The image of the mask is one of the key elements in Lermontov's poetry. It expresses the discrepancy between the brilliant form and the insignificant content that so struck the poet in secular society. In the poem "Like a ray of dawn, like Lelya's roses..." he writes: But what won't the light destroy?What is noble will demolish,What kind of soul won't it squeeze,Whose self-esteem will not multiply?And whose eyes will not be deceivedFancy your own mask?(Italics hereafter are ours - V. D.) According to the observations of Yu. M. Lotman, already from the mid-1830s, the poet's imagination began to worry with impunity about the flourishing "decency-brightened vice": "The subject of the image is a large light, which is drawn to Lermontov as a masquerade of criminals and victims" (Lotman Yu.M. In the school of poetic word. Pushkin. Lermontov. Gogol, Moscow, 1988, p. 210). In the play "Masquerade", the death of an innocent pure person-Nina Arbenina-is perceived as a pattern. In the poem " How often, surrounded by a motley crowd ..."there is a situation of romantic duality characteristic of the poet: the brilliance and vanity of the world, in which "with the wild whisper of sacred speeches, images of soulless people flash by, decently pulled masks", according to the author.- page 13 et contrasts the artless and harmonious world of nature that surrounded him as a child and where he aspires in his dreams. Using the motif of the mask, Lermontov creates a contradictory image of his beloved: From under the mysterious cold half-maskYour voice sounded to me, pleasant as a dream.Your charming eyes shone on meAnd the sly lips smiled.The female image hidden under the mask also appears in A. Blok's cycle of poems "The Snow Mask". This is a mysterious mysterious Stranger: I don't understand what beckons us,You won't understand what's wrong with me,Whose eyes are misty under the maskThe twilight of a snowstorm? And do your eyes shine on mein reality or in a dream?Even in the middle of th ... Read more