The poem, which will be discussed, is undoubtedly the most famous work in the work of the great poet of the Silver Age Alexander Alexandrovich Blok. This article analyzes the poem "Night, Street, Lantern, Pharmacy". What did Blok want to say in his small but very popular, and for many, incomprehensible and mysterious creation?
Night, street, lantern, pharmacy
It is impossible to analyze Blok's poem without reading the work itself. Despite the fact that many know these eight famous lines by heart, the following is the original poems.
Night, street, lantern, pharmacy,
Meaningless and dim light.
Live another quarter century
Everything will be so. There is no outcome.
If you die, you will start over again
And everything will be repeated, as old:
Night, icy ripples of the canal,
Pharmacy, street, lantern.
History of creation
Historical analysis of the poem "Night, Street, Lantern, Pharmacy" shows that the work was created in 1912. The poet wrote it on October 10, in the St. Petersburg apartment of house number 57 on Dekabristov Street (at that time - Officers Street). Currently, this apartment has become a museum of the Block.
The first to whom Blok showed his gloomy lines was his friend, also a poet - Vasily Gippius. Vasily Vasilievich recalled in his memoirs that he was struck by the despondency reigning between these lines, and the only thing he could say was to notice that his house also has a pharmacy. To this, Blok without a shadow of a smile replied: "All houses have a pharmacy."
Initially, it was assumed that the prototype of the pharmacy was the Vinnikov pharmaceutical shop, located just on Officerskaya Street, next to the Blok's house. But from there the channel which is mentioned in verses is not visible. But from the pharmacy located opposite the Mariinsky Theater, the canal is visible, and the poet liked to make night walks in the area.
The hopelessness of the verses was inspired by the poet of time: the upcoming changes, literally floating in the air, instilled in the delicate, sensitive natures a feeling of loss, loneliness and monotony. Those who did not belong to the revolutionary movement were either afraid of change or did not believe in them. The block belonged to the latter, not just not believing, but precisely believing that even the most global changes would not affect the natural course of things:
Live at least a quarter century - everything will be so. There is no outcome.
Blok’s personal poem about night streets, a lantern and a pharmacy helps to analyze Blok’s personal life: three years earlier, in 1909, the young son and father of Alexander Alexandrovich died. Perhaps the recent loss also affected the poet, who decided to move away from symbolism, divorced from harsh reality.
Analysis
"Night, street, lantern, pharmacy" - a poem that amazes with the ratio of capacity and power, refers to the lyrical genre and philosophical theme of the "terrible world", very common at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. To emphasize hopelessness, Alexander Blok uses cyclicality - verses begin and end with the same words. There is also an increase in the semantic load, emphasizing the decadent mood: "meaningless light", "there is no outcome," "you will die." The word "pharmacy" also hints at a fatal outcome: it is not for nothing that the creation of Blok about night streets, a lantern and a pharmacy is presented precisely in the Dance of Death cycle. Analyzing the poems from this poetry collection, it is clear that they are all connected by the theme of melancholy and death. Most likely, the lyrical hero, killed by despair and tired of seeing the same thing every night - a deserted street, a lantern and a pharmacy building - wanders along the canal, thinking about suicide. However, he concludes that a single death will not change anything:
If you die, you will start over again.
It should be mentioned, at least briefly, the analysis of the poem "Night, Street, Lantern, Pharmacy" from a morphological point of view. The work is written in the form of a four-foot iamba, using a cross rhyme, most often found in the poet's work.
Philosophy and Influence
Analyzing the poem "Night, Street, Lantern, Pharmacy", we can say that this work is still relevant today. At all times, people reflected on the topic of life and death, many philosophical works have been written about this. The genius of these verses of Blok is that in only eight stanzas he was able to succinctly express the thoughts of each person who faces melancholy or feels on the verge of death, seeing around him the same gloomy picture, like in a poem: night, pharmacies, streets and lights. Analysis of the work does not reveal what answer Block himself came to. Most likely, the value of the work is that it helps to formulate the question. And everyone needs to find an answer that helps them realize how everything will be, and what exactly should be repeated “like an old man”.
Blok's contemporaries, analyzing the poem "Night, Street, Lantern, Pharmacy", called it the most ingenious of all written in the first decade of the 20th century.