Poetic art, like any other, consists of many components. What is the poem made of? Probably, anyone can recall from the school literature lessons such basic components of poetry as size or rhyme. In fact, rhyme and size are just the external parameters of the work, so to speak, its âtechnical characteristicsâ. They only help express the innermost essence of the poem. A poet cannot do without technical mastery, but what is called a "poetic image" is no less important. This is an element of poem, connected not with form, but with the content of the poem.
Any work of art is the embodiment of the thoughts and feelings of its creator. At the same time, the creator usually tries to express his thoughts as if bypassing the words and expressions familiar to us. This is especially true of poetry. No wonder Yunna Moritz wrote:
For the teeth, poetry holds the tongue.
All the same poetess Yunna Moritz wrote in the same poem "The Blue Beast" that the goal of poetic art is "to sing the name, but not to betray." By "name" here is meant the idea, the theme of the poem, its core, its foundation. But the reader can find the ânameâ in the poem only by straining the imagination, since it is âhiddenâ from the readerâs consciousness by expressive means. This is partly the art of the poet. And one of the most important poetic means that subjugates the rest is the so-called poetic image.
Etymology of the phenomenon
Most often, the thoughts and feelings of the creator are embodied in creativity with the help of images. In general, what is this - an image? Let us turn to the etymology of this word. It came into Russian from Old Slavonic, where it denoted "face" or "cheek". The word "image" is also used in Greek in the meaning of "icon", "image".
The essence of the phenomenon
Any artistic (including poetic) image chosen by the creator to express his thoughts is familiar to the average reader. This is usually some completely familiar object or phenomenon, for example, a natural phenomenon that we often observe. At the same time, the artist reveals this phenomenon so that it unexpectedly opens to the reader in a completely new light. Brilliant creations reveal in the familiar objects and phenomena surrounding us that which no one has noticed in them. And then the object or phenomenon becomes the studied phenomenon.
A poetic image helps to create a detailed comparison, and such objects or phenomena, the similarities between which no one noticed. Or, perhaps, objects or phenomena are selected externally similar to each other, but the creator finds unexpected points of contact.
The phenomenon under study on the example of a poem by M. Tsvetaeva
A brilliant example of the brightest phenomenon under study is the "Poem of the Mountain" by Marina Tsvetaeva. Well, it would seem a mountain - any child knows what it is. However, for M. Tsvetaeva, the image of a mountain is just a means for the reader to understand the unprecedented power of passion experienced by lyrical heroes. This passion is the size of a tall mountain, the peaks of which are directed to heaven:
Because we came to this world -
Celestials of love
Having delved into the specifics of a complex concept, we will try to answer the question of which poetic images are most often found in poetry.
Studied phenomenon in folk art
You should probably start with the image of nature. It is very widespread in the poems of various poets. Among the works in which the image of nature plays an important role, are purely landscape lyrics, and philosophical and love poems, for which nature is only a means to clarify, clarify and most fully reveal the authorâs thought.
With landscape lyrics, probably, everything is clear - here nature acts as an object of worship, admiration, admiration. To understand the role of nature in love lyrics, let us first turn to folk art. In the genre of folk lyric songs, such a poetic means as figurative parallelism has long been used. Its essence is to compare the state of man, his thoughts, his feelings and experiences with the natural world. In folk songs constructed in this way, one stanza usually describes a certain phenomenon of nature, the other a state of the human soul identical to it:
A foggy red sun, foggy.
That in the fog of the red sun is not visible.
Kruchinna the red girl, sad;
Nobody knows her twigs.
Poetic image of nature in professional poetry
Poets also resorted to comparing the mental state of the lyrical hero with different states of nature.
I'm cold - you know?
I'm cold - do you hear? ...
Forest road
Within the walls, but without a roof.
And the sky is full of holes
And with a little caplet ...
At the muddy ditch I threw a rake.
Cold drops
Flowing under the shirt
Frozen fingers torment the daisy.
Chamomile said:
-Does not love ... I know!
Neither fairies nor mermaids -
Forest road!
I can do everything
I don't think to cry
But screaming again
Into this shaky slush
So that the scream rises
All further, all higher.
-Love you! Do you know?
I love you, do you hear ?!
In this poem by M. I. Tsvetaeva, the feeling of homelessness that we all feel in the cold rainy season is mixed with the bitterness of deep longing for a loved one, but not a loving person. It does not even become very clear why the lyrical heroine is cold, or rather, why she is colder: from the weather or the feeling of dislike. And this only enhances the impression.
The image of poetry. A blessing or a curse?
Another vivid image created by the luminaries of the word is the poetic image of poetry. Yes, poetic art itself was often praised by its servants. Let us briefly touch on this phenomenon.
The image of poetry in the poems of A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov and others is certainly associated with the lyrical hero (the poet himself usually acts as the prototype), his gift, destiny and destiny. Typically, poems that reveal the image of poetry belong to philosophical lyrics. Often poets in these poems ask about the same question: a blessing or a curse is the gift of heaven given them. The image of poetry helps to reveal the chosenness of its servant: a poet is a prophet, a servant of God, called by Him to be a constant irritant for society, so as not to allow this society to wallow in indifference. It is significant that the image of the prophet to express the poetâs chosenness is used in poems by both Pushkin and Lermontov. This is another example of a skillfully presented image in poetic speech.
The image of poetry as a terrible art, constantly requiring the blood of its minister, is revealed to the utmost in Nikolai Gumilyovâs poem "Magic Violin" dedicated to Valery Bryusov:
Itâs necessary to sing and cry forever to these strings, sonorous strings,
Eternally must fight, curl maddened bow,
And under the sun, and under the blizzard, under the whitening breaker,
And when the west burns, and when the east burns.
You get tired and slow down, and for a moment the song stops
And you wonât be able to shout, move and breathe, -
Immediately rabid wolves in a bloodthirsty frenzy
They grip their throats with their teeth and stand with their paws on their chest.
You will understand then how viciously laughed all that sang,
A belated, but imperious fear looks into their eyes.
And the dreary mortal cold wraps around the body like a cloth
And the bride weeps, and a friend thinks.
In general, the verses of various poets, revealing the image of poetry and the poet, are similar in concept.
The image of the homeland by the example of the lyrics of A. A. Blok
Another extremely important image for understanding Russian poetry is the image of the homeland. It is inextricably linked with the image of nature, because love for the homeland most often begins precisely with love for the mother nature. However, along with poems glorifying the âuncomplicated beautyâ of Russian nature and through this of Russia itself, there are many poems in which the image of the homeland plays an independent and dominant role. To illustrate what was said, I would like to dwell on the lyrics of Alexander Alexandrovich Blok.
For this poet, the poetic image of his homeland has become one of the central images of his lyrics. The poetâs attitude towards his native country is unusual: for him she is a living person, and not just any person, but her beloved woman, whose mystery the poet in love tries to solve over and over in her poems. In the textbook cycle "On the Kulikovo Field" the images of the beloved woman and the native country practically merge together:
Oh, my Russia! My wife! To pain
We have a long way to go!
The poet is rooting for his native country with all his heart, and at the same time, realizing that she will have to endure many sorrows, he is confident in her bright future (excerpt from the poem "Russia":
I do not know how to regret you
And I carefully carry my cross ...
What sorcerer do you want
Give the robber beauty!
Let them lure and deceive, -
You will not disappear, you will not disappear
And only care will cloud
Your beautiful traits ...
Blok's poems are the clearest examples of revealing the image of the homeland in poetry. They are unique in that their intimate sincerity makes them remember not so much about civilian as about love lyrics. The block refers to his native country precisely as a beloved woman.
Conclusion
Maxim Shvets in his book "Technology of Russian versification" defines poetry as "figurative literary and artistic speech." From this it follows that the phenomenon under study in poetic speech is extremely important. If rhyme and size streamline the poetic speech, organize its form, then the images are the flesh and blood of the poem, they reveal to the reader the inner essence of the story, its content, meaning, mystery. Not a rhyme, not a size, but a poetic image of words forms a poem and makes real art.