Analysis of the poem "Children of the Night" by Merezhkovsky D.S

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky is a prominent representative of symbolism in Russian culture. This trend in the future has a lot of talented followers. Many admirers of Merezhkovsky's work call him a prophet of his time and prescribe him the ability to guess future events. In fact, the poet was a smart, educated person who knew how to feel the surrounding atmosphere and predict where the wind of change would blow from.

An analysis of the poem "Children of the Night" by Merezhkovsky shows how accurately the author felt the future changes in society. In the work, Dmitry Sergeevich described the events that would happen in two decades, because the verse was written in 1895, and the revolution took place in 1917. At the time of writing the poem, no one had any idea about the imminent coup, but the poet already then understood that the people needed a shake-up. He caught the general mood of the crowd, realized that people had lost all pure and bright feelings that could protect them from worldly fuss and dirt.

AnalysisMerezhkovsky's poem "Children of the Night" indicates that the author did not know exactly about the future of his people. He understood that people were tired of crawling on their knees, not seeing further prospects for a better life. Dmitry Sergeevich calls his generation “children of the night”, because they wander in the dark in search of a way out and wait for the “prophet”. Only now, even the poet did not guess that a ruthless and insidious messiah would come to power. Dmitry Merezhkovsky wrote poetry with the understanding that society is on the threshold of the twentieth century, and it is so mired in dirt and sins that it needs a strong shake-up.

The writer does not realize that very little time will pass, and people will kill each other for their beliefs, and the revolution will take tens of thousands of lives. An analysis of the poem "Children of the Night" by Merezhkovsky makes it possible to understand that the author excludes the divine origin of man and hints at the need for purification. At the same time, the poet suggests that light can be destructive to people. Dmitry Sergeevich also ranks himself among the "children of the night" and understands that he will not be able to avoid their fate. How exactly the people will be cleansed from sins, the author does not know.

When Dmitry Merezhkovsky wrote "Children of the Night", he did not know that very little time would pass, and he himself would suffer from the long-awaited shake-up. The poet is firmly convinced that each person needs to climb his own Golgotha in order to be cleansed of dirt and start a new life or perish. An analysis of the poem "Children of the Night" by Merezhkovsky shows that the author wanted a revolution, becausethat he dreamed of a better life for his people.

In fact, everything turned out to be much more prosaic. In 1919, Dmitry Sergeevich had to leave St. Petersburg forever, where the "Beast" settled. Until his death, the poet lived in Paris and believed that he fully deserved such a fate. Until the end of his days, Merezhkovsky reproached himself for indecision and for not trying to pull his country out of the revolutionary abyss at the right moment, although he foresaw future battles between light and dark forces.