V. Mayakovsky - Could you? I immediately blurred the map of everyday life

“I immediately lubricated everyday life card..." (According to the lyrics of V. Mayakovsky.)

“I immediately blurred the map of everyday life...”
(based on Mayakovsky's lyrics)

Why are you wearing a yellow sweater?
- So as not to resemble you.
V. Kamensky. The youth of Mayakovsky.

In 1912, the futurists’ almanac “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste” published poems by V. Mayakovsky
"Night" and "Morning". This is how a young and original poet declared himself - a poet who was destined for a long and difficult creative life.
fate, and not only lifelong, but also posthumous, for the author’s works were repeatedly evaluated and revalued
criticism and readers.
The early period of the poet’s work is represented by many discoveries in the field of versification. Almost immediately
Having abandoned attempts at literary imitation, Mayakovsky literally burst into Russian poetry of the early 20th century - poetry
where such luminaries as Blok, A. Bely, Gumilev, Akhmatova, Bryusov rightfully shone. His poems were strikingly different from
what was generally considered good poetry, but he quickly came into his own and asserted his creative individuality,
the right to be Mayakovsky. Its dawn, according to A. Akhmatova, was stormy: denying “classical boredom,” the poet
proposed new, revolutionary art, and in his own person - its representative. Undoubtedly, much in the early work
Mayakovsky is associated with such an artistic movement as futurism, but at the same time the ideas and poetic means of their
embodiments in works
the author's ideas were much broader than traditional futuristic ideas. The originality of Mayakovsky's early lyrics is primarily due to
just his personality, his bright talent, his views and beliefs.
Perhaps the main theme of this period is the theme of the poet’s tragic loneliness:
“I am alone, like the last eye of a man going to the blind.”
The reason for this is that there are “no people” around. There is a crowd, a mass, well-fed, chewing, looking “as an oyster from the shell of things.”
People have disappeared, and therefore the hero is ready to kiss the “smart face of the tram” - in order to forget those around him:
“Unnecessary, like a runny nose, and sober, like Narzan.”
The hero is lonely, he may be alone in this world. This is probably where the egocentric pathos of many of his poems comes from. "To myself,
to my beloved, the author dedicates these lines”, “I”, “A few words about myself”, “Me and Napoleon”, “Vladimir Mayakovsky” -
These are the titles of his poems of that time. “I” is the word that determines the dynamics of poetic action: “I,
glorifying machines and England." The poet comes into this world to glorify himself:
Enormous the world with the power of voice,
I'm coming - beautiful,
twenty-two years old.
He addresses the people of the future:
“Slayetps mskhya!” -
I bequeath to you an orchard
of your great soul.
In this emphasized egocentrism is the tendency toward social shocking characteristic of Mayakovsky's poetry. "I have costumes
there never was. There were two blouses of the most vile kind... I took a piece of yellow ribbon from my sister. Tied up. Furor" - these are
the antics of Mayakovsky the hooligan. And yet - it’s notorious

I love watching children die.
What is behind this kind of action? The author's categorical rejection of bourgeois culture, youthful nihilism and,
perhaps the spiritual vulnerability of the poet himself. Behind his role as a hooligan, Mayakovsky hid a subtle soul seeking love and
loving, protecting her from those who “understand nothing.”
Mayakovsky, as he writes about himself, is “a solid heart.” Already in the early poems he appears doomed to burn
“the unburnable fire of unimaginable love.” Premonition of love, its expectation - “Will there be love or not? Which one is big or
tiny? - this is what fills the hero’s monologues. His soul is looking for love, and therefore he writes: “To himself, his beloved, he dedicates these
lines by the author.” His feeling remains unclaimed:
Where can I find a loved one, one like me?
The poet painfully experiences his loneliness; for him the burden of “unspent springs” is simply unbearable:
Unbearable not just for a psycho, but literally.
The beloved woman, having appeared once, forever fills the hero’s existence with meaning. But his happiness is painful and
short-lived: separations and betrayals are constant companions of love; however, despite this, the hero finds strength in himself
say:
Give me at least
cover with the last tenderness
your leaving step.
It is significant that in Mayakovsky’s early poetry there are practically no landscape descriptions. In his autobiography “I Myself,” the poet
This is how he explains his “disdain” for the topic of nature: “After electricity, I completely gave up being interested in nature.
An unimproved thing." Her place in her work is firmly occupied by the urban landscape: houses, streets, cars. Often
This kind of description is deliberately naturalistic; the poet seems to be setting out to depict the ugly “things of the century.”
“Beauty,” poetic qualities that the author rejects. This is illustrated, for example, by the following lines:
The street has sunk in like a syphilitic nose. The river is voluptuousness spread into drool. Throwing away the laundry to the last leaf,
the gardens fell obscenely in June.
The world around us causes sharp rejection and protest on the part of the author. Its apotheosis can be considered the poem “Cloud in
pants." It consists of four parts, each of which exposes some aspect of reality. Hero
proclaims: “Down with your love, down with your art, down with your religion, down with your system!” By scale, by depth
artistic generalization, in terms of the range of poetic means, this poem is, in my opinion, one of the best
works of Mayakovsky.
The poet's artistic means and linguistic techniques are distinguished by emphasized naturalism and prosaism. He writes: “spitting stars”
- about those very stars that, according to Kant, fill the human soul with “reverence and admiration.” He states:
I know - the nail in my boot is more nightmarish than Goethe's fantasy. In these lines - the focus of the whole world on the individual
poet, the juxtaposition of the base and the sublime, the poetic and the prosaic.
In his early lyrics, Mayakovsky pays tribute to experimentation, the search for new forms, and word creation. And you need to be able to see beyond
an abundance of complex metaphors, hyperboles, neologisms, unusual syntactic constructions deep meaning text.
One of the author’s early poems is “Could You?”
I immediately smeared the map of everyday life by splashing paint from a glass;
I showed jelly on a dish
slanting cheekbones of the ocean.
On the scales of a tin fish
I read the calls of new lips.
And you
could play a nocturne
on the drainpipe flute?
What is hidden in these lines? Maybe they were written by a person who lacks the immensity of love and the ocean? May be,
are they about the artist’s right to transform everyday life, to see poetry where, it would seem, it has no place at all? About what's only
can a real artist play on a drainpipe?
The poet offers us his vision of the world and his ways of realizing it. Rejecting traditional forms of poetry, Mayakovsky
doomed himself to difficult fate an experimenter, a person who will not be understood by many. But his path is the path without
which modern art would be incomplete, somewhat defective:
Listen!
After all, if the stars light up -
Does that mean anyone needs this?

Parody with lyrical digressions...

I have a poem “Two Poets” (the first one I wrote
after registering on the website "Poems.ru": ).

It’s not at all about Mayakovsky being bad and Yesenin being good,
it's about which of these two authors I personally like. But periodically
there are “especially gifted” who are trying to prove that “poets
you can’t compare” and “everyone chooses for themselves whose work is closer to them.”
What I actually wrote about my choice doesn’t reach them...

But now we’re talking about something a little different... When will I once again
they are trying to prove that Mayakovsky is also a lyricist, they often quote
the line about the "flute of drainpipes." Here is the verse in full:

V.V. Mayakovsky, “Could you?”

I immediately blurred the map of everyday life,
splashing paint from a glass;
I showed jelly on a dish
slanting cheekbones of the ocean.
On the scales of a tin fish
I read the calls of new lips.
And you
play nocturne
could
on the drainpipe flute?

If you don’t think about the text, it seems beautiful. If you don't think about it...
Although now many people write like this - without thinking: they string epithet upon epithet,
they pile metaphor upon metaphor to make it look more pompous and colorful,
but they don’t even think about what all these epithets and metaphors mean...

But any musician will confirm to you that the instrument is sacred!
And it's not just about hygiene. The tool is the link between
him and his music! What the hell are flutes made from drainpipes?
Have you ever looked closely at these pipes? In short, a parody:

N. A. Losev, “I couldn’t...”

All the dogs scoured them;
Half a century in dust and dirt;
And even trash cans
All these pipes are much cleaner;
But Vova blew into the bends of the pipes,
without wiping your rusty lips...
And you
put it in your mouth
could
One of the drainpipes?

P.S. But in general, this poem by Mayakovsky is fertile ground
for parodists. For example, I give anyone a promising gift
start:

I immediately blurred the map of everyday life,
“waving” two hundred grams from a glass...

If you continue this topic (or come up with something of your own), please post it later
link, let's laugh together...)))

Reviews

You still have simple "everyday"
Two hundred grams is enough for you.
And here “jelly” walks through life -
I want to punch you in the face!

And with a trumpet, or a well-aimed rhyme,
Yes, whatever you have to! There's grief there
Where someone will let “jelly” into their heart,
He would walk... along the wires...

I would lick and inhale the beauty of the pipes,
He did not defile life with himself,
Didn’t betray naive lips -
Since he loves the spirit of garbage dumps!

The daily audience of the portal Stikhi.ru is about 200 thousand visitors, who in total view more than two million pages according to the traffic counter, which is located to the right of this text. Each column contains two numbers: the number of views and the number of visitors.

Could you play a nocturne on a drainpipe flute? Oh, if only Vladimir Mayakovsky knew that there was a house in Dresden that was capable of this task! This amazing house with a facade blue known as Kunsthofpassage Funnel Wall. Its authors are German artists Christoph Rosner, Annette Paul and Andre Tempel, who - attention! - inspired by the unusual structure of the drainpipes of our St. Petersburg.

Dresden has always been known as one of the most beautiful cities with numerous museums attracting the attention of tourists throughout Europe. But with the advent of the amazing building with the "flute of drainpipes", the city has one more tourist attraction. Isn't this a reason to put aside all the well-worn routes and enjoy the sight and sound of a fantastic design?

An intricate network of gutters, which are made in the shape of wind pipes musical instruments, in itself is interesting and attracts attention. I bet the Kunsthofpassage Funnel Wall would remain a favorite with local residents, even if all these pipes were decorative. But since they also perform the useful function for which they were intended, the work of German artists is doubly worthy of all praise.

Being located not in the historical part of Dresden, but in the New Town area, this amazing Kunsthofpassage Funnel Wall house has not become a place of pilgrimage for curious tourists - they prefer to see gloomy ancient temples, castles and monuments. But gradually young people, especially traveling students, find this place and increasingly come to the city just when the forecasts promise gloomy, cloudy weather. After all, otherwise you won’t be able to hear exactly how and what exactly the rain musician plays on the flute of the drainpipes...

or some textual observations about the writings of V. Mayakovsky

Could you?
I immediately blurred the map of everyday life,
splashing paint from a glass;
I showed jelly on a dish
slanting cheekbones of the ocean.
On the scales of a tin fish
I read the calls of new lips.
And you
play nocturne
could
on the drainpipe flute?

A completely traditional interpretation of V. Mayakovsky’s article “Could you?” We find in the testimony (or later interpretation) of N. Aseev: “I was one of the first readers of his poems.” Further, a friend and confidant in many of Mayakovsky’s affairs, Aseev gives this interpretation of the article of 1913 (as it turned out, in parallel this observation was made by http://shkrobius.livejournal.com/291572.html:

“And the map, and the paint, and everyday life, and tin fish signs, and drainpipes - all these were objects that surrounded us every day, which we didn’t even notice due to their familiarity, but it turns out that from these familiar, familiar words and concepts it was possible to compose a poem of great emotion. Indeed, it seemed convincing that a portion of jelly served in a cheap student canteen resembled the swaying, glossy green of an ocean slanting wave. What power of observation and vividness of imagination one must have in order to be reminded of the big and impressive through small and inconspicuous objects! What kind of exaggerated imagination does it take to bring a small flute to the size of a drainpipe?! To take the very intimate, chamber concept of nocturne - to the street!
Here all objects were concrete, tangible, all concepts were formed into real, although sharply enlarged, images. The world was visible closely and convexly, as if under a magnifying glass.
Until that time, we liked and were captivated by the following lines:
On the polar seas and on the southern ones,
Along the bends of green swells,
Between basalt rocks and pearl
The sails of the ships rustle.
Here, too, the ocean was described - and to what heart does it not speak of distant lands, of unseen shores! But this ocean was still conditional, its “green swells” were perceived as a repetition of childhood impressions from Main-Read and Cooper - there were the “rustling” sails of ships that had long since replaced sails with pipes. But here Mayakovsky’s “slanting cheekbones” of the ocean rose right before his eyes, climbed into his mouth from a plate of served jelly, and reminded of themselves with their cold depth.
And how I liked the fact that the poet declares “an immediately blurred map of everyday life,” the everyday life of small affairs, small words, stifled passions and thoughts. The map of everyday life was known to everyone; there was no need to master it between the difficult to imagine “basalt and pearl rocks.” And the calls of the “new” lips spoke of something that was about to happen and radically change all this regularity and graphic design of everyday meridians and parallels, a lattice separating fantasy from reality. And besides everything else, in the entire poem there is not a cold story, not an illustration of the long past, but a lively, hot, perky and mocking appeal. So I see the world as three-dimensional, real, changing with overlapping similarities and begging comparisons: “Could you play a nocturne?”
I remember the impression from this poem alone, when I read it for the first time; but all of them, appearing one after another, were a new discovery of a world in which things, concepts, feelings were freed from the mechanical idea of ​​them, where they again became pristinely tangible, close, real to human perception.”
(Aseev N. “The Power of Mayakovsky” // Mayakovsky V.V. Complete collection works: In 12 volumes - M.: State. publishing house "Khudozh. lit.”, 1939-1949. T. 1. Poems, poems, articles, 1912-1917 / Ed. and comments by N. Khardzhiev. - 1939. - P. 13-14).

Probably, Mayakovsky’s meeting with Aseev took place later than the writing of the article about the “tin fish”; the year of their acquaintance is indicated either as 1913 or 1914. An article written in 1939 may not serve as documentary evidence of events more than twenty years ago; the transfer of the scene from a restaurant to a “cheap student canteen” may well be attributed to an aberration of memory. But otherwise, a completely complete picture is being built, which can only be supplemented and clarified by textual examples from early Mayakovsky.

I immediately smeared the map of everyday life by splashing paint from a glass;

To all the meanings of a “map” already considered (geographical, menu map, just a daily routine), all that remains to be added is the meaning “ playing card» exactly in units. h., taken, for example, from the idiom “a card has fallen”, “put on the map”. This optional meaning can be manifested, for example, in the projection onto the “Spine Flute”: “I wish I could play cards!” / Into wine / to gargle the thirsty heart.” (flute, cards, wine). One way or another, the main thing is that the “paint” blurs the “graphically” (“geographically”) clear drawing.

I showed on a platter the jelly/slant cheekbones of the ocean.

The “trembling” jelly consistency of the jelly, precisely in a disturbed state, can resemble vibrations of waves (“slanting cheekbones”). And the opposition everyday, familiar / unusual, non-trivial, as well as small (insignificant) / large-scale - is an expression strong desire push the boundaries, again “blur” the boundaries (the ocean is crowded into the dish). “Ocean” as a component of this opposition is found in other parts of M. and perfectly illustrates this “languishing in cramped conditions” set limit"(Jacobson):

If I were / small, / like the Great Ocean, / I would stand on the tiptoes of the waves, / I would caress the moon with the tide. (“The author dedicates these lines to himself, his beloved” 1916)

Gray-haired oceans / overflowed, / glared into the arena cloudy eyes. (“War and Peace” 1916)

The most developed desire is to go beyond, expand space, push boundaries, throw off shackles, be free, etc. in the poem “Man”: “Driven into an earthly corral, / I am drawn to the daily yoke.<...>I'm a prisoner. / No ransom for me! / The cursed earth has bound. / I would redeem everyone in my love, / yes the houses are surrounded by the ocean! (“Man” 1916) just like in the article “Could you?” the ocean is enclosed in a dish. By the way, “the ocean on a platter” gives rise to a more capacious comparison in another article from 1913, “Something about St. Petersburg”: “Where the sea dish shines”

On the scales of a tin fish / I read the calls of new lips.

Still, the interpretation of the “tin fish” as a sign seems completely convincing. In addition to the most frequently cited example of the article “Signs”, also published in the almanac “Trebnik of Troy” in 1913. (“Read iron books! / Under the flute of a gilded letter / smoked whitefish / and golden rutabaga will climb”), as well as an example from the poem “I Love” (1922) (And I learned the alphabet from signs, / leafing through the pages of iron and tin”), One can point to Mayakovsky’s extraordinary interest in this sign of a city street, in particular, in his early poetry:

And there, under the sign / where the herrings are from Kerch (“Hell of the City” 1913)

The city suddenly turned upside down. / The drunk climbed onto his hats. / The signs burst into fear. / They spat out either “O” or “S” (“In the car” 1913)

If I feel sorry for / the vase of your flour, / knocked down by the heels of the cloud dance, - / who will caress the golden hands, / with a sign twisted at Avanzo’s shop windows?.. (cycle “I” 1913)

And finally, most interesting example signs with fish - the beginning of the 1st act of the tragedy “Vladimir Mayakovsky”, also written in 1913:

"Funny. The scene is a city in a web of streets. Feast of the Beggars. One V. Mayakovsky. People passing by bring food - iron herring from a sign, a huge golden roll, folds of yellow velvet.”

Correlation with signage updates direct meaning the verb “read” (“I read the calls of new lips”), because Advertising signs can not only be looked at, but also literally read. However, anything can become a text - both a street and a city (“And I - / in the street reading room - / so often leafed through the volume of the coffin” from the series “I” 1913)

“Calls of new lips” is a metaphor for a new word, a new poetic speech. The “corsets” running away from the signs, like the “tin fish”, are things that require updating. Wed. in the monologue of the Man without an Eye and a Leg in the 1st act of the tragedy “Vladimir Mayakovsky”: “And suddenly / all the things / rushed, / tearing apart their voices, / to throw off the rags of worn-out names./ The wine displays, / as if on the finger of Satan, / themselves splashed into the bottoms of the flasks. / The frozen tailor’s pants / ran off / and they went - / alone! - / without human thighs! / Drunk - / with his black mouth open - / a chest of drawers fell out of the bedroom. / Corsets came off, afraid to fall, / From the signs “Robes et modes”

“Lips,” which are traditionally included in Mayakovsky’s erotic context, are also synonymous with “mouth” in the meaning in which they are capable of producing speech, i.e. become talking, shouting, etc. (usually, speech sounds (except for whispers) are not attributed to poetic “lips” (cf. only later in O.M.: “Human lips, which have nothing more to say, / Retain the form of the last word spoken”)
How you lustfully hum the Northerner with your lip smeared in the cutlet! (“To you” 1914)
“The screaming-lipped Zarathustra preaches, / rushing and groaning, / today’s screaming-lipped Zarathustra” (“Cloud in Pants” 1915)
I will not let a single cry out of my bitten lips. (“Flute-spine” 1915)
The last one will be / your name, / caked on the lip torn out by the cannonball. (“Flute-spine” 1915)

That. “lips” are necessary to pronounce “words,” while “the calls of new lips” are the “calls” of new words,” and the line as a whole pushes the linguistic boundaries: things, the word must be given a new “name.”

Could you / play a nocturne / on a drainpipe flute?

The implied poetic rivalry between M. and Severyanin seems completely convincing (and without personal motives). According to another testimony, a personal meeting between M. and S. took place at the end of 1913, while the almanac “Trebnik of Three” with an article about the “flute” and “drainpipes” was published in March 1913. “I recently met with Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, - I. Severyanin reports at the end of 1913 to the Crimean egofuturist poet and philanthropist Vadim Bayan, - and he is a genius. If he performs at our evenings, it will be something grandiose” (V. Katanyan. Mayakovsky: Chronicle of Life and Activities. M., 1985. P. 81).
“Nocturne,” which directly refers to at least 3 Northern texts, is quite perceived as an emblem of Northern poetry. “Narrow”, an exquisite French word, also perfectly visualizes playing the flute (yoo) when pronounced. It is worth keeping in mind that the etymology of this word (nocturne - night) is relevant. The flute sounds at night and in the sonnet IS “In Memory of Ambroise Thomas”, where it is rich incl. The sound series reproduces the sound of a flute using labial sounds: “And their shadows lull my sleep / On a summer night, conjuring the melodious brain. / Their heart trills in unison like a flute, / Leah rays of sparkling harmonies. / Hearing drinks the pattern of nuances of the overture. / Cupid wings with openwork grace / Sways the breast of the flirtatious Owl.” “Nocturne” can be considered a successful use of words in this sense.
Wed. later from M. himself: “The night is filled with white weddings. / Flow joy from body to body. / Let no one forget the night / Today I will play the flute. / On your own spine. (“Flute-spine” 1915) (also, it seems, an interesting roll call: flute-heart - flute-spine; lily rays - pour out the fun and other coincidences)

“Night Flute” is the title of the first collection of poems by N. Aseev, published in 1913.

Flute sounding in the night (at dusk, in the evening, under starry sky etc.) is not such a rare poetic phenomenon. Compare, for example, V. Ivanov: “Desolate and sweet and eerie in the night / A pipe note, relentlessly alone, / Crying in the distant distances... Sound mournfully, / A transcendental flute, the voice of the dark bottom! / Whether the Night is languishing, or the blood is whispering / (Ah, the heart is a prison of sleepless springs!), - / Your intermittent call returned to me again / The Sibylline charms of the resounding nights” (1911), etc.

It should be noted that the erotic interpretation of the northerner’s “Idyll” is also based on a frivolous play of meanings: the “head” is usually called the upper (parabolic) part of the flute. It has not yet been possible to establish at what time the thickenings on the side opening of the “head” began to be called “sponges”

Replacing pl. h. in the original version (“on flutes of drainpipes”) per unit. (“on the flute of drainpipes”), the transition from simile (pipes like flutes) to metaphor gives birth to another new “name”, the name of a new instrument - a sounding drainpipe (cf.: “The drainpipe begins to slowly play one note. The iron of the roofs began to hum " ("Vladimir Mayakovsky" 1913)

In other words, “Could you?” means: “Could you give new names to all things? Could you master this new language?”