Blok’s Women. Lenore.
Posting 4.
As
for Alexander Blok, in the poems I have quoted in this connection, he
demonstrates that he is not interested in young age.
“…Oh
no! But I am not a rapist,
Not a deceiver, and not full
of pride.
Although I know a lot,
Thinking too much since
childhood,
And too much preoccupied with
myself…”
And
this is where the main thing starts. Blok proceeds to explain his poetry to the
reader:
“…For
I am a maker of fiction [sic!]
A man who calls everything by
name.
Depriving a flower of its
aroma…
That’s why I ‘d like you to
fall in love with a simple man,
One who loves the earth and
the sky
More than rhymed or unrhymed
speeches
About the Earth and the
Heaven.”
And
again we hear the sounds of the violence theme, which in Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita passes on into the
character of Frieda.
Oh,
but how much is there in Bulgakov’s novel from “Lenore.” Like Burger’s Lenore,
Margarita loses her lover, not knowing where he may be, dead or alive. This
uncertainty kills Margarita. She dies of a broken heart. (Can we really believe
that master would appear to her in a strange apartment in a “kerchief of
greenish light” when Bulgakov clearly states that Margarita dies in her own
mansion, clutching at her heart? No way should we treat Master and Margarita as a purely fantastic novel. As the reader
will find out in my later chapters, Bulgakov was indeed a brave man. In his
works of fiction, including Master and
Margarita, he depicted the hard times in Russia, in which he himself had
been destined to live.)
Bulgakov
must have read both Burger’s and Poe’s Lenore.
It is also obvious that he knew Poe’s biography well enough. Hence comes to Master and Margarita one of the most
complex Bulgakovian associations.
Edgar
Allan Poe did not live long after the death of his young wife. He ended his
days in a clinic for the insane where he was committed after he was found
wandering around totally disoriented and wearing somebody else’s clothes. But
isn’t this story reminding us in a way of Ivanushka’s story in Master and Margarita? As we know,
Ivanushka’s prototype was the great Russian peasant poet S. A. Yesenin. It is a
well-known fact that at the end of his short life Yesenin was committed to a
psychiatric clinic, whence he escaped, and arriving in Leningrad, committed
suicide by cutting his wrists in a hotel room.
This
story, in which the mix-up with the clothes is borrowed from Poe’s biography,
may perhaps point to master’s suicide at a psychiatric clinic, where
Ivanushka/Yesenin happens to be master’s neighbor patient. Around the same time
occurs the escape from Moscow to Leningrad of a certain Rimsky…
Such
a conclusion may be reasonably arrived at, since Bulgakov does not reveal the
exact cause of master’s death in Master
and Margarita. Different versions of master’s death may apply, depending on
the aspect of the Master and Margarita
novel, which the readers find themselves in.
Master’s
prototype Alexander Blok died at his home from a heart ailment.
***
The
whole scene of master’s presence in the no-good apartment #50 in the 24th
chapter of Master and Margarita: The
Extraction of Master is taken from Edgar Allan Poe’s Lenore. Poe’s plot is different from Burger’s. Lenore’s husband Guy
de Vere hears voices after his young wife’s death, accusing him of her death.
He in turn accuses the voices of precipitating Lenore’s death by their
incessant gossip and innuendo.
The
voices also accuse Guy de Vere of not grieving over his supposedly tragic loss.
To which the widower responds that Lenore is better off in heaven than on
earth. He is looking forward to rejoining his wife there when he dies.
Curiously,
before her death, Poe’s wife Virginia promised her husband to be his Guardian
Angel in her afterlife. And indeed, Poe believed that to be true. His Virginia
had become an Angel…
Hence,
Blok comes up with his idea of writing the poem Guardian Angel, in which he calls his wife by some rather strange
names:
“I
love you, my Guardian Angel in darkness,
In darkness that is with me
all the time on earth…”
For having been my radiant
bride,
For having taken away my
secret,
For us having been tied by
secret and the night,
For you being my sister,
bride, and daughter,
For the long life destined
for us together,
And even for us being husband
and wife…”
This
bizarre Blokian poem is definitely written under the influence of the story (or
“tale,” as Blok himself would put it) of Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia Clemm.
This
is where Bulgakov takes his idea from, that Margarita is strong and master is
weak.
“…And
the soul has been killed by the poison of tenderness,
And this hand shall not raise
a knife…
But I also love you for my
weakness,
For the bitter lot and for
your strength…”
And
indeed, Margarita comes out in Bulgakov as a strong personality, as opposed to
master’s obvious weakness.
“…With
you I am looking at this dawn –
With you I am looking into
this black chasm…”
These
last words also relate to Margarita, who exclaims to master: “I am perishing
together with you!”
And
also in the novel (“fairytale”), but not in real life (“prose”), Bulgakov
fulfills Blok’s wish:
“…Where
are we heading?
The two of us – inextricably
– forever together!”
And
in the ‘mystical novel’ of Master and
Margarita Blok has his wish granted, although Bulgakov depicts Margarita
alone, and only Margarita talks to master about his “eternal home.” But they
are surely walking together toward their eternal rest. No doubt, Blok’s last
line tremendously interested Bulgakov:
“…Shall
we be resurrected? Or perish? Or die?”
But
this discussion belongs to my later chapter The
Garden.
To
be continued…
No comments:
Post a Comment