Russian Poetry

- from A Conversation with a Tax Collector

Vladimir Mayakovsky was the poet of the Russian revolution. He was indeed the voice of a people in revolt. Mayakovsky lived for revolution. He was a member of the futurists, a group who aimed their whole being at the new industrialized future. The futurists believed they would find glory in war and in the industrial future. They called for new art forms and Mayakovsky answered with his unique style of poetry. The influence of futurism on his poetry can be seen in A Cloud in Trousers. This poems' originality can be seen in its combination of rebellion and lyricism. It shows the dramatic nature of the poet that shines forth in lines like these: "If you wish, / I shall rage on raw meat; / or, as the sky changes its hue, / if you wish, / I shall grow irreproachably tender: / not a man, but a cloud in trousers!" (Mayakovsky 61). There was certainly no better place than early 20th century Russia for a poet with revolutionary and futuristic ideals. The times gave Mayakovsky a release for his radical temperament. He celebrated and fueled a twilight of the idols that was the fall of Tsarism in Russia. This paper will discuss The Bedbug and Selected Poetry by comparing some of the poetry in reference to how each treat the sentiments of the Ru

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you, / possibly, / will inquire about me too" (Mayakovsky 221). This poem, once again in the vain of Whitman, not only celebrates his time, but it celebrates himself. He calls himself "a certain champion of boiled water, / an inveterate enemy of raw water" (Mayakovsky 221). He espouses an ever present theme in his poetry by perhaps instructing posterity on how they should treat this voice of the streets: "Listen, / comrades of posterity, / to the agitator, / the rabble-rouser. / Stifling / the torrents of poetry, / I'll skip / the volumes of lyrics; / as one alive, / I'll address the living. / I'll join you in the far communist future . . . / My verse / by labor / will break the mountain chain of years, / and will present itself / ponderous, / crude, / tangible, / as an aqueduct. . . / When in mounds of books, / where verse lies buried, / you discover by chance the iron fillings of lines, / touch them, / with respect, as you would / some antique / yet awesome weapon" (Mayakovsky 226-227). Mayakovsky did indeed want his verse to be employed as a weapon in the proletariat attack on everything that stood in opposition to them before the revolution. Mayakovsky goes on to employ war metaphors to describe the affect of his poe

Category: Literature - R