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

"Дом"
Another hopeful poem incorporated into the 1921 edition of Путем зерна is the
1919-1920 blank verse narrative "Дом." While focused on an image of destruction and
decay (a house destroyed after the revolution), the poem, like "Вариация," opens
outward, suggesting, in the end, the potential for rebirth. Informed by both the title poem
and "Ручей," "Дом" serves as a point of transition from the more personal, questioning
journey of the first editions of Путем зерна to the more confident, epic statement of the
final version. 74
The poem opens with a description of the ruined house. The wood of the upper
story has been torn down for fuel, leaving only the "crude shell" (грубый остов) of the
stone base. This skeleton is defined by its negative spaces—its emptinesses. The empty
spaces of the windows (пролеты широких окон), not the still present outlines or frames,
are clearly drawn (lines 7-8). Even larger gaps—perhaps the holes where doors used to
stand—lead the traveler who visits the house from one emptiness into another (lines 29-
30). The rooms that used to house families now contain only heaps of trash that reek of
rancid cold (lines 9-10).
This bleak vision of emptiness is strangely tempered by the calm voice of the
speaker. He describes his frequent evening visits to the house as restful (lines 3-4). He
balances the negative images of destruction and decay with a positive description of the
sky and green trees of the courtyard rising up out of the ruins (lines 4-6). While the
74 Michael Wachtel has discussed this poem in the context of the Russian blank verse tradition. He does
not, however, consider the context of the book which contains it and as a result describes the poem as
"unremittingly bleak." He associates the water imagery of the poem with the apocalyptic imagery of a
destructive flood, rather than seeing it as a symbol of life and spiritual energy, a consistent feature of water
in Путем зерна (see, for example, my earlier discussion of "Ручей.") Michael Wachtel, The Development
of Russian Verse: Meter and its Meanings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 101-3. By
reading "Дом" in the context of the entire book, specifically the context of the structuring title poem, I will
try to show how the poem in fact acts as a hopeful link in the cycle of death and rebirth.
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