Valery Bryusov`s the Earth as an experiment of scientific poetry

Symbolic eschatology inherently risks pointless anxiety rather than inducing a clear understanding and analysis of a situation. This ideology depends on mental and sentimental aspects of anxiety and fear instead of taking a rational approach, which results in an abdication of and disregard for reality, not leading readers toward symbolic truths. However, as scientific poetry, The Earth presents various logical inferences and reasonable possibilities concerning the destiny of humanity and society by actively imagining a future based on reason and well-founded concepts, in turn broadening the cognitive horizons of its audience. Above all, unlike the passivism of other eschatological narratives, The Earth uniquely demonstrates active eschatology, that is, human beings choose the end of their own accord. Passive eschatology emphasizes there is nothing that can be done except be silent, but humankind, choosing its own destruction, forces us contemplate and reconsider the legitimacy and necessity of our actions. The audience's shock and the narrative's mystery, brought about by active eschatology, induce a cognitive vacuum, foreshadowing an expansion of awareness.

Conclusion

In order to dismantle boundaries artificially segregating the world, cognitive stimulation is required. Mentally crossing these boundaries and thinking unconventionally are made possible through the use of intellectual and psychological energy, namely shock and contemplation. The setting of another Bryusov's play, The World of Seven Generations, written in 1923, takes place as a comet narrowly misses a collision with the Earth, yet in a letter to Morozov, the playwright wrote that if Halley's Comet in 1910 had collided with Earth, it would have greatly helped humankind [15. P. 54]. Here, the author means that such a catastrophe was capable of destroying all obstacles that prevent humans from reaching their full cognitive potential. In the paper “Secret Key” (“Ключи тайн”), Bryusov says the following on artistic potential subjugating the cognitive limits of science: “The iron bars of science and axes of sociology do not have the power destroy the door or the walls that have confined us, but art is ferocious dynamite capable of breaking down these walls” [5. P. 87]. The key to our cell doors in the “blue prison” of custom and tradition is art, which leads us toward eternal freedom. Art is the first and only hint that provides any clue to salvation, impossible to find in our distressed lives and civilization. The Earth is a distress signal from an intellectual unable to find a solution or logical exit on the eve of revolution, a literary and scientific warning regarding the confusion and despair caused by a complete lack of alternatives. The play exemplifies this in the political backwardness of the Consul, the citizens unwilling to resist their fate, intellectuals who are unable to present a novel solution to the current disaster, and religions thick with dogmatism and hatred.

Although The Earth imagines a hypothetical world of an unknown future and its social structure and psychological atmosphere, Bryusov's scientific poetrylike cognitive expansion delivers knowledge and new life to the society and humanity of the time. New scientific discoveries, discourse, and foresight of the future rearrange daily experience and understanding of reality-based ever- changing methodologies. Predictions regarding the end of days activate alternative possibilities to inspire a novel means to survive in spite of Armageddon. The Earth allegorizes the brutal political situation in the 1905 Russia, actively intervening in and commenting on the tragic reality. In addition, the work develops a new cognitive methodology called scientific poetry, which, while based on realistic concepts, also maintains an alternative perspective from reality. The Earth analyzes the ontological stature of human beings by restructuring the theme of cultural crisis into a drama, achieving a new level of science, knowledge, and cognition.

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