THE PROJECTION OF A NEW WORLD IN THE POEM BY A. BLOK «THE TWELVE»
Journal Title: Проблеми сучасного літературознавства - Year 2018, Vol 0, Issue 26
Abstract
The article discusses the poem by Alexander Blok «The Twelve» (1918) and attempts a new interpretation of its figurative system. Traditionally, it is accepted that the poem is a revolutionary poem, a Bolshevik poem, that it is created using angles of symbolist worldview of the early twentieth century and reflects the immediate events that took place in Petrograd in 1917. However, it is proved that the poem by Blok is purely symbolic — or rather it has a philosophical-mystical character. The poem has only an indirect relationship to real events in the history of Soviet Russia. The article shows that the decisive role in the view of Blok about the world played his commitment to the mystical-symbolist interpretation of the events of the universal and Russian history, a tendency to poetic interpretation of the sacred nature of human existence — in the spirit of the Rosicrucian philosophical aspirations of the early twentieth century. Cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis Blok’s mystical-poetic philosophy was based on the traditional triad of spiritual aging and growing up (chaos — sacrifice — the space). I. e. the transition from the low-lying situation of the world and man to higher forms of existence the poet performs through the great sacrifice which must be pursued in the name of releasing the spirit of Music and the birth of the Human being as an Artist. In this system, the image of Jesus Christ, as displayed in the poem by Block, is the embodiment of the Highest of Reason, True Spirituality, Embodied Purity. Mystic and symbolist A. Blok turned to a familiar image of Christ, but renovated it. He transformed it not on a superficial, verbal-visual, but on the essential semantic level. Blok’s earlier mystical image of Joy-Suffering (embodied in his drama «The Rose and Cross») in «The Twelve» transformed into the image-concept of Joy-Joy. This idea was embodied in the image of the familiar «archetypal» Christ, but lacking the crown of suffering. Updated Christ crowned with the wreath of the white roses crown, which is understandable to the people and to the intelligentsia. The purpose of the study — through the analysis of the imagery of the poem (the dog — the red (Katka) — Jesus Christ), the poetics of the text and its colour symbolism (black/ white — red — white) to identify the deep mystical and philosophical meaning of the poem by A. Blok, characterized the originality of the dialogue of the poet and the epoch. The methodological basis of the research: combination of historical-literary and poetic methods attracting the biographical approach. The main results of the study are the following observations and conclusions. A. Blok created the poem «The Twelve» as a direct response to the revolutionary events in Petrograd of 1917, however, over time it becomes clear that the poem of Blok was not «Bolshevik», but it reflected the results of years of philosophical and mystical searches of the poet. The images of the twelve soldiers and hooker Kat’ka are very organic in a poetic system of Supreme Harmony created by Blok. The Christ in a crown of white roses is the»new» and yet traditional — Rosicrucian — Christ.
Authors and Affiliations
Olga Bogdanova
Keywords
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- EP ID EP632461
- DOI 10.18524/2312-6809.2018.26.129470
- Views 76
- Downloads 0
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