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

uined house in "Дом" is in full working order in "Хлебы," ready to receive the streams
of future bread (струи будущего хлеба)—sure signs of new life.
In addition to pointing us back to "Ручей" and forward to "Хлебы," these final
images return us to the beginning of "Дом," revealing the cyclical structure of the poem
itself. The rising green moon of line 73 recalls the green trees which rise youthfully out
of the ruins in lines 5 and 6. This positive early image, which on first reading seemed
puzzlingly at odds with the stark picture of destruction that surrounds it, now carries a
clearer significance. From the very outset of the poem, the cycle of death and rebirth is
implicitly acknowledged. Signs of renewal accompany signs of decay. This cycle
becomes evident, however, only after a full reading of the entire poem. By the time
Khodasevich repeats the adjective "green," the verb "rise" and the concept of youth or
infancy, the reader has followed the traveler and the madman along their revelatory path.
Further informed by the pattern established in the poem "Путем зерна," the reader can
now recognize the hopeful images as the beginnings of a new cycle of life and death—
another path of the grain.
The excised poems: "Газетчик," "Как выскажу моим косноязычьем,"
"Сердце," and "Старуха"
I have tried to show above that "Вариация" and "Дом" contain elements of hope
essential to the final edition of Путем зерна. By contrast, Khodasevich eliminates the
four other poems first found in the 1921 edition ("Газетчик," "Как выскажу моим
косноязычьем," "Сердце," and "Старуха"). In order to understand this choice, it is
helpful to recall Khodasevich's introduction to the proposed 1921 revised edition of
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