Nekrasov’s poetic feat consisted in the fact that he sang without embellishment about Rus', about the people; the poet could never come to terms with the fact that the people were powerless and oppressed. He dedicated his lyre to the people.
The poem “Reflections at the Main Entrance” (1858) is one of the best examples of the poet’s civic lyricism.
The story behind the creation of the poem “Reflections at the Front Entrance” is as follows. Once, from the window of his apartment on Liteiny Prospekt in St. Petersburg, Nekrasov watched a scene as a policeman and janitors drove away a group of peasant petitioners from the entrance of the house where the Minister of State Property M.N. Muravyov lived. The policeman and the janitors pushed them in the back. They hid behind the ledge of the entrance and stood, pondering their next steps. According to the memoirs of A.Ya. Panaeva, Nekrasov nervously pursed his lips, moved away from the window, and after a while read her the poem “Reflections at the Front Entrance.”
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The main theme of the poem is reflections on the fate of the people. Are the people capable of fighting for a just world order or are they “spiritually dead forever”?
The storyline of the poem is as follows: ordinary Russian men approach the front entrance (the doors of power). They deeply believe that they will find help and support from the sovereign official, that he will deal with their complaints. But they are not even allowed to the door of the nobleman. The walkers sincerely believe in the integrity of the king and his entourage, which is why they walked long haul According to Rus', this is clearly evidenced by the fact that they have “blood on their feet.” The climax of the poem is a reflection on the topic of “the fate of the people.” The work ends with a question.
Compositionally, the poem is divided into five strophoids, which have 40, 8, 4, 25, 40 lines, respectively. This compositional solution is quite original.
The first line of the poem is very specific: “Here front entrance..." The scene of action is determined - this is the front entrance of a rich house. It is to this entrance that people drive up on special days to pay their respects. They leave notes in a special book. Satisfied with themselves, they go home.
And in weekdays At this entrance you can see completely different faces - “poor”. Who are they? Projectors, place-seekers, very old people...
One day, ordinary Russian men approached the front entrance. They were noticed by the lyrical hero, who for the first time announced himself with just three words: “Once I saw...” The goal of the men-walkers is to get an appointment with an influential nobleman, but the doorman does not let them through. He looked around at those who approached - their appearance was unsightly. Someone suggested a solution to the doorman: “Drive.” And the walkers set off with nothing...
The second strophoid is separated from the first by an ellipsis. It begins with the adversative conjunction “a”. “And the owner of the luxurious chambers...” What is he doing? He's embraced deep sleep. The simple men left, “burned by the sun,” which means the sun is already at its zenith, and the nobleman is still sleeping. The motif of sleep is one of the key motifs in the poem “Reflections at the Front Entrance.” The life of the “owner of luxury chambers” is a dream. “Wake up...” the author calls on him.
In the third, small-volume strophoid, the author again makes a sharp turn from the world of wealth to the world of poverty. From an influential nobleman, in a deep sleep, to unknown people carrying “grief in their hearts.”
In the next part of the poem, the intonations are sharp, assertive, and extremely specific. There is an appeal to the one who owns the luxurious chambers:
“Why do you need this crying sorrow,
What do you need these poor people?..”
The charges brought against the person accused are serious and severe. They will never understand ordinary people those who value flattery and endless entertainment. They are deaf to the groans of the people. For them, life is an eternal holiday. This eternal holiday does not allow you to see the light, to wake up.
In terms of genre, the third and fourth strophoids are invective. (Invective - form literary work, sharply accusatory in nature). There is an angry pathos, a direct appeal to the addressee of the reproof, lines that include a curse:
“And you will go to your grave... hero,
Silently cursed by the fatherland..."
In the final strophoid, piercing and frank, Nekrasov, addressing the people, asks:
“Will you wake up, full of strength?..”
It was bitter for the poet to see the submission of the people, who did not even dare to grumble about their fate. The poem ends with deep thoughts. Yes, the people are powerless, but they are not crushed. The idea of the powerless position of the people is inseparable in the poem from thoughts about the dormant but genuine forces of the people. Nekrasov was convinced that the time would come when the people would “wake up” and throw off the shackles of slavery.
Main idea poems
“Reflections at the Main Entrance” - the thought of the incompatibility of worthy human existence and lawlessness.
Topics raised by Nekrasov in the poem “Reflections at the Main Entrance” - themes of compassion, humiliation of the people, their downtroddenness, long-suffering, tyranny, awakening.
Contrasts in the poem:
- “the owner of luxurious chambers” and the disadvantaged poor, “small people”,
- a rich house with a grand, magnificent entrance and a poor little house, a “poor tavern”,
- the wide Volga and the wide people's grief (even the mighty Volga does not flood the fields on such a scale as the people's grief is wide).
Issues works
Philosophical problems raised in the work - essence national character, problems of human happiness.
Meter and rhyme
The poetic meter of “Reflections at the Front Entrance” is a multi-foot anapest. Rhyme schemes vary: the work begins with ring circuit(abba), followed by a cross (abab). Next are variations of the adjacent, cross and ring rhyme scheme. The lines use both masculine and feminine rhymes.
Means artistic expression
Epithets - “solemn days”, “cherished doors”, “village Russian people”, “tattered mob”, “poor tavern”, “luxurious chambers”.
Metaphors - “Lush entrance”, “thin Armenian”, “poor faces”, “crying sorrow”, “advanced days”.
Metonymy - " The whole city... is arriving."
Common expressions are “vydy”, “koshli” (knapsacks), “for now”.
Rhetorical figures (rhetorical appeals) – “Volga! Volga!”, “Native land!”, “Oh, dear!”.
Exclamations - “Drive!”, “Wake up!”, “Turn them back!”
Stylistic figure - anaphora
“He moans across the fields...”
“He moans in prisons...”
“He groans under the barn...”
Repeated anaphora (repetition at the beginning) “moans” increases the perception of life as an unbearable burden.
The poem “Reflections at the Front Entrance” to me those liked it that it was written on a special nerve. It does not idealize the Russian peasant, but it also does not offend him. Nekrasov values the peasant; he understands that it is through the efforts of such peasants that the basis of social well-being is created. For a detailed depiction of the picture, the classical genre framework of poetry was cramped for Nekrasov. Therefore, he created the work “Reflections at the Front Entrance”, where the two organically coexist different genres: elegy, song, invective, philosophical ode (“Oh, dear one! What does your endless groan mean?”). A work of this kind is of particular interest.
Plan for analysis of the poem “Reflections at the Front Entrance”
1. Introduction
2. Which direction in lyricism does it belong to?
3. The history of the creation of the poem
4. The main idea of the poem “Reflections at the Main Entrance”
5. Compositional structure
6. Summary poem “Reflections at the Main Entrance”
7. The main idea of the poem
8. Topics raised in the poem
9. Contrasts in the poem
10. Issues
11. Meter and rhyme
12. Means of artistic expression
13. What did you like about the poem?
Most of Nikolai Nekrasov's poems are dedicated to life common people, who constantly faced difficulties, humiliation, finding himself in a hopeless situation.
For what reason does the author pay so much attention to the lives of ordinary peasants? The answer is obvious, Nekrasov himself experienced the hardships of poverty and poverty when he left his native estate and was left penniless and without an inheritance. In those years, Nikolai Alekseevich was able to feel all the horrors of peasant existence.
However, what worried and worried the poet most of all was the defenselessness and humility of ordinary people. They were completely unaware of their rights and were constantly forced to beg for alms and endure the whims of their masters. But most of all the poet was outraged by the fact that he had to experience humiliation not in front of high-ranking officials, but in front of their doormen.
In the governor's house, which was located in St. Petersburg, there were always a lot of people asking. Of course, the governor himself did not meet everyone who came. His doorman did this. It was he who, depending on his mood, on his command, decided who was worthy to go further and who was not. And this attitude was considered normal.
The peasants walked away, blaming the servants, however, behind them lay the will of the rulers themselves. It is unlikely that any of the high-ranking officials looked after and worried about those poor people who were driven out of the door. For such people, power and monetary savings were considered the most important wealth. They were not afraid of anything around them, because they had unlimited power.
Nikolai Alekseevich is simply outraged by the idea that an ordinary, simple person will never achieve anything without money and a noble position. In addition, the Russian begging man was another reason for the anger that the master felt, irritated by his arrival. But none of those proud rulers thought about the fact that society is maintained only thanks to hardworking and obedient peasants.
And so, Nikolai Nekrasov dreams that someday ordinary person will receive freedom and the right to choose.
“A poet passionate about suffering,” Dostoevsky exclaims after reading “ Latest songs» Nekrasova. Indeed, the motif of deep sorrow runs like a red thread through the entire work of this folk author. “Reflections at the Front Entrance” is one of his works, where we hear the eternal groan of the Russian people.
It took Nekrasov only two hours to create this masterpiece. In 1858, on a rainy autumn day, the poet’s wife called the poet to the window, from where he could see peasants who “wanted to submit some kind of petition and came early to the house” where the Minister of State Property lived.
Nekrasov approached precisely at the moment when “the house cleaners and the policeman were driving the peasants away, pushing them in the back” (from Panayeva’s memoirs). The scene had a strong effect on him and served as the basis for the appearance of a new poem.
Genre, direction and size
The poem is difficult to attribute to a specific genre: it combines the features of elegy (sad reflections on people's fate), satire (reflecting the lifestyle of the “owner of luxurious chambers”), songs (song motifs are present in the final part of the work, starting with the words “Native land!”). However, one can unambiguously determine the direction - civic poetry: the lyrical hero reflects his attitude to social events.
The work is written in multi-foot anapest (alternating trimeter and tetrameter).
Images and symbols
The image of the “front entrance” becomes the embodiment of the suffering of poor peasants, cruelty, social inequality. All the “poor faces” come to him. But the rich do not care about the slaves: the owner of the “luxurious chambers” showed indifference to the unfortunate petitioners, he did not even go out to them, “he was in a deep sleep.”
The image of village peasants is collective: Nekrasov reflected the situation of all workers who were forced to endure neglect from the nobles, work until exhaustion, providing the entire country with their labor. They always take out their anger on the poor; they are not considered people, although they are the support of the state, its strength.
Also important symbolic meaning Volga: the poet compares the grief of the men with the overflowing waters of the river, reflecting a feeling of deep despondency, as well as the scale of the people's grief.
Themes, issues and mood
The main theme of the poem is the theme of peasant fate. Nekrasov reflected the real situation of peasants in post-reform Rus' (serfdom was abolished in 1861). The people still suffer oppression from the masters, trying by any means to obtain a means of subsistence, exhausting themselves from hard work. The reform did not help them, because no one thought about the adaptation of ordinary people to the new life. They remained dependent slaves.
The problem of social injustice also attracts the author's attention. Using the example of poor petitioners and an influential nobleman, Nekrasov shows how very different the lives of the rich and the poor are. While some lead an idle life, eat plenty, hold receptions, others are shod in “homemade bast shoes” and have “tanned faces and hands” from constant labor under the scorching sun.
Nekrasov also touches on the theme of compassion in his work. In the last lines, the lyrical hero addresses the people directly:
Or, fate obeying the law,
You have already done everything you could,
Created a song like a groan
And spiritually rested forever?..
The author writes about the helplessness of the people, about the inability of a man to change his life. He mourns for the unfortunate barge haulers who are forced to carry their burden for decades. There is no place where the “sower and guardian” of the Russian land does not groan; this sound has become so commonplace that it is already “called a song.”
The mood in the work lyrical hero is changing. With malicious pathos, he describes the life of the “owner of luxurious chambers,” accusing him of “deafness to goodness,” of a meaningless existence. However, the hero has a different attitude towards the poor petitioners: he is imbued with sympathy for the fate of the common people, speaks with pity about their poverty appearance, their plight.
main idea
The meaning of Nekrasov’s antithesis is simple and clear: while workers are unsuccessfully fighting for their legal rights, their oppressors, useless and unscrupulous, are ruining the country with their wastefulness and laziness. By encouraging such stratification of society, a person becomes an enemy of his country.
Means of artistic expression
Nekrasov’s work is similar to a story: we can trace the sequence of actions, there are several heroes in it. However, speech certainly allows us to call it a poem. These are not only rhyming phrases, but also special tropes:
- Epithets that determine not only the type of image, but also author's attitude to him: “poor people”, “poor people”, “owner of luxurious chambers”.
- Anaphora (unity of command) The technique strengthens the motive of suffering, human grief: “He groans through the fields, along the roads, He groans through prisons, through prisons.”
- The evil pathos at the beginning of the work is carried out with the help of an invective - a sharp denunciation of the wealthy existence of a nobleman.
- The theme of social injustice is revealed thanks to this artistic technique as an antithesis: the magnificent front entrance is contrasted with the ordinary “poor people” who come here for help.
- Several times the author uses a rhetorical question (“What do you need these poor people?”, “Shouldn’t we take our anger out on them?”), and this stylistic figure ends the work. Nekrasov appeals to the entire people, trying to encourage them to fight injustice. These lines sound like a “challenge”.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!
A classic came out of hand large number poems written under a strong impression. This is how the work “Reflections at the Front Entrance” became, which was born within a few hours.
Reflections at the front door
Here is the front entrance. On special days,
Possessed by a servile illness,
The whole city is in some kind of fright
Drives up to the treasured doors;
Having written down your name and rank,
The guests are leaving for home,
So deeply pleased with ourselves
What do you think - that’s their calling!
And in ordinary days this magnificent entrance
Poor faces besiege:
Projectors, place-seekers,
And an elderly man and a widow.
From him and to him you know in the morning
All the couriers are jumping around with papers.
Returning, another hums “tram-tram”,
And other petitioners cry.
Once I saw the men come here,
Village Russian people,
They prayed at the church and stood away,
Hanging their brown heads to their chests;
The doorman appeared. “Let it go,” they say
With an expression of hope and anguish.
He looked at the guests: they were ugly to look at!
Tanned faces and hands,
The Armenian boy is thin on his shoulders,
On a knapsack on their bent backs,
Cross on my neck and blood on my feet,
Shod in homemade bast shoes
(You know, they wandered for a long time
From some distant provinces).
Someone shouted to the doorman: “Drive!
Ours doesn’t like ragged rabble!”
And the door slammed. After standing,
The pilgrims untied their wallets,
But the doorman did not let me in, without taking a meager contribution,
And they went, scorched by the sun,
Repeating: “God judge him!”
Throwing up hopeless hands,
And while I could see them,
They walked with their heads uncovered...
And the owner of luxurious chambers
I was still in deep sleep...
You, who consider life enviable
The intoxication of shameless flattery,
Red tape, gluttony, gaming,
Wake up! There is also pleasure:
Turn them back! their salvation lies in you!
But the happy are deaf to goodness...
The thunder of heaven does not frighten you,
And you hold earthly ones in your hands,
And these unknown people carry
Inexorable grief in the hearts.
Why do you need this crying sorrow?
What do you need these poor people?
Eternal holiday quickly running
Life doesn't let you wake up.
And why? Clickers' fun
You are calling for the people's good;
Without him you will live with glory
And you will die with glory!
More serene than an Arcadian idyll
The old days will set:
Under the captivating sky of Sicily,
In the fragrant tree shade,
Contemplating how the sun is purple
Plunges into the azure sea,
Stripes of his gold, -
Lulled by gentle singing
Mediterranean wave - like a child
You will fall asleep, surrounded by care
Dear and beloved family
(Waiting impatiently for your death);
They will bring your remains to us,
To honor with a funeral feast,
And you will go to your grave... hero,
Silently cursed by the fatherland,
Exalted by loud praise!..
However, why are we such a person?
Worrying for small people?
Shouldn't we take our anger out on them? -
Safer... More fun
Find some consolation in something...
It doesn’t matter what the man endures;
This is how providence guides us
Pointed... but he's used to it!
Behind the outpost, in a wretched tavern
The poor will drink everything down to the ruble
And they will go, begging along the road,
And they will groan... Native land!
Name me such an abode,
I've never seen such an angle
Where would your sower and guardian be?
Where would a Russian man not moan?
He moans across the fields, along the roads,
He groans in prisons, in prisons,
In the mines, on an iron chain;
He groans under the barn, under the haystack,
Under a cart, spending the night in the steppe;
Moaning in his own poor house,
I am not happy with the light of God's sun;
Moans in every remote town,
At the entrance of courts and chambers.
Go out to the Volga: whose groan is heard
Over the great Russian river?
We call this groan a song -
The barge haulers are walking with a towline!..
Volga! Volga!.. In spring, full of water
You're not flooding the fields like that,
Like the great sorrow of the people
Our land is overflowing, -
Where there are people, there is a groan... Oh, my heart!
What does your endless groan mean?
Will you wake up full of strength,
Or, fate obeying the law,
You have already done everything you could, -
Created a song like a groan
And spiritually rested forever?..
The history of the creation of the poem
According to the recollections of contemporaries, the poem “Reflection at the Main Entrance” was written at a time when Nikolai Alekseevich was in the blues. This is how Panaeva, with whom he lived for more than ten years, saw him. She described this day in her memoirs, saying that the poet spent the whole day on the couch without even getting up. He refused to eat and did not want to see anyone, so there was no reception that day.
Avdotya Panaeva recalled that, worried about the poet’s behavior, the next day she woke up earlier than usual and decided to look out the window to see what the weather was like outside. The young woman saw peasants on the porch waiting for the front entrance opposite the poet’s house to open. Prince N. Muravyov, who at that time served as the Minister of State Property, lived in this house. Even though the weather was rainy, damp and cloudy, the peasants sat on the steps of the front porch and waited patiently.
Most likely, they came here early in the morning, when dawn was just beginning to rise. From their dirty clothes one could easily understand that they had come from afar. And they probably had only one goal - to submit a petition to the prince. The woman also saw how a doorman suddenly appeared on the steps, began sweeping and drove them out into the street. But the peasants still didn’t leave: they hid behind the ledge of this entrance and, freezing, moving from foot to foot, getting wet to the thread, pressed against the wall, trying to hide from the rain, expecting that maybe they would still be accepted, listened to , or at least they will accept a petition.
Panaeva could not stand it and went to the poet to tell him the whole situation. When Nikolai Nekrasov approached the window, he saw how the peasants were driven away. The janitor and the called policeman pushed them in the back, trying to clear them from the entrance and the yard in general as quickly as possible. This greatly angered the poet, he began to pluck his mustache, which is what he did when he was very nervous, and pressed his lips tightly together.
But he couldn’t watch for a long time, so he very soon moved away from the window, and, lost in thought, lay down on the sofa again. And exactly two hours later he read his new poem to Avdotya, which was originally called “At the Front Entrance.” Of course, the poet changed a lot in the picture that he saw in reality, and added fiction to bring up themes of retribution and biblical and righteous judgment. Therefore, this poetic plot has a symbolic meaning for the author.
But the censorship could not miss such a poetic creation by Nekrasov, so it was simply rewritten for five years and passed from hand to hand, rewritten by hand. In 1860 it was published in one of the literary magazines, but without indicating the author. Herzen, who contributed to the publication of this Nekrasov poem, in his magazine "Bell", below the text of the poem, also wrote a note in which he said that poems are rarely included in their magazines, but
“There is no way not to place the poem.”
The author's attitude towards his work
In his story, the poet shows a simple and common situation for that time, when peasants become humiliated and insulted. The situation depicted by the author, for the morals and practices of that time, was commonplace and familiar to many contemporaries. But Nikolai Alekseevich turns it into a whole story, which is based on real and truthful facts.
The poet shows his attitude to the fact that the peasants, accustomed to humiliation, do not even try to protest. They, like silent slaves, quietly allow themselves to be bullied. And this habit of theirs also horrifies the poet.
Some readers may also consider in its plot a call for rebellion, which the poet, as a patriot of his beloved country and suffering people, created in such an interesting poetic form. And now, when his patience has already reached a certain peak, he calls on his people to rise up against slavery and injustice.
The main idea that Nekrasov is trying to convey is that the people will not be able to get through or even stand at the front entrance.
We need to act differently.
Basic images and means of expression
The main image of the entire Nekrasov poem is, first of all, the author himself, whose voice is constantly heard, and the reader feels his attitude to everything that is happening and to the problem that he raises. But nevertheless, he does not name himself, and creates his image as if he is not speaking from himself, but as if hidden behind reality, behind those pictures of the world that he draws with the help of expressive means. In every detail you can see the author who is trying to emphasize his attitude to reality.
The characters in Nekrasov's plot are different. Most of them are united by one thing - suffering and hero. The author divides all the petitioners who visit this front entrance into two groups: someone comes out humming something pleasant to themselves, and the second group of people usually comes out crying.
And after such a division, the second part of his story begins, where he immediately speaks directly about what once he, the poet Nikolai Nekrasov, happened to see. With each new line in the plot, the voice of the author grows, who became an involuntary witness of human grief and servility. And the poet’s voice sounds strong and angry, since he feels not at all like a witness, but like a participant in all this.
It is enough to read carefully the characteristics that the author gives to the peasants who came with a petition. They wait, do not ask, and when they are not accepted, then, having come to terms with this, they obediently wander on. And soon the author takes the reader to those rooms where the peasants were never able to get into. The writer shows the life of such an official who continues to humiliate the peasants, considering himself superior to them.
In the third part of Nekrasov’s plot, you can hear the grief of the poet himself, who is indignant and protests against such an attitude towards the peasants. But how does an official feel who so easily drives the peasants away? And here the author uses means of expression to make his monologue more lively and visual:
⇒Expression.
⇒Complex sentences.
⇒Rhetorical exclamations and questions.
⇒Dactylic rhyme.
⇒Alternation of anapests: trimeter and tetrameter.
⇒Conversational style.
⇒Antithesis.
Analysis of the poem
The author tries to show the contrast between the life of a well-fed official who does what he is passionate about gambling, gluttony, constant lies and falsehood in everything, and a completely different opposite life among the peasants who do not see anything good.
The life of a peasant is tragic, and prisons and jails are always ready for the peasant. The people are constantly oppressed, which is why they suffer so much. Such a strong people perishes at the behest of officials, whose generalized portrait is shown in the poem.
Nikolai Nekrasov is outraged by such a long patience of the common people. He tries to become their protector, because they themselves are not indignant or complain. The poet and the official calls on him to come to his senses, to finally remember his duties, because his task is to serve for the benefit of his homeland and the people who live here. The author is indignant at the fact that such order and lawlessness reign in his beloved country, and hopes that this will all stop soon.
But the author addresses not only the official, but also the people themselves, who are silent. He asks him how much longer he can endure and when, finally, he will wake up and stop being filled with grief and suffering. After all, their terrible groan is heard throughout the country, and it is terrible and tragic.
The poet's indignation is so great, and his faith is so strong that the reader has no doubt that justice will prevail.
Analysis of the poem
1. The history of the creation of the work.
2. Characteristics of a work of lyrical genre (type of lyrics, artistic method, genre).
3. Analysis of the content of the work (analysis of the plot, characteristics of the lyrical hero, motives and tonality).
4. Features of the composition of the work.
5. Analysis of means of artistic expression and versification (presence of tropes and stylistic figures, rhythm, meter, rhyme, stanza).
6. The meaning of the poem for the poet’s entire work.
The poem “Reflections at the Main Entrance” was written by N.A. Nekrasov in 1858. It was first published in the Kolokol newspaper in 1860 under the title “At the Main Entrance.” The author's name was not indicated. A.I. Herzen published it with the following note: “We very rarely publish poems, but there is no way not to publish this kind of poem.” It appeared in the official press only five years after it was written. The testimony of Nekrasov’s wife, A.Ya., has been preserved. Panaeva, about how this work was created. The windows of the poet’s apartment on Liteiny Prospekt in St. Petersburg looked at the entrance of the Minister of State Property M.N. Muravyov, and Nekrasov, probably, it was there that he could observe these scenes. This is how Panaeva recalls one incident: “It was deep autumn, the morning was cold and rainy. In all likelihood, the peasants wanted to submit some kind of petition and came to the house early in the morning. The doorman, sweeping the stairs, drove them away; They took cover behind the ledge of the entrance and shifted from foot to foot, hiding against the wall and getting wet in the rain. I went to Nekrasov and told him about the scene I had seen. He approached the window at the moment when the house janitors and the policeman were driving the peasants away, pushing them in the back. Nekrasov pursed his lips and nervously pinched his mustache; then he quickly moved away from the window and lay down again on the sofa. An hour later he read me the poem “At the Main Entrance.”
We can classify the poem as civil poetry. Its main theme is tragic fate Russian people. The poem includes numerous appeals from the lyrical hero - to one of the characters (“the owner of luxurious chambers”), to native land, to the Volga, to the Russian people. All of them remain unanswered, representing only a one-sided dialogue, the thoughts of the hero. However, the work also synthesizes the genre features of satire, ode, pamphlet, elegy and song.
The composition of the work is based on the principle of antithesis. The first part shows a picture of the front entrance of a noble nobleman “on special days.” This piece is a satirical description.
Here is the front entrance. On special days,
Possessed by a servile illness,
The whole city is in some kind of fright
Drives up to the treasured doors;
Having written down your name and rank,
The guests are leaving for home,
So deeply pleased with ourselves
What do you think - that’s their calling!
The second part depicts the front entrance “on ordinary days.” Here the tone of the lyrical hero becomes neutral, irony gives way to calm intonations. The petitioners here are “projectors”, “place seekers”, “an elderly man”, “a widow”, “couriers with papers” come and go. Next, the hero talks about how he once saw other petitioners there - Russian men who came from some distant provinces. Having prayed for the church, they turn to the doorman with a request to let them in and offer him a “meager contribution.” The expression of "hope and anguish" is etched on their faces. They probably traveled a hard, long way, hoping to find the truth in St. Petersburg. However, the doorman remains indifferent; the walkers seem to him pathetic ragamuffins:
He looked at the guests: they were ugly to look at!
Tanned faces and hands,
The Armenian boy is thin on his shoulders,
On a knapsack on their bent backs,
Cross on my neck and blood on my feet,
Shod in homemade bast shoes...
The image of the peasants - central image this poem. This image is collective, generalized. Behind the group of men appears, as it were, all of rural Rus'. High, epic intonations appear in the poem. Irony, objective descriptiveness - all this gives way to warm sympathy, sincere sympathy. The hero sees biblical pilgrims in the peasants, truth seekers. This theme is reinforced by the motif of the scorching sun. And here the motive of sin and retribution already comes to the fore, thus preparing the content of the third part of the poem:
And the door slammed. After standing,
The pilgrims untied their wallets,
But the doorman did not let me in, without taking a meager contribution,
And they went, scorched by the sun,
Repeating: “God judge him!”
Throwing up hopeless hands,
And while I could see them,
They walked with their heads uncovered...
The image of the “owner of luxurious chambers” in the third part is contrasted with the image of suffering peasants. This character is depicted in a satirical-odic manner. His life is an “eternal holiday”, a serene dream, an “Arcadian idyll”. His values are red tape, gluttony, and gambling. The fate of the people does not bother him:
What is this crying sorrow to you?
What do you need these poor people?
By the strength of its satirical denunciation, by its angry, indignant intonations, this part of the poem reminds us of a pamphlet:
And why? Clickers' fun
You are calling for the people's good;
Without him you will live with glory
And you will die with glory!
In the final part, Nekrasov moves from the images of Russian peasant petitioners, exhausted by the road, to a broad, generalized image - the image of groaning Rus', overflowing with the great sorrow of the people:
Native land!
Name me such an abode,
I've never seen such an angle
Where would your sower and guardian be?
Where would a Russian man not moan?
Using the technique of hyperbole, Nekrasov’s lyrical hero metaphorically compares the grief of the people with the spring flood of the Volga:
Volga! Volga!.. In spring, full of water
You're not flooding the fields like that,
Like the great sorrow of the people
Our land is overflowing...
The entire sound of this part is determined by the song intonation. There are repetitions (“he groans... he groans”), internal rhymes, and numerous calls from the lyrical hero. Musicality is determined by the very choice of themes - “native land”, “Volga”.
Go out to the Volga: whose groan is heard
Over the great Russian river?
We call this groan a song -
The barge haulers are walking with a towline!..
The poem ends with a painful thought about the fate of the Russian people, about their capabilities:
Where there are people, there is a groan... Oh, my heart!
What does your endless groan mean?
Will you wake up full of strength,
Or, fate obeying the law,
You've already done everything you could -
Created a song like a groan
And spiritually rested forever?
Compositionally, the work is divided into three parts. The first part is a description of the front entrance on special days. The second part is a description of the front entrance on ordinary days, an image of wanderers, Russian peasant petitioners. The third part includes a depiction of the image of a noble nobleman, as well as the hero’s appeal to the “owner of luxurious chambers,” to his native land, to the Volga and to the Russian people.
The poem combines three-foot and four-foot anapest, rhyme patterns - cross, ring and paired. The poet uses various means of artistic expression: epithet (“poor faces”, “under the captivating sky”, “purple sun”), metaphor and antithesis (“Heavenly thunders do not frighten you, But you hold earthly ones in your hands”), anaphora (“Where would your sower and keeper, Where would the Russian peasant not moan?”), rhetorical questions and appeals (“Hey, heartfelt! What does your endless groan mean?”), syntactic parallelism(“He groans in the fields, along the roads, He groans in prisons, in prisons...”), non-union and ranks homogeneous members(“The intoxication of shameless flattery, red tape, gluttony, gambling...”), phraseological units (“Arcadian idyll”, “The light of God’s sun is not happy”), an aphoristic phrase (“You call Schelkoper’s fun the people’s good”). In the poem we find words and expressions of high style (“pilgrims”, “meager mite”, “funeral feast”, “fatherland”, “reposed”). Analyzing the phonetic structure of the work, we note the presence of alliteration (“Writing down his name and rank”, “Volga! Volga! In the spring of abundant water...”) and assonance (“He groans through the fields, along the roads...”).
“Reflections at the Front Entrance” is the poet’s programmatic work. The Russian people are the central image of all his work. Critics noted that Nekrasov’s attitude towards folk life was more real than all other poets. And this is not the reality of Pushkin, not the reality of Koltsov, not the reality of Mey. This is “something of our own, completely special, purely individual... - penetration into the very essence of people’s life from the side of its urgent needs and hidden, invisible suffering.”