The nature of the symbol, its role in a literary text (using the example of yellow color symbolism in poetry of the XX – XXI centuries)

Musaeva Ailin Magomedovna Postgraduate student; Faculty of Philology; Lomonosov Moscow State University 119234, Russia, Moscow, Leninskie Gory str., 1 alina-musavi@yandex.ru

This article is devoted to the identification and study of the symbolism of the yellow color, as well as its shades in the lyrics of modern poets. The symbols have been used by the peoples of the world throughout their existence on Earth. They are saturated not only with literary texts, but also the whole world. "Our whole life is full of symbols," K. Jaspers noted in "The meaning and purpose of history" ^{[1, p. 231]}. They permeate all sciences, the symbol can rightfully be considered the universal language of the universe. The purpose of this article is to identify, analyze and compare the symbolism of yellow in different poetic texts based on the material of lyrical texts of poets of the XX – early XXI centuries. The color symbolism, namely the use of yellow in the lyrics of modern poets, is being investigated for the first time.

A symbol is a multidimensional concept, it is both dualistic and polyphonic. The dualism of the symbol lies in the fact that it consists of two components: material and spiritual. A concrete, material object, phenomenon, or condition hides an abstract concept that is not always related to the meaning of the object itself. The polyphony of the symbol consists in the fact that it can acquire a different sound, meaning in each literary text, it is not limited by boundaries, has "an infinite number of meanings" ^{[2, p. 130]}. Thanks to this property, among other things, the symbol appears as a multidimensional concept. Each of the meanings, including antonymic ones, are equal, and have a place to be. The context allows for the correct interpretation of the symbol, "the semantic field ... is transformed contextually" ^{[3, p. 5]}. Tropes appear as tools that help the reader to discover the symbol and interpret it. Fiction is impossible without symbols, "the language of fiction is the language of symbols" ^{[3, pp. 4-5]}. Not only specific images can be symbolic, but also colors and numbers. Color in art has had and almost always has a symbolic meaning. Depending on the brightness of the colors used by the author to express his feelings, a major or minor picture of the existence of the lyrical hero, his feelings, thoughts was created and is being created. Light and color are related to each other, M. Golubeva writes about their relationship, the influence of the latter on human consciousness, as well as the role of color symbolism in world culture: "color allowed us to embody, make abstractions that do not have specific sensory images closer and clearer: fear, death, rage, life, passion" ^{[4, p. 89]}. P. Ryan divides color symbolism into primary and secondary. The first category includes the most frequent colors in fiction: white, black, red, and the second category includes the rest of the colors ^[5]. The most ambiguous color symbolism is yellow. It is one of the most controversial color symbols, which can have different interpretations in literary texts, ranging from positive to negative: a symbol of happiness, joy, but yellow can mean separation, deception or betrayal. Yellow is the color of the sun, gold. And it is associated with both the joyful life-affirming melody of all living things, and the gloomy guttural low-sounding voice of human greed, capable of committing incredibly vile deeds for the sake of mastering the coveted yellow metal. The understanding and use of color by a person is dualistic, as philosophical is the struggle between good and evil. In literary texts, yellow also has a twofold meaning. A. F. Losev notes that in Goethe it is devoid of negative connotation, personifying light, joy. When we talk about the yellow color in the texts of a poet, we proceed from the context of the work. In the works of F. M. Dostoevsky, it often has a negative meaning. So, in the novel "Crime and Punishment", yellow, "yellowish", "dark yellow", "dirty yellow" symbolizes hopelessness, poverty, decline ^[6].

Yellow is also found in many symbolist poets. I.F. Annensky uses it most often, as L. Y. Paramonova notes, "this color in Annensky's poems is the most meaningful and frequent of all color meanings" ^{[7, p. 39]}. In the poem "Petersburg", the symbol "yellow color" characterizes the city, the poem begins with epithets: "The yellow steam of the St. Petersburg winter, / Yellow snow sticking to the plates..." ^{[8, p. 60]} "This is, first of all, St. Petersburg, as Dostoevsky saw it," L. Y. Paramonova emphasizes ^{[7, p. 39]}. The yellow color of the city symbolizes the gloomy and polluted Petersburg. In the poem "Lilac on a stone", saturated with different colors, there is no yellow, however, to convey this color, the poet uses the neologism "yellow", consonant with the words "faded", "withered", "yellowed", symbolizes death, departure. It is noteworthy that the golden color in the poems of I. F. Annensky contains a positive connotation, although it is a shade of yellow, symbolizes joy, hope ("golden lamp", "green-golden lumen"). The yellow color in V. Bryusov's lyrics symbolizes wealth, as well as separation. ("Yellow silk, yellow silk / Invisible hands sew on blue satin. / To the golden horizon / With a bright fiery fragment / The sun goes down in the hour of separation") ^[9]. M. Vakhtel, a researcher of Slavic languages and literatures, speaking about the role of symbols in V. Ya. Bryusov's lyrics, notes that the "mystical concept" of a symbol allows you to establish an "organic connection" with reality ^{[10, p. 64]}. Golden color – the color of the sun, heaven and truth, on the contrary, is also devoid of negative meaning ("the sun through the trees / sprinkles golden dust"). Yellow in the poetry of the French symbolists, especially in the lyrics of S. Mallarmé – the color of Goodness, Light, is opposed to darkness "And let the yellowish light destroy the darkness" (dosl. "the fading sun is yellow on the horizon") ^[11]. The positive value of the golden color was noticed by J. Tresidder in the Dictionary of Symbols: "gold is everywhere associated with the sun, therefore it means enlightenment, light, power" ^{[12, p. 401]}.

In Khodasevich's poem "In Front of the mirror", the yellow color is not used independently, but together with other word forms: "yellow – gray", "yellow-mouthed". The beginning of the poem is quite expressive, which is achieved by using rhetorical exclamations and the rhetorical question "I, I, I! What a wild word! / Is that me over there? / Did mom love such a person, / Yellow – gray, half-gray / And omniscient, like a snake?" ^{[13, p. 163]}. Yellow is not an independent symbol, the emphasis is shifted to "gray", yellow is part of the periphrase. "Yellow-gray" is the color of fading, withering, the forerunner of old age, infirmity. The adjectives "yellow – gray", "half-gray", symbolizing the decline of life, old age, form a single semantic field. Khodasevich emphasizes this by highlighting them in a separate line. It is noteworthy that the author chooses complex adjectives and participles to describe the lyrical hero, which, following each other, form a gradation. The keyword is contained in the comparison "like a snake". In the context, it contains a positive connotation, being a symbol of wisdom, which is confirmed by the epithet "omniscient". It is impossible not to quote one of the best modern specialists in the study of symbols in the works of poets of the Silver Age, O. A. Kling: "symbolist "gold" by Andrei Bely ("Gold in Azure") Khodasevich's "turns into ironic golden bile <...> soreness". There is an autobiographical subtext associated with the illness of the author of the famous poem "In Front of the Mirror" ^{[14, p. 255]}. Yellow is found in the epithet "yellow-mouthed", not being an independent symbol, it helps to characterize other characters in the poem, serves to indicate their immaturity. The inversion focuses on the word "yellow-mouthed". The lyrical hero opposes himself to the "young poets", the immature ones: "This is me, the one who inspires poets with every answer / Young poets / Disgust, anger and fear?" ^{[13, p. 163]} The poem is imbued with the motif of loneliness, longing "only there is loneliness – in the frame / of the truth-telling glass." In another poem by Khodasevich, "Gold", the golden color is represented, which is a symbol. The poet of the Silver Age writes about the eternal power of real art. The poem begins with the imperative "go" and the metonymic series "we are already putting gold in your mouth, / we are already putting poppy and honey in your hands." Gold embodies a poetic gift. Everything will rot away in the twilight of the grave, but not the precious metal, which symbolizes the poet's poetry. Descendants will find the gold of his words unchanged: "an unknown alien will open my skeleton, / and in the black skull that is broken with a spade, / a heavy coin will rattle - / and gold will sparkle among the bones like a small sun, like a trace of my soul" ^{[13, p. 60]}. The poem contains references to the ancient world. The lyrical hero does not want to be burned after death, like an ancient Roman and disappear forever. His desires are higher and more ambitious: he wants to "taste the womb sleep in the earth, / I want to germinate with spring grain, / circling along the ancient, star trek" ^{[13, p. 60]}. The lyrical hero swung at eternity. Descendants are destined to discover his golden poetic treasure.

This color is found in the lyrics of modern authors, and is also interpreted in two ways. In S. Sokolkin's poetry, yellow symbolizes loneliness, old age, deception ("everything turns yellow / everything rusts"; "yellow hair in the wind / looks so much like a wife") ^[15]. The poem "I can distinguish your lips in the dark ..." the yellow color carries a double semantic load: a bright detail describing the heroine and a symbol. The line where it is used is unusual "come, yellow hair in the wind", syntactically, punctuation, morphologically, intonation is divided into two semantic parts. If the entire poem is written in a three-stop anapest, then it is violated here. The anapest is preserved in the word "come", thanks to him, it sounds long, invitingly, but abruptly ends with the dactyl "yellow hair". Thus, the author identifies two words: "come", "yellow". After all, the beloved's hair is a shade of yellow, it is a bright detail of her portrait, at the same time a symbol that carries a semantic load. The lyrical hero is looking for his wife, but instead he meets only her shadow, "a reflection in the night." The line of the third quatrain begins with the imperative "come". The lyrical hero does not ask, but calls on his beloved to come, but instead she is just a "reflection". It seems to him that his beloved is in front of him "so similar in face to his wife," but this is a deception, an evil joke of the imagination. The rhetorical question "What do you want, unearthly, / so that – not only in a dream – you were?" shows that the hero is dreaming, everything that happens to him is unreal, a dream. The poem is imbued with the motif of loneliness, separation. Due to the inversion of "I am lonely", the word "lonely" stands out intonationally in semantic terms, syntactic parallelism and comparisons emphasize this "I am lonely, / like the singing of a bird, / and free, like the thought of a fool..." ^{[16, p. 467]}.

The "yellow" color in A. Abdurashidova's poetry, on the contrary, is devoid of negative connotation, embodies light, happiness, love, beauty: "the sun is golden again in the carriage", "yellow flowers again / full of love", "golden rays in every strand of hair", "golden string of the soul" ^[17]. A. Abdurashidova's lyrics are symbolic and rich in various visual and expressive means. The poem by the Dagestani poetess, who writes in Darginsky and Russian, is amazing in terms of the power of embedded feelings, makes you think about the worldview: do I live so harmoniously in society, am I not locked in a narrow closet of my prejudices, is my mind not blinded, is it able to perceive, understand and organically interact with the wonderful world created by God. In the poem "From a room as nondescript as a prison" there is a golden color in different word forms: "golden", "gilded", also in the periphrasis of "the sun is light". They perform several functions: they are the epithet "golden fragrance", a metaphor for "gilded dew", a periphrase included in the metaphor "I will sow the sun with light", convey the mood, the actions of the lyrical heroine, describe nature, at the same time they are symbols. There are many other symbols in the poem that eloquently tell about the state of the lyrical heroine who has suffered grief ("dark room", "I will sow the sun with light", "blooming garden", etc.) The lyrical heroine is strong, able to fight the darkness wherever she is. She is a creator in spirit, in deeds. Overcomes all obstacles. The lyrical heroine managed to cultivate joy in her heart. The image of a sower who transforms the world, cultivating a fragrant golden intoxicating color from the sun of light. The poetess's "golden" color not only sounds like a melody of happiness, but also exudes the fragrance of love. Love for all the world created by God. The multidimensional space of the poem expands the horizons of the reader, removes the blinders. Love for all divine creation makes the lyrical heroine feel that she is able to create a better world, return to the garden of Eden and radiate light with her eyes, with her soul. "I will sow the light of the sun - / it will fall on the earth like a radiant rain, / from each drop a color will arise, / intoxicating with a golden aroma" ^{[17, p. 45]}. Another poem by A. Abdurashidova "The rainbow over the meadow has shone again" is saturated with feelings of joy, happiness, saturated with bright colors, exudes the fragrance of spring. The metaphor "yellow flowers again / full of love" is noteworthy ^{[17, p. 192]}. It is generally believed that yellow flowers symbolize separation, they are not accepted to give. In M. Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita", the main character, during the first meeting with Margarita, sees a bouquet of yellow flowers in her hands, which he throws out a little later ^[18]. The epithets "disgusting", "disturbing" endow this symbol with a negative meaning: separation, hopelessness. I remember when I was a child, my grandmother scolded us children for bringing home a bouquet of yellow flowers picked in the field. She explained that you should never bring yellow flowers into the house. The yellow color, according to her, deprives the "barakat" - the welfare of the house. In A. Abdurashidova's poem, "a yellow bouquet of flowers" is the embodiment of love and happiness. The "yellow flowers" filled with love are compared to the precious metal, "gold", which is a symbol of wealth and prosperity.

In the lyrics of A. Prokhanov, shades of yellow are most often found: golden, fiery, amber. Golden represents the beauty of "where the gold is on the wind water", "golden tits", "golden lantern"; amber (amber) symbolizes the love of "my love melted amber". A. Prokhanov's poems open up like rose flowers, allowing you to enjoy the aroma of an incomparable word, a unique metaphor, if you read into them, knowing the meaning of the symbols used by the author. Layer by layer, the colors open up, delighting the spiritual vision of a true connoisseur of beauty. The heights of meanings to which the poet ascends open up stunning panoramas to the reader. The reader gets into the author's mood, hears his message. The poem "Prophetic tits flew into my garden" is capacious, small in volume, filled with deep, philosophical meaning. The beginning of the work is dynamic "prophetic tits flew into my garden" ^{[19, p. 332]}. The garden symbolizes the inner world of the lyrical hero. This is a place where a person is happy, calm. This is his personal paradise. The image of tits is often found in the lyrics of A. Prokhanov, symbolizing joy and happiness. The epithet "prophetic" reveals this image. These are not just small colorful birds from the sparrow family, but messengers of the future, prophetic, carrying new information, new knowledge. The metaphor "the Iron Age has made its leap" shows how rapidly technocratic time is moving. With the advent of the "Iron Age" everything changed. The Garden of Eden is abandoned. Christ is crucified. He sacrificed himself to save humanity. The poem ends with the line "Your face on the white shroud / With my face like a fiery burn" ^{[19, p. 332]}. It is no coincidence that the poet chooses the word "shroud", which contains a deep meaning, linking the lyrical hero and Christ in the semantic field. The lyrical hero, burned by the rapidly rushing time, who sacrificed his personal happiness for the sake of a bright idea, associates himself with someone who sacrificed himself to save everyone. Religious symbols emphasize the dramatic fate of the lyrical hero, and he accepts his fate. In the poem, the comparison "fire burn" symbolizes the destiny, the cross of fate, which the lyrical hero must bear.

In V. Skobtsov's poem "A silver line floats", the yellow color is used "and a yellow leaf above your head, / and life that rolls down a hill" ^{[20, p. 131]}. It is not a separate symbol, but in combination the "yellow leaf" symbolizes the transience of time. The author draws a parallel comparing the yellow leaf with life. The beginning of the poem refers to the poem "Cranes" by R. Gamzatov. Mineralova I. G. writes about this: "and the sky is blue in Russia / a river flows between the clouds", "Crane Wedge" will remind of the "Cranes" of the poet Rasul Gamzatov (translated by Naum Grebnev) and composer Jan Frenkel, other images will connect today with Derzhavinsky and make you think in the Tyutchev coordinate system" ^{[20, p. 132]}. In V.F. Kiryushin's poems, the symbolism of yellow color is also found, especially its shade, gold. It is noteworthy that the golden color is used in semantic conjunction with the white color. In the poem "Early Snow", the refrain sounds in each stanza of the metonymy "white for gold": "lines are written in white for gold", "white for gold - / full of light", "white for gold - / don't get enough!" ^{[21, p. 209]}

Poetry of Yu. Kuznetsova is filled with symbols, both cultural and historical, and author's. Among the color symbols, yellow is much less common, but there is gold: "golden mountain", "golden age", "goldfish", "golden arrow of Apollo", "golden words", etc. It symbolizes beauty, joy. In the poem "Why did you fall in love with the poet", the epithet "golden words" is repeated as a refrain. The most important and important tool of a poet is the word. The more talented a poet is, the more valuable his word is. The "Golden Word" symbolizes, first of all, truth, talent, and knowledge. However, a poetic word does not always bring joy and happiness. In the poem, the lyrical hero addresses his beloved: "Why did you fall in love with the poet / For his golden words?" ^{[22, p. 174]} Love for the poet did not make the heroine happy "from the high moonlight / your head turned", "you lost the earth and support", "he managed to measure the heavens / Your flight and your fall" ^{[22, p. 174]}. Moonlight is ephemeral, as is the sound of the word. They flood the world with light and sounds. The space is not filled by those who feel, although "light", but still "traction in the foot". The owner of golden words can only "measure his flight and your fall." The values of the lyrical hero and the one to whom he addresses are somewhat different. She fell in love with him for his poetry, lost "land and support", the metaphor "he wanted to dispel his thoughts, / Dear to shake off oblivion" reveals the motives of the lyrical hero. He's as inaccessible as moonlight. The poem ends with the metaphor "you will cry, and he will respond / On your golden words." She is earthly, he is not of this world, the owner of the "golden words", which is akin to the high lunar word.

Thus, the analysis of color symbols using the example of yellow showed that the meaning of the symbol is revealed within a given context, it can have both negative and positive connotations. Epithets, metaphors, and other tropes help the reader find and interpret the symbol. In the poems of poets of the late XX – early XXI centuries, a golden shade of yellow prevails. It performs several functions: it can be an independent symbol, be a detail characterizing an object, or merge with another symbol and form a single semantic symbolic structure with it.