The Moon is the celestial body closest to the Earth, which is its natural satellite and the brightest object after the Sun. In addition, it is also the only object in the solar system that a person has set foot on.
The moon has attracted attention at all times. People have looked at it for centuries, admiring the lunar craters, trying to study its origin and laws. The moon rotates in the same direction as most celestial bodies. It moves around the Earth at a speed of about 1 km / s. Since there is no atmosphere there, there is no water, no air, no weather on the Moon. And the temperature has a rather large variation: from -120 ° C to +110 ° C. The force of attraction is 6 times less than the Earth's one (1.62 m/s2). As early as 1610, Galileo Galilei, using telescopic equipment, observed the lunar surface and discovered various depressions and craters.
Extended darkish spots, or as they are called "Moon Seas", occupy about 40% of the visible lunar relief. In the old days, meteorite and asteroid attacks on the lunar surface were commonplace. It is even possible that the Moon took upon itself all the blows of celestial bodies that were intended for our Earth! But she, like a kind of shield, repelled all attacks. Perhaps it is the Moon that we should say thank you for the fact that life on our planet has not disappeared from the fall of some meteorite or asteroid. Now, the frequency of collisions of celestial bodies with the Moon is almost zero, but the craters that we can observe on the surface of the Moon have forever remained, as a kind of reminder of the merits of our faithful companion.
The structure of the moon
The mass of the Earth's satellite is 81 times less than our planet. To study the lunar structure, various methods were used, including seismic ones. The upper layer of the lunar surface is represented by a crust, the thickness of which reaches 60 km. The crust is made up of basalt rock. In marine and continental areas, its composition has significant differences. The mantle - located under the lunar crust, is divided into the upper - 250 km, the middle - 500 km and the lower - 1000 km. Up to this level, the substance of the interior is in a solid state, and is a cold and powerful lithosphere, with undamped seismic vibrations. Approaching the end of the lower mantle boundary, the temperature increases, approaching the melting point, so seismic waves are quickly absorbed. This part of the satellite is the lunar asthenosphere, in the center of which there is a liquid core, consisting of iron sulfide, with a radius of 350 km. The temperature in it ranges from 1300K to 1900K, with a mass of no more than 2% of the mass of the entire moon.
It is known that the Moon is turned to the Earth, only on one side, so everyone has long dreamed of finding out what secrets the far side of the Moon hides. By itself, the moon does not glow. It's just that the sun's rays, reflected from the Earth, illuminate different parts of it. In this regard, the phases of the moon are also explained. It is turned to us by the dark side and moves in orbit between the Sun and the Earth. Every month there is a new moon. The next day, a bright crescent of the "renewed" Moon appears in the western sky. On the rest of the Moon, the light reflected from the Earth practically does not fall. A week later, half of the moon's disk can be observed. After 22 days, the last quarter is also observed. And on the 30th day, the new moon comes again.
Characteristics of the Moon
Mass: 0.0123 Earth masses, i.e. 7.35*1022kg
Diameter at the equator: 0.273 Earth diameter, i.e. 3476 km
Axis Tilt: 1.55°
Density: 3346.4 kg/m3
Surface temperature: -54 °C
Distance from satellite to planet: 384400 km
Movement speed around the planet: 1.02 km/s
Orbital eccentricity: e = 0.055
Orbital inclination to the ecliptic: i = 5.1°
Free fall acceleration: g = 1.62 m/s2
Scientific work in literature
Topic: "The image of the moon in literary works"
Alekseeva L.A.
Velikiy Novgorod
2012
Research plan:
Introduction
The main part: examples of the mystical, folklore and lyrical image of the moon.
Conclusion
The purpose of the research work: Using examples to show the meaning of the image of the moon in works of art.
INTRODUCTION
It is interesting how in the view of different authors the same object or phenomenon takes on different images. The consciousness of each person is unique, the perception of the surrounding world and its individual elements is also never duplicated. The authors in their works only present their perception and consciousness to the judgment of mankind. And the specificity that arises in artistic expression is an image. The image is the fundamental principle of poetry, and thus the basic concept of poetics. The image is one word, and the phrase, and the character, and the motif - in a work of art there is nothing outside the image. It is especially important to note that many images that can convey the author's attitude to life, his worldview, are present in artistic landscapes.
Through the analysis of the symbolic meaning of the image of the moon in the pictures of nature, it is possible to explain the psychological connection between the landscape image and the author's consciousness.
I would like to note that in the Russian tradition, as well as in the pan-European one, the image of the moon is closely connected with the image of a mirror. Even considering the very phenomenon of lunar glow, which occurs by reflecting sunlight, one can see this figurative connection. A number of mirror signs correlate with the moon and mythology: illusory, deceitfulness, connection with death, with the other world.
Such a symbolic meaning of the image of the moon can be observed in Chekhov's story "Ionych", in which there is a description of the cemetery, beginning with the phrase "The moon shone". And then the author continues: “At first, Startsev was struck by what he saw now for the first time in his life and which, probably, will no longer happen to be seen: a world unlike anything else, a world where the moonlight is so good and soft. light, as if here is its cradle, where there is no life, no and no, but in every dark poplar, in every grave, the presence of a mystery is felt, promising a quiet, beautiful, eternal life. Reality is lost in the infinity of glare, mystifying and creating a sense of ghostly, magic, sorcery. And the cemetery, flooded with moonlight, is a kind of boundary space, where there is no longer earthly life, but there is no other world yet, but there are reflections of both worlds.
Despite the traditional interpretation of the image of the moon, in the work of A.P. Chekhov, he is mainly associated with the theme of love. For example, in the story “A House with a Mezzanine”: “It was a sad August night - sad because it already smelled of autumn; covered with a crimson cloud, the moon rose, barely illuminating the road and on its sides dark winter fields. The stars often fell. Zhenya walked beside me along the road and tried not to look at the sky so as not to see the shooting stars, which for some reason frightened her. A romantic image is also seen in this short passage: “About an hour has passed. The green fire went out, and no shadows could be seen. The moon was already high above the house and illuminated the sleeping garden, paths; dahlias and roses in the flower garden in front of the house were clearly visible and seemed to be all the same color.
It should be noted that in Chekhov's works the moon sometimes acquires a red tint. So, in the story "Enemies" we find a "red crescent", and in the story "Ward No. 6" there is a "crimson moon". The red moon is a rare natural phenomenon. Along with a change in color representation, the red color brings anxiety, mystery and unpredictability to the image, the moon in these stories becomes a harbinger of misfortune. Both of the stories cited as examples have dramatic endings.
In the works of I.A. Bunin there is also an image of a “red moon” with a similar meaning. At the end of the novel "The Life of Arseniev" we find the following description: "... at the station there was darkness and silence - only crickets are reassuringly tricking around and in the distance, where the village is, the rising moon blushes crimson over the black gardens." It is in the village mentioned in the passage that the protagonist seeks consolation from unknown women when his relationship with his beloved is already coming to a dramatic end.
Just as in Chekhov's work, in Bunin's works the moon is mainly a symbol of pure love. In the novel “The Life of Arseniev”, in the landscape description accompanying the protagonist’s first love, the presence of the image of the moon is noted: “In the evenings, a young moon shone in the lower garden, the nightingales sang mysteriously and cautiously. Ankhen sat on my knees, hugged me, and I heard the beating of her heart, for the first time in my life I felt the blissful heaviness of the female body ... ”But then the image of the moon becomes very lyrical. When the hero is left alone, painfully suffering from separation from his beloved, the image of a night luminary appears more and more often in his thoughts. This image has already been changed, endowed with human features, personifying the spiritual state of the main character himself. “To the right, above the garden, the full moon shone in the clear and empty sky, with the slightly darkening reliefs of its deathly pale face filled with bright luminous whiteness from the inside. And she and I, now long known to each other, looked at each other for a long time, silently and silently expecting something from each other ... What? I only knew that something was very lacking with her ... "," It seemed that we were thinking together - and all about one thing: about the mysterious, languishing-love happiness of life, about my mysterious future, which should be sure to be happy, and of course, all the time about Ankhen.
Pessimism characteristic of Bunin is also reflected in the image of the moon: “I remember: for some reason I woke up one autumn night and saw a light and mysterious half-light in the room, and through a large uncurtained window - a pale and sad autumn moon, standing high, high above the empty courtyard of the estate , so sad and filled with such unearthly charm from her sadness and her loneliness, that some inexpressibly sweet and sorrowful feelings squeezed my heart, the same ones, as it were, that she, this pale autumn moon, also experienced. Literary scholars believe that the beauty of the moon, incomprehensible and unattainable, is the reason for the existence of the traditional image of the moon, symbolizing sadness and loneliness.
In my understanding, the connection of the moon and loneliness is determined by the time of day. The moon is a night light. At night, a person, as a rule, is alone, alone with his thoughts, surrounded by silence, having the opportunity to think based on memories. Lyrics
always imbued with memories, behind this it becomes clear that everything that is an integral part of the night landscape, one way or another, refers to lyrical images. Also, night time is the time of shadows, which under themselves hide a lot from the human eye; night is directly connected with mysticism, everything incomprehensible, supernatural and otherworldly. The moon, as a constant companion of twilight, draws their image with her mere presence, shedding a little of her silver light on the secrets of the night from above. Therefore, it is not uncommon to find images of the mystical and lyrical moon in the works of famous Russian and foreign writers.
The image of the moon is often found in Japanese poetry. The classic haiku (or haiku) three lines of the great Japanese poets show all the diversity of the “night star”. We find the following lines in Basho:
There is such a moon in the sky
Like a tree cut down at the root:
A fresh cut turns white.
The poet calls the moon beautiful, comparing it with the morning snow:
Moon or morning snow...
Admiring the beautiful, I lived as I wanted.
This is how I end the year.
Busson has a completely different image of the moon:
The moon shines in the winter grove.
I, looking at her, forgot About the poetic sadness.
Moon through the haze...
The frogs muddied the pond.
Where is the water? Where is the sky?
The image of the winter moon we find in Joso:
The snow is colder
Silver my gray hair Winter moon.
And here is how the moon appears at Ransetsu:
autumn moon
Pine painting with ink
In blue skies
The light of this bright moon Bared like the crown of a monk,
Sea, hills and fields...
The moon of the poet Issa is friendly and patronizes the night nature:
Here comes the moon
And the smallest bush is invited to the holiday.
The image of the month we find in the lines of Bonte:
Moon in the sky
You alone in the world are a comrade of a raging storm ...
(translated by V. N. Markova).
It is interesting that the image of the moon as a symbol of pure love and longing originated a very long time ago. The moon in Chinese tradition occupies almost
cult place. So in his novel "Family" the realist writer Ba Jin, through the mouth of the protagonist, compares his beloved with the moon. The moon is regarded as the highest degree of beauty and purity. And another Chinese writer Lao She traces the image of a dead, tragic moon.
A similar image of a gray, dead, portending misfortune moon is present in Leo Tolstoy's epic "War and Peace": Natasha Rostova, thinking about her lover, raises her gaze to the moon, shining that night with an incredibly gray, dead light, the heroine is pierced by an unpleasant cold. It is thanks to the description of the moon that the reader understands in advance how Natasha's fate will turn out, that her love is doomed to a dramatic ending in advance.
Let us turn to the image of the moon in poetry. First of all, consider Pushkin's "moon".
Pushkin's night luminary is a woman, a hostile and disturbing queen of the night (Hecate). But the poet treats her with courage: she worries him. The author of its action turns us into a joke and calls the moon "stupid", makes it change "dim lanterns". In Pushkin's work, the image of the moon is used 70 times, the month appears in 15 works.
In the novel "Eugene Onegin" this image helps the reader to better understand the main character, Tatyana Larina. The moon in world mythology is a sign of the goddess Diana, the goddess of fertility and childbearing, of all living things. Subsequently, she began to be identified with the goddess Selena, personifying chastity, purity and holiness. We remember how Pushkin, calling the heroine Tatyana, writes:
For the first time in such a name We will arbitrarily sanctify the pages of a tender novel.
The “holy” name of Tatyana, with whom “the memory of antiquity is inseparable”, is precisely associated with the goddess of the moon, the night glow, silently flooding the sleeping earth with a silvery glow. The image of the moon accompanies the heroine throughout the novel.
When Lensky introduces Onegin to his bride Olga, Eugene immediately draws attention to the one "who is sad and silent, like Svetlana", surprised that his newfound friend chose "another":
Olga has no life in features.
Exactly the same in Vandy's Madonna:
She is round, red-faced,
Like this stupid moon in this stupid sky.
The moon changes mood along with the characters. For example: "in idle silence under a foggy moon ... rests lazily." In this passage, the image of the night luminary reflects the state of the hero: the moon is "foggy", "languid".
Tatyana, immersed in reading sentimental French novels, peering at the characters and likening them to herself and Onegin, sees lyrics, romance, memories in the moon:
And Tatiana's heart darted far away, looking at the moon...
The romantic soul of Tatyana lives in the world of dreams, dreams, created by her, she checks her life with legends, signs, "predictions of the moon." The night luminary accompanies the heroine when she writes a letter to Onegin:
And meanwhile the moon shone
And with a languid light she illuminated Tatiana's pale beauty.
Pushkin's heroine writes a letter alone with the moon, the virginal light of which is associated with romantic thoughts, when the girl in love ceases to notice the real situation, remaining alone with the "languid light" of the inspiring moon. The same state will accompany her after the meeting with Onegin in St. Petersburg:
About him she is in the darkness of the night,
Until Morpheus arrives,
It used to be virginally sad,
Raises languid eyes to the moon,
Dreaming with him someday Accomplish a humble way of life.
As you can see, Tatyana does not change internally: only her status has changed, she has become a married woman, an important person. But her soul remained the same high, pure. The silvery light of the moon casts the inner world of the heroine, it is so rich that it is inaccessible to the understanding of others, including at first Onegin, just as the other side of the moon is inaccessible to the gaze.
Tatyana seems to be making her lunar journey: the moon accompanies her in a prophetic dream (“A beam of night lights shines”); "In the silvery light" Larina hurries to Onegin's house to unravel his soul, and she succeeds; the moon does not leave her in Moscow either. But here, instead of the "foggy, sad, pale moon", a majestic night star appears, eclipsing the brilliance of bright stars:
Like a majestic moon
Among women and virgins, one shines.
With what pride she touches the heavenly Earth!
Moving along Tatyana's life path, the reader may note that she remained at the level of the sky, making her way from the "languid moon" "in the pale sky" to the dazzlingly bright "moon in the airy blue."
And Onegin "show the goddess sees." The moon-goddess Tatyana is the embodiment of the ideal of a woman, the patroness of the hearth, fidelity, kindness, light - all that makes up the poet's ideal. The skill of the author of "Eugene Onegin" is really inexhaustible. So, with the help of the image of the moon, Pushkin was able to reflect all the experiences and characteristics of the main characters.
Now let's compare the use of the same image in the works of two different writers:
Unlike Pushkin, Tyutchev knows only the "month" (almost does not know the "moon"). A month in Tyutchev's mind is a "god" and a "genius", pouring peace into the soul, not disturbing and lulling. Pushkin's "moon" - the "pale spot" of the "streaming circle" disturbs us with its "muddy games" (this is how Pushkin described it to us). Her movements are insidious, volatile, swift: “runs”, “runs”, “plays”, “trembles”, “glides”, “walks”.
Tyutchev has only the day face of the month: "a skinny cloud." With this poet, he is motionless in the sky. "Magic", "luminous", "shining", the full month of Tyutchev is never "silver", it is "amber": not yellow, not red. In Pushkin, the moon always casts silver or takes on a sharp reddish hue. The image of the month according to Tyutchev is foggy white, almost does not hide from the sky. Most often he is "invisible", he is the "genius" of the sky.
The moon in Lermontov belongs mainly to the period of naive romanticism, which he experienced early. Even comparisons in this area are artistically weak: a villain, Armida with knights, a white monk in black robes, or comic comparisons with a pancake and Dutch cheese.
Turgenev used the image of the moon in its most lyrical and beautiful manifestation. In one of his poems, the poet sings of his beloved woman, comparing her with the moon:
The moon floats high above the earth Between pale clouds;
But from above it moves the sea wave Magic ray.
Of my soul, the sea recognized you as its moon...
And it moves both in joy and in sorrow by You alone ...
The longing of love, the longing of mute aspirations The soul is full ...
It's hard for me ... but you are a stranger to confusion,
Like that moon.
In the work of N.V. Gogol, the image of the moon is much less common than the image of the month. Gogol's month - a symbol of paganism, folklore, is mentioned in many works: "May night or a drowned woman" (mystical image): "Do you know the Ukrainian night? Oh, you don't know the Ukrainian night! Take a look at her. The moon looks from the middle of the sky. The boundless vault of heaven resounded, parted even more immensely”; “The night before Christmas” (religious image): “The clear winter night has come. Stars looked. The moon rose majestically to shine for good people, for the whole world, so that everyone would have fun caroling and glorifying Christ.
And what is the moon in the work of the "peasant" poet S. Yesenin? The image of the moon (month) is found in every third of his works. At the same time, in the early poems, until about 1920, the month prevails, and in the later ones, the moon. The month is closer to folklore, it is a fairy-tale character, while the moon brings elegiac, romance motifs.
Yesenin selects very beautiful words to describe the mysterious night luminary: “thin lemon moonlight”, “uncomfortable liquid moonlight”.
A month appeared to her over the hut
One of her puppies.
Metaphor in this case arises in form, figure, silhouette. But the moon is not only a celestial body, but also moonlight, which causes different moods in the lyrical hero.
Yesenin's cosmic motives closely coexist with religious ones:
From the blueness of the invisible bush
Star psalms are streaming.
(“It is not the winds that shower the forests...”, 1914)
Quiet - quiet in the divine corner,
The moon kneads kutya on the floor.
("Night and the field, and the cry of roosters.", 1917)
In this poem, "month" and "kutya" are interconnected by ancient beliefs. Month - in folk beliefs is associated with the afterlife, and kutya is a dish that is prepared for the commemoration of dead people.
Yesenin refers to folklore themes in relation to the heavenly bodies. For example, in the poem "Martha the Posadnitsa" (1914):
Not the sister of the month from the dark swamp
She threw the kokoshnik into the sky in pearls, -
Oh, how Martha went out the gate ...
In folklore, the "sister of the month" is the sun, which is opposed to it as a source of life, heat and light.
Thus, having examined the lyrics of S. Yesenin, we see that the poet turns to cosmic motives in order to comprehend some events, to understand the world around him.
In the work of the poet I.S. Nikitin, as well as Yesenin, there is a folklore image of the month. In his poem "Winter Night in the Village" he writes:
The Moon shines merrily over the village;
White snow sparkles with a blue light.
The image of the month is closer to the poet than the image of the full moon:
The moon shines by the window...
The roosters crowed;
I put out the candle and lie in bed.
Nikitin compares the month in his poem "Night" with a shield: "Here bright stars flashed in the sky one after another,
And the moon rose above the pine forest like a golden shield...” Interesting variations on the image of the moon are offered by the work of the poet of the Silver Age, A. Blok. In his most famous poem, which for a long time became a symbol of Blok's poetry - "The Stranger" - the lyrical hero belongs to two worlds: the world of dreams, poetry, where everything is shrouded in a haze of mystery, and the poet is the keeper of this secret. But he does not separate himself from the base, vulgar world of "tried wits", soulless and dead nature, in which its most poetic manifestation - the moon in the sky - turns into a dead disk. In this poem, she is not only a symbol of the impersonality of nature. The color scheme of Blok in the poem "The Stranger", namely red, an alarming color, explains to the reader the inner state of the author's soul. No wonder the poem ends with the return of the lyrical hero from dreams to reality.
The image of the moon also appears at the very end of another famous poem by A. Blok:
Rush away without a goal on a horse Into the fog and into the meadow distances,
Towards the night and the moon!
Here it denotes a certain edge to which any person comes running away from himself or wandering aimlessly in search of a better life.
The poetess Anna Akhmatova paid much attention to the image of the moon in her work. The cycle of poems “Moon at Zenith” is inspired by the image of the night luminary, which seemed to the poetess surprisingly beautiful and unusual, as she saw it while being evacuated in Uzbekistan:
From mother-of-pearl and agate,
From smoked glass
So unexpectedly sloping And so solemnly floated - As if "Moonlight Sonata"
We immediately crossed the path.
Akhmatova dedicated these wonderful lines to the moon, because the luminary opened up to her completely different in other geographical latitudes.
The poetess compares the young moon to a slice of melon:
"When the moon lies with a slice of Chardzhui melon
On the edge of the window, and stuffiness all around ... "
Finally, consider the image of the moon in the most mystical and mysterious work of the 20th century - in M. Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita". Moonlight, according to the literary critic V.P. Kryuchkov, is associated with Woland, that is, with the devil. “The night thickened, flew nearby, grabbed the galloping cloaks and, tearing them off their shoulders, exposed the deceptions. And when Margarita, blown by the cool wind, opened her eyes, she saw how the appearance of everyone flying towards her goal was changing. When the moon began to come out to meet them from behind the edge of the forest, all the deceptions disappeared, fell into the swamp, the witch's unstable clothes drowned in the mists. The moon in this passage again represents the phenomenon that sheds light on the dark affairs of the night. The image of the moon carries a special semantic load in the novel, not always clearly defined, but extremely important for a complete understanding of the novel. Bulgakov has no doubt that man is a part of the universal harmony of the universe. This harmony implies the closest connection of events, people and huge luminaries. The moon from the first pages acts as a symbol of Woland: “And finally, Woland also flew in his real guise. Margarita could not say what the bridle of his horse was made of, and thought that it was possible that these were moon chains and the horse itself was only a block of darkness, and the mane of this horse was a cloud, and the rider's spurs were white spots of stars. The true appearance of the prince of darkness turns out to be woven from moonlight, which does not imply anything low, vicious, disgusting. Day and night, sun and moon, light and shadow are necessary for balance in nature, just as good and evil in human destiny.
The main action of the novel takes place on a full moon. The full moon is a mystical, disturbing, bewitching time. The full moon is the time of the witches' sabbath and the "liberation" for all evil spirits.
According to L. Matveeva, only the full moon is important for Bulgakov, as a symbol of harmony, peace, peace and rebirth. The moon is one in both the “Moscow” and “Yershalaim” chapters. The moon equally observes the life of people of the 1st and 20th centuries, making the connection of times. It is the moon that transforms the heroes.
CONCLUSION
So, let's conclude what is the image of the moon and why so often completely different authors in their work use this image to place emotional accents. As we have seen, the moon, as a rule, takes on three main forms: folkloric, lyrical and, undoubtedly, mystical. It is important to note that for some authors the image of the moon appears in a large number of works.
The image of the moon is used by poets and writers both literally, and allegorically, and comparatively, with surprisingly accurate epithets, showing not only the beauty and diversity of the moon itself, but also the diversity of our life itself, our feelings, emotions, events. It seems to me that this may be due to the great importance of our famous satellite of the Earth in the life of every person, its influence on our life, on our emotional state, and even more so, on the life and work of a poet or writer.
In lyrical works, the landscape is presented more sparingly than in prose. But because of this, the symbolic load of the landscape increases. This function is especially clearly reflected in the poetry of the Symbolists.
Yes, for K. Balmont, as for many other symbolists, the moon is a symbol of the ideal world, the world of dreams, beauty, creativity. The poet envelops the image of the moon in a haze of mystery, sings of its sad beauty: “The moon is rich in the power of suggestion, // Around her always hovering secret.//…// With her beam, a beam of pale green,// She caresses, strange so exciting,//…// But, beckoning us with unforgettable hope,// She herself fell asleep in the pale distance,// Beauty of anguish invariable,// Supreme Mistress of Sorrow!” (Balmont, Luna). The connection between the moon and the ideal world stands out especially clearly in his sonnet "Moonlight":
When the moon shines in the darkness of the night
With your sickle, brilliant and tender,
My soul longs for another world
Captivated by everything distant, everything boundless.
BUT Vyacheslav Ivanov in one of his poems, metaphorically calling the moon the name of the demonic goddess Hekate, he directly calls her "the twin of the world":
Pale warming night light,
Mirror black deaf agate
So calls the doppelgänger
Mira - Hecate.
The image of the moon is revealed somewhat differently by the "senior symbolist" D. Merezhkovsky. The moon is the bearer of universal evil. In his poem "Winter Evening", the poet says this about the moon: "O dim moon // With unkind eyes", "Criminal moon,// You are full of horror", "The damned face of the moon // Full of evil power." In addition, the image of the moon here can also be considered as a symbol of death, because under the evil gaze of the night mistress of the sky, the image of a drooping reed appears, “sick, dry and thin.” In addition to the moon, the symbols of death are the images of silence and crows:
The cursed face of the moon
Filled with evil power...
Reeds drooped to the ground,
Sick, dry and skinny...
Ravens hoarse cry
From the bare grove is heard.
And in the sky - silence
Like in a desecrated temple...
It is not surprising that the symbolism of the lunar image is so diverse in literature. After all, its roots are connected with mythology. And in mythology, the moon plays a very ambiguous role, and the attitude of people towards it was contradictory. On the one hand, the mistress of the night is a sorceress, unable to distinguish between good and evil. But at the same time, the moon is the eternal symbol of the female maternal principle, the first assistant to women in labor and young mothers. So, in Western (Ancient Greek and Roman) mythology, we will meet various hypostases of the lunar deity. This is Selena - the goddess of femininity, and Artemis - a symbol of virgin nature, purity, and Hera - the goddess of motherhood, marriage, and Persephone, symbolizing rebirth, magic, and Hekate - the goddess of darkness and ghosts, the patroness of illusions and deceptions. Therefore, for example, interpretations of the lunar image in literature as a symbol of animal passion, a symbol of death go back to the mythological image of the moon like Hecate, the demonic goddess, and as a symbol of unhappy love - to a mythological image like Selene, who, according to myths, suffered from unrequited love [Mythological Dictionary: 129]
It must be remembered that in landscape poetry, the main thing is not the depicted nature itself, but the feeling that the poet wanted to convey. The moon in works of art is more often used to create an elegiac mood, to immerse the reader in a world of longing, sadness, and dreams. Such an artistic solution is often used in many works of romantics. The spectacle of the romantic opposition of the world and the ideal hero is highlighted by twilight, the dying fire of the moon and stars, thanks to which the boundaries of reality, immersed in semi-darkness, are blurred. It is in such an atmosphere that the romantic hero gains confidence in the boundlessness of his own existence, in the absence of limits between him and being. The lunar landscape sets the theme of timeless space; this is the sphere of the birth of the elements, the personality as an independent substance, the only one able to comprehend the deep meaning of the universe. The moon, reflecting the unconscious principle, could not but be used by romantics who were irrational in the knowledge of the world.
So, the creator of a romantic landscape with a mysterious twilight color, V.A. Zhukovsky very often uses the lunar image. M.N. Epshtein says about him: “Zhukovsky discovered the poetry of the fading day, “the earth’s evening transformation.” The poet's worldview is close to the sunset hour, in the image of which he remained an unsurpassed master, predecessor and inspirer of A. Blok. Zhukovsky is one of the most “lunar” poets, singing the night luminary in more than 10 poems and creating in his “Detailed Report on the Moon…” a unique poetic encyclopedia of lunar motifs in his own work” [Epshtein 1990: 210]. Zhukovsky uses the image of the moon to immerse himself in the world of dreams and memories:
The moon's flawed face rises from behind the hills…
O quiet skies of thoughtful luminaries,
How your brilliance fluctuates in the twilight of the forests!
How pale you gilded the shore!
I sit thinking in the soul of my dreams;
By the past times I fly with memories ...
About my spring days, how quickly you disappeared
With your bliss and suffering!
(Zhukovsky, Evening)
It is with the moon that the poet associates the mystery of being, so he often uses the epithet “mysterious” in relation to her:
Him the moon through the dark forest
Lampada mysterious shining...
(Zhukovsky, Detailed report to the moon)
Most often, the moon in Zhukovsky is found in elegies, as it gives the lyrical plot a sad, dull mood. But it should be noted that Zhukovsky's lunar landscape is covered with light sadness, it feels like the poet even enjoys it. So, in one of the poems, the lyrical hero, referring to the month, says:
Again the forest and the valley covered
Your foggy shine:
He broke my soul
Sweet silence…
(Zhukovsky, To the month)
“Sweet silence”, presented to the lyrical hero by the contemplation of the moonlit night, reflects the attitude of Zhukovsky himself. For him, the sweetness of contemplation is the key concept and the most important sign of the "life of the soul." The lyrical hero of Zhukovsky is a contemplator of the world. “Zhukovsky is the first Russian poet who managed not only to embody in poetry the real colors, sounds and smells of nature - everything that makes up its “material” beauty, but to permeate nature with the feeling and thought of a person who perceives it” [Semenko 1975: 84].
As mentioned above, the image of the moon occupies a special place in poetry. S.A. Yesenina. Moreover, as M.N. Epshtein notes, “in the early poems, until about 1920, the “month” prevails (18 out of 20), in the later ones the moon (16 out of 21)” [Epshtein 1990: 248]. In our opinion, this is explained by the fact that in the early work of the poet there is more folklore than in the mature one (the month is closer to folklore, it is a fairy-tale character). Interestingly, in the image of the month, Yesenin emphasizes its shape, appearance:
Behind the dark strand of woods, Time is a windmill with a wing
In the unshakable blue, Lowers behind the village
Curly lamb - month Month pendulum into rye
Walking in the blue grass. Pour hours of invisible rain.
1916 1917
Oh, and I myself, in the thicket of the ringing, look around with a calm look,
I saw yesterday in the fog: Look: in the mist damp
Red month foal The moon is like a yellow raven
Harnessed to our sleigh. Circling, hovering above the ground.
1917 1925
The sky is like a bell, praise, my verse, who roars and rages
Month - language Who buries longing in the shoulder
My mother is the motherland Horse face of the month
I am a Bolshevik. Grab the bridle of the rays.
1918 1919
Month horn cloud butts, cleans month in thatched roof
Bathed in blue dust. Horns wrapped in blue.
Tonight no one will guess 1917
Why did the cranes cry?
In the image of the moon, the poet describes more the light that she radiates, and the feeling that it inspires the lyrical hero:
In the wooden wings of the window Cold gold of the moon,
Together with frames in thin curtains The smell of oleander and levkoy.
The eccentric moon knits It's good to wander among peace
On the floor lace patterns. Blue and affectionate country.
1925 1925
Ah, the moon breaks through the frame, blue mist. snow expanse,
Such a light, at least gouge out your eyes… subtle lemon moonlight.
I put on the Queen of Spades, My heart is pleased with a quiet pain
And he played the ace of diamonds. Something to remember from my early years.
1925 1925
Uncomfortable liquid moonlight Ah, the moon is
And the longing of the endless plains, - Shines - at least throw yourself into the water.
That's what I saw in my frisky youth, I don't want peace
That, loving, cursed more than one. In this blue weather.
1925 1925
The moon brings sadness, melancholy and even despair into the soul of the lyrical hero, takes him to the world of memories of a bygone youth (compare: “Thin lemon moonlight.// It is pleasant to the heart with a quiet pain// Something to remember from early years”).
An interesting reading of the image of the moon can be observed in the work V.Mayakovsky, a prominent representative of futurism. He, as a representative of urban poetry, belittles this image. This is not surprising, because for the futurists nature is the embodiment of the old rigid order. So, in his poem "Head of the City" Mayakovsky depicts the moon like this:
And then already - crumpling the lanterns of the blanket -
the night fell in love, obscene and drunk,
and behind the suns of the streets somewhere hobbling
useless, flabby moon.
We see that the lyrical hero is opposed to nature, he acts as a rebel and treats nature ironically. The poet emphatically “desacralizes” the moon, deprives it of the halo of sublimity, holiness, treating it with the utmost familiarity, and sometimes does not stop at swear words addressed to it: “the moon, like a fool // ...// flat pancake” [Epshtein 1990: 246 ].
Common among Indians story about lunar stone, and they call it jandarakand, i.e. " lunar rays,” writes the famous Persian scientist-encyclopedist of the late 10th century, al-Biruni, in his... spar - belomorite - inside it turns out to be blue, giving off a phosphorescent radiance. This glow is an unsolved phenomenon of prissia. Unfortunately tons lunar stone mined in the mines of North Karelia was used as ordinary spar, i.e. ceramic raw materials. So soon the deposit dried up, as ...
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Was in heaven beautiful, luminous, full moon. And suddenly she began to roll. To the left. It was so unusual. It was amazing! She rolled along a semicircular trajectory and very quickly. How...
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The moon is a silver coin minted in the heavenly Court,
In the tablets of the clouds captured the kisses of the night
On the thin fingers of awakened trees,
The moon is an evil golden cat, protector of heaven and star guardian,
Stories open pages, honey in a cup...
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Moonstone
« Lunar stone "- the most famous and, undoubtedly, the best novel by Wilkie Collins, the first English detective novel proper. In him told not only the mysterious story of the theft of a diamond that passed from one illegal owner to another, bringing with it a curse, but also a “strange family story”. In this beautiful piece...
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Moon. rem
Rounded, the white-faced moon rolled,
Revived, surprised - in the whole sky, only she.
There is no cloud, no cloud, even the fire of the stars is extinguished,
Presents his own tricks, solo-moon-night jazz.
How that luminary spun, spun bodies,
How emaciated...
THE IMAGE OF THE MOON IN THE NOVEL EVGENIY ONEGIN
« The moon breaks through the wavy mists,
She pours a sad light on the sad glades ... "
Winter road.
A.S. Pushkin
Each person is a whole world, each person is an unknown planet. Many people adhere to this thesis. Some identify themselves and others with specific planets in the solar system, others believe in horoscopes, comparing their lives with the alignment of the stars.
Perhaps Pushkin also connected the heavenly and the earthly, comparing the image of the Moon with the image of his favorite heroine, Tatyana Larina. After all, the image of the Moon in the novel directly arises when Tatyana appears. And throughout the novel
The moon illuminates its main character with its mysterious light.
It is also likely that, using the image of the Moon, Pushkin was based on the symbolism of world mythology, in which the Moon is a sign of the goddess Diana, the goddess of fertility and childbearing, of all living things. Subsequently, she began to be identified with the goddess Selena, personifying chastity, purity and holiness.
We remember how Pushkin, calling the heroine Tatyana, writes:
“... For the first time with such a name
Gentle pages of a novel
We will willfully sanctify.”
The "holy" name of Tatyana, with whom “inseparable memory of antiquity”, it is precisely associated with the goddess of the moon, the night glow, silently flooding the sleeping earth with a silvery glow. Let us remember how Onegin, seeing Tatyana in the highest Petersburg society, “ reveal the goddess sees”(from the "Afterword" to the novel).
Here Lensky introduces Onegin to his bride Olga, and he immediately draws attention to the one “who is sad and silent, like Svetlana”, is surprised at his newfound friend that he chose “another”:
“Olga has no life in features.
Exactly the same in Vandy's Madonna:
She is round, red-faced,
Like that stupid moon
In this stupid sky."
Here "stupid moon"- the opposite of the moon, pouring life-giving light on the world when it “ in idle silence under a foggy moon ... lazily resting ”.
So is Tatyana in “ idle silence" quietly dreams of village life, plunging into reading sentimental French novels, peering at the characters and likening them to himself and Onegin:
“And my heart rushed far
Tatyana looking at the moon...
Suddenly a thought was born in her mind…”,
“she said it is him.
The romantic soul of Tatyana lives in the world of dreams, dreams she created, she checks her life with legends, signs , “predictions of the moon", for Tatyana - "Russian soul". Note that among the Slavs, the Moon also patronizes the entire home world, and, as you know, Tatyana's surname - Larina - is associated with the ancient deities lara - patrons of the hearth, nature.
The night luminary accompanies the heroine, and then, when she writes a letter to Onegin:
“And meanwhile the moon shone
And lit up with a languid light
Tatiana's pale beauty."
Pushkin's heroine writes a letter alone with the Moon, whose virginal light is associated with romantic thoughts, when the girl in love ceases to notice the real situation, remaining alone with the "languid light" of the moon-inspirer. The same state will accompany her after the meeting with Onegin in St. Petersburg:
About him she is in the darkness of the night,
Until Morpheus arrives,
It used to be virginally sad,
Raises languid eyes to the moon,
Dreaming with him someday
To complete the humble way of life.
As you can see, Tatyana does not change internally over the years: her status has changed, she has become a married woman, an important person. But "Russian soul" it remained the same high, clean; even "Cleopatra of the Neva”, “brilliant Nina Voronskaya”, could not outshine her.
The silvery light of the moon illuminates Tatyana's inner world, it is so rich that it is inaccessible to the understanding of others, including Onegin, just as the other side of the moon is inaccessible to the human eye. Tatyana seems to be making her lunar journey: the moon accompanies her in a prophetic dream (“A ray of night luminaries shines”); "under the silver light" she hurries to Onegin's house to unravel his soul, and she succeeds (“Isn’t he a parody?”); she does not leave her in Moscow either. But here instead “foggy, sad, pale moon” a majestic night star appears, eclipsing the brilliance of bright stars:
« Like a majestic moon
Among women and virgins, one shines.
With what heavenly pride
She touches the earth!
Following Tatyana along her life path, we can note that she remained at the level of the sky, making her way from "languid moon" "in the pale sky" to blindingly bright "moons in the air blue".
Such Tatyana, the Moon is a goddess, the embodiment of the ideal of a woman, the patroness of the hearth, fidelity, kindness, light, is the ideal of the poet.
