Composition "Symbolic images and their meaning in the poem" The Twelve ". Symbolic images and their meaning in A. Blok's poem "Twelve" Symbolic images of the poem twelve and their meaning

1. Poems are the soul of a poet.
2. General information about the work of Blok.
3. Symbol - a deep and accurate image of reality.
4. Symbolism of color.
5. The revolutionary image of the wind (storms, blizzards).
6. Symbols of the number "twelve".
7. The image of Christ in the poem.

In the poems that a real poet creates, all his thoughts and even the soul itself are reflected. When reading a poem, it immediately becomes clear what the state of the person was at the time of writing the Poetic Creation. Poems are like a diary of the poet's life. Not everyone will be able to express in words, let alone express on paper, their state of mind, their feelings and experiences. Each time, re-reading the poet's books, you begin to understand him more and more as a person. Although, on the other hand, it seems that he is the same as we are, and does not differ from us in anything: the same thoughts, the same desires. And yet he is able to express his feelings somehow differently, in a different way, with some special specificity, probably more hidden and of course through poems. A person who has been given such a gift to express his thoughts and feelings through poems cannot do otherwise.

A remarkable Russian poet of the early 20th century, A. Blok was born in November 1880 in St. Petersburg. A. Blok began his career in 1904, studying at the Faculty of Philology at St. Petersburg University. This is how the “Poems about the Beautiful Lady” (1904), the series of poems “Crossroads” (1902-1904), “Well-fed”, “Unexpected Joy”, “Snow Mask” (1905-1907) appeared. After graduating from university in 1906, the writer continued his literary activity: in 1907 appeared the poetic cycle "On the Kulikovo Field", "Motherland" (1907-1916), then the poem "Twelve", "Scythians" (1918).

For a long time, Blok's poem "The Twelve" was perceived as a work that describes only the events of the October Revolution, and no one did not see what was hidden under these symbols, no one did not understand the important questions that lie behind all the images. In order to put a deep and multifaceted meaning into simple and ordinary concepts, many writers, both Russian and foreign, use various symbols. For example, in one writer, a flower means a Beautiful Lady, a majestic woman, and a bird is a soul. Knowing all these nuances of literary creativity, the reader already begins to perceive the poet's lyrics in a completely different way.

In the poem "Twelve" A. A. Blok very often uses various symbols, images - these are colors and nature, numbers and names. In his poem, he uses various contrasts to enhance the effect of the impending revolution. In the very first chapter, at the very beginning, the color contrast is obvious: black wind and white snow.

Black evening.
White snow.
Wind, wind!

The black and white colors of the landscape run through the entire poem of the Twelve Block: black sky, black anger, white roses. And gradually, in the course of events, this color scheme is diluted with a red-bloody color: suddenly a red guard and a red flag appear.

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

The bright red colors are the colors that symbolize blood, and this suggests that bloodshed is bound to be and it is very close. Soon, soon the wind of revolution will rise over the world. A special place in the poem is occupied by the image of the wind, which is also associated with an alarming premonition of an imminent revolution. The wind is a symbol of the rapid advancement into the future. This image runs through the entire poem, it fills all the thoughts of the poet in the days of the revolution. The wind flutters the poster "All Power to the Constituent Assembly", knocks people off their feet, people who make up the old world (from the priest to the girl of easy virtue). It shows not just the wind, but the spontaneous wind, the wind of global changes. It is this wind that will carry away everything old, deliver us from the "old world", which is too stifling and inhuman. The revolutionary wind of change will bring with it something new, some new, better system. And people are waiting for him, waiting for changes in their lives.

There is no man on his feet.
Wind, wind -
All over the world!

When Blok was working on the poem "The Twelve", he repeatedly used the image of the wind in his notebook: "By evening, a hurricane (a constant companion of translations)" - January 3, "By evening - a cyclone" - January 6, "The wind is raging (again a cyclone? ) - January 14 ". The wind itself is perceived in the poem as well as a direct depiction of reality, since in January 1918 in Petrograd there was just such a windy and blizzard weather. The image of the wind was accompanied by images of a storm, a cold, a blizzard. These images are among the favorite in the poet's work, and the poet resorted to them when he wanted to convey the feeling of the fullness of life, the expectation of great changes by people and the excitement of the impending revolution.

Played out, something like a blizzard,
Oh blizzard, oh blizzard
Not to see each other at all
In four steps!

This night, gloomy, cold blizzard, snowstorm is opposed by lights, bright, light, warm lights.

The wind is blowing, the snow is fluttering.
Twelve people are walking.
Rifle black belts.
All around - lights, lights, lights ...

Blok himself said this about his work on the poem: “During and after the end of The Twelve, I physically felt, by hearing, a big noise around - a continuous noise (probably the noise from the collapse of the old world) ... the poem was written in that historical and always a short time, when a sweeping revolutionary cyclone produces a storm in all seas - nature, life and art. "

The number "twelve" occupies a special place in the poem. Both the revolution and the name of the poem itself are very symbolic and this magical combination of numbers can be traced everywhere. The work itself consists of twelve chapters, creating the feeling of a cycle - twelve months a year. The main characters are twelve people walking in the detachment, a rampant run-down, potential murderers and convicts. On the other hand, these are the twelve apostles, among whom the names Peter and Andrew are symbolic. The symbol of twelve is also used in the sacred number of the highest point of light and darkness. It's noon and midnight.

Closer to the end of the poem, Blok is trying to find a symbol that would mean the beginning of a new era, and thus Christ appears. The poet's Jesus Christ is not a concrete image, he is revealed to the reader as a kind of invisible symbol. Christ is not accessible to any earthly influences, it is impossible to see him:

And invisible behind the blizzard,
The bullet's music is unharmed

This silhouette can only be followed; it, as the highest moral authority, leads twelve people.

In a white corolla of roses
Ahead is Jesus Christ.

A large number of symbols and images in the poem "Twelve" makes us think about every word and sign, as we want to understand what is hidden behind them, what is the meaning. It is not for nothing that the poet takes his place alongside the great symbolists, and the poem "The Twelve" illustrates this well.

Symbolic images and their meaning. A. Blok is a wonderful, great poet who was destined to live and create at a crucial time, at the turn of two eras. He admitted that his life and creative path ran “among the revolutions,” but the poet perceived the events of October much deeper and more organically than 1905.

Perhaps this happened due to the fact that A. Blok, leaving the framework of symbolism, with which he had previously limited his work, came to the understanding that the old "terrible world" has outlived its own, and the poet's sensitive heart rushed in search of a new one. “With all your body, with all your heart, with all your consciousness - listen to the Revolution,” A. Blok urged. He knew how to listen, and we, who live 85 years after the revolution, can also hear, if we carefully read A. Blok's poem “The Twelve”. This poem contains everything: the instability of the bourgeois world in the face of new forces, and the fear of the unknown, and the spontaneity underlying the coup, and the expectation of future difficulties, and faith in victory.
Striving to describe the realities of that time as comprehensively and objectively as possible, Blok in his poem creates a whole series of vivid and ambiguous images-symbols that allow him to convey his feelings even more fully, and to us - to hear the “music of the revolution”.
One of the main symbols of the spontaneity, irrepressibility and inclusiveness of the revolution is the wind.
Wind, wind!
There is no man on his feet.
Wind, wind -
All over the world!
It reflects both the cosmic nature of the upcoming transformations, and the impossibility of a person to resist these changes. No one remains indifferent, nothing is unaffected:
The wind is cheerful
And angry and happy.
Twists the hem
Passers-by mows ...
The revolution requires sacrifices, often innocent ones. Katka dies. We don't know much about her, but we still feel sorry for her. Spontaneous forces also attract soldiers, former robbers, who indulge in ruthless robberies and robberies “on the quiet”.
Eh, eh!
Having fun is not a sin!
Lock the floors
There will be robberies today!
Open the cellars -
Nowadays there is a lot of people walking around!
This is all - the wind, and it is not for nothing that at the end it develops into a terrible blizzard, which interferes even with the Bolshevik detachment of twelve people, shields people from each other.
The image of the old, dying world appears before us in the form of a sick, homeless, hungry dog, which cannot be driven away, it is so annoying. Either he squeezes from fear and cold to the knees of the bourgeoisie, now he runs after the fighters of the revolution.
- Get off you, mangy,
I'll tickle with a bayonet!
The old world is like a lousy dog
Fail - I will beat!
The contrasting color images that permeate the poem are also symbolic:
Black evening.
White snow.
Black has a lot of meaning here. It is also a symbol of the dark, evil principle, and chaos, and the raging elements - both in the world and within a person. That is why darkness looms in front of the fighters for the new world, above them - “black, black sky”. But the snow that constantly accompanies the detachment is white. It seems to cleanse the grief and sacrifices that the revolution demands, awakens spirituality, and leads to the light. After all, it is not for nothing that at the end of the poem the main, most vivid and unexpected image appears, which has always been a symbol of purity and holiness:
With a gentle gait,
Snowy pearl,
In a white corolla of roses -
Ahead is Jesus Christ.
This is the poem by A. Blok "The Twelve" - a kind, truthful and unforgettable chronicle of the 1917 revolution.

The poem "The Twelve" is one of the best works of A. Blok. Blok based his poem on the events of the Russian revolution of 1917. The author shows us the collapse of the old and the onset of the new world. The whole poem is imbued with symbolism through and through, and although A. Blok used the symbolism in many of his works, a completely new type of artistic work appears before us. The principle of dissonance is present directly in the entire poem. The images of the poem are complex and contradictory. A. Blok depicts the revolution as an uncontrollable element.

For example, images of a blizzard, wind: Black evening, Warm snow. Wind, wind! There is no man on his feet. Wind, wind - All over the world! In the poem, Blok opposes the new world to the old, and white to the black. The remnants of the old world: bourgeois, comrade priest, lady in astrakhan fur - are replaced by the collective image of twelve Red Guards, representatives of the new world.

Twelve is the key number of the poem. There are many associations with this number. First of all, it is twelve hours - midnight, twelve months - the end of the year. As a result, we get some kind of borderline number, since the end of the old year, or day, and the beginning of the new one are the predetermination of a kind of borderline. For Blok, such a frontier was the fall of the old world.

Another number association is the twelve apostles. This is indirectly indicated by the names of two of them - Andryukha and Petrukha. A. Blok saw not only positive but also negative features in the revolution. The revolutionaries went to any lengths, even to robberies and murders: Light the floors, today there will be robberies! Open the cellars - nowadays there is a lot of empty space! The only event in the poem - Katka's murder - says the same thing. Everything happens as a spontaneous act. In the finale of the poem, twelve Red Guards walk through a blizzard. Behind them is a "hungry dog", personifying the old world, and in front is Jesus Christ with a "bloody flag".

The “bloody flag” is associated not only with the color of the revolutionary banners, but also with the blood of Katka shed in the poem. The image of Jesus Christ is very complex. This image is almost impossible to reveal. Even Blok himself could not explain why he placed this image at the end of the poem. Thanks to the symbolism, the short poem turned out to be very capacious.

Blok fit the essence of the revolution into his poem and did it with great skill. He subtly portrayed the revolutionary era. I cannot say for sure whether the Bloc supported the revolution, but I believe that the critics who said that Blok glorified the revolution were wrong.

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COMPOSITION

SYMBOLIC IMAGES AND THEIR MEANING IN THE POEM "TWELVE"

The images of the poem are complex and contradictory. A. Blok depicts the revolution as an uncontrollable element. For example, images of a blizzard, wind:

Black evening

Warm snow.

Wind, wind!

There is no man on his feet.

Wind, wind -

All over the world!

In the poem, Blok opposes the new world to the old, and white to the black. The remnants of the old world: bourgeois, comrade priest, lady in astrakhan fur - are replaced by the collective image of twelve Red Guards, representatives of the new world.

Another number association is the twelve apostles. This is indirectly indicated by the names of two of them - Andryukha and Petrukha.

A. Blok saw not only positive but also negative features in the revolution. The revolutionaries went to great lengths, even to robbery and murder:

Light up the floors

There will be robberies today!

Open the cellars -

Nowadays there is a lot of people walking around!

The only event in the poem - Katka's murder - says the same thing. Everything happens as a spontaneous act.

In the finale of the poem, twelve Red Guards walk through a blizzard. Behind them is a "hungry dog", personifying the old world, and in front is Jesus Christ with a "bloody flag".

The “bloody flag” is associated not only with the color of the revolutionary banners, but also with the blood of Katka shed in the poem.

The image of Jesus Christ is very complex. This image is almost impossible to reveal. Even Blok himself could not explain why he placed this image at the end of the poem.

Thanks to the symbolism, the short poem turned out to be very capacious.

Blok fit the essence of the revolution into his poem and did it with great skill. He subtly portrayed the revolutionary era.

I cannot say for sure whether the Bloc supported the revolution, but I believe that the critics who said that Blok glorified the revolution were wrong.

Municipal educational institution of Barabinsk secondary school № 93

ESSAY

topic: "Symbolic images in the poem" Twelve "

Performed:

11-B grade student

Smirnova Anastasia

Supervisor:

literature teacher

Introduction

When you talk about the work of a great poet, you certainly want to find poems from him that would express his poetic credo, his understanding of the essence of this most difficult and magically beautiful form of art. Blok's philosophical, historical, ethical thought found in The Twelve an extremely complete and precise artistic embodiment - in the very verbal and figurative fabric of the poem, in its composition, vocabulary, rhythm and verse. "Twelve" is one of those workshops, the most perfect works of poetry, in which the harmony of content and form so often elusive in art is achieved. This simultaneity of deep comprehension of the temporal-historical meaning of the October Revolution and the acquisition of a new artistic language is a remarkable feature of A. Blok's poem.

His poetics was based on the idea of the dialectical unity of the "general" and "particular", "personal" and "world". Poetry lives by man and serves man. (“Without a person, poetry is one pair,” said Blok.) And this person does not exist on his own, but only in relation to the whole - with the world, with society, with the people, and only in the stream of history, glimmering in his historical time. "The spirit of the people breathes in everyone," is Blok's assertion. Historicism colors all the creativity of the mature Bloc. inasmuch as reality, the very course of life, he perceived and evaluated in motion as a daily created history, and feeling himself as a particle in the stream of general motion.

Therefore, in his poetry, he would like to "immortalize everything that exists", embracing the whole world as a whole with an artistic gaze and including in it the unity of man, himself. He was most fascinated in poetry by the task of juxtaposing and combining disparate and seemingly incompatible factors and phenomena of life, culture, history, in order to capture a single and general “rhythm of time” in this way, and find a rhythmic equivalent for it in poetic speech. “All these factors, it would seem, are so different,” said Blok, “for me they have the same musical meaning. I am used to comparing facts from all areas available to my vision at a given time, and I am sure that all of them together always create a single musical thrust. " Real life is the main and decisive criterion for the mature Bloc of real art.

"Twelve" is the result of the artistic quest of the mature Bloc and the highest point of the creative path. Never before had he been able to write so freely, simply, with such plastic expressiveness, never before had his voice sounded so strong and uninhibited.

It is important to appreciate in Blok's poetry the strength and originality of the symbol, which has a powerful metaphorical beginning. It is polysemantic and unites different plans of reality, which have an internal, not immediately perceptible kinship, Blok strove to penetrate the outer shell of the visible world and, with all the artist's intuition, comprehend its deep essence, an invisible secret.

The purpose of this work: disclosure of the symbolic images of the poem "The Twelve".

Objectives: 1. to identify symbolic images;

2. to give their characteristics.

Symbolic images in the poem "The Twelve"

1.The image of the elements, revolution

Many poets had favorite "cross-cutting" images that have passed through all of their work. Blok also had this image. This is a blizzard, snow blizzard. In the poet's lyrics, she symbolized high earthly love, storms of terrible feelings in the soul. In the poem "The Twelve", the blizzard becomes a symbol of the unfolding revolutionary storm of cosmic proportions. The first lines of the poem:

Black wind.

White snow. -

sound solemn. This solemnity is enhanced by the brevity of the sentences. Immediately there is a feeling that a blizzard has played out over the entire planet, an impression is created of the global scale of events.

Wind, wind-

All over the world!

The wind, the irrepressible wind of the revolution, is inextricably linked with the blizzard. He is an active protagonist of the first chapter.

The poem opens with a picture of winter, alarming, wary Petrograd, through which the wind is blowing - evil, cheerful, merciless. Finally, he broke free and can take a long walk in the open space!

He is now the true owner of these squares, streets, back streets, he curls them in the snow, and passers-by cannot resist his gusts and blows, under his frantic onslaught. The wind sweeps away, "blows away" lonely passers-by - those who are hostile to the unfolding storm. On an empty street, one tramp is left alone with the wind. This is what the wind says to him:

Hey vagabond!

Let's kiss ...

This is the wind in the most direct and literal sense of the word, and at the same time it is also a symbol of a roaming, merciless, indomitable element, in which the spirit of the revolution, its formidable and beautiful music, is embodied for the poet.

And here and there a violent, indomitable wind walks, and only from him the poet expects an answer to the most intimate questions, on the solution of which the fate of the motherland depends - and his own fate:

Why are you the wind

Are you bending glasses?

Shutters with hinges

Are you tearing wildly?

The true hero of the poem is the raging element of the people, which has destroyed the "nagging layer" that fetters it, and sweeps through the streets of Petrograd, bristling with bayonets, the cradle of the October Revolution.

And the poet - together with this element, with this wind, sweeping away everything old, obsolete, inert and rushing with such a formidable and irresistible force that it takes your breath away. Woe to those who want to resist this element and drive it underground again - he will perish in its indomitable stream - and we see the creator of The Twelve in the poem as an enthusiastic singer of the element.

Snow blizzards burst into the poem, whistle in it, call each other, and the poet listens intently to the talk, the drone, the whispers of the formidable, watchful city, which excites with its new and unprecedented appearance, for those who hid in basements before and hid in attics, in dark and cramped kennels, they went out into the street - and turned out to be the true masters of life. Take them as they are! Love them black, everyone will love them white!

There is a bourgeois at the crossroads

And hid his nose in the collar.

And next to it, it clings to hard wool

A lousy dog with its tail between its legs.

The bourgeois stands like a hungry dog,

Stands as silent as a question.

And the old world is like a rootless dog

Stands behind him, tail between his legs.

The very outline of a human figure, reminiscent of a question mark, speaks of the confusion, "brokenness" of the old world.

Another guardian and adherent of the old "strange world", its most characteristic representative - the "lady in astrakhan", who can only endlessly mourn her former "beautiful comforts", the old order, when she lived so sweetly and at ease. She is depicted in the spirit of a popular popular print, a cheerful rash, acquiring for her the meaning of a final and irrevocable verdict:

There is a lady in karakul

I turned up to another:

We were crying, crying ...

Slipped

And - bam - stretched out!

The poet mockingly sympathizes - exclaims:

Pull up! ...,

but the "cheerful wind" will more than once knock down this "lady" and all those who mourn the hopelessly gone past and passionately yearn for its return.

3.Images of the Red Guards

The first chapter of the poem ends with an appeal:

Comrade! Look

These words persistently remind that the enemies of the revolution are not asleep, they are plotting more and more intrigues, and that it is necessary to wage a cruel, merciless battle with them.

This battle appeals to heroic deeds - and the heroic beginning of the poem is embodied in the image of the "twelve" Red Guards, guarding the October Revolution, defending its great achievements from all encroachments and attempts.

“Twelve” - in the poet's depiction - is the city's dullness, people of the “bottom”, people destitute, those who “need an ace of diamonds on their backs” - and so, according to the poet's views, the city's lower classes, people despised and “rejected”, become heralds and founders of a new world, cleansed of the filth of the abomination of the past, the apostles of a new and higher truth, and only they in his eyes are the color of the nation, its hope, the guarantee of its great and wonderful future.

They are ready to "lay down their heads" - just to get rid of the old world and on its ruins to establish a new, fair, beautiful, not knowing the need, insults, humiliations! The time has come to deal with all the old orders, with obedience, "holiness", with the spirit of non-resistance to evil - it is at him that Blok's heroes are ready to "shoot a bullet". That is why they go “to the bloody, holy and rightful battle” “without a cross,” and for too long this cross covered the violence and crimes of the “terrible world”, its masters and servants!

They can dare not only to a heroic deed, to fight the enemies of the revolution, but also to robbery, to lynching, and in a poem alongside solemnly heroic lines, permeated with revolutionary pathos and sounding like an oath of assurance lines:

We are on the mountain to the bourgeoisie

Let's fan the world fire ... -

there are dashing, mischievous cries, in which the "disastrous prowess" inherent in people who do not know doubts and fear in the struggle with the hostile forces of the old world is reflected:

Having fun is not a sin!

Lock the floors

There will be robberies today!

Open the cellars-

Nowadays there is a lot of people walking around!

There is also an innocent victim - Katka. Her - the daughter of the city's lower classes and outskirts - you see everything, from head to toe (“the legs are painfully good”), together with a crimson mole “near the right shoulder”; you see in all her charm, in her alluring charm:

I threw back my face

Teeth sparkle with pearls ...

One of the Red Guards - Petka - is ready to give everything for the charm of his beloved, he is ready to ruin everything:

Because of the prowess of the trouble

In her fiery eyes,

Because of the crimson mole

Katka didn’t squander her marvelous charm in a reckless romp - it’s not for nothing that the “poor killer,” who is pursued by her crafty, deceitful and beautiful appearance, mutters, as if in delirium:

Oh, comrades, relatives,

I loved this girl ...

The nights are black, intoxicating,

I spent with that girl ...

I ruined, stupid,

I ruined it in the heat of the moment ... ah!

And in this "ah!" so much despair, for the expression of which no words can be found. It seems a little more - and Petka will go crazy or lay hands on himself, to deal with himself is just as ridiculous, stupid, ugly, as with his unfaithful lover.

Petrukhin's "lament" in Chapter 8 explains the social meaning of his revenge and anger: he hates the "bourgeois", that old way of life, which is ultimately guilty of seducing Vanka and the death of Katka. His soul continues to rush, his "weeping" ends with an exclamation:

But the personal sufferings of the heroes are overcome by them in the name of a common movement forward. Petrukha joins his fellow Red Guards.

Lock the floors

There will be robberies today! -

this is how the comrades turn to Petka, and not only to Petka, but to the "working people"; their "revolutionary step" is becoming more and more firm, and the same Petka is again keeping pace with them - no longer stumbling, having learned from bitter experience to subordinate his irrepressible passions to a large common cause, for which it is not a pity to "lay down his head wild."

They are on the revolutionary watch. They pick up the Varshavyanka motive. The motive of the gulba disappears. The motive for revolutionary duty is growing.

Bringing such people as Petka and his comrades to the forefront of his poem, focusing the movement of the plot in the story of ill-fated love for the "fat-faced" Katka, emphasizing the dark that was in the heroes of the poem, who grew up and were brought up in the conditions of the "terrible world" and were daily oppressed and corrupted by him, the poet thereby sharpens our attention on the shadow sides of the revolution, on its "grimaces" - and not because he did not see its other sides, beautiful, joyful, bright, but, as we see, for completely different reasons.

The very title of the poem has a double meaning. The collective hero of the poem is the Red Guard patrol, guarding the revolutionary order in Petrograd. However, the twelve Red Army soldiers are not just an accurate household detail, but also a symbol. According to the gospel legend, the twelve apostles, disciples of Christ, were the heralds of a new teaching, a new era.

The heroes of the poem - the Red Guard detachment of "twelve" - by no means "bring the world the good news of the rebirth of man to a new life", but are forces of destruction within the artistic world of the poem, while making fun of all the symbols of Christian holiness. But it is not by chance that the "twelve", by the author's will, "go without the name of the saint": they "do not pity" not only the "lousy dog" and the "old world", but "nothing is pity".

The heroes of the poem go into battle “without the name of a saint”, and the saying accompanying their steps and actions is “eh, eh, without a cross!”; they are atheists, who are ridiculed even by the mere mention of Christ, of "salvation":

Oh, what a blizzard, save me!

Petka! Hey, don't lie!

What saved you from

Golden iconostasis!

And yet the work they do, not sparing their blood and life itself, for the sake of the future of all mankind, is right and sacred. That is why the god invisible by the Red Guards - in accordance with the views of Blok - is nevertheless with them, and at the head of them the poet sees one of the hypostases of the deity - the god-son:

... Ahead - with a bloody flag,

And invisible behind the blizzard,

And unharmed from the bullet,

With a gentle gait,

Snowy pearl,

In a white corolla of roses -

Ahead is Jesus Christ.

4 the image of Christ

The image of Christ, closing the poem and seemingly accidental, strange, unjustified, was neither accidental, nor strange, nor arbitrary for Blok himself, as evidenced by the many of his statements, oral and written, in which the poet returns to this the same image, seeking to assert its regularity and necessity.

Christ in Blok's poem walks "with a bloody flag", walks ahead of the "poor killer" and his comrades - it is not surprising that some readers of the poem saw in her only blasphemy and "desecration of the cherished shrines." But the poet himself perceived this image and its interpretation in a completely different way, it is not in vain that Christ walks “in a white crown of roses,” which, according to ancient legends, is a symbol of purity, holiness, and purity.

Christ in Blok's poem is the intercessor of all who were once “driven out and beaten”, carrying with him “not peace, but a sword” and who came to punish their oppressors and oppressors. This Christ is the embodiment of justice itself, which finds its highest expression in the revolutionary aspirations and deeds of the people, no matter how severe and even cruel they may look in the eyes of another sentimentally inclined person. Ahead are the "twelve", in the "white rose rim", and this "white rim" in a strange and almost incomprehensible way is combined with the "ace of diamonds" of his new apostles.

Christ was supposed to appear in the poem as a symbol of the renewal of life. But for most of the real Red Guards, Christ was actually identified with the religion and tsarism against which they fought. For the poet, Christ was not a symbol of humility, but, on the contrary, of resistance to the authorities. In the view of Blok, he embodies the people's ideals, directly opposes his earthly servants. This is expressed quite clearly in the poem: Christ is at the head of the Red Guards, and the "comrade priest" is destroyed by the poet's irony, as the embodiment of churchism alien to him.

Christ appears at the end of the poem as the ideal of man, created by the people and strengthened in their consciousness. If we accept this interpretation of this image, then it becomes clear why the poet put on Christ a “white crown of roses” - this is, as it were, a symbol of the moral height that Christ was endowed with in the popular imagination for many centuries. This perfect man welcomes the moral awakening, the path begun by the Red Guards to human perfection. This path they will go through torment and suffering, "without the name of the holy." Christ is powerless to guide and inspire them. But as the ideal of man, he is invisible with them, ahead of them - with a red banner, invisible "behind the blizzard" and unharmed "from the bullet." The wind dresses him in a "white rose corolla" and merges with him.

5. Symbolism of color, musical rhythm

The symbolism of colors is of great importance in the poem. The poem is dominated by two irreconcilable colors - black and white. But on the other hand, their appearance in each case is capacious and symbolic. Two worlds are in conflict - old and new. And this corresponds to the opposition of two colors, two colors in the poem - white, symbolizing the new, and black, the color of a passing and destroyed life. This opposition of the old and the new determines the structure of the poem. A global storm is raging across the universe.

The white blizzard is contrasted with black: the old world is crumbling into a black abyss, black anger boils in the chest of a tramp, a black sky stretches overhead.

Red is also symbolic in the poem - the color of anxiety, rebellion, revolutionary flag

The element is embodied not only in the color symbolism of the poem, but also in the variety of musical rhythms in almost every chapter.

The whole poem is filled with this music of the unfolding element. Music is heard both in the whistle of the wind, and in the marching step of "twelve", and in the "gentle tread" of Christ. Music is on the side of the revolution, on the side of the new, pure, white. The old (black) world is devoid of music, its groans are accompanied only by the sentimental vulgar melody of urban romance ("inaudible to the noise of the city").

When, for example, a detachment of twelve enters a poem, the rhythm becomes clear, marching. The change in rhythm determines the extraordinary dynamics of the verse. Thanks to the energy of the rhythm, literally every word “works”: “The power of the rhythm raises the word on the ridge of the musical wave ...”.

The step of the Red Guards becomes a truly "sovereign step", and the marching, clear, formidable line of poetry naturally ends with words that sound like a slogan, an order, a call to fight for a new life:

Go-go,

Working people!

With the appearance of Christ, the rhythm changes: the lines are long, musical, as if universal silence comes.

Conclusion

The poem "The Twelve" is really a genius creation, because Blok, contrary to his intention to sing the Great October a little month after the fatal salvo of the Aurora.

Everything in the poem seems extraordinary: the world is intertwined with the everyday; revolution with grotesque; hymn with a ditty; The "vulgar" plot, taken as if from the chronicle of newspaper incidents, ends with a majestic apotheosis; the unheard-of "rudeness" of the vocabulary enters into a complex relationship with the finest verbal and musical constructions.

The poem is full of symbolic images. These are the images of the elements, the wind, symbolizing the revolutionary changes in Russia, which no one can either hold back or stop; and a generalized image of the old, outgoing, obsolete world; and the images of the Red Guards - the defenders of a new life; and the image of Christ as a symbol of the new world, bringing moral purification to humanity, the age-old ideals of humanism, as a symbol of justice, which finds its highest expression in the revolutionary aspirations and deeds of the people, as a symbol of the sacredness of the cause of the Revolution. Even the use of color and musical rhythm is symbolic for Blok.

All the symbols of the poem have their immediate meaning, but together they not only create a complete picture of the post-revolutionary days, but also help to understand the author's feelings, his sense of contemporary reality, his attitude to what is happening. After all, the poem "The Twelve" - for all the tragedy of its plot - is permeated with an unbreakable faith in the great and wonderful future of Russia, which "has infected all mankind with its health" (as the poet himself said), with faith in the enormous, immeasurable forces of her people, which were once fettered , squeezed into a "useless knot", and now amazed the whole world with their scope and indestructible creative power.

The poem is striking with such an inner breadth, as if the whole raging raging, just breaking the centuries-old fetters, washed with blood, Russia was contained on its pages - with its aspirations, meditations, heroic impulses into the boundless distance, and this Russia is a storm, Russia is a revolution, Russia is a new the hope of all mankind is the main symbolic image of Blok, the greatness of which gives such great importance to his October poem.

List of used literature

1. Vl. Orlov. Block "Twelve". - M .; publishing house "Khudozhestvenno-naya literatura", 1967

2.. A. Blok. - Leningrad branch, 1980.

3.. ... Poems. Poem. - Moscow, 2002.