And today it is believed that Mayakovsky’s satire is one of his most striking poetic sides. He was considered an unsurpassed master of this genre. His works often contained exciting civic pathos, which organically coexisted with soulful lyricism. And also the merciless satire that filled many of his poems.
Features of Mayakovsky's satirical creativity
Speaking about Mayakovsky's satire, many compare it with Swift's mocking laughter. This English writer also shocked his contemporaries in his caustic pamphlets.
Many researchers have long noticed that the purer and higher the poet imagined the ideal of the new Soviet man, which the authorities dreamed of so much, the more ruthlessly he attacked with all his might the vulgarity and bad taste that surrounded him. And also base predation and greed.
Critics of those years argued that the philistinism met in the person of the poet Mayakovsky too strong and biting an enemy. Satire in Mayakovsky's works also often attacks clumsy and thieving officials, general rudeness and sycophancy. The poet categorically did not tolerate spiritual hardness in a person; he called it “mentally lying on the stove.”
menacing laughter
Satire occupied an important place in Mayakovsky's poetry. He himself called it “a menacing laugh.” The poet was sure that his poems helped burn out all sorts of nonsense and rubbish from life.
At the same time, he attached great importance to precise and vivid rhyme. He believed that it could be not only a slogan and a caress, but also a whip and a bayonet. All sorts of bureaucrats and slackers, as well as scoundrels and plunderers of people's property, suffered greatly from him. The objects to which Mayakovsky's satire was directed were very diverse. Almost like the reality around him.
The poet's satirical whip was so sophisticated that the enemy got it, no matter where he was, no matter what guise he was hiding under. Mayakovsky denounced sycophants, interventionists, enemies of the Soviet people, officials who received a party card only for the sake of profit and their own benefit.
"Oh crap"
Speaking about Mayakovsky's satire, one can cite the poem "On Rubbish" as a striking example. In it, the author describes a classic tradesman who seems to be sticking out from behind the back of the RSFSR. An inimitable and memorable image of Comrade Nadya.
Mayakovsky describes her as a woman who has emblems on her dress, and without a hammer and sickle one cannot appear in society.
Mayakovsky’s rejection of philistinism is similar to Gorky’s attitude towards this class. He also hates him and ridicules him, exposing him for any reason. This happens both in everyday life and in art, as well as among a large number of contemporary youth.
Similar themes can be found in Mayakovsky’s poems “You Give an Graceful Life”, “Love”, “Marusya Poisoned”, “Beer and Socialism”, “Letter to Molchanov’s Beloved”.
Mayakovsky's satirical themes
The relevance of Mayakovsky’s satire at that time was felt, perhaps, by everyone. He did not shy away from touching on the most pressing and problematic issues. It is noteworthy that not only his poems were satirical, but also his dramatic works. For example, the comedies “Bathhouse” and “Bedbug” are still popular.
At the center of the narrative of the play “The Bedbug” is a character named Prisypkin. He doesn’t like this surname, he wants elegance and renames himself Pierre Skripkin. The author characterizes him as a former worker who today became a groom. He marries a girl named Elzevira Renaissance. She also has a lot of grace. She works as a manicurist.
Prisypkin in the future
Prisypkin is carefully preparing for the upcoming wedding. To do this, he buys red ham and red-headed bottles, because there is a red wedding coming up. Next, a whole list of fantastic and incredible events occurs, as a result of which Prisypkin manages to survive in frozen form until the bright future of communist society.
People who meet him in the future unfreeze the hero and look in surprise at a human being who eats vodka, as they note. Around himself, Prisypkin begins to spread the fetid bacilli of alcoholism, begins to infect everyone around him with the worst human qualities that were inherent in many of his contemporaries. Thus, in a satirical form, Mayakovsky ridicules sycophancy, as well as excessive sensitivity, which the author calls “guitar-romance.”
In this society of the future, Prisypkin becomes a unique specimen, for which there is a place in the zoological garden. He is placed there along with the bug, which has been his constant companion all this time. Now he is an exhibit that people specially go to look at.
Play "Bath"
As an example of satire in the works of V. Mayakovsky, many cite another of his plays “Bathhouse”. In it, the poet sharply ridicules the bureaucratic Soviet institution.
Mayakovsky wrote that the bathhouse washes or simply erases bureaucrats of all stripes. The main character of this work is the chief supervisor of coordination management. His job title is abbreviated as chief officer. With this detail, the author caustically notes the passion of the Soviet authorities for such abbreviations and abbreviations. The surname of this character is Pobedonosikov.
The Komsomol members who surround him invent an amazing time machine. In it, the main character strives to leave for a bright future. In the so-called communist age. In preparation for the trip, he even prepares mandates and corresponding travel certificates, and writes out his own daily allowance.
But the whole plan ultimately fails. The machine sets off, moving through five-year plans, it carries hardworking and honest workers behind it, spitting out Pobedonosikov himself and useless officials like him as it goes.
Set of satirical means
Satire in Mayakovsky's work is one of the popular and widespread techniques. Working with him, the poet uses a wide range of different means. Mayakovsky himself repeatedly called satire his favorite formidable weapon. He had his own cavalry of witticisms, whose heroic raids almost no one could repel.
One of the poet's favorite techniques was extreme hyperbolism. Hyperbolizing everything around him, Mayakovsky created truly fantastic phenomena in his poems. He used these grotesque techniques in his early creations, which are called “Hymns.”
He was also very fond of literary cartoons. In it, he satirically emphasized the shortcomings of the subject being described and condensed the features he exposed. An example of the use of such satire in Mayakovsky's poems is "Nuns".
Hatred of religious bigotry
Mayakovsky, like no one else, ridiculed religious bigotry. All kinds of literary parodies also played an important role in his work. For example, in the poem "Good!" he brilliantly parodied the text of Pushkin himself.
The witty parody that Mayakovsky presents to our court greatly enhances the effect of satirical exposure, which he achieves by all means. The poet's satire is always sharp, it stings flawlessly and always remains original and unique.
"Sitting Over"
One of the classic examples of this poet’s satire is “The Sitting Ones.” This poem was first published in 1922 in the newspaper Izvestia. Mayakovsky begins with calm and even light irony, gradually increasing his righteous anger towards the bureaucratic apparatus.
In the beginning, he tells how the working day of the “over-sitting” begins. At dawn they rush to their offices, trying to surrender there to the power of “paperwork.”
Already in the second stanza, a petitioner appears, knocking doorsteps in the hope of getting an audience with the leadership and solving his long-standing problem. He has long dreamed of getting to the elusive “Ivan Vanych,” as everyone calls him here. He cannot condescend to become a common man by constantly disappearing from meetings.
Mayakovsky writes mockingly about the imaginary nature of the supposedly important matters in which such an Ivan Vanych is busy. And after that he immediately resorts to hyperbole. It turns out that their concerns, which they are poring over, are the merger of the theater department of the People's Commissariat for Education with the Main Directorate of Horse Breeding, as well as the issue of purchasing ink and other office supplies. They solve such problems instead of really helping people.
Municipal educational institution Karginskaya secondary school of Veshkaim district
Ulyanovsk region
Literature lesson in 11th grade.
teacher of Russian language and literature of the highest category
2014
Literature lesson in 11th grade
Satirical poems in Mayakovsky's poetry.
Lesson objectives.
Educational:
Formation of knowledge about the satirical works of V.V. Mayakovsky, about their artistic originality;
Formation of knowledge about various types of comics: humor, irony, satire, grotesque, parody.
Educational:
Development of imagination, mastery of speech as a means of transmitting thoughts and feelings;
Development of skills in analyzing poetic text;
Forming the skill of working in a group, learning the ability to express and defend one’s point of view.
Educational:
Formation of an active civic position;
Education of moral qualities of the individual;
Formation of a negative attitude towards such phenomena as bureaucracy and embezzlement, philistinism and philistinism, bribery and corruption.
Equipment:
portrait of V.V. Mayakovsky, illustrations for poems, phonograms of poems, explanatory and literary dictionaries.
Board design:
Portrait of V.V. Mayakovsky,
Illustrations for poems,
Lesson topic recording:
“Trash whip the rhyme with the end...”
Satirical poems in Mayakovsky's poetry;
Epigraph: “...I don’t accept, I hate all this...”
Questions on the board:
What is the specific content of Mayakovsky's satire?
What shortcomings does the poet ridicule and expose?
What is interesting about poetic images and literary techniques of the poet’s satirical works?
How do Mayakovsky’s satirical works help today?
Preliminary task:
Get acquainted with the satirical works of V.V. Mayakovsky, determine the originality of the poems.
During the classes.
I. Organizational moment.
II. Preparation for the main stage of the lesson.
Teacher's word:
Listen,
Comrade descendants,
agitator,
The loudmouth leader.
Muffled
Poetry flows,
I'll step
Through lyrical volumes,
as if alive
Speaking to the living.
This is what the poet of the early 20th century V.V. Mayakovsky wrote, predicting the immortality of his poems. Today, the focus of our attention is the poet’s satirical works. But before we begin to analyze the poems, let us remember the theory of literature, namely the types of the comic.
/Students give definitions of the terms “humor”, “irony”, “satire”, “grotesque”, “parody”. It is possible to use dictionaries/.
III. The main stage of the lesson. Mastering new knowledge.
1). Teacher's word.
V. Mayakovsky created satirical works at all stages of his work. In his early years he collaborated in the magazines "Satyricon" and "New Satyricon". He paid tribute to satire both in poetry and in plays. Its themes, images, focus, and initial pathos changed. In the early poetry of V. Mayakovsky, satire is dictated primarily by the pathos of anti-bourgeoisism. In Mayakovsky's poetry, a conflict traditional for romantic poetry arises of the creative personality, the author's "I" - rebellion, loneliness, the desire to tease, irritate the rich and well-fed, in other words, to shock them. The alien philistine environment was depicted satirically. The poet portrays her as soulless, immersed in the world of base interests, in the world of things. Already in his early work, Mayakovsky used the entire arsenal of artistic means traditional for poetry, for satirical literature, which is so rich in Russian culture. Thus, he uses irony in the very titles of a number of works, which the poet designated as “hymns”: “Hymn to the Judge,” “Hymn to the Critic,” “Hymn to the Dinner.” Mayakovsky's hymns are an evil satire. His heroes are judges, sad people who themselves do not know how to enjoy life and bequeath this to others, who strive to regulate everything, to make it colorless and dull.
The relationship between the poet and the new government was far from simple, but one thing is certain - the rebel and futurist Mayakovsky sincerely believed in the revolution. The satirical orientation of V. Mayakovsky's poetry is changing. Firstly, the enemies of the revolution become its heroes. This topic became important for the poet for many years; it provided abundant food for his work. Mayakovsky took part in the creation of “Windows of GROWTH” both as a poet and as an artist. In "Windows of GROWTH" V. Mayakovsky uses such satirical techniques as grotesque, hyperbole, and parody. Many of his poems show the vices of the new life. Satirical motives were clearly heard both in “Mystery-Buff” and in the poem “150 Million”. But if earlier Mayakovsky’s satire was directed against external enemies, now the poet transfers “the fire onto himself,” onto our internal vices.
Mayakovsky's satire helped the reader to see more clearly the numerous shortcomings in society and in himself and, to the best of his ability, fight them, being critical of his actions.
2). Let's turn to the poet's poems and analyze them.
Group 1 analyzes the poem - “Sitting”
Group 2 – “About rubbish”
Group 3 - “Maruska got poisoned”
Group 4 - “Hymn to a bribe.”
/Within 10 minutes you need to:
Prepare expressive reading of passages,
Determine the ideological and artistic originality of the poem,
Manifestation of types of comic in the proposed text,
Answer the questions written on the board. /
3). Listen to student responses.
1 group. Analysis of the poem - “Sitting Over.”
In 1922, the poem “The Sitting Ones” was published. A trend toward an increase in the bureaucratic apparatus began to emerge already in the first years of Soviet power. With incredible speed, institutions began to emerge, mired in continuous sessions, meetings, imitating vigorous activity, but far from the true needs of the people.The main techniques of satire are irony, grotesque, fantasy.
Using the technique of bringing quality to the point of absurdity, Mayakovsky comes up with the “Association of TEO and GUKONA,” that is, he connects the theatrical association with the Main Directorate of Stud Farms. And vice versa, Glavkompolitprosvet is divided into four organizations: Glav, Kom, Polit, Prosvet. And in order to completely ridicule the absurdity of this phenomenon, he names the institution by letters of the alphabet:
"At the meeting
A-be-ve-ge-de-e-zhe-ze-koma.”
If the number of meetings is exaggerated, then the issue discussed at the meeting is a clear understatement - “the purchase of a bottle of ink by the Gubkooperative.” It is fantastic to see half the people sitting at a meeting - “up to the waist here, and the rest there” - since employees have to literally be torn between meetings. In these lines, Mayakovsky uses the technique of the grotesque - extreme exaggeration, giving the image a fantastic character. The grotesque violates the boundaries of plausibility, takes the image beyond the limits of the probable, deforming it.
Many of the poet’s works are dedicated to the fight against bureaucracy: “Bureaucracy,” “Paper Horrors,” “Comrade Ivanov,” “The Ballad of the Bureaucrat and the Work Correspondent,” “Which One?” His two most popular comedies - "The Bedbug" and "Bathhouse" - are also anti-bureaucratic in nature.
Bureaucracy is dangerous because, without doing anything itself, it actively prevents people from working creatively, inventing, trying to improve their lives. Therefore, at the end of the poem there is a life-affirming ending: a decision, a call for the eradication of a phenomenon that hinders movement forward: “... one more meeting regarding the eradication of all meetings!”
2nd group. Analysis of the poem “About Rubbish”
If in the pre-revolutionary years the edge of satire was directed against the “fat”, against the “crowd” insensitive to the words of the poet, then when the revolution took place, its enemies became the satirical target for Mayakovsky. The unconditional denial of the bourgeois world allowed Mayakovsky to enthusiastically accept the revolution, and he directed the edge of satire against those who interfered with the building of communism - bureaucrats and petty bourgeois. Already in 1920-1921, the first poem “On Rubbish” appeared, denouncing the “murlo of the tradesman” of the new Soviet era. The alien philistine environment was depicted satirically. The poet portrays her as soulless, immersed in the world of base interests, in the world of things. According to Mayakovsky, the “rabid canary” becomes the symbol and companion of the bureaucrat in everyday life. Even the hammer and sickle are fashionable emblems, without which one cannot “appear” “at a ball in the Revolutionary Military Council.”
At the end of the poem, a grotesque picture again appears - the traditional literary image of a portrait coming to life, this time a portrait of Marx, who makes a rather strange call to turn the heads of the canaries. This call is understandable only in the context of the entire poem, in which the canaries acquired such a generalized meaning - hated by the progress of bourgeois existence.
What danger does the poet warn against?
The petty bourgeois is an enemy disguised as a Soviet worker, he believesauthor. The poet mocks the “scum” who managed to adapt to new conditions: “changing their feathers”, creating “cozy offices and bedrooms” for themselves. The bourgeoisie is dangerous because he cleverly infiltrates the state apparatus, giving rise to the disease of bureaucratization of institutions. The atmosphere that philistinism carries within itself is also terrible: it is so comfortable “in the mud.”
Details play a big role in the poem. Mayakovsky expressively depicts the details of everyday life: indispensable
scarlet frame for a portrait of Marx; the Izvestia newspaper serving as bedding for a kitten. This is the backdrop for the sleek self-righteous “scum,” a Soviet official concerned only with his own well-being, and his wife, “Comrade Nadya,” for whom the hammer and sickle emblems of the revolution are just an indispensable pattern on her dress.Such people only trivialize the ideas associated with the revolution. Even the word “Revolutionary Military Council” turns out to be connected for “Comrade Nadya” with the ball at which she is going to “appear.”
Words of reduced vocabulary are emphasized by their position at the ends of lines: “purple of a tradesman”; "rears"; "scum"; "Pacific breeches". The hyperbole is expressive: “the butts are calloused from sitting for five years, / strong as washbasins.” The petty-bourgeois symbol - the canary - turns out to be more terrible than Wrangel. The overall picture is absurd. It is so outrageous that the portrait of Marx can’t stand it and the guards “yell.” The eccentric conclusion of the poem: “Quickly / turn the heads of the canaries - / so that communism / is not beaten by the canaries!”
3rd group. Analysis of the poem “Maruska Poisoned”
With the power of his art, the poet fought fiercely and passionately against everything that stood in the way of the formation and improvement of the state. Mayakovsky's satirical works were born under the influence of time, were extremely topical and at the same time carried a deep generalization.
Mayakovsky widely uses a variety of means of humor and satire throughout. In many poems, he clearly contrasts his position - the position of a citizen, the builder of a new proletarian state - with the position and manner of behavior that he criticizes.
In the poem “Maruska Poisoned,” the poet continues the problem raised in the early work “Here!”, where the world of “fat” ordinary people looking “as an oyster from the shells of things” is presented in a satirical vein. With sarcasm, the poet speaks about the petty bourgeois’s passion for things, about their lack of spirituality and vulgarity. Mayakovsky mocks the philistines who have a consumerist attitude towards spiritual values. The same themes are heard in the poems “Hooligan”, “You Give an Elegant Life”, “Stabilization of Life”, “Two Cultures”, “Idyll”, “Old and New”, and the play “Bedbug”.
The plot of the poem “Marusya Poisoned” is simple: unable to withstand the betrayal, the girl committed suicide. The author is outraged by the banality of the reason why Maruska was left: the fitter Vanya, who calls himself “electrical engineer Jean,” inspired her: “Terrible philistinism is a family captivity,” and after 15 days he considered that “Lya has a beautiful underwear.”
The poet’s words are permeated with pain and bitterness:
And the black ones grow
Fools and fools
unprotected
from the junk of culture.
The poet’s enemy is vulgarity in all its manifestations: bad taste, slavish dependence on Western fashion, materialism that replaces communication with nature, a real book, love.
4th group. Analysis of the poem “Hymn to a Bribe.”
Already in his early satirical poetry, V. Mayakovsky uses the entire arsenal of artistic means traditional for poetry, for satirical literature, which is so rich in Russian culture. Thus, he uses irony in the very titles of a number of works, which the poet designated as “hymns”: “Hymn to the Judge,” “Hymn to the Scientist,” “Hymn to the Critic,” “Hymn to the Dinner.” As you know, the anthem is a solemn song. Mayakovsky's hymns are an evil satire.
The caustic images of “Hymns” are immediately remembered - “a stomach in a Panama hat” from “Hymn to Lunch”, people “made of meat” - “Hymn to Health”, “goats” - bribe-takers from “Hymn to Bribe”.
The topic of bribery goes back to the distant past: let’s remember the ancient Russian “The Tale of Shemyakin’s Court”,lines from Kapnist's comedy:
Take it - big there is no science here,
Take what you can take.
Why are our hands hung on?
Why not take it?
characters from Gogol’s “The Inspector General” and “Dead Souls”, heroes from N. S. Leskov’s story “The Old Genius”. Mayakovsky continues the tradition.
From the first lines, this poem, an appeal to an “expensive bribe,” is imbued with irony.
you, dear bribe,
to the one who is woven in gold.
The poet emphasizes that this phenomenon is difficult to eradicate, because bribe takers are people in power.
let's put on uniforms and medals
Let's ask: "Did you see this?"
In the next stanza, Mayakovsky creates a wonderful pun - a play on words:
and the goat is too lazy to go into the garden?..
If there was time, I would prove
which are goat and greens.
Griboedov and Gogol motifs are resurrected in Mayakovsky’s “Hymn,” dedicated to bribe takers, in the last lines of the poem:
And there's nothing left to prove- seek and take,
The newspaper vermin will fall silent.
Like sheep, you need to cut and shave them.
Mayakovsky’s poem sounds very modern today, since corruption and bribery have penetrated not only the city authorities, but also the state apparatus, which prevents us from carrying out reforms, overcoming the economic crisis and building a rule of law state.
IV. Summing up the lesson:
Teacher: - Are the themes and problems raised by V.V. Mayakovsky traditional in the analyzed poems?
Student answers : Yes, philistine, philistine interests have always been criticized in the works of the classics: N.V. Gogol “Mirgorod”, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin “Fairy tales for children of a fair age”, A.P. Chekhov “Little trilogy”, “Ionych”.
Teacher: - Is the work of V. V. Mayakovsky relevant in our time?
Student answers:Unfortunately, the social vices condemned by the artist of the beginning of the last century still exist today. Mayakovsky’s work is extremely modern, but together with the poet I want to say: ““...I don’t accept it, I hate all this...”. In addition, we must fight against manifestations of bribery, embezzlement, corruption, and take an active life position!
CONCLUSION: Mayakovsky can rightfully be called a talented satirist of the 20th century. He updated the satirical genre. The breadth of themes in his satirical poems is amazing. It seems that there was no such negative phenomenon in the life of society that the poet ignored. Mayakovsky created a gallery of satirical portraits of bribe-takers, lazy people, philistines, fools and gluttons. Satire is born of anger and indignation. It is no coincidence that the poet called his collection of satirical works “Terrible Laughter.” Mayakovsky continues the best satirical traditions of Russian literature: Griboyedov and Saltykov-Shchedrin, Gogol and Minaev, Chekhov. The poet's poems have survived their time and remain relevant today. Mayakovsky's laughter still strikes the bourgeoisie, critics, bribe-takers and bureaucrats on the spot.
A large place in Mayakovsky's multifaceted poetic work is occupied by satire - a type of comic that most mercilessly ridicules the imperfections of the world and human vices. And the task of this type of art, in the words of the great Russian satirist M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, is “to escort everything that is obsolete into the kingdom of shadows.”
V. Lesson summary: reflection, marking;
homework: give a coherent story on the topic “Mayakovsky’s Satire.”
APPLICATION.
HYMN TO BRIBERY
Come and praise me humbly
you, dear bribe,
everything is here, from the junior janitor
to the one who is woven in gold.
Everyone who is behind our right hand
dares to reproach the eye with the news,
we are like they never dream of,
Let's punish the scoundrels for envy.
So that blasphemy no longer dares to rise,
let's put on uniforms and medals
and, putting forward a convincing fist,
Let's ask: "Did you see this?"
If you look from above, your mouth will open.
And every muscle will leap with joy.
Russia - from above - just a vegetable garden,
everything fills up, blooms and puffs up.
Have you ever seen a goat standing somewhere?
and the goat is too lazy to go into the garden? .
If there was time, I would prove
which are goat and greens.
And there is nothing to prove - go and take it.
The newspaper vermin will fall silent.
Like sheep, you need to cut and shave them.
What is there to be ashamed of in your own country?
CAREFUL ATTITUDE TO BRIBE-TAKERS
Is it really possible for poets to write about bribes?
Dear ones, we don’t have time. Can not be so.
You who take bribes,
at least for this reason,
no, don't take bribes.
I, who knock out pants from stitches,
of course, as a beginner, not very often,
I am also a Russian citizen,
selflessly honoring both the official and the precinct.
I come and cry out all my requests,
resting his cheek on his light jacket.
The official thinks: “Oh, I could do it!
That way I’ll make a bird out of two hundred.”
How many times in the shadow of an official,
brought offense to them.
“Oh, it would be possible,” the official thinks, “
That way we’ll milk a butterfly for three hundred.”
I know you need two hundred and three hundred -
they’ll take it anyway, not those, but these;
and I won’t offend a single bailiff by swearing:
maybe the bailiff has children.
But it’s extra work to milk one by one,
You’ve already been working for years.
This is what I made up for you on purpose -
Gentlemen!
Hack the cupboards, chests and caskets,
take your mother's money and jewelry,
so that the last boy in a sweaty fist
clutched the saved paper ruble.
Collect your costumes. So that there are no torn ones.
Mother! Shake yourself out of your squirrel coat!
Search the pockets of old trousers -
in the pockets of kopecks for forty little things.
We'll put it all in knots and tie it together,
and themselves, without money and clothes,
Let's come, bow and say:
Here!
What is money to us, spendthrifts and spendthrifts!
We don't even know where to put them.
Take it, darlings, take it, whatever it is!
You are our fathers, and we are your children.
From the cold without hitting tooth on tooth,
Let's stand naked under the naked skies.
Take it, darlings! But only right away
To never write about this again.
1915
SEATED
The night will soon turn into dawn,
I see every day:
Who's in charge
who is in whom,
who is watered,
who's in the clear
people disperse into institutions.
It rains on paperwork,
as soon as you enter the building:
having selected about fifty -
The most important! -
employees leave for meetings.
Show up:
“Can’t they give you an audience?
I’ve been going since she.”
“Comrade Ivan Vanych went to the meeting -
the unification of Theo and Hukon."
You'll climb a hundred stairs.
The world is not nice.
Again:
“An hour later they told you to come.
Meeting:
buying a bottle of ink
Gubcooperative."
In one hour:
no secretary
there is no secretary -
naked!
All under 22 years old
at a meeting of the Komsomol.
I climb again, looking at the night,
on the top floor of a seven-story building.
“Has Comrade Ivan Vanych come?” -
"At the meeting
A-be-ve-ge-de-e-zhe-ze-koma.”
Enraged
to the meeting
I burst into an avalanche,
spewing wild curses on the way.
And I see:
Half the people are sitting.
Oh devilishness!
Where is the other half?
“Killed!”
Killed!”
I'm rushing around, yelling.
The terrible picture made my mind go crazy.
And I hear
“She’s at two meetings at once.
In a day
twenty meetings
we need to keep up.
Involuntarily you have to split into two.
Up to the waist here
but other
there".
You won't fall asleep with excitement.
It's early morning.
I greet the early dawn with a dream:
"Oh, at least
more
one meeting
regarding the eradication of all meetings!”
ABOUT TRASH
Glory, Glory, Glory to the heroes!!!
However, they
They paid enough tribute.
Now let's talk about trash.
The storms of the revolutionary bosom have calmed down.
The Soviet mess turned into mud.
And it came out
from behind the RSFSR
bourgeois mug.
(You won't take me at my word,
I am not at all against the bourgeois class.
To the bourgeoisie
without distinction of classes and estates
my praise.)
From all the vast Russian fields,
from the first day of Soviet birth
they flocked together
hastily changed his feathers,
and settled into all institutions.
My butts are calloused from sitting for five years,
strong as washbasins,
still live today
quieter than water.
We built cozy offices and bedrooms.
And in the evening
this or that scum,
on my wife
studying at the piano, looking
speaks,
getting tired from the samovar:
“Comrade Nadya!
Increase for the holiday -
24 thousand.
Rate.
Eh, and I’ll get one for myself
pacific breeches,
out of my pants
peek out
like a coral reef!”
And Nadya:
“And me with emblem dresses.
Without a hammer and sickle you will not appear in the world!
What will I wear today?
at a ball in the Revolutionary Military Council?!”
Marks on the wall.
Al frame.
Lying on the Izvestia, the kitten warms itself.
And from under the ceiling
squealed the frantic canary.
Marx looked and looked from the wall...
And suddenly
opened his mouth
Yes, how he will scream:
“The threads of philistinism entangled the revolution.
Philistine life is worse than Wrangel.
Quickly turn the heads of the canaries -
so that communism
I wasn’t beaten by the canaries!”
Rejects the world of the bourgeoisie and the deceitful society it has created. He literally bursts into literature, abandoning imitations and hackneyed templates. His early works differ radically from the generally accepted idea of poetry. Mayakovsky’s first poems were published in the almanac “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste” (1912).
In the preface to the first edition of the poem, the poet, in his characteristic manner, defined the meaning of his work: “Down with your love!”, “Down with your art!”, “Down with your system!”, “Down with your religion!” These slogan names became the main themes of Mayakovsky’s satire. The work consists of four parts, each of which exposes a specific object of the surrounding reality.
The satire in the poet's early lyrics is directed against the stupid and evil crowd that does not understand Mayakovsky. The poet denies petty-bourgeois vulgarity, the philosophy of “fat” people, and inertia of thinking. At public appearances, with a “menacing laugh,” he boldly rushed into battle for his ideals. Even the titles of his poems sound like blows or slaps in the face to public taste: “You!”, “Nata!”, “Tired” and others.
So, in the poem “Here!” Mayakovsky hatefully denounces the world of ordinary people, indifferent to the misfortune of others, who look at the world as if from a case or shell. The poet sarcastically ridicules the addiction of “fat” philistines to things, speaks of their lack of spirituality and stupidity. In his unique manner he writes:
Here you are, man, you have cabbage in your mustache
somewhere half-eaten, half-eaten cabbage soup;
Here you are, woman, you have thick white paint on you,
you are looking at things as an oyster.
The poet is not concerned about possible grievances of this part of the population. He insults ordinary people in order to hear an answer, to stir up society. He shouts out what’s painful, what doesn’t allow him to live and breathe:
What if I, a rude Hun,
I don’t want to grimace in front of you - so
I will want and joyfully spit,
I'll spit in your face
I am a spender and spendthrift of priceless words.
Mayakovsky responded to the events of the First World War with a denunciatory poem “To you!” In it, he denounces the bourgeois governments that unleashed massacres on a global scale. The ruling classes are indifferent to the deaths of thousands of innocent people. It is important for them to maintain their power and profit from the war.
Mayakovsky’s famous “Hymns”-pamphlets, which he created for the magazine “New Satyricon”, sounded no less poignant: “Hymn to the Judge”, “Hymn to the Bribe”, “Hymn to Lunch” and others. The titles of these poems already contain mockery. How can you compose hymns to human vices or food? In “Hymn to Lunch,” the poet creates the image of a rich man in the street – this is a “stomach in a Panama hat” and nothing more. In “Hymn to the Judge,” Mayakovsky, in order to avoid the persecution of censorship, moves the scene of action to the country of Peru, although, of course, he criticizes the judicial officials of Russia. In Peru, the country was taken over by insensitive, “sad” judges, with “eyes as stern as a post.” They hate all living things, they have imposed bans on everything:
And the birds, and the dances, and their Peruvian women
surrounded by articles.
The judge's eyes are a pair of tins
flickering in the garbage pit.
In the once flourishing country, now only the ringing of shackles can be heard, a “birdless” and “desolate” environment has set in. One deathly glance from the judge caused the peacock's tail to fade. The judges even banned volcanoes, posting signs that read “Non-Smoking Valley.” So that readers are left in no doubt about whom the anthem was written, Mayakovsky ends it with the words:
You know, I still feel sorry for the Peruvian.
In vain they gave him a galley.
The judges interfere with both the bird and the dance,
for me, for you, and for Peru.
In "Hymn to the Scientist," the scientist appears as "a two-legged impotence, with his head bitten clean off." He is the author of the treatise On Warts in Brazil. The scientist does not have “a single human quality”; he does not care about modern life:
The eating eyes bit into the letter, -
oh, what a pity for the letter.
The scientist does not care that children in his country grow up stupid and submissive. Even the sun does not want to look into his office, where everything is filled with dead exhibits. He wants peace so he can “take the square root every second.”
In “Hymn to the Critic,” the poet traces the development of a critic from birth. Where do critics come from? It turns out that they come from quite ordinary families. The hero of the poem, the future critic, was born into the family of a washerwoman and a groom. The author sarcastically hints at what level of culture this child grew up, what he heard from his parents in childhood. Having matured, the boy quickly found his bearings in life and decided to become a critic:
And some owner of some name
The gentlest one heard a knock at the door.
And soon a critic from the birthday udder
I milked the trousers, the bun, and the tie.
The poet suggests:
Writers, there are many of us. Collect a million.
And we will build an almshouse for critics in Nice.
Do you think our underwear is easy for them?
Rinse daily in a newspaper page!
In “Hymn to Health,” Mayakovsky calls “fat” ordinary people healthy people. For them, food is the meaning of life. Having eaten, they dance all over the planet, which is boring to them, “like a can of canned food.” These are “meat people”, they don’t need nerves, they don’t see or feel anything.
Mayakovsky can rightfully be called a talented satirist of the 20th century. He updated the satirical genre. The breadth of themes in his satirical poems is amazing. It seems that there was no such negative phenomenon in the life of society that the poet ignored. Mayakovsky created a gallery of satirical portraits of bribe-takers, lazy people, philistines, fools and gluttons. Satire is born of anger and indignation. It is no coincidence that the poet called his collection of satirical works “Terrible Laughter.” Mayakovsky continues the best satirical traditions of Russian literature: Griboyedov and Saltykov-Shchedrin. The poet's poems have survived their time and remain relevant today. Mayakovsky's laughter still strikes the bourgeoisie, critics, bribe-takers and bureaucrats on the spot.
Our lives change every day and along with it our attitude towards culture, art, and poetry changes.
Therefore, it would be interesting to ask the question: “Can we now say something fair in relation to
creativity of V. Mayakovsky? It is difficult to understand your time, and what to say about the past. Each
its true. But one thing is certain, V. Mayakovsky -
one of the most talented poets of the 20th century. He devoted his work to the revolutionary renewal of life, serving the ideals, but the ideals of his time. Mayakovsky is one of the most interesting satirists of the 20th century. He created classic examples of a new type of satire. In his poems, he denounced everything that then hindered the success of socialism.
It seems that now his poems are not relevant. But not
in fact, they are quite relevant, they just have acquired a different meaning in our time. Thus, in the first lines of the poem “150,000,000” V. Mayakovsky writes
"In wild devastation
Old flush,
We'll smash the new one
It's a myth around the world."
And indeed, the poet was right, without knowing it that we had only created a new myth.
about this. Now this poem reads like a fairy tale, but about the past.
makes fun of the negative phenomena of that time.
How interesting and varied are the type descriptions?
People who were something negative at that time.
This is what he calls them: the new bourgeois fist, the time-
teacher, hooligan, philistine, gossip, bigot, swindler, coward, “Soviet” nobleman, bungler, etc. All this is quite funny these days, because it has acquired a different meaning and is a thing of the past.
But is there anything in Mayakovsky’s poems that is in tune with our time? Is everything so hopelessly outdated?
In my opinion, some poems are still relevant.
Here, for example: the lines of his poster from ROSTA:
“Only coal will provide bread.
Only coal will provide clothes.
Only coal will provide heat.
And we are producing less and less coal
And less.
How to get out of this situation?
Do you have any suggestions?
Isn't this today?
The only difference is that no one reads the posters now. But humanity always has problems. Unemployment, low wages, poor living conditions - these are the issues that
Problems are still being resolved to this day.
We also did not get rid of the bureaucracy that Mayakovsky so ridiculed.
"A swarm of officials from week to day
Cancels
October thunder and crowbar,
And many even
Coming from behind
Buttons
Pre-February with an eagle."
Our current “Hooligan” has not changed at all
And it remains the same:
“Looks, who would like to get into the ear?
Why doesn't your head come up with something stupid?!
A bomb of outrages and outrages,
Stupidity, beer and lack of culture."
And “About those sitting”? Don’t we have enough meetings, resolutions and other empty discussions now, but “things are still there.”
But nowadays, thanks to television, we are meeting with the whole country.
"Paper back
Paper forward
Following the trail trodden by others
The zamzava swam through to the front.
The former brought a question to the board..."
"Oh, at least
One meeting
Regarding the eradication of all
Meetings."
There is also an image in Mayakovsky’s satire
our current entrepreneurs.
"Let's ask me once
“You love, - NEP!” -
“I love you,” I answered, “
When he's ridiculous."
The philistines, so famously ridiculed by V. Mayakovsky, still live among us. These people still know how to disguise themselves according to the fashion of the new time. True, the poet hoped that it would be possible to eradicate such people, but probably these traits are inherent in people at all times.
In conclusion, we can say that satire in Mayakovsky’s poetry was topical earlier and is relevant today. His satire was Mayakovsky's participation in the life of the country. Among today's poets there are very few of those who have taken on such difficult work. And since in our time there is no worthy replacement for V. Mayakovsky, perhaps it is not worth consigning his poetry to oblivion. In my opinion, it is worth returning to the study of the work of this poet.
Composition
In the work of V.V. Mayakovsky, satire occupies an extremely important place. Speaking about the main function of his poetry, we must not forget that the new was established in a sharp and irreconcilable struggle with the old. The poet has been fighting the enemies of socialism since he realized that he was part of it, choosing satire as a weapon of struggle. In the pre-revolutionary years, he mainly denounced the old order and ideology, in the post-October years he actively defended the new system.
Discussing the features that define satire, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote: “In order for satire to be truly satire and achieve its goal, it is necessary, firstly, that it make the reader feel the ideal from which its creator and , secondly, so that she is quite clearly aware of the object against which her sting is directed.” Mayakovsky's satire fully satisfies these requirements: in it one can always feel the social ideal for which the poet is fighting, and the evil against which its edge is directed is clearly defined.
Mayakovsky wrote the largest number of satirical works after the October Revolution. Their themes are varied and determined by two central tasks - depicting the social contradictions of the bourgeois world (poems written under the influence of the poet’s trips abroad are devoted to this) and denouncing philistinism and bureaucracy.
The first direction in the writer’s satire can be illustrated by the poem “Black and White,” written during the poet’s short stay in the capital of Cuba, Havana. It is dedicated to the topic of racial discrimination. This is already emphasized in the title of the poem, which translated from English means “Black and White.” The hero of the poem, a simple black worker Willie, sweeping the Havana streets near the American tobacco company Henry Clay and Bock, Limited, reveals the sad fate of millions of American blacks doomed to poverty and lawlessness. The poet clearly characterizes the principle that determines the relations of people in the “paradise country”: “... the whites have dollars, the blacks do not.”
This principle explains the image of the main character - a victim of capitalism and racism. Before us is a dark, downtrodden man. But this is not Willie’s fault, but his misfortune, the result of the social, economic, and cultural conditions in which he lives. This man cannot even imagine rebelling against white oppressors. Therefore, he does not react in any way to Mr. Breg's blow after trying to express his opinion about the division of labor between whites and blacks.
These social contradictions become the object of exposure in Mayakovsky. In contrast to them, at the end of the poem he brings out the image of Moscow as the center of the world communist movement, the city where the headquarters of the Communist International was located in those years. For the poet, the Comintern in Moscow is the ideal place where all the “humiliated and insulted” can turn with full confidence that they will be helped. And although the poet realizes that people like Willie are far from understanding the ways to fight for their rights, he still considers it necessary to push them to action with his instructions.
The second satirical direction of Mayakovsky’s poetry is clearly expressed in the poems “About Rubbish” and “Sitting Around.” These two poems first voiced the theme of denouncing philistinism and bureaucracy. In the first of them, the poet depicts two representatives of the “modernized”: a bourgeois employee who has “built” himself a “cozy office” in one of the Soviet institutions, and his wife, “Comrade Nadya.” Mayakovsky showed two of the most characteristic features of the new philistinism. On the one hand, the dreams of ordinary people do not go beyond personal enrichment, and on the other, the tradesman, while remaining an owner, strives to create the appearance of a person in modern Soviet society. The finale of the poem is filled with the poet’s “menacing laughter,” branding philistinism through the lips of the revived K. Marx: “... Quickly turn the heads of the canaries so that communism is not beaten by the canaries!”
In the poem “Seated,” the poet exposes the bench bustle of bureaucrats who are simply torn between all kinds of meetings, but in fact do nothing useful. At the end, Mayakovsky calls for another meeting “regarding the eradication of all meetings.”
Mayakovsky's satire is also diverse in terms of genre. In the pre-revolutionary period, it was represented by the so-called “hymns”, denouncing the existing system. After October 1917, the poet developed a new genre - the poetic satirical feuilleton, with its inherent sharpness of images and some of their individualization. Most of the poems of the 20s were written in this genre. The poems of the foreign cycle are a lyric-epic narrative, which is based on an episode from real life. The works of the playwright Mayakovsky, such as his plays such as “Bathhouse” and “The Bedbug”, also acquire a satirical sound.
There is no doubt that Mayakovsky’s satire also stands out for its artistic originality. The poet's favorite technique for depicting objects of sarcasm and jokes is the grotesque, based on the extreme hyperbolization of images. In the poem “The Satisfied”, the grotesque picture of a meeting of “people of halves” not only evokes cheerful laughter, but also emphasizes the reality - the infinity of stupid meetings. Grotesqueness is manifested both in the thirty-meter-long tongue of a suck-up, who “licks the hand” of his superiors (the poem “The Suck-Up”), and in the meter-long ear of a coward (the poem “Coward”), which catches all the remarks of the authorities, etc.
Thus, we can conclude that Mayakovsky’s satire is very unique in thematic, artistic and genre terms. Moreover, the communist party spirit with which it is permeated, its frank journalisticism and agitation, combined with the life-like authenticity and significance of the problems posed in it, determine the innovative nature of the entire satirical work of the poet.
