You, walking past me (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Marina Tsvetayeva
- First Published: 1976
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Suffering, Folkloric or magical people, Pain, City life, Trains, Witches or witchcraft, Life, philosophy of, Sleep, Energy, Wishes
The Poem
Marina Tsvetayeva’s “You, walking past me,” written in 1913 but unpublished until 1976, is a short lyric poem of sixteen lines divided into four stanzas. Like many of the poems written during Tsvetayeva’s twenties, it evokes a mood of loneliness and estrangement from the world. The title of the poem, which is also its first line, addresses a stranger who is to remain largely unaware of the narrator’s state of mind. This indifferent crossing of paths sets the tone for the rest of the poem.
The first-person narrator speaks directly to an unidentified...
[The entire page is 1626 words long]
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