Poets of pure art
Poets of pure art A picture of Russian literary life in the 3050s. would be incomplete if we did not take into account the existence of so-called poetry. pure art. Under this conventional name the work of those poets who defended the ideology of the conservative part of the landowner class can be united. This group was headed by Tyutchev and the young Fet, A. Maikov (the first edition of his poems 1842), N. Shcherbina (Greek poems, Odessa, 1850; Poems, 2 vols., 1857) and others actively participated in it. The undoubted predecessor of this line in Russian poetry there was Zhukovsky, in some motifs Pushkin (the period of departure into the theory of self-sufficient art 1827-1830) and Baratynsky. However, neither Pushkin nor Baratynsky received such comprehensive development of the motifs of pure art as in the subsequent era of Russian poetry, which was undoubtedly explained by the worsening decomposition of the class that fed them. It is not difficult to establish the noble origin of this poetry: sympathy for the estate, admiration of its nature, the serene life of its owner run through the entire work of any of these poets. At the same time, all these poets are characterized by complete indifference to the prevailing public life revolutionary and liberal tendencies. It is deeply logical that in their works we will not find any of the popular ones in the 4050s. the denunciation of the feudal police regime in its various aspects, the fight against serfdom, the defense of the emancipation of women, the problem extra people etc. are not of interest to these poets who are busy with the so-called. eternal themes admiration of nature, the image of love, imitation of the ancients, etc. But indifferent to the undertakings of liberals and revolutionaries, they willingly left the sphere of their solitude in order to speak out in an invariably conservative and reactionary spirit on important problems of current life that threatened the life of their class (cf. . Tyutchev's condemning message to the Decembrists and incense.
F.I. Tyutchev is a poet of truly “pure”, bright art. His poetic word embodied inexhaustible wealth artistic meaning, it is full of deep philosophizing, reflections on the essence of being. Throughout creative path the poet has not lost his characteristic world, cosmic, universal spirit.
Although the main fund of the poet's legacy is only a little less than two hundred laconic poems (if you do not take into account youthful poems, translations, poems for the occasion and poems dictated by the poet during a serious dying illness), his lyrics have remained relevant and interesting for more than a century . A century ago, the great Russian poet A. A. Fet rightfully said about the collection of Tyutchev’s poems:
Tyutchev Fedor Ivanovich (1803 - 1873)
Tyutchev Fyodor Ivanovich (1803–1873), Russian poet, diplomat, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences since 1857. Born on November 23 (December 5), 1803 in the Ovstug estate, Bryansk district, Oryol province. in an old noble family. Tyutchev spent his childhood in the Ovstug estate, in Moscow and the Troitskoye estate near Moscow. The patriarchal landowner life reigned in the family. Fyodor Tyutchev, who showed an early ability to learn, received a good education at home. His teacher was the poet and translator S.E. Raich (1792–1855), who introduced Tyutchev to the works of antiquity and classical Italian literature. At the age of 12, the future poet, under the guidance of his mentor, translated Horace and wrote odes in imitation of him. For the ode “For the New Year 1816” in 1818 he was awarded the title of employee of the “Society of Lovers of Russian Literature”. In the “Proceedings” of the Society in 1819, its first 
This publication is a free adaptation of the “Epistle of Horace to Maecenas.”
In 1819 Fyodor Tyutchev entered the literature department of Moscow University. During his studies he became close to M. Pogodin, S. Shevyrev, V. Odoevsky. At this time, his Slavophile views began to take shape. As a student, Tyutchev also wrote poetry. In 1821 he graduated from the university and received a place in the College of Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg, in 1822 he was appointed a supernumerary official of the Russian diplomatic mission in Munich.
In Munich, Tyutchev, as a diplomat, aristocrat and writer, found himself at the center of the cultural life of one of the largest cities in Europe. He studied romantic poetry and German philosophy, became close to F. Schelling, and became friends with G. Heine. Translated into Russian the poems of G. Heine (the first of the Russian poets), F. Schiller, I. Goethe and other German poets. Fyodor Tyutchev published his own poems in the Russian magazine “Galatea” and the almanac “Northern Lyre”.
In the 1820s–1830s, Tyutchev’s masterpieces of philosophical lyrics “Silentium!” (1830), “Not what you think, nature...” (1836), “What are you howling about, night wind?..” (1836), etc. In poems about nature, the main feature of Fyodor Tyutchev’s work was obvious on this topic: the unity of the image of nature and thoughts about it, the philosophical and symbolic meaning of the landscape, the humanization, spirituality of nature.
In 1836, in Pushkin’s journal Sovremennik, on the recommendation of P. Vyazemsky and V. Zhukovsky, it was published under the signature of F.T. a selection of 24 poems by Tyutchev entitled “Poems sent from Germany.” This publication became a milestone in his literary life and brought him fame. Tyutchev responded to the death of Pushkin with prophetic lines: “The heart of Russia will not forget you, like its first love” (January 29, 1837).
In 1826, Tyutchev married E. Peterson, then had an affair with A. Lerchenfeld (several poems are dedicated to her, including the famous romance “I met you - and all the past...” (1870). The affair with E. Dernberg turned out to be so It was scandalous that Tyutchev was transferred from Munich to Turin. Tyutchev had a hard time with the death of his wife (1838), but soon married again - to Dernberg, without permission leaving for the wedding in Switzerland. For this he was dismissed from the diplomatic service and deprived of the title of chamberlain.
For several years Tyutchev remained in Germany, and in 1844 he returned to Russia. Since 1843, he published articles on the Pan-Slavist movement “Russia and Germany”, “Russia and the Revolution”, “The Papacy and the Roman Question”, and worked on the book “Russia and the West”. He wrote about the need for an Eastern European union led by Russia and that it was the confrontation between Russia and the Revolution that would determine the fate of humanity. He believed that the Russian kingdom should extend “from the Nile to the Neva, from the Elbe to China.”
Tyutchev's political views aroused the approval of Emperor Nicholas I. The title of chamberlain was returned to the author, in 1848 he received a position at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg, and in 1858 he was appointed chairman of the Committee of Foreign Censorship. In St. Petersburg, Tyutchev immediately became a prominent figure in public life. Contemporaries noted his brilliant mind, humor, and talent as a conversationalist. His epigrams, witticisms and aphorisms were heard by everyone. The rise of Fyodor Tyutchev’s poetic creativity also dates back to this time. In 1850, the Sovremennik magazine reproduced a selection of Tyutchev’s poems, once published by Pushkin, and published an article by N. Nekrasov, in which he ranked these poems among the brilliant phenomena of Russian poetry, putting Tyutchev on a par with Pushkin and Lermontov. In 1854, 92 poems by Tyutchev were published in the appendix to Sovremennik, and then, on the initiative of I. Turgenev, his first collection of poetry was published. Tyutchev’s fame was confirmed by many of his contemporaries - Turgenev, A. Fet, A. Druzhinin, S. Aksakov, A. Grigoriev and others. L. Tolstoy called Tyutchev “one of those unfortunate people who are immeasurably higher than the crowd among whom they live, and therefore always alone."
Tyutchev's poetry was defined by researchers as philosophical lyrics, in which, according to Turgenev, thought “never appears naked and abstract to the reader, but always merges with an image taken from the world of the soul or nature, is imbued with it, and itself penetrates it inseparably and inextricably.” This feature of his lyrics was fully reflected in the poems “Vision” (1829), “How the ocean embraces the globe...” (1830), “Day and Night” (1839), etc.
Fyodor Tyutchev’s Slavophile views continued to strengthen, although after Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War he began to see the task of the Slavs not in political, but in spiritual unification. The poet expressed the essence of his understanding of Russia in the poem “Russia cannot be understood with the mind...” (1866). Despite these views, Tyutchev’s lifestyle was exclusively European: he moved in society, reacted keenly to political events, did not like village life, did not attach much importance to Orthodox rituals.
As throughout his life, in his mature years Tyutchev was full of passions. In 1850, being a married man and the father of a family, he fell in love with 24-year-old E. Denisyeva, almost the same age as his daughters. The open relationship between them, during which Tyutchev did not leave his family, lasted 14 years, they had three children. Society perceived this as a scandal, Denisyeva’s father disowned her, and she was no longer accepted in the world. All this led Denisyeva to a severe nervous breakdown, and in 1864 she died of tuberculosis. The shock of the death of his beloved woman led Tyutchev to the creation of the “Denisyev cycle” - the pinnacle of his love lyrics. It included the poems “Oh, how murderously we love...” (1851), “I knew the eyes - oh, these eyes!..” (1852), “Last love” (1851-1854), “There are in my suffering stagnation...” (1865), “On the eve of the anniversary of August 4, 1865.” (1865), etc. Love, glorified in these poems by Tyutchev as the highest thing that is given to man by God, as “both bliss and hopelessness,” became for the poet a symbol of human life in general - torment and delight, hope and despair, the fragility of that only thing, what is available to man is earthly happiness. In the “Denisyev cycle” love appears as a “fatal fusion and fatal duel” of two hearts.
After Denisyeva’s death, for which he blamed himself, Tyutchev went to his family abroad. He spent a year in Geneva and Nice, and upon his return (1865) to Russia he had to endure the death of two children from Denisyeva, then his mother. These tragedies were followed by the deaths of another son, only brother, and daughter. The horror of approaching death was expressed in the poem “Brother, who has accompanied me for so many years...” (1870). In the lines of this poem, the poet foresaw his “fatal turn.”
Poetry
Tyutchev began writing poetry as a teenager, but he rarely appeared in print and was not noticed by either critics or readers. The poet's real debut took place in 1836: a notebook of Tyutchev's poems, transported from Germany, falls into the hands of A.S. Pushkin, and he, having accepted Tyutchev's poems with amazement and delight, published them in his Sovremennik magazine. However, recognition and fame came to Tyutchev much later, after his return to his homeland, in the 50s, when Nekrasov, Turgenev, Fet, Chernyshevsky spoke admiringly of the poet and when a separate collection of his poems was published (1854). And yet Tyutchev did not become a professional writer, remaining in public service until the end of his life.
A brilliant artist, a deep thinker, a subtle psychologist - this is how Tyutchev appears in his works. The themes of his poems are eternal: the meaning of human existence, nature, the connection of man with it, love. The emotional coloring of most of Tyutchev’s poems is determined by his restless, tragic worldview:
And I sow with noble blood
You quenched the thirst for honor -
And the overshadowed one fell asleep
Banner of the people's sorrow.
Let your enmity
He will judge
Who hears the blood shed...
You are like my first love,
The heart will not forget Russia!.. Or:
There is a high meaning in separation:
No matter how much you love, even one day, even a century,
Love is a dream, and a dream is one moment.
Is it early or late to wake up,
And man must finally wake up...
The poet felt the autocracy of the human “I”, a manifestation of individualism, cold and destructive, as the most severe disaster and grave sin. The illusory, illusory, fragility of human existence constantly worries the poet. In the poem “Look how in the expanse of the river...” he compares people to melting ice floes:
All together - small, large,
Having lost my former image,
Everyone is indifferent, like an element, -
They will merge with the fatal abyss!..
In the last years of his life, the image of an all-consuming abyss appears again in the poet’s poem “From the life that raged here...”
In relation to nature, Tyutchev shows the reader two positions: existential, contemplative, perceiving the world around him with the help of the senses, and spiritual, thinking, striving to guess the great secret of nature behind the visible veil.
Tyutchev the contemplator creates such lyrical masterpieces as “Spring Thunderstorm”, “In the Initial Autumn...”, “The Enchantress of Winter...” and many similar, short but charming figurative landscapes. Tyutchev the thinker sees in nature an inexhaustible source for reflections and generalizations of the cosmic order. This is how the poems “Wave and Thought”, “Fountain”, “Day and Night” were born.
The joy of being, happy harmony with nature, serene rapture with it are characteristic of the poet’s poems about spring:
The earth still looks sad,
And the air already breathes weight,
And the dead stalk in the field sways,
And the oil branches move.
Nature hasn't woken up yet,
But through the thinning sleep
She heard spring
And she involuntarily smiled...
Glorifying spring, Tyutchev invariably rejoices at the rare opportunity to experience the fullness of life. He contrasts heavenly bliss with the beauty of spring nature:
What is the joy of paradise before you,
It's time for love, it's time for spring,
Blooming bliss of May,
Ruddy color, golden dreams?..
Tyutchev’s lyrical landscapes bear a special stamp that reflects the properties of his soul. Therefore, his images are unusual and striking in their novelty. Its branches are boring, the earth is frowning, the stars are talking quietly among themselves, the day is growing thin, the rainbow is exhausted. Nature sometimes delights and sometimes frightens the poet. Sometimes it appears as the tragic inevitability of cataclysms:
When nature's last hour strikes,
The composition of the earth's parts will collapse
Everything visible will be covered by waters again,
God's face will be depicted in them!
But in his doubts and fears and searches, the poet comes to the conclusion that man is not always at odds with nature, he is equal to it:
Bound, connected from time to time
Union of consanguinity
Intelligent human genius
With the creative power of nature...
Say the cherished word -
And a new world of nature
Tyutchev's poetry is the poetry of deep and fearless thought. But Tyutchev’s thought is invariably fused with the image, conveyed in precise and bold, unusually expressive colors.
Tyutchev’s poems have a lot of grace and plasticity; they contain, as Dobrolyubov puts it, “sultry passion” and “severe energy.” They are very complete, complete: when reading them, one gets the impression that they were created instantly, in a single impulse. Despite the skeptical notes in Tyutchev’s poetry, who sometimes claims that all human activity is a “useless feat,” most of his works are filled with youth and an ineradicable love of life.
Art as a social phenomenon
Abstract >> Culture and artInvolvement in the system of public relations. “ Art For art", or " clean art”, is an aesthetic concept that asserts... purely utilitarian objects (table, chandelier), a person cares about benefits, convenience, and beauty. Exactly That's why art ...
Art ancient Egypt (8)
Abstract >> Culture and artThey were obliged to follow established canons. That's why V art slave-owning Egypt also retained a number of conventions... . Sometimes the idea of the pharaoh's divinity was conveyed purely by external means: the king was depicted together...
Art, its origin and essence
Abstract >> Culture and artLife's on the way" clean art" devoid of real content, leads... to which it appeals art. Speaking about the literature of the last century, poet
For a long time 18th century and the first 4 decades of the 19th century, poetry was the highest region. literature, and prose is secondary. In 1840 everything changed. The revolution predicted by Belinsky happened, Pushkin’s poetic period ended and Gogol’s prosaic period began. In mid. 1850 the 30-year reign of Nicholas 1 ends - occurs Crimean War. Beginning preparation of reforms. The main surprised force is the commoners. Censorship terror was softened, contributing to the flourishing of literature (in the mid-1860s, poems by Fet Tyutchev, Nekrasov, and A.N. Tolstoy were included in Russian literature).
In poetry until the beginning of 1890. there was a struggle between the Pushkin and Gogol directions. There is a connection with the name of Pushkin. first half of the 19th century His lyrics are expressive. serious social and philosopher. beliefs. Landscape and love develop morality. and aesthetic reader perception. Civic lyrics contribute to patriotism. education. In the novel “Eugene Onegin” he describes Rus. rural nature and the nature of cities (in the 1st and last chapter describes St. Petersburg, and in the 7th Moscow). Special place is taken by description. rural nature. Push. describes spring, draws winter and autumn landscapes. At the same time, he strives to choose unusual paintings(everything with him is simple, ordinary and at the same time beautiful). Until Push. poets pic. nature in classic and romantic productions, they looked for poetry only in grandiose, unusual for Russian. chela paintings high. mountains, abysses, waterfalls, seas. With his poetic images. simple modest nature of average Russia Push. positive changed the reader's tastes: he showed how much poetry there was. in these familiar, dear, but insufficiently appreciated paintings. Push. managed to see beauty in the simplest and most ordinary. He managed to find poetry. words for expression this beauty. He teaches us to see, understand and love our modest nature, in comparison with the lush south, but beautiful in its simplicity. On your TV Push. declared the requirement independent poetry from the authorities, from the people, the idea of the poet as a God-inspired creator. Poem. Push. “The poet and the crowd” became the slogan for poets of the 2nd mid-19th century. , who spoke under the slogan of pure art “We were born for inspiration, for sweet sounds and prayers.”
Push. raised poetry to new heights. height and allowed Russian. people better understand themselves.
The opposite point of view turned out to be natural, ktr. connected with him. Gogol - proclaiming the need to discover tendentious poetry and engagements.
At the beginning of chapter 7 of Dead Souls, Gogol compares the creator of art for art’s sake and the writer of the exposer (he classifies himself as type 2). After Gogol’s death, Nekrasov expresses these thoughts in the poem “Blessed is the gentle poet.” Most of it is verse. Nekrasova glorifies the poet's tendentiousness (Nekrasov himself was a poet with a revolutionary-popular orientation). He put his poetry at the service of the people.
Poetry 1860-1880 differences between schools. School pure poetry - poetry of the heart, feelings - representatives: A. Fet, Apollo –Grigoriev, Maikov, A.N. Tolstoy, Ya. Polonsky. - developed the romantic tradition - characterized by the aestheticization of reality, the creativity of the theme: eternal themes and problems (of love and nature) - lit. language, teaching vocabulary.
School of democratic poetry - poetry of thought - Representatives: N. Nekrasov, I. Nikitin, Z. Surikov, A. Pleshcheev - developed a realistic tradition, characterized by reality in contradictions and contrasts, active life position, social. topics and problems. Characteristic elements of colloquial language, everyday vocabulary.
A. Fet (1820-92) In his declining years, Fet was strongly influenced by Schopenhauer. Translated his work into Russian. This is the philosophy of pessimism, egoism, the illusory nature of happiness, the inevitability of pain and the ethics of compassion. Fet consistently transferred his understanding of the world to the art of words. Poetry is a lie. Poet, ktr. doesn't lie from the first words, no good. The emerging lyricism of yavl. miraculously, the pinnacle of Russian poetry. He has no pictures of social media. reality. Fet's main task is to show beauty (2 themes: nature and love). Nature is spiritual, it lives its own mysterious life. His nature is three-dimensional, alive, filled with sounds. Fet strives to capture the beautiful moments of eternity.
Spring rain It’s still light in front of the window The sun shines through the gaps in the clouds, And a sparrow, bathing in the sand, trembles with its wing. And from the sky to the ground, swaying, the curtain moves, And as if in golden dust, the edge of the forest stands behind it. Two drops splashed onto the glass, the linden trees smelled like fragrant honey, and something approached the garden, drumming on the fresh leaves.
A. A. Fet. The uniqueness of the poet's personality and his work.
Teacher's word: At the last lesson we talked about the poetry of F.I. Tyutchev, analyzed the poems. What is unique about the poet’s lyrics?
Student answers: Tyutchev’s poetry contains recognition of the world, the novelty of “discoveries” of an infinitely diverse existence: the poet calls to look and listen to the world.
The poet sought to answer the questions of what the Universe and the Earth are, what are the secrets of birth and death, the primordial elements and forces of existence, what is the deep meaning of Time, Space, Movement. What place does a person occupy in the world, what is his destiny.
Poetry F.I. Tyutcheva is philosophical, wise!
The poet was interested only in “eternal” questions, topics that always worried humanity, a hundred, three hundred, and a thousand years ago...
Teacher's word: You are absolutely right! It was, as you said, that “eternal” topics occupied F.I. Tyutchev - philosopher. Today we will get acquainted with the work of another poet, who, like Fyodor Ivanovich, believed that poetry is an area where there is no place for the momentary, temporary, nature, love, beauty - this is what lyrics should glorify!
“I could never understand that art was interested in anything other than beauty,” said the great Russian poet Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet. In his opinion, “poetry is even more beautiful because it can take a person from the world of suffering to the world of high, the only possible happiness...” This attitude to art corresponded to the philosophical views of A. Schopenhauer, whose works Fet translated, and the views of some other German philosophers.
“Art was given to us so as not to die from the truth...”
“Kunst ist uns gegeben, um von der Wahrheit zu sterben...”
F. Nietzsche
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet, of course, would agree with this statement, which absolutely expresses the poet’s own opinion about the purpose of art: “We constantly sought in poetry the only refuge from all everyday sorrows...”
So, art is “a refuge from everyday sorrows,” which is why it should not concern itself with insignificant, painful everyday issues!
Fet invariably clearly distinguished between poetry and science, poetry and life, life and the beauty of life: “As much as in the free arts I value reason little in comparison with inspiration, so in practical life I demand reasonable foundations, supported by experience.” In real life, Afanasy Afanasyevich was an extremely practical, strong-willed and purposeful person. Fet's friends often made fun of the poet's prosaic appearance and his passion for earthly goods. So, for example, in December 1876 L.N. Tolstoy, having highly praised the poem “Among the Stars,” with its “philosophical poetic character,” inserts a humorous remark into his letter to Fet: “It’s also good that the wife noticed that feelings of sorrow were poured out on the same piece of paper on which this poem was written.” that kerosene began to cost 12 kopecks. This is a secondary but true sign of a poet.”
Teacher question: Perhaps this duality of character was the result of the trials that befell him?
Working with cards prepared in advance by students.
...The mother of the future poet, Caroline Charlotte Fet, left Germany in 1820 with Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin. Soon Afanasy was born, whom A.N. Shenshin adopts. Charlotte's father Karl Becker writes an angry letter to Shenshin, from which it is clear that the father of the future poet is not Shenshin, but Johann Feth, an official who served in the Darmstadt court. For these reasons, in January 1835, the Oryol spiritual consistory excommunicated the future poet from the Shenshin family. The last name was also taken away. At the age of 14, he becomes a Hessian subject of Darmstadt and receives the surname of his real father. Fet experienced everything that happened as a tragedy. He sets the goal of returning to the noble fold of the Shenshins and achieves it with fantastic tenacity: since 1873, Fet, with the permission of Alexander II, becomes Shenshin. Moving towards the goal cost many sacrifices. One of them is love. Having fallen in love with the daughter of a poor Kherson landowner, Maria Lazich, Fet, however, decides to part with her, because he himself was strapped for money. He also sees marriage as a significant obstacle to career advancement, which he entered with the sole purpose of regaining his lost nobility. Living for the future, Fet sacrifices the present. When he reaches all the heights of well-being, he will begin to rush from the happy present to the past, in which his beloved remains. Overcoming this painful duality, Fet creates a cycle of confessional poems dedicated to Mary...
The poetry of beauty, the poetry of music.
Many of A. A. Fet’s poems talk about unity, the interpenetration of natural phenomena and human sensations.
The teacher reads the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath.”
Whisper, timid breathing,
The trill of a nightingale,
Silver and sway
Sleepy stream,Night light, night shadows,
Endless shadows
Row magical changes
Sweet faceThere are purple roses in the smoky clouds,
The reflection of amber
And kisses and tears,
And dawn, dawn!..
What is unique about this poem?
Student answers: There is not a single verb here.
Teacher's word: That's right, the poem is built on nominative sentences alone. Only objects and phenomena that are named one after another: a whisper - timid breathing - the trill of a nightingale...
At the same time, can a poem be called purely material, objective?
Student answers: Probably not entirely...
No. It is sublime, mysterious. We are talking about feelings here.
Teacher's word: Right! Objects in this poem do not exist on their own, but as signs of feelings and states. By naming this or that thing, the poet evokes in the reader not a direct idea of it, but those associations that can usually be associated with it.
How do you understand the following lines: “In the smoky clouds there is the purple of a rose, the reflection of amber”? Are we talking about roses, amber?
Student answers: No! This is how the poet describes the colors of dawn. This is a metaphor!
The silver of the sleepy stream is also a metaphor!
Certainly! What picture do you imagine?
Student answers: The night is ending: the nightingales are already singing, but the moon is still reflected in the water. Just before dawn, two people, most likely two, are sitting by a stream: A series of magical changes in a sweet face. Someone looks with tenderness and even delight at the object of their adoration...
Or maybe the night flew by unnoticed, but THEY didn’t notice it, absorbed in each other and their feelings.
So, you saw a feeling behind objects and phenomena? The most subtle feeling, inexpressible in words, inexpressibly strong! Nobody wrote about love like this before Fet. This poem is truly innovative: Fet’s poetic style is sometimes called impressionistic (from the French word “impression”).
Teacher's word: At A.A. Feta has a number of poems about the purpose of poetry, its power, its ability to transform suffering into joy, to stop time. These include the poem “With one push to drive away a living boat...”, written on October 28, 1887.
Drive away a living boat with one push
From the olive-smoothed sands,
Rise in one wave into another life,
Feel the wind from the flowering shores,Interrupt a dreary dream with a single sound,
Suddenly revel in the unknown, dear,
Give life a sigh, give sweetness to secret torments,
Instantly feel someone else’s as your own,Whisper about something that makes your tongue go numb,
Strengthen the fight of fearless hearts -
This is what only a select few singers possess,
This is both its sign and crown!
Teacher question: What is unique about the composition of this poem?
Student answers: It consists of three quatrains. There are a lot of verbs in the indefinite form. Ten. They replace each other.
The entire text is one sentence!
Teacher's word: Absolutely right! One sentence, but the complexity of the syntactic structure is hardly noticeable due to the division into poetic lines, thanks to the syntactic parallelisms of the lines: as you noticed, ten infinitives replacing each other. This technique conveys lyrical tension.
What else does lyrical tension convey in the poem?
Student answers: Anaphora: “With one push...” – “With one wave...”; “Here’s what…” – “Here’s what...”
Yes. What is the lyrical tension connected to?
Student answers: The poet speaks of an uncontrollable desire for something high and inaccessible.
You have just named anaphors. Look carefully, maybe these figures of speech will help us determine how many semantic parts the poem has?
Probably, two semantic parts can be distinguished in the poem.
Teacher's word: Absolutely right! The first eight lines are a chain of image-descriptions of the landscape, the inner life of a person, united by the motif of a sharp, sudden change. This change is joyful, the world is filled with movement, feelings are heightened. The transformation of the inner world is amazing: the “unknown, dear” is revealed (that is, the dear was unknown before this transformation), “secret torments” acquire sweetness, “someone else’s” is “felt” as “one’s own”.
The substantive adjectives of the neuter gender in this poem: “unknown”, “native”, “alien”, “one’s own” - remind of Zhukovsky, his programmatic fragment “Inexpressible” (cf. “limitless”, “beautiful”, “unnamed”, “ sweet, joyful and sorrowful”), also dedicated to poetry and its possibilities. Only V.A. Zhukovsky proved that words cannot convey the entire complexity of existence, the beauty of nature, its secrets.
What is A.A.’s point of view? Feta?
Student answers: The second part - the last two lines - indicates that the poem is talking about poetry, about “the singer...the chosen one.” The first part is an image of what is subject to the poet. He can “rise to another life.” The unknown becomes familiar to him. He perceives someone else's grief or someone else's joy with extraordinary sensitivity. The poet knows how to inspire people.
“Whisper about something that makes the tongue go numb” - a poet can express everything that others are silent about. They are silent because they simply do not know how to put their thoughts into words.
A poet can do anything!
Teacher's word: So, the points of view of Fet and Zhukovsky do not coincide. According to Fet, a poet can find means to express the most intimate thoughts and hidden feelings.
Poems by A.A. Fet well confirm the kinship between lyrics - an expressive and visual kind of literature - and music. Their rhythmic diversity, melody, the use of diverse repetitions (so characteristic of musical compositions): anaphors and epiphoras, syntactic parallelisms, sound writing. The poet has poems directly dedicated to music. One of them is “The night shone. The garden was full of moonlight. They were lying...", written on August 2, 1877.
The teacher reads a poem.
The night was shining. The garden was full of moonlight. were lying
Rays at our feet in a living room without lights.
The piano was all open, and the strings in it were trembling,You sang until dawn, exhausted in tears,
That you alone are love, that there is no other love,
And I wanted to live so much, so that without making a sound,
To love you, hug you and cry over you.And many years have passed, tedious and boring,
And in the silence of the night I hear your voice again,
And it blows, as then, in these sonorous sighs,
That you are alone - all life, that you are alone - love,That there are no insults from fate and burning torment in the heart,
But there is no end to life, and there is no other goal,
As soon as you believe in the sobbing sounds,
Love you, hug you and cry over you!
Teacher's word: The poem was created under the impression of one musical evening with friends, the singing of T.A. Kuzminskaya - Bers. Tanya Bers, the main prototype of Natasha Rostova in the novel “War and Peace,” was a wonderful musician and singer (Tatyana Andreevna is the sister of Sofia Andreevna Bers, the wife of Leo Tolstoy).
The night was shining...
Can the night “shine”?
Student answers: No. Night is the dark time of day. But here we are probably talking about some unusual night.
The night was shining - a paradoxical sounding antithesis.
Teacher question: What is the name of a stylistic figure, an antithesis, presented in the form of two contrasting, antonymous words that are mutually exclusive?
Oxymoron.
Teacher's word: Yes. And this one artistic technique the author uses it to convey the atmosphere of this amazing, ONE “shining” night, which may change the whole life of the lyrical hero.
The garden was full of moonlight...
We see that the sequence of words in this sentence is broken. What we have before us is the so-called inversion. The object comes first, the subject comes last. Why does the author break the word order?
Student answers: Again, to emphasize that this is an unusual night, moonlit, very bright.
The piano was all open, and the strings in it were trembling,
Just like our hearts follow your song.
An open piano, trembling strings. The metaphorical meaning of words clearly displaces the nominative (noun) - the piano also has a soul, a heart!
Music has a strong emotional impact on listeners.
Teacher question: What can you say about the lyrical heroine of this poem?
Student answers: This is an unusually musical, gifted girl who knows how to awaken the best feelings in people. With the power of her talent, she transforms not only listeners, but also the surrounding reality, so the night becomes extraordinary, “radiant.”
Teacher's word: Yes, that's right. Lyrical heroine- the earthly embodiment of the beauty of life, its high sound: “And so I wanted to live, so that, without making a sound, // Love you, hug you and cry over you.” It is important not just to live, but to live as on this night, “without making a sound,” and this already applies to the lyrical “I”.
This poem highlights moments of true existence, there are few of them, in contrast to the “languorous boring” years. The connection between these moments is emphasized by anaphors, epiphoras and other repetitions. Literature cannot directly convey singing and music; it has a different language. But it is literature that can convey HOW music affects the listener!
The teacher summarizes the conversation: Today we read wonderful poems by A.A. Feta about nature, love, art, the purpose of a poet. Times change, but “eternal” questions remain, which are impossible to answer unequivocally, and that is why they always remain attractive. Nature, love, beauty - these are the cherished areas of poetry of “pure art”, art free from worldly, momentary problems.
Fet is the only one of the great Russian poets who confidently and consistently (with a few exceptions) protected his artistic world from socio-political problems. However, these problems themselves not only did not leave Fet indifferent, but, on the contrary, aroused his deep interest, became the subject of sharp journalistic articles and essays, and were constantly discussed in correspondence. They penetrated into poetry very rarely. Fet seemed to feel the unpoeticism of the social ideas that he developed and defended. At the same time, he generally considered unpoetic any work in which there is a clearly expressed thought, an open tendency, especially the alien tendency of modern democratic poetry. From the late 1850s to early 1860s onwards artistic principles The Nekrasov school caused Fet not only ideological antagonism, but also a persistent, heightened aesthetic rejection.
Fet's phenomenon lay in the fact that the very nature of his artistic gift most fully corresponded to the principles of “pure art.” “...When starting to study the poet,” Belinsky wrote in the fifth article about Pushkin, “first of all, one must grasp, in the diversity and diversity of his works, the secret of his personality, that is, those features of his spirit that belong only to him alone. This, however, does not mean that these features are something private, exceptional, alien to other people: it means that everything common to humanity never appears in one person, but every person, to a greater or lesser extent, is born for in order to realize with one’s personality one of the infinitely diverse aspects of the human spirit, which is as incomprehensible as the world and eternity” (my italics - L.R.).
One of the urgent needs human spirit Belinsky considered his striving for beauty: “Truth and virtue are beautiful and amiable, but beauty is also beautiful and amiable, and one is worth the other, one cannot replace the other.” And one more thing: “...beauty in itself is a quality and a merit, and, moreover, a great one.”
Using Belinsky’s definition, we can say that Fet was born to poetically embody a person’s desire for beauty, this was the “secret of his personality.” “I could never understand that art was interested in anything other than beauty,” he admitted at the end of his life. In the programmatic article for his aesthetics “On the poems of F. Tyutchev” (1859), Fet wrote: “Give us, first of all, in the poet his vigilance in relation to beauty.”
Fet's poem "A.L.B"<ржеск>oh" (1879) is written in the meter of Lermontov's "Duma" and in the genre of confession:
Who will tell us that we did not know how to live,
Soulless and idle minds,
That kindness and tenderness did not burn in us
And we didn’t sacrifice beauty?
These lines sound polemical, as if on behalf of like-minded friends (“we”): “We” are not a lost generation, “we” will not leave without a trace and ingloriously, for we served good and sacrificed beauty. One may ask, what did Fet sacrifice? To many, and above all - by popularity, remaining for a long time a poet for a relatively narrow circle of art connoisseurs.
Another judgment of Belinsky from the same fifth article about Pushkin also turned out to be very close to Fet. This is the definition of "poetic idea". “Art does not allow abstract philosophical, much less rational ideas: it allows only poetic ideas.” It is possible that the concept of “poetic thought”, central to Fet’s aesthetics, fundamental in his article “On the Poems of F. Tyutchev,” arose not without the influence of this reasoning of Belinsky.
Belinsky noticed Fet at the very beginning of his career: “Of all the poets living in Moscow, Mr. Fet is the most gifted” - and especially highlighted (in the third article about Pushkin) his anthological poems. Somewhat later, in the review “Russian Literature in 1843,” noting that “poems are little read these days,” Belinsky draws attention to “quite numerous poems by Mr. Fet, among which there are truly poetic ones.” However, at the same time he complains about the limited content of the young poet’s works: “...I don’t read poetry (and only reread Lerm<онтова>, plunging more and more into the bottomless ocean of his poetry), and when I happen to skim through the poems of Fet or Ogarev, I say: “It’s good, but isn’t it a shame to waste time and ink on such nonsense?” (letter to V.P. Botkin dated February 6, 1843). Belinsky no longer appears the name Fet. In the last years of his life, all his enthusiasm was devoted to defending the social direction of literature, the “natural school,” which aroused the poet’s hostility.
At the beginning of December 1847, Belinsky wrote to his friend Botkin, the future theorist of “pure art” and like-minded Fet, about the difference in their beliefs: “So, you and I are sitting on the ends. You, Vasenka, are a sybarite, have a sweet tooth - you, you see, come on poetry, and art - then you will savor and smack your lips. But I need poetry and artistry so much that the story is true, that is, it does not fall into allegory and does not sound like a dissertation. For me, the main thing is the matter. “So that it raises questions, makes a moral impression on society. If it achieves this goal without poetry or creativity at all, it is nevertheless interesting to me, and I do not read it, but devour it.”
But there was still a long way to go before there was widespread debate about the aesthetic principles of “pure art.” It unfolded during a period of intense social struggle in the late 50s and early 60s and in this aspect has been quite well studied. Of the articles by supporters of “pure art”, the most famous are: “Criticism of the Gogol period of Russian literature and our relationship to it” by A. Druzhinin, directed against Chernyshevsky’s “Essays on the Gogol period of Russian literature” (“Library for Reading”, 1856, vol. 140), "Poems by A. Fet" by V. Botkin ("Contemporary", 1857, No. 1), which L. Tolstoy called "a poetic catechism of poetry" (letter to Botkin dated January 20, 1857), as well as an article by Fet himself "Poems by F. Tyutchev ". Among these programmatic speeches, Fet’s article stands out in that it is the word of a poet, in which aesthetic theory is formulated as the result of one’s artistic experience and as a “symbol of faith” acquired in one’s own artistic quests.
Arguing that the artist cares only about one side of objects - their beauty, understanding beauty and harmony as the original, inalienable properties of nature and the entire universe, Fet refuses to see them in public life: "...questions about the rights of citizenship of poetry among other human activities, about her moral significance, about modernity in a given era, etc., I consider nightmares, from which I have long ago and forever gotten rid of." But not only social, ideological "issues" are unacceptable in poetry, from Fet's point of view. A directly stated idea is generally unacceptable. In poetry, only “poetic thought”, unlike philosophical thought, it is not intended “to lie like a solid stone in the general building of human thinking and serve as a fulcrum for subsequent conclusions; its purpose is to illuminate the foreground of the architectonic perspective of a poetic work, or to subtly and barely noticeably shine in its infinite depth." From this point of view, Fet makes a claim (though the only one in the entire article) even to the last stanza of the poem by the "adored poet" Tyutchev "Italian villa ": "The artistic charm of this poem died from an excess of content. New content: a new thought, regardless of the previous one, which was barely noticeably trembling in the depths of the picture, unexpectedly surfaced to the fore and screamed like a spot on it.”
You can challenge Fet’s judgment; you can remember that he himself later, especially after his passion for Schopenhauer, did not avoid open philosophical statements in poetry, but it is important to understand Fet’s main aesthetic aspiration: creating an image of beauty is the goal of art, and it is best achieved when poetic thought, unlike philosophical thought, is not expressed directly, but shines in the “infinite depth” of the work.
Fet's aesthetic concept, and no matter how much he himself avoided such definitions, it was precisely a concept - a clearly formulated system of views - matured gradually. Thus, in his travel essays “From Abroad” (1856-1857), Fet talks about the amazing impressions he experienced in the Dresden Gallery in front of Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” and in the Louvre in front of the statue of Venus de Milo. Main idea Fet - about the incomprehensibility of these peak phenomena of art for rationalistic knowledge, about the completely different nature of the poetic idea. “When I looked at these heavenly airy features,” Fet writes about the Madonna, “not for a moment did the thought of painting or art occur to me; with trembling hearts, with imperturbable bliss, I believed that God had vouchsafed me to be a participant in Raphael’s vision. I face I saw face to face a secret that I did not comprehend, do not comprehend, and, to the greatest happiness, will never comprehend.” And further - about Venus: “As for the artist’s thought, it is not here. The artist does not exist, he has completely turned into a goddess<...>The eye will not find a shadow of intentionality in anything; everything that marble involuntarily sings to you is said by the goddess, not the artist. Only such art is pure and holy, everything else is its profanation." And finally - as a generalization: "When, in a moment of delight, an image appears before the artist, smiling joyfully, an image that gently warms the chest, filling the soul with a sweet thrill, let him concentrate his strength only on then, in order to convey it in all its completeness and purity, sooner or later they will respond to it. Art cannot have any other purpose, for the same reason that there cannot be two lives in one organism, two ideas in one idea” (my italics - L.R.).
In 1861, Dostoevsky joined the dispute between democratic criticism and supporters of “pure art”. His article "G.-bov and the question of art" ("Time", 1861, No. 1) examined the problem with remarkable clarity and completeness. First of all, Dostoevsky declares that he does not adhere to any of the existing directions, since the question is “falsely posed.” Arguing that art requires freedom of creativity and inspiration, and thereby expressing sympathy for the supporters of “pure art,” Dostoevsky shows that they contradict their own principles by not recognizing the right to the same freedom for accusatory literature. Dostoevsky deeply shares the ideal of “highest beauty,” the aesthetic delight in beauty, and it is Fet who is presented in his reasoning as the standard of “pure art” (Dostoevsky remembers not only Fet’s poems, but also his article about Tyutchev, as evidenced by the text). And although the need for beauty in art is eternal, and therefore always modern, such tragic moments in the life of society are possible when “pure art” turns out to be inappropriate and even offensive (a fantastic assumption about how the day after the Lisbon earthquake in the newspaper “Lisbon Mercury” " the poem "Whisper, timid breathing..." appears and about the unfortunate fate of a wonderful poet, to whom posterity will later erect a monument).
The true apotheosis of Fetov’s lyricism appears at the end of the article, where Dostoevsky analyzes the “anthological” poem “Diana,” which delighted his contemporaries, despite the difference in their social views: “The last two lines of this poem are full of such passionate vitality, such melancholy, such meaning that we know nothing stronger, more vital in all our Russian poetry."
The following year, in the same magazine "Time" (1862, No. 7), an article by A. Grigoriev "Poems of N. Nekrasov" appeared, where democratic poetry and poetry of "pure art", despite the sharp opposition of their ideologists, were considered as two natural sides general development of literature of the post-Pushkin period. This position fundamentally coincided with the views of the editors of the Dostoevsky magazine, which A. Grigoriev reports at the very beginning: “The editor of Vremya, with whom I spoke about this article that was brewing in my soul, advised me to talk first about the critical views about the poems of my beloved modern poet" (that is, Nekrasov. - L.R.). A. Grigoriev does just that, revealing that the struggle taking place in criticism did not rise to the understanding, on the one hand, of the high poetic (and not just ideological) significance of Nekrasov’s “muse of revenge and sadness”, on the other - the poetry of “pure art” . “Start, for example, talking about Fet’s poems,” notes A. Grigoriev, “(I take this name as the most insulted and insulted by our criticism...): here, firstly, you need to unpack a bunch of rubbish, and secondly, to talk about poetry in general, about its rights to comprehensiveness, about the breadth of its grasp, etc. - to talk, in a word, about things that critics are tired of to death, and which everyone is tired of, although at the same time everyone is positive forgotten." "True poets, it doesn't matter whether they spoke
We were born to be inspired
For sweet sounds and prayers, -
served and serve one thing: the ideal, differing only in the forms of expression of their service. We must not forget that the guiding ideal, like Jehovah to the Israelites, appears in a pillar of cloud during the day, and in a pillar of fire at night. But whatever the attitude towards the ideal, it requires from the priest unwavering, unwashed truth."
A. Grigoriev writes about the one-sidedness of each of the fighting parties: democratic criticism (the “theorists”) and “offended” criticism (defenders of “pure art”), “stubbornly believing in the eternity of the laws of the human soul.” “Any principle, no matter how deep it may be,” states A. Grigoriev, “if it does not capture and legitimize all bright, powerful acting by force by its own or the beauty of the phenomena of life, one-sided, therefore, false<...>Whether a comprehensive principle will ever be found, I don’t know and, of course, I don’t dream of finding it myself” (my italics - L.R.).
Fet was faithful to the “one-sided” principle of “pure art” all his life and brought it to such spiritual fullness and poetic perfection, to such artistic discoveries that, it would seem, the correctness of the views of Dostoevsky and A. Grigoriev could become obvious. However, social struggle has its own laws, and the discussion around Fet’s position flared up.
Steadfastly defending his aesthetic beliefs, Fet felt more and more alone over the years. At the end of the journey, he complained bitterly in a letter to K.K. Romanov (poet K.R.) on November 4, 1891: “... all my friends made progress and became not only in life, but also in purely artistic matters opponents of their and my previous opinions."
The attention of critics has always been attracted by the fact that Fet's world is clearly divided into the sphere of practical life and the sphere of beauty. And if the first is subject to harsh necessity, the second presupposes true freedom, without which creativity is unthinkable. This bifurcation has been noticed for a long time, but has been explained in different ways.
Fet's contemporaries from the democratic camp, despite disagreements among themselves, found exclusively social reasons for this. Thus, Saltykov-Shchedrin entitled one of the sections of the chronicle “Our Social Life” (Sovremennik, 1863, No. 1-2): “Mr. Fet as a publicist.” Here he writes:
“Do you remember Mr. Fet, reader? That same Mr. Fet who once wrote the following charming poems:
Oh, for a long time I will be a secret in the silence of the night,
Your insidious babble, your smile, your casual glance,
Golden strand of hair obedient to the fingers
Banish from thoughts and call again...
Hello! a thousand times my greetings to you, night!
Again and again I love you
Quiet, warm,
Silver-edged!
I am not joking at all when I say that these poems are charming: in my opinion, modern Russian literature has no other similar poems. In no one will the reader find such Olympian serenity, such lyrical beauty. It is clear that the poet’s soul, despite the seeming rebellion of the feelings that excite it, is still serene; it is clear that the poet is only concerned with details, like “insidious babble,” but life, in its general structure, seems to him to be created for pleasure and that he really enjoys it. But alas! Since Mr. Fet wrote these poems, the world has changed in a strange way! Since then, serfdom has been abolished, new principles of legal proceedings and judicial organization have been promulgated, the bright currents of serenity and idleness have been indignant, nihilism has appeared and boys have poured in. There is no truth on earth; people who once enjoyed tranquility hid in the gorges and fissures of the earth, only “insidious babble” remained, and even that was not of such a nature that it
Banish from thoughts and call again..." .
However, Fet’s journalism (by that time “Notes on Freelance Labor” had been published - 1862 and two essays “From the Village” - 1863) do not in the least indicate sadness for the bygone serfdom era or that, having plunged into the serene lyrical feelings, Fet did not notice the changes taking place in the country. On the contrary, the thoughts of Feta the publicist are aimed at a radical reform of economic activity, the entire rural life on the basis of free labor and carefully developed legislation for establishing and regulating relations between landowners and peasants, and for the education and upbringing of peasants. But, polemically sharpening the topic, Saltykov does not intend to notice this. He reproaches Fet for his serfdom, and in particular for his conflict with the negligent worker Semyon, who owed the master 11 rubles, making broad generalizations from this generally insignificant episode: “Together with the people who hid in the earth’s crevices, Mr. Fet disappeared into the village. There, in his spare time, he partly writes romances, partly hates people; first he will write a romance, then he will hate people, then he will write a romance again and again he will hate people, and he sends all this to the Russian Messenger for embossing. joined the anti-democratic trend of Katkov’s magazine, encourages Saltykov (without any reason) to hear “the cry of the soul for the lost serf paradise” even in the poem “Former sounds with former charm...” (Russian Messenger, 1863, No. 1).
The following year, Pisarev wrote about Fet’s contradictions. In his youth, Fet was one of the critic’s favorite poets, as he admitted at the beginning of an article with the characteristic title “Mistakes of Immature Thought” (“ Russian word", 1864, book 12). In the article "Realists", first published under the title "Unresolved Question", Pisarev argued: "... a poet can be sincere either in the full greatness of a reasonable worldview, or in the complete limitations of thoughts, knowledge, feelings and aspirations. In the first case, he is Shakespeare, Dante, Byron, Goethe, Heine. In the second case, he is Mr. Fet. - In the first case, he carries within himself the thoughts and sorrows of the entire modern world. In the second, he sings with a thin fistula about fragrant curls and, in an even more touching voice, complains in print about the worker Semyon<...>The worker Semyon is a wonderful person. He will certainly go down in the history of Russian literature, because providence destined him to show us the other side of the coin in the most ardent representative of languid lyricism. Thanks to the worker Semyon, we saw in the gentle poet, fluttering from flower to flower, a prudent owner, a respectable bourgeois and a small person. Then we thought about this fact and quickly became convinced that there was nothing accidental here. This must certainly be the underside of every poet who sings of “whispers, timid breathing, the trill of a nightingale” (Russian Word, 1864, books 9-11).
Already in new era, at the beginning of the next century V. Ya. Bryusov spoke about Fet’s “duality”. In the lecture “A. A. Fet. Art and Life,” given in 1902 in connection with the tenth anniversary of Fet’s death, he explained Fet’s contradictions by purely philosophical reasons. “Fet’s thought,” writes Bryusov, “raised by critical philosophy, distinguished between the world of phenomena and the world of essences. He said about the first that it is “only a dream, only a fleeting dream,” that it is “instant ice,” under which there is a “bottomless ocean” of death He personified the second in the image of the “sun of the world.” That human life, which is completely immersed in a “fleeting dream” and does not look for anything else, he branded with the name “market”, “bazaar”.<...>But Fet did not consider us hopelessly locked in the world of phenomena, in this “blue prison,” as he once said. He believed that for us there are exits to freedom, there are clearings... He found such clearings in ecstasy, in supersensible intuition, in inspiration. He himself speaks of moments when he “somehow strangely begins to see clearly.”
However, all the examples given by Bryusov date back to the 1860s and later: the earliest of them - “And somehow strangely sometimes I see clearly” (from the poem “Exhausted by life, the treachery of hope”) - 1864. Fet's previous work was not yet associated with German classical philosophy, but aesthetic principles The poet's ideas had developed quite definitely by this time.
It was they, who affirmed the service of beauty as the highest goal of free art, that made it possible for Fet to isolate poetic creativity from practical activity. And it was always like this, from the beginning to the end of the journey. The ideological and artistic evolution of Fet, the enrichment of his lyrics with philosophical issues, new discoveries in the field of poetic language occurred within one aesthetic system. Moreover, Fet deeply felt not only the inseparability of his artistic world throughout his entire journey, but also the integrity of the spiritual life he lived, from youth to old age.
Everything, everything that is mine, that is and was before,
In dreams and dreams there is no time of shackles;
The soul did not share blissful dreams:
There are no dreams of old age or youth.
In the already mentioned letter to K. Romanov dated November 4, 1891, Fet admitted: “From the first years of clear self-awareness, I have not changed at all, and later reflections and readings only strengthened me in the original feelings that passed from unconsciousness to consciousness.”
Among the later "reflections and readings", as is known, a significant place belonged to Schopenhauer. The philosopher attracted Fet with his idea of a holistic and always equal picture of the world, of free artistic contemplation, alien to practical interests. In 1878, Fet began translating Schopenhauer's main work, The World as Will and Representation.
In D. Blagoy’s article “The World as Beauty,” so named by analogy with the title of Schopenhauer’s work, it is rightly noted that Fet perceived Schopenhauer’s philosophy as a revelation, “because it turned out to be internally very close to him and at the same time brought him into a holistic and harmonious system what he learned in his own life experience and in the resulting worldview, in which it is easy to detect certain “Schopenhauerian” features that already existed long before meeting Schopenhauer.” Then the researcher develops his thought as follows: “It was close to him, “all his life,” as he writes, repeating “about the horror of life,” and the unconditionally pessimistic view of Schopenhauer, which the German philosopher himself contrasts decisively with all other philosophical systems (“since all of them optimistic")". However, saying that Fet’s poetry differs from his philosophical beliefs in its optimistic character, the author resorts to the well-known division “Fet - Shenshin”: “... in Fet’s poetry there is not even a shadow of that philosophy of pessimism, the feeling of the hopeless horror of existence, the experience of life as endless chain of suffering that constitutes the pathos of Schopenhauer's philosophical system. All this is left to Shenshin's needs." But is it possible to so decisively separate the worldview, philosophical views of the poet and his work? Suffice it to remember that in one of his letters to Tolstoy (February 3, 1879), Fet himself emphasized the connection of his poems with intensive studies of philosophy: " For the second year I have been living in a philosophical world that is extremely interesting to me, and without it it is hardly possible to understand the source of my latest poems." The letter was written just while working on the translation of Schopenhauer.
Indeed, Fet’s poetic world, despite the depth of suffering and the bitterness of loss, is generally optimistic, often even upbeat, inspiredly optimistic. But this is not the result of an internal detachment from Schopenhauer’s pessimism, but of its psychological, philosophical overcoming. Thus, the poem “Exhausted by life, by the treachery of hope, / When I yield my soul to them in battle...” (<1864>) opens with an epigraph from Schopenhauer, and ends with a completely different mood:
And these dreams in the world's breath,
Like smoke, I rush and melt involuntarily,
And in this epiphany, and in this oblivion
It’s easy for me to live and it doesn’t hurt to breathe.
Fet has very few hopelessly bitter poems, which are found in all great poets. One of them is “In vain!” (<1852>), written before meeting Schopenhauer, ends like this:
Powerlessness is known for words to express desires.
Silent torments have affected people for centuries,
But it’s our turn, and the series of trials will end
But it hurts
That the lot of life is hostile to holy motives;
In a person's chest it would be quite easy to reach them...
No! snatch and throw; those ulcers, perhaps, are healing, -
But it hurts.
Nevertheless, the general mood of Fet’s poetry, from youth to old age, from the enthusiastic and joyful “I came to you with greetings...” (1843) to “I still love, I still yearn / Before the universal beauty...” (end of 1890), very far from pessimism.
The unity of Fet's aesthetic world is reflected in the composition of "Evening Lights", where the chronological principle is not essential. Thus, the “Melodies” section (in the first issue) opens with “The night was shining. The garden was full of the moon...” (1877). Then, after several poems from the 70s, there are “The sun lowers its rays into a plumb line...” and “The mirror moon floats across the azure desert...” (both - 1863), then - “Forget me, frenzied madman...” ( 1855), and it all ends with the poem “The Old Sounds with the Old Charm...” (1863).
The same indifference to chronology is manifested in the formation of other sections ("Sea", "Snow", "Spring") and especially the section "Elegies and Thoughts", where poems written in the 60s, 70s and 80s , interspersed. Obviously, V. Solovyov, whom Fet called “the architect of this book” in his dedicatory inscription, in full agreement with the author, sought to present the reader with the aesthetically holistic world of the poet.
Strakhov, who also took part in the preparation of “Evening Lights,” undoubtedly held the same opinion. After Fet’s death, when Strakhov, together with K.R., was preparing the publication of Fet’s “Lyric Poems,” he wrote to his co-editor that it was necessary: “To maintain the order in which the poems were arranged, because this order was preserved in the memory of readers, and had some meaning for the author.<имер>, in the third issue, “The Muse” is directly adjacent to the preface. If you arrange it strictly chronologically, you will have to shuffle the poems and put in front what was written much earlier than Evening Lights.
“Pure art” (or “art for art’s sake”, or “aesthetic criticism”), a direction in Russian literature and criticism of the 50-60s of the 19th century, which is characterized by in-depth attention to the spiritual and aesthetic features of literature as an art form that has a Divine source of Goodness, Love and Beauty. Traditionally, this direction is associated with the names of A.V. Druzhinin, V.P. Botkin, P.V. Annenkov, S.S. Dudyshkin. Among the poets, the position of “pure art” was shared by A. A. Fet, A. N. Maikov, N. F. Shcherbina. The head of the school was A.V. Druzhinin. In their literary assessments, critics developed not only the concepts of beauty, the aesthetic itself, but also the categories of moral, philosophical, and sometimes social order. The phrase “pure art” had another meaning - “pure” in the sense of perfect, ideal, absolutely artistic. Pure is, first of all, spiritually filled art, strong in its methods of self-expression. The position of the supporters of “pure art” was not to separate art from life, but to to protect his truly creative principles, poetic originality and the purity of his ideals. They did not strive for isolation from public life (this is impossible for anyone to achieve), but for creative freedom in the name of establishing the principles of the perfect ideal of art, “pure”, which means independent of petty needs and political predilections. For example, Botkin spoke about art as art, putting into this expression the entire complex of concepts related to creativity free from social order and perfect in its level. The aesthetic is only a component, albeit an extremely important one, in the system of ideas about true art. Annenkov more often than Botkin spoke with critical articles. He owns over two dozen voluminous articles and reviews, the fundamental work “Materials for the biography of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin” and, perhaps, the richest in memoirs of the 19th century. "Literary Memoirs". An important point in Annenkov’s aesthetic views was the question of the artistry of art. Annenkov does not deny the “influence” of art on society, but considers this possible under the condition of true artistry. And the expression “pure” here does not mean the isolation of art from the urgent demands of social life, but the perfection of its quality, and not only in terms of form, but also in content. Druzhinin based his judgments about art on three principles that were the most important from the point of view of his aesthetic system: 1) Art - highest degree manifestations of the human spirit, which has a Divine source, in which the “ideal” and “real” are combined in a very complex and specific way; 2) Art deals with the universally significant, revealing it, however, through the “inner” world of an individual person and even “particulars” through beauty, beautiful (if there is an ideal) images; 3) While stimulating a person’s aspirations to the ideal, art and literature cannot, however, subordinate themselves to social pragmatism to such an extent as to lose their main advantage - to remain a source of moral transformation, a means of introducing a person to the highest and eternal values of spiritual existence.
2. The main themes of poetry of “pure art”
Russian literature of the 50s-60s includes several well-known poets today, who make up the galaxy of priests of pure art. These include Tyutchev, Alexei Tolstoy, Polonsky, Maikov and Fet. All these poets in the past of Russian literature go back to Pushkin, who in most of his youthful poems was a theorist of pure art and pointed out for the first time in Russian literature the importance of the poet.
Poetry is an end in itself for the poet; calm contemplation is necessary, withdrawing from the bustle world, and delving into the exclusive world of individual experiences. The poet is free, independent of external conditions. His purpose is to go where his free mind leads. Free creativity is a feat of the poet. And for this noble feat no earthly praise is needed. They do not determine the value of poetry. There is a higher court, and it only has to say, to evaluate poetry as a sweet sound, as a prayer. And this highest court is within the poet himself. This is how Pushkin determined the freedom of creativity and the individual world of the poet in the first period of his creative activity.
Pure poetry is lofty, sacred, earthly interests are alien to it, both with all approvals, hymns of praise, and censures, instructions and demands for what is useful for them. Poets - supporters of pure art - consciously went against the intensified flow of their time. This was a conscious reaction against the demands of civic duty and against all social demands. Therefore, their themes are mostly secular-aristocratic chosen. Poetry of a select circle of readers. Hence the predominant lyricism of love, the lyricism of nature, keen interest and attraction to classical models, to the ancient world(Maykov A.T.); poetry of world chaos and world spirit Tyutchev; aspiration upward, poetry of the moment, direct impressions of the visible world, mystical love for nature and the mystery of the universe.
At the same time, all these poets are characterized by complete indifference to the revolutionary and liberal tendencies that dominated the social life of that time. It is deeply logical that in their works we will not find any of the popular in the 40-50s. topics - denouncing the feudal police regime in its various aspects, the fight against serfdom, defending the emancipation of women, the problem of extra people, etc. are not of interest to these poets engaged in the so-called. “eternal” themes - admiring nature, depicting love, imitation of the ancients, etc.
These poets had their own teachers in world poetry; in modern poetry they were predominantly German romantics, close to them in their political and aesthetic passionism. The poets of “pure art” were no less close to ancient literature, the works of Anacreon, Horace, Tibullus, and Ovid.
Analysis of the poem by F.I. Tyutchev “Oh, how murderously we love...”
“Oh, how murderously we love...” (1851) - the 3rd verse of the “Denisyev” cycle, that is, a cycle of love lyrics consisting of fifteen poems dedicated to Elena Alexandrovna Denisyeva. This poem (it consists of ten stanzas) most fully expresses Tyutchev’s idea of love as a “fatal meeting”, as a “terrible sentence of fate.” “In the violent blindness of passions,” a loved one destroys the joy and charm of love: “We most certainly destroy / What is dear to our hearts!”
F. I. Tyutchev poses here the complex problem of the guilt of a person who, in the name of love, violated the laws of the world - the laws of falsehood and lies. The psychological analysis of F. I. Tyutchev in his late lyrics is inseparable from ethics, from the writer’s demands on himself and on others. In the “Denisevsky” cycle, he surrenders to his own feelings, and at the same time checks and analyzes it - what is the truth, what is the lie, what is the delusion and even the crime. This often manifests itself in the lyrical statement itself: in a certain lack of self-confidence and self-righteousness. “His” guilt is already defined in the first line: “how murderously we love,” although in the most general and abstract sense. The “violent blindness of passions” and their destructiveness clarify something.
“She” is a victim, but not only and not so much of the egoistic and blind passion of her lover, but of the ethical “lawlessness” of her love from the point of view of secular morality; F. I. Tyutchev’s defender of this legalized morality is the crowd: “The crowd, surging, trampled into the dirt / What was blooming in her soul. / And what did she manage to save from long torment, / Like ashes? / Pain, the evil pain of bitterness, / Pain without joy and without tears!” These ten quatrains are consonant with the story of Anna Karenina, which L. N. Tolstoy developed into an extensive novel narrative.
Thus, in the “unequal struggle of two hearts,” the woman’s heart turns out to be more tender, and therefore it is she who must inevitably “languish” and wither, die in the “fatal duel.” Public morality also permeates personal relationships. According to the laws of society, he is strong, she is weak, and he is unable to give up his advantages. He is fighting with himself, but also with her. This is the “fatal” meaning of their relationship, their selfless love. “In Denisiev’s cycle,” writes N. Berkovsky, “love is unhappy in its very happiness, the heroes love and in love itself remain enemies.”
At the end, Tyutchev repeats the first quatrain. She repeats it with doubled bitterness, blaming herself once again for the fact that his love has become for her a life of renunciation and suffering. He repeats with a pause, as if taking a break from the feelings that came so quickly. Tyutchev remembers for the last time the roses on her cheeks, the smile of her lips and the sparkle of her eyes, her magical gaze and speech, her infantile, lively laughter; draws a line to what happened for the last time. At the same time, by repeating the first quatrain, Tyutchev shows that everything is repeated: each of his new loves goes through similar difficulties, and this is a vicious circle in his life and he cannot break this circle.
Tyutchev writes in trochee pentameter and cross rhyme, which affects the smoothness of the poem, and therefore the fluidity of the author’s thoughts. Tyutchev also does not forget about the odic tradition of the 18th century: he uses archaisms (lanits, eyes, joy, renunciation, gaze), in the very first line there is an interjection “O”, which has always been an integral part of the odes, a certain prophetic pathos is felt: Tyutchev seems says that all this awaits any “sloppy” person who falls in love.
Be that as it may, " last love“F.I. Tyutcheva, like all his work, enriched Russian poetry with poems of extraordinary lyrical power and spiritual revelation.
Analysis of the poem by F.I. Tyutchev “Silentium!”
It is unlikely that any other work by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev (1803-1873) has been subject to so many contradictory interpretations as his brilliant poem “Silentium!” (“Silence!”) (no later than 1830). The poem "Silentium!" was written in 1830 in iambic tetrameter. The poem consists of 18 lines, divided into three six-line lines, each of which is relatively independent both in semantic and intonation-syntactic terms. The connection between these three parts is only in the development of the lyrical theme. Of the formal means, as a beginning that holds these three parts together, one can note homogeneous end rhymes - precise, strong, masculine, percussive - and the last rhymes they rhyme in each of the three six-line lines. The main thing that connects all three parts into an artistic whole is intonation, oratorical, didactic, persuasive, inviting and commanding. “Be silent, hide and conceal,” the indisputable command of the first line is repeated three more times, in all three six-line lines. The first stanza is an energetic conviction, an order, a strong-willed force.
In the second stanza, the energy of pressure and dictatorship weakens, it gives way to the intonation of conviction, the meaning of which is to clarify the decisive instructions of the first stanza: why should feelings and dreams be hidden in the depths of the soul? There is a chain of evidence: “How can the heart express itself? / How can someone else understand you? / Will he understand what you live for? / A thought expressed is a lie.” We are talking about sociability, about the ability of one person to convey to another not his thoughts - this is easier - but the life of his soul, his consciousness and subconscious, his spirit - that which is not reducible to reason, but is much broader and subtler. A feeling formalized into a thought by a word will obviously be incomplete, and therefore false. Others’ understanding of you will also be insufficient and false. Trying to tell the life of your soul, your feelings, you will only ruin everything, not achieving your goal; you will only alarm yourself, disrupt the integrity and peace of your inner life: “By exploding, you will disturb the springs, - / Feed on them - and be silent.”
The first line of the third stanza contains a warning about the danger posed by the very possibility of contact between two incompatible spheres - internal and external life: “Just know how to live within yourself...”. This is possible: “There is a whole world in your soul / Of mysteriously magical thoughts; / They will be deafened by the noise from outside, / The rays of day will disperse them.” “Mysterious magical thoughts” return the thought to the first stanza, since they are similar to “feelings and dreams”, which, like living beings, “both get up and go in” - that is, these are not thoughts, these are dreams, sensations, shades of the soul states, together their components living life hearts and souls. It is they who can be “deafened” by the “external noise”, dispersed by the “daytime” “rays” - all the confusion of the “daytime” bustle of life. Therefore, we need to protect them in the depths of our souls; only there they retain their harmony, structure, consonant “singing”: “Listen to their singing - and be silent!”
21. Romantic image and realistic detail in Fet's poetry.
a certain tradition of romantic poetry"poetry of hints"The inexpressible is only the theme of Fet’s poetry, but not a property of her style. in the artistic world of Fet, art, love, nature, philosophy, God - all these are different manifestations of the same creative force - beauty.A. Fet was interested in German philosophy; the views of idealist philosophers, especially Schopenhauer, had a strong influence on the worldview of the aspiring poet, which was reflected in the romantic idea of two worlds, which found expression in Fet’s lyrics.
Fet's creativity is characterized by the desire to escape from everyday reality into the “bright kingdom of dreams.” The main content of his poetry is love and nature. His poems are distinguished by the subtlety of their poetic mood and great artistic skill. The peculiarity of Fet’s poetics is that the conversation about the most important is limited to a transparent hint. Most shining example- poem “Whisper, timid breathing...”
Fet is a representative of the so-called pure poetry. In this regard, throughout his life he argued with N.A. Nekrasov, a representative of social poetry.
With landscape lyrics by A.A. Feta is inextricably linked to the theme of love. Fet's love lyrics are distinguished by their emotional richness; they contain joy and tragic notes, a feeling of inspiration and a feeling of hopelessness. The center of the world for the lyrical hero is his beloved. (“Whisper, timid breathing”, “Don’t wake her up at dawn”, “I still love, I’m still languishing...”, etc.). The prototype of Fet's lyrical heroine was the daughter of a Serbian landowner, Maria Lazic. Fet kept the memory of his tragically departed beloved all his life. She is present in his love lyrics as a beautiful romantic image-memory, a bright “angel of meekness and sadness.” The lyrical heroine saves the poet from the vanity of everyday life (“Like a genius you, unexpected, slender, / A light flew from heaven to me, / Humbled my restless mind...”).
The emotional state of the lyrical “I” of Fet’s poems also has neither a clear external (social, cultural-everyday) nor internal biography and can hardly be designated by the usual term lyrical hero.
No matter what Fet writes about, the dominant state of his lyrical “I” will always be delight and admiration for the inexhaustibility of the world and man, the ability to feel and experience what he saw as if for the first time, with a fresh, just born feeling. (poem “I’m Waiting,” 1842) One might think that the hero is waiting for his beloved, but the emotional state of Fet’s lyrical “I” is always broader than the reason that caused it. And now, before the reader’s eyes, the trembling anticipation of a close meeting develops into a trembling enjoyment of the beautiful moments of existence. As a result, one gets the impression of deliberate fragmentation, a broken plot of the poem.
A. A. Fet acutely feels the beauty and harmony of nature in its fleetingness and variability. His landscape lyrics contain many minute details of the real life of nature, which correspond to the most diverse manifestations of the emotional experiences of the lyrical hero. For example, in the poem “It’s Still a May Night,” the charm of a spring night creates in the hero a state of excitement, expectation, longing, and involuntary expression of feelings:
What a night! Every single star
Warmly and meekly they look into the soul again,
And in the air behind the nightingale's song
Anxiety and love spread.
In each stanza of this poem, two opposing concepts are dialectically combined, which are in a state of eternal struggle, causing a new mood every time. Thus, at the beginning of the poem, the cold north, the “kingdom of ice” is not only opposed to the warm spring, but also gives rise to it. And then two poles arise again: on one, warmth and meekness, and on the other, “anxiety and love,” that is, a state of anxiety, expectation, vague forebodings.
An even more complex associative contrast between natural phenomena and human perception of it is reflected in the poem “A fire blazes in the forest with the bright sun.” Here is a real, visible picture in which bright colors extremely contrasting: red blazing fire and black coal. But, besides this striking contrast, there is another, more complex one in the poem. On a dark night the landscape is bright and colorful:
A fire blazes in the forest with the bright sun,
And, shrinking, the juniper cracks,
A choir crowded like drunken giants,
Flushed, the spruce tree staggers.
Perhaps the most Fetov-like poem reflecting his creative individuality, is “Whisper, timid breathing...” It amazed the poet’s contemporaries and still continues to delight and enchant new generations of readers with its psychological richness with maximum laconicism expressive means. There is a complete lack of eventfulness in it, reinforced by the wordless listing of overly personal impressions. However, every expression here has become a picture; in the absence of action there is internal movement. And it lies in the semantic compositional development of the lyrical theme. First, these are the first discreet details of the night world:
Whisper, timid breathing, Trill of a nightingale,/ Silver and swaying/ of a sleepy stream...
Then, more distant large details, more generalized and vague, foggy and vague, come into the poet’s field of vision:
Night light, night shadows, / Shadows without end, / A series of magical changes / Of a sweet face.
In the final lines, both specific and generalized images of nature merge, forming a huge whole - the sky covered in dawn. And the internal state of a person is also included in this three-dimensional picture the world as an organic part of it:
There are purple roses in the smoky clouds,
The reflection of amber
And kisses and tears,
And dawn, dawn!..
That is, there is an evolution of human and natural plans here, although the analytical element is completely absent, only a recording of the poet’s feelings. There is no specific portrait of the heroine, only vague, elusive signs of her appearance in the subjective perception of the author. Thus, movement, the dynamics of the elusive, whimsical feelings convey complex world personality, evoking a feeling of organic merging of natural and human life.
The poetry of the eighties is characterized by a combination of two principles: the outbreak of “neo-romanticism”, the revival of high poetic vocabulary, the enormous growth of Pushkin’s influence, the final recognition of Fet, on the one hand, and on the other, the clear influence of realistic Russian prose, primarily Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (especially of course, the skill of psychological analysis). The influence of prose is enhanced by the special property of this poetry, its rationalistic, investigative character, a direct legacy of the enlightenment of the sixties.
Along with a general inclination towards fact, towards in-depth psychological analysis, these poets have a noticeably emphasized inclination towards realistically precise detail introduced into the verse. With the acute mutual attraction of two poles - the realistic, even naturalistic, and the ideal, romantic - the realistic detail itself appears in a conventionally poetic atmosphere, surrounded by the usual romantic cliches. This detail, with its naturalism and fantasy, is correlated not so much with the achievements of the previous realistic era of poetry, but with the aesthetic concepts of the coming era of decadence and modernism. A random detail that violates the proportions of the whole and parts is a characteristic stylistic feature of this transitional era: the desire to find and capture beauty not in eternal beauty, sanctified by time and art, but in the accidental and instantaneous.