Семиозис символа ГОРОД в лирике А. Блока

Abstract

The paper analyses the symbolic naming units “city”, “urban” in A. Blok’s lyric poetry. The purpose of the study is to identify the uniqueness of the individual author’s use of the “city” symbol in different periods of his creative work and the invariant components of the symbol’s semantics. Scientific novelty of the paper lies in the fact that it is the first to identify three stages in the development of the “city” symbol in A. Blok’s lyric poetry, to determine the structure of the symbolic image, including 1) sensory perception of the city (colour, light, sound, temperature and weather); 2) objects that organise urban space; 3) the state of the city and citizens; 4) emotional and evaluative characteristics; to highlight the meanings associated with the symbolic image at each stage of its evolution; to identify the invariant components of the symbol’s semantics. It has been found that the city is a reflection of the persona’s inner world, his dark, nocturnal side in 1897-1902; the city is a symbol of a dying civilisation, a centre of vice and a symbol of the universe in 1903-1906; after 1907, the symbol absorbs both the microcosm and the macrocosm. It is a reflection of the persona’s inner world, his spirit destroyed by the elements, but it is also a ruin, a ghost of the old world swept away by the same element and it is the element itself, which is a worldwide snowstorm.