Blok’s Women. Lenore.
Posting 2.
…Blok
opens his enchanting “Poe-ish” poem
with words which immediately put everything in its place.
“It
was an autumn evening. To the glassy accompaniment of rain,
I was trying to resolve the
same – painful question,
When into my study, enormous
and foggy,
Walked in that same
gentleman, behind him – a shaggy dog…”
These
four lines already contain a lot of information. The gentleman in Blok’s poem
is clearly a character from one of Poe’s works. The word “foggy” points to it.
In the poem about the “Incomparable Lady,” Blok inserts himself into it, “in a
blue cloak.” Blok’s “blue” is the color of smoke, which is derived from the
great Russian mystic N. V. Gogol, about whom the immortal Yesenin once quipped:
“We know how to blow Gogol and smoke.”
In
other words, “smoke” and “blue” in Blok indicate the poet’s fantasy, when his poetry
imagination starts running wild. As Blok himself writes in a 1906 poem –
“I am
blue like the smoke of [church] incense…”
Blok
is telling us here how he is writing this poem, sitting in his study and musing
about the poetry and life of Edgar Allan Poe and about Poe’s poem Lenore, thus creating company for
himself in his loneliness.
“…Tiredly,
the guest seated himself into the armchair by the fire,
And his dog lay down on the
rug…”
The
oddness of this whole poem notwithstanding, it is the dog who poses the biggest
puzzle. M. Bulgakov introduces the dog named Banga in his sub-novel Pontius Pilate inside the novel Master and Margarita, where the dog
serves as the companion of the Roman Procurator. We will return to this theme
later on.
“…The
guest politely said: Isn’t that enough for you?
Before the Genius of Fate,
it’s time to yield, Sir!...”
From
this moment on, Blok’s thoughts are divided between his own and his guest’s:
“…But
in old age [sic!] there’s a return of both youth and ardor…
Thus I began, but he urgently
interrupted:
But she is as she was: Lenore
of the insane Edgar [underlined by Blok]…
There’s no return. – Some
more? Now I have said it all.”
Blok
raises this theme already in 1906, opening his poem with the following words:
“Years
have passed, but you are just the same:
Stern, beautiful, and clear;
It’s just the hair that has
been somewhat smoother,
And there’s a sparkle of gray
in them…
No, we have not been changed
by the years…
And remembering, we kept them
alive,
Those fabulous years…”
The
words “fabulous years” are stressed
by Blok and they are taken from a Tyutchev poem which serves as the epigraph to
Blok’s poem:
“I knew her back then,
In those fabulous years…”
Tyutchev.
And
in the poem The Double from the poetry
cycle Frightful World (1909-1916)
Blok writes:
“And
I started dreaming of youth,
And of you, of you, like you
were alive…
And I started being carried
away by my fantasy
Away from the wind, the rain,
the darkness…”
And
in brackets Blok writes:
“(Thus
comes back in a dream one’s early youth,
But you – will you come back?)”
In
other words, the same theme of return. Although seemingly, this theme for some
reason interests Blok, he strongly doubts that a return of things like they had
been before would be possible. Already in the 1902 4th cycle of the Verses About a Fair Lady he takes the
following words from A. N. Ostrovsky’s Snegurochka
for his epigraph:
“There is no return for the sun.”
Ostrovsky’s Snegurochka.
And
here is Blok’s poem itself. Note how it develops the theme of the Apocalypse:
“Look
how the sun’s caresses
Are cuddling the stern cross
in the blue.
Thus near the dusk, [the
cross] like ourselves
Yields itself to these
caresses,
Knowing that there’s no
return for the sun
Back from the advancing
darkness.
The sun will set, and stopping
in our tracks
We’ll quieten down, the cross
will lose its light,
And come back to our senses
while retreating
Into the cold calmness of the
pale stars.”
Returning
to the same theme in the next poem from the 4th cycle of the Verses About a Fair Lady (1902), Blok’s
next epigraph is taken from the New Testament:
“The Spirit and the
Bride say: Come.
The Apocalypse.”
Blok
goes on:
“I
believe in the Sun of the Testament,
I see dawns ahead…
Quivering are the streams
Of the inconceivable light.
I believe in the Sun of the
Testament,
I see Your eyes.”
Thus
Blok closes this theme optimistically, as he welcomes the coming of Christ (as
suggested by his use of the capital Y in Your).
To
be continued…
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