Analysis of Mayakovsky's Poem Listen!

The poet Vladimir Mayakovsky is perceived by many as an inspired herald and singer of the revolution. But the pre-revolutionary Mayakovsky is completely different. This is a thin, vulnerable tragic poet, trying to hide the mental pain behind the simulated bravado.

Mayakovsky and Futurism

Before the revolution, Mayakovsky was one of the founders and an active participant in the association of futurists. Young, rebellious against all established rules, the futurists called for the abandonment of the classics of Russian literature "from the ship of modernity." Destroying the old, they created a new - tonic - system of versification, based on the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. Poems were full of shocking, they had to sound in the squares, challenging sleepy inhabitants.

Such are many of Mayakovsky's early works, for example, "Nate!" and you!". But there is a poem among them, which is distinguished by soulful lyrical intonation. "Listen!" - This is not a cry or challenge, but a piercing supplication. It sounds a request for people to forget for a while about the ideological battles, stop and raise their eyes to the starry sky.