Dynamization of traditional motifs in Mikhail Lermontov’s youthful poems called 'Azrail' and 'The Angel of Death'

The article studies the problems associated with the functioning of traditional motifs in Mikhail Lermontov’s youthful poetry, which undergo changes gradually and persistently while being entirely consistent with the author’s personal task. The motifs of suffering, pilgrimage, fate, life and death, which are well-known in romantic poetry, when included in the associative area of the verbal context, become subject to the dynamism principle and acquire new meanings, which are understandable and productive only in the artistic world of a Russian poet. The article provides a structural-semantic analysis of “Azrail” and “The Angel of Death” poems built on the binary “life and death” opposition, which is creatively interpreted by Lermontov.