BIBLICAL MOTIVES IN THE IMAGES OF TREES IN THE POEMS OF YURY ZHIVAGO 
(based on the novel by B. Pasternak “Doctor Zhivago”) Cover Image

БИБЛЕЙСКИЕ МОТИВЫ В ИЗОБРАЖЕНИИ ДЕРЕВЬЕВ В СТИХАХ ЮРИЯ ЖИВАГО (по роману Б. Пастернака «Доктор Живаго»)
BIBLICAL MOTIVES IN THE IMAGES OF TREES IN THE POEMS OF YURY ZHIVAGO (based on the novel by B. Pasternak “Doctor Zhivago”)

Author(s): Anna Aleksandrovna Skoropadskaya
Subject(s): Philology
Published by: Петрозаводский государственный университет
Keywords: Pasternak; poetics; the image of the tree; the Christian tradition; the biblical tradition

Summary/Abstract: The article gives an overview of the biblical motifs used by Boris Pasternak when creating images of trees. The issue of the biblical, Christian context, which plays the main role in the understanding of both figurative and content-conceptual levels of the novel “Doctor Zhivago”, is actualized. Absorbing pagan and biblical tradition, tree images reflect Pasternak’s vision of the world, his ontological, philosophical, and religious beliefs. The Christian context in the tree imagery decision is clearly read in the verse of the novel. In one of the early poems (“On the Holy”) forest and city trees act as participants of the church service. The trees deeply experience the terrible days of the passion of Christ and rejoice upon the occurrence of Resurrection. In the poem “Magdalena ΙΙ” a mythological archetype of the world tree, reflected in the Old Testament in the form of the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, is connected by Pasternak with the image of the evangelical godfather tree. Referring to the Gospel parable of the barren fig tree (the poem “Miracle”), the poet through the motif of fruitfulness reflects on such important for himself evangelical themes as the themes of love and faith.

  • Issue Year: 2017
  • Issue No: 7 (168)
  • Page Range: 111-113
  • Page Count: 3
  • Language: Russian