"Houses of Old Moscow": dedication to dear old times

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

The work of M. Tsvetaeva is difficult to fit into a certain framework of literary movements. She is always alone, standing alone. The conflict between everyday life and being is very characteristic of the poetess. An excellent example is her early poem "Houses of Old Moscow". She predicted the emergence of a new unrecognizable Moscow, which swept away everything that even slightly reminded of its historical past, and most importantly, of the people who lived and loved in it.

About the work of Marina Ivanovna

The poetess does not belong to her time, even when she creates specific and clear images, concretizing the situation. It dissolves in the rapidly flowing time of other worlds. The flow of elusive, flexible rhythms - these are the main signs of the poetess's verse. Visual images are not her main strength, although in the poem “Houses of Old Moscow” we see them quite accurately: wooden, with columns, with peeling whitewash, with worn chairs inside, with card tables, with a bureau where letters are stored on yellowed paper. And I remember the painting by V. Polenov "Grandma's Garden".

Poems by M. Tsvetaevaare born spontaneously, as it were, obeying the laws of speech, and not the melody, and she conventionally divides them into stanzas. The poetess herself wrote in her diaries that behind everything she saw a secret, the true essence of things. Therefore, she transformed the real world in accordance with the highest harmonies, which are subject to divine providence and are intended for the elect. In Russian poetry it is no longer possible to find a poet with such a heightened, very special perception of reality. The world surrounding M. Tsvetaeva unites the material, earthly and spiritual, ideal, heavenly. Her every day fits into the future life, and life itself falls into eternity. The romanticism of her attitude rises to the heights of realism.

Her poetic speech was innovative. In the words of M. Tsvetaeva, one can hear her restless spirit, which is looking for the truth, the ultimate truth. The intensity of feelings and the uniqueness of the talent of M. Tsvetaeva, a man of an incredibly difficult fate, have found their rightful place in Russian poetry.

Elegiac mood

The poem "Houses of Old Moscow" was written in 1911. The poetess was only nineteen years old, but how accurately and truly, with what force of lyrical sadness she described the forever walking era of the 1870s. In "Houses" the elegy of longing for the past that is leaving forever, for the already lost, is concentrated. She admires the paints of noble culture still somewhere left. “Houses of old Moscow” Tsvetaeva colored with the aestheticization of antiquity. The bitterness of their sunset fading is heard in every stanza. She saw in them a true face, full of the languid and quiet charms of Moscow, opposing the newmarching progress in the form of overweight six-story freaks that began to fill the space of the city.

In the elegiac poem "Houses of Old Moscow" one can read the epitaph of the dear old times. “Where,” she asks, “are the painted ceilings, the mirrors up to the ceilings?” Why don't we hear the chords of the harpsichord, why don't we see the heavy dark curtains in the flowers? Where did the oval portraits in gilded frames disappear, from which lovely ladies in wigs and prominent brave men in army uniforms or with standing collars in uniforms looked at point-blank range? Where are the carved cast-iron gates that seemed to stand for centuries, where is their eternal decoration - lion muzzles? This is the theme of "Houses".

Poetic paths

The poem "Houses of Old Moscow" consists of six quatrains written in dactyl. The epithet "languid" is repeated twice, making the heart ache. Other epithets - "secular gates", "wooden fence", "painted ceilings" - tell about the former grandeur of the native antiquity, which has not lost its beauty and attractiveness. The disappearance of these houses is metaphorically conveyed. They disappear, like ice palaces, instantly, at the wave of an evil magic wand. The loving heart of the poetess gently refers to this little world, using diminutive suffixes: not houses, but houses, not alleys, but alleys. The poem begins and ends with parallelisms.

Instead of a conclusion

The poetess from a young age sought to express her emotional experiences. She was far fromall stereotypes. M. Tsvetaeva left an extraordinary and original mark in our poetry, which does not fit into the historical boundaries of time.