The phenomenal creativity of Vladimir Mayakovsky absorbed a galaxy of ideas and innovations, creating within the traditional, albeit diverse Russian literary process, the basis for the development of a new movement - futurism. But despite the presence of many samples of the pen of various authors before and after Mayakovsky, no one was able to achieve his success. It seems that with his creativity Mayakovsky created the conditions for his literary immortality and sought to shine with an eternal, brightest fire through the centuries. The wise Litrekon offers you an analysis of the poem “Cloud in Pants” according to plan.
History of creation
The poem with an unusual, most futurist title - “Cloud in Pants”, was created by Mayakovsky in the period from 1914-1915. It can be assumed with great confidence that Mayakovsky’s destructive and revealing tetraptych, in addition to his ardor and dapperness, was inspired by the tour , committed by him in 1913 in the company of Burliuk and Kamensky. Therefore, Mayakovsky largely followed the trend in which any Russian writer transfers his cultural shock from a trip to Russia in a not always cultural form onto paper.
It is worth noting that the first title of the poem, “The Thirteenth Apostle,” was rejected, obviously, because Mayakovsky at that time had not earned the image of an anti-religious fanatic, turning to the Bible only if he needed to prop up the leg of a wobbly table with something or ridicule it, as an integral element of the limited bourgeois worldview. Nevertheless, the censor’s integrity did not in the least detract from the level of shockingness in the poem. A priori, it is difficult to make a work less effective, in the preface of which the slogans “Down with your love”, “Down with your art”, “Down with your system”, “Down with your religion” are emblazoned.
Genre, direction, size
As has been said more than once, “Cloud in Pants” is a poem. A poem that has exceptional genre originality, but respects its textbook role - a presentation of the synthesis of feelings created by him, as a product of spiritual activity, the cause of which was the influence of a strong image and feeling.
The genre originality of the poem “A Cloud in Pants” is a natural phenomenon for the literary movement, according to the rules and without the rules of which Mayakovsky created and did. Futurism is a movement that dislikes all boundaries, the long-term pressure of which deforms the human mind, turning it into a mindless mess. Freedom of thought and mind, ideas: their formulations and embodiments is what Mayakovsky filled his works with.
In addition to the “ladder”, which has become the hallmark of Mayakovsky’s works, it is worth mentioning the huge number of occasionalisms that form the unique semantic structure of the work “Cloud in Pants”.
Composition
The poem is a tetraptych - a work divided into four ideologically equivalent parts.
Why “4”? Nobody knows the exact answer. However, it is easy to notice that the four parts of the poem correspond to the five stages of “accepting the inevitable” identified by psychologists, with the exception of the last of them - humility. Indeed, the long-suffering hero experiences anger, denial, bargaining, and depression in his own skin, but humility does not come to him. Mayakovsky does not want his hero - the compiler of a new history - to put up with the present, to lose the life-giving spirit of hatred for the old. His hero is a sometimes naive maximalist, whose position can be formulated as follows:
“I’m offended by this vulgar world, I won’t bang my forehead against a pedestal, worshiping a colossus with feet of clay, it can fall at any moment and bury me under it, and I still need to dance on its bones!”
A very brief retelling of the poem “Cloud in Pants.”
A young and handsome poet, inspired by love, is waiting for his beloved, Maria, for whose sake he is ready to turn from a block into a gentle “cloud in his pants.” The girl promised to come to him, but the indicated hour has passed and deep night is coming, and the poet still suffers in anticipation, worrying that she will not appear. In the middle of the night, Maria still comes and declares that she is marrying someone else. The poet tries to show maximum calm, “like the pulse of a dead man.” But he understands that this pain can only be suffered over the years.
The poet stops reading books and denies everything that was created before him. If earlier he thought that everyone could be a writer, in fact this is not the case, and most people cannot even string two words together, let alone write poems: “Only two words live and grow fat - “bastard” and “borscht” . He also understands that even a small, but real, thing is more important for people than what the poet wrote.
Then the hero begins to reflect on the history of the world, which depresses him even more, since it consists of nothing but mistakes and oppression. He recalls bright personalities who became famous throughout the world for their worthy or unworthy actions (Napoleon, Bismarck, Rothschild, etc.). The poet has a clear desire to overthrow the existing system, where they only like to talk beautifully, but the consequences of all this are terrible.
Disillusioned with life, a person begins to seek salvation in religion, but since the poet has critical thinking, he cannot save himself and continues to engage in self-criticism. The hero of the poem eventually becomes disillusioned with the creator: “To hell with your religion.” He hoped in God, but he did not help him get rid of his heartache, so the author pejoratively calls the Creator “a tiny little god.”
Meaning of the name
“Cloud in pants” is an intricate oxymoron that contains two images, between which, both literally and figuratively, are heaven and earth. On the one hand, we have something light, free, good-natured, airy - that is, a cloud. On the other hand, pants. A thing whose appearance in the primitive world was marked by the fall of man, the emergence of lust, the formation of petty-bourgeois narrow-mindedness, hypertrophied in the already modern Mayakovsky society into etiquette that he hated.
Not a man, but just a cloud in his pants - Mayakovsky’s grotesque image of a clean, neat, sinless person, who, at the same time, never ceases to be ashamed of himself, striving for cloying, which corresponds so well to the social framework and its informal requirements.
Brief Analysis
Before reading this analysis, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the poem Cloud in Pants.
History of creation - the work was written in 1914, during this period the poet was in love with Maria Denisova, but his feelings did not receive an answer and were embodied in poetry. It was first published in 1915.
The theme of the poem - the central theme can be called the theme of love, but to it is also added the theme of the poet and the crowd, new art, the denial of the ruling system and, finally, the denial of God.
Composition - the poem is divided into parts, each of which has its own theme, and if in the first part the lyrical hero waits to meet his love, and then denies this very feeling, then in the last he accuses God of not taking care of the person, not gave him happy love. There are four of them in total.
Genre : tetraptych poem.
The poetic meter is free verse, in which Mayakovsky’s innovation as a poet was manifested.
Epithets – “bloody heart flap”, “fat footman”, “greasy couch”, “softened brain”.
Metaphors - “and the cambric living room, the decorous official of the angelic league.”
Hyperbole – “you can’t turn it out, it’s just solid lips.”
Comparison – “men, worn out like a hospital,” “women, worn out like a proverb.”
Oxymoron – “pulse of a dead man”.
The gist: what is the poem about?
The work consists of a preface - an ideological excerpt, and four main parts. Shocking and pathos are Mayakovsky's strengths; in the poet's manner it was dashing to open the door with his foot anywhere, including into the work.
Actually, here too the poet does not violate his tradition, and already in the preface he authoritatively and naturally promises to “tease our thought about the bloody flap of the heart.”
First part
The reader gets acquainted with the lyrical hero - an ardent and handsome twenty-two-year-old youth and his beloved - an imprudent person who is frightened by car horns, but does not find danger in the righteous anger of the young man, to whom she hastens to confess that she is being led down the aisle. And in vain! After all, there is nothing more terrible than the murderous calm of the lyrical hero, similar to the dream of Vesuvius, ready to burst out with righteous, withering anger. The hero is disappointed in his love for a lady dear to his heart, which leads to the collapse of his faith in love as such. The young man’s anger is indistinguishable to those around him, but it is destructive for a person who questions everything around him except his own love absolute, which has just been torn to pieces. The hero asks to moan his first cry after centuries. A curtain.
Second part
Here the hero expresses his creative “fi” in relation to art, the development of which has turned towards satisfying the sophisticated ambitions of madmen, whose undeservedly idle existence has been elevated to a cult in the conditions of bourgeois society. The cult of lies and showiness, which carry with them neither benefit nor creation, which is contrary to the nature of art.
The young man, denying authority, concludes that the nail in his boot is worse than Goethe’s fantasy, thereby expressing the helplessness of the abstract reasoning of great authors in solving global problems that tighten their grip every day with new force. A curtain.
The third part
The apotheosis of all-accusatory demagogy becomes, according to the classics of the genre, a discussion of world history, entirely, to the indignation of the young man, consisting of mistakes and oppression. Here Burliuk, Severyanin, Napoleon, Bismarck, Rothschild and other worthy and unworthy people appear before us in caricatured, sometimes grotesque images.
In this part of the poem, the third cry of the poet sets off on a rapid journey through generations - “Down with your system!” A system in which preference is given to beautiful words that lead to vile consequences: the ugliness of what should be beautiful, the optionality of what, without which, in fact, an honest and kind world is unthinkable. A curtain.
Fourth part
It so happens that a person who is disillusioned with everything often finds an outlet in religion. But even here the hero, unfortunately for him, has critical thinking and is in all-encompassing hatred, steps on a rake, depriving himself of the last opportunity to think everything over and stop the act of moral and ethical self-immolation.
“To hell with your religion,” the last cry echoes across generations. Here the hero is disappointed in the Creator, calling him a tiny god. That tiny god who does not see the heartfelt groaning of a young man is no match for that big, terrible God, the fear of whom for many centuries pulled the Russian world towards at least some kind of progress, which corresponds to all the anti-religious dogmas of the Bolshevik government. The curtains remain open, and a sorrowful hymn to reason is heard.
Cloud in pants summary
The poem “A Cloud in Pants” by Mayakovsky, written in 1915, became the first major work of the revolutionary poet. The original title, “The Thirteenth Apostle,” was changed as a result of tsarist censorship. The poem was written under the influence of unrequited love for the beautiful Maria Denisova. We suggest reading online a summary of “A Cloud in Pants” chapter by chapter , which will be useful for the reader’s diary. Main characters The lyrical hero is a twenty-two-year-old poet, daring, romantic, “impudent and caustic.” Mayakovsky himself is recognizable in his features. Maria is a young girl, the object of love and heartache of the lyrical hero. Other characters are ordinary people - the young poet addresses them, and contrasts his feelings and attitude to life with them. Summary
Introduction In the introductory part, the poet declares himself as a self-confident young man, in whose soul there is “not a single gray hair.” He shares his ideas about love with ordinary people. For the sake of this feeling, the lyrical hero is ready for global changes. He is even capable of turning himself inside out and becoming “immaculately gentle”, like “a cloud in his pants.”
Chapter 1 The lyrical hero indulges in memories of how he suffered in Odessa, impatiently waiting for a girl named Maria. She promised to come exactly at four o'clock, but time passed, evening crept up unnoticed, and the girl was still not there. Waiting for his beloved is so painful for the lyrical hero that he compares himself to a “wiry hulk” that writhes and moans, not getting what he wants. The poet’s melancholy is intensified by the rain beating on the glass, the noise of city streets, and car horns. He feels immensely lonely and unhappy, his tension is so great that “his nerves are rushing about like a desperate tap dance.” The poet compares the onset of midnight to the head of an executed man falling from the block. And the bad feeling does not deceive him: Maria comes and announces from the doorway that she is getting married. This news stuns the poet, but he is mentally prepared for it, and compares his condition with the pulse of a dead man - hope for reciprocity and sweet dreams are destroyed, forever buried by Mary’s confession.
Chapter 2 The poet talks about the torment of creativity. Previously, he was so naive that he believed that writing was surprisingly easy and simple. Now he refuses to read books, because he understands how hard it is to write them. Before it “starts to sing,” the “stupid roach of imagination” flounders in the soul for a long time. The suffering of the lyrical hero is intensified by the fact that ordinary people do not need high poetry. Their feelings are akin to primitive instincts, and spiritual values come down to only the phrase “Let’s go eat!” At the same time, the poet understands that “the smallest speck of living dust” is of much greater value than all his literary works. But he does not stop on his path, continuing to burn out and trample human souls with his truthful word.
Chapter 3 The poet begins to reason about life, about the reigning regime, without hiding his true thoughts and feelings. He blasphemes the poet Severyanin, in whose person he sees many modern rhymers who are only concerned that their lines come out more gracefully. The lyrical hero is sure that his thoughts need to be expressed as clearly and even rudely as possible, because the truth does not need embellishment. Between the lines, he calls on the common people for revolution, urging them to destroy the existing system - “We will paint Mondays and Tuesdays with blood on holidays!” The poet calls himself the thirteenth apostle.
Chapter 4 The lyrical hero again and again in his thoughts returns to Mary, whose name is “equal in greatness to God.” He urgently needs her, and asks for her body, as believers turn to heaven - “give us this day our daily bread.” The poet asks Maria not to pay attention to his betrayals, which mean absolutely nothing to him. There is only room in his soul for her alone, and he swears that he will take care of her in the same way as a war-damaged soldier “takes care of his only leg.” However, Mary does not reciprocate, then the lyrical hero turns to God with a request to give answers to all his questions. But heaven answers him with indifferent silence.
Conclusion Revolutionary in its content, the poem "Cloud in Pants" has become an example of an amazing combination of romance and the rough aspects of life. The central theme of love in the work echoes the themes of loneliness, morality, protest, and atheism.
A retelling of “A Cloud in Pants” will allow you to place the necessary emphasis and better prepare for a literature lesson.
The main characters and their characteristics
The system of images and the main characters of the poem “Cloud in Pants” are reflected in the table by the Many-Wise Litrecon.
| Someone “handsome, twenty-two years old” is the lyrical hero of the poem “A Cloud in Pants.” | An ardent, passionate, uncompromisingly loving and uncompromisingly hating young man. Through this image, Mayakovsky expresses his ambitious rebellious self, while creating ideal conditions for the cold iron of the lyrical hero’s heart to harden into the steel engine of the revolution. He admits his weaknesses, but their presence only feeds him, calling for an internal struggle so strong that it extends to a world in need of a total restructuring and the demolition of all its Towers of Babel. A young man, rejected by a girl who preferred expensive fabrics rather than his tobacco smoke, is ready to sublimate his pain from personal misfortune into efforts to create common, collective happiness, crowned with the Soviet flag. |
| Maria is his beloved | Young, stupid, inconsistent, cowardly, scared of car horns, apparently extremely beautiful, since our hero is patiently in love with her. A heroine whose naivety and optionality becomes a catalyst for the protagonist’s righteous anger, from which he later concludes about the absurdity of the world around him. In fact, the reader observes the butterfly effect, because the complete disappointment and ethical destruction of the main character - in a word, terrible things, were caused by the inopportunely said “you know, I’m getting married” to the forehead. Considering that “A Cloud in Pants” was perceived by many as a guide to action, we can say with great confidence that the optionality and commercialism of Mayakovsky’s abstract heroine brought many young people to an existential crisis. The name “Mary” was not chosen by chance: Mayakovsky draws comparative parallels with two biblical images - the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. The heroine goes through a gradation of images: “I’ll be there at four,” says the Virgin Mary, an innocent, pure and honest girl who has sincere, gracious love for the hero. But “you know, I’m getting married” is said by Mary Magdalene - an unhappy woman who has fallen to shameless, cult-like commercialism - a prostitute, to put it more simply. |
The third part of the poem
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky 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 that interests us. It continues to develop in the next, third part of such a work as the poem “Cloud in Pants,” which we are analyzing. Vladimir Vladimirovich considered Severyanin’s work to be inappropriate for modern requirements. 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 primarily with the power of their impact on readers.
Themes
The theme of the poem “Cloud in Pants” is described in detail, but if you need any additions, please refer to the Many-Wise Litrecon in the comments.
- Love
is the primary theme of Mayakovsky’s work, which did not bypass “A Cloud in Pants.” Here, love is a feeling that is not only romantically life-giving, but also futuristically causing pain and suffering with its eccentricity, lack of control, and sometimes, worst of all, inseparability. The lyrical hero of the poem becomes a victim of precisely this kind of love, whose post-love ordeals we observe. - The topic of art
seems especially interesting to us, since Mayakovsky, who acted as a bearer of new ethical and cultural ideas, becomes a preacher of the hitherto irrelevant cult of pragmatism in art in Russia. In “The Cloud...” the lyrical hero refuses to cover deep philosophical problems, while obvious threats to the integrity of society have long been lying on the surface. The young man seems to be calling: “This is your reality, all the scourges of which you must understand in order to achieve the enlightenment that you are trying to achieve, pouring, in fact, empty into empty.” - The theme of marginalism
is most clearly reflected in the third part of the poem, where the lyrical hero declares his disagreement with the political system, noting that a healthy society, within which development is a natural phenomenon and not a deviation, cannot be based on oppression and selfishness. The hero contrasts himself with the gray mass of devoted fools, men laid down like a hospital, and women worn out like a proverb. - The theme of religion,
uncharacteristic of Mayakovsky’s work, is highlighted in the work solely to demonstrate that the church is a rudiment on the body of modern society. And it is obvious that the lyrical hero stands not only for a world without God, but also a world without the Devil, a world filled with much closer, empirically cognizable images. - The theme of revolution
, of which the hero declares himself to be the forerunner, is revealed in the context of the hatred of an unfortunate man for the world, whose unjust conditions made him so. The hero calls on society to unite everyone’s pain together and, stained with each other’s blood, enter a new era. - Despite the completeness and significance of all the topics, the main theme is still the theme of disappointment
. Disappointment, first in a neighbor, a very important neighbor, and then in the whole world, whose shortcomings suddenly became so obvious.
Summary
The twenty-two-year-old protagonist expresses an angry protest to the entire old society. He declares that he will deafen the world with his loud voice. A young and full of energy hero can become “mad” or “impeccably gentle,” becoming like a “cloud in his pants.”
1
The main character remembers how once upon a time in Odessa he waited for several hours for the arrival of his beloved woman, Maria. He went crazy with impatience, turning into a moaning “wiry hulk.”
Looking out the window, the main character felt that “he would soon tear his mouth apart with a scream.” Due to his tense nerves, his senses were very heightened. The slightest sound turned into a roar.
Finally, Maria appeared and immediately announced that she was getting married. The main character remained icy calm, “like the pulse of a dead man.” He believed that his beloved had been stolen from him. Behind the external equanimity hid a real “fire of the heart” that could not be extinguished by anyone.
2
The main character denies everything made by human hands. All books and “towers of Babel” will sooner or later be destroyed once again.
Everything written by humanity ultimately comes down to two words: “bastard” and “borscht.” Only they are wielded by mediocre poets, from whom the street crowd expects “hymns” and “oratorios.”
The main character encourages readers and listeners not to “beg for handouts,” but to become creators themselves. The affairs and concerns of living people are much more important than the “fantasies” of the greatest poets and writers. Behind the external unattractiveness of the “convicts of the leper colony city” there are hidden “gold mines of souls”.
In society, the main character is subject to universal ridicule. This forces him to feel like the “forerunner” of a new “savior” - the formidable “sixteenth year”, which will sweep away the existing system.
3
The main character calls for “brass knuckles to cut the world into the skull.” All the “hungry” and “humble” ones should take up any weapon in their hands and paint weekdays with “blood on holidays.”
The coming generation of people will recognize the justice of these calls for a bloody revolution. The main character who pronounces them is possibly the “thirteenth apostle” of Jesus Christ. Now he is humiliated and spat upon, but in the future he will be revered as one of the prophets.
4
The main character begs Maria to let him into her house from the dirty streets. He honestly admits that he passionately desires her body, likening in his prayer to Christians asking God for “daily bread.”
Having received a refusal, the main character imagines how he will appear before the Lord after his death. He will offer the “omnipresent” to re-arrange temptation for humanity by populating paradise with “Evochkas”, recruited from the most beautiful street prostitutes.
God will naturally refuse. He created the world and man, but did not figure out how to “kiss, kiss, kiss without pain.”
The main character declares in advance a rebellion against the “tiny god” and the “winged scoundrels” (angels). With a “shoe knife” in his hand, he sets off to take part in the world “massacre”: “I’m coming!”
The world does not hear the dire warning: “The Universe is sleeping.”
Problems
The problems of the poem “Cloud in Pants” can also be improved by the Many-Wise Litrecon if you write to him in the comments about the need for corrections.
- The fact that “A Cloud in Pants” is largely a political work is determined by the fact that its central problem is the suffering of the nature of a free person in a capitalist world
where he is doomed to be a slave. The lyrical hero views his contemporaries as cockroaches in a jar, whose forced life is painful and probably makes no sense. - The problem of the role of art
in public life worries the lyrical hero no less. He diagnoses that art has become a pretentious template, an addition to wealth, an elegant way to objectify it. The young man regrets that art has ceased to glorify real beauty, to illuminate real problems, thereby bringing benefit to a world that needs an outlet from vulgar existence. - The problem of emotional swing
, which, in fact, consists of the poem, is illuminated by Mayakovsky for a reason: the poet has always been distinguished by impulsiveness and hot temper, so the issue of controlling his emotions and their nature was relevant for the genius. Using the example of the lyrical hero, the reader sees that a momentary feeling can lead to consequences, the correction of which will take much longer. - The problem of a religious nature
is also covered . The lyrical hero is exhausted by the blows of fate that his critical mind initiates, and resorts to the realization that he is absolutely alone in his struggle: no white figure in a halo appears before him. The author believes that God is a symbolic attribute of the past, impoverished in its powers, which, due to a major misunderstanding, has enormous weight in the present, from which, for a more rapid movement towards progress, society needs to get rid of it.
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 “Cloud in Pants”. In the second part, Mayakovsky talks about love lyrics, which prevailed in poetry contemporary with Vladimir Vladimirovich. She is only concerned with singing in poetry “the flower under the dew,” and “love,” and “the young lady.” These themes are vulgar and petty, and the poets, “sniffing with rhymes,” “boil” the “brew” out of nightingales and love. At the same time, they are not at all concerned about human suffering. Poets are afraid of the street crowd, like “leprosy,” and consciously rush away from the street. However, the people of the city, in the opinion of the lyrical hero, are purer than the “Venetian blue sky” washed by the sun and seas.
The poet contrasts the authentic, the real, with non-viable art, and himself with the screeching “poetics”.
main idea
The meaning of the poem “A Cloud in Pants” is to hurt Russian pride, which so inopportunely sleeps inside unfortunate and devoted people with a clockwork well in their side. Of course, it is sometimes useful to work in a cool mind, forgetting about hot feelings. However, it is unacceptable to allow the murder of dreams and feelings over and over again on the streets of languageless Moscow, while examining the consequences of one murder in Sarajevo. Misplaced righteousness is destructive. Therefore, in order to build a world in which you can hear honest speeches and expect sincere love, you must first hate this world.
We can say with great confidence that this work is about how an unhappy person, given to rebellion against the backdrop of denial of his grief, suddenly realizes that he needs a completely different ideal, in the pursuit of which he will not repeat the suffering he has experienced. The revolution became such an ideal for the lyrical hero. This is the main idea of the poem “Cloud in Pants”.
It turns out that “Cloud in Pants” is an anthem of disappointment. Indeed, at the end of the poem, our lyrical hero remains a man without a world, Adam at his end. He himself destroyed this world to the ground, leaving scorched earth around him out of pure reason, but this is the only outcome in which the Hero is happy. He is ready to build a new Rome in spite of the vulgarity and narrow-mindedness that lived within the walls of what was here before, to plant a red banner on the place of their burial.
First part of the poem
According to the author's plan, the first part contains the first cry: “Down with your love.” We can say that the theme of love is central to the entire work. In addition to the first section, part four is also devoted to it, as our analysis shows.
“A Cloud in Pants” opens with tense anticipation: the lyrical hero is waiting to meet Maria. It is so painful that it seems to him that the candelabra are “neighing” and “laughing” at his back, the doors are “caressing”, midnight is “cutting” with a knife, the rain is grimacing, etc. Time passes endlessly and painfully. The extended metaphor about the twelfth hour conveys the depth of suffering of the waiter. Mayakovsky writes that the twelfth hour fell like “the head of an executed man” from the block.
This is not just a fresh metaphor used by Vladimir Vladimirovich, as our analysis shows. Mayakovsky filled “A Cloud in Pants” with deep inner content: the intensity of passions in the hero’s soul is so high that the ordinary passage of time seems hopeless to him. It is perceived as physical death. The hero “writhes”, “moans”, and will soon “tear his mouth out” with a scream.
What does it teach?
The work “Cloud in Pants” makes you think that in addition to the well-known anatomical ones, there are two more fundamentally important signs that a person is alive: he loves and he hates. It is love and hatred that lead a person to progress, excite his blood, calling him to act. Therefore, hiding these two incredibly strong feelings within the framework of feigned decency and pretentious etiquette is the greatest, without exaggeration, criminal hypocrisy.
Mayakovsky brings us to the common sense idea that a person can take active action only after being frankly disappointed. No one is ready to change what they feel love or affection for.
Title and genre
The poet gave the title “Cloud in Pants” to the work after his writing style and verse were not passed by censorship . At first the poem was called “The Thirteenth Apostle,” but the authorities banned this name, and the poet changed it. The author brilliantly combines different images and characters in the poem.
The main character, unshakable and strong in himself, under the influence of love and painful experiences, in an instant becomes weak and light, weightless and softened. Outwardly, he is still calm and rude. Mayakovsky describes these qualities that are inherent in the male sex by comparing them with rough pants. The cloud they are wearing is a reflection of the inner world of the hero of the work, who is in limbo. The character is sensitive and gentle, he does not have enough strength to change what is beginning to happen around him.
The genre of “Clouds in Pants” is a poem. But you need to know that this work is written in the form of a tetraptych; it contains four parts, which are united by one semantic line and plot. The main idea can be seen in several cries of the hero:
- “Down with your love, art, system, religion!” The poet places this slogan in the preface. The beginning of the story is quite lyrical; it describes the emotional experiences of the main character. From here the reader learns about true love for Mary.
- In the second chapter of the work, we talk about creativity and poetry dying in the bourgeoisie, but Mayakovsky is confident that when the revolution ends, poets will save art.
- In the last two parts, the author protests the old system; he considers it the cause of all people’s troubles.
Criticism
Of course, Mayakovsky’s innovative and revolutionary poem caused an unprecedented stir and public debate, but few experts could form an accurate opinion about such a literary phenomenon. Many may not have liked how the poet openly opened the straitjacket in his shocking work, but everyone paid tribute to the ingenious form of presentation, the relevance of the ideas of the poem, its usefulness for attracting young people to active actions to build a great future on the fragments of autocracy.
It is worth noting that it was during the period of his creative dawn that we are considering that Mayakovsky met the head of Russian literature - M. Gorky. He personally reads to him the newly written poem “A Cloud in Pants,” receiving an approving review in response. Gorky was delighted with the low voice and high ideals of the young poet and provided him with, as it later turned out, a stunningly successful literary future.
Author: Ivan Leitman
