Futurism in the works of Mayakovsky

Futurism is a type of literary movement of the modernist type. It develops at the beginning of the twentieth century. The movement gets its name from Tommaso, a famous poet from Italy. He held certain views on modern literature of that time. In his opinion, poetry had ceased to sound and needed change.

The main principle of futurism is to change the principles of old art and introduce fundamentally new concepts. The goal of the changes is to save the whole world. So Filippo wrote in one of his works.

According to futurists, a poem should be free. It can have a tragic, scary, or cheerful ending. Rhyme is not necessary, the word must guide the poetry. Any topic is allowed: native country, love, the whole world or the fate of a specific character. Russia became famous for its first futurists in the persons of Mayakovsky, Burliuk, Khlebnikov, Kamensky. They demanded the approval of innovative principles for the poetic genre as a matter of urgency.

Direction allows the use of rhyme, rhythm, shocking in any form. The poet is free to express himself in his own words, without being limited by boundaries.

The main features of futurism

The main idea of the futurists was complete separation from “classical” culture. They were characterized by disdain for traditional rules and canons in art. They even made fun of the old school in poetry.
They sought to make a revolution in creativity, so they often glorified political revolutions and riots. From this follows a picture of the modern world, depicted as constantly in motion, changing from day to day.
Creativity itself is presented as an invention, a product of human labor. The aesthetics of the big city and technological progress come to the fore, as opposed to the natural world, which the poets of the old school loved to idealize.
The authors experimented with word formation, creating fancy phrases, neologisms, and meters. Their work was radically different from everything that had been done before.
The ideological and thematic content of the futurists' works is characterized by hostility towards capitalism and everything connected with it: the ruling class, generally accepted moral standards, the conformist position of the church, etc.

Futuristic features

Separation from the usual traditional culture is the main idea of the futurists . They usually neglected the “classical” canons in art. Representatives of this trend criticized the old school in their works.

The futurists wanted to completely change creativity. They also quite often campaigned in poetry for riots and political upheavals. This is what the modern world should look like—changing all the time.

Poets presented their work as an invention or the result of a lot of work. The main thing, in their opinion, is technological progress. This was in contrast to nature, glorified by the poets of the old school.

Representatives of the futurist movement in creativity tried to experiment with word formations. They wanted to create non-standard sizes, neologisms and interesting phrases. Their works were very different from anything that had been done before them. Distinctive features of Mayakovsky's work:

Vladimir Vladimirovich greatly exaggerated the poet’s personality. He often praised him in his lines, placing him above other representatives of society.
In addition to contempt for everything old, the author also criticized the present. He opposed himself to the state system, and directed his thoughts to the future.

The poet often used sound writing and metaphors in his poems to create vivid contrasts . It is also worth mentioning the famous “ladder”. Mayakovsky used it to highlight important places in the work.

Features of Mayakovsky's futurism

The most striking difference between Mayakovsky’s works and other representatives of futurism is the exaggeration of the poet’s personality; lines of praise are often dedicated to him, he is placed above others.
In addition to denial and contempt for everything that happened before, in the works of Vladimir Vladimirovich a strong protest towards the present is expressed, he opposes himself to society and the existing state system. The poet's views and thoughts are turned to the future.
Beauty lies in city landscapes and vibrant urban life.
Very often in his works, Mayakovsky used metaphors (hidden comparison) for his contrasts and sound writing (repetition of the same vowels or consonants).
And, of course, we should not forget about his famous “ladder”, which was used to highlight the most important sections of the poem.

The phenomenon of Mayakovsky's creativity

The poems of Vladimir Mayakovsky are difficult to read and understand. Therefore, mainly only professionals are actively interested in his work. But still, the poet’s name is well known; he did not get lost among hundreds of other authors of the 20th century. What is its phenomenon? There are several approaches to studying Mayakovsky’s work:

Soviet. Many perceive the author as a figure who does not cross “party lines.” But this is not entirely true, since Vladimir in his works repeatedly spoke out against dictatorship and bureaucracy, which hinder the revival of true socialism.
Religious. Some researchers believe that the poet was torn between religiosity and Satanism. On the one hand, he opposed religion, being on the side of communism. But on the other hand, deep in my soul I understood that this was wrong. Personal tragedy is reflected in poems.
Futuristic. It is believed that the poet's futuristic dreams were not realized. At the same time, he tried to maneuver between futurism and Soviet reality.

But perhaps everything is much simpler. Mayakovsky continues to be interesting to the reader because with the help of his work it is easier to understand Soviet culture. The author very accurately and truthfully showed all the contradictions of that time. To learn more about the history of the early twentieth century, you just need to learn to read between the lines.

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Examples from Mayakovsky's poetry

There will be a moon. There's already a little bit. But the full one hung in the air. It must be God who is rummaging in the stars’ ear with a wondrous silver spoon. ("Moonlight night").

A small landscape sketch, in which a primitive statement of fact is replaced by a complex religious and philosophical explanation, this is created to upset the balance of the poem, get rid of harmony, so that it is more difficult for readers to perceive what is written - this is one of the ways of expressing anti-aestheticism. In addition, the author’s mocking tone is obvious here when it comes to religious prejudices trying to explain natural phenomena. By ironically listing them, the poet promotes anti-clerical sentiments.

In an hour from here, your flabby fat will flow out into a clean alley, and I have opened so many verses of boxes for you, I - the priceless words of spendthrift and spendthrift (“Here!”)

Here we see all the disgust the poet feels for people, he simply calls them fat, when, on the contrary, he puts himself above the rest, presenting himself as the bearer and owner of words and language, and even the one who unceremoniously throws them to the wind.

I want the feather to be equal to the bayonet. ("Home!")

In these lines, there is an attempt to convey to the readers one of the ideas of futurism, which was written about above, namely, to equate art with the product of labor, and poets with soldiers.

The windows of the hell of the city were broken into tiny hells sucking in light.” (“Hell of the City”).

And finally, the same game with words in attempts to give them completely different forms that do not exist in speech.

Poetics of Russian futurism

For the futurists, the content of their work practically did not matter; all bets were placed on the form of the narrative, and the more unusual it was, the better. They tried to convey all their ideas to readers through dialogue, which is why most futurist poems are made in the form of a conversation, or an address to someone. All of them were written with the goal of shocking and shocking listeners, in a declamatory style (expressive reading, comfortable rhythm) for greater convenience in public speaking. The lyrical hero was practically unimportant, he was not given enough attention; the rapidly changing reality around him was much more interesting.

Manifesto of Russian Futurism

Compiled in 1912, it calls for forgetting everything that came before, getting rid of classical works authored by Pushkin, Tolstoy, Gorky, and so on, and proclaiming the futurists the only representatives of their time. The manifesto demands the destruction of the existing Russian language, way of thinking, and existing values in order to replace them with new ones. Denies the presence of common sense and false beauty, preferring experiments to them. Asks to expand the vocabulary with the help of arbitrarily composed derivatives of existing words. Subsequently, the text of the manifesto increased, and slogans appeared in it for the separation of art from the state, as well as the transfer of all theaters, museums, art academies, and so on into the hands of the artists themselves.

Author: Sergey Vorobyov
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Mayakovsky and futurism

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky is one of the most prominent figures not only of Russian futurism, but of all Russian poetry. The young, revolutionary-minded Vladimir Mayakovsky joined the Futurists in 1912.

Futurism arose as one of the trends in Russian poetry at the turn of the century. Calling themselves the only poets of the future (Budetlyans), the futurists declared a final and complete break with all traditions, sharply opposed themselves to other movements (symbolism, acmeism) and proclaimed the task of creating a new art of the 20th century. They outraged public opinion with the maximalism of their literary manifestos. In a manifesto with the provocative title “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” they called for “throwing Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy off the ship of modernity.” The futurists shocked with the titles of their collections (“Dead Moon”, “Roaring Parnassus”, etc.). Their evenings were noisy and scandalous. They mercilessly ridiculed vulgarity, philistinism, and the philistine attitude to life. All these external signs of revolutionism pleased the young Mayakovsky.

In Mayakovsky’s poems, published in the program collections of the futurists, there is a lot of bravado, declarative exaggeration of the poet’s personality (the tragedy “Vladimir Mayakovsky”, “The author dedicates these lines to himself, his beloved”). It was the custom of the Futurists to deny everything created before them. In his youthful arrogance, Mayakovsky calls Dante and Petrarch tongue-tied. He is bored by Annensky, Tyutchev, Fet (“I'm tired of it”).

Mayakovsky's first poem, “Night,” was published in the collection “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste.” His poems from 1912-1917 expressed the common futurist feeling of the “outlivedness of life,” the inevitability of catastrophes, the “exhaustion” of the old culture and all forms of art.

At the same time, from the very first steps he clearly stands out in the motley and noisy crowd of futurists.

Declaring that he “wants the future today,” Mayakovsky rebelled against the present way of life, which he hated. “Down with your system!”, “Down with your war!”, “Down with your religion!”, “Down with your art!”, “Down with your love!” - such slogans underlay Mayakovsky’s works of 1912-1917. He opposes himself to bourgeois society, in front of which he wants not to grimace, but rather to spit in their faces (“Nate!”). He angrily condemns the imperialist war (“Mother and the evening killed by the Germans”, “To you!”, “Me and Napoleon”), He satirically denounces the bourgeois social system, which disfigures and humiliates people (“Hymn to the Scientist”, “Hymn to the Judge”, “ My attitude to this"),

M. Gorky, who supported the extraordinary young talent during these years, once said about him: “A talented person. I don’t know what the little siskins will do in poetry after him.” Material from the site //iEssay.ru

Despite Mayakovsky’s gradual departure from the futurists, they had a fairly large influence on the formation of the poet’s aesthetic views and his further work. Even at the first Futurist evenings, he acquired the skills of a people's tribune, able to hold the intense interest of the audience, learned to polemicize and organize a performance as a performance. He intended his poetry for millions of readers, but he was never a man of the crowd; on the contrary, he sought to stand out in both appearance and behavior. His poetic style and intonation were always filled with a precise rhythm, originally intended for recitation aloud.

Many futurists were artists; Mayakovsky himself drew well (he studied at the School of Painting). This love for colors and painting is acutely felt in the poet’s lyrics, for example, in the poem “Night”: “Crimson and white were discarded and crumpled, handfuls of ducats were thrown into the green...”

However, having taken a lot from futurism, Mayakovsky went far from it and managed to create his own unique style.

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