The Image of the “End” in “Poem of The End” of Marina Tsvetaeva

Abstract

In the present article we analyse the poetic evolution of the concept of “end” in the “Poem of the End” of Marina Tsvetaeva and the reasons related to the “end”. These project the spatial and temporal structure of the writing. The leitmotifs of ‘descent’, ‘separation’ and ‘water’ represented as gradational series are emphasized in the text. The motive of separation is the most evident of the three, in the spatial and temporal scheme it is represented as movement sideward. The motive of descent from the mountain, which is a metaphor of the home lost (and, at the same time, of the happiness lost), is a movement downward. Visually in the vector scheme the motive of the water that is deepened in the end of the poem creates an image of the space flood. It completed the image of the end, of the mountain that dives under water. That induces to the association of deluge, the end of the world. Thus, the main motives are set in the first two chapters of the text. These cross in the poem and at the end create the image of the world catastrophe that can be Deluge or the end of Atlantis.
Also, the associative series of the main motives mentioned are followed and analysed. A special attention is paid to the final image of the world catastrophe that is created by the confluence of three main motives that conduct the topic of the end in the text. The layer of the reminiscences related to these motives and represented in the poem is analysed. Here appear the allusions to the Babylonian complex of motives (biblical and of general culture), the references to the classic love topics (Platonism, Cupid and Psyche, and others), the reminiscences of Russian poetry from Pushkin to Mandelstam. The eschatological motives and autoreminiscences are distinguished (including the anticipation of the motives of the poem “The Rat-Catcher”).