The subject of this review is the analysis of Mayakovsky’s poem “Good Attitude to Horses”. It was written by the poet in the post-revolutionary time, in 1918. The work is very different from his previous works, imbued with revolutionary romance and pathos of struggle. This time, the author turned to lyrical subjects, to thoughts about the difficulties of human life.
Brief description of creativity
V.V. Mayakovsky belonged to the futuristic trend in Russian culture. Representatives of this direction put forward rather radical demands, insisting on the rejection of traditional classical literature, considering the pre-revolutionary and some modern writers obsolete, and their works - having lost their aesthetic and moral value. In exchange, they proposed the creation of a fundamentally new art, language, and literary forms. V.V. Mayakovsky, adhering to this principle, paid special attention to creating a language different from the vocabulary of pre-revolutionary authors. He came up with many neologisms, which became the hallmark of his works and all creativity in general.
Theme
Most of the poet's works are imbued with revolutionary pathos. It is known that he enthusiastically accepted the October Revolution, with which he had high hopes for a change in society as a whole. It is all the more surprising that the very next year after the mentioned coup, he writes a work that was completely unlike previous works. An analysis of Mayakovsky’s poem “Good Attitude to Horses” shows how versatile the talent of the poet was, who knew how to combine revolutionary themes with a deep dramatic feeling. At the same time, his lyrics are always optimistic: the author always expresses hope for something better, bright, good. These features are clearly reflected in the work under consideration.
Introduction
An analysis of Mayakovsky’s poem “Good Attitude to Horses” should begin by highlighting its semantic parts for a better understanding of the composition and thoughts of the author. The work can be conditionally divided into five episodes: a street description, a horse falling, a crowd mocking, the protagonist’s sympathy for a poor animal, and, finally, the ending, in which the horse itself rose, and the poet expresses the idea of the need to live and work on.
The work begins with a short but very expressive introduction, in which Mayakovsky paints a picture of a winter street. With these short lines, the poet immediately reproduces the view of the pavement in front of readers, on which passers-by are crowding and a horse is walking. The author conveys a sound from her hooves with a special combination of letters: “mushroom”, “robbery”, “rude”. Thus, he allows his reader to hear her movement and footsteps on frozen stones.
Tie
The analysis of Mayakovsky’s poem “Good Attitude to Horses” should be continued by designating the features of the image by the author of the incident itself - the fall of the animal and the subsequent reaction of passers-by. It is noteworthy that the poet speaks very briefly directly about the fall itself (“the horse crashed down”), but it emphasizes the lack of heart and indifference of the crowd gathered around it, which not only does nothing to help the poor animal, but teases and mocks him in every way. Mayakovsky bitterly conveys the ridicule of the crowd in such expressions: "laughter rang and rang," "Kuznetskiy laughed." In addition to indignation, in these short lines you can clearly hear the hero’s contempt for the stupid and ignorant crowd who was about to stare at the incident.
Idea
The verse “Good relation to horses” has a deep humanistic content, which manifests itself in the position of a lyrical hero. The latter is the only one present who not only did not join the scoffers, but also sympathized with the injured animal, saying words of encouragement and comfort: “Horse, don’t, horse, listen ...” Here you need to pay attention to how touching the author describes her external the look with which pity and compassion he watches her. It seems that only he noticed her tears and drew attention to how exhausted she was and how much she suffered and even cried. These observations also characterize the lyrical hero as a person deeply vulnerable and subtly feeling the pain and injustice of the world around him.
Meaning
So, a very special place in the work of Mayakovsky is the poem "Good attitude to horses." The theme of this work is not revolutionary pathetics, but humanistic pathos. Indeed, the poet refers to the injured animals in general when people say that every person looks like such a horse. The lyrical hero is Mayakovsky himself, who also very often had to face a lack of understanding of others. However, he does not lose optimism and pep, saying that we should continue to live, work, work. That is why the work ends in the fact that the animal nevertheless rose itself, despite the ridicule and mockery of the crowd.
Thus, when describing the poet’s work, one should always take into account his poem “Good attitude to horses”. The main idea of the work is the author’s appeal to readers not to pass by someone else’s grief, but to help the victim, to support him in difficult times, which is the humanistic meaning of the work.