THE BOOK OF POEMS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ... - TopReferat

invaded and tempted by various demons and alien forces. These "characters" constitute
one of the book's major narrative threads. 197
The first three stanzas of "Обрезание сердца" are filled with violent physical
detail: repeated images of blood and flesh; the forceful actions of taking, stabbing,
hurling (возьми, заколоть, швырнуть); and the frantic last gasps of her circumcised
heart, blazing and streaming for one final moment before her imminent death. Combined
with Lavinia's extremely conversational address to God ("значит," "на"), these details
create an excruciatingly vivid portrait of self-sacrifice.
In the final stanza, Shvarts compares her sacrifice to that of Abraham. Having
shown her willingness to make the sacrifice, she expects an angel to take away the knife
and reprieve her, as God reprieved Abraham. But such a spiritual offering of devotion is
not enough, and God does not intervene. The literal circumcision of the heart is carried
out, and a different model is suggested: Christ's self-sacrifice. Lavinia's familiar address
to God reflects an intimacy typical of a literal child and parent, not a person and God.
The imagery of physical torment recalls Christ's sufferings on the cross. The "living
blood" and flesh (живая кровь, плоть) offered up in the first stanza recall the living
blood and flesh of Christ offered to man in the Eucharist. 198
Lavinia, like Christ, is God's
chosen sacrifice (желанна жертва).
This poem is typical of Lavinia's verse in many ways: the immediacy of its
conversational tone and language; its violent, physical imagery particularly in describing
self-mutilation; its specificity to the female gender; its emphasis on the physical and
spiritual center of the heart; and, most importantly, its realization of metaphors, the
197 For a discussion of the heart as the locus of Shvarts's poetry, see Goldstein, "The Heart-Felt Poetry of
Elena Shvarts."
198 See John 6:48-55.
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