Prayer in Alexander Blok's lyric poetry ("A girl sang in the church choir...")

The article examines the genre clash of prayer and stanza in Alexander Blok's poem A girl sang in the church choir... (1905). Prayer is the main ecclesiastical source, shaping the poem's lyric model. The genre canon of stanza, with strophes detached substantially and compositionally, transforms the central musical theme into four scene-developments linked by dissonance. Each of the strophes in A girl sang in the church choir... stanza has its own "semantic point" (prayer — singings — illusion — enlightenment) and reveals a "different" content element, intensifies and develops the tragic theme of two worlds, intended and unintended substitutions, spiritual striving and time losses. Blok's stanza is a 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 symbolist aesthetics and strengthens the tragic pathos of Blok's lyric poetry.