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

бытия," recalls the book’s title, "Путем зерна." Here, however, the "path of existence"
is seen as a fateful trap rather than a natural pattern of life and death to be embraced and
accepted. The speaker is condemned to eternal torments without any hope of relief or
regeneration. Even through suicide he cannot escape his fate—he will inevitably be
reborn into the same life of pain and poison. Such a bitter statement against the hopeful
message of "Путем зерна" no longer finds a place in the 1927 edition of the book. In the
final book Khodasevich continues to express moments of doubt and despair (e.g. "Утро,"
"У моря"), but these moments never close off the potential for life and hope, and they
never threaten to silence the poet.
Poems added to the final edition of Путем зерна
Unlike the wholly pessimistic additions to the 1921 edition, the four new poems
included in the final edition of Путем зерна all support the central idea of the book—the
cycle of death and rebirth set out in the opening poem. Each also reflects Khodasevich's
move away from the immediate expression of his own youthful emotions to a more
mature contemplation of universal questions. He places three of these poems, "Брента,"
"Мельница," and "Акробат" in the fifth, sixth and seventh positions of the book,
following the title poem, "Слезы Рахили," "Ручей," and "Сладко после дождя теплая
пахнет ночь." In effect these new poems take the place of the excised cluster of poems
originally placed after "Ручей" and "Слезы Рахили": "Авиатору," "Газетчик,"
"Уединение," "Как выскажу моим косноязычьем," "Рыбак," and "Воспоминание." I
will argue that one of the new poems, "Акробат," acts as a direct replacement for
"Авиатору." "Брента" and "Мельница" do not respond specifically to individual
poems, but rather provide a general relief from the overwrought emotion of the earlier
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