Analysis of the poem “Children of the Night” by Merezhkovsky. D.S. Merezhkovsky. The main motives of creativity Children of the night Merezhkov rhythm size
Dmitry Merezhkovsky is the largest representative of the older generation of Russian symbolists. His ability to sense the atmosphere of time and anticipate future events gave him the reputation of a prophet. This can be confirmed by the poem “Children of the Night”, in which he, in fact, predicted the coming of the revolution.
Premonition of coming changes
"Children of the Night" was written in 1895. At that time, no one, including Merezhkovsky himself, could even imagine what terrible and bloody events would take place in Russia in October 1917. However, the poet managed to feel the mood of people, to understand that they had lost the bright beginning in their souls and, as a result, became completely defenseless against the all-pervading forces of evil. That is why he calls his generation “children of the night,” who wander in the dark, anxiously and hopefully awaiting the appearance of an unknown prophet.True, at that time Merezhkovsky did not yet realize that instead of the prophet a bloody and merciless revolution would come to Russia, which would take the lives of thousands and thousands of people, forcing them to cruelly and senselessly exterminate each other. The poet saw that humanity, although frozen in anxious anticipation of the dawn, in fact, had long been mired in a terrible abyss of sin. All that remains is to wait until the inevitable time of cleansing comes. He does not yet understand how it will happen, but he foresees that sunlight for those who are accustomed to the darkness of the night will most likely result in inevitable and terrible death. “We will see the light - and, like shadows, we will die in its rays,” says the poet.
Revolution and the fate of the poet
However, Merezhkovsky does not spare himself. He understands that he is inseparable from his generation and considers himself one of the children of the night, fully aware that he will not be able to avoid a common fate with them. The poet is absolutely sure that fate has already prepared for everyone his own Golgotha, upon ascending which a person will finally die or, on the contrary, will be able to cleanse himself before entering a new life.For Merezhkovsky himself, emigration will be such a Golgotha. He perceived the revolution of 1917 as the coming to power of the “coming boor” and the reign of “supramundane evil.” In 1919, 24 years after the creation of the poem, he, together with his wife Zinaida Gippius, would be forced to leave his native Petersburg forever, which had turned into the “kingdom of the Beast.” The poet will spend the last years of his life in Paris, yearning for his abandoned homeland, but considering separation from it a well-deserved punishment for the fact that he did too little to stop the forces of darkness and evil. It seemed to Merezhkovsky that, with the power of his prophetic gift, he could save the country from the coming revolution, especially since he foresaw what a terrible fate awaited it in the near future.
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"Children of the Night" Dmitry Merezhkovsky
Fixing our eyes
To the fading east,
Children of sorrow, children of the night,
We are waiting to see if our prophet will come.
We sense the unknown
And, with hope in our hearts,
Dying, we grieve
About uncreated worlds.
Our speeches are bold,
But condemned to death
Too early forerunners
Too slow spring.
Buried Sunday
And in the midst of deep darkness
Rooster crows at night,
The chill of the morning is us.
We are above the abyss of the stage,
Children of darkness, we are waiting for the sun:
We will see the light - and, like shadows,
We will die in its rays.
Analysis of Merezhkovsky’s poem “Children of the Night”
Dmitry Merezhkovsky is one of the brightest representatives of Russian symbolism, who had many followers. This poet knew how to acutely sense time and anticipate events, becoming, in fact, a prophet for his generation. And an example of this is the poem “Children of the Night,” written in 1895 and dedicated to the revolution, which no one knew about at that time.
However, it would be wrong to call Merezhkovsky a prophet, because he did not know what exactly would happen in 22 years. He was able to grasp only the general mood of the crowd, to understand that people had lost everything that was bright and pure in their souls, thanks to which they were reliably protected from worldly dirt and vanity. That is why the author calls his generation children of the night, who wander in the dark and wait for “whether our prophet will come.”
Conveying his feelings, Merezhkovsky did not suspect that instead of a prophet, his compatriots would very soon fall into the power of a messiah, treacherous and merciless. The revolution will take the lives of tens of thousands of people who will kill each other for their beliefs. However, the poet turned out to be right about one thing: society at the threshold of the 20th century needed a serious shake-up, as it was bogged down in sins. Therefore, characterizing his compatriots, the poet notes: “The rooster crows at night, the cold of the morning - that’s us.” Thus, Merezhkovsky excludes the divine essence of modern humanity, hinting that the time has come for its purification. The author is silent about what it will be like, but suggests that sunlight for the children of the night can be disastrous. “We will see the light - and, like shadows, we will die in its rays,” Merezhkovsky is convinced.
It is noteworthy that the author also identifies himself with the children of the night, believing that he will not be able to avoid the fate of those around him. The poet believes that very soon each person will have to ascend his own Golgotha in order to perish completely or be cleansed for the sake of a new life. Emigration would very soon become such a Golgotha for the poet - in 1919 he would leave St. Petersburg forever, which he considered the “kingdom of the Beast,” and would spend the last years of his life in Paris, believing that he fully deserved such a punishment. Until the end of his life, Merezhkovsky will reproach himself for having done too little for Russia and being unable to pull it out of the revolutionary abyss, although he foresaw such dramatic changes in society and even predicted that his homeland would become the arena of a battle between dark and light forces.
The poems of Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky are a classic example of poetry from the era of symbolism. But at the same time, his work can also be attributed to decadence, with its aestheticism, academicism and hints of decline and cultural regression reflected in the poet’s poems. A striking example of this is one of Merezhkovsky’s most famous poems, “Children of the Night.”
Dmitry Sergeevich was not only a brilliant poet and writer, he was also a philosopher who found and reflected the laws of human existence in his work.
It is not surprising that the poem “Children of the Night” turned out to be prophetic.
Written by the author back in 1895, it anticipated the events of the revolution, the fall of tsarist Russia and the arrival of a new “bloodthirsty” government in 1917. But Merezhkovsky did not see the future, he was neither a prophet nor a predictor. Educated and erudite, he subtly felt the connection between the past and the present. From the world history of past centuries, Dmitry Sergeevich gained knowledge about the need for great changes that should occur at the turn of the century.
The poet believed that at the end of the century all humanity becomes children of the night, who hopefully strive
Their eyes are on the fading east and they are waiting for changes, a better life and their prophet. The First World War and then the revolution took hundreds of thousands of lives - these are the children of the night, yearning for uncreated worlds. Tired of the previous regimes and orders, people chose a new ideology for themselves in the hope of “morning” - for a new future. But Merezhkovsky's contemporaries became only forerunners of future events.
But despite their bold speeches, the children of the night cannot live in the light. A society that changes the course of history creates a new world for descendants, while they themselves are unable to exist in it. When a new era rises, they will surely die in the rays of its light, like shadows.
Dmitry Sergeevich became a witness to all the events “prophesied” by him. Only in 1919 did he leave his homeland and go to Paris forever. He identifies his emigration with Golgotha, considers it a punishment, and until the end of his life he regrets that he could not prevent those terrible events and did so little for Russia.
Topic: The language of symbols as a way to expand the artistic world of Russian poetry: analysis of D. S. Merezhkovsky’s poem “Children of the Night.”
Preparation for the lesson: Reading by heart the poem by D. S. Merezhkovsky “Children of the Night” by a previously prepared student.
The lesson involves the possibility of working in pairs (in groups).
Target: teach the analysis of a poem in the unity of form and content from the point of view of its belonging to such a literary movement as symbolism.
Tasks:– introduce the concept of symbol;
– practice techniques for working with symbols;
– to enrich the inner world of eleventh-graders by introducing them to the values of Russian classics.
Equipment: portrait of D. S. Merezhkovsky, reproduction of Raphael’s painting “The Knight’s Dream”.
During the classes:
I . Creating a problematic situation: analysis of Raphael’s painting “The Knight’s Dream”(Annex 1).
– What impression does the picture create? What do we see on it? Why is the picture divided into two equal parts using an artistic detail - a thin tree? What is special about the images of women located on both sides of the knight? What idea did the artist want to convey to us? ( The answers are very varied - this is the embodiment of war and peace, Christianity and paganism, including pleasure and duty. We come to the conclusion that in this symbolic form the artist depicted the problem of choosing between duty to the homeland and enjoying life.)
– What is a symbol?
On the board we write down key phrases from the students’ answers:
several meanings are embedded in the image
we need to fantasize
behind one is hidden something completely different, etc.
Let’s compare it with the meaning of the word from Ozhegov’s explanatory dictionary: “A symbol is something that serves as a conventional sign of some concept, phenomenon, idea.”
– Our reasoning practically coincided with the concept of symbol generally accepted in literary criticism. This begs the question: why Raphael, because we are talking about poets of the Silver Age, symbolist poets. But let me remind you that the concept of a symbol appeared in Ancient Greece, where a symbol originally denoted a material sign that had a secret meaning for a group of people united around some cult. Therefore, throughout the development of human civilization, and therefore art, masters of words, painting, and music used this concept in one way or another. When analyzing poems by symbolist poets, you will need your ability to think, to see the hidden meaning of the expressed thoughts.
Announcing the topic of the lesson.
II . Reading and analysis of the poem by D. S. Merezhkovsky “Children of the Night.”
– What mood does the poem create? Which image is the leading one? What could it mean? Let's create a diagram:
Children of night
souls of the dead
some chosen ones
It is appropriate to work in pairs (in groups), where each team, based on connections with other images of the poem, proves the correctness of this interpretation of the symbol. Then several ideological meanings of the poem are revealed:
Stars are the almost direct meaning of the symbol; then the entire universe seems spiritual.
Poets are non-recognition, non-hearing, therefore “we yearn for uncreated worlds”, “Our speech is bold, But condemned to death” and many others. etc. The bitterness of the loneliness of poets.
The souls of dead people are capable of life only in the darkness of the night. The question is quite debatable.
Some chosen ones are people who see and feel the approach of the “prophet”, “spring”, which should change life for the better (because it is spring).
All comments are included in the diagram.
III . Lesson conclusions.
– Is it possible to unambiguously reveal the main idea of the poem? From this point of view, explain the meaning of the lesson topic: what does it mean to expand the world of artistic reality through a symbol?
IV . Reflection.
Today I found out...
It was interesting (difficult)…
Now I can…
I felt that...
I was surprised...
Gave me a lesson for life...
V . Homework: reveal the symbolic meaning of I. Annensky’s poem “Poppies”.
References:
Ozhegov S.I. and Shvedova N.Yu. Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language: Russian Academy of Sciences. – M.: Azbukovnik, 1999.
Vasari G. Biography of the most famous painters, sculptors and architects. – M.: 2001, T.3
3. Silver Age. Poetry. – M.: AST, Olympus, 1996.
4. Golovkina E. V. Summing up the lesson. Reflection. –
Annex 1
Children of the night (Fixing our eyes...)
CHILDREN OF NIGHT
Fixing our eyes
To the fading east,
Children of sorrow, children of the night,
We are waiting to see if our prophet will come.
We sense the unknown
And, with hope in our hearts,
Dying, we grieve
About uncreated worlds.
Our speeches are bold,
But condemned to death
Too early forerunners
Too slow spring.
Buried Sunday
And, in the midst of deep darkness,
Rooster crows at night,
The cold of the morning is us.
Our hymns are our groans;
We are for new beauty
We break all the laws
We cross all lines.
We are the temptation of the unquenchable,
We are the laughing stock of people
A spark in the ashes of the offended
And extinct altars.
We are steps above the abyss,
Children of darkness, waiting for the sun,
We will see the light and, like shadows,
We will die in its rays.
1894
Pallanza
Notes:
RM. 1894. No. 9, under the title. “Before the Dawn”, with the epigraph “No torment can destroy the need for freedom in the hearts of people. Lope de Vega"and with var. in Art. 11 (“We are like early forerunners”) - SS-1904 - SS-1910 - PSS-I, vol. 15 - PSS-II, vol. 22; in all four collections there is an abbreviated version without art. 17 - 24 and divided into quatrains; in SS-1910 and in both PSS also with a rearrangement of Art. 5-8 (6-7-8-5). Reprint: Young poetry (under the title “Before the Dawn”), ASP-I and ASP-II (in both under the title “Before the Dawn”), Anthology, From Russian poets, “Awakening” (1906. No. 21) and “New Land” (1912. No. 3/4, without cap.). Abridged edition (according to SS-1904) reprint: CPL. Autograph (IRLI), with art. rearranged. 1 and 3, with var. in Art. 11 (as in RM), in Art. 25 (“Children of the Night” v. “Children of Darkness”) and with notes: “Rus.<ская>M.<ысль>" and "Pallanza. 1894". Authorization a copy of the abbreviated version is in the archive of M.V. Watson (IRLI) - the text is identical to SS-1910. For the first time, Merezhkovsky expressed similar thoughts about the role of the modern generation in the “new literature” in the concluding paragraphs of his treatise “On the causes of the decline and new trends in modern Russian literature” (for more information about this and other echoes with Merezhkovsky’s prose, see the introductory article, p. 61, 75-76). Lexically coincides with the images of the present. article description of the modern era in the article “Neo-romanticism in drama” written at the same time (the era of “passionate daring impulses towards an unknown future” and “twilight before the onset of an unknown day” - Bulletin of Foreign Literature. 1894. No. 11. P. 120, 123) . And the article “Newest Lyrics” (1894) ends with a Nietzschean passage that echoes the beginning of the same article; Merezhkovsky asserts here that “strong people, prophets of the neo-romantic movement are needed,” and while they are not there, “it is impossible to decide with confidence” what awaits the emerging weak movement - birth or death, “the end of the old or the beginning of a new world” (Ibid. No. 12. P. 156). Thanks to numerous mocking responses from critics, the article turned into a kind of manifesto of decadence. “Turning to modern poetry,” wrote an anonymous reviewer of Young Poetry, “we first of all dwell on the question: what is it? G. Merezhkovsky, with his characteristic pomposity, incomprehensibly exclaims in response: “the rooster crows at night, the cold of the morning is us... We are the temptation of the unquenchable, we are the laughingstock (sic!) of people...” I think that those from whose faces he speaks<...>, will not thank him and will willingly cede to Mr. Merezhkovsky, as a poet, the distinctive features unsolicitedly imposed on him...” (N. 1895. No. 9. P. 16, 2nd page). “Already in the first poem,” wrote another critic, “Mr. Merezhkovsky declares himself an admirer of some kind of “new beauty,” for which it is necessary for some reason to “break all the laws, transgress all the lines”” (NSl. 1896. No. 11. P. 109). Wed. a close review by another anonymous reviewer (LPN. 1896. No. 9. P. 210), as well as the above review by P. O. Morozov, who interprets the name as a definition of a “new school of poets” (Obrazovanie. 1896. No. 12. P. 94). “Calling himself and others like him “too early forerunners of a too slow spring,” wrote A. Volynsky, “the poet does not notice that to confirm his thoughts he is resorting to images that are as far-fetched as they are contradictory. He calls his new poetry either “the Sunday of the buried”, sometimes “the crow of the rooster at night”, sometimes “the cold of the morning”, sometimes “steps over the abyss”” (SV. 1896. No. 3, part 2. p. 39). A.P. Nalimov, in his review of SS-1904, noted that “Mr. Merezhkovsky and others like him” are “in search of new paths and forms,” but they “belong not to the “early forerunners,” but to those who are “waiting for the sun,” since they lack neither talent nor high harmony" (PiZh. 1904. No. 6. P. 415, 420). A. A. Izmailov cited it as a work characteristic of the evolution of the “nineties”, calling the “play” “beautiful and characteristic” (Izmailov, p. 137). Representatives of symbolism also assessed the article as a declaration of “new poetry”: A. Bely called it, along with V.S. Solovyov’s lecture, “trumpet calls” of the new era (NP. 1903. No. 1. P. 155); V. Ya. Bryusov suggested taking it as an epigraph to the collection. “Young Poetry” (Letters from Bryusov to Pertsov, p. 8); M.A. Kuzmin pointed out that in this poem (as in “Dark Angel” - No. 151) “the pallor (of Merezhkovsky’s verse, - K.K.) reaches charm and poignancy,” and noted that it “seemed to be prompted by Zinaida Gippius” (Kuzmin M. Letters on Russian poetry // Apollo. 1911. No. 2. P. 39). Subsequently, I. A. Bunin and Ivanov-Razumnik, independently of each other, with poems from “Children of the Night” (“We break all laws, / We transgress all lines”) will define the entire camp of “new poetry” (Bunin I. A. Collected op. .: In 8 volumes. M., 1967. T. 9. P. 370; Ivanov-Razumnik R.V. Russian literature. Berlin, 1923. P. 370). And finally, in the 1930s. with the lines: “We are condemned to death: / Too early forerunners / Of too slow spring” - emigrant researchers and memoirists define the entire era of the 1880-1890s. (Florovsky Georgy. Paths of Russian theology. Paris, 1977. P. 425; Kartashev A. The work of life of D. S. Merezhkovsky // Mech. 1935. December 25. No. 50).
- Rooster crows at night etc. Blok used this image to characterize the work of Merezhkovsky himself: “His Muse’s voice resembles the cry of a rooster. It’s still a cold night all around, everything is distorted by darkness. The rooster flaps its wings and screams uncontrollably, still discordantly, in a voice unaccustomed to screaming” (Blok A.D. Collected works: In 8. vol. M.; L., 1962. T. 5. P. 657). A. Bely believed that the replicas of these verses are lines from Blok’s article “The Mocker” (“The night is deaf, / The night cannot understand / the Rooster”) and lines from the article “Roosters” by Z. N. Gippius (“Roosters” they sing, they sing, / But the face of heaven is still dark”) (Bely Andrey. Between two revolutions. M., 1990. P. 71).
- We are above the abyss of the stage. This image perhaps goes back to the Nietzschean modification of the idea of sacrifice, when a historical person is defined as a “bridge over an abyss”, as a “step”, and with the help of such steps life is built upward (Nietzsche F. Thus Spoke Zarathustra // Friedrich Nietzsche. Op. : In 2 vols. M., 1990. T. 2. P. 9, etc.). The image of a dangerous aerial staircase will be echoed in Balmont’s famous poems “And higher and higher I walked, and the steps trembled, / And the steps trembled under my feet,” in the early poetry of Bryusov (“Pale shadows curl up...”) and Blok (“Rising to the first steps..."). About the concept new beauty and the semantics of the phrase uncreated worlds - see the introduction. article, p. 58—59, 64, 66—67, 68, 76. Cap. The journal publication refers to the article of the same name by N. Minsky. The source of the epigraph of the first publication could not be determined.
- Lope de Vega— Vega Carpiu Lope Felix de (1562-1635) - Spanish playwright, poet and novelist.
- Pallanza(Pallanza) is a resort in northern Italy in the bay of Lake Lago Maggiore.
