The literature of the twenties is rich and diverse, and we are fortunate to have such a great legacy. However, the most controversial nugget in the crown of Russian literature is Vladimir Mayakovsky. His works excite, and to this day readers find more and more new messages between the lines. Mayakovsky’s work “About This” was repeatedly analyzed and is considered the most important and crucial in his work. Let's take a closer look at it.
Mayakovsky ...
This man lived only 36 years and it seemed that he could live to a very old age and give the world his new extraordinary creations. But not fate. The whole essence of his works was in the reflection of the thoughts and feelings of the poet, and he had them in abundance. To call Mayakovsky’s temper ardent and vulnerable will be, to put it mildly, a modest decision. A riot of emotions darted inside him and poured out on everything around, no matter what came across on the way. As contemporaries later describe, Vladimir Vladimirovich's not-so-grandiose creations were born when calm came in his outlook. By the way, such moments happened very rarely.
Emotions were the driving force and muse of the poet, which he sought daily. Thus was created the best work of Mayakovsky "About it." The author looked older than his years due to strict facial features and serious expression. Mayakovsky’s figure was stately, well-built, and he was about 189 centimeters tall. The voice is unusually booming, deep, to match its nature and appearance. Against the background of all this, poetry-reflections are born, emotional, masculine, massive and loud. Many poems were later analyzed, but “About It” by Vladimir Mayakovsky most attracted the attention of historians.
Of course, given all this, it is difficult to imagine any romantic and soft features in the poet. However, Mayakovsky expressed the strongest and most beautiful feeling in the poem “About This” for the first time in such a capacious and open way. The world saw verses not in the form of familiar quatrains, but in the unusual form of a “ladder”. They were like a slogan and in every word called on the reader. Vladimir Vladimirovich liked this option and he created his subsequent works in a unique manner. And he wrote his poem, singing the only love and muse for life.
... and Lily Brik
This is a woman about whom everyone spoke differently, but always said. She could not help but leave an impression, many men lost their heads after meeting her. However, her main love, as Lilia Yuryevna admitted, was not Mayakovsky, but Osip Brik's first husband .
They met in their youth, and for seven years he gently and in a friendly way won her favor. In 1912, their wedding took place, then Lily was then 21 years old. Already in 1915, fate first brought her together with Vladimir Mayakovsky, and until his death she was present in his life and was the only main love that inspired the poet. He devoted almost all of his works to her, where Mayakovsky’s “About This” is the main thing, a brief analysis of which will be described below.
About everything, but about her
The poem "About This" was written in two months, from December 28, 1922 to February 28, 1923. This is due to the request of Lilia Brik to pause the relationship and live in different places for a couple of months. For Mayakovsky it was a difficult two months, during which he decided to write down his feelings in a poem. Indeed, during this period he never called his lover, although he gave her flowers, birds and other signs of attention.
Mayakovsky’s analysis of “About This” begins with the big picture. The reader will find a journey through the fate of the author, where he meets relatives, his beloved, society and himself next to the river Neva, dear to his heart. He rushes through Moscow, he seeks the truth. There is a past, a future, a present, it seems that Mayakovsky made a thesis description of what he feels, what worries him. However, the cause of such unrest is Lily.
Feelings overwhelm every word, and, summing up, the reader will see how closely Vladimir Mayakovsky is in this poem, how little space and how much misunderstanding. The works have a beginning, an end, the borders of a sheet and a point, but for the author himself, these are conventions for which he urges to go. So he calls and his love.
Part 1. Torment
Mayakovsky draws in the imagination of the reader a certain topic, mysterious and well-known to everyone. Great and disarming. She torments and beckons anyway. The topic name is revealed in the last line only as a rhyme. The reader himself guesses that the main word is love. Here the emotional endurance of each line inherent in the poet is obvious. He himself is stressed by his feelings and makes others feel stressed while reading. Difficult speech turns and comparisons emphasize the importance, complexity of feelings. Love is really not a simple thing, but in separation from Lily Mayakovsky felt this to the fullest.
Part 2. Recognition
According to early analysis of Mayakovsky’s poem “About This”, it was not just a description of reality and persons, but a grotesque presentation of his soul to the public. And much lived in it.
The declaration of love to her Leela was revealed in detail through the scene in the apartment - the prison, where the poet was locked from the outside world. It was difficult for him to be separated, and in his dreams, of course, he hoped at least for a phone call. Mayakovsky exalted him unreasonably high. A conversation with Lily would be for him a salvation, a quenching of this spiritual thirst. The poet compares his experiences with an earthquake that is noticed even on the street, and he, like a bear floating on an ice floe, is lonely and helpless.
So Vladimir Vladimirovich confesses his weakness to love, his unwittingness and fear of not being heard. Comparison with a bear is called by contemporaries an analogy with Trickster - a semi-deity and a half-man with a dual contradictory nature.
Part 3. At a telephone distance
In fact, during the writing of the poem, Mayakovsky did not communicate with Lily either personally or by telephone. The distance between the couple was quite within reach, and with a call it would have been reduced by a thousand times. However, communication did not take place, and the poet began to feel an abyss the size of an entire universe. In some lines of the poem “About This,” Mayakovsky observes a certain scene with his comrades. A situation usual for that time, when young people gathered together to relax, dance and have fun. The poet concretizes his renunciation. Describes being afraid to meet "her." But "she" can save the author from death. Vladimir Vladimirovich abruptly pulls himself together in a few lines. He reflects on his share and says to himself that once he has stood for 7 years, then another 200 can, without waiting for salvation.
We continue the analysis. Mayakovsky’s “About This” in the initial part explains that we are talking about the period from the moment he met Lilia Brik. These were agonizing years for a man, but for the poet, time was rich in inspirational impulses. Therefore, realizing his dependence, he is ready to stand 200 years, waiting for his beloved.
Part 4. Running
The controversial hero of the poem begins to run. He sees a man on a bridge in danger. And without analysis, it’s obvious that this is Mayakovsky himself, only a few years earlier. A reference to the past, which, apparently, was a desire to change. Further on the way there are relatives who also do not hear the pleas for the salvation of the "double on the bridge." Vladimir Mayakovsky is convinced of the primitive love of his loved ones and leaves them. Mayakovsky’s poem “About This”, an analysis of which we are doing, in this part has shown specialists that the grotesque manner flows from one image to another and permeates the entire work. But, in this way, it becomes obvious that the author wants to show his exalted, unlike other love.
Part 5. Fear
The journey came to an end, and time seemed to cease to chase after the stream of thoughts of the poet. He finds himself on top of a mountain, from where he sees people standing below. They do not understand the purity of thoughts, and what he writes is not for money. The crowd, like horses in spurs, sees nothing around, except routine and life. For this they shoot at the author from different weapons. It’s scary to be misunderstood, it’s scary to become an enemy.
Mayakovsky has a sense of narcissism, although he did not recognize and did not show it. When analyzing this passage, the author’s elevation above the crowd is striking. From a distance, he reminds of Jesus, who was crucified for his sincere desire to help people and educate them, teach them to draw conclusions and conduct analysis. Mayakovsky wrote the poem "About This", however, emphasizing his atheism and communism.
Vera
It seems that the hero of the poem disappeared under the bullets, but Mayakovsky continues to reason after all the events with a kind of epilogue. The poet’s soul has sincere hope for future generations: they will be able and willing to resurrect him and Lilia so that they “catch up on the unloved”. He believes that in the future, true love will be found without borders and borders, where the whole Universe is the scale of love.
And again, the obvious handwriting - grotesque and futurism - demonstrates the poem "About This" by Vladimir Mayakovsky. Analysis allows us to understand: the poet decided to dream at the end and imagine that in the future he and his beloved will be resurrected for life in a better world. But why not in a year or two or not right away? Vladimir Vladimirovich suggested that he was ahead of his time, and in the future there will be more like-minded people, and life will be calmer. Feelings can not be hidden, forget about the patterns and with the inherent pressure of Mayakovsky to burst with scale, with noise and boundless love for his only Lily.
The analysis of Mayakovsky’s poem “About This” should be completed with lines from this work:
"Now disliked
make up
starlessness of countless nights.
Resurrect
although for
what am I
a poet
was waiting for you,
threw off everyday nonsense!
Raise me up
although b for it!
Resurrect -
I want to live my life! "