Brock objectively and truly described the representative of the people, the Twelve Red Guards, but he was not idealized, one-sided and demonized. In "Twelve", twelve Red Guards realized that they were the expression and symbol of the people's power and their lofty revolutionary duties, and they performed their duties of breaking the old world with passion and strength at any time and place to defend the ideal of the new world ("enemies who are unwilling to keep the pace of revolution do not doze off").
In his long poems, Brock describes violent snowstorms, untenable sudden winds, and cold nights. He often gives these natural phenomena special mysterious symbolic significance. In the process of writing Twelve, such records kept appearing in his diary: Blizzard in the Evening (Changing Companion) (65438+10.3), The wind is howling (whirlwind again? ) "(65438+1October 6). Physiologically, he could feel the sound of the old world being destroyed: "Recently, I was lying in the dark with my eyes open, and I heard boom, boom, I think the earthquake has started" (65438+1October 9). He pointed out: "The revolution is like a sudden wind, like a snowstorm", and its flow makes a solemn and deafening roar "and" a huge roar ". The poet melts his high revolutionary passion and strong poetic power into the melody of flying snow between heaven and earth and roaring at night in long poems.
On Petrograd Street, from the depths of the snowstorm at night, the protagonist in the long poem appeared-a patrol and twelve Red Guards soldiers. They are representatives of the new world, the twelve apostles of the new world. They dominate the fate of history. They are surrounded by fire, fire, fire. Fire is a symbol of revolution. They want to set the world on fire. The poet painted twelve people, whose backs should be embroidered with red squares and AISI patterns. They are regarded as thugs and criminals by the upper class and the lowest class. However, they became angry and rebellious. This resistance shows the spontaneous strength of the great people. In the process of resistance, there was robbery and murder in love (Petrucha, the only one with a name among the twelve, killed his lover Kachka). They respect everything and do whatever they want: "freedom, freedom, no cross." If even religious beliefs that have been ingrained for thousands of years can be abandoned, then the old system, tsars, nobles, landlords and capitalists will certainly be overthrown.
Brock combines the snowstorm and night of nature, the fire symbolizing the world revolution and the white-haired revolutionary passion of the protagonist into a tragic symphony with surging waves and roaring heroic voices.
Most of Brock's previous poems were about the opposition and struggle between the protagonist and society, and between the protagonist and the environment, but only in "Twelve" did the decisive battle between the old and new worlds be shown.
12 Red Guards marched in a long poem from beginning to end on a snowstorm night. They are very universal and symbolic. We can't see their expressions, but we can only feel their severity, indifference and strength in the revolutionary struggle. Armed with spears and observing revolutionary discipline, they followed Jesus Christ to the distant revolutionary holy land.
Twelve is an impassioned hymn of the poet to the October Revolution and the people who stood up and fought.
The poem is exquisite in form, ingenious in conception and neat in structure, and three dramatic plot clues are constructed: one clue is the tragic story caused by the emotional entanglement of "Petrou Cha-Kachka-Wanka"; The second clue is that twelve Red Guards marched proudly in the streets of Petersburg with magnificent songs. The third line is that people with different classes, different consciousness and different identities, such as the old woman, the bourgeoisie, your wife, the priest and the tramp, have different reactions to the revolution. All this happened in the natural background of "snowstorm" and "gale" raging in the "dark night". As a result, the three plot clues are independent of each other, the plot is complete and intertwined, forming a sharp contrast, showing an unstoppable revolutionary torrent and attacking the conservative darkness of the czar's autocratic rule. In the author's works, natural phenomena in real life have strong metaphorical meaning and aesthetic rhetoric effect: "dark night" symbolizes darkness and decay, "storm", "sudden snow" and "strong wind" symbolize powerful destructive power and chaos in the process of sports revolution; "White" symbolizes brightness and purity, while "mangy dog", "hungry dog", "stray dog" and "homeless dog" are metaphors of the dying and destroying old world. In the poem, the demise of the old world and the birth of the new world are directly linked with the people, and the twelve Red Guards from the bottom of the city are the representatives of the people:
During the revolutionary period, behind Petrograd Street, facing the ruins in ruins, the poet saw that a new world was about to be born and a new Russia was rising. Behind the patrol of the Twelve Red Guards, the poet saw the people rushing to the future, and an era when the people were masters of their own affairs was coming. Under the leadership of "Christ with a banner", "they are marching bravely into the distance"-this banner is bright and huge, full of passion and encouragement; Although there is no trace of this Christ, it is full of appeal and revolutionary passion; These steps are firm and persistent, heroic and powerful; This distant place, though hazy, is beautiful, though unknown, but wonderful. These images not only reflect the poet's cognitive position and value appeal to the October Revolution, the masses of the people and the future world-the "revolutionary storm" of revenge against the old world is a snowstorm to cleanse dirt and eliminate suffering, which is correct and great; The "Twelve Red Guards" who marched with Christ are the representatives and defenders of the new life, the manifestation of the people's spontaneous strength, and at the same time have the extremes of anarchy; The new world in the future is in line with religious morality, and it is also hazy and vague.
Intriguingly, Russian critics have always had different views on the title of the long poem "Twelve" and the image of Christ looming in the middle and clearly appearing at the end, with different opinions and even opposites. Some people think that the image of Christ is a symbol of revolutionaries and socialists, a symbol of proletarian ideals of revolutionaries and a religious belief; Some people think that the image of Christ is a canonical figure in the gospels, and Christ is a symbol of a better future. Some people think that the image of Christ is pagan Christ, the "burning" Christ sent by ancient believers, and the embodiment of eternal femininity. Others believe that the image of Christ is an extraordinary superman, an artist who combines western foreign ideas with Russian national traditions; What's more, the image of Christ is an antichrist, an antichrist and a Christ full of revolutionary violence. It is true that the title of "Twelve" is symbolic. The Twelve Red Guards are easily associated with the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. The long poem is divided into 12 chapters in structure, which seems to have some form of connection and internal echo with the topic. The abstract Christian metaphor is that the author writes the images of twelve Red Guards and Christ together, which is a kind of domination and traction of inner consciousness. They hid behind a "running point in front" and fell into an ecstasy of inspiration. The light spot is big and bright, "exciting and attracting me". As for "Christ with a flag", it seems to Brock that it is a vague image: "It's like this, but it's not like this" ... When the flag flutters with the wind (in the rain and snow, more importantly, in the darkness of night), I think there is a huge person under it, who used to be related to him (he didn't hold it, didn't hold it, how-but I-not only that, but also. From this point of view, the vague image of Christ has the diversity of interpretation: it can be understood as both the moral identity of the revolution and the symbol of lofty moral ideals; It can be understood as an expectation of the birth and spiritual transformation of a new world, an abstract force above the world, and an identification and call for a utopian world in the future. However, there is a limit to the interpretation of images, as the Italian symbolist alberto Eco said, "To say that interpretation (the basic feature of' Yan Yi') is potentially infinite does not mean that interpretation has no objective object, nor does it mean that it can' spread' freely like water. Saying that a text has no ending does not mean that every interpretation behavior may get a satisfactory result, because "between the mysterious creation process and the uncontrollable interpretation process, the existence of a work' text' is tantamount to a soothing agent, which makes our interpretation activities no longer wander around aimlessly, but have a refuge." Russian scholar Tulkoff thought in Brock's Biography that "the poet is not an astrologer, and his poems are not astrological charts. It is ridiculous to look for predictions of specific events in poetry ... "Although Brock saw that the torrent of the people's movement and the devastating revolution were" the beginning of life ",he did not know who could save the dark old world and build a beautiful new world. Zheng Tiwu, a domestic scholar, examined and interpreted the image of revolutionary Christ from the perspective of poet identity and poetic aesthetics. His point of view is unique: "From the author's own explanation, we can see that Christ in the twelfth middle school is not so much an abstract illusion as a poetic experience of the great changes in social history." "Generally speaking, the poet gave the October Revolution and the people a moral explanation and symbolic cognition through the image of Christ-any revolution and belief is based on tradition and heritage. In fact, the establishment of the Soviet regime and the determination of the Soviet development path are not only guided by Marxist theory and tempted by utopian socialist theory in western Europe, but also dominated by Russian collectivism tradition and infiltrated by Orthodox utopian consciousness.
The long poem Twelve is the representative work of Brock's later creation. Known by Trotsky as "the swan song of individual art", it embodies the poet's views on the people and the revolution, and has a high artistic level and profound ideological connotation. Mr. Lu Xun commented:
Those who can see poetry in a mixed metropolis will also see poetry in a shaken revolution. So Brock made twelve, and therefore "appeared on the stage of the October Revolution". But his success on the revolutionary stage is not only because he is an urban poet; However, as Trotsky said, because he "rushed towards us." Hurriedly injured. "
"Twelve" has therefore become an important work of the October Revolution, which will be handed down forever.
The old poet was silent, lost his mind and ran away. The new poet hasn't played his wonderful piano yet. Brock was alone in revolutionary Russia, listening to "the roaring destructive music and taking a long breath". He heard the wind in the snow at night, the sadness of the old woman, the hesitation of the priest, the conversation between the rich man and his wife, the money-whoring in the meeting, the songs and gunshots of revenge, and the blood of Kakaka. However, he heard that the old world was like a mangy dog: he rushed to the revolution.
But he is not a new revolutionary poet after all, so although he made sudden progress, he was injured in the end. Twelve years ago, he saw Jesus Christ wearing a white rose wreath.
But this is the most important work of the Russian October Revolution.
You can see such a heart in the poem "Twelve": He moved forward, so he rushed to the revolution, but turned back and got hurt.
The style of this poem is very strange in China; But I thought I could show what Russia looked like at that time; If you watch carefully, you may feel a great shock and roar. Unfortunately, translation is the most difficult.