Features of the composition of A. A's poem

I. Blok is a prominent representative of symbolism.

II. Composition is one of the most important artistic techniques in a poet’s arsenal.

1. Variety of sounds of the 12 parts of the poem:

A) broken, choppy rhythmic pattern;

B) cheeky and dashing “couplets”;

B) marching rhythm of patrolmen.

2. Differences in moods and perceptions of the revolution.

III. An objective and complete picture of reality in Blok’s poem.

A. A. Blok belongs to the “Silver Age” of Russian poetry and is the brightest representative of such a movement as symbolism. In his work, reality and mysticism, fear and joy, hatred and love were intertwined - but this is how he saw the world around him, this is how the complex era responded to his sensitive heart.

Among artistic means and techniques, a special place is occupied by composition, with the help of which Blok gives a special sound to his works. Indicative in this regard is the complex, mysterious, full of deep symbols poem “The Twelve,” which is dedicated to the topic revolutionary events in Russia. IN difficult game images, allegories, metaphors, in the play of contrasts, a troubled world appears before us, tossed up by the storm of revolution. The composition of the poem complements its meaning. It consists of twelve parts, each of which has its own special rhythm and melody. There is also a broken, choppy rhythmic pattern, as, for example, at the beginning of the poem:

Black evening.

White snow.

Wind, wind!

The man is not standing on his feet.

Wind, wind -

All over God's world!

This rhythm creates a feeling of anxiety and instability.

How did our guys go?

To serve in the Red Guard -

I'm going to lay down my head!

This rhythm reflects the mood of the twelve revolutionaries - daring, desperate.

After the same cheeky and dashing “verse”:

Lock the floors

There will be robberies today!

Unlock the cellars,

The bastard is on the loose these days!

Suddenly the clear rhythm breaks off and a strange, gloomy eighth part of the poem sounds:

Oh, you, bitter grief!

Boredom is boring

Mortal! (...)

You fly, bourgeois, like a sparrow!

I'll drink some blood

For the sweetheart,

Black-browed...

May God rest the soul of your servant...

And finally, in the finale, a marching rhythm appears, emphasizing the heavy “revolutionary” step of the patrolmen:

It hits my eyes

Red flag.

Sounds out

Measured step.

Here he will wake up

Fierce enemy...

This construction of the poem emphasizes the meaning of the “twelve” symbol. And the alternation of a clear, marching and floating, broken rhythm reveals to us the difference in moods and perceptions of the revolution by different people.

To create an unbiased, objective and full picture reality, to reflect the special, tense atmosphere of his time, Alexander Blok used the entire poetic arsenal, and the composition of the poem “The Twelve” became one of the proofs of the author’s high skill and artistic flair.

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Features of the composition of Blok’s poem “The Twelve”

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok – genius master words, one of the first Russian poets who managed to hear and pour into poetry the “music of the revolution.” In the poem “The Twelve,” Blok tried to capture such an unusual, stormy and interesting time. The poem consists of twelve chapters, this number is repeated once again in the twelve revolutionary soldiers maintaining order in Petrograd, and in a semi-allusion to the disciples of Jesus walking ahead, “burying themselves behind the houses.” The poem is surprisingly musical: each chapter has its own rhythm and melody. Starting with a reckless Russian ditty:
How did our guys go?
To serve in the Red Guard -
To serve in the Red Guard -
I'm going to lay down my head!
Through the urban “cruel romance” the author comes to a clear revolutionary march:
...They walk into the distance with a mighty step...
- Who else is there? Come out!
This is the wind with a red flag
Played out ahead...
Poet high culture and refined taste, Blok is “not afraid” to include in his work the colloquial vocabulary of a simple soldier, an old woman, a passerby. These words are not exotic inclusions, but an essential detail of the poem. The author shows the life of revolutionary St. Petersburg with real heroes. There the lady in karakul turned to the other:
- We cried and cried...
She slipped and - bam - she was stretched out.
The poem “The Twelve” is built on Blok’s favorite technique - antithesis.
Black evening, White snow.
Wind, wind! The man is not standing on his feet.
Wind, wind - All over God's world!
Two contrasting colors, white and black, dominate the poem. Only at the end will the red banner appear. Why does the poet see the revolution as two-colored?! This poem is not at all as simple as it might seem at first glance. Blok enthusiastically welcomed the revolution bringing renewal, and in his poem he paints a merciless portrait of the participants and winners.
The wind is blowing, the snow is fluttering.
Twelve people are walking.
Rifles black belts,
All around - lights, lights, lights...
There is a cigarette in his teeth, he has taken a cap,
You should have an ace of diamonds on your back!
No romanticism, no mystery. A very definite characteristic of the participants - convicts. Why does the story fascinate the reader? For some reason you believe that these twelve will create an extraordinary, hitherto unknown world. Quite unexpectedly, Jesus appears in front of these fighters, personifying the holiness of thoughts and the revolution itself.
Behind is a hungry dog,
Ahead - with a bloody flag,
And invisible behind the blizzard.
And unharmed by a bullet,
With a gentle tread above the storm,
Snow scattering of pearls,
In a white corolla of roses -
Ahead is Jesus Christ.
Poem “Twelve” on long years became a textbook personification of the revolution, and its creator became a Bolshevik poet. Blok himself was not so categorical in his assessment of this work. Being a symbolist, he remained true to himself in this poem. Blok - believe. This is a real - by the will of God - poet and a man of fearless sincerity. M. Gorky The poems of a real poet are his diary, a reflection of a person’s thoughts at the moment of creating another masterpiece. After all, any poem by a true poet is a masterpiece. It is very difficult to write it in such a way that it does not correspond to the state of the creator. The poet puts his whole soul into his poems. And being a poet is a special gift. You need to be able to express your state of mind and feelings in words, but not everyone can do this. The more you read the poet’s works, the more you begin to understand him as a person. At first glance, he is not very different from the others: the same thoughts, the same desires. Only all this is expressed not in the same way as everyone else, but with special specificity, perhaps more hidden and mainly through poems. But a person with God’s gift, a gift that gives him the ability to write poetry, cannot do otherwise. Such a poet, possessing a divine gift, was Alexander Blok. It is very important that Blok understood his purpose as a poet: his goal is to make the world a better, more beautiful place. Blok enters the literature of the early first decade of the 20th century as a singer of “foggy” love, unearthly and sublime. His lyrical hero does not surrender to direct feeling, but performs a ritual - worships Her, the Beautiful Lady. The structure of poetic speech in the most vague, encrypted pictures conveys the “inexplicable charm” of an intimate feeling: I hid my face, and the years passed. I have been in ministry for many years. Through the refined poetics of elusive symbols, the vital basis of lyrical experience breaks through. Unexpectedly revealed emotional impulse lyrical hero speaks undeniably of the poet's constant struggle with the decadent vision and imaginative thinking, about the first victories in this struggle: I plunged into a sea of clover, Surrounded by the tales of bees, But the wind calling from the north, Found my childish heart. The poet achieved true expressiveness when he completely abandoned predetermined theoretical guidelines. The joy of being bursts into his verse “I will rise on a foggy morning...”: The heavy gates are wide open! The wind blew through the window! The songs are so funny. Haven't heard them for a long time! We are captivated by the harmony of poetic speech, the spirituality and sophistication of feelings in early lyrics Blok. We are entering a new world for us, where heroes live with bright love and sincerity. For his time, Blok became the same singer of intimate feeling as Pushkin was for his. But a socio-tragic theme bursts into this spiritually stable, harmonious world of a poetic soul. Thus, the poem “From the Newspapers” talks about the death of a woman who left her children orphans (“Mommy feels good. Mom died”). Blok’s perception is built largely on contrasts - from an intense feeling of happiness, faith in love, to complete failures to the bottom, in “ scary world" And what a wonderful poem “Stranger”. In a dramatic clash with the vulgar bourgeois dacha life, a romantically sublime love experience arises, born in the soul of the lyrical hero. The spirituality of Blok's heroine is perceived as a protest against the world of drunkards, bowler hats, and tried-and-true wits. The drama of the situation here is not so much in the irreconcilability of the conflict that has arisen in the soul of the hero, but in the incompatibility of the world of “drunkards with the eyes of rabbits” and the female appearance, which carries “ancient beliefs” and the charm of “distant shores”. Historically, the conflict can be resolved, but poetic incompatibility cannot be overcome. And in this complex spiritual clash in the poem, the motif of a deep and cherished secret entrusted to the hero arises (“Blind secrets have been entrusted to me, someone’s sun has been entrusted to me...”). The poem “About valor, about exploits, about glory...” can be placed on a par with the masterpieces of Russian and world lyricism. The intimate experiences of the lyrical hero become much more complex: the poet, with amazing moral purity, shows the state of a person overwhelmed by a comprehensive feeling of love. The poetic moment captured in a poem is, as it were, the whole of life: the past and the future in the present. Here is the memory of fleeting happiness (“The days flew by, spinning like a damned swarm...”), and the hopelessness of the future (“I can’t dream of tenderness, of glory...”), and the bitter fleetingness of the momentary state (“... I dreamed of your blue cloak, in which you left on a damp night..."). The contradiction between the lyrical hero and his beloved is insurmountable, loss is inevitable, but in the conflict there is no tragedy of renunciation (“...I shed tears, but you did not condescend…”).

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Composition of A. A. Blok’s poem “The Twelve”

And again there are twelve. A. Blok Alexander Alexandrovich Blok is a brilliant master of words, one of the first Russian poets who managed to hear and pour into poetry the “music of the revolution.” In the poem “The Twelve,” Blok tried to capture such an unusual, stormy and interesting time. The poem consists of twelve chapters, this number is repeated once again in the twelve revolutionary soldiers maintaining order in Petrograd, and in a semi-allusion to the disciples of Jesus walking ahead, “burying themselves behind the houses.” The poem is surprisingly musical: each chapter has its own rhythm and melody. Starting with a reckless Russian ditty:

How did our guys go?
To serve in the Red Guard -
To serve in the Red Guard -
I'm going to lay down my head!

They walk into the distance with a mighty step...
- Who else is there? Come out!
This is the wind with a red flag
Played out ahead...

A poet of high culture and refined taste, Blok is “not afraid” to include in his work the colloquial vocabulary of a simple soldier, an old woman, or a passerby. These words are not exotic inclusions, but an essential detail of the poem. The author shows the life of revolutionary St. Petersburg with real heroes.

There's a lady in karakul
She turned to the other:
- We cried and cried...
Slipped
And - bam - she stretched out!

The poem “The Twelve” is built on Blok’s favorite technique - antithesis. Black evening, White snow. Wind, wind! The man is not standing on his feet. Wind, wind - All over God's world! Two contrasting colors, white and black, dominate the poem. Only at the end will the red banner appear. Why does the poet see the revolution as two-colored?! This poem is not at all as simple as it might seem at first glance. Blok enthusiastically welcomed the revolution bringing renewal, and in his poem he paints a merciless portrait of the participants and winners.

The wind is blowing, the snow is fluttering.
Twelve people are walking.
Rifles black belts,
All around - lights, lights, lights...
There is a cigarette in his teeth, he has taken a cap,
You should have an ace of diamonds on your back!

No romanticism, no mystery. A very definite characteristic of the participants - convicts. Why does the story fascinate the reader? For some reason you believe that these twelve will create an extraordinary, hitherto unknown world. Quite unexpectedly, Jesus appears in front of these fighters, personifying the holiness of thoughts and the revolution itself.

Behind is a hungry dog,
Ahead - with a bloody flag,
And invisible behind the blizzard.
And unharmed by a bullet,
With a gentle tread above the storm,
Snow scattering of pearls,
In a white corolla of roses
- Ahead is Jesus Christ.

The poem “The Twelve” became a textbook personification of the revolution for many years, and its creator became a Bolshevik poet. Blok himself was not so categorical in his assessment of this work. Being a symbolist, he remained true to himself in this poem.

PENZA STATE PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY
them. V. G. Belinsky
Faculty of Russian Language and Literature

Test
on the history of Russian literature
on the topic of:
Ideological and artistic originality
A. Blok's poem "The Twelve"
Completed by: student
Faculty of Russian Language and Literature
6th year (correspondence department)
Gordeeva Ksenia
Checked by: Gorlanov G.E.

Penza 2011

Content :
Introduction

Symbolic images and their meaning in the poem “The Twelve”
Conclusion
Bibliography

Introduction
Alexander Alexandrovich Blok’s poem “The Twelve” is one of the most striking works of Russian literature of the 20th century. The work was created in January 1918. The author creates a poem in a few days, in a single inspired impulse. Usually demanding of himself, he evaluates his creation and writes: “Today I am a genius.”
The poem is interesting for researchers both due to its unique form and depth. ideological content. What is this poem about? About the wind, the darkness of the night, a snowstorm, human passions, national feats, Russia, the revolution. More precisely, about revolutionary Petrograd at the turn of 1917 and 1918. Even more precisely, about what happened in Petrograd on the eve of January 5, 1918, the day of the convocation and dispersal of the Constituent Assembly. Soviet power was already two months old.
The theme of revolution resulted in the poet’s work in his most significant and inspired poem, “The Twelve.” Blok's work is an unbiased, objective diary of revolutionary events. Alexander Blok said that “The Twelve” is the best thing he ever wrote. Contents famous poem, where the music of the revolution resounded loudly, where the eruption of the popular element rushed into the future, there was a greatest rise in the national spirit and popular anger. And the poet consecrated and blessed her with an image that personified for him the highest principles of human life - the principles of equality and brotherhood. For the author, a revolution is a national element unleashed. In the article “Intellectuals and Revolution” he wrote: “It is akin to nature. Woe to those who think that in the revolution they will find the fulfillment of only their dreams, no matter how lofty and noble they may be. A revolution, like a thunderstorm, like a snowstorm, always brings something new and unexpected; she cruelly deceives many; she easily cripples the worthy in her whirlpool; she often brings the unworthy to land unharmed; but - these are its particulars, it does not change either the general direction of the flow, or the menacing and deafening roar that the flow emits. This hum, anyway, is always about the great.”
The poem, published in February, evoked stormy and controversial responses. They talked about her everywhere. Much in it seemed unacceptable to fellow writers. It was met with an explosion of indignation from the Russian intelligentsia. Bunin attacked the author with angry criticism, and some of his friends turned away from him. But, despite this, Alexander Blok’s poem rightfully took its place in the history of Russian literature.

Features of the plot of the poem “The Twelve”
To understand the ideological and artistic meaning of Alexander Blok's poem, its unique genre structure and plot features mean a lot.
As a truly innovative work, “The Twelve” defies strict genre definition. It is no coincidence that the genre nature of this work remained not entirely clear to Blok himself: he called it either a poem, or a poetic cycle, or simply “a series of poems under the general title “The Twelve.”
Its composition is built on alternation, on interruptions of dramatic situations and lyrical motifs. It turns out that chapters written on white paper, i.e. those with which work on the poem began contain precisely all the most important moments of the dramatic plot of this work. Here is the appearance, the “first exit”, of twelve Red Guards, and the exposition of dramatic action - a conversation about Vanka and Katka (Chapter XI), and the murder of Katka - the climax of the drama (Chapter VI), and the suffering of Petrukha (Chapter VII), and the resolution of his torment is a kind of social catharsis: “We are on grief for all bourgeois // We will fan the world fire” (chapters VIII and XII to line 327). It is very significant that the entire XII chapter up to the lyrical ending with Christ is given in the poem as a continuationPetrukha's monologue, begun in Chapter VIII and interrupted by lyrical digressions of the intervening chapters.
The poem “The Twelve” is divided not only into chapters, but also - internally, hidden - into scenes with monologues and dialogues. The narrative part itself is presented in it very modestly, and to be more precise, the narrative here constantly develops into a dramatic structure, and the author himself from a lyrical narrator every now and then turns into actor. The first chapter of “The Twelve” is a kind of prologue in which the author himself plays a significant role. His voice sounds from the front stage:
Black evening.
White snow.
Wind, wind!
At first, these words can be perceived as a remark from the playwright, giving an idea of the situation in which the stage action is to unfold. Blok uses such “remarks” in other places, for example: “The wind is blowing, the snow is fluttering. Twelve people are walking,” but these are remarks of a special kind, which are filled with deep meaning and gradually turn into a monologue or a scene of general conversation. The contrast of the stage directions that open the prologue scene makes it expressive from the very beginning, and after the word “wind” is repeated several times, the emotional tension increases, at the same time being filled with semantic ambiguity, anxiety, and thoughts about a person who finds himself in the universal wind:
Black evening.
White snow.
Wind, wind!
The man is not standing on his feet.
Wind, wind -
All over God's world!
The first chapter of the poem is a general exposition. Here, as if on a cinematographic film, the panorama of evening Petrograd is captured. A sharp wind is blowing, drifting snow is playing, “there is ice under the snow.” On the streets there are people, the motley population of a big city: an old woman confused by everything that is happening; an embittered bourgeois, hiding his face in his collar; an intellectual - “Vitya”, muttering something in a low voice about the “death of Russia”, a fat-bellied and frightened priest, whiny and cutesy young ladies; just passers-by; street prostitutes; homeless tramp...
Against this background, a certain plot unfolds. Late in the evening, under a black sky, in a raging snowstorm, a guard patrol of twelve Red Guards walks through the empty city. They say: “Freedom, freedom, eh, eh, without a cross!” , complain about the cold (“It’s cold, comrades, it’s cold!”), they are wary (“Revolutionary, keep your step! The restless enemy does not sleep!”, they remember Vanka and Katka, who fell in love, sit in a warm tavern and are busy with fun things.
Vanka, as it turns out, was also with them recently. He could have been the thirteenth on patrol, but he betrayed the common cause and duty: “Vanka was ours, but he became a soldier!” . That is, according to the exact meaning of the words, he went (also voluntarily) to become Kerensky’s soldiers - perhaps he signed up for the shock battalions that Kerensky formed as his main support - and then, apparently, he deserted and is now well-fed and drunk, “ rich” (probably speculating), hangs out in taverns, drives reckless cars, has become a “son of a bitch” and a “bourgeois”. Katya is also a girl with a past: she is not one of the most shabby street prostitutes. She wore “lace underwear” and walked around even with officers, but the vicissitudes of time affected her too: “To walk with the cadetsI went - now I went with the soldier." In the recent past, she was the mistress of one of the twelve - Petrukha (this was the custom among girls of her profession: a lover for the soul, “guests” for business), but she cheated on him for the sake of the rich, successful Vanka. Life with the jealous and violent Petrukha was full of vicissitudes: he, as it turns out, killed some officer with whom Katya was “fornicating”; and she herself got it too:
On your neck, Katya,
The scar did not heal from the knife
Katya is under your breasts,
That scratch is fresh!
Here a dramatic picture of the struggle of passions and characters, ardent love and blind jealousy is revealed.
Petrukha is having a hard time with Katya’s betrayal and is full of hatred for Vanka, who violated the unwritten law of the street - he began to walk with “a stranger’s girl.” And so - on this blizzard, alarming night, a Red Guard patrol comes across a screaming, screaming reckless driver, and in a sled - the traitor Vanka hugs the traitor Katya. For the second time, tormented by jealousy, Petrukha, with the help of his comrades, takes revenge: they shoot from rifles - they shoot, of course, at Vanka, but a stray bullet inadvertently hits his companion. The reckless driver and the surviving Vanka disappear in a snowstorm, and a random victim remains in the snow with a bullet shot through his head. Petrukha threatens Vanka, who has carried away his legs:

Run away, scoundrel! Alright, wait,
I'll deal with you tomorrow!
And, blinded by malice, hatred, thirst for revenge, he turns to the dead Katya with cold contempt:
What, Katka, are you happy? - No gu-gu...
Lie down, carrion, in the snow!
But Petrukha loved Katya deeply. And when the haze of anger and revenge left his eyes, the “poor murderer” completely lost heart and was “dumbfounded.” He is sincere heartache remembers his Katya, the drunken nights spent with her, the disastrous daring of her fiery nights, the treasured “crimson birthmark”:
I lost it, stupid
I ruined it in the heat of the moment... ah!
His comrades shame and encourage Petrukha, sternly reminding him of the great common cause for which they united. They don't care about his troubles. They have their own worries: “Forward, forward, working people!” . And again he walks with a measured, iron, sovereign step - through darkness and blizzard, protecting the revolution from the machinations of lurking but restless enemies...
V. Orlov noted in his monograph: “But this whole dramatic story of love clashes and betrayals is only the frame of the poem, and not its flesh. “The Twelve” captures a grandiose historical picture of a decisive revolutionary turning point. It does not fit into the plot just outlined. Like any great work of art, “The Twelve” leads the reader’s thoughts and imagination in breadth and depth. Behind the plot grows a tree of a general “world fire”, behind the scenes of a Petrograd street - all of Russia, torn from its anchors, behind the twelve Red Guards - all the people moving towards a new life. The main thing that can and should be said about the poem is that it brilliantly conveys the stormy atmosphere of October."
The question of the peculiarities of the plot of the poem remains controversial to this day. First of all, this is due to a change in ideology and understanding of social events. Modern researchers note that Blok captured a grandiose historical picture of the struggle between good and evil that took place in Russia after the 1917 revolution. Behind the love story rises the glow of a “world fire”, behind the Petrograd street - not only Russia, but also “the whole world of God”, behind the twelve Red Guards is not only the Russian people, but all of humanity.
Between the beginning and the ending in the poem there is an important event: Petrukha kills Katya. And although it is unlawful to separate the “poor murderer” from the rest, awarding only him alone with the “ace of diamonds,” he is indeed given a special role in the poem. What is the meaning of this dramatic episode, which occupies such a large place in the poem?
Let's look at the structure of the poem. Let us recall the course of events. The first chapter of the poem is expositional in nature. The main characters appear in the second chapter. Several people take part in the conversation about Vanka and Katya. Petrukha has the last remark:

Well, Vanka, son of a bitch, bourgeois
My, try, kiss!
This is Petrukha’s personal theme, the voice of his jealousy and anger at the traitor and homewrecker. Here it still sounds like a random cry and is immediately drowned out by the voice of common duty.
The third chapter develops this topic: “How our guys went to serve in the Red Guard...”. But in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh songs we find ourselves in a circle of completely different motives: Vanka and Katya ride around in a reckless car, Petrukha lovingly and rudely remembers Katya and her infidelities, shows in every possible way his forgotten prowess (“Eh, eh, sin! It will be easier for the soul! ", the Red Guards are hunting for Vanka, and Petrukhina's stray bullet overtakes Katya. All twelve participate in the chase and murder scene.(“Stop, stop! Andryukha, help! Petrukha, run behind!..”, but here and further, in songs seven and eight, Petrukha - main character. According to the critic, his drama begins, unfolds and ends, about which the rest do not care much. The murder scene significantly ends in this sense with the already familiar call not to forget about the common duty: “Revolutionary keep your step! The restless enemy never sleeps!” . Petrukha is left alone with her small human tragedy. Now he is a deeply unhappy man, who has sinned gravely and fallen into bitter, hysterical repentance:
And again there are twelve,
Behind the gunman's shoulders.
Only the poor killer
You can't see your face at all...
Faster and faster
He quickens his pace.
Wrapped a scarf around his neck -
It won't recover...
He is so depressed that his comrades, who are not at all concerned about his little tragedy, try to cheer him up. First - in a friendly, affectionate way:
What, comrade, are you not happy?
What, my friend, are you dumbfounded?
What, Petrukha, has he hung his nose,
Or did you feel sorry for Katka?
Then (as Petrukha strains herself more and more) - much more sternly, demandingly and irreconcilably:

Look, you bastard, he started a barrel organ,
What are you, Petka, a woman or what?
- That's right, my soul inside out
Did you think of turning it out? Please!
- Maintain your posture!
- Keep control over yourself!
- It’s not such a time now,
To babysit you!
The burden will be heavier
To us, dear comrade!
The last argument is decisive: Petrukha slows down her hasty steps and raises her head. Again, as we see, the theme of common debt triumphs. The last verse, in terms of its ideological load, is one of the most important in the poem. Here the nature of its collective hero becomes completely clear: the Red Guards are aware of the greatness of the time and know that even more severe trials await them ahead.
Ashamed, Petrukha stops wrenching his soul, tries to pull himself together, “he became cheerful again.” But his fun - bitter, annoying - is not fun, but the same ostentatious, dashing, noisy prowess, behind which hide both heavy melancholy and unabated remorse. This is where he begins to “scare”, threatens to fill the memory of the “sweetheart” with blood, and remembers the Lord God in vain:
Eh, eh!
It's not a sin to have fun!
Lock the floors
There will be robberies today!
Unlock the cellars -
The bastard is on the loose these days!
But who does he scare? The answer to this is given by the following, eighth, song of genius in verse, which with amazing skill recreated the spirit, color and form of the folk “patch”:
Oh, you, grief is bitter!
Boredom is boring
Mortal!
It's time for me
I'll carry it out, I'll carry it out...
I'm already crowned
I'll scratch it, I'll scratch it...
I'm already seeds
I'll get it, I'll get it...
I'm already using a knife
I'll strip, I'll strip!
And then this bitter, annoying, feigned prowess finds a single goal: You fly, bourgeois, like a sparrow!
I'll drink some blood
For the sweetheart,
Black-browed...
This furious outburst has its own deep psychological authenticity: Petrukha has his own scores to settle with the bourgeois world, with which his Katya (who was hanging out with officers and cadets) became entangled and which ultimately turned out to be the culprit of her accidental death - after all, Vanka, because of whom she died, also a “bourgeois”.
The eighth and ninth chapters are the central and turning point of the poem. Here the plot breaks down: everything personal that was brought to the forefront of the narrative - reckless daring, love tragedy, jealousy, crime, despair and the “grief” of the killer - is absorbed by a broad, free and powerful melody. It is here, in the song of the Red Guards, that the image of the old world - the “mangy dog” - first appears. The question arises: why did Blok devote so much space to Petrukha’s personal drama, and then reduce it to nothing? “These are not times like these” - this is the formula for this belief. Every personal tragedy at such a time drowns in the “sea” of the revolution, in the general, world-historical tragedy of the catastrophic collision of two worlds. In his personal plan, Blok resolved this issue categorically: “The revolution is me - not alone, but we”; there is no personal thing - because the content of all life becomes the world Revolution; a person who has the lot to witness the birth of a new world should remember as little as possible about personal weaknesses and tragedies. Just don't simplify it. The categorical nature of the decision did not mean that accepting it was simple and easy. Hatred for the old world was the dominant feeling in Blok, all-consuming, justifying everything. He understood, of course, that along with the violence, lies, meanness and vulgarity of the old world, some of what he “soloved,” with which his lonely “demonic delights” were associated. But heHe also understood that in the name of the big, universal historical truth, one must sacrifice one’s small “truths.” This reflected Blok’s spiritual strength, that “fearless sincerity” that Gorky noticed in him. Blok’s idea about the immeasurability of “personal tragedies” with the greatness of what is happening was echoed in a unique way (with adjustments for plot and character) in the story of Petrukha. It cannot be said that the poet condemns Petrukha. Rather, he feels sorry for him. And the mental anguish of this desperate, “stupid” man who had lost his way, and his passionate, stuffy love with annoying memories of “drunk nights” and “fiery eyes” - all this could not help but be close to the poet, who always found a source of high inspiration in themes of tragic passion and human despair. But all this must burn out in the fire of revolution. This is how it is necessary for a new person to be born. After all, Blok saw one of the important tasks set by the revolution in directing its cleansing fire into “the Rasputin corners of the soul and there fanning it into a fire to the sky, so that cunning, lazy, slavish lust would burn out.”
Desperate and headless Petrukha is the weakest of the twelve. If they themselves do not constitute the vanguard of the revolution, then Petrukha is their own rearguard. Even now he powerlessly remembers the Savior, and again his comrades read him a stern rebuke:
- Petka! Hey, don't lie!
What did I save you from?
Golden iconostasis?
You're unconscious, really.
Think, think sensibly -
Ali's hands are not covered in blood
Because of Katka's love?
- Take a revolutionary step!
The restless enemy is close!
So Petrukha received the correct description, and from his own comrades: “unconscious.” They know in the name of what they are taking their revolutionary step. “We are ready for anything, we don’t regret anything”, “The burden will be heavier...”, “Their steel rifles against an invisible enemy”, “They are marching into the distance with a sovereign step...”. Doesn’t this so clear and so constant note of revolutionary duty drown out the hysterical cry of spiritual destruction that we hear in the remarks of the “poor murderer” Petrukha?
Twelve are busy with their work: they are on patrol in the city at night. They are on guard: “A fierce enemy is about to wake up...”. And they sing not thieves’ couplets or heart-breaking lamentations, but they pick up the tune of “Varsovianka”: “March, march forward, working people!” And in the tempos and rhythms of this beautiful fighting song of the working class, the motives of reckless revelry dissolve without a trace (Petrukha, in the end, also pulled himself up and joined the step of his comrades), and the theme of the indestructible strength of the insurgent people, the unstoppable movement of the twelve towards the distant horizon that had opened up to them, comes to the fore. goals:
And they go without the name of a saint
All twelve - into the distance.
Ready for anything
No regrets...
It hits my eyes
Red flag.
Sounds out
Measured step.
Here he will wake up
Fierce enemy...
And the blizzard throws dust in their eyes
Days and nights
All the way...
Go-go,
Working people!
And so on - with ever-increasing expression in order to achieve the highest tension and pathos in the finale. The violent “freedom” turns into a strict, musically organized revolutionary will.
It is possible to answer an ideologically significant question only by building a structural chain of events that took place. Having built this chain, we will see that personal drama occupied a large place in the poem. It was this construction of the poem that helped determine the place of this episode in the work.
Revolutions, as you know, come in different forms. That revolution, the fighting force of which the “twelve” considered themselves to be, was unique, one of a kind. It was the destruction “to the ground” of the “old world”, a “break” between two historical zones. “The Twelve” are the apostles of the new world, the heralds of “a new heaven and a new earth.” Blok’s Red Guards are also children, “children in the Iron Age,” as he called them in his diary entry author of The Twelve. They do not know what they are doing, but this does not absolve them of the guilt of creating a world in which violence will be the main principle.
--- More than once critics have noted that “The Twelve,” for all its apparent simplicity, is not a simple work at all. Let us pay attention to the mysterious central episode of the poem. Why, in fact, is the center of this poem about the Revolution a criminal offense devoid of any class or revolutionary grounds? Why did Vanka and Katka so annoy the Red Army soldiers, why do they seek to deal with Vanka, and do they perceive Katka’s death as fair retribution? But let’s deal with the first one first, the soldier Vanka. The poem seems to explain the reason for the hunt for him:
Fuck - ramble! You will know
It's like walking with a stranger's girl!..
If with a stranger, then with Petkina, but why are all the “twelve” so eager to deal with Katka’s new lover? What do they care, after all, about Petka’s feelings? And then: Katka is a prostitute, she is not Vankina, not Petkina, she is for everyone and no one’s. Something is clearly wrong here, but let’s leave these considerations for now and talk about other possible motives for the strange hatred of the Red Guards towards their former comrade. There are two motives. Firstly, Vanka is a stranger; secondly, rich. Both motifs are present in the replica of one of the “twelve”:
Vanyushka himself is rich now...
Vanka was ours, but he became a soldier!
In the same chapter, Vanka is called a bourgeois. Vanka is a soldier of the Petrograd garrison, which did not protect the Provisional Government in the October days. And the word “soldier” did not sound counter-revolutionary then. Why, after all, is Vanka “not ours” - from the point of view of the Red Guards? Were there any conflicts or tensions between the Red Guards and the soldiers then? Consequently, there were tensions between the soldiers and the Red Guards, and the soldiers were jealous of the Red Guards, and not vice versa. But it did not come to armed conflicts. Maybe the reason for the lynching that the “twelve” are trying to inflict on Vanka is that he is a thief? However, theft and robbery were a mass phenomenon back then. This path of enrichment was not closed to the “twelve,” although they preferred to rob only wine cellars. But they are clearly jealous of Vanka’s “wealth” and therefore call him a “bourgeois”. So envy of Vanka’s “wealth” is undoubtedly present among the “twelve”. But she is not the reason for the hostility, moreover, the hatred of the Red Guard patrol towards him. The reason is something or someone else.
Was Katka's murder accidental? Petka commits it in a state of passion; the rest of the patrolmen did not intend to kill her. But they do not grieve, but perceive what happened with purely criminal cynicism:
What, Katka is happy? - No gu-gu...
Lie, you carrion, in the snow!
But no “music of the revolution” can, however, appease the mental anguish of the “poor murderer” Petrukha. If there had been a policeman who would have dragged him to the station, it would probably have been easier for him. But during the Revolution there are no policemen, the Red Guard patrol is itself a representative of the revolutionary order, and therefore Petka is alone with his pain before God. An attempt to lose himself in a drunken spree only leads him to “mortal boredom” and mental devastation. His comrades don't understand him. For them, stepping over blood is not a crime, but participation in the truth of the Revolution. “Among them there are those,” wrote Blok in the article “Intellectuals and the Revolution,” “who are going crazy from lynchings, who cannot stand the blood that they shed in their darkness...” Petka is one of those. He is tormented, wants enlightenment, but he is asked to take a “revolutionary step”. And yet from this torment of the “poor murderer” Petka there is a thin thread to Christ, not to what appears in the finale, but to the real one, the Gospel.
etc.................

How do we understand the idea? work of art? After all, not a single author expresses it directly, as, for example, in journalism. The entire structure of the work of art helps to understand what the author wanted to say: the system of images, the development of the plot, and, of course, the composition. We will try to prove this using the example of A. Blok’s poem “The Twelve”.

One of the compositional techniques that A. Blok uses is the combination of real and symbolic plans. So, for example, the image of the wind. On the one hand, the wind is a sign of the winter of 1918, and on the other hand, the “cheerful wind” personifies the revolution, which A. Blok perceived as an element. Let's give another example. It is known that the detachments that patrolled Petrograd in 1918 consisted of twelve people. At the same time, the number "twelve" refers us to biblical story about the twelve apostles. Therefore, we can say that the twelve Red Guards in the poem are not only a historical sign of the times, but also a deeply symbolic image.

Another artistic technique- ring composition of the poem. The poem consists of twelve chapters, which is also not accidental.

Chapters I and XII are related to each other. In Chapter I there is a narrowing of real space. First this is the whole world:

Wind, wind -
All over God's world!

But gradually buildings and social signs of the times appear (the slogan “All power Constituent Assembly"), finally, individual passers-by: an old woman, a "bourgeois at the crossroads", "comrade priest" and others. The rope between the buildings seems to tighten the real space.

In the last chapter, the opposite process occurs: space begins to expand. Moreover, not only the real space is expanding (due to the blizzard, the outlines of houses and specific details characterizing the city disappear), but also the symbolic one. Before our eyes, the mangy dog turns into a symbol of the old world:

- Get off, you scoundrel,
I'll tickle you with a bayonet!
The old world is like a mangy dog,
If you fail, I'll beat you up!

The action of the remaining chapters is confined to the strict framework of city streets: a patrol of twelve people walks through Petrograd.

A. Blok resorts to narrowing the space in order to show as fully and voluminously as possible the life that the country lives after the revolution.

The author uses the expansion of the symbolic space to give a universal scale to the events taking place in the inner chapters, and also to introduce the image of Christ, with whom main idea poems: the revolution is perceived by A. Blok as a door to a bright future.

In world literature, the image of Christ is the embodiment of purity, goodness, and humanity. Therefore we can regard the final scene as revealing the antithesis given in Chapter I. (“Black wind. White snow”):

...So they go with a sovereign step -
Behind is a hungry dog,
Ahead - with a bloody flag,
And invisible behind the blizzard,
...And unharmed by a bullet
In a white corolla of roses -
Ahead - Jesus Christ

The image of Christ is an expression of that white, which we noticed at the very beginning of the work, is the embodiment of a bright future, to which, according to A. Blok, the revolution leads. But this future is not yet visible behind the blizzard, behind the disorder and chaos of the revolutionary days. The detachment is the twelve apostles of the revolution. And the hungry dog is a symbol of everything dark that remains in the old world, behind the door, behind the backs of these soldiers.

However, the bloody flag in the hands of Christ may be puzzling - not just red, but bloody. To understand A. Blok’s thought, we should again turn to the composition of the work.

The compositional center of the poem is chapters VI and VII. In Chapter VI, Katka's murder occurs. The chapter is stylistically chaotic, there are many exclamations and ellipses, but everything is covered by one call:

Revolutionary step up!
The restless enemy never sleeps!

And in Chapter VII we see the killer’s repentance, a lyrical motif of memory appears, but at the end there are already rollicking screams:

Eh, Eh!
...It's not a sin to have fun!
Unlock the cellars -
The bastard is on the loose these days!

A. Blok shows that the shedding of blood was an everyday event for that time. One cannot, of course, say that the author approves of the shedding of blood. Christ, according to A. Blok, takes upon himself all the blood shed in these days, the days of the revolution, therefore he has a bloody flag in his hands.

Another compositional technique is the constantly changing size of the verse. This technique serves to accurately convey the chaos that reigned in Petrograd at that time. The poem contains the motif of a march (“Forward, forward, working people!”), and ditties (“Eh, eh, dance! Your legs are so good!”), and a romance (“You can’t hear the noise of the city...”), and funeral service (“Rest, O Lord, the soul of your servant...”).

In our work we focused only on those compositional techniques, which, in our opinion, most clearly express the author’s intention. But even they convincingly prove that composition carries an important semantic load and plays one of the main roles in revealing the ideological content of a work of art.