Frasi di Vladimir Vladimirovič Majakovskij

Origine: citato in Sergej Aleksandroic Esenin, Russia e altre poesie, Baldini Castoldi Dalai editore, traduzione di Curzia Ferrari, 2007

Origine: Poesie, p. 86

“Nel ridotto | Circolo dei nobili. Un concerto di Rachmaninov. L'isola dei morti. Fuggo via dall'intollerabile noia melodica. Dopo un istante fugge anche Burljuk. Scoppiamo a ridere. Bighelloniamo insieme.”

Origine: Poesie, p. 88

“Il teatro è condannato a morire da sé e deve consegnare il suo retaggio al cinematografo. Il cinematografo, tramutati in un ramo industriale l'ingenuo realismo e l'artisticità di Cechov e Gorki, spiana la strada al teatro dell'avvenire, alla libera arte dell'attore.”

Origine: Poesie, p. 28

“L'autocrate si distrae e si diletta con il piombo e con la forca.”

Origine: Prose, p. 141

Origine: Mosca arde, p. 124

“Art must not be concentrated in dead shrines called museums. lt must be spread everywhere – on the streets, in the trams, factories, workshops, and in the workers' homes.”

Poesie

Vladimir Vladimirovič Majakovskij: Frasi in inglese

“Love's ship has foundered on the rocks of life.
We're quits: stupid to draw up a list
of mutual sorrows, hurts and pains.”

"Shrine or Factory?" (1918); translation from Mikhail Anikst et al. (eds.) Soviet Commercial Design of the Twenties (New York: Abbeville Press, 1987) p. 15

“On the pavement
of my trampled soul
the steps of madmen
weave the prints of rude crude words.”

Untitled last poem found after his death; translation from Martin Seymour-Smith Guide to Modern World Literature (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1975) vol. 4, p. 235

“Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.”

"1" (1913); translation from Patricia Blake (ed.) The Bedbug and Selected Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975) p. 53

“Agitprop
sticks
in my teeth too,
and I'd rather
compose
romances for you –
more profit in it
and more charm.
But I
subdued
myself,
setting my heel
on the throat
of my own song.”

Attributed to Vladimir Mayakovsky in The Political Psyche (1993) by Andrew Samuels, p. 9; attributed to Bertolt Brecht in Paulo Freire : A Critical Encounter (1993) by Peter McLaren and Peter Leonard, p. 80
Variant translation: Art is not a mirror held up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.
Disputed

“If you wish,
I shall grow irreproachably tender:
not a man, but a cloud in trousers!”

"At the Top of My Voice" (1929-30); translation from Patricia Blake (ed.) The Bedbug and Selected Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975) pp. 223-5

“In parade deploying
the armies of my pages,
I shall inspect
the regiments in line.
Heavy as lead,
my verses at attention stand,
ready for death
and for immortal fame.”

Page 61.
The Cloud in Trousers (1915)

“A rhyme's
…
a barrel of dynamite.
A line is a fuse
that's lit.
The line smoulders,
the rhyme explodes –
and by a stanza
a city
is blown to bits.”

"At the Top of My Voice" (1929-30); translation from Patricia Blake (ed.) The Bedbug and Selected Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975) p. 227

“Love
for us
is no paradise of arbors —
to us
love tells us, humming,
that the stalled motor
of the heart
has started to work
again.”

"A Conversation with the Inspector of Taxes about Poetry" (1926); translation from Chris Jenks Visual Culture (London: Routledge, 1995) pp. 86-7

“Hey, you!
Heaven!
Off with your hat!
I am coming!

Not a sound.

The universe sleeps,
its huge paw curled
upon a star-infested ear.”

"Letter from Paris to Comrade Kostorov on the Nature of Love" (1928); translation from Patricia Blake (ed.) The Bedbug and Selected Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975) p. 213

“I want to be understood by my country,
but if I fail to be understood –
what then?,
I shall pass through my native land
to one side,
like a shower
of slanting rain.”

Page 109.
The Cloud in Trousers (1915)

“No gray hairs streak my soul,
no grandfatherly fondness there!
I shake the world with the might of my voice,
and walk – handsome,
twentytwoyearold.”

"Back Home!", first version (1926); translation from Patricia Blake (ed.) The Bedbug and Selected Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975) p. 36

“I understand the power and the alarm of words –
Not those that they applaud from theatre-boxes,
but those which make coffins break from bearers
and on their four oak legs walk right away.”

Page 61.
The Cloud in Trousers (1915)

“Tramp squares with rebellious treading!
Up heads! As proud peaks be seen!
In the second flood we are spreading
Every city on earth will be clean.”

Untitled last poem found after his death; translation from Martin Seymour-Smith Guide to Modern World Literature (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1975) vol. 4, p. 235