Poets of “pure art”
Fet Afanasy Afanasyevich (1820 -1892)
“Almost all of Russia sings his (Fet’s) romances,” composer Shchedrin wrote in 1863. Tchaikovsky called him not just a poet, but a poet-musician. And, indeed, the indisputable advantage of most of A. Fet’s poems is their melodiousness and musicality.
Fet's father, the rich and well-born Oryol landowner Afanasy Shenshin, returning from Germany, secretly took the wife of a Darmstadt official, Charlotte Fet, from there to Russia. Soon Charlotte gave birth to a son, a future poet, who also received the name Athanasius. However, the official marriage of Shenshin to Charlotte, who converted to Orthodoxy under the name Elizabeth, took place after the birth of her son. Many years later, church authorities revealed the “illegality” of the birth of Afanasy Afanasyevich, and, already as a 15-year-old boy, he began to be considered not the son of Shenshin, but the son of the Darmstadt official Fet living in Russia. The boy was shocked. Not to mention, he was deprived of all rights and privileges associated with nobility and legal inheritance. The young man decided to achieve at all costs everything that fate had so cruelly taken from him. And in 1873, the request to be recognized as Shenshin’s son was granted, but the price he paid for achieving his goal, for correcting the “misfortune of his birth,” was too great:
Long-term (from 1845 to 1858) military service in a remote province;
Refusal of the love of a beautiful but poor girl.
He acquired everything he wanted. But this did not soften the blows of fate, as a result of which the “ideal world,” as Fet wrote, “was destroyed long ago.”
The poet published his first poems in 1842 under the name Fet (without dots above the e), which became his permanent name. literary pseudonym. In 1850, he became close to Nekrasov’s Sovremennik, and in 1850 and 1856 the first collections, “Poems by A. Fet,” were published. In the 1860s - 1870s, Fet left poetry, devoting himself to economic affairs in the Stepanovka estate in the Oryol province, next to the Shenshins' estates, and for eleven years he served as a justice of the peace. In the 1880s the poet returned to literary creativity and published the collections “Evening Lights” (1883, 1885, 1888, 1891).
Fet is the most significant representative of the galaxy of poets " pure art", in whose work there is no place for citizenship.
Fet constantly emphasized that art should not be connected with life, that the poet should not interfere in the affairs of the “poor world.”
Turning away from the tragic sides of reality, from those questions that painfully worried his contemporaries, Fet limited his poetry to three themes: love, nature, art.
Fet's poetry is the poetry of hints, guesses, omissions; His poems for the most part do not have a plot - they are lyrical miniatures, the purpose of which is to convey not so much thoughts and feelings as the “volatile” mood of the poet.
IN landscape lyrics Feta has perfected his insight into the slightest changes in the state of nature. Thus, the poem “Whisper, timid breathing...” consists exclusively of nominal sentences. Due to the fact that there is not a single verb in the sentence, the effect of a precisely captured momentary impression is created.
Poem
The night was shining. The garden was full of moonlight. were lying
Rays at our feet in a living room with no lights
can be compared with Pushkin’s “I remember wonderful moment" Just like Pushkin, Fetov’s poem has two main parts: it talks about the first meeting with the heroine and the second. The years that passed after the first meeting were days of loneliness and melancholy:
And many tedious and boring years have passed...
The ending expresses strength true love, which raises the poet above time and death:
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!
Poem " Drive away a living boat with one push" - about poetry. For Fet, art is one of the forms of expression of beauty. It is the poet, believes A.A. Fet is able to express something “that makes the tongue go numb.”
Tyutchev Fedor Ivanovich (1803 - 1873)
Tyutchev - "one of the greatest lyricists who existed on earth."
F.I. was born. Tyutchev on December 5, 1803 in the city of Ovstug, Bryansk district, Oryol region. The future poet received a wonderful literary education. At the age of 13, he became a free student at Moscow University. At the age of 18 he graduated from the literature department of Moscow University. In 1822 he entered the service of the State College of Foreign Affairs and went to Munich for diplomatic service. Only 20 years later he returned to Russia.
For the first time, Tyutchev’s poems were published in Pushkin’s Sovremennik in 1836, the poems were a tremendous success, but after Pushkin’s death, Tyutchev did not publish his works, and his name was gradually forgotten. An unprecedented interest in the poet’s work flared up again in 1854, when Nekrasov published a whole selection of his poems in his Sovremennik.
Among the main themes of F.I.’s lyrics. Tyutchev can be distinguished as philosophical, landscape, love.
The poet thinks a lot about life, death, the purpose of man, the relationship between man and nature.
Poems about nature trace the idea of animating nature, belief in its mysterious life:
Not what you think, nature:
Not a cast, not a soulless face -
She has a soul, she has freedom,
It has love, it has language.
Nature appears in Tyutchev's lyrics in the struggle of opposing forces, in the continuous change of day and night.
No wonder winter is angry -
Its time has passed.
Spring is knocking on the window
And he drives him out of the yard.
Tyutchev was especially attracted to transitional, intermediate moments in the life of nature. The poem “Autumn Evening” shows a picture of autumn twilight; in the poem “I Love a Thunderstorm in Early May” we enjoy, together with the poet, the first thunder of spring.
Reflecting on the fate of his Motherland, Tyutchev writes one of his most famous poems:
You can't understand Russia with your mind,
The general arshin cannot be measured:
She will become special -
You can only believe in Russia.
TO the best creatures Tyutchev also wrote love lyrics, imbued with the deepest psychologism, genuine humanity, and nobility.
In his declining years, Tyutchev experienced the greatest feeling in his life - love for Elena Alexandrovna Deniseva. The poems that he dedicated to her were included in the so-called “Denisevsky cycle” (“Oh, how murderously we love”, “More than once have you heard a confession”, “ last love" and etc.). On July 15, 1873, Tyutchev died.
Russian painting literary life 30-50s would be incomplete if we did not take into account the existence of poetry, the so-called. "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 led by Tyutchev and young Fet. Easy to install noble origin this poetry: sympathy for the estate, admiration of its nature, the serene life of its owner, the leitmotif runs 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 impossible to deny the significance of the artistic level of this poetry, manifested in the sophistication of its images, and in the refinement of the composition, and in the melodic structure of the verse. But all these indisputable advantages are developed in the lyrics of “pure art” due to the richness, diversity, and most importantly, the progressiveness of the social content contained in it. The ideology of the poets of “pure art” is poor and unpromising, it could not have been otherwise when they were engaged in all of them political positions. This explained it enough weak impact them on further Russian poetry, since its main movements (Nekrasov, Kurochkyan) are certainly hostile to the group of Fet and Maykov. The poets of the noble right did not create such aesthetic values that could be included in the creative fund of classical poetry and would retain their significance for the modern reader. The only exceptions were Fet and Tyutchev, the first - by his artistic penetration into the world of nature, the second - by the acuteness with which he expressed the overwhelming feeling of the collapse of his class, which he subjectively experienced as a universal crisis of consciousness.
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.
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.
The peculiarity of Fet's poetics is that the conversation about the most important is limited to a transparent hint. The most striking example is the poem “Whisper, timid breathing...”.
Whispers, timid breathing,
Nightingale trills
Silver and sway
Sleepy Creek
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!..
Fet's poem "whisper, timid breathing" has 3 stanzas, each of which has 4 verses.
The theme of this poem is nature. The author describes the transitional state of nature from night to morning. Description of the night...nature is beautiful at night.
The author does not use verbs - this gives the poem greater expressiveness and beauty. Great amount voiceless consonants in each stanza slows down speech, makes it viscous, smoother, in tune with the poetic language of the 20th century.
All three stanzas of this poem form one single sentence.
The first stanza ends and the second continues it, the second ends, the third stanza continues. It’s like small frames. The poem is very beautiful, melodious, I want to come up with music for it and sing it. There was a lot of controversy around this poem: people perceived it differently: many believed that it lyrical work"pure water" that in times of shock it is possible to sing the trills of a nightingale. The poem is clear, transparent, apt, the action of which takes place in a meadow, not far from a stream, in nature.
Reading it, you are mentally transported to a meadow, freshness flows into your lungs. You want to stay there forever, never leave there.
"Whisper, timid breathing" - the name itself speaks for itself. Whisper = This is something very quiet, something so as not to disturb the silence.
Timid breathing - quiet breathing... similar to a whisper.
This is all in order not to disturb the “life” of nature, its state.
These words help the reader to more vividly imagine what is happening in a given period. With these words, the author tries to emphasize the beauty of the extraordinary nature.
The poem personifies a stream. By this the author wants to show that nature lives and breathes, breathes with every blade of grass and every leaf, every drop of dew or stream.
And the fact that people don’t consider her alive is wrong.
Even when night comes, everything lives, lives its own life, not understandable to everyone.
I came to you with greetings
Tell me that the sun has risen
What is it with hot light
The sheets began to flutter;
Tell me that the forest has woken up,
All woke up, every branch,
Every bird was startled
And full of thirst in spring...
This world consists of parts that, at first glance, are invisible or familiar to us: a blade of grass, a flower, a stream, the sun, the trills of birds; the author strives to awaken in the reader a new facet of the relationship between man and nature. Reminding us of the beauty around us, Fet encourages us to look at this beautiful world again and feel everything that the author himself feels, what overwhelms him and what he so strives to pour into the reader’s soul.
Love, nature, poetry - these concepts are related for Fet, they express the essence of being, its meaning. The poet, revealing the beautiful features in nature and man, draws a certain parallel between the nature that surrounds us and the nature that lurks inside each of us - this is nature human soul, and, indeed, you can find a lot in common in them. At the same time, the author sets the perfect beauty and wisdom of nature as an example as an ideal to which the soul must strive.
33. LOVE LYRICS by A. A. FET
The theme of love is one of the components of the theory of “pure art”, most widely reflected in Russian literature in the poems of A. A. Fet and F. Tyutchev. This eternal theme of poetry found a different interpretation among these poets and sounded somewhat new.
Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote that now no one will dare to sing about nightingales and roses. For Fet's work, the theme of love was fundamental.
The creation of beautiful poems about love is explained not only by the poet’s talent. There is also a real biographical background here. The source of inspiration for the poet was the love of his youth - the daughter of a Serbian landowner, Maria Lazic. Their love was as strong and lofty as it was tragic. Lazic knew that Fet would never marry her, nevertheless she last words before death there was an exclamation: “It’s not he who is to blame, but me!” The circumstances of her death have not been clarified, but there is reason to believe that it was suicide. The consciousness of indirect guilt and the severity of the loss weighed on Fet throughout his entire life, and the result of this was a “two worlds”, somewhat similar to Zhukovsky’s two worlds. Contemporaries noted Fet's coldness, prudence and even some cruelty in everyday life. But what a contrast this makes with Fet’s other world - the world of his lyrical experiences, embodied in his poems.
All his life Zhukovsky believed in connecting with Masha Protasova in another world, he lived with these thoughts. Fet is also immersed in his own world, because only in it is unity with his beloved possible. Fet feels himself and his beloved (his “second self”) inseparably merged in another existence, which actually continues in the world of poetry: “And although I am destined to drag out life without you, we are together with you, we cannot be separated.” (“A1mer e§o.”) The poet constantly feels spiritual closeness with his beloved. The poems “You have suffered, I still suffer...”, “In the silence and darkness of a mysterious night...” are about this. He makes a solemn promise to his beloved: “I will carry your light through earthly life: it is mine - and with it a double existence” (“languidly inviting and in vain...”).
The poet speaks directly about “double existence”, that his earthly life The only thing that will help him bear is the “immortality” of his beloved, that she is alive in his soul. Indeed, for the poet, the image of his beloved woman throughout his life was not only a beautiful and long-gone ideal of another world, but also a moral judge of his earthly life.
In the poem “Dream,” also dedicated to Maria Lazic, these motives are felt especially clearly. The poem has an autobiographical basis; Lieutenant Losev is easily recognizable as Fet himself, and the medieval house where he stayed also has its prototype in Dorpat. The comic description of the “club of devils” gives way to a certain moralizing aspect: the lieutenant hesitates in his choice, and he is reminded of a completely different image - the image of his long-dead beloved. He turns to her for advice: “Oh, what would you say, I dare not name who with these sinful thoughts.”
The criticism noted the correspondence of these lines to the words of Virgil to Dante that “as a pagan, he cannot accompany him to heaven, and Beatrice is given to him as a companion.” The image of Maria Lazic (and this, undoubtedly, is her) for Fet is a moral ideal; the poet’s whole life is a desire for an ideal and the hope of reunification with his beloved.
But Fet’s love lyrics are filled not only with a feeling of hope and hope. She is deeply tragic. After all, the feeling of love is very contradictory and most often brings not only happiness, but also torment. In Fet's poems there are often combinations such as "joy - suffering": "the bliss of suffering", "the sweetness of secret torment." The poem "At dawn, don't wake her up" is all filled with such a double meaning. At first glance, we have a serene picture of the morning the girl’s sleep. But already the second quatrain conveys some kind of tension and destroys this serenity: “And her pillow is hot, and her weary sleep is hot.”
The appearance of “strange” epithets, such as “tiring sleep,” no longer indicates serenity, but some kind of painful state close to delirium. The reason for this state is further explained, the poem reaches its climax: “She became paler and paler, her heart beat more and more painfully.” The tension grows, and suddenly the last quatrain completely changes
picture, leaving the reader perplexed: “Don’t wake her, don’t wake her, at dawn she sleeps so sweetly.” These lines provide a contrast with the middle of the poem and return us to the harmony of the first lines, but on a new turn. The call “don’t wake her up” already sounds like a cry from the soul.
The same impulse of passion is felt in the poem “The night was shining, the garden was full of the moon...”, dedicated to Tatyana Bers. The tension is emphasized by the refrain: “Love you, hug you and cry over you.” In this poem, the quiet picture of the night garden gives way to and contrasts with the storm in the poet’s soul: “The piano was all open and the strings in it trembled, just like our hearts behind your song.”
The “languorous and boring” life is contrasted with the “burning torment of the heart”; the purpose of life is concentrated in a single impulse of the soul, even if in it it burns to the ground. For Fet, love is a fire, just like poetry is a flame in which the soul burns. “Didn’t anything whisper to you at that time: a man was burned there!” - Fet exclaims in the poem “When you read the painful lines...”. It seems that Fet could have said the same thing about his own torment of love experiences. But once “burned out”, that is, having experienced true love, Fet is nevertheless not devastated, he retained in his memory the freshness of these feelings and the image of his beloved throughout his life.
Once Fet was asked how, at his age, he could write about love so youthfully. He replied: “From memory.” Literary critic Blagoy says that Fet is distinguished by an exceptionally strong poetic memory, and cites as an example the poem “On the Swing,” the impetus for writing which was a memory 40 years ago (the poem was written in 1890). Fet, in a letter to Polonsky, recalled how “forty years ago I was swinging on a swing with a girl, standing on a board, and her dress was flapping in the wind.” Such a “sound detail” as a dress that “crackled in the wind” is most memorable for the poet-musician. All of Fet's poetry is built on sounds, modulations and sound images.
I. V. Turgenev said about Fet that he expected a poem from the poet, the last lines of which would have to be conveyed only by the silent movement of his lips. A striking example is the poem “Whisper, timid breathing...”, which is built on only nouns and adjectives, without a single verb.
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!..
Commas and exclamation points also convey the splendor and tension of the moment with realistic specificity. This poem creates exact image, which, upon close examination, reveals chaos, “a series of magical” ones, elusive for human eye“changes”, and in the distance - an accurate picture.
Fet, as an impressionist, bases his poetry, in particular the description of love experiences and memories, on the direct recording of his subjective observations and impressions. Condensation, but not mixing of colorful strokes, as in Monet’s paintings, gives the description of love experiences a culmination and extreme clarity to the image of the beloved. What is it like? A. Grigoriev also noted Fet’s passion for hair, referring to the story “Cactus”. This passion is manifested more than once in Fetov’s poems: “I love to look at your long lock of hair,” “golden fleece of curls,” “braids running in a heavy knot,” “a strand of fluffy hair,” and “braids with a ribbon on both sides.” Although these descriptions are somewhat general, they nevertheless create a fairly clear image of a beautiful girl.
Fet describes her eyes differently. Either this is a “radiant gaze”, or “motionless eyes, crazy eyes” (similar to F. Tyutchev’s poem “I knew my eyes, oh these eyes”). “Your gaze is open and fearless,” writes Fet, and in the same poem he talks about “thin lines of the ideal.” For Fet, his beloved is a moral judge and ideal. She has great power over the poet throughout his life, although already in 1850, shortly after Lazic’s death, Fet writes that the ideal world for him was destroyed long ago.
The influence of the beloved woman on the poet is also palpable in the poem “For a long time I dreamed of the cries of your sobs.” The poet calls himself “an unfortunate executioner,” he acutely feels his guilt for the death of his beloved, and the punishment for this was “two drops of tears” and “cold trembling,” which he endured forever during “sleepless nights.” This poem is painted in Tyutchev's tones and incorporates Tyutchev's drama.
The biographies of these two poets are similar in many ways - both experienced the death of their beloved woman, and the immense longing for what was lost provided food for the creation of beautiful love poems. In the case of Fet, this fact seems most strange - how can you first “ruin” a girl, and then write sublime poems about her all your life? Apparently, the loss made such a deep impression on Fet that the poet experienced a kind of catharsis, and the result of this suffering was Fet’s genius - he was admitted to the high sphere of poetry, his entire description of love experiences and the feeling of the tragedy of love affects the reader so strongly because Fet he himself experienced them, and his creative genius put these experiences into poetic form. Only the power of poetry was able to convey them, following Tyutchev’s saying: a thought expressed is a lie. Fet himself repeatedly speaks about the power of poetry: “How rich I am in crazy verses.”
Fet's love lyrics make it possible to penetrate deeper into his general philosophical and, accordingly, aesthetic views; this also applies to his solution to the question of the relationship between art and reality. Love, like poetry, according to Fet, refers to another, otherworldly world, which is dear and close to the author. In his poems about love, Fet acted “not as a militant preacher of pure art, in contrast to the sixties, he created his own and self-valuable world” (according to Blagoy). And this world is filled with true experiences, spiritual aspirations and a deep sense of hope, reflected in the poet’s love lyrics.
34. Chernyshevsky. "What to do?" as a “novel about new people.”
Chernyshevsky constantly emphasizes the typology of “new people” and talks about the whole group. “These people among others are as if among the Chinese there are several Europeans whom the Chinese cannot distinguish one from another.” Each hero has common traits for the group - courage, ability to get down to business, honesty.
It is extremely important for a writer to show the development of “new people”, their difference from the general mass. The only character whose past is examined in careful detail is Verochka. What allows her to free herself from the environment of “vulgar people”? According to Chernyshevsky, labor and education. “We are poor, but we are working people, we have healthy hands. If we study, knowledge will free us; if we work, labor will enrich us.” Vera is fluent in French and German, which gives her unlimited opportunities for self-education.
Heroes such as Kirsanov, Lopukhov and Mertsalov enter the novel as already established people. It is characteristic that doctors appear in the novel while writing a dissertation. Thus, work and education merge into one. In addition, the author makes it clear that if both Lopukhov and Kirsanov come from poor and humble families, then they probably have poverty and labor behind them, without which education is impossible. This early exposure hardly gives the "new person" an advantage over other people.
The marriage of Vera Pavlovna is not an epilogue, but only the beginning of the novel. And this is very important. It is emphasized that in addition to the family, Verochka is capable of creating a wider association of people. Here the old utopian idea of the commune appears - the phalanstery.
Work gives “new people”, first of all, personal independence, but in addition, it is also active help to other people. The author condemns any deviation from selfless service to work. Suffice it to remember the moment when Verochka is about to go after Lopukhov, leaving the workshop. Once upon a time, labor was necessary for “new people” to receive an education, but now the heroes are trying to educate people in the process of labor. Connected with this is another important philosophical idea of the author in depicting the “new people” - their educational activities.
We know Lopukhov as an active promoter of new ideas among young people and a public figure. Students call him "one of the best heads in St. Petersburg." Lopukhov himself considered work in the office at the plant to be very important. “The conversation (with the students) had a practical, useful goal - to promote the development of mental life, nobility and energy in my young friends,” Lopukhov writes to his wife. Naturally, such a person could not limit himself to learning to read and write. The author himself hints at revolutionary work at the factory among the workers.
The mention of Sunday workers' schools meant a lot to the readers of that time. The fact is that by a special government decree in the summer of 1862 they were closed. The government was afraid of the revolutionary work that was carried out in these schools for adults, workers, and revolutionary democrats. The original intention was to direct the work in these schools in a religious spirit. It was prescribed to study in them the Law of God, reading, writing and the beginnings of arithmetic. Each school had to have a priest to monitor the good intentions of the teachers.
It was precisely such a priest in the “Lyceum of all kinds of knowledge” of Vera Pavlovna that Mertsalov should have been, who, however, was preparing to read the forbidden Russian and general history. The literacy that Lopukhov and other “new people” were going to teach to the worker listeners was also unique. There are examples when progressively minded students explained in class the meaning of the words “liberal,” “revolution,” and “despotism.” Educational activities"new people" - a real approach to the future.
It is necessary to say something about the relationship between “new” and “vulgar” people. In Marya Alekseevna and Polozov, the author sees not only, in the words of Dobrolyubov, “tyrants,” but also practically gifted, active people who, under other circumstances, are capable of benefiting society. Therefore, you can find features of their similarities with children. Lopukhov very quickly gains confidence in Rozalskaya, she respects him business qualities(primarily the intention to marry a rich bride). However, the complete opposite of the aspirations, interests and views of the “new” and “vulgar” people is clearly visible. And the theory of rational egoism gives the “new people” an undeniable advantage.
The novel often talks about selfishness as an internal motivator of human actions. The author considers the most primitive thing to be the selfishness of Marya Alekseevna, who does no good to anyone without monetary payment. The selfishness of wealthy people is much more terrible. He grows on “fantastic” soil - on the desire for excess and idleness. An example of such egoism is Soloviev, who plays out his love for Katya Polozova because of her inheritance.
The selfishness of the “new people” is also based on the calculation and benefit of one person. “Everyone thinks most of all about himself,” says Lopukhov to Vera Pavlovna. But this is a fundamentally new moral code. Its essence is that the happiness of one person is inseparable from the happiness of other people. The benefit and happiness of a “reasonable egoist” depends on the state of his loved ones and society as a whole. Lopukhov frees Verochka from a forced marriage, and when he is convinced that she loves Kirsanov, he leaves the stage. Kirsanov helps Katya Polozova, Vera organizes a workshop. For heroes, following the theory of reasonable egoism means taking into account the interests of another person with every action. For the hero, the mind comes first; the person is forced to constantly turn to introspection and give an objective assessment of his feelings and position.
As you can see, the “reasonable egoism” of Chernyshevsky’s heroes has nothing to do with selfishness or self-interest. Why is this still a theory of “egoism”? The Latin root of this word “ego” - “I” indicates that Chernyshevsky places man at the center of his theory. In this case, the theory of rational egoism becomes the development of the anthropological principle that Chernyshevsky put at the basis of his philosophical idea.
In one of the conversations with Vera Pavlovna, the author says: “...I feel joy and happiness” - which means “I want all people to be happy” - humanly speaking, Verochka, these two thoughts are one and the same." Thus, Chernyshevsky states that the creation of favorable conditions for the life of an individual is inseparable from improving the existence of all people. This reflects the undoubted revolutionary nature of Chernyshevsky’s views.
Moral principles“new people” are revealed in their attitude to the problem of love and marriage. For them, man and his freedom are the main value in life. Love and humane friendship form the basis of the relationship between Lopukhov and Vera Pavlovna. Even a declaration of love occurs during a discussion of Verochka’s position in her mother’s family and the search for a path to liberation. Thus, the feeling of love only adapts to the situation that has arisen. It should be noted that such a statement entered into controversy with many works of the XIX century.
The problem of women's emancipation is also being solved by the “new people” in a unique way. Although only church marriage is recognized, a woman must remain financially and spiritually independent of her husband during marriage. Starting a family is only one of the milestones on the way to approaching the ideal.
The theme of the rebirth of a fallen woman is also explored in the novel. The meeting with Kirsanov gives Nastya Kryukova the strength to rise from the bottom. Julie, who lives among “vulgar people,” does not have such an opportunity. In addition, a two-way connection is visible: people who are reborn thanks to the support of “new people” themselves join their ranks.
Only children make a woman happy, according to Chernyshevsky. It is with the upbringing of children and their future that the author connects Vera Pavlovna’s second marriage. It becomes a real bridge to the future.
The heroes of Chernyshevsky's novel "What to do?" - these are commoners, new heroes of literature. Underestimating the role of the working class, Chernyshevsky predicts victory and the approach of the future for the revolutionary democrats and commoners.
Novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky “What to do?” - a novel about new people, about their new life. This is an advanced, progressive-minded intelligentsia from commoners. These are people of action, and not of abstract dreams, they strive to win happiness for the people in the fight against the existing unjust social foundations. They love work, are ardently devoted to science, their moral ideals high. These people build their relationships on mutual trust and respect. They do not hesitate in the struggle, they do not give in to difficulties. The heroes of the novel fight for the ideal of a bright future, for better life. Among them stands out the figure special person Rakhmetova. Probably, wanting to more convincingly prove to his readers that Lopukhov, Kirsanov and Vera Pavlovna are really ordinary people, Chernyshevsky brings to the stage the titanic hero Rakhmetov, whom he himself recognizes as extraordinary and calls him a special person. Rakhmetov does not participate in the action of the novel. There are very few people like him: neither science nor family happiness satisfies them; they love all people, suffer from any injustice that occurs, experience great grief in their own souls - the miserable existence of millions of people and devote themselves to healing this illness with all their fervor.
Rakhmetov became in the novel a true example of a comprehensively developed person who broke with his class and found in life common people, in the struggle for his happiness, his ideal, his goal. Critics wrote: “Even in the early student years, the rigorism of a special person was formed, that is, habits were developed for stern, unyielding adherence to original principles in material, moral, and mental life.” The path of an ordinary, good, kind and honest young student began with reading books, with developing a new outlook on life. He went through the school of political education with the common student Kirsanov. Rakhmetov bought reading books recommended by Kirsanov from bookstores. After immersing himself in such reading, he became stronger in his thoughts about the need for the fastest possible improvement in the material and moral life of the largest and poorest class.
Rakhmetov studies and does something in his homeland, and not abroad. He learns from Russian people engaged in everyday work. He needs, first of all, to know how financially constrained their life is compared to his own life. From the age of seventeen he became familiar with the harsh lifestyle of the common people. Initially, he became a laborer for several hours a day: he carried water, carried firewood, dug the earth, and forged iron. Rakhmetov finally gained the respect and love of ordinary people during his three-year wanderings around Russia, after he passed the entire Volga as a barge hauler. His comrades affectionately dubbed him Nikitushka Lomov.
Rakhmetov, through his harsh lifestyle, cultivated the physical endurance and spiritual fortitude necessary for future trials. Confidence in the rightness of oneself political ideals, the joy of fighting for the happiness of the people strengthened the spirit and strength of a fighter in him. Rakhmetov understood that the struggle for new world it will be life or death, and therefore he prepared himself for it in advance. It seems to me that it does not require much effort or special imagination to understand the general nature of Rakhmetov’s activities; he was constantly involved in other people’s affairs, he simply had no personal affairs, everyone knew that. Rakhmetov is involved in the affairs of other people, he seriously works for society. Rakhmetov generally had many distinctive features. For example, outside his circle, he only met people who had influence on others and had authority. And it was difficult to dismiss Rakhmetov if he decided to meet someone for the sake of business. And with unnecessary people he behaved simply rudely.
He performed unimaginable experiments on his body and scared to death his landlady, Agrafena Antonovna, who was renting out a room to him. He did not recognize love, suppressed this feeling in himself, did not want to allow love to tie him hand and foot. Rakhmetov abandoned love in the name of a great cause.
Yes, funny people, even funny ones... There are few of them, but with them the life of everyone around them blossoms; without them it would have stalled, gone sour; There are few of them, but they give all people the opportunity to breathe, without them people would suffocate.
There are a great number of honest and kind people, but such obsessed people are few; but they are in it - tea for tea, a bouquet in noble wine; from them its strength and aroma; this is the color the best people, these are the engines of the engines, this is the salt of the earth.
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 - early 1860s onwards, the artistic principles of the Nekrasov school aroused in 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 - 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 his artistic experience and as a “symbol of faith” acquired in his own artistic quest.
Arguing that the artist cares about only 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 its 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” is possible. Unlike philosophical thought, it is not intended “to lie like a solid stone in the general edifice of human thinking and serve as a fulcrum for subsequent conclusions; its purpose is to illuminate the foreground of the architectonic perspective poetic work, or to shine subtly and barely noticeably 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 excess 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 that 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. the 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. Ideal" supreme beauty", Dostoevsky deeply shares the aesthetic delight in beauty, and it is Fet who is presented in his reasoning as the standard of “pure art” (in Dostoevsky’s memory 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 the poem “Whisper” appears in the newspaper “Lisbon Mercury” , timid breathing..." and about the unfortunate fate 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, discovering 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. The reader will definitely not find such Olympian serenity, such lyrical beauty in anyone. 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 it has been abolished serfdom, new principles of legal proceedings and judicial organization were promulgated, the bright currents of serenity and idleness were outraged, nihilism appeared and boys rushed 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 quality 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 hired 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 sentiments, and in particular for his conflict with the careless 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 “The former sounds with the 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 he was destined by providence 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 man. 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, trills 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.” human life, which is completely immersed in a “fleeting dream” and does not look for anything else, he branded it 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 activities. And it was always like this, from the beginning to the end of the journey. Fet's ideological and artistic evolution, the enrichment of his lyrics with philosophical issues, and new discoveries in the field of poetic language occurred within the same 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, 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 knew in his own life experience and in the worldview that emerged as a result of his, in which it is easy to detect certain “Schopenhauerian” features that were already present 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 with absolutely all other philosophical systems (“since they are all 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 an endless chain of suffering, which constitutes the pathos of the Schopenhauer 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.
Features of the poetry of “pure art” Signs 1 Poetry of hints, guesses, omissions. 2 Poems have no plot: lyrical miniatures convey not thoughts and feelings, but the “volatile” mood of the poet. 3 Art should not be connected with life. 4 A poet should not interfere in the affairs of the world. 5 This is poetry for the elite.
The main themes of the poetry of “pure art” Love Nature Art The lyrics are distinguished by a richness of shades; tenderness and warmth. Imagery, unconventional comparisons, epithets; humanizing nature, finding an echo of one’s moods and feelings. Singability and musicality
Amalia Maximilianovna Lerchenfeld I met you and everything that was before came to life in my obsolete heart; I remembered the golden time - And my heart became so warm... How late autumn Sometimes there are days, there is an hour, When suddenly there is a breath of spring And something stirs in us, - So, all blown by the breath of Those years of spiritual fullness, With a long-forgotten rapture I look at your lovely features... As if after a century of separation, I look at you, as if in a dream, - And then the sounds became more audible, Not silent in me... There is more than one memory, Here life spoke again, - And the same charm is in us, And the same love is in my soul! G
Dictionary Poetics Poetics - totality stylistic devices author. Archaic syllable - An archaic syllable is ancient, ancient, dating back to the traditions of the 18th century. Pantheism - Pantheism is a religious and philosophical doctrine that identifies God and the world as a whole (nature). Natural philosophy - Natural philosophy is the philosophy of nature, a speculative interpretation of nature, considered in its integrity.
Features of poetry by F.I. Tyutchev Tyutchev’s artistic world is not a holistic, but a bifurcated picture of the perception of the world, which leads to disharmony between the rebellious spirit of man and reality. The “double existence” of the split human soul is most clearly expressed in the poet’s love lyrics. The feeling of Infinity and Eternity as reality, and not some abstract, abstract categories.
Features of poetry by F.I. Tyutchev Tyutchev is the discoverer of new imaginative worlds in poetry. Poetic images have a cosmic scale: it is space and chaos, life and death. The scale of poetic associations is amazing. The poet draws parallels between the states of mind of the lyrical hero and natural phenomena. Tyutchev's lyrics are inherent in the ideas of pantheism. In poems late period creativity, the poet’s interest in psychological specificity intensifies.
Poetics F.I. Tyutcheva 1. Vocabulary Archaisms (wind, tree). Compound words (sad orphaned land). Words consisting of 3 or more syllables (mysterious, foreboding) 2. Syntax A poem begins with a question, affirmation or denial. The poems are like replicas of an interrupted conversation. 3. Genre Fragment “His poetic creations came into the light of day before they had time to cool down, still trembling with the inner life of the poet’s soul.”
The main themes of F.I.'s poetry Tyutchev 1. Theme of the poet and poetry “Don’t believe, don’t trust the poet, maiden...” “Don’t believe, don’t trust the poet, maiden...” “Poetry” “Poetry” “We are not given the power to predict...” “We are not given the power to predict...” Motive loneliness, the tragic insights of which are incomprehensible, and the prophets of which are not even heard by others.
The main themes of F.I.'s poetry Tyutcheva 3. Theme of Russia. “I looked, standing over the Neva...” “I looked, standing over the Neva...” “Above this dark crowd...” “Above this dark crowd...” “You can’t understand Russia with your mind...” “You can’t understand Russia with your mind...” “Two unities.” “Two unities” Russia is the soul of humanity. Russia is the soul of humanity. Feeling Russia can be realized through faith. Feeling Russia can be realized through faith. The salvation of Russia is in Orthodox tradition. The salvation of Russia is in the Orthodox tradition.
The main themes of F.I.'s poetry Tyutcheva 4. Theme of nature. “Glimmer” “Glimmer” “As the ocean embraces the globe of the earth...” “As the ocean embraces the globe of the earth...” “Autumn evening” “Autumn evening” “Not what you think, nature...” “Not what you think, nature ..." “What are you howling about, night wind?” “What are you howling about, night wind?” “There is in the primordial autumn...” “There is in the primordial autumn...” Phenomena of nature are perceived as phenomena of the living soul. Natural phenomena are perceived as phenomena of a living soul. The natural-philosophical character of F.I.’s lyrics Tyutcheva. The natural-philosophical character of F.I.’s lyrics Tyutcheva.
The main themes of F.I.'s poetry Tyutcheva 5. Theme of love. “With what sadness, with what longing does one fall in love...” “With what sadness, with what longing does one fall in love...” “Predestination” “Predestination” “Oh, how murderously we love...” “Oh, how murderously we love...” “She sat on the floor..." "She was sitting on the floor..." Love is always a struggle. Love is always a struggle. This “fatal duel” can cause the death of one of the lovers. This “fatal duel” can cause the death of one of the lovers. Psychological specificity is combined with a philosophical understanding of the state of the soul. Psychological specificity is combined with a philosophical understanding of the state of the soul.
A picture of Russian literary life of the 30-50s. would be incomplete if we did not take into account the existence of poetry, the so-called. "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 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 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’s motifs of “pure art” received such comprehensive development 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 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 - 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 life of their class (cf. Tyutchev’s condemning message to the Decembrists and the incense burned to Nicholas I by A. Maykov in his poem “The Stroller”): in aesthetic views It was no coincidence that these representatives of the landowner right resurrected the subjective idealistic concepts of Kant and Schelling, which had long been overcome by the rest of the literature: here again, for example, they preached. the doctrine of the absolute gap between the artist and the cold and indifferent crowd. 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. No less close to the poets of “pure art” was ancient literature, the work of Anacreon, Horace, Tibullus, Ovid, which attracted them with the harmony of its worldview and the serenity of its epicureanism. Many translations and imitations of the ancients were given by Shcherbina, Fet, Maikov. The dominant and most popular genre However, theirs was a lyrical poem in which the poet’s experiences were revealed against the fragrant background of estate landscapes (urban civilization almost did not attract their attention to itself).
It is impossible to deny the significance of the artistic level of this poetry, manifested in the sophistication of its images, and in the refinement of the composition, and in the melodic structure of the verse. But all these indisputable advantages are developed in the lyrics of “pure art” due to the richness, diversity, and most importantly, the progressiveness of the social content contained in it. The ideology of the poets of “pure art” is poor and unpromising; it could not have been otherwise given the political positions they all took. This explained their rather weak influence on further Russian poetry, since its main movements (Nekrasov, Kurochkyan) were certainly hostile to the group of Fet and Maikov. The poets of the noble right did not create such aesthetic values that could be included in the creative fund of classical poetry and would retain their significance for the modern reader. The only exceptions were Fet and Tyutchev, the first - by his artistic penetration into the world of nature, the second - by the acuteness with which he expressed the overwhelming feeling of the collapse of his class, which he subjectively experienced as a universal crisis of consciousness.