«UNKNOWN POWER»: UNREALITY AND MADNESS IN RUSSIAN POETRY

The article deals with the identification of the unreal (irrational) in its various forms in the Russian poetry. The article shows that the irrational is always present in any creative process, including poetry, which is imbued with a craving for the beyond, with the understanding that the world in poetry is arranged surprisingly wisely, mysteriously and at first glance incomprehensible. The function of poetry is to reveal a mysterious but harmonious world, to fix some state of mind, in which the reader guesses his own ones. We share the opinion of V.V. Nalimov, who believes that a culture, devoid of the irrational, becomes an anti-culture. The material for the study was both classical poetry (V. Zhukovsky, A. Fet, F. Tyutchev) and the poetry of the 20th century (A. Blok, A. Akhmatova, M. Tsvetaeva, B. Akhmadulina), and the contemporary poetry of the 21st century (Dm. Burago). The article examines insanity as a kind of surreal. It is shown that madness is a special language of culture. Many brilliant scientists, composers, painters, writers and poets suffered from madness. Musicians Schumann, Swift, Newton, Rousseau, Schopenhauer, Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, Hoffmann, Gluck, etc. At the same time, their creation is striking in depth and wisdom. It turns out that insanity is one of the forms of intellect. The concept of insanity received its philosophical and sociocultural interpretation after the publication of M. Foucault's book “The History of Madness in the Classical Era” (1961). Comprehending the genesis of modern European man, M. Foucault asserts that madness is an element of elusive, esoteric knowledge. In poetry, this is a spontaneous impulse that cannot be replaced by "sober power of mind" (A. Fet's expression). This is a superintelligent state that is inherent in poets as thinking and sensitive people