Abstract: "A cloud in the pants." "cloud in pants" analysis of the poem Cloud in pants read analysis by chapter

The first chapter of the poem "A Cloud in Pants" tells how the beloved did not come to the lyrical hero. He suffers and suffers against the backdrop of an uncomfortable December landscape. Thanks to extravagant vocabulary and a cascade of bizarre metaphors, the poet was the most successful in conveying the power of human suffering, their impetuous dynamics. After all, real grief and despair are never subtly beautiful, as in sentimental novels of the eighteenth century. This is a cry, a howl, an unbridled intensity of emotions, only occasionally interrupted by bouts of silent despair.

With the help of capacious artistic details, V. Mayakovsky creates generalized portraits of characters. The lyrical hero is a "wiry hulk". From the outside, he looks courageous and calm (“bronze”, “heart - a cold piece of iron”). In fact, his soul painfully asks for love and affection.

At night I want my ringing

Hide in soft

In the feminine

He confesses to grief.

Only a very talented writer can speak so poetically and at the same time frankly about the intimate. All the inhuman pain of loneliness is embodied in these metaphorical lines. The lyrical hero feels that he has been betrayed, without even knowing it for sure. He is hurt and helpless. Suffering from unrequited love is intensified by the agonizing expectation of the chosen one. The impatience of the lyrical hero vividly and expressively conveys the progressive series of numerals:

"I'll be there at four," Maria said.

Expressive in this regard are the verbs (“groaning”, “writhing”, “hunching in the window”).

V. Mayakovsky does not write: "It was a December evening." He narrates thus:

Here comes the evening

Into the night terror

Away from the windows

December.

And this gloomy description exaggerates even more. The sound composition of the selected words is interesting: almost all of them have hissing consonants. They are associated with the sound of rain and wind and convey the state of bad weather. Thus, the reader guesses what is happening outside the window, long before V. Mayakovsky directly writes about it:

Gray raindrops in the glass

fell out,

The grimace was huge,

Like howling chimeras

Notre Dame Cathedral.

Notre Dame Cathedral is a majestic religious building in the heart of Paris. There are many religious motifs in the poem, framing the confessional monologue of the "thirteenth apostle". But in this case, the mention of the cathedral not only enhances the theomachistic sound of the poem, but also works as an aesthetically successful pictorial and expressive means. The cathedral itself has a complex and interesting architectural solution. On one of its tiers, the chimeras, or gargoyles mentioned by V. Mayakovsky, rise eerily. Their greedily and predatory open wolf mouths remind of heavenly punishment. And the Gothic architectural style itself, in which the famous Notre Dame is made, calls for severe asceticism and patience.

To recall the gloomy atmosphere of the Middle Ages, no less harsh lines make:

The twelfth hour has fallen

Like the head of the executed from the chopping block.

The lyrical hero, having lost his beloved, feels himself on the verge of life and death. He seeks sympathy from the rain, but the gray raindrops only howl in response, "as if the chimeras of Notre Dame Cathedral are howling." Poetic comparison only enhances the depth of the suffering of the lyrical hero, gives them a universal scale. Metaphors (“the mouth will soon be torn with a scream”) and comparisons (“like a sick person jumped out of bed”) emphasize the physical nature of this unbearable pain - the pain of a broken heart. The picture of jumping frenzied nerves is expressively complemented by the interior of the room (“the doors suddenly banged, as if the hotel was not getting a tooth on the tooth”).

Finally, the beloved returns, “sharp, like “here!”. Informing the lyrical hero about her impending marriage, all of her embodies a challenge, rejection. He remains outwardly calm. But his immense grief is expressed by metaphors (“you are the Gioconda that needs to be stolen”) and comparisons (“Pompeii died when Vesuvius was teased”), which are based on an appeal to known cultural and historical facts. "Mona Lisa" ("La Gioconda") - a painting by the Italian artist Raphael, an unsurpassed ideal of mystery and femininity.

Terrible and tragic is the scene depicted in K. Bryullov's painting "The Last Day of Pompeii", in which the mighty volcano Vesuvius overthrows its fatal lava flows on the unfortunate city.

The contrast of big and small, used at the beginning of the chapter, is replaced in this scene by the opposition of external peace and internal, spiritual storm.

At the end of the chapter, the lyrical hero tells his mother that he has a "fire of the heart." Further, this metaphor becomes expanded, and a picture of extinguishing this fire flashes before our eyes. This technique is intended to express a touch of light irony with which the lyrical hero refers to his suffering. Indeed, is it worth it to worry so much about a beloved who has exchanged a pure sincere feeling for a profitable marriage.

The course of artistic time plays an important role in the first chapter of the poem. Its course is successfully conveyed by expressive metaphors. Each of them is deeply thought out by the author: the evening is leaving, midnight is rushing about with a knife, and the night “thinns and thins around the room, a heavy eye cannot stretch out of the mud.” These fragmentary descriptions convey the change in the state of mind of the lyrical hero. At first he is anxious, then he is indignant and suffers, and then his eyes begin to droop from fatigue.

Artistic time and space in the poem are interconnected. Excruciatingly slow in time for a lyrical hero, the expectation is aggravated by a closed artistic space.

"A Cloud in Pants" is a bright, shocking and very frank poem by Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky. This is the very first major work of the author, on which he worked for a whole year. The work is of a sharp revolutionary nature and may interest the reader with only one ambiguous title. The poet put his whole soul into its creation and endowed the lyrical hero with features that are also inherent in himself.

At the beginning of the work, Mayakovsky describes how painfully the hero awaits his beloved, he is so looking forward to this meeting that even, “the legs give way under the nerves!”. His thoughts do not obey him, and he is unable to control himself, it begins to seem to him that even the raindrops are grimacing, as if they are mocking him. An uncontrollable intensity of emotions rages inside him, time flows unthinkably long, so long that he stops feeling it, and he just wants to scream.

The twelfth hour has fallen
like the head of the executed from the chopping block

The long-awaited meeting with his beloved fleetingly devastates his heart, because the hero learns that Mary will soon get married. In one moment, the girl was able to put out the majestic fire of emotions in his chest. Outwardly, it seems that he does not feel anything, but a hole has formed in his soul, he calls it the "pulse of the dead"

The young man in love does not want to forget Mary, he says that he is afraid to forget her name, just as a poet is afraid to forget a word equal in majesty to God. So he is disappointed in love and turns to politics.

Further, historical figures, the political system and the mediocre driven crowd are ridiculed, the hero is convinced that all these miserable little people do not know how to truly love, they confuse love with dirt and lust. He wants to forget himself in the wrath of reproof, but he steps on the sick anyway.

In the end, the lyrical hero is disappointed in God, the Creator is powerless for him, even he cannot understand him, see how his heart bleeds, how despair, disappointment and loneliness overtake him.

I thought you were an almighty god, and you are a half-educated, tiny god

But the thoughts of Mary still continue to poison his consciousness, he screams about his love, although he already understands that this is in vain, since along with his feelings, all the foundations of his worldview that hold him back have collapsed. The hero dreams of a revolution in all spheres of life and is ready to devote himself to the restructuring of all living things.

The meaning of the name

Mayakovsky gave the name "Cloud in Pants" to the poem after the censorship did not pass the original one. At first, the work had the name "The Thirteenth Apostle", but, not wanting to end up in hard labor, the author changed it. “A cloud in pants” is a combination of lightness and romance with rudeness and everyday aspects of life, the poet brilliantly combined incompatible characters and images.

Want to -
I will be mad from meat
— and like the sky, changing tones —
want to -

I will be impeccably gentle,
not a man, but a cloud in his pants!

A strong and self-confident man under the influence of painful emotions and a hot feeling of love in an instant becomes soft and weightless, light and shapeless. Outwardly, he is still stern and calm, Mayakovsky compares these qualities inherent in the male sex with rough pants. The cloud that they wear is a reflection of the inner world of the lyrical hero, who is in limbo. He is gentle and sensitive, he does not have the strength to change what is happening around.

Composition and genre

The genre of the work "A cloud in pants" we have long identified and made sure that this is a poem. But it will also be important to know that it has the shape of a tetraptych.
A tetraptych is a work of art that contains 4 parts, united by one plot and semantic line.

The poem consists of a preface, in which the author lays the main ideological idea of ​​the work, and four parts. Each of the parts indicates the main topics that will be discussed. The main idea is the so-called four cries of the hero: "Down with your love, art, system, religion!" - this is the slogan the author places in the preface. The beginning of the poem is very lyrical, it tells us about the emotional experiences of the hero, it is from there that we learn about his real feelings for Mary.

In the second part of the poem, we will talk about poetry and creativity, which is dying in bourgeois society, but the author believes that after the revolution, poets will be able to save art.
In the third and fourth parts, Mayakovsky expresses his protest to the entire old system, he finds it precisely the cause of all human troubles.

The image of a lyrical hero

The hero in the poem "A Cloud in Pants" is full of real feelings and experiences of the author himself. Mayakovsky allows him to adopt many of his features, it turns out that the poet is trying to express his own “I” in this way. The narrator is presented to us as romantic and sensitive, tender and vulnerable, but at the same time he is a strong man who has his own personal and confident position. The image is built on a certain contrast that characterizes him as a bright and emotional person who is not going to tolerate human insignificance, he will stubbornly shout and fight for happiness and a better future not only for himself, but also for others. He intends to lead them after him, staining their hearts with the blood of his heart, which aches for the fate of the fatherland.

But his image cannot be called exclusively rebellious, because he is also driven by passionate feelings for his beloved girl, for life, he is experiencing a huge internal explosion that hurts him to the core. This means that the hero knows how to truly love, and loves like no one else from his environment.

Characteristics of the main characters

There are not so many acting heroes in the poem "A Cloud in Pants", they are unique, the images of some of them can even be called dual. Mayakovsky calls the lyrical heroine Maria for a reason. In the fourth chapter, there is an unobtrusive comparison of her image with the biblical images of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene, that is, the name of the narrator's beloved personifies divine, unearthly love. But the girl rejects the hero, she makes his soul suffer, scream and pray for love, and, in fact, betrays him, sells him like Judas. For her, money plays an important role, she understands that the hero will not be able to give her wealth, therefore, she changes real feelings for material goods.

Nothing if yet
you instead of the chic of Parisian dresses
dressed in tobacco smoke

This feature of the representation of the image also applies to the image of God in the poem. At the very beginning, the hero asks him for help, he considers him majestic, able to give him the right to mutual love. But it turns out that the heavens betray him, the hero is disappointed in their strength. The Creator is no longer as powerful and omnipotent as before.

Religious allusions

Probably, ironically over biblical names and heroes, the author expresses his anti-clerical protest, which was characteristic of him. In his love experiences, he skillfully introduces the political trends of the new time, showing the futility of hopes for heavenly powers. Alas, the poet says, let's be realistic: in matters of the heart, and in any other matter, God is not our helper, and all the stories about him are fairy tales. For example, Mayakovsky uses the biblical name Maria, but does not speak about the feat of the mother and beloved of Christ, not about devotion, not about grief, but turns our established associations upside down. Now Maria is a corrupt girl who is ready to sell her lover for a French dress. Such is the essence of a fatal and vicious woman in life, and the author does not believe in the correction of Magdalene on the pages of the book.

Subject

1. Of course, the first and most important theme of Mayakovsky's poem "A Cloud in Pants" is the theme of love, unrequited and painful. It directly intersects with other topics that the author considers in the work: loneliness, the rejection of morality and politics, and even atheism. The lyrical hero suffers from unrequited love, and these torments lead him to renounce his own thoughts and beliefs.
2. In the third part of the poem, the topic of disagreement with the political system is raised, the hero literally shouts "Down with your system!". The narrator keenly feels how a mass of gray and very similar people gives rise to wars and violence with their own hands, but he is opposed to this world, in his mind there is a struggle with everything that surrounds him.
3. The crisis of religion at the beginning of the 20th century also took its place of honor in the lyrics of the Russian modernist. He ironically reduces the image of God, reduces his fictitious power to the point of absurdity. The hero now believes only in his own strength and is not going to humble himself.
4. The poet also raises the topic of art, declaring his aesthetic position: he wants to become the voice of the street, and not the elites with their roses and nightingales. There are more important problems in the new century. He glorifies the people and their proletarian essence, but he refuses to recognize the classics (Homer, Goethe) as authority: their time has passed. “I know that the nail in my boot is more nightmarish than Goethe's fantasy” - the author wants to say that the pressing, real problems of hard workers from the streets are much more important than abstract philosophical questions. He will describe them.
5. The theme of the revolution cannot go unnoticed, the author calls himself its forerunner. He "crucified himself on the cross" in order to purify the soul with the blood of suffering and take it in his hands as a banner. He intends to do the same with the readers of the poem, so that they meet the revolution with purified thoughts.
6. It can be seen that in each of the parts of the poem the leading theme is love, but it is supplemented by other thoughts. First, the lyrical hero is disappointed in his beloved, then in the art around him, after that he loses faith in power and, finally, in religion. Thus, the main theme of the poem "A Cloud in Pants" is still disappointment. The poet is tired of his environment and protests against it, criticizing all spheres of life. Perhaps the love line was generally invented to avert the eyes of the censors.

What is the meaning of the work?

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky calls on the destitute and poor people to stubbornly and persistently demand and achieve their happiness right here and now. He is ready to sing and support the protest, renouncing bourgeois classical poetry. The author completely rejects the old foundations that cannot allow a person to live with dignity and freedom, he opposes the bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie, anticipates the onset of the revolution and is ready to carry its ideas to the masses. The feelings and experiences of the lyrical hero are comparable to the experiences of the people, and they are all summarized in one image. Love, art, the political system and religion must be completely different, the poet does not accept what is happening now (it happened then), he is sure that the proletarians are degrading and humiliating before life through the fault of wrong art, false religion and unjust state regime. However, Mayakovsky does not lose faith and hope for a brighter future, he is a supporter of a revolution in all spheres and directions. The author is convinced that if you ruthlessly destroy the wretched old, you can create a bright and perfect new one.

The originality of the poem

We manage to trace the originality and originality of the poem "A Cloud in Pants" from the very beginning, when we find out what it is called. Few people can immediately and absolutely accurately guess what will be discussed without reading the text, but simply by looking at its title. Of course, this betrays a certain elegance to the work and distinguishes it from others, we can say that it itself draws attention to itself.

The size and composition of the poem were not typical for Russian literature. The famous "ladder" was invented in Italy by the founder of futurism, Filippo Marinetti. He also developed the ideological and thematic content of the new trend, its manifesto and aesthetic principles. It is known that Mayakovsky was an ardent admirer of his talent, so he adopted his literary style. However, Marinetti was more of a theorist than a practitioner, and it was the Russian poet who managed to bring his ideas to perfection. Thus, in the poem "A Cloud in Pants" the author embodied the revolutionary spirit of modernism and opened a new page in Russian art, using a new meter, innovative rhythm, and many occasionalisms. We have a whole .

Also, unusual and unexpected for Mayakovsky's contemporaries and for us, is how the author speaks about God and religion. Few people could have dared at that time to speak about it in such a way, calling the Creator a “dropout” and a “tiny god.”

Initially, the poem came out with losses, the censor removed several pages from it. Only in Moscow at the beginning of 1918, "A Cloud in Pants" was completely restored and released under Mayakovsky's own publishing house, and at the very beginning he indicated that the first title "The Thirteenth Apostle" was crossed out by censorship, but he would not return it. Such an adventurous story of creation also gives the work of revolutionary romance.

Issues

1. In the poem "A Cloud in Pants" the main problem is the suffering of the people in the world created by the capitalists. Mayakovsky throughout the work is surprised at the lifestyle of his contemporaries. All images seem low and faceless against the background of the lyrical hero. Those feelings that boil in him confidently generalize the acuteness of the social conflict.
2. Also in the poem there is a problem of struggle with personal inner experiences. The torment of the soul is associated with unrealizable lyrical dreams, a clash of tenderness that was brought up in the heart, and a miserable, unfair reality, where no one puts tenderness in a penny. In a second, the hero loses his last hope for mutual feelings, and this is nothing but complete devastation, which means inner death.
3. Against the backdrop of such acute experiences, new, no less exciting problems arise. The catastrophe that happened to the hero pushes him to think about the problem of the immorality of society and subsequently he rejects morality.
4. The problem of fake art also worries him. Creators do not care how their works will affect people, they care about canons and grace. The poet cannot understand the hypocritical rules; questions about the poet's destiny torment and torment him. He finds a solution in complete frankness, "only solid lips" remain from him.
5. The author also does not disregard political stagnation. An unjust government, fixated only on its own profit, cannot be useful for society, cannot serve its development.
6. And, of course, he is concerned about the problem of a religious persuasion. He believes that the fairy tale about God only stupefies the people, leads them to regress, but does not help them at all on the path to self-improvement and development.

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Mayakovsky paid a special place in the poem "A Cloud in Pants", which we are analyzing, to the theme of betrayal, which begins with Mary and stretches through other areas: he sees life quite differently, she smiles with her rotten grin, and he does not want to stay there at all where everyone is only interested in the surroundings.

It is striking that Mayakovsky's poems are full of variety and he generously uses expressions and words that become new to the reader, although they are made from ordinary statements that everyone knows. Color is created thanks to vivid images and double meanings that come to life under the thought of readers. If we consider the triptych used in the poem, we can find the word "mock", which expresses aggression towards the one who reads, and this is none other than a representative of the bourgeoisie.

"Down with your art"

Let's continue the analysis of the poem "A Cloud in Pants", namely the second part. First, the author wants to overthrow those who have become idols in art and who were extolled at the time when Mayakovsky wrote the poem. To overthrow these empty idols, the poet explains that only pain can give rise to true art, and that everyone can start creating and see themselves as the main creator.

Mayakovsky here operates with interesting complex adjectives; Or take, for example, "newborn": here the author compiled it from two others, bringing it closer in meaning to renewal and calling for action.

"Down with your system"

It is no secret that Mayakovsky spoke negatively about the political system, which just took shape in the prime of the author as a poet. It is quite appropriate that with such words as: "swear", "fall out of love", "thing" the poet emphasizes one or another side of the weakness and stupidity of the regime. For example, one can reflect on belonging to things or on the verb "break through", with which Mayakovsky emphasizes decisive action, perseverance and speed.

"Down with your religion"

The fourth part is practically free from such difficult newly formed words, because the poet here simply conveys the specifics: no matter how he calls to love Mary, she rejects him, and then the poet is angry with God. He believes that one cannot rely on religion, given its venality, laziness, deceit and other vices.

Although Mayakovsky, and this is clearly seen in the analysis of the poem "A Cloud in Pants", introduces a revolutionary idea, it is clear that thoughts about pain, passion and experiences are concrete and dynamic. They also received a lot of attention. Of course, the poem analyzed by us has become the property of Russian literature; she magnificently and intelligibly expressed the revolutionary moods of the Mayakovsky era.

In this article we will talk about one poem by Mayakovsky and analyze it. "A cloud in pants" is a work, the idea of ​​which came to Vladimir Vladimirovich in 1914. At first it was called "The Thirteenth Apostle". The young poet fell in love with Maria Alexandrovna Denisova. However, this love was unhappy. Mayakovsky embodied the bitterness of experiences in poetry. The poem was completely completed in 1915, in the summer. Let's analyze it step by step.

"A Cloud in Pants" (Mayakovsky). Composition of the work

This work consists of an introduction and the following four movements. Each of them implements a private, specific idea. Their essence is defined by Vladimir Vladimirovich himself in the preface to the second edition of the work that came out a little later. These are the "four cries": "down with your love", "down with your religion", "down with your system", "down with your art". We will talk about each of them in more detail, conducting an analysis. "A Cloud in Pants" is a poem that is very interesting to parse.

Issues and themes

A multi-problem and multi-dark work - "A Cloud in Pants". The theme of the poet and the crowd is already stated in the introduction. The protagonist is opposed to the faceless, inert human mass. The "handsome, twenty-two-year-old" lyrical hero contrasts with the world of low images and things. These are frayed, "like a proverb" women; "stale", like a hospital, men. Interestingly, if the crowd remains unchanged, the lyrical hero changes before our eyes. He is either sharp and rude, "impudent and caustic", then vulnerable, relaxed, "impeccably gentle" - "a cloud in his pants", and not a man. Thus, the meaning of such an unusual name is clarified in the work, which, by the way, is very characteristic for the work of Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, who liked to use original vivid images and well-aimed expressions.

First part of the poem

According to the author's intention, the first part contains the first cry: "Down with your love." We can say that the theme of love is central throughout the work. Apart from the first section, the fourth part is also devoted to it, as our analysis shows.

"A Cloud in Pants" opens with tense expectation: a lyrical hero is waiting for a meeting with Maria. It is so painful that it seems to him that the candelabra “neighs” and “laughs” in the back, the doors “caress”, “cut” midnight with a knife, raindrops grimace, etc. Infinitely long, painfully time passes. The expanded metaphor of the twelfth hour conveys the depth of the suffering of the one who is waiting. Mayakovsky writes that the twelfth hour fell like "the head of the executed" from the chopping block.

This is not just a fresh metaphor used by Vladimir Vladimirovich, as our analysis shows. "A cloud in pants" Mayakovsky filled with deep inner content: the intensity of passions in the hero's soul is so high that the usual course of time seems hopeless to him. It is perceived as physical death. The hero "writhes," "groans," soon he "will tear his mouth out" with a cry.

tragic news

Finally, the girl appears and tells him that she is getting married soon. The deafening and sharpness of this news is compared by the poet with his other poem called "Nate". He likens the theft of Mary to the abduction of the famous Gioconda from the Louvre, and himself to the dead Pompeii.

At the same time, the almost inhuman calmness and composure with which the lyrical hero outwardly perceives this tragic news is striking. He says that he is "calm", but compares this equanimity to the "pulse of a dead man". Such a comparison signifies an irretrievably, definitively dead hope for reciprocity.

The development of the theme of love in the second part

The theme of love in the second part of this poem receives a new solution. This should certainly be noted when analyzing the poem "A Cloud in Pants". Mayakovsky in the second part speaks of the love lyrics that prevailed in poetry contemporary to Vladimir Vladimirovich. She is concerned only with singing in verses "a flower under the dew", and "love", and "a young lady". Vulgar and crayons these themes, and the poets, "scribbling with rhymes", "boil" the "brew" of nightingales and love. However, they are not at all concerned with human suffering. The poets are afraid, like "leprosy", of the street crowd, they deliberately rush from the street. However, the people of the city, according to the lyrical hero, are cleaner than the "Venetian azure" washed by the sun and the seas.

The poet opposes the unviable art to the authentic, the real, and himself to the squealing "poeticians".

The third part of the poem

Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich argued in one of his articles that the poetry of modernity is the poetry of struggle. This journalistic formula received artistic expression in the work of interest to us. It continues to develop in the next, third part of such a work as the poem "A Cloud in Pants", which we are analyzing. Vladimir Vladimirovich considered the work of Severyanin to be lyrics that did not meet the requirements of modernity. Therefore, an unpleasant portrait of this author, his "drunk face" is introduced into the poem. According to the lyrical hero, any author should be concerned not with the elegance of his creations, but first of all with the power of their impact on readers.

The development of the theme of love in the third part of the poem "A Cloud in Pants"

A brief analysis of the third part of the poem is as follows. Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky in it rises to the denial of the cruel and inhuman system that prevailed at that time, in his opinion, in our country. Unacceptable for him is the life of "fat". The theme of love here turns in a new facet in the poem. The author reproduces a parody of love - perversion, debauchery, lust. The whole earth appears as a woman, which is drawn as Rothschild's "mistress" - "obese". True love is opposed to lust.

"Down with your system!"

The existing system gives rise to "massacres", executions, murders, wars. Such a device is accompanied by a "human mess", devastation, betrayal, robbery. It creates chambers of lunatic asylums and prison leper colonies in which prisoners languish. This society is dirty and corrupt. That is why the poet calls "down with your system!". However, Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky does not just throw this slogan-shout into the crowd. He calls for an open struggle of the people of the city, calls for the uplifting of "bloody carcasses." The hero, becoming the "thirteenth apostle", opposes the masters of life, the powers that be.

The main theme of the fourth part

Analysis of the poem "A Cloud in Pants" proceeds to the description of the fourth part. The leading theme in it is the theme of God. It has already been prepared by the previous ones, in which enmity with God, who observes indifferently the sufferings of people, is indicated. The poet enters into open war with him, he denies his omnipotence, omnipotence, omniscience. The hero ("tiny god") even takes an insult and takes out a shoe knife in order to cut it.

The main accusation that is thrown at God is that he did not take care of happiness in love, that he could kiss "without pain." Again, as at the beginning of the work, the lyrical hero turns to Mary. Again, oaths, and tenderness, and imperious demands, and groans, and reproaches, and prayers. However, the poet hopes in vain for reciprocity. All that's left is a bleeding heart. He carries it, just as a dog carries a paw "run over by a train."

The end of the poem

The finale of the poem is a picture of cosmic scales and heights, endless spaces. A hostile sky rises, ominous stars shine. The poet waits for the sky before him to take off his hat in response to the challenge. However, the Universe sleeps, putting on a huge ear "a paw with pincers of stars."

Such is the analysis of the work "A Cloud in Pants". We conducted it sequentially, relying on the text of the poem. We hope you find this information useful. The analysis of the verse "A Cloud in Pants" can be supplemented by including your own reflections and observations. Mayakovsky is a very peculiar and curious poet, who is usually studied with great interest even by schoolchildren.

Intention The poem "A Cloud in Pants" (originally called "The Thirteenth Apostle") originated with Mayakovsky in 1914. The poet fell in love with Maria Alexandrovna Denisova. However, love was unhappy. Mayakovsky embodied the bitterness of his experiences in poetry. The poem was completed in full in the summer of 1915.

Genre - poem.

Composition

The poem "A Cloud in Pants" consists of an introduction and four parts. Each of them implements a specific, so to speak, private idea. The essence of these ideas is defined by Mayakovsky himself in the preface to the second edition of the poem: "Down with your love", "Down with your art", "Down with your system", "Down with your religion" - "four cries of four parts".

Topics and issues

"A Cloud in Pants" is a multi-dark and multi-problem work. Already in the introduction, the theme of the poet and the crowd is declared. The protagonist, the poet, is opposed to the crowd: the ideal image of a lyrical hero (“handsome, twenty-two years old”) contrasts sharply with the world of base things and images (“men, stale like a hospital, / and women, frayed, like a proverb”). But if the crowd is unchanged, then the lyrical hero is changing before our eyes. He is either rough and sharp, “mad with meat”, “impudent and caustic”, then “impeccably gentle”, relaxed, vulnerable: “not a man, but a cloud in his pants”. This explains the meaning of the unusual title of the poem.

The first part, according to the poet's intention, contains the first cry of discontent: "Down with your love." The theme of love can be called central, the entire first and part of the fourth section is devoted to it.

The poem opens with tense expectation: the lyrical hero is waiting for a meeting with Mary. The waiting is so painful and tense that it seems to the hero that the candelabra “laugh and neigh” in the back, “caress” the doors, midnight “cuts” with a knife, raindrops grimace, “as if the chimeras of Notre Dame Cathedral are howling”, etc. the wait is endless. The depth of the suffering of the lyrical hero is conveyed by a detailed metaphor about the deceased twelfth hour:

Midnight, rushing about with a knife,

caught up

stabbed -

get him out!

The twelfth hour has fallen

like the head of the executed from the chopping block.

Time, likened to a head that has fallen from the chopping block, is not just a fresh trope. It is filled with great inner content: the intensity of passions in the hero's soul is so high that the usual, but hopeless course of time is perceived as his physical death. The hero "groans, writhes", "soon the mouth will tear up with a cry." And finally, Maria comes and announces that she is getting married. The poet compares the sharpness and deafeningness of the news with his own poem "Nate". The theft of a loved one - with the abduction of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci from the Louvre. And himself - with the dead Pompeii. But at the same time, the almost inhuman composure and calmness with which the hero meets Mary's message is striking:

Well, get out.

Nothing.

I'll get stronger.

See how calm!

Like a pulse

dead man!

"The Pulse of the Dead" is the final, irrevocably dead hope for mutual feeling.

In the second part of the poem, the theme of love receives a new solution: we are talking about love lyrics that prevail in Mayakovsky's contemporary poetry. This poetry is concerned with singing "and the young lady, and love, and the flower under the dew." These themes are petty and vulgar, and the poets “boil, chirping with rhymes, some kind of brew out of love and nightingales.” They are not concerned with human suffering. Moreover, the poets consciously rush from the street, they are afraid of the street crowd, its "leprosy". Meanwhile, the people of the city, according to the hero, “are cleaner than the Venetian azure, washed by the seas and the sun at once!”:

I know -

the sun would dim when it saw

our souls are golden placers.

The poet contrasts the unviable art with the genuine, the screeching "poeticians" - with himself: "I am where the pain is, everywhere."

In one of his articles, Mayakovsky stated: "Today's poetry is the poetry of struggle." And this journalistic formula found its poetic embodiment in the poem:

Take out, walking, hands from trousers -

take a stone, a knife or a bomb,

and if he has no hands -

come and beat his forehead!

develops in the third part. Mayakovsky considered the work of Severyanin to be poetry that did not meet the requirements of the time, therefore an unflattering portrait of the poet is displayed in the poem:

And from cigar smoke

liquor glass

the drunken face of the Severyanin was drawn out.

How dare you be called a poet

and, gray, tweet like a quail!

The poet, according to the lyrical hero, should be concerned not with the elegance of his poems, but with the power of their impact on readers:

Today

necessary

brass knuckles

cut the world in the skull!

In the third part of the poem, Mayakovsky rises to the denial of the entire ruling system, inhuman and cruel. The whole life of the "fat" is unacceptable for a lyrical hero. Here the theme of love turns a new facet. Mayakovsky reproduces a parody of love, lust, depravity, perversion. The whole earth appears as a woman who is depicted as "fat, like a mistress whom Rothschild fell in love with." The lust of the "masters of life" is opposed to true love.

The ruling system gives rise to wars, murders, executions, "slaughterhouses". Such a structure of the world is accompanied by robberies, betrayals, devastation, "human mess". It creates leper colonies-prisons and chambers of lunatic asylums where prisoners languish. This society is corrupt and dirty. Therefore, "Down with your system!". But the poet not only throws this slogan-cry, but also calls the people of the city to an open struggle, "knuckle dusters cut the world in the skull", raising "the bloodied carcasses of the meadowsmen." The hero opposes the powerful of this world, "the masters of life, becoming" the thirteenth apostle.

In the fourth part, the leading theme is God. This theme has already been prepared by the previous parts, where hostile relations with God, indifferently observing human suffering, are indicated. The poet enters into open war with God, he denies his omnipotence and omnipotence, his omniscience. The hero even insults (“a tiny god”) and grabs a shoe knife to cut open the “reeking of incense”.

The main accusation thrown at God is that he did not take care of happy love, “so that it would be without torment to kiss, kiss, kiss.” And again, as at the beginning of the poem, the lyrical hero turns to his Mary. Here are prayers, and reproaches, and groans, and imperious demands, and tenderness, and oaths. But the poet hopes in vain for reciprocity. He is left with only a bleeding heart, which he carries, "like a dog ... carries a paw that has been run over by a train."

The finale of the poem is a picture of endless spaces, cosmic heights and scales. Sinister stars shine, a hostile sky rises. The poet is waiting for the sky to take off his hat to him in response to his challenge! But the universe sleeps, putting a huge ear on the paw with pincers of the stars.