1906 After entering a boarding school for girls, Zvetayeva began to read 19 th century Russian classic poets' works, such as Pushkin, lermontov, Nekrav and others' works, relived the rhythm and rhythm instilled in her childhood, contacted the works of German romantic poets such as Goethe and Heine, and cultivated a lifelong romantic spirit in her soul. Like many girls of the same age, Zvetayeva at this stage is full of romantic fantasies, rebellious desires for real life and longing for a bright future. It is said that she fell in love with a college student, Nilund, and wrote many lyric poems for him, but the indifference of the other party made her feel very painful. So, she bought a pistol and committed suicide in the theater where her beloved French writer rostain's play "Young Eagle" was staged. Fortunately, the gun was loaded with duds, which did not lead to tragedy, but it also showed the poet's aloof, resolute and extreme character.
According to Zvetayeva's account, she began to practice poetry at the age of six and has never stopped since. 19 10, the girl of 18 years old published her poems at her own expense, which attracted the attention of many literary predecessors, including borisov, gumilyov and Voloshin. Breyusov saw the legacy of symbolism, and gumilyov was delighted with the daily concerns revealed in it, because they coincided with Akemeism's creative principle-let the rose tell the rose itself; As for Voloshin, besides encouraging this "young and naive book", he personally visited the author of the poem, which became the beginning of their sincere friendship. In this collection of poems, Zvetayeva almost unconsciously practiced a creative principle that she followed later: "The only responsibility of man on earth is the truth of the whole existence." She regards life as the inspiration to seek truth and writing as the road to truth. In the poem "Prayer", she wrote:
"Christ and God! I long for miracles,
Now, now, as always!
Oh, please let me die at once,
My life is just a book to me.
I like crosses, silks and satins and helmets.
My soul, changing rapidly?
You gave me a childhood and a fairy tale.
Give me a death-at the age of seventeen. "
Although the whole poem has traces of "teenagers don't know the taste of sorrow", it also reveals the themes of her life: life, death, love, friendship, art, nature and God.
1912 65438+10 In October, Zvetayeva married Sergei Avron, the descendant of a populist, and dedicated her second collection of poems, Magic Street Lights, to him. However, this collection of poems has not received the expected praise. Akme's poet, Gorodsky and Gu Milijev, members of the Poets' Workshop, made unfriendly remarks, while borisov, whom she always respected, also showed obvious disappointment. In this regard, Zvetayeva's reaction is: "If I were a member of the workshop, they would not be so abusive, but I would never join the workshop." She believes that poets should be independent and unconstrained. Sure enough, not only was she never a member of the acme school, but she was even independent of all literary societies and schools, and kept a proper distance from symbolism, acme school and futurism, which occupied the mainstream of the literary world at that time, although she had personal contacts with many people in these schools. This free state naturally brings many difficulties and inconveniences to her life and writing, but it is of great benefit to the formation of her artistic personality. In her collection of poems, Excerpts from Two Books, Zvetayeva wrote: "My poem is a diary, and my poem is my own."
In the history of Russian poetry, from Pushkin, the "father of literature" to poets in the "Silver Age", Petersburg has always been favored by poets for its beautiful scenery and heavy history, so that it is regarded as a symbol of Russian poetry. 19 16 winter, Zvetayeva had a trip to Petersburg. This trip became an important turning point in her creation. As the mother of poetry, Petersburg seems to cultivate her consciousness of praising "masculine" Moscow with the strength of women in her poems. She began to realize her value as a Moscow poet, and decided to love Moscow, which was born and raised in Moscow, as Brock and Akhmatova loved Petersburg. To this end, she wrote a set of poems "Moscow". Moscow has her familiar museums, familiar concert halls, familiar paths, familiar groves, familiar squares and churches, and more importantly, "the ribs of the Kremlin bear everything", which is the root of her poetry and the starting point of her life:
"Accept artificial boundaries from me,
My strange brother, excellent brother.
Over the city abandoned by Peter,
The thunderous bell is ringing.
The whole 1.6 thousand church
Laugh at the czar's arrogance! "
Her admiration for Petersburg poets gave birth to a series of poems such as To Brock and To Akhmatova, as well as a series of poems dedicated to Manjieshitam. In "To Brock", she confided to the lyrical object in a warm tone:
"Your name is the bird in your hand,
Your name is ice on the tip of your tongue.
Your name is a kiss in the eye,
Kissing closed eyes, gentle chill,
Your name is deep blue and cold spring. "
The poet even thinks that sleeping with "your name" is the sweetest thing. Here, Brock is no longer a poet in reality, but is endowed with images such as "gentle phantom", "impeccable knight" and "snow-white swan", which become the ideal and symbol of poetry and the yardstick of writing. She hopes her hand can shake hands with Brock, just like moscow river and neva river, although she thinks it's like the sunrise catching up with the sunset, from which it's not hard to see the pride of the latecomers lurking in humility.
In her mind, Akhmatova is "the most beautiful muse among muses" and "Anna with golden lips" (Athenian smart woman in Greek mythology). Her name is like "a huge sigh", so she will give Akhmatova a gift "more eternal than love", that is, the poet's own heart, and then leave like an empty-handed beggar. However, unlike the worship of Brock, Zvetayeva paid tribute to Akhmatova from a talented poet. They become "stars", "moon" and "cross of heaven" because they are all "women of the earth".
The 1920s was one of the most turbulent periods in Russian history, and Zvetayeva naturally could not get rid of the predicament imposed on her by the times. 19 17, her husband, Ai Long Fu, was drafted into the army and has never been heard from since. 19 19 autumn, Zvetayeva had to send her two daughters to Kuentsev nursery. Soon, Aria, the eldest daughter who was seriously ill, was sent home, but Irina, the youngest daughter, starved to death in the nursery. Even in such a difficult period, she still didn't stop her poetry creation. Perhaps writing at this time has become the most important means for her to send away loneliness and poverty. One of the achievements of writing is a milestone, a collection of poems published by 192 1. In this book of poems, she focuses on her thoughts about her husband. But compared with the works of girlhood, these poems are more mixed with the bitterness of life, showing anxiety about the uncertain future, and longing, pursuit, desire, confusion and contradiction that collide with her soul:
"My soul is so close to yours,
Just like a person's left hand and right hand.
We close our eyes, intoxicated and gentle,
It's like the left and right wings of a bird.
But once the storm hits-the bottomless abyss
It lies between the left and right wings. "
1922, Ephron fled to Prague, Czech Republic with the defeated Frankish army. Disappointed with the behavior of the White Army, he took off his military uniform and entered Prague University. After learning that her husband was still alive, Zvetayeva was allowed to go abroad for reunion. When she went abroad, she came to Berlin, Germany. Berlin at that time was one of the centers of Russian diaspora culture. There, she met Ann Bailey and Bao Pasternak, and their newly published poem "Life, My Sister" left a deep impression on her. The Berlin period is one of the most creative periods for Zvetayeva, during which she published poems such as Farewell, Swan Camp and Craft. In addition, he also wrote several narrative poems, such as Song of the Mountain, Song of Doomsday, Song of the Air and Rath.
There is no doubt that in the history of Russian poetry, Zvetayeva belongs to the type of talented poet. Throughout her whole creation, we can feel that there is inspiration and rich imagination everywhere, and there is no craft, but this does not mean that the poet ignores the technical level of poetry. On the contrary, she pays more attention to the existence of technology than many mediocre poets. She deeply understands that without craftsmanship, it is impossible for people to turn plain into magic, and it is impossible to create art in earthly life, because, "God has thoughts! God is with fiction! " So, she proudly declared:
"Find yourself a reliable girlfriend,
That's not because the number of girlfriends is amazing.
I know that Venus is a two-handed enterprise,
I am a craftsman, and I know how to do it. "
The emphasis on skills makes Zvetayeva's poems have very distinct personality characteristics. Her works are sonorous in rhythm and bizarre in image, full of dashes, question marks, exclamation points and ellipsis. The above characteristics and those incomplete sentences often cause great jumps between words and sentences, making some of her works more obscure. However, if readers can peel off the obscure semantic shell and savor the profound meaning contained in it, it is not difficult to follow the technical clues to the spiritual hall, so as to realize the special interpretation of the ill-fated poetess on the nature of life, thus producing a brand-new aesthetic resonance and * * *.
1925 In the autumn, Zvetayeva and his wife moved to Paris with their newborn son Moore. After expressing their initial welcome, Belarusian expatriates thought her poems were "ours in content, but theirs in sound" and they were "non-China", and began to reject and attack her. Soon after, because Zvetayeva showed some pro-Soviet tendencies and showed a good impression on Mayakovski, her situation was even more in a dilemma: "I am redundant here, but it is impossible to go back there." During this period, loneliness, poverty and nostalgia for the motherland became the main theme of her creation, which was embodied in the poetry collection "After Russia" published by 1928.
Through Pasternak's recommendation and introduction, Zvetayeva got in touch with the Austrian poet Rilke in the spring of 1926. As a result, the three of them began to communicate frequently and formed a strange love triangle. This love affair established through letters has left a famous legacy in the world literary world. Their kisses and hugs on pieces of paper, as well as the platonic feelings between the lines, once again set a shining example for mankind to transform from lust into spirit and life beyond death. This passion of Zvetayeva accumulated into an existential rationality in an article written to Rilke later. In this article, Zvetayeva said at the beginning: "Everyone's death must be integrated into the ranks of others' deaths and must be in a connected position in death. "After the first dead because of the existence of a dead, formed a living long chain. Through thinking about death, the poet touched the secret connection of life and sent people back to the realm of life. " Lena, I was swallowed up by your death, that is to say, I linked all the deaths of my relatives I have endured so far with your death: whether it was the arrogant death of my mother or the extremely touching death of my father, there were many other deaths. "We can easily find that this passage is filled with an unforgettable love, which comes from the poet's sense of mission: the world is sick and needs blood transfusion, and it is our poet who has the same blood relationship. The poet gave his blood and died. The above is the "net weight" of death that Zvetayeva told us through the article "Your Death".
The 1930s was the peak of Zvetayeva's prose creation. The most direct reason for this peak is that poetry can't sell well in the diaspora cultural circle like other genres, and its innate aristocratic atmosphere makes it serve only a few intellectual elites, while the circulation of prose can be smoothly popularized, and then popularized and bring certain economic benefits. As the poet said with a little self-mockery, "living abroad made me a prose writer." In addition, for a poet, after high-intensity poetry writing, there can be a unified "prose" stage, which can also be regarded as a "buffer" after the "100-meter sprint", and he can get a chance to "rally" in his recuperation. It should be pointed out that these essays are not random works, but some famous works, such as Labor Hero, The Story of a Poem, The Well of Memory (literally translated as Living Impression), The Poet and the Times, The Soul of the Prisoner, The Poet on Critics, Pushkin and pugachev, etc. , describe Bole language. In the form of prose, they explained her thoughts on life and some thoughtful thoughts on art and poetry. Although they described them, they expressed the poet himself. To some extent, it can be said that the blood of poetry flows in the blood of prose.
Among Zvetayeva's numerous prose works, her autobiography is the most noteworthy. They are composed of sixteen reminiscences, including Mother and Music, My Pushkin, The House of Old Pimen, The fiancee, The People of China and your death mentioned earlier. In My Pushkin, the poet describes her mental journey into Pushkin, and with the passion of a modern poet, she expresses her heartfelt respect to the classic poets of her own nation. In her childhood, she formed the impression of a pure poet: the most important reason why Dantè s dueled Pushkin and killed him was that Dantè s could not write poetry. From then on, in her young mind, she divided the world into two categories: poets and the masses. She herself tends to stand on the side of poets and take them as the object of protection. In the interpretation of Pushkin, Zvetayeva also revealed a poet's sensitivity. She pointed out with unique insights that Pushkin's favorite woman in his life is his wet nurse, a woman who is not like a woman. What he said to the wet nurse is the gentlest language in the world, and he has never presented such language to any other woman. Like Pushkin, the most important element that Zvetayeva relies on when writing is "freedom". Therefore, when expounding the famous sentences of the previous generation of poets about the sea, she showed profound insight: "the natural force of freedom" is not the sea, but the poem itself, which people can never give up.
Like many Russian expatriates, Zvetayeva, who lives in Paris, has been plagued by lingering homesickness. At the same time, the narrowness and hypocrisy of Belarusian expatriates make poets disdain to associate with them. 1June, 939, Zvetayeva returned to the Soviet Union with her son. However, the bad luck waiting for Zvetayeva was unexpected. In August of the same year, Aria, the daughter who returned home early, was arrested and immediately exiled. On June+10, 5438, her husband, Ai Long Fu, was arrested and shot for being accused of anti-Soviet activities. During this period, because she lost the possibility of publishing her own works, she devoted her main energy to poetry translation. Zvetayeva's translation is very rigorous. Her translation principle is that the literary works she writes must be literary works, otherwise, she would rather not publish them. Obviously, she is reluctant to exchange such an attitude for rations. So she often has to do some rough work, such as helping the kitchen, cleaning and so on to subsidize her family.
In the biography, Zvetayeva said: "I love everything in my life only when I say goodbye, not when I meet it;" They are all loved when they are apart, not when they are together; They would rather die than live. One of her poems can be used as a comment on this passage: "She waited too long for the knife tip"! Fate seems to have fueled her belief. 194 1 In August, Zvetayeva and her only relative son Moore moved to Yelabao, a small town in the autonomous country of Tatar. It was in this small town that the poet experienced the most unbearable spiritual and material crisis in his life. The poet Zvetayeva hopes to find a job as a dishwasher in the canteen of the forthcoming Writers' Association. However, this application was rejected by the leaders of the Writers Association. On August 3rd1day, she hanged herself in despair. The last thing she said to her son was, "Little Moore, please forgive me. It will be worse in the future. I am very ill. This is not me anymore. I love you passionately. You have to understand, I can't live anymore. Please tell Dad and Ai Liya-if you can see them-that I love them until the last moment. Please explain to them that I am desperate now. " In a sense, Marina Zvetayeva (1892- 194 1) is closer to the essence of poetry than all the poems written on paper. I don't want to talk about Zvetayeva's life here, just her poems; However, as Voloshin said when the poet first entered the world of poetry: Zvetayeva is not thinking, she lives in poetry. Zvetayeva's poems can be regarded as spells and predictions that she keeps giving herself. When I read "It's a pity that the poem was not written!" It feels like reading her judgment on the world in advance. However, the poet also answered in advance: "As for me-I belong to all centuries." Maybe the world can't hold her, and she can't hold her better work-unwritten poems; Everything is enough: no matter her sufferings or her achievements. I admit that I have always been an admirer of Zvetayeva, but even I am surprised at the gap between myself and my admirers in temperament and ambition. In fact, regardless of literature or art, I always yearn for everything that is closest and farthest apart; And those who wander between the two, I think they are people who died on the road. As for Zvetayeva, "her poems are like the magnificent Niagara Falls, composed of passion, pain, metaphor and music." This seems to be what Evtushenko said, and it is difficult to express our feelings more effectively than this.
Let me first talk about my basic views on poetry: poetry is not only an unusual way of experience, but also an unusual way of thinking or language, and fundamentally, these are all the same thing. It can be put another way: a poet is a special person, and poetry is a special way of thinking or language. When I say "thinking mode or language mode" here, I don't mean "either-or". It's just that it's difficult to grasp which expression is more accurate at present. In fact, the two are the same thing: this way of thinking is not poetry if it does not resort to language, and it is not poetry if it only stays at the language level. At this point, it is very close to what the ancients said, "Poetry has different talents". If "talent" is understood as the ability of thinking and language. Poetry is an independent existence relative to this world; We can only look for it, and it can't make up for us. In this sense, I also think that Zvetayeva is more worthy of the title of poet than most poets before and after. "Man's only task in the world is to be loyal to himself, and a true poet will always be his own prisoner; This fortress is stronger than Peter Paul's fortress. " This sentence of hers is a perfect description of her people or her poems. Even with the help of translation, we can feel that, driven by the poet's eager, intense and even violent poetic thinking, her sentences chase after sentences and vocabulary chase after vocabulary, and some of them fall behind, resulting in a unique leap or fragmentation of her poems. Most of Zvetayeva's later poems are incredible. Zvetayeva has always been beyond the reach of ordinary experience and ordinary thinking.
As broschi said, "Prose is just another form of continuation of her poetry." When Zvetayeva looks back on the past, countless thoughts are wrapped in countless details. It is almost impossible for a person to stand on the other side; Unless there is no time and space between them, that is to say, this person is not looking back, she is in this reality. This is also the unique place of Zvetayeva. She writes essays and memoirs, as well as poems. Zvetayeva is a poet who is always in the "present" state. Voloshin's so-called "she lives in poetry" is at this moment; As a poet, she is writing at the moment. In my opinion, this is both difficult and dangerous for poets. Because poetry is present, but the art of poetry is often absent, which needs careful consideration. However, masterpieces and hasty and rough works were born at the same time, and the difference lies in the person who wrote the poem. Some authors have to wait a while to make up their own poems with their own experiences; For Zvetayeva, it is always synchronous, because she has enough talent to fully express it in the future, including all the complexity, twists and turns, subtlety and extension. Passion and pain are not only what poets need, but also enough to kill them, while Zvetayeva can control everything she writes. So when she said "I am a craftsman-I know craftsmanship", it was a special case in the history of world poetry. I can only read Zvetayeva, and I won't follow suit. On the other hand, her passion and pain do not need to be accumulated-they are always the deepest, strongest and most mature; Moreover, fate has never provided her with enough time.