PRAYER IN ALEXANDER BLOK'S LYRIC POETRY (A GIRL WAS SINGING IN THE CHURCH CHOIR…)

The article examines the genre clash of a prayer and stanzas in Alexander Blok’s poem A girl was singing in the church choir… (1905). Prayer is the main ecclesiastical source, shaping the poem’s lyric model. The genre canon of stanzas with the strophes detached substantially and compositionally transforms the central musical theme into four scene-developments linked by dissonance. Each of the strophes in A girl was singing in the church choir… stanza has its own semantic point (prayer ? singings ? illusion ? enlightenment) and reveals a different content of the event, intensifies and develops the tragic theme of two worlds, intended and unintended substitutions, spiritual quest and time losses. Blok’s stanzas are poetic evidence of a modern man’s withdrawal from a prayerful concentration. The model of conflicting synthesis of ecclesiastical and literary genres reflects the religious ? mystical opposition in symbolism aesthetics and strengthens the tragic pathos of Blok’s lyric poetry.