Blok. We all studied it as part of school curriculum, enjoyed the beauty and romance of the lines. Our article is devoted to the analysis of the poem "Stranger" by Blok. Let's try to understand how a work about dirty streets and drunkards turned into a manifesto of pure love.

"Stranger" by Blok. Analysis according to plan

At school we are taught to analyze poems according to a scheme, analyzing three important components: historical and biographical, literary (composition, theme, images, style) and artistic (means of expression, rhyme, sound design). They can be swapped depending on the tasks at hand. Let's analyze the poem "Stranger" by Blok according to the plan indicated below:

1. History of creation.
2. Composition.
3. Artistic media.
4. "I" of the lyrical hero
5. Main thought.
6. Reviews from critics.

History of creation

In order to identify the main idea of ​​the text in the process of analyzing Blok’s “Stranger,” let us turn to the time the poem was written. It was born in 1906 and was included in the collection of poems “Unexpected Joy”. The poet was going through a difficult period in his life.

The revolution of 1905 “shattered something” in his soul, by his own admission. The themes of the poems, which previously sang of the dream and the Beautiful Lady, changed. Themes of social inequality and the vulgarity of the world were heard, and the anticipation of approaching upheavals intensified. A terrible blow was the betrayal of his wife: L. D. Mendeleeva went to Blok’s close friend and ally Andrei Bely.

The poet stopped communicating with his Symbolist friends; he spent all his time in the holiday village of Ozerki. Here, in a restaurant at the railway station, Blok drowned out the melancholy in his heart with alcohol. Trains flashed through the window and people scurried about. It was here that the image of a mysterious stranger came to him, symbolizing purity and spirituality. According to the poet, he saw her live - on Vrubel’s canvases.

Composition. First part of the work

Analysis of the verse “Stranger” by Blok allows us to divide it into two parts. In the first of them chaos and lack of spirituality reign. The action takes place against the backdrop of a decadent evening landscape. The air here is stale and hot, the streets are dusty, spring brings with it not renewal, but a “corruptive spirit.” There is a cacophony of sounds all around: drunks screaming, a child crying, women screaming.

Moral principles have been completely lost. The ladies have ceased to be sublime, they walk between the ditches with “tested wits.” The latter “break the bowler hats” that were worn only by people of the upper class. The top of society is also mired in vulgarity and squalor. The moon, so often praised in poetry, in Blok “curves senselessly” and is compared to a lifeless disk.

An analysis of Blok's "Stranger" allows us to single out only one bright spot in this decaying world - a pretzel in a bakery. It glows golden in the distance, like hope for something better, but no one notices it. The lyrical hero himself is stunned by wine, he is lonely and looks at his reflection in the glass. The people around him have lost their human appearance, they have “rabbit eyes”, everyone is hopelessly drunk. However, the wine, “tart and mysterious,” gradually immerses the hero in the world of romance.

Second part of the poem

An analysis of Blok's "Stranger" proves that the work is built on antithesis and opposition. If the first part was dominated by low vocabulary, then the second sounds sublime. A stranger appears who completely intoxicates the lyrical hero. It is difficult to understand whether this woman is a living woman or a ghost, a beautiful vision.

The image appears in a foggy window from night darkness, walks slowly among the drunkards, without attracting their attention. In contrast to the noxious air spread around, the stranger breathes “spirits and mists.” She sits by the window alone. Her image is devoid of specifics, unsteady, and fragile. The face is hidden behind a dark veil, the silks “blow” as if under a gust of a light breeze, and “ancient legends” and fairy tales are recalled. She seems to have come out of another, sublime world. The mourning feathers on the hat symbolize the tragedy of her existence.

The poet follows her into the “enchanted distance”; the wine he drinks helps him in this. He forgets low reality, plunging into the world of “deep secrets”, “distant shores”, the sun, “blue bottomless” eyes and spiritual treasures. The stranger becomes a symbol of love, hope, high aspirations, beauty that glows in a wounded soul.

In the last lines, the lyrical hero shakes off the fog of dreams, he again realizes that he belongs to the world of “monsters”. “The Truth in Wine” is an admission that intoxication caused him to be transported to another dimension. However, it is there, in a bitter irony, that the hero feels alive.

Artistic media

Let's continue the analysis of Blok's "Stranger". Let us briefly consider the means of expression with which the poet managed to make the poem so melodic and beautiful. It is written in iambic pentameter. The rhyme is cross, female and male rhymes alternate with each other.

In the first part they are torn. Reduced vocabulary is used, many sharp consonant sounds are heard. In the second part, the rhyme becomes smooth, sonorants predominate among the consonants, introducing harmony into the poem. The vocabulary is high, which emphasizes the inaccessibility of the ghostly Stranger.

Blok did not skimp on the trails. We can find in the poem epithets ("bottomless eyes", "enchanted shore"), metaphors (eyes... bloom, wine... pierced), anaphora ("and every evening"), oxymoron ("spring and pernicious") , personification (“the disk is crooked”). However, the main technique is antithesis. Vulgar reality is opposed to a high ideal, which is emphasized by vocabulary, images, and sound recording.

"I" of the lyrical hero

An analysis of Blok's poem "Stranger" allows us to better understand his main character. The lyrical hero appears only towards the end of the first part, but the world we see through his eyes. He is scary and drags the hero into a hopeless circle. This feeling is created by the repeated conjunction “and” and the stanza “and every evening.” The vocabulary of the quatrain, in which the hero’s “I” first appears, is high. This emphasizes his alienness to his vulgar surroundings. Your only friend is your own reflection. Being in humble despair, the character seeks salvation in alcohol.

The lonely stranger is his double. Only the two of them are privy to the “deep secrets.” For the hero, she is a messenger from the unattainable world of harmony. Her image is vague, shrouded in secrets, mists, spirits and magic. They are close spiritually, but their union is impossible. The world is too unstable, but only in it can the hero escape from harsh reality. The last stanza is full of hope and despair. A beautiful ideal is perceived as a “treasure”. However, the hero is full of doubts: perhaps the mysterious Stranger is just a drunken vision, a trick of the mind.

Main thought

Analysis of Blok's "Stranger" helps to understand what the author wanted to say with his poem. We are faced with a conflict between low life and high aspirations, which cannot be reconciled. The hero feels stuffy in the world of vulgarity, he strives for ideal, beauty, happiness, which he does not see around, but suddenly finds in the mysterious, elusive Stranger.

Analysis of Alexander Blok's "Stranger" leads us to a tragic conclusion: it is impossible to enter the world of poetry and mystery. Hope flashed brightly in the hero’s soul, he was illuminated by it, but in the end he was forced to admit his own powerlessness. He is part of the world of “drunken monsters”, where the Stranger does not belong. A dream can momentarily enter our everyday life, illuminate it with a bright flash, turning our souls upside down, but then disappear again, returning a person to boring reality.

"Stranger" Alexander Blok

In the evenings above the restaurants
The hot air is wild and deaf,
And rules with drunken shouts
Spring and pernicious spirit.

Far above the dust of the alley,
Above the boredom of country dachas,
The bakery's pretzel is slightly golden,
And a child's cry is heard.

And every evening, behind the barriers,
Breaking the pots,
Walking with the ladies among the ditches
Tested wits.

Oarlocks creak over the lake
And a woman's squeal is heard,
And in the sky, accustomed to everything
The disk is bent senselessly.

And every evening my only friend
Reflected in my glass
And tart and mysterious moisture
Like me, humbled and stunned.

And next to the neighboring tables
Sleepy lackeys hang around,
And drunkards with rabbit eyes
“In vino veritas!”1 they shout.

And every evening, at the appointed hour
(Or am I just dreaming?),
The girl's figure, captured by silks,
A window moves through a foggy window.

And slowly, walking between the drunken,
Always without companions, alone
Breathing spirits and mists,
She sits by the window.

And they breathe ancient beliefs
Her elastic silks
And a hat with mourning feathers,
And in the rings there is a narrow hand.

And chained by a strange intimacy,
I look behind the dark veil,
And I see the enchanted shore
And the enchanted distance.

Silent secrets have been entrusted to me,
Someone's sun was handed to me,
And all the souls of my bend
Tart wine pierced.

And ostrich feathers bowed
My brain is swinging,
And blue bottomless eyes
They bloom on the far shore.

There's a treasure in my soul
And the key is entrusted only to me!
You're right, drunken monster!
I know: the truth is in the wine.

Analysis of Blok’s poem “Stranger”

When it comes to the creative heritage of the Russian poet Alexander Blok, many often recall the textbook poem “Stranger,” written in 1906 and which has become one of the best romantic works of this author.

"The Stranger" has a rather sad and dramatic backstory. During the period of writing the poem, Alexander Blok was experiencing a deep spiritual drama caused by his wife’s betrayal, who went to the poet Alexander Bely. According to the recollections of the poet’s relatives, he uncontrollably drowned his sorrows in wine and sat for days on end in cheap drinking establishments filled with dubious personalities. It is likely that in one of these restaurants Alexander Blok met a mysterious stranger - an elegant lady in a hat with a mourning veil, who every evening at the same time occupied a table near the window, indulging in her sad thoughts.

In this establishment she clearly looked like a foreign creature, belonging to a completely different world, where there was no place for dirt and street language, prostitutes, gigolos and lovers of cheap booze. And, quite likely, it was the image of the mysterious woman, so out of place in the interior of a cheap tavern, that awakened in the poet the desire not only to delve into her secret, but also to analyze his own life, realizing that he was wasting it.

Describing the situation around him, Alexander Blok deliberately contrasts dirt and drunken stupor with the divine image of an unknown woman, who, apparently, is experiencing an equally deep spiritual drama, but does not stoop to drowning her grief in alcohol. The realization that the fragile stranger turns out to be much stronger and more courageous than all those men who surround her gives rise to a certain semblance of admiration in the poet’s soul. This is the first bright moment in his life in many months, which he is trying to grab onto as if it were a life preserver in order to emerge from the abyss of unremitting drunkenness. The fact that he succeeded brilliantly is confirmed by the very fact of the existence of the poem “The Stranger,” which, as it later turned out, became a turning point not only in the life, but also in the work of Alexander Blok.

AND precisely the contrast between the dark and light sides of life, which is very clearly visible in this lyrical and very moving work, indicates that the poet very clearly understands that his life is going downhill at an inexorable speed. Such an antithesis sets the rhythm for the entire work, as if emphasizing that there is another reality in which even with a broken heart one can rejoice and be surprised simple things, which evoke the brightest and most exciting feelings. The image of a stranger identifies a slightly open door to another reality, and all that remains is to take a couple of unsteady steps to find yourself where there is no place for the gloomy reality with its vulgarity, betrayal, cruelty and dirt.

Stay in the arms of Bacchus or try to get into the mysterious world of a stranger, filled with light and purity? Alexander Blok chooses the third path, arguing that there is truth in wine too, but at the same time deciding not to stoop to the level of those who drink not in order to comprehend it, but in order to forget. This is confirmed by one of the last stanzas, in which the poet admits: “There is a treasure in my soul, and the key is entrusted only to me!” These words can be interpreted in different ways, but their most likely meaning is that only spiritual purity, the ability to love and forgive, give a person the strength to live on. But in order to realize this, you must first sink to the very bottom, and then meet a mysterious stranger who will make you believe in your own strength with just her presence, even if her image is a figment of the imagination, poisoned by alcohol.

Analysis of A. Blok's poem "Stranger"

The image of a mysterious stranger has been revealed in art more than once. In the painting of the 19th century, I. Kramskoy turned to him (painting “Unknown”, 1883), in the 20th century, the artist I. Glazunov painted a number of paintings illustrating the lyrics of A. Blok. The poem "Stranger" was written by Blok on April 24, 1906 in the holiday village of Ozerki. It was very difficult period in the poet's personal life. His wife, L.D. Mendeleeva, began an affair with Andrei Bely, a close friend of the poet. The poem was born from wanderings around the St. Petersburg suburbs, from impressions from walks in Ozerki. Many real features and signs in the poem are from here: the restaurant, the dust of the alleys, the barriers.

The genre of the work is a story in verse. The plot is a meeting of the lyrical hero with the Stranger in a country restaurant. The main theme is the clash of dreams and reality. The composition is based on the principle of opposition - antithesis. The dream is opposed to harsh reality. Compositionally, the poem consists of two parts. One part (the first six stanzas) shows the reality of the vulgar world, the second part (the last seven stanzas) depicts the romantic ideal of the lyrical hero. These two worlds are incompatible for Blok. The world of his dreams is fragile and thin, devoid of real outlines. But this world is his only salvation and opportunity to remain himself. Alexander Blok gives this world, inspired by the image of the Stranger, to his readers.

The poem begins with a description of a spring evening. However, the fresh breath of spring is not felt at all; to describe the spring air, the poet uses the epithet smoldering thief. The first part of the poem is filled with prosaic details. This is the dust of the alleys, and the boredom of country dachas, and the pretzel of a bakery, and tried-and-true wits who “walk with the ladies among the ditches.” The author uses rude language (sleepy lackeys stick out), uses unpleasant sound images(children's crying; woman's squealing; creaking oarlocks). The vulgarity of the real world infects everything around with its corrupting spirit. And even traditionally poetic image the moon appears here in a distorted form:

And in the sky, accustomed to everything,
The disk is bent senselessly.

In this part, the author deliberately piles up difficult-to-pronounce consonant sounds. For example: “In the evenings above the restaurants, / The hot air is wild and deaf”: pvchrm ndrstrnm grch sigh dk ghl. And instead of the assonances typical of Blok’s poetry (repetition of vowel sounds) on a-o-e, which add melody to the poem, we hear dull alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds) and assonances on i (hot And th air d And To And deaf; female in And zg; cr And V And d And sk), which hurt the ears. In this world, instead of the sun, “the pretzel of the bakery is golden,” and love is replaced by walks of ladies with “tested wits” (who probably repeat the same jokes every day). “Tested wits” walk with the ladies not just anywhere, but “among the ditches.” The image of the restaurant is also symbolic - it is the embodiment of vulgarity. The author depicts not just an evening restaurant, but a space where “the hot air is wild and deaf,” where a “spring and pernicious spirit” rules the general gloom. Here boredom, drunkenness and monotonous fun took on the character of a repetitive and meaningless rotation. The phrase “And every evening” speaks about the whirling of life in this automatic wheel. This phrase is repeated three times, like the conjunction and - this achieves the feeling of a closed circle: (And the spring and pernicious spirit rules the drunken cries; And a child’s cry is heard; And a woman’s squeal is heard). The author uses all verbs in the present tense. This world is disgusting and scary. In literally everything, the lyrical hero feels a repulsive disharmony of sounds and smells, colors and feelings. He finds consolation in wine:

And every evening my only friend
Reflected in my glass
And tart and mysterious moisture,
Like me, humbled and stunned.

The motif of intoxication is repeated several times: “drunkards with rabbit eyes” shout: “In vino veritas!” - “The truth is in wine!” (lat.). The stranger walks “among the drunken people”; the lyrical hero himself speaks about the “tart and mysterious moisture”. But intoxication is also a immersion in the world of dreams. This disgusting world is contrasted with the Stranger, who appears “every evening at the appointed hour” in the second part of the poem. Alliteration - repetition, rough piling up of consonant sounds in a description dirty street- are replaced by repetition of vowel sounds - assonances:

Breathing spirits and mists,
She sits by the window.
And they breathe ancient beliefs
Her elastic silks.

The hissing ones convey the rustle of silk. The repetition of sounds [u], [e] creates a feeling of airiness of the female image. The stranger is devoid of realistic features; she is entirely shrouded in mystery. This image is fenced off from the dirt and vulgarity of reality by the sublime perception of the lyrical hero. The stranger is the ideal of femininity and beauty, a symbol of what the lyrical hero lacks - love, beauty, spirituality. The Mysterious Stranger is “always without companions, alone.” The loneliness of the heroes not only sets them apart from the general crowd, but also attracts them to each other:

And chained by a strange intimacy,
I look behind the dark veil,
And I see the enchanted shore
And the enchanted distance.

“The Enchanted Shore” is a symbol of a harmonious, but unattainable world. It seems that he is nearby, but if you stretch out your hand, he disappears. The image of the Stranger is exotic:

And bowed ostrich feathers
My brain is shaking,
And blue bottomless eyes
They bloom on the far shore.

The poet uses the word that has fallen out of widespread use eyes. This archaism gives sublimity to the image of the Stranger. Her blue bottomless eyes (blue color means starry, high, unattainable in Blok) are contrasted with the rabbit eyes of drunkards. The Stranger is a transformed image of the Beautiful Lady. Who is she: an ordinary visitor to a country restaurant or a “vague vision” of a lyrical hero? This image symbolizes the duality of consciousness of the lyrical hero. He really wants to get away from the reality he hates, but it does not disappear anywhere - and it is into this world that the Stranger comes. This introduces tragic notes into the image of the lyrical hero. Spirits and mists, bottomless blue eyes of strangers and the distant shore are just dreams, momentary intoxication, but the true meaning of life is revealed to the lyrical hero precisely in these moments. He speaks about this at the end of the poem: “I know: the truth is in wine.”

Using a variety of means of expression, the poet builds his work on antithesis. This technique serves to enhance the expressiveness of speech by sharply contrasting concepts. The two parts of the poem are contrasted. Images and landscapes, smells and faces, sound images of the first and second parts of the poem are contrasted. Dream and reality are contrasted. Here are just a few examples: “hot air is wild and deaf” - “breathing spirits and mists”; “the boredom of country dachas” - “the enchanted distance”; “ditches” are “bends” of the soul. For the second part of the poem, the poet selects romantic epithets (enchanted shore; tart wine; bottomless blue eyes) and metaphors (eyes... bloom; souls... bends pierced... wine). The poem is written classically poetic meter- iambic tetrameter, cross rhyme.

The poem “Stranger” was written during a difficult period in Alexander Blok’s personal life, when his wife, L. D. Mendeleeva, began an affair with his friend, poet Andrei Bely. It was born from wanderings around the St. Petersburg suburbs, and specifically from impressions from walks in the holiday village of Ozerki. Many real features and signs in the poem are from here: the restaurant, the dust of the alleys, the barriers. The genre of the work is a story in verse. The plot is a meeting of the lyrical hero with the Stranger in a country restaurant. The main theme is the clash of dreams and reality. The composition is based on the principle of opposition - antithesis. The dream is opposed to harsh reality. Compositionally, the poem consists of two parts. One part (the first six stanzas) shows the reality of the vulgar world, the second part (the last seven stanzas) depicts the romantic ideal. These two worlds are incompatible for Blok. The world of his dreams is fragile and thin, devoid of real outlines. But this world is his only salvation and opportunity to remain himself.

Alexander Blok gives this world, inspired by the image of the Stranger, to his readers.
The poem begins with a description of a spring evening. However, the fresh breath of spring is not felt at all - the poet calls the spring air noxious. The first part is filled with prosaic details. This is the dust of the alleys, and the boredom of country dachas, and the pretzel of a bakery, and tried-and-true wits who “walk with the ladies among the ditches.” The author uses rude language (the lackeys stick around sleepily), depicts unpleasant sounds(children's crying; woman's squealing; creaking oarlocks). Vulgarity infects everything around with its corrupting spirit. And even
The traditionally poetic image of the moon appears here in a distorted form:

And in the sky, accustomed to everything,
The disk is bent senselessly.

And instead of the assonances typical of Blok’s poetry (repetition of vowel sounds) on a-o-e, which add melody to the verse, we hear dull alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds) and assonances on i (hot air is wild and dull; a woman’s squeal; a disk is bent), which hurt the ears. In this world, instead of the sun, “the pretzel of the bakery is golden,” and love is replaced by walks of ladies with “tested wits” (who probably repeat the same jokes every day). “Tested wits” walk with the ladies not just anywhere, but “among the ditches”; The image of the restaurant is also symbolic - it is the embodiment of vulgarity. The author depicts not just an evening restaurant, but a space where “the hot air is wild and deaf,” where a “spring and pernicious spirit” rules the general gloom. Here boredom, drunkenness and monotonous fun took on the character of a repetitive and meaningless rotation. The phrase “And every evening” speaks about the whirling of life in this automatic wheel. This phrase is repeated three times, like the conjunction and - this achieves the feeling of a vicious circle (And the spring and pernicious spirit rules the drunken cries; And a child’s cry is heard; And a woman’s squeal is heard). The author uses all verbs in the present tense. This world is disgusting and scary. In literally everything, the lyrical hero feels a repulsive disharmony of sounds and smells, colors and feelings. He finds consolation in wine:

And every evening my only friend
Reflected in my glass
And tart and mysterious moisture,
Like me, humbled and stunned.

The motif of intoxication is repeated several times: “drunkards with rabbit eyes” shout: “In vino
veritas! - “The truth is in wine!” (Latin). The stranger walks “among the drunken people”; the lyrical hero himself speaks about the “tart and mysterious moisture”. But intoxication is also a immersion in the world of dreams. This disgusting world is contrasted with the Stranger, who appears “every evening at the appointed hour” in the second part of the poem. Alliterations - repetition, a rough accumulation of consonant sounds in the description of a dirty street - are replaced by repetition of vowel sounds - assonances (Breathing with perfumes and mists, / She sits by the window / and the ancient beliefs blow / Her elastic silks). The hissing ones convey the rustle of silk. Assonances and alliterations create a feeling of airiness of the female image. The stranger is devoid of realistic features; she is entirely shrouded in mystery. This image is fenced off from the dirt and vulgarity of reality by the sublime perception of the lyrical hero. The stranger is the ideal of femininity and beauty, a symbol of what the lyrical hero lacks - love, beauty, spirituality. The Mysterious Stranger is “always without companions, alone.” The loneliness of the heroes not only sets them apart from the general crowd, but also attracts them to each other:

And chained by a strange intimacy,
I look behind the dark veil,
And I see the enchanted shore
And the enchanted distance.

“The Enchanted Shore” is a symbol of a harmonious, but unattainable world. It seems that he is nearby, but if you stretch out your hand, he disappears.

And ostrich feathers bowed
My brain is shaking,
And blue bottomless eyes
They bloom on the far shore.

The poet uses the word ochi, which has fallen out of widespread use, giving sublimity to the image of the Stranger. Her blue bottomless eyes (blue color means starry, high, unattainable in Blok) are contrasted with the rabbit eyes of drunkards. Stranger - transformed image Beautiful Lady. This is an ordinary visitor to a country restaurant or a “vague vision” of a lyrical hero. This image symbolizes the duality of consciousness of the lyrical hero. He really wants to get away from the reality he hates, but it does not disappear anywhere - and it is into this world that the Stranger comes. This introduces tragic notes into the image of the lyrical hero. Spirits and mists, bottomless blue eyes of strangers and the distant shore are just dreams, momentary intoxication, but the true meaning of life is revealed to the lyrical hero precisely in these moments. He speaks about this at the end of the poem: “I know: the truth is in wine.”

The author uses a variety of means of expression. The work is built on an antithesis. This technique serves to enhance the expressiveness of speech by sharply contrasting concepts. The two parts of the poem are contrasted. Images and landscapes, smells and faces, music of the verses of the first and second parts are contrasted. Dream and reality are contrasted.

Here are just a few examples: “hot air is wild and deaf” - “breathing spirits and mists”; “the boredom of country dachas” - “the enchanted distance”; “ditches” are “bends” of the soul. For the second part of the poem, the poet selects romantic epithets (enchanted shore; tart wine; bottomless blue eyes) and metaphors (eyes ... bloom; souls ... bends pierced ... wine).
The poem is written in iambic tetrameter, and the rhyme is cross.

What is the composition of the poem? What is the content of the poem in part 1?

Which artistic techniques does the poet use to create a picture of the real world? How does the lyrical hero perceive this world? What is the difficulty in perceiving it? What does Blok see as a way out of the meaninglessness of existence? Who is the Stranger? What are the means of creating her image? How do you understand the final lines of the poem?

Compositionally, the poem falls into two parts. The 1st part creates a real image of the city’s surroundings. This is evidenced by the details of the objective world: restaurants, a bakery pretzel, pots, ditches, barriers, etc. The author is ironic about this world, therefore he uses an antithesis (“spring and putrid spirit”) and a combination of ideas about high and low: “A in the sky, accustomed to everything, the disc curves senselessly.” He sees the “wildness”, “perniciousness”, and meaninglessness of the world. Images of bourgeois vulgarity arise: “... wringing out their bowlers, experienced wits walk among the ditches with the ladies.” The concentration of ugly images is great. It is also created with the help of sound. The world is filled with children's crying, women's squeals) and the creaking of rowlocks. This cacophony arises from the alliteration of sibilants, hisses and “r”. The lyrical hero, on the one hand, opposes the world of vulgarity (he is “humble and fearful”). On the other hand, he is the son of the earth, merged with this world, stunned by “tart and mysterious moisture.” But it is she who allows him to escape into the world of his dreams, where the meeting with the Stranger takes place.

Linguistic analysis of A. Blok’s poem “Stranger”

In the evenings above the restaurants
The hot air is wild and deaf,
And rules with drunken shouts
Spring and pernicious spirit.

In the distance, above the dust of the alley,
Above the boredom of country dachas,
The bakery's pretzel is slightly golden,
And a child's cry is heard.

And every evening, behind the barriers,
Breaking the pots,
Walking with the ladies among the ditches
Tested wits.

And a woman's squeal is heard.
The disk is bent senselessly.

And every evening my only friend.
Reflected in my glass.
Like me, humbled and stunned.

And next to the neighboring tables
Sleepy lackeys hang around,
And drunkards with rabbit eyes
"In vino veritas!" they scream.

And every evening, at the appointed hour

A window moves through a foggy window.

And slowly, walking between the drunken,
Always without companions, alone,
Breathing spirits and mists,
She sits by the window.

And they breathe ancient beliefs
Her elastic silks
And in the rings there is a narrow hand.

And chained by a strange intimacy,
I look behind the dark veil,
And I see the enchanted shore,
And the enchanted distance.

Silent secrets have been entrusted to me,
Someone's sun was handed to me,
And all the souls of my bend
Tart wine pierced.

And ostrich feathers bowed.
My brain is swinging,
And blue bottomless eyes
They bloom on the far shore.

There's a treasure in my soul
And the key is entrusted only to me!
You're right, drunken monster!
I know: the truth is in the wine.

April 24, 1906. Ozerki

The poem “Stranger” (1906) is one of the masterpieces of Russian poetry. It was born from wanderings around the St. Petersburg suburbs, from the impressions of a trip to the holiday village of Ozerki. Much in the poem is directly transferred from here: the creaking of rowlocks, a woman’s squeal, a restaurant, the dust of alleys, barriers - all the squalor, boredom, vulgarity. Blok also explained where he saw the Stranger - it turns out, in Vrubel’s paintings: “Finally, what I call “The Stranger” appeared before me: a beautiful doll, a blue ghost, an earthly miracle... The Stranger is not just a lady in black dress with ostrich feathers on the hat. This is a devilish alloy from many worlds, mainly blue and purple. If I had Vrubel’s means, I would have created a Demon, but everyone does what is assigned to him...” Blue color Blok means stellar, high, unattainable; purple – alarming.

1906 - the period became a time of amazing knowledge and discoveries for Blok. The poet peers with increasing attention into the realities of everyday life around him and captures the disharmony of life. It’s as if Blok is waking up from a deep and sweet sleep, life wakes him up mercilessly, and the reality revealed to the poet does not allow him to fall back into sleep, forcing the creator to pay attention to himself and draw conclusions. The work “The Stranger” becomes a unique reflection of the poet’s thoughts and feelings, his response to difficult reality; in it, the world of vulgarity and philistine everyday life is bordered by an inexorable craving for love and the light of human relationships.

The poem “Stranger” is also interesting for its composition. It consists, as it were, of two parts: the first is the reality of the vulgar world, the second is the romantic ideal bursting into this reality.

The poem has a descriptive beginning, consistency, and leisurely construction of artistic details; there is a semblance of plot, which allowed researchers to consider the poem as a ballad.

The poem is built on the contrast of good and evil, desired and given, pictures and images, contrasted and reflected in each other. Reality here borders on the sublimity of dreams. Blok does not hide his disgust for the vulgarity of the surrounding life and paints a picture of comparisons and combinations that is difficult to imagine: the poet’s hot air, associated with movement and heat, is “wild and deaf,” and the “spring spirit” symbolizes the beginning of something new , turns out to be “pernicious”, “tested wits” walk with the ladies somewhere else, from “among the ditches”, on the streets there are “drunk shouts”, over the lake - “a woman’s squeal”, even the moon is deprived of its usual romantic halo and “curls senselessly "The first part paints a picture of smug, unbridled vulgarity, the signs of which are artistic details. The beginning conveys the general atmosphere and its perception by the lyrical hero:

In the evenings above the restaurants
The hot air is wild and deaf,
And rules with drunken shouts
Spring and pernicious spirit.

The poem is written in a two-syllable iambic meter (that is, the stress falls on even syllables). The author successfully uses cross rhyme ABAB (rhyming lines go one after another)

Morphological and lexical-semantic analysis. Paths. In the poem we see not just an evening restaurant, but a space where “the hot air is wild and deaf,” where the “spring and pernicious spirit” rules over general gloom, insensibility, and blindness. Here boredom and the inertia of monotonous fun took on the character of a repeating circular rotation that sucks people in. The words from the poem speak about automatic repetition, the whirling of life in some kind of wheel: “And every evening.” They were even repeated three times. Their meaning is strengthened by two details - “the disk, accustomed to everything, senselessly curves” (the circle, the ball of the moon) and the human conglomerate - “tested wits.” These are people who repeat gestures and jokes that are obviously far from novel. And they repeat them “among the ditches”

By repeating the conjunction “and”, a feeling of hopelessness and a vicious circle is achieved: “And the spring and pernicious spirit rules the drunken cries,” “And a child’s cry is heard,” “And a woman’s squeal is heard.” The same effect is achieved with the help of anaphora (a stylistic figure consisting in the repetition of the same elements at the beginning of each row) in the third, fifth and seventh stanzas of the poem (“And every evening”). The world depicted by the author is disgusting and scary, and the hero finds his solace in wine (“And with tart and mysterious moisture, how humble and stunned I am”).

You can easily notice that with all the abundance of verbs of movement, presence - “walking”, “rowlocks creaking”, “sticking out”, “the bakery pretzel is golden” - there is precisely no movement or active (not sleepy) presence of people. However, all verbs are used by the author in the present tense.

But then she appears - a beautiful stranger. She is completely shrouded in mystery, half-real, half-mysterious. And the hero, who has lost faith in life, regains hope. “Ancient beliefs” are revealed to him, “dark secrets” are entrusted to him, and “someone’s sun” is handed over. There is no longer room for despair and sadness in his mind; behind the dark veil of a mysterious woman he sees “an enchanted shore and an enchanted distance.” Thus, in a contrasting comparison of the first and second parts of the poem, A. Blok was able to show the conflict between what is desired and what is given, ideal and reality.

The poem has many opposing images, that is, there is an antithesis (a stylistic figure that serves to enhance the expressiveness of speech by sharply contrasting concepts, thoughts, images): “The hot air is wild and deaf” - “Breathing with spirits and mists”; “female squeal” - “girlish figure”; “meaningless disk” of the moon – “sun”; “the boredom of country dachas” - “the enchanted distance”; “ditches” - “bends” of the soul; "meaningless disk" - "true".

The poem contains an oxymoron (a stylistic figure consisting of a combination of two concepts that contradict each other, logically excluding one another, as a result of which a new semantic quality arises). It combines epithets that have opposite meanings – spring and pernicious. Vulgar everyday life is depicted ironically:

And every evening, behind the barriers,
Breaking the pots,
Walking with the ladies among the ditches
Tested wits.
Rowlocks creak over the lake,
And a woman's squeal is heard...

Vulgarity infects everything around with its corrupting spirit. Even the moon, the eternal symbol of love, the companion of mystery, the romantic image becomes flat, like the jokes of “tested wits”:
And in the sky, accustomed to everything,
The disk is bent senselessly.

The second part of the poem is a transition to another picture, contrasted with the vulgarity of the first. The motive of these two stanzas is the siren despair, the loneliness of the lyrical hero:
And every evening my only friend
Reflected in my glass
And tart and mysterious moisture,
Like me, humbled and stunned.

This only friend is a reflection, the second “I” of the hero. And around only sleepy lackeys and “drunkards with rabbit eyes”

The vocabulary of the poem is varied. In first place in terms of frequency are nouns, thanks to which the reader can clearly imagine a picture of what is happening, followed by adjectives that characterize persons, phenomena, objects, and, finally, verbs, thanks to which sounds are heard. Often in the poem there is a preposition over, which is used mainly with word forms with spatial meaning. There are many concrete nouns (pots, ditches, feathers, lake and others) along with which material ones (wine) also appear. For example, in describing a beauty, the author uses specific nouns: “a hat with mourning feathers,” “a narrow hand in rings,” perfume. Many nouns are combined with epithets, which are in second place in frequency: “hot air is wild and deaf”, “corruptive spirit”, alley dust, “tested wits”, conveying a certain atmosphere of the situation in which the heroine is located. At the same time, the Stranger is a messenger of other worlds, the “far shore.” Behind her dark veil, the lyrical hero sees “an enchanted shore and an enchanted distance,” that is, the poem contains nouns that are combined with romantic epithets. Since the time of romantic lyrics, the image of the shore has signified a harmonious, free, but unattainable world.

The vocabulary of the first stanza (“And every evening my only friend…”) is high, similar to the vocabulary of the second part of the poem.

The vocabulary of the second stanza (“And next to the autumn tables...” is low (“lackeys”, “stick out”, “drunkards”, “screaming”), gravitates towards the vocabulary of the first part. Thus, these two stanzas seem to hold together the parts of the poem, penetrating into the fabric of the lyrical narrative. In the second part of the poem there is an archaism (outdated for a certain era, a word that has fallen out of use) eyes, giving the poem and the image a certain sublimity. It is characteristic that the everyday, common word eyes, and even rabbit ones, not at all bottomless, is attributed to drunkards, and the sublime word eyes (and even blue, bottomless ones) was given to the Stranger.

Main image appears in the second part. But, apart from the title of the poem, it is not directly indicated anywhere. For the third time, the line begins with the words “And every evening...” (anaphora is a stylistic figure that consists of repeating the same elements at the beginning of the poem). Constant vulgarity, depicted in the first part, but a constant and beautiful vision, a dream, an inaccessible ideal: “Or is this just me dreaming?” The heroine is devoid of realistic features; she is entirely shrouded in silks, perfumes, mists, and mystery. This image is full of poetic charm, fenced off from the dirt of reality by the sublime perception of the lyrical hero:

And they breathe ancient beliefs
Her elastic silks
And a hat with mourning feathers,
And in the rings there is a narrow hand.

The mysterious stranger is alien to the surrounding reality; she is Poetry and Femininity embodied. And she, too, is “always without companions, alone.” The loneliness of the heroes makes them stand out from the crowd and attracts them to each other:

And shackled by strange intimacy
I look behind the dark veil,
And I see the enchanted shore
And the enchanted distance.

The desired “enchanted shore” is nearby, but if you stretch out your hand, it floats away. The lyrical hero feels his dedication to “deep secrets”; his consciousness is filled with a magical image:
And ostrich feathers bowed
My brain is shaking,
And blue, bottomless eyes
They bloom on the far shore.

The poetic result is in the last stanza: the world born of the poet’s imagination is devoid of specific outlines, fragile and unsteady. But this is his “treasure”, the only salvation and hope that helps him live. The last stanza completes the revolution in the soul of the lyrical hero, speaks of his chosenness, of the incorruptibility of a beautiful ideal. And it is impossible without sadness to read lines that are simultaneously full of hope and faith, despair and melancholy:

There's a treasure in my soul
And the key is entrusted only to me!
You're right, drunken monster!
I know the truth is in wine.

The guessed secret, which opens up the possibility of another, wonderful life “on the far shore”, far from the vulgarity of reality, is accepted as a found “treasure”. Wine is also a symbol of revelation, the key to the secrets of beauty. Beauty, truth and poetry find themselves in an inseparable unity.

In the poem “The Stranger,” the astral maiden brought the mystical world closer to reality, and with her the unreal world of “ancient beliefs” penetrates into the restaurant world.

Now not only she is the chosen one, but also the lyrical hero is the chosen one. Both of them are lonely. Not only she, but also he is entrusted with “deep secrets.” Despite this, the poem sounded romantic theme the impossibility of connecting kindred souls. However, in the poem, the tragic solution to this theme acquired an additional tone - it was given self-irony: the hero suggests whether the Stranger is a game of a “drunk monster.” Irony allowed the lyrical hero to find a compromise between reality and illusion. But this compromise is still impossible between the Stranger and suburban life; the wonderful maiden leaves him. She and reality are two poles between which the lyrical hero resides.

In the poem, not only the artistic details of everyday life and “deep secrets” constitute a contrast, not only the plot about the Stranger is based on opposition - her appearance and disappearance, but also the phonetic series of the poem is built on the principle of contrast. The harmony of vowels, consonant with the image of the Stranger, contrasts with the dissonant, rigid combinations of consonants, thanks to which the image of reality is created.

Parsing. The conjunction a in the second part of the poem marks not only the two-part nature of the poem, but also the opposition of these parts, a contrasting composition. Throughout the entire poem, the most frequent are complex sentences connected by a connecting conjunction, which creates a feeling of hopelessness. In stanzas 1,3,5,7 there are syntactic repetitions (every evening). This signals the similarity of the compositional and thematic functions of these lines. Also, thanks to lexical repetition, it seems that the author uses syntactic parallelism (the same syntactic construction of sentences) in his poem. This text also uses simple sentences With homogeneous members, mostly predicates that perform very important role: they represent the action in a multifaceted way, which means more accurately. For example: “I look, I see.” The inversion ( reverse order words): “deep secrets have been entrusted to me,” “there is a treasure in my soul,” and many others, which enhance the expressiveness of speech, highlight the most important words and increase intonation expressiveness due to the fact that important words in speech are transferred to the beginning of the sentence. Inversion also contributes to the expressiveness of speech minor members: “hot air”, “corruptive spirit”, “female screeching”, “girlish figure”, “ancient beliefs”, “deep secrets”. The intonation of the poem is calm. Blok often uses commas and periods to indicate completeness of thought. And only at the end of the poem are exclamation marks used, which express confidence, emotionality, make the ending dramatic, clearly reflecting the entire state of the “crossroads”, the impassability in which the poet lived at that time - in the conflict of feelings that the Stranger awakened in the hero’s soul, and his a kind of powerlessness when this hero reluctantly, sluggishly, but still agrees with the cry of a “drunk monster.” On the one hand, “I have been entrusted with deep secrets,” “I see an enchanted shore.” On the other hand, the will to oblivion, some kind of sad and tragic, forced concession to the evil world, concluded in agreement with those who are always “nearby at neighboring tables”:

You're right, drunken monster!
I know: the truth is in the wine.

Phonetic analysis. The phonetic part of the analysis is the most formal, since the sound organization of the text does not have such an obvious and direct connection with its content as, for example, the lexical-semantic organization. Meanwhile, phonetic means perform very important functions, both in creating the integrity of a poetic work and in expressing its thematic development.
Phonetic means create the sound unity of the text. This is expressed as a percentage of consonants and vowels. In the poem, the most frequent are noisy consonants: plosives 34%, sonorants 26%, fricatives 18%. Among the vowels, the predominant vowels are the back vowels of the middle rise 16 (O), followed by the middle vowels of the lower rise 15 (A), as well as the front vowels of the upper rise 15 (I), and the back vowels of the upper rise occur 7 times. (U). The appearance of the heroine is accompanied by a sound recording of rare beauty. The poem contains assonance (repetition of vowel sounds) and alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds), creating a feeling of airiness of the image: “And every evening, at the appointed hour...”; “The girl’s body, seized by silks, moves in the fog (A) about (A) kne”. Assonances on y add sophistication to the image of the Stranger: And I blow (U)t with ancient beliefs Her elastic silks, And a hat with mourning feathers, And a narrow hand in rings.

The phonetics of the poem expresses the plasticity of the image of the Stranger: the hissing words convey the penetration of the heroine dressed in silk into the bustle of everyday life.

The poet very sensitively heard music in everything that surrounded him, and tried to fill each of his creations with it. So the whole “Stranger” is built on a musical antithesis. In order to verify this, it is necessary to compare the beginnings of the first and second parts of the poem:
In the evenings, above restaurants
The hot air is wild and deaf.

The poet deliberately piles up difficult-to-pronounce consonants p, v, ch, r, d, s.t and others and uses the stressed vowels a, o, u, i.e in an unregulated manner. All this gives the first part a discordant sound, which is opposed by the harmony of the second:

And every evening at the appointed hour
(Or am I just dreaming?),
The girl's figure, captured by silks,
A window moves through a foggy window.

Here Blok minimizes unpronounceable consonants, turning to sonorous l, m, n, r. And the repetition of hissing and whistling ch, w, s is reminiscent of the rustling of silk. At the same time, the poet turns to repetitions of the vowels a, i, o, u, and thereby achieves the melodious sound of the verse. Thus, we can conclude that the poem is unique in content and poetics.

A researcher of A. Blok’s work, A.V. Ternovsky, emphasized the extreme difference between the sound and lexical matter of the first part of the poem (before the appearance of the Stranger) and the second, when it slowly passes “between the drunken”: “In the first part we have a deliberate accumulation of unpronounceable consonants (For example, “In the evenings above the restaurants, the hot air is wild and dull-pvchrm ndrstrnm grch sigh dk ghl). The vocabulary of this part is emphatically “grounded”, the assessments are negative character(“the air is wild and deaf”, “drunk shouts”, “alley dust”, “breaking pots”, “rowlocks creaking”, “a woman’s squeal” and even the lunar disk “curves senselessly.” The difference between the second part and the first is obvious already at the level her sound instrumentation. The poet minimizes sibilants, giving preference to sonorants l, r, mn. At the same time, he uses repetitions of vowels. The poet’s visual power is so great that it no longer matters whether “The Stranger Dreamed the Hero in a Drunken Oblivion.”

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Literature.

1. Egorova N.V. “Lesson-based developments in Russian literature”, M, “Vako”, 2005.
2. Mints N.G. "Blok and Russian symbolism", 1980.
3. Ternovsky A.V. “Creativity of A.A. Blok”, M, 1989.