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

Молодость. At the time of the introduction, the poems in Молодость no longer meant
what they did when he wrote them:
многое было в них намеком на чувства, давно изгладившиеся, на события,
потерявшие былое значение, а то и вовсе забытые. Вижу, что даже
отдельные образы, строки, слова этих стихов имели когда-то особый, ныне
затерянный смысл. И не за литературные недостатки вычеркнул я теперь из
«Молодости» около пятнадцати пьес, —таких недостатков слишком
достаточно и в оставшейся части, —а потому, что сам перестал понимать
их. 76
It seems that the four poems ultimately left out of Путем зерна similarly failed to
maintain meaning for Khodasevich in 1927. Written in the haze of Khodasevich's
excruciating illness, the poems provide a highly emotional account of an extremely
difficult period. By 1927, however, they no longer held the same biographical relevance.
With the final edition, Khodasevich had also conceived a grander purpose for Путем
зерна. The book no longer centered on his own personal journey, but rather laid out a
universal path for all humanity to follow—a path which relies on the cyclicity of life and
death. The entirely hopeless, pessimistic additions to the 1921 edition did not find a
place along this path, therefore they no longer belonged in the reconceived final version
of Путем зерна. 77
One of the poems, "Газетчик," recalls Khodasevich's early, decadent poetry. The
newspaper man is described as a little demon (маленький демон, reminiscent of
Sologub's "мелкий бес") and a twirling, striding beast (бестия):
«Вечерние известия!...»
Ори, ласкай мне слух,
Пронырливая бестия,
Вечерних улиц дух.
76 Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 1, 279.
77 The poems "Уединение" and "Воспоминание" which were removed from the first editions of Путем
зерна exhibit a similar hopelessness and despair inappropriate to the tone and message of the final book.
58