There are 193 more lines like this in "Novogodnee." It would take just as much space to analyze any one of them as it did to analyze the first. In principle, this is the way it ought to be, for poetry is the art of condensation, of narrowing things down. The most interesting thing for the scholar—as well as for the reader—is to go "back along the beam," that is, to trace the course of this condensation, to determine at what point in the dispersion common to us all the poet first gets a glimpse of a linguistic denominator. However, no matter how much the scholar is rewarded in the course of such a process, the very process itself is similar to an unraveling of fabric, and we shall try to avoid that possibility. We shall dwell only on several of Tsvetaeva's statements made in the course of the poem that cast light on her attitude toward things in general and on the psychology and methodology of the creative process in particular. Statements of this kind in "Novogodnee" are numerous, yet there are even more of the very means of expression—metrical artifices, rhymes, enjambments, sound patterning, and so on—which tell us more about a poet than does his most sincere and broad-beaming declaration.
We needn't look very far for examples if we consider the enjambment extending through the second, third, and fourth lines of "Novogodnee":
Pervoe pis'mo tebe na novom —Nedorozumenie, chto zlachnom— (Zlachnom—zhvachnom) meste zychnom,
meste zvuchnom Kak Eolova pistaya bashnya.
The first letter to you in your new —Mistaken as lush, green— (Ltsh [suggetfs] ruminant) clamorous,
sonorous place Like Aeolus's empty tower.
This excerpt is a remarkable illustration of the manifold thinking characteristic of Tsvetaeva's oeuvre and her endeavor to consider all. Tsvetaeva is an extremely realistic poet, a poet of the infinite subordinate clause, a poet who does not allow either herself or the reader to take anything on faith.
Her main purpose in these lines is the grounding of the first line's ecstatic charge: "Happy New Year—World —Realm—Haven!" To achieve this she resorts to prosaism, calling the "next world" a "new place." However, she goes beyond normal prosaicizing. The adjective repeated in the phrase "new place" is sufficiently redundant in itself, and that alone would be enough to create an effect of lowering: the redundancy of "new" all by itself compromises "place." But the a priori positiveness residing, independent of the author's will, in the expression "new place"—especially as applied to the "next world"—provokes an upsurge of sarcasm in her, and "new place" is equated by the poet with an object of tourist pilgrimage (which is justified by the ubiquity of death as a phenomenon) by means of the epithet zlachny ("lush, green"). This is all the more remarkable because zlachny undoubtedly came from the Orthodox prayer for the souls of the dead (" . . . in green pastures, in blissful realms . . ."). Tsvetaeva, however, puts the prayer book aside, if only because Rilke wasn't Orthodox, and the epithet returns to its own base modern context. The virtual similarity of the "next world" with a resort is intensified by the internal rhyme of the following adjective, zhcachny ("ruminant"), which is followed by zychny ("clamorous") and zvuchny ("sonorous"). The piling up of adjectives is always suspect even in ordinary speech. In a poem it arouses even more suspicion—and not without reason. For the use of zyclmy here marks the beginning of a transition from sarcasm to an overall elegiac tone.
Zyclmy ("clamorous"), of course, still continues the theme of the crowd, of the marketplace, which was introduced by zlachny—zhvachny; but this is already a different function of the mouth, a function of the voice in space reinforced by the last epithet, zvuchny. And space itself is expanded by the vision of a solitary tower (Aeolus's) in it. "Empty"—that is, inhabited by the wind, that is, possessing a voice. The "new place/pasture" gradually begins to acquire the features of the "next world."
Theoretically, the lowering effect could have been achieved simply by the enjambment itself ( novom/ . . . meste). Tsvetaeva used this device—the run-on line—so often that enjambment, in turn, can be considered her signature, her fingerprint. But perhaps, precisely because of the frequency of its use, this device did not satisfy her enough, and she felt the need to "animate" it with parentheses—that minimalized form of lyrical digression. (In general, Tsvetaeva, like no one else, indulged in the use of typographic means of expressing subordinate aspects of speech.)
However, the main reason that prompted her to extend the enjambment over three lines was not so much the danger of cliche hidden (for all the irony of the tone) in the phrase "new place" as the author's dissatisfaction with the commonplaceness of the rhyme krovom—novom. She couldn't wait to get even, and a line and a half later she really does get even. But until that happens, the author subjects every word of hers, every thought of hers, to the sharpest rebuke; that is, she comments upon herself. More precisely, though: the ear comments upon the content.
None of Tsvetaeva's contemporaries is so constantly mindful of what has been stated, so prone to keep tabs on himself as she is. Thanks to that feature (of character? eye? ear?), her poems acquire the verisimilitude of prose. They contain—especially those of the mature Tsvetaeva—no poetic a priority, nothing which hasn't been questioned. Tsvetaeva's verse is dialectical, but it is the dialectics of dialogue: between meaning and meaning, between meaning and sound. It is as though Tsvetaeva were constantly struggling against the a priori authority of poetic speech, constantly trying to "take the buskins off' her verse. The main device, to which she resorts especially often in "Novogodnee," is refinement. In the line that follows "Like Aeolus's empty tower,'' as if she were crossing out what she has already stated, she falls back to the beginning and starts the poem anew:
The first letter to you from yesterday's, In which, without you, I'll moan myself empty— Homeland · . .
The poem gathers momentum again, but now along the tracks that were laid by the stylistic features of the preceding lines and by the preceding rhyme. "In which, without you, I'll moan myself empty" wedges itself into the enjambment, thereby not so much emphasizing the author's personal emotion as separating "yesterday's" from "homeland" (here meaning the earth, the planet, the world). This pause between "yesterday's" and ''homeland" is seen— heard—no longer by the author but by the poem's addressee, Rilke. At this point Tsvetaeva is looking at the world, herself included, through his eyes now, not through her own; that is, from a distance. This may be the only fonn of narcissism characteristic of her; and one of her motives for writing "Novogodnee" may well have been this temptation: to take a look at herself from a distance. In any case, precisely because she is attempting here to give a picture of the world through the eyes of someone who has left it, Tsvetaeva separates "yesterday's" from "homeland," at the same time paving the way for one of the most transfixing— the first of many—passages in the poem, where she does get even—with herself—for the uneventful rhyme in the first two lines. The subordinate awkwardness of the wedged-in "In which, without you, I'll moan myself empty" is followed by