Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (1820-1892) is one of the most major poets School of Pure Art. Far ahead of his time, Fet did not immediately find his way to the hearts of his readers. During the poet’s lifetime, only a few art connoisseurs were able to notice and feel the peculiarity of his poetic talent. The poet had the talent to “catch the elusive,” to give an image and name to what before him was nothing more than a vague, fleeting sensation of the human soul, a sensation without faith and name.
The poem “Whisper, timid breathing...”, written in the late 40s, is one of Fet’s most famous poems, from which his fame began. It became for many readers a symbol of all of Fetov’s poetry, his unique self-portrait. At one time, it brought the author a lot of grief, causing with its appearance the delight of some, confusion of others, numerous ridicule of adherents of traditional poetry - in general, a whole literary scandal. More than 30 parodies of this poem have been written.
It's all about it lyrical work for Fet’s contemporaries it was new, and everything was striking in its unexpectedness. First of all, the verblessness of the poem is striking: it is built only from nominal sentences (of the 36 words of which it consists, 26 are nouns). Thanks to this, it feels like everything in nature has stopped. But there is still some movement. It is conveyed by verbal nouns: breathing, swaying, change, reflection, whisper.
The most surprising and unexpected thing is that Fet’s objects are non-objective. They do not exist on their own, but as signs of feelings and states. They glow a little, flicker. By naming this or that thing, the poet evokes in the reader not a direct idea of the thing itself, but those associations that can usually be associated with it. The main semantic field of a poem is between the words, behind the words.
“Behind the words” the main theme of the poem develops: the feeling of love. The most subtle feeling, inexpressible in words, inexpressibly strong. No one had ever written about love like this before Fet. At first glance, the poem seems to be a collection of visual and auditory impressions, but it creates a very specific picture filled with specific content. It's like we're on a date night. You can imagine where and when the love meeting takes place: in the garden, by the stream, when the summer moonlit night reigns. Probably, a stormy explanation took place between the lovers, which was resolved at dawn with tears of happiness and farewell kisses. It was important for Fet to convey the “music of love,” so he looked for “musical ways” to express his poetic feelings.
Fet is one of the first impressionists in Russian poetry: he depicts not so much objects and phenomena as individual fragments of phenomena, subtle shades, reflections, shadows, and vague emotions. But taken together, they form a complete and reliable picture. The impressionistic style is especially felt in the line “Night light, night shadows, endless shadows.” On the one hand, a certain mystery of this light is emphasized, on the other hand, this serves as a justification for the author’s device: the last word of a sentence is the first of another. Thanks to this, the effect of smooth flow and unity in nature of all its manifestations is achieved.
The poem well illustrates the peculiarity of Fetov’s creativity: his love and landscape lyrics form one whole. Therefore, closeness to nature is closely related to love experiences. The feelings of lovers (whispers, timid breathing) are the same as the “trill of a nightingale”, “the swaying of a stream”.
Compositionally, the poem is divided into three parts. The first quatrain is a description of the evening in small strokes - nouns (whisper, breathing, silver, swaying of a stream), but in combination with epithets these nouns convey the feeling
from the meeting of lovers. The second quatrain is a description of a night spent together
in the rapture of love. In the first line, the epithet “night” enhances the magic of the night, which magically changed the facial features of the beloved. The second part conveys not only the depth of the night, but also the depth of the characters’ feelings. The night is beautiful, nothing interferes with the lovers. The third part is morning: “...And dawn, dawn!...”. But what is it like for Fet! The reader takes his gaze to the sky. Before us are “smoky clouds”. The epithet “smoky” emphasizes their lightness, weightlessness, purity, and this is not accidental, because the poem is about love. Author
uses color symbolism: “...the purple of a rose, the reflection of amber...”. And before us there appears a picture of dawn, early morning with light clouds painted in a pinkish-yellowish color... The technique of psychological parallelism is used here. Paintings
nature in the light colors of dawn correspond to the state of mind of the lovers: “and kisses and tears; and dawn, dawn..."
The key images of Fet’s lyrics are mentioned – “rose” and “nightingale”. They symbolically embody in his lyrics the connection of love, nature and inspiration. It is in these symbolic details of the external world that an unclear experience nevertheless appears. “Rose” is a symbol of the fire of passion, earthly joy, and also symbolizes natural beauty as a source of poetic inspiration. The poet’s nightingale trills act as a kind of “ray” connecting the moment and eternity, and the “nightingale” symbolizes the ideal, the sublime.
The ending of the poem is significant: it truly completes the lyrical plot. “Purple of a rose”, “glimmer of amber” turn into a triumphant “dawn” at the end of the poem. The last words of the poem - And the dawn, the dawn... - do not sound in line with others, but stand out. They are interpreted simultaneously both in the literal meaning (“dawn of the morning”) and in the metaphorical (“dawn of love”). Dawn symbolizes the light of love, the dawn of a new life is the highest expression of spiritual uplift.
In Fet’s lyrics there is a strong feeling of the insufficiency of verbal expression: “where the word is numb, where sounds reign, where you hear not a song, but the soul of the singer.” Therefore, a special place in Fet’s lyrics is occupied by the melodic organization of the verse: its euphony, the use of assonance, alliteration, and various rhythmic moves.
The feeling of movement, dynamic changes occurring not only in nature, but also in the human soul, is created due to the “hurried” rhythm of the trochee, alternating lines of four and three feet. It is important for Fet that the poem be read in one breath, unfold and fly by quickly, like the time of a date, so that its rhythm beats excitedly and quickly, like loving heart. Feminine rhyme gives the poem melodiousness and musicality.
The poem presents such expressive means as epithets, which are played by nouns: “silver”, conveying the color of the stream, “swaying”, conveying the meaning of light movement. The epithets “timid breathing” and “magical changes in a sweet face” convey the hero’s emotions when looking at the heroine. The personification metaphor “sleepy stream” conveys the peaceful state of nature at night. The author also uses a very sharp oxymoron - “night light” (instead of “moonlight”), metaphors “purple of a rose”, “glimmer of amber”, conveying the color of the morning dawn.
Throughout the entire poem, a non-union connection is used, only at the end does the repeated conjunction “and” appear, which speeds up the pace, leading to the climax: “And kisses, and tears, and dawn, dawn!...”.
The predominant number of vowels “o”, “e”, “a” create a mood: light, dim, at the same time there is some kind of variability and inconstancy in it. The sound “a” corresponds to the color red, it is exciting, corresponds to both the color of dawn and the mood of delight at the sight of it, the highest degree of feelings. Thanks to the alliteration of the sonorant sounds “r”, “l”, “n”, the most beautiful melody of the sounding verse is created.
Poetry A.A. Feta is the poetry of hints, guesses, omissions. WITH the best classics What makes him similar to Russian literature is that the central themes of his work were eternal themes: love, nature, art. Today we feel that Fet’s poems are eternal, like the “timid breath” of love.
Literature:
- Gasparov M.L. About Russian poetry. – St. Petersburg, 2001.
- Maimin E.A. Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet. – M.: Education, 1989.
- Sukhova N.P. Lyrics by Afanasy Fet. - M., 2000.
Description of work
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (1820-1892) is one of the most important poets of the school " Pure art" Far ahead of his time, Fet did not immediately find his way to the hearts of his readers. During the poet’s lifetime, only a few art connoisseurs were able to notice and feel the peculiarity of his poetic talent. The poet had the talent to “catch the elusive,” to give an image and name to what before him was nothing more than a vague, fleeting sensation of the human soul, a sensation without faith and name.
Fet's poem "Whisper, timid breathing..." appeared in print in 1850. By that time, Fet was already a fully established poet, with his own special voice: with a sharply subjective coloring of lyrical experience, with the ability to fill a word with living concreteness and at the same time catch new overtones, “shimmering” nuances in its meaning, with a heightened sense of the role of composition in a poem - a composition that, in essence, conveys the design, the structure of the development of the author’s feeling itself. Fet innovatively developed the figurative structure of verse, its melody, surprised with his free use of vocabulary and aroused indignation by his reluctance to listen to the elementary laws of grammar.
In a word, when the name Fet was mentioned, the idea of a brightly, overly pronounced poetic individuality arose in the minds of his contemporaries. By this time, Fet had established himself as a poet who focused on a rather narrow range of problems, far from the topic of the day, from the vital interests of reality. This gave his lyrics a reputation for being somewhat one-dimensional, and in the eyes of the most radical figures of the era, even a kind of inferiority.
The poem “Whisper, timid breathing...” became entrenched in the minds of contemporaries as the most Fetov-esque from all points of view, as the quintessence of Fetov’s individual style, giving rise to both delight and bewilderment:
In this poem, disapproval was caused primarily by “insignificance”, the narrowness of the topic chosen by the author, the lack of eventfulness - a quality that seemed inherently inherent in Fet’s poetry. In close connection with this feature of the poem, its expressive side was also perceived - a simple listing, separated by commas, of the poet’s impressions, which were too personal and insignificant in nature. Deliberately simple and at the same time bold non-standard shape could be seen as a challenge. And in response, indeed, sharp and well-aimed parodies rained down, since parody, as we know, plays up the most characteristic qualities style, concentrating both its objective properties and the individual artistic preferences of the author. IN in this case it was even assumed that Fet’s poem would not lose if it was printed in reverse order - from the end...
On the other hand, it was impossible not to admit that the poet brilliantly achieved his goal - a colorful depiction of the picture of night nature, psychological richness, intensity of human feeling, a sense of organic unity of mental and natural life, full of lyrical dedication. In this sense, it is worth citing the statement of Fet’s principled opponent in terms of worldview, Saltykov-Shchedrin: “Undoubtedly, in any literature it is rare to find a poem that, with its fragrant freshness, would seduce the reader to such an extent as Mr. Fet’s poem “Whisper, Timid Breath.” .."
The opinion of L. Tolstoy, who highly valued Fet’s poetry, is interesting: “This is a masterful poem; there is not a single verb (predicate) in it. Every expression is a picture... But read these poems to any man, he will be perplexed, not only what is their beauty , but what is their idea. This is a thing for a small circle of art lovers.”
Let's try to determine how Fet ensures that "every expression" becomes a "picture", how he achieves the striking effect of the immediacy of what is happening, the feeling of lasting time and, despite the absence of verbs, the presence of internal movement in the poem, the development of action.
Grammatically, the poem is a single exclamatory sentence running through all three stanzas. But our perception of it as an indivisible textual unit is firmly fused with the feeling of its internally compact compositional integrity, which has a semantic beginning, development and culmination. Fractional enumeration separated by commas, which may seem to be the main driver in the dynamics of experience, is in fact only external structural mechanism. Main engine lyrical theme– in its semantic compositional development, which is based on constant comparison, correlation of two plans: private and general, intimate human and generalized natural. This transition from the image of the human world to the world around, from what is “here, nearby” to what is “there, around, in the distance,” and vice versa, is carried out from stanza to stanza. At the same time, the character of a detail from the human world corresponds to the character of a detail from the natural world.
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The poetry of the classics of Russian literature has always served as an opportunity to look into the most hidden corners of one’s own soul. For some reason, it was forgotten or relegated to the background that the poet, being a living person, often expressed his own thoughts, experiences, anxieties in poems, and perhaps wanted to try to capture a fleeting period of happiness.
It is in the context of this important and interesting aspect that one of the most unique poems in Russian literature called “Whisper, timid breathing...”, written by Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet.
Whisper, timid breathing.
The trill of a nightingale,
Silver and sway
Sleepy stream.
Night light, night shadows,
Endless shadows
A series of magical changes
Sweet face
There are purple roses in the smoky clouds,
The reflection of amber
And kisses and tears,
And dawn, dawn!..
Brief information about the author's personality and biography
Fet's fate can be called truly difficult and even tragic. Future famous poet, lyricist, translator, author of memoirs, was born in Russia, although he could have been born in Germany - his mother, Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker, ran away from her husband from her historical homeland in the 7th month of pregnancy. As a result, she married the nobleman Shenshin; the boy received both his last name and a noble title. However, it later became clear that Afanasy had no legal ties to either Shenshin’s estate or his privileges, and, not being his biological son, could not claim either one or the other.As a result, Afanasy, now bearing the surname assigned to him at birth - Fet - was deprived of Russian citizenship, position, and inheritance. The “fix” idea was for him to return the lost title, but he was able to implement his plan only in 1873 - then Fet was already 53 years old!
Studying was easy for Fet: he graduated from a private German school in Estonia, Verro, and then entered the university, where he published his first collection of poems, which was called “Lyrical Pantheon”.
From 1845 to 1858 Fet devoted himself military service, because he thought that she was required condition to return the title of nobility. As a result, by 1853, Fet was sent to a guards regiment located near St. Petersburg, the then capital. This gave Afanasy Afanasyevich the opportunity to meet such famous personalities, like Turgenev, Goncharov, Nekrasov, as well as editors of the leading magazine Sovremennik.
During his military career, Fet had to taste the fruit of a tragic, unsuccessful, but strong love, the memory of which he retained until the end of his days and carried through all his work. The poet wanted to marry an educated girl named Maria Lazic, who came from a poor but good family. However, what could Fet give her then? He was poor - this was an obstacle to the engagement. And after some time, the girl died in a fire under extremely strange circumstances; some talked about suicide. Her last words were addressed to Fet. For the poet, the death of his beloved woman was a real tragedy.
Subsequently, at the age of 37, A.A. Fet took Maria Botkina as his wife. They never had children, but they family life can be called truly happy: the couple lived in perfect harmony, having wealth and weight in society.
The history of the creation of the poem
The poem “Whisper, Timid Breathing...”, unofficially recognized as one of the most romantic works of all Russian poetry, was created by the author in 1850 during a stormy love affair with the already mentioned Maria Lazic. It refers to early period the poet's creativity and marks the beginning of real innovation in literature.The fact is that Fet, who is a representative of “pure” poetry, never raised socio-political or social issues in his works. important issues. The only thing he recognized and for which he was ready to create was beauty, art, love. He was ready to put anything on the altar of chanting the beautiful; The main thing for him invariably remained the desire to reflect the smallest shades of human feelings and emotions.
Here, in this poem, the poet specifically refused to use verbs, since playing with form for maximum emancipation and disclosure of content is something that was generally characteristic of Fet. The action, which, it would seem, should be the engine of the plot, is rejected by Afanasy Afanasievich and forgotten. At the same time, this did not stop him from creating a hymn of nature and love, which descendants remember and know by heart today. In fact, the syntactic structure of the poem is one compound sentence, which, in turn, consists only of nominal sentences. Did any of Fet’s predecessors create something similar? No, I didn’t create it.
Analysis of the poem and main idea
“Whisper, timid breathing...” is a poem consisting of only 12 lines, in which the author, nevertheless, managed to convey the whole world, and not even just one.
Divided into 3 quatrains, each stanza represents a certain aspect of the experience lyrical hero: in the first reader and main character, not mentioned, but unspokenly present (from his face we see everything around us), hears only sounds (“whispering,” “breathing,” “trills,” “swaying); in the second, they are mixed with visual images (“shadows”, changes in the “sweet face”); finally, in the third, climactic stanza, the end of the date approaches, along with which the sensual moods of the hero and his beloved increase to the limit (“kisses,” “tears”).
In this poem, the author connected the world of human “volatile moods” with the world of nature, and which of them prevails remains unclear - one merges, harmoniously intertwines with the other, now coming to the fore, now retreating back. The game is based on parallelism: from the night landscape, Fet quickly but subtly moves on to depicting the most important situations and moments in the relationship between two loving hearts.
In front of the reader, despite the absence of verbal forms, the whole night quickly flashes by: shadows and “night light” give way to the dawn. As a result, the poem leaves a joyful, bright feeling, giving vigor and freshness, like dew appearing on the blades of grass in the early morning.
The final exclamations “And dawn, dawn!..” mark the triumph of a great feeling uniting with eternity. The dawn will come to earth every morning, and every morning lovers will greet it with tears in their eyes, either from the happiness of spending time together, or because of the bitterness of an imminent parting, which brings with it the beginning of a new day. One thing is obvious - as long as nature and the night that favors them exist, their feeling will not subside, and no one will be able to separate them.
Features of the verse: poetics and tropes
In this poem, Afanasy Afanasyevich actively turned to sound and color painting. The first can be observed in the phrases “the trill of a nightingale”, “the swaying of a sleepy stream”, “whisper”, “timid breathing”; the second in the lines “in the smoky clouds”, “purple of the rose”, “glimmer of amber”, “night light”, “endless shadows”. It is the successive, like iridescent sounds and delicate colors that determine the dynamism of the poem, show the movement and change of the entire surrounding space, unfold before the reader a real gradation of the hero’s feelings, make the work colorful, bright and memorable.
The author also uses metaphorization, personification, as well as epithets (“sleepy”, “sweet”, “timid”, “magical”) and repetitions (“night light, night shadows, endless shadows”). The last technique helps to balance the changes in the surrounding world that occur during the poem: despite the fact that all states are actively flowing into one another, these transformations seem to be simultaneously static, they are endless and open into universal eternity. This is a particularly significant moment for creating the image of a lyrical hero, for whom it is important that the time of the night date never stops, and also that the feeling of deep love always lives.
The last duplicate words (“And dawn, dawn!..”) represent an interesting syntactic construction. Thus, the exclamation mark obviously serves to give maximum uplift and solemnity, which should complete the glorification of nature and love between a man and a woman. However, the exclamation is also supplemented by an ellipsis, which seems to indicate that nothing is over yet, and this story, of course, will continue. The very repetition of words marks both the dawn of love, that is, the purest, brightest, joyful and unbridled stage of a relationship, and the dawn of the morning - a wonderful time of the day when all living things wake up, casting off the shackles of sleep. The idea of awakening and rebirth, connecting both worlds (mental and natural), is thus visible to the naked eye.
Features of rhythm, rhyme, size
The poem “Whisper, timid breathing...” is written in 4-foot trochee in lines 1-3 and 3-foot trochee in lines 2-4. The cross rhyme in lines 1 and 3 is feminine (the stress falls on the penultimate syllables in rhyming words), in lines 2-4 it is masculine (the stress falls on the last syllables).A large number of voiceless consonants leads to slower speech, its ductility, melodiousness, and smoothness. A similar effect is also achieved by the fact that the author does not use periods or final punctuation marks at the end of the first two stanzas, as a result of which they and the last, third, quatrain are read as if in one breath, continuing each other and building one common, long and whole associative series.
Conclusion
The poem “Whisper, timid breathing”, created by A.A. Fet, it was no coincidence that it was involved in the creation of numerous musical works such composers as N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov (in 1897), M.A. Balakirev (in 1904), N.K. Medtner (in 1912). In 2005, the music for it was written by Alexander Matyukhin, who also performed the romance. This is not surprising, because this poem by Afanasy Afanasyevich really inspires, awakens the desire to create, live and love!A. A. Fet is a poet who has admired the beauty of nature all his life. He recorded his enthusiastic attitude in poems. But often in his works the theme of nature and love were woven together, because Afanasy Afanasyevich believed that man should live in harmony with nature. The reader sees such a connection in the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath,” the analysis of which is presented below.
Title corrections
The analysis of the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath” should begin with the fact that during publication this work was somewhat modified. Meet various options writing the title. This is due to changes in spelling rules. And some adjustments were made by I. S. Turgenev, who published the poem in a magazine in 1850.
The writer changed some lines, believing that the poem would sound more harmonious. Turgenev often corrected Fet's poems in such a way that it did not always benefit them. Because the poet had his own, special style.
Some believe that Fet dedicated this work, like many others, to his beloved Maria Lazic. This love ended tragically, but Afanasy Afanasyevich continued to remember it. This poem is one of the best works of the poet, in which the beauty of nature is intertwined with human feelings, which gives the work a special charm.
Features of the composition
The analysis of the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath” should be continued compositional features. Despite its apparent simplicity and the absence of any plot, the reader does not perceive it as a list of words, because this work has a holistic composition, with its own beginning, climax and ending.
The verse consists of three stanzas, and each refers to a specific element of the composition. At the very beginning, the poet describes sleepy nature, which begins its awakening with the trills of a nightingale. Also, behind the first line you can guess the images of lovers who came on a date.
In the next stanza there is a denouement - the night changes to morning. But they replace each other in a matter of moments. And the poet depicts this play of light and shadow on the hero’s sweet face. And in the last stanza, the intensity of passions reaches its peak, as well as the beauty of nature - the dawn appears, a new day begins. With more detailed analysis The poem "Whisper, Timid Breath" can be seen that it contains a plot about two lovers observing the beauty of nature together.
Motif of love
In the analysis of the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath” by Fet, it should be noted that, in parallel with the description of the change of night and morning, there is also a development love line. Although the work does not mention any lovers, the reader understands from subtle hints that we are talking about them.
These are two lovers who rarely meet, and for them every date is exciting. The very first line in the work speaks about this. The hero treats his dear one with tenderness and warmth. These feelings are reflected in the line that mentions the play of light and shadow on a sweet face.
In the last stanza, the lovers have already become bolder, their passion flares up more and more. Just as the dawn becomes brighter. And the tears are caused by separation, because when morning comes they have to part. Thus, in his poem, the poet very subtly and delicately touches on an intimate topic, which in the 19th century was a bold decision.
Comparison of two topics
In the analysis of Fet's poem "Whisper, Timid Breath" it is important to note that the lyrical motif in the work develops thanks to the constant comparison of two themes. These are landscape and love lyrics. Each of these lines develops in parallel, which makes the work richer and more expressive.
Throughout the poem there is a development in the direction from less to more. If at the very beginning there was timidity and embarrassment between the characters, and nature was still asleep, then there is a gradual increase in the intensity of emotions. And at the same time, the hero’s perception of nature expands. His gaze covers more and more, as if with increased feelings he understands natural beauty more subtly and deeply. This emphasizes the poet’s opinion that a person should live in harmony with the world around him.
Poetic meter and method of rhyming
IN brief analysis of the poem "Whisper, Timid Breath" one of the points is the size of the poem and the way it rhymes. This work written in trochaic tetrameter. It consists of three stanzas, each with four lines. The rhyming method is cross.
Features in creating images
In a brief analysis of Fet’s poem “Whisper, Timid Breath,” it is worth noting how, with the help of colors, the poet managed to give his creation even more expressiveness and lyricism. Here, just as in the case of the plot, the reader sees a gradual gradation. At the very beginning, a calm, muted shade was chosen - silver.
In the second stanza, the poet continues to adhere to this scale, and the outline of the images themselves is still quite blurred and unclear. But mixing is already happening various shades(describes the play of light and shadow). In the final lines, the reader already notices the brightness of the colors (purple, amber), which correspond to a beautiful phenomenon - the dawn. Thus, the color scheme complements the lyricism of the picture described in the poem.
Literary tropes and means of expression
An important point in linguistic analysis Fet's poem "Whisper, Timid Breath" is its verblessness. So the poet focuses only on sensations, and actions remain behind the scenes. And this wordlessness gives the poem a special smooth rhythm, unhurriedness.
The epithets chosen by the poet very accurately reflect the emotional state of the characters. And the use of personification in describing the world around us emphasizes the idea of the unity of man and nature. Metaphors give the poem more lightness, weightlessness, and make the line between two lovers thinner.
Many of Afanasy Afanasyevich’s poems formed the basis of romances due to their special musicality. And in this poem, the poet resorted to the melody of words: alliteration and assonance gave the lines melodiousness and smoothness. And the laconicism of the phrases gives the work a touch of personal, emotional conversation.
Criticism of the poem
Not all of Fet's contemporaries were able to appreciate his creation. Many criticized the narrowness of his thinking, the absence of any action in the poem. At that time, society was already talking about revolutionary ideas and the need for reforms, so contemporaries did not like the topic chosen by the poet for his work. They said that his creation was absolutely unprincipled, and his main topic already ordinary and uninteresting.
Also, for some critics, the poem was not expressive enough. Not everyone was able to appreciate the purity and lyricism of the description of the poet’s experiences. Indeed, for that time, Fet, who boldly wrote a poem in such a laconic form, touching on quite intimate details, seemed to challenge society. But there were those who were able to appreciate the beauty and purity of this creation.
An analysis of the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath” according to plan shows the reader how original the style of A. A. Fet is. This work is one of his best creations, in which the poet touched on his personal intimate experiences, describing all this, using all the beauty and richness of the Russian language.
Whisper, timid breathing,
The trill of a nightingale,
Silver and sway
Sleepy stream.
Night light, night shadows,
Endless shadows
A series of magical changes
Sweet face
There are purple roses in the smoky clouds,
The reflection of amber
And kisses and tears,
And dawn, dawn!..
Analysis of the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath” by Fet
A. Fet is rightfully considered one of the best representatives romantic school. His works represent "art for art's sake." Distinctive feature Fet's creativity was an amazing combination of landscape and love lyrics. The poem “Whisper, Timid Breath” (1850) is one of the best creations of the lyric poet. It is dedicated to the tragic death of the poet’s first lover, M. Lazic.
The publication of the poem caused a lot of critical reviews. Many reproached the poet for being completely out of touch with reality and pointless. Fet was blamed for the lightness and airiness of the images. Some critics argued that the vague imagery concealed excessive eroticism. The most unfair were the statements that the poem was simply a technically weak trinket, worthy only of a mediocre rhymer. Time has shown that behind the apparent simplicity there was hidden enormous poetic talent.
The original feature of the work is that the author does not use a single verb. Even epithets do not play a big role, they only emphasize characteristic properties objects and phenomena: “timid”, “night”, “smoky”. The main effect is achieved by a special combination of nouns. Their diversity makes the poem dynamic and imaginative. “Human” concepts (“breath”, “tears”) are intertwined with natural ones, creating a feeling of inextricable connection. It is impossible to draw a boundary between them. Love relationship woven into the world. The feeling of passion dissolves in the surrounding colors and sounds. Morning changes in nature are immediately reflected on a person in the form of “changes in a cute face.”
The poem consists of one continuous sentence. This compensates for the lack of verbs and increases dynamics. The whole work is a combination of sounds, visual images and sensory experiences. The author gives the reader only general outline the pictures, the missing details must be filled in by the imagination. This opens up endless possibilities for flights of fancy. The culmination of the work is the coming dawn, symbolizing highest point love passion.