ბარათაშვილის პოეზიის ანტითეზები
Antitheses in Baratashvili's Poetry

Summary/Abstract: The fundamental basis of Romanticism is contradiction, opposition – it is an opposition between ideal and reality. All other contradictions represented in Romanticism are derived from it. Such contradictions are the opposition between the soul and body, usual and unusual, finite-restricted and infinite-absolute, etc. The substantial peculiarity of Romanticism – dramatic vision of separation ideal and reality, determines that romantic artistic perception of the world and style tends to be antithetic. Through all Baratashvili’s poetry runs a collision between the ideal and the actual, and contradictions originated from it – antitheses, contrasts, oppositions, which are manifested at different levels of artistic imagery, artistic form, in different elements of the artistic structure. The fullness of Baratashvili’s poetry is so significant and essential with contrasts that the style of his poetic thinking can be called antithetical, polarized. The poem “Meditations by the River Mtkvari” can be regarded as the most obvious illustration of antithetical, polarized nature of Baratashvili’s poetry. Here it is absolutely transparent and more than once noted by criticism that the idea of the transience of life does not agree with the position expressed in the final part of the poem – a man, despite everything, cannot but take care of the earthly life. In addition to what has been said in criticism on this subject, one thing is to be mentioned, which in our view has essential meaning: the main antithesis of the work appears as antinomy, – an extreme kind of antithesis, i.e. such contradiction, real or apparent, between two beliefs or conclusions, both of which seem equally reasonable, convincing, intellectually of the same value. The advantage of any of them cannot be understood within this system; this should be found in another dimension. Such “other dimension” in this case is “Merani” in which the care of the earthly life appears as a sacrifice to overcome the world’s vanity and establish freedom in this world… Besides the main antithesis, there are other important antitheses in the “Meditations”. The essential human feature –feelings of discontent, inner unrest despite the fulfillment of all desires is antithetical, contradictory. In a sharply contrasting way is pictured the existence and nature of king-conquerors because they are the most powerful among the people, so they have everything they want and it would seem this should curb their desires but still try to take more and more; their contradiction is between the tense vigor and devaluation of their acquisition. “Even sovereigns great whose wealth and power are the wonder of the day/Feel greed and envy stir their breasts for realms that others sway. /They crave and strive for more and more, and their impassioned lust/Is for that earth wherein they’re doomed to mingle with its dust.” The polar contradictory is an aspiration of noble kings to keep their name alive by caring for the welfare of their own land and people, and the outcome of this aspiration is that this name will disappear forever when the world dies. These antitheses give rise to a larger antithesis – two types of kings, complete antipodes (essentially good and evil) of each other. The only thing they have in common is that both of them will be ultimately absorbed into non-existence. The basic principle of Baratashvili’s artistic thinking – polarization and antithetism is also clearly expressed in the poem “Rad kvedri kacsa” (Why do you reproach man.). It is completely and transparently built on antithesis. Generally, the abundance of antitheses in Baratashvili’s poetry is organically connected with his intellectualism, analytical nature – antitheses for the poet represent the instruments for intellectual poetic contemplation and cognition of the world. This particularly applies to a number of works, including the poem “Rad kvedri kacsa”, which is totally based on the intellectual contemplation, emotionally-figurative judgment, and in which the opposite phenomenon – the flesh and the spiritual beauty, and therefore, the double love is clearly divided from each other and is explained through poetic formulas. “Beauty is the gift of mortals, and like a flower it quickly fades away” … The poet-romanticist highlights the divine nature of the beauty. If the poem “Rad kvedri kacsa” there are opposed two kinds of beauty and love, in the poem “The Orphaned Soul” two kinds of “orphanage” are opposed to each other. These two kinds of “orphanage” are clearly different from each other, on the one hand, there is usual and familiar, not too difficult to move on phenomenon, and, on the other hand, the hidden, tragic, and extraordinary phenomenon. “Let no one speak of the woes of the orphan/ Let no one complain of his lack of kin. /Pitiful only are the orphaned in soul. / It is hard to find the peer he has lost./The heart that loses friends or relatives,/ Will just as quickly find a replacement,/ But the soul, once orphaned ,/Accursed, eternally endures disconsolate!” Antithesis serves to romanticize the figure of a lonely man, isolate him from the mass of people, trivial way of life, the monotone background of standard human lot. The “orphaned soul” is a chosen soul, especially sensual, sensitive nature. This is a clear and specific expression of the romantic cult of spiritual aristocracy. This cult finds even more impressive expression in the poem “Merani”. There is a well-expressed antithesis of liberation and fate which is personified in polarized symbols – on the one hand, Merani and, on the other hand, the ominous “black raven”. The confrontation between these forces and their expressing is absolute. But the alternative of two kinds of deaths is of even more conceptual importance. “In foreign lands thou lay me low, not where my father’s sleep; / Nor shed thou tears nor grieve, my love, nor over my body weep; /Ravens grim will dig my grave and whirlwinds wind a shroud /There, on desert plains where winds will howl in wailings loud. / Nolover’s tears but dew divine will moist my bed of gloom;/ No dirge but vultures’ shrieks will sound above my lowly tomb.” The death in the homeland, the right to be buried in ancestral crypt, the mourning by relatives is contrasting with the death in a strange, uninhabited and desperate environment, between hostile and aggressive natural disasters. Death in such an environment is romantically maximized, absolute death; this is a triumph of death. Somewhat delayed, mitigated by customary traditional practices death is replaced by unusually brutal death, which, unlike the usual one, predicts complete disappearance of a man from the world – no one is a witness, sympathizer or appreciator of his heroic death. As a result of death in a foreign land and in solitude, there remains no trace of a man in this world. However, in the poem there is one more antithesis of crucial importance – the triumph of death, man’s total annihilation is confronted and dispelled by joining the lyrical hero with the infinity, the attainment of immortality through sacrifice, which opens up an infinite perspective of future freedom and in the future, establishes freedom not destructed by fate, death. By the obtained communion with such future, the hero of the “Merani” becomes essentially fearless to death, transience: he will be an integral part in the permanent process of human world – in the struggle for freedom and thus, he elevates over the transience, death, which previously seemed to celebrate a triumphant victory. As is seen, in Baratashvili’s poetry the central phenomena of human existence are viewed and displayed in the opposition or antithesis – there are two kinds of beauty, love, “orphanage”, power (kingship), death. By using antithesis Baratashvili separates from each other the usual and unusual, lowered and elevated, universal and mass, and accessible only to spiritual aristocracy. The antitheses single out and set Baratashvili’s values in a hierarchical order and all that is not of value to him, things and phenomena perceived by Baratashvili are sorted out with a solid system of values. In Baratashvili’s poetry more interesting examples of antithesis can be found, and substantial part of them is thoroughly regarded in this paper.

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