marxist-Leninist criticism(Russian - Soviet - literary criticism was ideologically based on it for a long time).
v The foundations of modern literary criticism are largely laid in the works of the ancient Greek thinker Aristotle. Remember the main provisions (terminology) of Aristotle’s “Poetics”. (336-332 BC)
MIMESIS– imitation, which carries a creative and cognitive principle;
TRAGEDY- imitation of an action that is important and complete, having a certain volume. Imitation through speech, each of its parts differently decorated; through action, not story, purifying such affects through compassion and fear (catharsis)
COMEDY- reproduction of the worst people, but not in the sense of complete depravity (...) (...) funny - this is some kind of mistake and disgrace, detrimental to anyone, not causing suffering to anyone; a comic mask is something ugly and distorted, but without suffering.
FABULA- imitation of action, combination of facts.
CHARACTER- that's why we characters we call them some; that in which the direction of the will is revealed;
THOUGHT- something in which speakers prove something or simply express their opinion;
PERIPETEIA- a change of action from happiness to unhappiness, and vice versa.
Agree that the definitions given by Aristotle have not lost their accuracy and relevance today.
v The critical legacy of N. Boileau had a significant influence on the formation of aesthetic views on the essence of poetry. His treatise “The Poetic Art” (1674) was written in verse. To hide serious theoretical content in an apparently light poetic form.
Your name is a bird in your hand,
Your name is like a piece of ice on the tongue.
One single movement of the lips.
Your name is five letters.
A ball caught on the fly
Silver bell in mouth.
A stone thrown into a quiet pond
Sob as your name is.
In the light clicking of night hooves
Big name yours is thundering.
And he will call it to our temple
The trigger clicks loudly.
Your name - oh, you can’t! -
Your name is a kiss in the eyes,
In the gentle cold of motionless eyelids.
Your name is a kiss in the snow.
Key, icy, blue sip...
With your name - deep sleep.
Analysis of the poem “Your name is a bird in your hand” by Tsvetaeva
M. Tsvetaeva treated the creativity and personality of A. Blok with great trepidation and respect. There was practically nothing between them, not even friendly relations. This is partly explained by the fact that the poetess idolized the symbolist poet, considering him an unearthly creature who mistakenly visited our world. Tsvetaeva dedicated a whole cycle of poems to Blok, including “Your name is a bird in your hand...” (1916).
The work, in fact, is a set of epithets that the poetess gives to Blok’s surname. All of them emphasize the unreality of the poet, of which Tsvetaeva was sure. These various definitions are united by swiftness and ephemerality. A name consisting of five letters (according to pre-revolutionary spelling, the letter “er” was written at the end of Blok’s surname) for the poetess is like “one single movement of the lips.” She compares it to objects (a piece of ice, a ball, a bell) that are in motion; short-term, abrupt sounds (“clicking… hooves”, “clicking trigger”); symbolic intimate actions (“kiss on the eyes”, “kiss on the snow”). Tsvetaeva deliberately does not pronounce the surname itself (“Oh, you can’t!”), considering this blasphemy towards an incorporeal creature.
Blok really made a strong impression on nervous girls, who often fell in love with him. He was at the mercy of the symbols and images created in his imagination, which allowed him to exert an inexplicable influence on those around him. Tsvetaeva fell under this influence, but managed to preserve the originality of her own works, which undoubtedly benefited her. The poetess had a very subtle understanding of poetry and saw real talent in Blok’s work. In the poet’s poems, which seemed complete nonsense to an inexperienced reader, Tsvetaeva saw a manifestation of cosmic forces.
Of course, these two strong creative personalities were similar in many ways, especially in their ability to completely detach themselves from real life and exist in the world of your own dreams. Moreover, Blok succeeded in this to an incredible extent. That is why Tsvetaeva respected and secretly envied the symbolist poet to such an extent. The main difference between the poetess and impressionable young ladies was that there could be no talk of love. Tsvetaeva could not imagine how one could experience too “earthly” feelings for an ephemeral creature. The only thing the poetess is counting on is spiritual intimacy without any physical contact.
The poem ends with the phrase “With your name, the sleep is deep,” which returns the reader to reality. Tsvetaeva admitted that she often fell asleep while reading.
“Your name is a bird in your hand...” Marina Tsvetaeva
Your name is a bird in your hand,
Your name is like a piece of ice on the tongue.
One single movement of the lips.
Your name is five letters.
A ball caught on the fly
Silver bell in mouth.A stone thrown into a quiet pond
Sob as your name is.
In the light clicking of night hooves
Your big name is booming.
And he will call it to our temple
The trigger clicks loudly.Your name - oh, you can’t! -
Your name is a kiss in the eyes,
In the gentle cold of motionless eyelids.
Your name is a kiss in the snow.
Key, icy, blue sip...
With your name - deep sleep.
Analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem “Your name is a bird in your hand...”
Marina Tsvetaeva was very skeptical about the work of the poets she knew. The only person she idolized in the literal sense of the word was Alexander Blok. Tsvetaeva admitted that his poems have nothing to do with the earthly and ordinary, they were written not by a person, but by some sublime and mythical creature.
Tsvetaeva was not closely acquainted with Blok, although she often attended his literary evenings and each time never ceased to be amazed at the power of the charm of this extraordinary man. It is not surprising that many women were in love with him, among whom were even close friends of the poetess. However, Tsvetaeva never spoke about her feelings for Blok, believing that in this case there could be no talk of love. After all, for her the poet was unattainable, and nothing could diminish this image created in the imagination of a woman who loved to dream so much.
Marina Tsvetaeva dedicated quite a lot of poems to this poet, which were later compiled into the cycle “To Blok”. The poetess wrote some of them during the life of her idol, including a work entitled “Your name is a bird in your hand...”, which was published in 1916. This poem fully reflects the sincere admiration that Tsvetaeva feels for Blok, claiming that this feeling is one of the strongest that she has ever experienced in her life.
The poetess associates the name Blok with a bird in her hand and a piece of ice on her tongue. “One single movement of the lips. Your name is five letters,” says the author. Some clarity should be brought here, since Blok’s surname was actually written before the revolution with a yat at the end, and therefore consisted of five letters. And it was pronounced in one breath, which the poetess did not fail to note. Considering herself unworthy to even develop the topic of a possible relationship with this amazing man, Tsvetaeva seems to be trying out his name on her tongue and writing down the associations that come to her. “A ball caught on the fly, a silver bell in the mouth” - these are not all the epithets with which the author awards his hero. His name is the sound of a stone thrown into the water, a woman's sob, the clatter of hooves and the rumble of thunder. “And the loudly clicking trigger will call him to our temple,” notes the poetess.
Despite her reverent attitude towards Blok, Tsvetaeva still allows herself a little liberty and declares: “Your name is a kiss on the eyes.” But the coldness of the other world emanates from him, because the poetess still does not believe that such a person can exist in nature. After Blok’s death, she would write that she was surprised not by his tragic picture, but by the fact that he even lived among ordinary people, while creating unearthly poems, deep and filled with hidden meaning. For Tsvetaeva, Blok remained a mystery poet, in whose work there was a lot of mystical. And this is precisely what elevated him to the rank of a kind of deity, with whom Tsvetaeva simply did not dare to compare herself, considering that she was unworthy even to be next to this extraordinary person.
Addressing him, the poetess emphasizes: “With your name, deep sleep.” And there is no pretense in this phrase, since Tsvetaeva really falls asleep with a volume of Blok’s poems in her hands. She's dreaming amazing worlds and country, and the image of the poet becomes so intrusive that the author even catches himself thinking about some kind of spiritual connection with this person. However, she is unable to verify whether this is actually the case. Tsvetaeva lives in Moscow, and Blok lives in St. Petersburg, their meetings are rare and random, there is no romance or high relationships. But this does not bother Tsvetaeva, for whom the poet’s poems are the best proof of the immortality of the soul.
Alexander Blok (November 28, 1880 - August 7, 1921) in Tsvetaeva’s life was the only poet whom she revered not as a fellow craftsman, but as a deity from poetry and whom she worshiped as a deity. Anastasia Tsvetaeva recalls her sister’s attitude towards the poet:
“Marina perceived the work of Blok alone as a height so celestial that she could not even imagine any participation in this height - she only knelt.”
Wax, holy face
I’ll just bow from afar.
I'll kneel in the snow,
And, standing under the slow snow,
And in your holy name
I'll kiss the evening snow -
Where the majestic tread
You walked in golden silence,
Quiet light, holy glory,
Almighty of my soul.
From the memoirs of Ariadne Eforn:
“We leave the house while it’s still light in the evening. Marina explains to me that Alexander Blok is the same great poet, like Pushkin. And an exciting premonition of something beautiful covers me with every word she says.”
Kuzmin, along with Balmont and Blok, was the poet who had the strongest influence on Tsvetaeva’s creative evolution from “Evening Album” to the collection “Versty I”. It is not because there is no Dante, Ariost, or Goethe now because the gift of words is less - no: there are masters of words - more. Those were not the masters of the school, they lived their own lives, but these made writing poetry their life. That is why the current is above all - Blok. More than a poet: a man.
* * *
Your name is a bird in your hand,
Your name is like a piece of ice on the tongue.
One single movement of the lips.
Your name is five letters.
A ball caught on the fly
Silver bell in mouth.
A stone thrown into a quiet pond
Sob as your name is.
In the light clicking of night hooves
Your big name is booming.
And he will call it to our temple
The trigger clicks loudly.
Your name - oh, you can’t! -
Your name is a kiss in the eyes,
In the gentle cold of motionless eyelids.
Your name is a kiss in the snow.
Key, icy, blue sip...
With your name - deep sleep.
This first poem from the sixteen cycle “Poems to Blok” (1916-1921) is typical of Tsvetaeva. It is dedicated to the name of Blok, his very sound. Three stanzas, logically replacing each other: in the first - a description of the phonetic and even graphic composition of the word Blok (Your name is five letters - it was written with a hard sign, Blok); in the second - a comparison of the sounds of this name with the sounds of nature; in the third - an emotional association (the sound of a kiss). Tsvetaeva gives a comprehensive semantization of the word, explaining even the purely phonetic fact of the bilabiality of the sound b (One single movement of the lips...) and the nature of the sound l ("a piece of ice on the tongue"). Three comparisons of the second stanza, explaining the sound complex of the block, reveal at the same time the figurative world of Blok’s poetry: a stone falling into the water of a pond (estate atmosphere, silent nature), the clicking of night hooves (Blok’s most important theme: Over a bottomless pit into eternity, A trotter flies panting, or Again the snow-covered columns or There is my happiness on the troika Into the silvery smoke, but carry away), the clicking of the trigger (the tragedy of Blok’s “terrible world”). The third stanza, which essentially contains a declaration of love, connects the sound of the poet’s name with the poetic world of his Snow Mask. The poem ends with the word deep, containing all the sounds of the poet's name and rhyming with it. This is how Blok’s complex of sounds is comprehended, acquiring a deep pattern in Tsvetaeva’s mind.
"Death of Blok. I don’t understand anything yet, and I won’t understand anything for a long time. I think: no one understands death... What’s surprising is not that he died, but that he lived. Few earthly signs, few dresses. He somehow immediately became a face, alive - posthumous (in our love). Nothing broke, it separated, he was all such an obvious triumph of the spirit, such a visceral spirit, that it’s amazing how life, in general, allowed it to happen... I feel Blok’s death as an ascension...
I swallow my human pain. For him it is over, and we will not think about it (identify him with it). I don’t want him in the coffin, I want him in the dawn.”
They thought it was a man! Forced to die.
Died now. Forever
- Cry for the dead angel!
The black reader is reading,
Idle people trample...
- The singer lies dead
And he celebrates Sunday.
Tsvetaeva dedicated 21 poems to Blok. Of these, 12 were written after his death. Moscow in these poems is the same as in the poems dedicated to Akhmatova and Mandelstam - the same domes, bells, tombs of kings and queens, the Kremlin, street lamps...
“...There are places with an eternal wind, with some kind of whirlpool of air, one house in Moscow, For example, where Blok was and where I was in his footsteps - already cooled down. The tracks have cooled, but the wind remains.”
* * *
His friends - don't disturb him!
His servants - do not disturb him!
It was so clear on his face:
My kingdom is not of this world.
Prophetic blizzards circled along the veins,
The stooped shoulders bent from the wings,
Into the singing slot, into the caked dust -
The swan lost his soul!
Fall, fall, heavy copper!
The wings have tasted the right: to fly!
Lips screaming the word: answer!
I know that this is not possible - to die!
The dawn drinks, the sea drinks - to the fullest
He's reveling. - Do not serve memorial services!
Who forever commanded: to be!
There will be enough bread to feed him!
Your name is a bird in your hand,
Your name is like ice on the tongue.
One single movement of the lips.
Your name is five letters.
A ball caught on the fly
Silver bell in mouth.
A stone thrown into a quiet pond
Sob as your name is.
In the light clicking of night hooves
Your big name is booming.
And he will call it to our temple
The trigger clicks loudly.
Your name - oh, it’s impossible! —
Your name is a kiss on the eyes,
In the gentle cold of motionless eyelids.
Your name is a kiss in the snow.
Key, icy, blue sip
With your name - deep sleep.
In the life of Marina Tsvetaeva, Blok was the only poet whom she revered not as a fellow practitioner of the “string craft,” but as a deity from poetry, and whom she worshiped as a deity... Tsvetaeva perceived the work of Blok alone as a height so celestial - not with detachment from life, but - by purification by it - (so they are purified by fire!), that in her “sinfulness” she did not even dare to think about any participation in this creative height - she only knelt down.”
I saw Tsvetaev Blok only twice - at his evenings in Moscow in 1920. “In my life - by the will of verse - I missed a big meeting with Blok... And there was a second... when I stood next to him, in the crowd, shoulder to shoulder... looking at the sunken temple, at the slightly reddish, so ugly (cropped, sick) - poor hair... Poems in my pocket - stretch out your hand - but trembled. Passed it through Alya (Marina Tsvetaeva’s daughter) without an address, on the eve of his departure.” (From Tsvetaeva’s letter to Pasternak in February 1923).
* * *
In Moscow, the domes are burning,
In Moscow, the bells are ringing,
And I have the tombs in a row -
Queens and kings sleep in them.
It’s easier to breathe - than anywhere on earth!
And you don’t know what is dawning in the Kremlin
I pray to you until dawn.
And you pass over your Neva
About that time, as over the Moscow River
I stand with my head down
And the lanterns stick together.
With all my insomnia I love you,
With all my insomnia I listen to you -
About that time, as throughout the Kremlin
The bell ringers wake up.
But my river is with your river,
But my hand is with your hand
They won’t come together, my joy, until
The dawn will not catch up with the dawn.
* * *
It must be behind that grove
The village where I lived.
It must be simpler love
And easier than I expected.
- Hey, idols, may you die! —
He stood up and raised his whip.
And when I shout after, it’s whipped,
And again the bells sing.
Over the wretched and pitiful bread
Behind the pole stands - a pole.
And the wire under the sky
Death sings and sings.
Tsvetaeva wrote a lot about Blok even after his death: the cycle “Poems to Blok” includes 18 poems, then the poem “On a Red Horse”, the report “My Meeting with Blok” (not preserved).
* * *
I remember the first day, infantile atrocity,
The languor and throat of divine dregs,
All the carelessness of torment, all the heartlessness of the heart,
What fell like a stone—and like a hawk—on my chest.
And now - trembling with pity and heat,
One thing: howl like a wolf, one thing: fall at your feet,
Look down - understand - that voluptuousness is punishment -
Tough love and convict passion.
M. Tsvetaeva: “I wrote for many. I understood everything, but I wasn’t for everyone.”
* * *
When I die, I won’t say: I was.
And I’m not sorry, and I’m not looking for the guilty.
There are more important things in the world
Passionate storms and exploits of love.
You are the one who beat your wing on this chest,
The young culprit of inspiration -
I command you: - be!
I will not disobey.
Love is contrasted with poetic inspiration - the winged Genius. For Marina, love outside of poetry did not exist.
* * *
Like the right and left hand -
Your soul is close to my soul.
We are adjacent, blissfully and warmly,
Like the right and left wing.
But the whirlwind rises - and the abyss lies
From right to left wing!
Marina Tsvetaeva considered this poem one of the best among her early poems.
