“Languishment in the cramped limits. Analysis of the poem "Could You?"

Read the verse “Could You?” Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich can be found on the website. Written in the early period of creativity (1913), the poem reflects the position of the author, who seeks to declare a new word in art. Although the theme is not new: the deep division between the poet and the crowd, the confrontation between the layman and the creator, Mayakovsky reveals it using innovative methods, a fresh form, offering his bright, imaginative perception of the world and comparing it with the dull everyday.

Poem "Could You?" - a challenge to everything familiar, monotonous like “everyday”, repeating at regular intervals. However, this gray everyday day can be changed in the poet’s imagination in the same way as the familiar contours of a geographical map. They can be erased, blurred, smeared if you splash another paint from a glass onto the card. In the perception of the down-to-earth man in the street, jelly is a trembling mass on a porcelain dish; the poet’s eye saw on it “the slanting cheekbones of the ocean,” and fish scales for him are “the call of new lips.” The juxtaposition is unexpected and non-standard. The poet avoids templates, which in his perception are the personification of everything inert, mercantile and grounded. But to see this, you need to be able to notice poetry in what is ordinary and everyday and be surprised at what will leave another indifferent. Only a romantic can hear the sounds of a flute in the simple murmur of a drainpipe, and a poet, using verbal forms, can play a nocturne on it.

In search of new futuristic forms, Mayakovsky created works that met with mixed reviews from his contemporaries. But according to Pasternak, the poet cannot be denied skill and “proud democracy.” The text of Mayakovsky's poem "Could You?" You can download it in its entirety on the website or study it online during a literature lesson in the classroom.

In About Mayakovsky's poem "I immediately blurred the map of everyday life"

I immediately blurred the map of everyday life,
splashing paint from a glass;
I showed the jelly on the dish
slanting cheekbones of the ocean.
On the scales of a tin fish
I read the calls of new lips.
And you
play nocturne
we could
on the drainpipe flute?

It’s not even worth saying that all these attempts at least somewhat clarify the true meaning of the poem, although in O. Kushlina’s interpretation (based on the message that the poem was written on the back of a restaurant menu - a card) there are a number of witty interpretations. I'll give it below the cut.

“This is urbanism, a futuristic still life, nothing more,” concludes Kushlina. However, as mentioned above, attempts to interpret “I immediately smeared” only as an urban landscape, a cubo-futurist manifesto, or poetic cubism, which have been made repeatedly and over many decades, do not explain the poem.

We are offered a superficial layer: the interpreters do not explain in any way the appearance flutes on par with fish and fish metaphors (you should not refer to external similarity and at the same time opposition flute-trumpet), nor the mysterious phrase “I read the calls of new lips,” nor, finally, the fact that Mayakovsky’s poetic rival is invited to play a “nocturne” and not any other piece of music.

Meanwhile, the poem is most transparent. And it is directed against Igor Severyanin. It is in Severyanin that the pastoral, bucolic flute appears in a “fishy” context:

(Idyll, 1909)

Hence Mayakovsky’s “calls of new lips” in fish jelly, polemically addressed to northern fish. From Severyanin, Mayakovsky also borrowed the “nocturne” so beloved by the poet (See. Nocturne, 1908; Nocturne: The orange west turned pale, 1908, etc.). But the polemic here is not only between the aesthetics of “kubo” and “ego” - Mayakovsky does not ignore the clear erotic connotations of the northerner’s “flute head”, ironically inviting his opponent to measure their members:

If we remember that 1913 was the time of rivalry between Mayakovsky and Severyanin over Sonechka Shamardina (see Sofya Shamardina, “Futuristic Youth.” The name of this theme: love! Contemporaries about Mayakovsky. M., 1993, etc.), the hidden meaning of Mayakovsky’s poem becomes completely obvious.

I immediately smeared the map of everyday life by splashing paint from a glass; I showed the slanting cheekbones of the ocean on a dish of jelly. On the scales of a tin fish I read the calls of new lips. Could you play a nocturne on a drainpipe flute? 1913

The lyrical hero of this poem is lonely, he suffers from a lack of understanding of the people around him, yearns for another living human soul, he is depressed by the monotony and routine of thought. An ordinary person, looking at a drainpipe, sees in it just an ugly curved metal structure that has a utilitarian purpose. But only a poet sees something unusual in any thing, in any everyday detail: a drain seems like a flute, the world looks like an old tin fish or jelly. Unlike so many, the poet perceives a simple drainpipe as an exquisite musical instrument; he hears the “calls of new lips,” that is, new ideas, new people. “And only in great anguish, being deprived not only of the ocean and beloved lips, but also of other, more necessary things, can you replace the ocean - for yourself and your readers - with the sight of trembling jelly...” wrote A. Platonov. For Platonov, with his constant painful search for the meaning of life, the “substance of existence,” with his dream of humanity and soulfulness, this poem by Mayakovsky turned out to be especially close.

Mayakovsky's lyrical hero is a rebel. He does not put up with dullness and vulgarity, lack of spirituality and dullness, he challenges the world, and he manages to change a lot: “I immediately blurred the map of everyday life.” The “map of everyday life” here expresses the schematic, orderly, strict schedule (a certain schedule) of the course of life. On this map, a spot of splashed paint seems to form a new, unknown “continent”. At the same time, a whole series of images in the poem “Could You?” (“from a glass” - “on a jelly dish” - “on the scales of a tin fish”) actualizes in the reader’s mind the meaning of the noun “map”, which is in the dictionary of V.I. Dahl is given after the geographical map and before the playing card: “List of dishes, list of dishes. Lunch on the card." In many of Mayakovsky’s early works, people who eat are described meticulously and with hatred (observation by O. Lekmanov).

It is remarkable that the hero of the poem perceives himself as equal to the whole world; it is not for nothing that the poem opens with the poet’s lyrical “I”, and the words that are at the beginning or end of the line sound in a special way by virtue of their position. As a bright spot, the lyrical hero bursts into the grayness of the world, splashing out on it the color of sincere feelings. He “showed the slanting cheekbones of the ocean on a platter of jelly.” It would seem that this proposal is meaningless. Really, what is this “jelly dish” here? Out of context, the poem is a snack dish, but in this case it is a metaphor, denoting something cloudy, flabby, melting, slippery, prosaic, opposed to the ocean. The proximity (comparison) with the “jelly dish” especially clearly emphasizes the poetry, splendor, majesty, and energy of the “ocean” with its “oblique cheekbones” (“oblique cheekbones” in real terms can also be ocean waves, in a metaphorical sense “oblique cheekbones” - this is a sign of composure, hardness, masculinity, in contrast to the amorphousness of “jelly”). The words in the poem, being connected in a special way, represent, as it were, a new word with its own new meaning, and this new metaphorical meaning unusually expands the semantics of the verse.

And now the hero no longer feels lonely. In the “tin fish,” that is, in the cold, cruel, mechanical world, he sees people who are in solidarity with him, the hero reads “the calls of new lips.” A feeling of unity and, most importantly, hope is born. The hope is that a kindred soul will respond to the poet’s call, that lyrical strings will sound in the soul of an ordinary person. Theoretically, when reading the last phrase “Could you play a nocturne on a drainpipe flute?” two intonations are possible: interrogative intonation, with a reproach to others, emphasizing one’s own superiority over others, and interrogative intonation with the hope that others will be able to play the nocturne on the drainpipe. However, the title of the poem emphasizes that the poem was written precisely as an appeal to others with a dream, a plea for a response, for understanding. In addition, the pronoun “I”, despite all the scale of the lyrical hero, is not highlighted in a separate line, but “you” occupies a separate line and is emphasized.

“Could you?” Vladimir Mayakovsky

I immediately blurred the map of everyday life,
splashing paint from a glass;
I showed the jelly on the dish
slanting cheekbones of the ocean.
On the scales of a tin fish
I read the calls of new lips.
And you
play nocturne
we could
on the drainpipe flute?

Analysis of Mayakovsky’s poem “Could you?”

The poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky is particularly sharp and direct. However, in the literary heritage of this author there are sometimes works that have amazing imagery, metaphor and are not devoid of a kind of romance. These, in particular, include the poem “Could You?”, written in 1913 and conveying the author’s special, carefree and upbeat mood.

In a few succinct phrases, Vladimir Mayakovsky paints a gray and mundane picture of an ordinary meal with a classic set of dishes. However, as if by magic, she is transformed, since the poet is able to see “slanting cheekbones of the ocean” in the banal jelly. His desire to embellish the world is so great that all kinds of objects that are at hand are used.

Thus, succumbing to a romantic mood, the poet declares from the very first line that he “immediately blurred the map of everyday life,” hinting that he is annoyed by the routine in everything, even if we are talking about an ordinary dinner. Next, the poet allows himself a clearly hooligan prank, “splashing paint from a glass.” A spilled drink allows Vladimir Mayakovsky, if not to transform the world around him, then at least to make some changes to it, to enliven the dull tablescape and try to find in it grains of joy, celebration, and some kind of magical charm.

His romantic impulse is so swift and exciting that even in ordinary fish scales the poet sees “the calls of new lips.” Every thing and every dish is literally transformed under the author’s gaze, acquiring new meaning and revealing its secrets. And in this rapid comprehension of a new, yet unknown world, which is hidden under the mask of dullness and indifference, Vladimir Mayakovsky sees an amazing harmony that fills his heart with joy and a certain childish delight. Therefore, it is not surprising that, in a burst of inspiration, he turns to an unknown interlocutor, or, more precisely, to all readers with the question of whether they could play a nocturne on the “drainpipe flute”?

The question itself sounds very poetic, sublime and romantic. However, the author is convinced that the people around him will understand what he is talking about. After all, it is enough just to take a closer look at the objects around us to see the mysterious charm in them. The main thing is to want in your soul to transform this gray and inconspicuous world, consisting of banalities and conventions. And this is exactly what the poet proposes to do in the hope that in this way he can find like-minded people who, as he assumes, will appreciate the amazing gift that he throws at their feet. It lies in the ability to transform the world in accordance with your desires and feelings, to see not only the outer shell of things, but also their essence, to unravel their secrets and read them like a fascinating book.

However, despite the fact that the poem “Could You?” written in a very sublime major key, the loneliness from which the poet suffers comes through in bright and figurative phrases. He cannot find understanding among the people around him, so he comes up with fun in the form of searching for non-existent images. Dressed in poetic lines, they become accessible to each of us and seem to bring us closer to the poet, causing some surprise. After all, it is unlikely that anyone in the everyday bustle would come up with the idea of ​​looking for something sublime and romantic among the ordinary and prosaic. However, Vladimir Mayakovsky makes you reconsider your attitude to little things, which allows people to become happier, kinder and more optimistic.