Artistic features of A. A’s works

Fet's poetry, although not so broad in subject matter, is unusually rich in various shades of feeling and emotional states. It is unique in its melodic pattern, saturated with endless combinations of colors, sounds, and paints. In his work, the poet anticipates many discoveries of the “Silver Age”. The novelty of his lyrics was already felt by his contemporaries, who noted “the poet’s ability to catch the elusive, to give an image and a name to what before him was nothing more than a vague fleeting sensation of the human soul, a sensation without an image and a name” (A.V. Druzhinin ).

Indeed, Fet's lyrics are characterized by impressionism (from the French impersion - impression). This is a special quality of artistic style, which is characterized by associative images, the desire to convey primordial impressions, fleeting sensations, “instant snapshots of memory” that form a coherent and psychologically reliable poetic picture. These are, in essence, all of Fet’s poems.

The poet’s words are polyphonic and polysemantic, epithets show not so much direct as indirect signs of the objects to which they relate (“melting violin”, “fragrant speeches”, “silver dreams”). So the epithet “melting” to the word violin conveys not the quality of the musical instrument itself, but the impression of its sounds. The word in Fet's poetry, losing its precise meaning, acquires a special emotional coloring, while the line between the direct and figurative meaning, between the external and internal worlds is blurred. Often the entire poem is built on this instability of meanings, on the development of associations (“A fire blazes in the garden with the bright sun…”, “Whisper, timid breathing…”, “The night shone. The garden was full of the moon…”). In the poem “Lounging on an armchair, I look at the ceiling...” a whole series of associations are strung on top of each other: a circle from a lamp on the ceiling, spinning slightly, evokes an association with rooks circling over the garden, which, in turn, evoke memories of parting with beloved woman.

Such associative thinking, the ability to convey moments of life, fleeting, elusive feelings and moods helped Fet come close to solving the problem of “inexpressibility” in ethical language of the subtlest movements of the human soul, over which Zhukovsky, Lermontov, Tyutchev struggled. Feeling, like them, “how poor our language is,” Fet moves away from words into the element of musicality. Sound becomes the basic unit of his poetry. Composer P.I. Tchaikovsky even called Fet a poet-musician. The poet himself said: “Seeking to recreate harmonic truth, the artist’s soul itself comes into the appropriate musical order. No musical mood - no work of art." The musicality of Fet's lyrics is expressed in the special smoothness and melodiousness of his verse, the variety of rhythms and rhymes, and the art of sound repetition. Material from the site

We can say that the poet uses musical means to influence the reader. For each poem, Fet finds an individual rhythmic pattern, using unusual combinations of long and short lines (“The garden is all in bloom, / The evening is on fire, / It’s so refreshing and joyful for me!”), sound repetitions based on assonances and consonances (in the poem “Whisper, timid breathing...” assonances in -a: nightingale - stream - end - face - amber - dawn), various meters, among which the three-syllable ones stand out, perfectly fitting into the tradition of romances (“ Don’t wake her up at dawn...", written in anapest). It is no coincidence that many of Fet’s poems were set to music.

Fet's artistic discoveries were accepted by the poets of the "Silver Age". Alexander Blok considered him his direct teacher. But it was not immediately that Fet’s unusual, unlike anything else lyrics won the recognition of readers. Having released the first collections of his poems back in the 1840-1850s, Fet left literature for a long time. life and remains known only to a narrow circle of connoisseurs. Interest in him increased at the turn of the century, during a new heyday of Russian poetry. It was then that Fet’s work received the praise it deserved. He was rightfully recognized as the one who, according to Anna Akhmatova, discovered in Russian poetry “not a calendar, a real twentieth century.”

According to L.N. Tolstoy, Fet “showed lyrical audacity, a characteristic of great poets.” What did Fet's friend mean?

Firstly, Fet was able to notice and discover in the spiritual world of people and in the relationship between man and nature that no one had noticed or discovered before him. Secondly, he achieved figurative and metaphorical perfection in depicting the subtle experiences of a person feeling his unity with nature.

To confirm these theses, there is just one quatrain about the white St. Petersburg night:

The moon looks timidly into the eyes,

I'm amazed that the day hasn't passed,

But wide into the area of ​​the night

The day spread its arms.

In this passage - in a condensed form - the whole essence of Fet's poetics: epithets (timidly, broadly), personifications (the month is looking, the day is spreading), metaphor (3-4th lines) create not only a picture of nature, but also convey sensations and moods people accompanying this picture.

Fet appears here as a poet-painter. But he is also a poet-composer, hearing and conveying not only meaning, but also sound inextricably linked with meaning. The word “autumn” has two supporting consonants – soft “s” and “n”. And in the poem “In Autumn” (1870), in eight lines, the autumn mood is created by alliteration to these two sounds: “n” and its soft version occur 14 times, and “s” and its soft pair - 12! Such an increased frequency of these sounds seems to create an autumn mood in itself, intertwined with the philosophical meaning of the poem, which tells about the changing stages of the life of nature and human life.

Fet always paints human experiences not at the level of fact, plot, or even, perhaps, at the level of words, but at the level of sensations, associations - picturesque, musical, emotional, spiritual, moral, mystical, religious, mythological - all kinds of things! Fet is an impressionist poet who creates an impression; lyricist who rejects the plot. He draws not the action, but its results, the consequences in his own feelings. That is why there are not many verbs in his lyrics, because the process and results of an action can be conveyed using other parts of speech.

It is no coincidence that it was Fet who was responsible for verbless poetic experiments, when an entire lyric poem is written without a single verb, in fact - in continuous nominal sentences, and at the same time a picture appears full of movement and life. Examples include two poetic masterpieces: “Whisper, timid breathing...” (1850) and “This morning, this joy...” (1881).

Analysis of A.A. Fet’s poem “This morning, this joy...”

Fet's poems are often lyrical miniatures with the most compressed action and the highest artistic perfection. They have a slow-motion effect: after the first reading, everything seems simple and understandable, but human depth and philosophical height are revealed only after intense work of the soul and mind.

With an interval of 31 years, Fet wrote two verbless poetic masterpieces. In the later of these, the poem “This Morning...”, in addition to the fact that it contains no verbs, there are two more strikingly bold innovations in the field of poetic syntax. First, the eighteen-line poem is a single sentence with countless homogeneous subjects. And secondly, demonstrative pronouns are used twenty-four times in different forms: “this”, “These”, “this”, “this”. All eighteen lines begin with these pronouns and, accordingly, with the sound “e”. It is easy to assume that such a design should be intrusive and create a feeling of uniformity and monotony. But this doesn't happen. Why?

Firstly, monotony is relieved precisely by alternating the forms of pronouns. For example, in the first stanza the scheme is as follows:

This...,...this,

This… … …,

This… …,

This… … …,

These..., these...,

This… … …, ….

Various enumeration options are also used in the other two stanzas.

Secondly, the monotony of constructions is overcome by the diversity and extreme capacity and expressiveness of the poem’s vocabulary. In addition to connecting prepositions and numerous connecting conjunctions “and”, the author uses 36 (!) nouns and only two adjective epithets – “blue” and “night”. Some of these nouns, governed by other nouns, in addition to adjectives, act as epithets: “the power of both day and light”, “speaking of the waters”, “dawns without eclipse”, “sigh... of the village”, “heat of the bed”. Some of these combinations also have metaphorical features (for example, “heat of the bed” or “talk of the waters”). All these techniques diversify the poetic language and eliminate monotony.

Another interesting detail: the sound of the poem is completely special. The clear predominance of voiced consonants and the sounds “z”, “s” seems to bring the music of the verse closer to the sound of the last and main word in the poem - “spring”. It is this word that the author gives the broadest meaning, and everything listed before is only partial components of the wonderful, always youthful and festive concept called by this bright word.

It is also interesting that the even and rhythmic alternation of tetrameter and trimeter trochee shortened every two lines, combined with the unstoppable enumeration of spring phenomena and signs, imitates the equally unstoppable running of a babbling spring brook. This deprives the painted picture of static nature and gives it vitality and movement.

How does Fet manage to compensate for the lack of verbs while still painting a picture full of action? The fact is that among the nouns listed in the poem there are many that denote the process of movement, action. In a hidden form, such nouns as “morning”, “joy”, “power”, “light”, “drops”, “flocks” are full of movement. The dynamics are conveyed even more clearly by the words “scream”, “talk”, “tongue”, “whistle”, “sigh”, “fraction”, “trill”.

This creates a picture of the coming spring of life, where human feelings and relationships (joy, tears, a sigh at night, a night without sleep, the heat of the bed) echo the awakening of natural phenomena (morning, the blue vault, screams and strings, the chatter of waters, willows and birches, midges , bees, dawns without eclipse, fractions and trills). This interweaving of the state of nature and human mood is one of the features of Afanasy Fet’s lyrics.

So, in this poem, the poet managed to depict the revival of young hopes in a completely daring and unexpected way, violating certain canons of versification and at the same time creating a unique poetic masterpiece.

AFANASY AFANASIEVICH FET

In the famous pre-revolutionary work on the history of Russian literature

a riddle,” however, only repeating the definition that had already flashed

in criticism. This psychological riddle, however, has

social clue. Here lies the explanation of many mysteries that...

Fet's poetry has staged and continues to stage.

Already as if finally buried in the 60s of the past

century, this poetry was revived to a new life in the 80s. Explanation,

that this poetry came to court in the era of reaction is true,

but clearly not enough. Interest in Fet sometimes increased, sometimes

fell, but Fet has already entered Russian poetry forever, with new and new

resurrections refuting the next funeral.

We must also not forget that, significant in itself, poetry

Feta was included in Russian literature and, more broadly, in Russian art

and indirectly, fertilizing many of its great phenomena: enough

name Alexander Blok here.

Fet has always been regarded as the banner of “pure art” and

in fact he was. Nevertheless, critics who gravitated toward “pure

art" or even directly advocated for it (V. Botkin, A. Druzhinin),

Fet's poetry was not always understood and approved, and certainly

in their praise they were, in any case, more restrained than Leo Tolstoy

and Dostoevsky, who, in general, turned out to be “pure art”

And here's another mystery. Much has been said about anti-democracy

Feta. Indeed, the elitism of Fet’s poetry seems to

it is more certain that it was theoretically realized by him himself

in the spirit of Schopenhauer. Works published in 1863 in two volumes

The poets did not separate even for 30 years. It does not follow from this, however, that

Fet did not find a wide audience, probably wider than

anyone, with the exception of Nekrasov, is a democratic poet of his time.

“...Almost all of Russia sings his romances,”2 he also wrote

in 1863 Shchedrin, who, if one can blame him for partiality,

this is not in favor of Fet.

Fet's father, a wealthy and noble Oryol landowner Afanasy

Shenshin, while in Germany, secretly took his wife from there to Russia

Darmstadt official Charlotte. Soon Charlotte gave birth

son - the future poet, who also received the name Afanasy. However

official marriage of Shenshin with Charlotte, who passed

into Orthodoxy under the name of Elizabeth, several events took place

Later. Many years later, church authorities uncovered the “illegality”

birth of Afanasy Afanasyevich, and, already being fifteen years old

and the son of a German official, Fet, living in Russia. Mal-

Chick was shocked. Not to mention, he was deprived of all rights and privileges,

associated with nobility and legal inheritance.

Only in 1873 a request to recognize him as Shenshin’s son was

satisfied; however, the poet retained his literary name Fet.

All their lives two people lived in one place - Fet and Shenshin.

Creator of beautiful lyrical poems. And a tough landowner.

This duality, however, also penetrated into literature.

“...Even if this acquaintance is based only on

“Memoirs,” wrote the critic D. Tsertelev, “it may seem

that you are dealing with two completely different people, although

they both speak sometimes on the same page. One captures

eternal world questions so deeply and with such breadth that

human language lacks words with which to

express a poetic thought, and only sounds and hints remain

and elusive images - the other seems to laugh at him and know

doesn’t want him, talking about the harvest, about income, about plows, about the stud farm

and about justices of the peace. This duality struck everyone, close

who knew Afanasy Afanasyevich"3.

Understanding this duality requires broader sociological

explanations than those that have been very often offered

criticism: a defender of reaction and a serf owner wrote about flowers and

love feelings, leading away from life and social

“Fet - Shenshin” reveals a lot in the “psychological riddle”

German philosopher Schopenhauer (as is known, who fascinated Fet

and translated by him) with his own, ultimately coming from

Kant, by contrasting art as “useless”, truly

free activity to work - even more broadly - life practice

as subject to the laws of iron necessity or to what

Schopenhauer called it the “law of sufficient reason.” Each of these areas

has its own servants: “people of genius” or “people of benefit.”

Schopenhauer establishes a real contradiction in the world of private property

relations, it captures the real division into

“people of genius” and “people of benefit” as the inevitable result of the dominant

in the world of private property division relations

labor. But Schopenhauer, naturally, does not figure out the latter and,

finding himself in captivity of insoluble contradictions, turns the contradiction

into antinomy.

This contradiction was realized and justified, in any case,

taken for granted and unchangeable by Fet. Fet's originality,

however, it did not manifest itself in the fact that he understood and realized this contradiction,

but in the fact that he expressed it with his whole life and personal destiny

and embodied it. Schopenhauer seemed to explain to Fet what had already determined

his entire spiritual emotional structure, his deeply pessimistic

attitude. "He was an artist in every sense of the word."

words,” wrote Ap. Grigoriev, - was highly present

he has the ability to create... Creation, but not birth... He does not

knew the pain of birth of an idea. As the ability to create grew within him

indifference. Indifference - to everything except the ability to create -

to God's world, as soon as its objects ceased to be reflected

in his creative ability, to himself, how soon he stopped

be an artist. This is how this man realized and accepted his

purpose in life... This man had to either kill himself,

or become what he became... I have not seen a man

who would be so stifled by melancholy, for whom I would be more afraid

suicide"4.

Did Fet become the way he did so as not to “kill himself”?

he recognized in himself a “man of genius” and a “man of benefit”, “Fet” and

"Shenshin", separated them and put them in polar relations. And how would

to demonstrate the paradoxical nature of the situation, the hated name

“Fet” turned out to be associated with his favorite art, and the desired and, finally,

by hook or by crook achieved noble

“Shenshin” - with that life and everyday practice from which

he himself suffered so cruelly and in which he himself was so cruel and inhuman.

I am among the crying Shenshin,

And Fet I am only among the singers, -

the poet admitted in one poetic message.

Fet's art was not a justification for Shenshin's practice, but rather

in opposition to it, he was born of endless dissatisfaction

everything that the “man of benefit” Shenshin lived with. Fet and Shenshin

organically fused. But this connection “Fet - Shenshin” shows

unity of opposites. Fet's art is not only closely related

with the entire existence of Shenshin, but also opposes him,

hostile and irreconcilable.

Fet's poetry organically entered into its era, was born by it

and was connected by many threads with the art of that time.

Nekrasov, although not equal, but comparing Fet with Pushkin,

wrote: “We can safely say that a person who understands poetry

and willingly opening his soul to her sensations, in no Russian

how much pleasure Mr. Fet will give him.”5 Tchaikovsky is not only

spoke about Fet’s undoubted genius: the music of Tchaikovsky

strongly connected with Fet's muse. And the point is not at all that

Fet turned out to be a convenient “text writer” for Tchaikovsky. Themselves by

Fet's talent turns out to be neither socially nor at all explainable.

Only Goncharov could write “Oblomov” - Dobrolyubov is

understood perfectly. One of the main advantages of the novel about the “new

man" Bazarov Pisarev saw in the fact that it was written by "an old

man" Turgenev. What Fet discovered, he could not open

Nekrasov and no one else except Fet himself. Fet really

got away from a lot, but, as another old critic noted, he

did not return empty-handed.

Fet went into nature and love, but in order for him to “find”

there is something there, objective historical

and social preconditions. Fet looked for beauty and found it. Fet

I was looking for freedom, integrity, harmony and found them. Another thing -

within what limits?

Fet is a poet of nature in a very broad sense. In a broader

than just a lyrical landscape painter. Nature itself in Fet's lyrics is socially

conditioned. And not only because Fet fenced himself off when leaving

into nature, from life in all its fullness, although for this reason too. Fet expressed

in Russian lyrics, more than anyone else, a free attitude

to nature.

Marx wrote about the importance of understanding exactly how human

became natural, and the natural became human. This one is already

a new, human naturalness in literature was revealed in the lyrics

nature and in the lyrics of love, the most natural and the most human

But art develops in a privately owned world

in grave contradictions. And human, free, social

naturalness, in order to express oneself in art, to express

the joy of free human existence required special conditions.

Only in these conditions could a man feel like a Fetov

lyrics “the first inhabitant of paradise” (“And I, as the first inhabitant of paradise, Alone

saw the night in the face"), to feel one’s “divine”, i.e. truly

human essence (there is no talk of religiosity here, and indeed

Fet was an atheist), to resolutely defend before those who doubted

Leo Tolstoy has the right to compare:

And I know, sometimes looking at the stars,

That we looked at them like gods and you.

For this, Fet needed isolation from the actual social

life of society, from painful social struggle. Fet, in contrast,

Let's say that Nekrasov was quite ready for this. But there were victims

great: a free attitude towards nature at the expense of an unfree attitude

to society, leaving humanity in the name of expressing humanity,

achieving integrity and harmony through the renunciation of integrity

and harmony, etc., etc. This internal contradiction is not immediately

Freshness itself (the definition most often applied to Fet,

especially revolutionary democratic criticism), naturalness,

the wealth of human sensuality in Feta's lyrics gave birth to

Russian mid-century setting. The country not only concentrated

all the abomination and severity of social contradictions, but also prepared

to their permission. Anticipation of ever-renewing changes

cried out to a new man and a new humanity. Searches and finds

in literature were broader here than just the image

a new person - a commoner. They were also realized in Turgenev's

women, and in the “dialectics of the soul” of Tolstoy’s heroes, and in Russian

7 Order 539 193

skaya lyrics, in particular in Fet’s lyrics. Naturalness, naturalness

The main achievement of Fet's lyrics, which determined the main

features of his artistic system. That's why, let's say,

it already has more than just metaphorization:

Night flowers sleep all day long,

But as soon as the sun sets behind the grove,

The sheets are quietly opening

And I hear my heart bloom.

Fet's originality lies in the fact that the humanization of nature*

meets with him naturalness to man. In the given example

the first line reveals its true meaning only after the fourth,

and the fourth only in relation to the first. Nature in its

humanity (flowers are sleeping) merges with the natural life of the human

hearts (heart blooms).

Fet opens and reveals the richness of human sensuality,

not only the wealth of human feelings (which, of course, opened

lyrics before Fet, and here it is rather limited than broad), namely

sensuality, that which exists apart from the mind and is not controlled by the mind.

Sensitive critics, although differing in definitions, point out

on the subconscious as a special sphere of application of Fetov’s

lyrics. Ap. Grigoriev wrote that Fet’s feeling does not mature until

clarity and the poet does not want to reduce him to it, that he has rather half-satisfaction,

half-feelings. This doesn't mean that Fet is half

feels, on the contrary, he surrenders to the feeling like no one else, but the feeling itself

then it is irrational, unconscious. “The power of Fet lies in this,” wrote

Druzhinin, - that our poet... knows how to get into the innermost

secret places of the human soul..."6. “The area is open to him, he is familiar,

along which we walk with our hearts sinking and our eyes half closed

eyes..."7. For Fet, this is a clearly conscious creative principle:

"against the mind."

According to the strength of spontaneity and integrity of the manifestation of feelings

Fet is close to Pushkin. But Pushkin’s integrity and spontaneity

were infinitely wider, Pushkin’s “childishness” did not exclude

maturity of mind. "Long live the muses, long live the mind" -

exclaimed the poet, and the very glorification of reason organically entered into him

in the “Bacchic Song” - Fet’s thing is impossible. V. Botkin

said in connection with Fet’s work that in a “complete” poet one also needs

mind, soul, and education. Pushkin was such a “complete” poet.

“Pushkin’s nature, for example,” writes the same Botkin, “was in the highest

multilateral degree, deeply developed by moral

questions of life... In this regard, Mr. Fet seems to be ahead of him

a naive child." And the “incomplete” poet Fet was essentially addressing

"incomplete" person. That is why it was necessary for perception

Feta has what Botkin called a “sympathetic mood.”

The sphere of subconscious perception of the world required for its

expressions of a special method that has become an essential element

in the development of Russian literature. Not without reason, back in 1889,

Chairman of the Psychological Society N. Grot at the celebration of Fet

read on behalf of the members of the society an address that said: “... without

doubts, over time, when the techniques of psychological research

expand, your works should give the psychologist abundant

and an interesting material for illuminating many dark and complex

facts in the field of human feelings and emotions.”

It was no coincidence that Fet began his memoirs with a story about the impression

which the photograph produced on him, her own, only to her

available means of reflecting life: “Don’t we have the right to say that

details that easily escape in a living kaleidoscope

life, catch the eye more clearly, having passed into the past in the form of an unchangeable

snapshot from reality"8.

Fet values ​​the moment very much. He has long been called the poet of the moment.

“...He captures only one moment of feeling or passion, he

all in the present... Each Fet song refers to one point

of being..."9 - noted Nikolai Strakhov. Fet himself wrote:

Only you, poet, have a winged sound

Grabs on the fly and fastens suddenly

And the dark delirium of the soul and the vague smell of herbs;

So, for the boundless, leaving the meager valley,

An eagle flies beyond the clouds of Jupiter,

Carrying an instant sheaf of lightning in faithful paws.

This consolidation of “suddenly” is important for a poet who appreciates and expresses

the fullness of organic being, its involuntary

states. Fet is a poet of concentrated, concentrated states:

I'm waiting, overwhelmed with anxiety, as if I've broken a string.

I’m waiting here on the very path: A beetle, having flown into a spruce;

This path through the garden Khriplo called his friend

You promised to come. There is a corncrake right there at your feet.

Crying, the mosquito will sing, Quietly under the forest canopy

A leaf will fall smoothly... The young bushes are sleeping...

The rumor, opening up, grows, Oh, how it smelled of spring!..

Like a midnight flower. It's probably you!

The poem, as often in Fet’s work, is extremely tense and tense

immediately not only because it is said here about anxiety: this anxiety

and from the tension-building repetition at the very beginning (“Waiting...

I’m waiting..."), and from a strange, seemingly meaningless definition -

"on the very path." A simple path “through the garden” became “the path itself”

with an endless ambiguity of meanings: fatal, first,

last, by burning bridges, etc. In this, the maximum

In a tense state, a person perceives nature more acutely

and he himself, surrendering to it, begins to live like nature. "The rumor, opening up,

grows like a midnight flower" - in this comparison with a flower

there is not only a bold and surprisingly visual objectification

human hearing, materialization that reveals its natural

ness. Here the process of this very experience of getting used to the world is conveyed

nature (“Hearing, opening up, grows...”). That’s why the poems “Hoarsely

I called my friend, There’s a crake right there at my feet” they’re already ceasing to be

a simple parallel from the life of nature. This "raucous" does not apply

only to the bird, but also to the man standing here, on the “very path”,

already, perhaps, with a tight, dry throat. And also organically

It turns out to be included in the natural world:

Quiet under the forest canopy

Young bushes are sleeping...

Oh, how it smelled like spring!..

It's probably you!

This is not an allegory, not a comparison with spring*. She is spring itself,

nature itself, also living organically in this world. "Oh, how

it smelled like spring!..” - this middle line applies just as much to her,

young, as to young bushes, but this same line unites

her and nature, so that she appears like the entire natural world, and the entire

the natural world like her.

Fet was not alone in this new, heightened perception of nature,

and this also confirms the correctness of his discoveries. When at Tolstoy's

Levin will hear “grass grows”, then this will be an exact match

discoveries, and perhaps a consequence of Fet’s discoveries

in the field of the so-called poetry of nature. And a poem by Nekrasov

1846 “Before the Rain” will be close to Fet and the general

composition of landscape miniature and, most importantly, immediacy

an experience that carries a special acuity of perception:

To a stream, pockmarked and motley,

A leaf flies after a leaf,

And a dry and sharp stream

It's getting cold.

But Fet and Nekrasov generalize differently. This is especially clear

can be seen where they conclude the same. Here's Fetov's, too

40s, landscape:

Wonderful picture, Light from the high heavens,

How dear you are to me: And the shining snow,

White plain, And distant sleighs

Full moon, Lonely running.

These running sleighs, like someone galloping in the poem “By a Cloud”

wavy...”, and this is Fetov’s main generalization. For real

the picture begins to come to life only after the final lines

poems. Nekrasov does the same:

Over the passing tarataika

The top is down, the front is closed;

And went!" - standing up with a whip,

The gendarme shouts to the driver...

But he is not concerned about the picturesque perspective, but about the social one. Fet's

the main thing (we are not talking about other meanings) is that

the landscape evoked a feeling of, if not infinity, then enormity

world, hence the extraordinary depth of its perspective, which is created

distant sleigh (“Wonderful picture...*), distant horseman (“In a cloud

wavy...>). No wonder “A wavy cloud...” originally

was called “Dal” - distance, depth of perspective for him

basic. This is what gives birth to the actual lyrical motive:

“My friend, distant friend, Remember me,” unexpected and outwardly

not connected in any way with the landscape, but inevitably born precisely

space, a sense of distance.

Fetov's poetry of momentary, instantaneous, involuntary states

lived at the expense of immediate pictures of existence, real,

those around you. That is why he is a very Russian poet, very

organically absorbing and expressing Russian nature.

You are not surprised when you see how social, peasant,

such a Russian Nekrasov declares that “in Italy he wrote about Russians

exiles." But Fet, the poet of “pure art”, is also indifferent to Italy.

"with his cult of beauty, he almost repeats Nekrasov in poetry

“Italy, you lied to your heart!”, and in “Memoirs” he writes that

intends to pass over in silence the details of his stay

“on classical, Italian soil”10. For Fet, obviously, unacceptable

the very, so to speak, intentionality of classical beauties

Italy, their sanctification by tradition. He searched and found beauty,

but not where it turned out to be already given by the mind. Fet air-

Russian poetry is created by the Russian atmosphere. At the same time she is completely

devoid of any conscious motives: social,

like Nekrasov with his people’s Russia, or philosophical and religious,

like Tyutchev with his Russian messianism.

Fet's lyrics also played a well-known role in the democratization of Russian

poetry. What is its democracy? If, for example, democracy

Nekrasov and the poets of his school are directly related to the presence of characters,

then Fet's democracy - with their absence. Fet has a character

disintegrated, or rather, the psychological, even

psychophysical states, moods, feelings that carry it

poetry. They are subtle, elusive, but simple, even elementary.

“A world, European, national poet,” noted Druzhinin, “

Fet will never be; as an engine and educator he is not

will complete the path traversed by the great Pushkin. It does not contain

drama and breadth of vision, his worldview is a worldview

the simplest mortal..."11 (italics mine - N.S.). This

written in 1856. We will talk about the drama of late Fet later.

Here we note a clear indication that the poetic worldview

Fet has the worldview of the simplest mortal.

“Before any demands of modernity, there is a personal self,

this heart exists, this person..."12 - wrote Botkin, clearly narrowing

the very concept of modernity, since “the personal self... is the heart,

this man" were already a requirement of modern times and Fet also answered

Of course, in order to split the core of human character

down to elementary particles, a very complex apparatus was needed,

which is what Fet’s poetry became. “I see a muse covered in simplicity, And

It’s not simple delight that sweetly flows into my chest,” wrote Fet. However

what Fet reveals is characteristic of everyone, everyone, although it is perceived

not always and not by everyone. For perception you need a “sympathetic”

mood”, poetic preparation is needed.

“To understand Fet,” they finally began to assimilate some

criticism - one must have a certain poetic development. Very few

I like Fet right away. Usually at first it seems empty,

Fet became involved in that revision of human personality, which

Russian literature began to produce, primarily in the person of L. Tolstoy,

even preceded this process. He is especially close

Tolstoy. And this is determined by the fact that the subject of Fet’s attention is

a normal, healthy person. His feelings are sophisticated, but not perverted.

“...We will not find in Fet,” wrote N. Strakhov, “not a shadow of pain,

no perversion of the soul, no ulcers... reading Fet

strengthens and refreshes the soul."14 Fet's healthy lyrics are not accidental

an indispensable participant in school anthologies, literature for children

reading. You can blame him for his narrow-mindedness, but there is no need

forget that only in this limitation is he free.

Fet wrote most “freely” in the 40s and 50s. Just at this time

time, the largest number of works are created, to which

could include the definitions “fresh”, “clear”, “whole”

", "unbroken," - she was so generous to them then for

Feta is a Russian criticism of all camps. It is precisely this, and even exclusively

At this time, Fet’s poems include a village: pastures and fields,

and sketches of village life, and signs of peasant labor

(“Rainy summer”, “The rye is ripening over the hot fields...”, “You see,

behind the backs of the mowers..."). All this will be completely gone from the late Fet.

The desire to create some kind of unity, something like

poems: “Spring”, “Summer”, “Autumn”, “Snow”. Most of those who entered

in these cycles of works created in the 40-60s. Of course, at Fet's

and there is no hint of social definitions, but he doesn’t have a village

only external decorum. The fresh spontaneity of Fet's lyrics

Then she was not alienated from the village, the village also nourished her. In "Fortune-telling"

Feta, which can be compared both in plot and in how

they are alien to social overtones, with Zhukovsky’s “Svetlana”, we

We no longer find a conventionally folk one, as in Zhukovsky, but a living one,

folk, directly Nekrasov speech:

Lots of laughs! What's wrong with you?

Just like a market!

What a buzz! like bees

The barn is full.

There is the prowess and scope of the folk, or rather, Koltsovo song

in the 1847 poem “What an Evening...”:

This is how everything lives in the spring! Everything trembles and sings

In a grove, in a field Involuntarily.

We'll shut up in the bushes

These choirs, and not children, will pass like this

The grandchildren will come with a song on their lips:

Our children; They will come down to them in the spring

Same sounds.

That’s why Fet’s special predilection for Koltsov is not surprising.

one of his favorite poets. Already in old age, Fet wrote,

that he was under the “mighty” influence of Koltsov: “I have always

captivated by poetic exuberance, which Koltsov lacks

no... there is so much specifically Russian inspiration and enthusiasm in him

Fet remained a lyricist, albeit of a special kind. In Fet's lyrics

(at least in a significant part of it) there is a peculiar

primitiveness, which V. Botkin said well: “So naive

attentiveness of feelings and eyes can only be found among primitive

poets. He does not think about life, but unaccountably rejoices

to her. This is some kind of innocence of feeling, some kind of primitive

a festive view of the phenomena of life, characteristic of the original

era of human consciousness. That's why he is so dear to us,

like our irretrievable youth. That's why they're so attractive

Mr. Fet's anthological plays are whole and complete.

comprehensive significance, and it was given in 1856, that is

belongs to the first period of Fet’s work, but precisely with the feeling

life, which Botkin and Fet speak about and is close to Tolstoy’s epic

and Nekrasov in his poems of the early 60s. However, in order to

create an epic work (which is always popular) in new

conditions, on a new basis, it was necessary to solve the problem of people's

character. Unlike Tolstoy and Nekrasov, Fet did not do this

could. But Fet, who expressed the feeling of life fresh, unbroken,

Fet, who returned to the basic, initial elements of existence,

who in his lyrics elucidated the primary, infinitely small, this

One should not think, however, that Fet only records the immanent

and disparate psychological moods and subconscious states.

In this capacity, Fet's poetry would never have acquired

the influence it had on Russian culture.

Fet strives to build a bridge from this state to the whole world,

establish a connection between a given moment and life, ultimately in its

cosmic significance. A feeling of depth, space, distance,

already characteristic of early Fet, increasingly turns into a feeling

infinity and if not filled with the philosophical

meaning, it will point to it. This is the art of “everything”

sympathies,” to use Thomas Mann’s term, and reports

the main interest of his poetry becomes the main “typing

"beginning in it. His feelings and mood can become isolated

for everything in the world (we have already said that the world of social life, say,

the element of reason, even the simple existence of other people is excluded

is true, but this is what ensures the special selflessness of his lyrics),

merge with nature. It was this quality that delighted Tyutchev,

wrote to Fet:

beloved by the great mother,

Your lot is a hundred times more enviable;

More than once under the visible shell

You saw it right away...

Here lies the explanation of Fet’s love lyrics, which are not

just love lyrics. Fet's love is natural. But this love

natural not only because, first of all, it is sensual, although*

she was even accused of eroticism. However, in this case, misunderstanding

Feta occurs not only as a consequence of aesthetic deafness

or bias, but also reflects the peculiarities of the poet’s own system.

Fet's people, we said, live like nature, and nature like

People. And this is no longer the usual humanization, animation,

personification, etc. In Fet’s nature is not just spiritualized,

she lives not as a person in general, but as a person precisely in this

intimate moment, this momentary state and tension,

sometimes directly replacing it. The humanization of Tyutchev's "Fountain"

"For all the specificity of the description, it is based on a general comparison

with the “mortal thought” of a water cannon, Fet’s water cannon lives in unison

with a person, his impulse of this moment:

Now the month has emerged in its wondrous radiance

To the heights

And a water cannon in continuous kissing, -

Oh, where are you?

The tops of the linden trees are breathing

It's gratifying,

And the corners of the pillow

Cool moisture.

The natural world lives an intimate life, and the intimate life receives

sanction of all-natural existence.

I'm waiting... There's a breeze from the south;

It’s warm for me to stand and walk;

The star rolled to the west...

Sorry, golden one, sorry!

This is the finale of the poem “I’m waiting ...”, the third stanza in it with already

repeating “I’m waiting” three times and resolving the tense

waiting for a star to fall. Again nature and human life

are linked by bonds of infinitely polysemantic meanings: say, farewell

with a star (the epithet “golden” makes us perceive precisely

so) it also feels like a farewell to her (the epithet can be attributed

and to her), not coming, not coming... She is not just likened

star, they can no longer be separated from each other.

Polysemy, which is relatively easily accepted by modern

a reader brought up on the poetry of the 20th century, with great effort

the house was perceived by Fet's contemporaries. Parsing a poem

“Swinging, the stars blinked with rays...”, Polonsky wrote indignantly

the sky, the depth of the sea - and the depth of your soul - I believe that you

here you are talking about the depths of your soul”17. "Uncertainty of content

it is taken to the last extreme... - quoting the beautiful

the poem “Wait for a clear day tomorrow...”, B. Almazov was indignant.-

What is this, finally? And here is what Druzhinin wrote

in his “Letters from a Nonresident Subscriber” about the poem “In the Long

nights": "...Mr. Fet's poem with its desperate confusion

and in darkness surpasses almost everything ever written in such

sort of in the Russian dialect!”18.

The poet, who so boldly “concluded” from the particular to the general, although

separated the spheres of the poetic, but in these spheres themselves he had to

take the path of shifting the usual ideas about the poetic:

Dense nettles Jolly boats

It makes noise under the window, blue in the distance;

Green Willow Iron Lattice

Hung like a tent; Squeals under the saw.

The poem is characterized by its extraordinary decisiveness

transition from the lowest, the closest (nettle under the window)

to the farthest and highest (distance, sea, freedom) and back.

It all rests on the combination of these two plans. There is no average.

In general, Fet’s middle link usually falls out. The same thing happens

and in Fet’s love lyrics, where we never see her, character, person,

nothing that implies character and that communication with a person,

carries character. Fet has it very specific (with the smell

hair, with the rustle of a dress, parting to the left), extremely

the experiences associated with her are specific, but she and these experiences

just a reason, an excuse to break through to the universal, worldly, natural

apart from it as a human certainty.

In the poems “Pseudo-poet”, obviously addressed to Nekrasov,

Fet reproached him for “lack of freedom”:

Dragging at the whim of the people Did not ascend piously

In the mud, a low-bowed verse, You in that fresh darkness,

You are the words of the proud, freedom, where selflessly and freely

I never understood it with my heart. Free song and eagle.

Let's not indulge in moral maxims about sycophancy

Fet himself before the powers that be. “It’s the same in life

Shenshin,” Fet would object to this, although Fet is nasty and flattering

The same strong ones wrote a lot of poems.

But in the poems “To the Pseudopoet” Fet himself has too much bitterness

for a free relationship with the world. And this is not bitterness

accidentally. It is not only a rejection of a person of another party, another

social camp. These poems were written in 1866, and the 60s, especially

their second half, a time of crisis in Fet’s development. One

was the first to point out the danger that the position was fraught with

“songbird”, Nekrasov, who at one time fully saw the power of

This is Fet's position. A. Ya. Panaeva recalls: “Fet conceived

publish a complete collection of his poems and gave them to Turgenev and Nekrasov

carte blanche throw out those poems from the old edition that

they will find it bad. Nekrasov and Turgenev talk about this

There were frequent disputes. Nekrasov found it unnecessary to throw away

some poems, but Turgenev insisted. Very

I remember well how Turgenev passionately argued to Nekrasov that in

one stanza of the poem: “... I don’t know what I’ll sing, -

but only the song is ripening! Fet exposed<^ои телячьи мозги»19.

In 1866, Nekrasov spoke out in print on the same issue.

already ironically: “As you know, we have poets of three kinds:

those who “they themselves don’t know what they will sing,” as they aptly put it

their ancestor, Mr. Fet. These are, so to speak, songbirds."20

The sixties brought a new, complex sense of life,

and a new method was needed to express her joys and her sorrows,

first of all an epic. Nekrasov the lyricist could successfully create in the 60s

precisely because he became one of the creators of the Russian epic of this

pores, namely the epic, and not just the poems that he wrote before. Life

was included in literature to a extent that had never been included in it

earlier, and perhaps later too. Suffice it to say that this

the time of the creation of "War and Peace". It was in the 60s that Nekrasov

will write “Green Noise”, due to its harmony, closeness to nature,

perhaps most akin to Fet and yet for Fet himself

impossible work.

The position of the “one”, the look for Fet is natural and inevitable,

for peace above people and beyond them, true “complete” harmony

excluded, although Fet himself was sensitively and inevitably drawn to her. This

especially clearly visible when compared with “full” completely harmonious

creatures that appeared at different stages of human

history and art history: Venus de Milo, Sistine Madonna,

Christ. We did not take the examples arbitrarily, they are pointed to

works by Fet himself. When Fet wrote the poems “Venus

Milo”, then they turned out to be only a glorification of female beauty

as such. And maybe good in themselves, being attributed

to the Venus de Milo, seemed almost blasphemous to Gleb Uspensky.

“Little by little I finally convinced myself that Mr. Fet

without any reason, but only under the impression of the word

"Venus", which obliges us to glorify feminine beauty, sang what

which does not constitute even a small edge in the Venus de Milo

in the overall enormity of the impression it makes... And how

no matter how carefully you examine this great creature from the point of view

view of “feminine charm”, you will be convinced at every step

that the creator of this work of art had some kind of

another higher goal"21. However, Gleb Uspensky was sure that

Venus de Milo would also not have been understood by Yaroshenko’s Wanderer.

When Fet tried to write about the Sistine Madonna, then, in essence,

was powerless to do so. In the verses “To the Sistine Madonna”

"he said about Saint Barbara, and about Sixtus, and about the clouds in the picture,

but, limiting himself to circumlocutions, he did not dare to “describe”

her, as happened with the Venus de Milo, and thus showed at least

least artistic tact.

Fet was largely brought out of the crisis of the 60-70s by Schopenhauer,

albeit in a paradoxical way: by helping to understand and express this crisis

in truly tragic verses. In the 70-80s, Fet remained

servant of beauty. But this very service was realized more and more

like a heavy duty. Fet once again proved how not free from

life position of a “free” artist. He was still a priest

“pure art”, but not only those who served him, but also

who made heavy sacrifices:

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?

This burden of service is clearly recognized and expressed in the “Obrochnik”

(1889) and in other poems of this time (“Curse us...”). In place

The legal autonomy of art comes, as Vl said. Soloviev

about supporters of “pure art”, “aesthetic separatism”.

The narrow-mindedness and obsession of sectarianism appears. In verse,

written as if on a private occasion, expressed a whole

program:

There's no time to think, apparently

It’s like there’s a noise in the ears and in the heart;

It’s a shame to talk today,

And being crazy is reasonable.

What a paradox: it is reasonable to be mad. But this means that

madness ceases to be madness, it becomes intentionality.

A warning was carried out by Turgenev, who wrote

Fet back in 1865, that in “a constant fear of prudence

much more precisely this prudence, in front of which you

you tremble so much than any other feeling.”22.

Beauty is no longer as immediate and fresh as in

40-50s. It has to be obtained through suffering, from suffering

defend, and finally, even in suffering, seek and find “joy”

flour." Suffering, pain, torment are increasingly breaking into poetry

Feta. Beauty and joy for Fet are still the main thing,

but not on their own, but as “healing from torment”, as opposing

suffering, which also begins to live in the poem itself:

With a pure and free soul,

Clear and fresh as night

Laugh at the sick song,

Drive her away, away!

As if for a little attention

To a free heart until then

Following living compassion

The same pain did not creep in!

And into the sore, tired chest

The moisture of the night blows...

Suffering, grief, pain burst into poetry. And if one poet (Nekrasov)

as duty realized the need to write about them, then another.

(Fet), who previously simply turned away from them, now realizes

like a grave duty it is necessary not to write about them:

You want to curse, sobbing and groaning,

Seek scourges to the law.

Poet, stop! don't call me -

Call Tisiphone from the abyss.

When, offended by outrages again,

In your chest you will hear a call to sob, -

I will not change for the sake of your torment

Freedom is an eternal calling.

And here, in service, in struggle, albeit of a special kind, Fet

revealed a new powerful vitality. Even more tragic

than the more powerful, death-defying ("Death") god

(“Not to those, Lord...”) and not withstanding the weight of the struggle, because

There were no values ​​other than beauty. But without values, outside

the beauty of the lying ones, the beauty itself was weakened, giving birth to new waves

pessimism and suffering. To the fiftieth anniversary of the creative

activities Fet wrote poems beginning with the words

“They are holding a funeral service for us...” and amazed their friends with their gloom.

In beauty itself, the poet begins to strive for the highest. Higher,

He also looks for the ideal in a woman. Characteristic sympathies in painting

in late Feta: Raphael, Perugino accurately determine the direction

search for the ideal.

I say that I love meeting with you

For the shine of your curls falling on your shoulders,

For the light that burns in the depths of your eyes.

Oh, it's all flowers, insects and stones,

Which ones the child is happy to pick up from all sides

To my beloved mother in those sweet moments,

When he looks into her eyes he is so happy.

What the poet’s gaze so readily stopped on and what completely

was satisfied (“the shine of the curls”, “the color is on the cheeks”, “running to the left

parting”, etc.) - all these are “flowers, insects and stones”. Need to

different, better and higher. But it will not be given:

In diligent searches, everything seems: just about

The familiar face accepts the mystery, -

But the poor heart's flight ends

One powerless languor.

He was powerless to express her in all the complexity of her feelings,

in character, in spirituality, in ideality. Fet rushed towards

Nekrasov's path, on the path of Tyutchev, looking for her, creating his own “lyrical

novel,” and yet the unity of the cycle will remain only the unity

moods.

The poem "Never" may be the most accurate expression

late Fet crisis. This is a poetic fantasy on the theme

resurrection on an already frozen and deserted land:

No winter birds, no midges on the snow.

I understood everything: the earth has long cooled down

And died out. Who should I take care of?

Breathing in your chest? For whom is the grave

Did she bring me back? And my consciousness

What is it connected with? And what is his calling?

Where to go, where there is no one to hug,

Where time is lost in space?

Come back, death, hurry up to accept

The last life is a fatal burden.

And you, frozen corpse of the earth, fly,

Carrying my corpse along the eternal path!

Fet expresses such a resurrection in the future as nothing more than

dying in the present. Here are the questions: to whom? for whom? Where? And the answer

- “no one to hug.” L. Tolstoy clearly understood the essence of this poem

and wrote to Fet: “...the spiritual question is posed perfectly. And I

I answer it differently than you do. “I wouldn’t want to go to the grave again.”

For me and with the destruction of all life except me, it is still not

it's over. For me, my relationship with God still remains... God willing

I wish you health, peace of mind and that you recognize

the need for a relationship with God, the absence of which you are so clearly

deny in this poem"23.

For Fet there was no “God” and, more broadly, there were no “gods”, there were no

social, moral, religious values. Was alone

God is Art, which, as Valery Bryusov noted, is not

withstood the loads of the fullness of existence. The circle is closed and exhausted.

And for Fet’s closest heir - Alexander

Blok will need the antagonist Fet - Nekrasov with his search

social, worldly values ​​in real life in all its

complexity and breadth.

The great Russian lyricist A. Fet was born on December 5, 1820. But biographers doubt not only the exact date of his birth. The mysterious facts of their true origin tormented Fet until the end of his life. In addition to the absence of a father as such, the situation with the real surname was also unclear. All this shrouds Fet’s life and work in a certain mystery.

Fet's parents

According to the official version, the Russian nobleman Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, while undergoing treatment in the German city of Darmstadt, settled in the house of Oberkrieg Commissioner Karl Becker. After some time, a retired army officer becomes interested in the owner's daughter, Charlotte. However, Charlotte at that time was no longer free and was married to a petty German official, Karl Feth, who also lived in Becker’s house.

Despite these circumstances and even the fact that Charlotte has a daughter from Fet, a whirlwind romance begins. The lovers' feelings were so strong that Charlotte decided to escape with Shenshin to Russia. In the fall of 1820, Charlotte, leaving her husband and daughter, left Germany.

Mother's protracted divorce

An outline of Fet's life and work is impossible without a story about the relationship of his parents. Already in Russia, Charlotte dreams of an official divorce from Karl Fet. But divorce in those days was a rather lengthy process. Some biographers claim that because of this, the wedding ceremony between Shenshin and Charlotte took place two years after the birth of little Afanasy, their common son. According to one version, Shenshin allegedly bribed the priest in order to give the boy his last name.

Probably, it was this fact that influenced the poet’s entire life. Violations of this kind were treated quite strictly in the Russian Empire. However, all sources confirm the fact of the wedding of Shenshin and Charlotte, who later took the name Shenshin.

From nobles to paupers

Getting acquainted with the biography of the lyricist, you involuntarily ask yourself the question of what influenced Fet’s life and work. It is difficult to find out all the details down to the smallest detail. But the main milestones are quite accessible to us. Until the age of 14, little Afanasy considered himself a hereditary Russian nobleman. But then, thanks to the hard work of judicial officials, the secret of the child’s origin was revealed. In 1834, an investigation was launched into this case, as a result of which, by a decree of the Oryol provincial government, the future poet was deprived of the right to be called Shenshin.

It is clear that the ridicule of his recent comrades immediately began, which the boy experienced quite painfully. In part, this was what contributed to the development of Fet’s mental illness, which haunted him until his death. However, what was much more important was that in this situation he not only did not have the right to inheritance, but in general, judging by the documents presented from the archives of that time, he was a person of no confirmed nationality. At one point, a hereditary Russian nobleman with a rich inheritance turned into a beggar, a person of no use to anyone except his mother, without a surname, and the loss was so great that Fet himself considered this event to have disfigured his life to the point of his deathbed.

Foreigner Fet

One can imagine what the poet’s mother went through, begging the court’s tricksters for at least some kind of certificate about the origin of her son. But it was all in vain. The woman took a different route.

Remembering her German roots, she appealed to the pity of her former German husband. History is silent about how Elena Petrovna achieved the desired result. But he was. Relatives sent official confirmation that Afanasy is the son of Fetu.

So the poet at least got a last name, Fet’s life and work received a new impetus in development. However, in all the circulars he still continued to be called “foreigner Fet.” The natural conclusion from this was complete disinheritance. After all, now the foreigner had nothing in common with the nobleman Shenshin. It was at this moment that he was overcome by the idea of ​​regaining his lost Russian name and title by any means possible.

First steps in poetry

Afanasy enters the Faculty of Literature at Moscow University and is still referred to in the university forms as “foreigner Fet.” There he meets the future poet and critic. Historians believe that Fet’s life and work changed at this very moment: it is believed that Grigoriev discovered Afanasy’s poetic gift.

Soon Feta comes out - “Lyrical Pantheon”. The poet wrote it while still a university student. Readers highly appreciated the young man's gift - they did not care what class the author belonged to. And even the harsh critic Belinsky repeatedly emphasized the poetic gift of the young lyricist in his articles. Belinsky's reviews, in fact, served Fet as a kind of passport into the world of Russian poetry.

Afanasy began to publish in various publications and within a few years he prepared a new lyric collection.

Military service

However, the joy of creativity could not cure Fet’s sick soul. The thought of his true origin haunted the young man. He was ready to do anything to prove it. In the name of a great goal, Fet immediately after graduating from university enlists in military service, hoping to earn nobility in the army. He ends up serving in one of the provincial regiments located in the Kherson province. And immediately the first success - Fet officially receives Russian citizenship.

But his poetic activity does not end; he still continues to write and publish a lot. After some time, the army life of the provincial unit makes itself felt: Fet’s life and work (he writes poetry less and less) become more and more gloomy and uninteresting. The craving for poetry is weakening.

Fet, in personal correspondence, begins to complain to friends about the hardships of his current existence. In addition, judging by some letters, he is experiencing financial difficulties. The poet is even ready to do anything just to get rid of the current oppressive physically and morally deplorable situation.

Transfer to St. Petersburg

Fet's life and work were quite gloomy. Briefly summarizing the main events, we note that the poet pulled the soldier's burden for eight long years. And just before receiving the first officer rank in his life, Fet learns about a special decree that raised the length of service and the level of army rank for receiving the rank of nobility. In other words, nobility was now granted only to a person who received a higher officer rank than Fet had. This news completely demoralized the poet. He understood that he was unlikely to reach this rank. Fet's life and work were again reshaped by someone else's grace.

A woman with whom he could connect his life for convenience was also not on the horizon. Fet continued to serve, falling more and more into a depressed state.

However, luck finally smiled on the poet: he managed to transfer to the Guards Life Lancer Regiment, which was stationed not far from St. Petersburg. This event happened in 1853 and surprisingly coincided with a change in society's attitude towards poetry. Some decline in interest in literature, which emerged in the mid-1840s, passed.

Now, when Nekrasov became the editor-in-chief of the Sovremennik magazine and gathered the elite of Russian literature under his wing, the times clearly contributed to the development of any creative thought. Finally, the second collection of Fet’s poems, written long ago, was published, which the poet himself had forgotten about.

Poetic confession

The poems published in the collection made an impression on poetry connoisseurs. And soon such well-known literary critics of the time as V.P. Botkin and A.V. Druzhinin left rather flattering reviews of the works. Moreover, under pressure from Turgenev, they helped Fet release a new book.

In essence, these were all the same previously written poems from 1850. In 1856, after the release of a new collection, Fet’s life and work changed again. Briefly speaking, Nekrasov himself drew attention to the poet. Many flattering words addressed to Afanasy Fet were written by the master of Russian literature. Inspired by such high praise, the poet develops vigorous activity. He is published in almost all literary magazines, which undoubtedly contributed to some improvement in his financial situation.

Romantic interest

Fet's life and work gradually filled with light. His most important desire - obtaining a noble title - was soon to come true. But the next imperial decree again raised the bar for obtaining hereditary nobility. Now, in order to gain the coveted rank, it was necessary to rise to the rank of colonel. The poet realized that it was simply useless to continue to pull the hated burden of military service.

But as often happens, a person cannot help but be lucky in absolutely everything. While still in Ukraine, Fet was invited to a reception with his friends Brzhevsky and on a neighboring estate he met a girl who would not leave his mind for a long time. This was the gifted musician Elena Lazich, whose talent amazed even the famous composer who was then touring Ukraine.

As it turned out, Elena was a passionate fan of Fet’s poetry, and he, in turn, was amazed by the girl’s musical abilities. Of course, it is impossible to imagine Fet’s life and work without romance. The summary of his romance with Lazic fits into one phrase: the young people had tender feelings for each other. However, Fet is very burdened by his dire financial situation and does not dare to take a serious turn of events. The poet tries to explain his problems to Lazic, but she, like all girls in such a situation, does not understand his torment well. Fet directly tells Elena that there will be no wedding.

Tragic death of a loved one

After that, he tries not to see the girl. Leaving for St. Petersburg, Afanasy understands that he is doomed to eternal spiritual loneliness. According to some historians studying his life and work, Afanasy Fet wrote too pragmatically to his friends about marriage, about love and about Elena Lazich. Most likely, the romantic Fet was simply carried away by Elena, not intending to burden himself with a more serious relationship.

In 1850, while visiting the same Brzhevskys, he did not dare to go to the neighboring estate to dot all the i’s. Later Fet very much regretted this. The fact is that Elena soon died tragically. History is silent whether her terrible death was a suicide or not. But the fact remains: the girl burned alive on the estate.

Fet himself found out about this when he once again visited his friends. This shocked him so much that until the end of his life the poet blamed himself for Elena’s death. He was tormented by the fact that he could not find the right words to calm the girl down and explain his behavior to her. After Lazic’s death, there were many rumors, but no one ever proved Fet’s involvement in this sad event.

Marriage of convenience

Fairly judging that in the army service he is unlikely to achieve his goal - a noble title, Fet takes a long leave. Taking with him all the accumulated fees, the poet sets off on a trip to Europe. In 1857, in Paris, he unexpectedly married Maria Petrovna Botkina, the daughter of a wealthy tea merchant, who, among other things, was the sister of the literary critic V.P. Botkin. Apparently, this was the same arranged marriage that the poet had dreamed about for so long. Contemporaries very often asked Fet about the reasons for his marriage, to which he responded with eloquent silence.

In 1858, Fet arrived in Moscow. He is again overcome by thoughts about the scarcity of finances. Apparently, his wife's dowry does not fully satisfy his requirements. The poet writes a lot and is published a lot. Often the quantity of works does not correspond to their quality. This is noticed by both close friends and literary critics. The public also seriously cooled towards Fet’s work.

landowner

Around the same time, Leo Tolstoy left the bustle of the capital. Having settled in Yasnaya Polyana, he tries to regain inspiration. Fet probably decided to follow his example and settle on his estate in Stepanovka. Sometimes they say that Fet’s life and work ended here. Interesting facts, however, were also found in this period. Unlike Tolstoy, who really found a second wind in the provinces, Fet increasingly abandons literature. He is now passionate about the estate and farming.

It should be noted that as a landowner he really found himself. After some time, Fet increases his holdings by purchasing several more neighboring estates.

Afanasy Shenshin

In 1863, the poet published a small lyric collection. Even despite the small circulation, it remained unsold. But the neighboring landowners assessed Fet in a completely different capacity. For about 11 years he held the elected position of justice of the peace.

The life and work of Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet were subordinated to the only goal towards which he moved with amazing tenacity - the restoration of his noble rights. In 1873, a royal decree was issued that put an end to the poet’s forty-year ordeal. He was fully restored to his rights and legitimized as a nobleman with the surname Shenshin. Afanasy Afanasyevich admits to his wife that he does not even want to say out loud the surname Fet, which he hates.

On November 23, 1820, in the village of Novoselki, located near Mtsensk, the great Russian poet Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet was born into the family of Caroline Charlotte Fet and Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin. His parents got married abroad without an Orthodox ceremony (the poet’s mother was a Lutheran), which is why the marriage, legalized in Germany, was declared invalid in Russia.

Deprivation of a noble title

Later, when the wedding took place according to the Orthodox rite, Afanasy Afanasyevich was already living under his mother’s last name, Fet, being considered her illegitimate child. The boy was deprived, in addition to his father's surname, his title of nobility, Russian citizenship and rights to inheritance. For the young man, for many years, the most important goal in life was to regain the surname Shenshin and all the rights associated with it. Only in his old age was he able to achieve this, regaining his hereditary nobility.

Education

The future poet entered the boarding school of Professor Pogodin in Moscow in 1838, and in August of the same year he was enrolled in the literature department at Moscow University. He spent his student years with the family of his classmate and friend. The friendship of young people contributed to the formation of common ideals and views on art.

First attempts at writing

Afanasy Afanasyevich begins to compose poetry, and in 1840 a collection of poetry, published at his own expense, entitled “Lyrical Pantheon”, was published. In these poems one could clearly hear the echoes of the poetic work of Evgeniy Baratynsky, and since 1842, Afanasy Afanasyevich has been constantly published in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski. Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky already in 1843 wrote that of all the poets living in Moscow, Fet is “the most talented,” and puts the poems of this author on a par with the works of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov.

Necessity of a military career

Fet strove for literary activity with all his soul, but the instability of his financial and social situation forced the poet to change his destiny. Afanasy Afanasyevich in 1845 entered as a non-commissioned officer in one of the regiments located in the Kherson province in order to be able to receive hereditary nobility (the right to which was given by senior officer rank). Cut off from the literary environment and metropolitan life, he almost stops publishing, also because, due to the fall in demand for poetry, magazines show no interest in his poems.

A tragic event in Fet's personal life

In the Kherson years, a tragic event occurred that predetermined the poet’s personal life: his beloved Maria Lazich, a dowry girl whom he did not dare to marry because of his poverty, died in a fire. After Fet’s refusal, a strange incident happened to her: Maria’s dress caught fire from a candle, she ran into the garden, but could not cope with putting out the clothes and suffocated in the smoke. One could suspect this as an attempt by the girl to commit suicide, and Fet’s poems will echo this tragedy for a long time (for example, the poem “When you read the painful lines...”, 1887).

Admission to L Life Guards Uhlan Regiment

In 1853, there was a sharp turn in the poet’s fate: he managed to join the guard, the Ulan Regiment of the Life Guards stationed near St. Petersburg. Now Afanasy Afanasyevich gets the opportunity to visit the capital, resumes his literary activity, and begins to regularly publish poems in Sovremennik, Russky Vestnik, Otechestvennye Zapiski, and Library for Reading. He becomes close to Ivan Turgenev, Nikolai Nekrasov, Vasily Botkin, Alexander Druzhinin - editors of Sovremennik. Fet's name, already half-forgotten by that time, again appears in reviews, articles, magazine chronicles, and since 1854 his poems have been published. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev became the poet’s mentor and even prepared a new edition of his works in 1856.

The fate of the poet in 1856-1877

Fet was unlucky in his service: each time the rules for obtaining hereditary nobility were tightened. In 1856, he left his military career without achieving his main goal. In Paris in 1857, Afanasy Afanasyevich married the daughter of a wealthy merchant, Maria Petrovna Botkina, and acquired an estate in Mtsensk district. At that time he wrote almost no poetry. As a supporter of conservative views, Fet sharply reacted negatively to the abolition of serfdom in Russia and, starting in 1862, began regularly publishing essays in the Russian Bulletin, denouncing the post-reform order from the position of a landowner. In 1867-1877 he served as justice of the peace. In 1873, Afanasy Afanasyevich finally received hereditary nobility.

The fate of Fet in the 1880s

The poet returned to literature only in the 1880s, having moved to Moscow and become rich. In 1881, his long-time dream was realized - the translation he created of his favorite philosopher, “The World as Will and Representation,” was published. In 1883, a translation of all the works of the poet Horace, begun by Fet during his student years, was published. The period from 1883 to 1991 included the publication of four issues of the poetry collection “Evening Lights”.

Fet's lyrics: general characteristics

The poetry of Afanasy Afanasyevich, romantic in its origins, is like a connecting link between the works of Vasily Zhukovsky and Alexander Blok. The poet's later poems gravitated towards the Tyutchev tradition. Fet's main lyrics are love and landscape.

In the 1950-1960s, during the formation of Afanasy Afanasyevich as a poet, the literary environment was almost completely dominated by Nekrasov and his supporters - apologists for poetry glorifying social, civic ideals. Therefore, Afanasy Afanasyevich with his creativity, one might say, came out somewhat untimely. The peculiarities of Fet's lyrics did not allow him to join Nekrasov and his group. After all, according to representatives of civil poetry, poems must necessarily be topical, fulfilling a propaganda and ideological task.

Philosophical motives

Fet permeates all of his work, reflected in both landscape and love poetry. Although Afanasy Afanasyevich was even friends with many poets of Nekrasov’s circle, he argued that art should not be interested in anything other than beauty. Only in love, nature and art itself (painting, music, sculpture) did he find lasting harmony. Fet's philosophical lyrics sought to get as far as possible from reality, contemplating beauty that was not involved in the vanity and bitterness of everyday life. This led to the adoption by Afanasy Afanasyevich of romantic philosophy in the 1940s, and in the 1960s - the so-called theory of pure art.

The prevailing mood in his works is intoxication with nature, beauty, art, memories, and delight. These are the features of Fet's lyrics. The poet often encounters the motif of flying away from the earth following the moonlight or enchanting music.

Metaphors and epithets

Everything that belongs to the category of the sublime and beautiful is endowed with wings, especially the feeling of love and song. Fet's lyrics often use metaphors such as “winged dream”, “winged song”, “winged hour”, “winged word sound”, “inspired by delight”, etc.

Epithets in his works usually describe not the object itself, but the lyrical hero’s impression of what he saw. Therefore, they may be logically inexplicable and unexpected. For example, a violin might be defined as "melting." Typical epithets for Fet are “dead dreams”, “fragrant speeches”, “silver dreams”, “weeping herbs”, “widowed azure”, etc.

Often a picture is drawn using visual associations. The poem "To the Singer" is a vivid example of this. It shows the desire to translate the sensations created by the song’s melody into specific images and sensations, which make up Fet’s lyrics.

These poems are very unusual. So, “the distance rings,” and the smile of love “gently shines,” “the voice burns” and fades away in the distance, like “the dawn beyond the sea,” so that pearls will splash out again in a “loud tide.” Russian poetry did not know such complex, bold images at that time. They established themselves much later, only with the advent of the Symbolists.

Speaking about Fet’s creative style, they also mention impressionism, which is based on the direct recording of impressions of reality.

Nature in the poet's work

Fet's landscape lyrics are a source of divine beauty in eternal renewal and diversity. Many critics have mentioned that nature is described by this author as if from the window of a landowner’s estate or from the perspective of a park, as if specifically to arouse admiration. Fet's landscape lyrics are a universal expression of the beauty of the world untouched by man.

For Afanasy Afanasyevich, nature is part of his own “I”, a background for his experiences and feelings, a source of inspiration. Fet's lyrics seem to blur the line between the external and internal world. Therefore, human properties in his poems can be attributed to darkness, air, even color.

Very often, nature in Fet’s lyrics is a night landscape, since it is at night, when the bustle of the day calms down, that it is easiest to enjoy the all-encompassing, indestructible beauty. At this time of day, the poet has no glimpses of the chaos that fascinated and frightened Tyutchev. A majestic harmony hidden during the day reigns. It is not the wind and darkness, but the stars and the moon that come first. According to the stars, Fet reads the “fiery book” of eternity (the poem “Among the Stars”).

The themes of Fet's lyrics are not limited to descriptions of nature. A special section of his work is poetry dedicated to love.

Fet's love lyrics

For a poet, love is a whole sea of ​​feelings: timid longing, the pleasure of spiritual intimacy, the apotheosis of passion, and the happiness of two souls. The poetic memory of this author knew no bounds, which allowed him to write poems dedicated to his first love even in his declining years, as if he were still under the impression of a much-desired recent date.

Most often, the poet described the birth of a feeling, its most enlightened, romantic and reverent moments: the first touch of hands, long glances, the first evening walk in the garden, the contemplation of the beauty of nature that gives rise to spiritual intimacy. The lyrical hero says that he values ​​the steps to it no less than happiness itself.

Fet's landscape and love lyrics form an inseparable unity. A heightened perception of nature is often caused by love experiences. A striking example of this is the miniature “Whisper, Timid Breathing...” (1850). The fact that there are no verbs in the poem is not only an original technique, but also a whole philosophy. There is no action because what is actually being described is only one moment or a whole series of moments, motionless and self-sufficient. The image of the beloved, described through detail, seems to dissolve in the general range of the poet’s feelings. There is no complete portrait of the heroine here - it must be supplemented and recreated by the reader’s imagination.

Love in Fet's lyrics is often complemented by other motives. Thus, in the poem “The night was shining. The garden was full of the moon...” three feelings are united in a single impulse: admiration for the music, the intoxicating night and inspired singing, which develops into love for the singer. The poet’s entire soul dissolves in music and at the same time in the soul of the singing heroine, who is the living embodiment of this feeling.

It is difficult to classify this poem unambiguously as love lyrics or poems about art. It would be more accurate to define it as a hymn to beauty, combining the liveliness of experience, its charm with deep philosophical overtones. This worldview is called aestheticism.

Afanasy Afanasyevich, carried away on the wings of inspiration beyond the boundaries of earthly existence, feels like a ruler, equal to the gods, overcoming the limitations of human capabilities with the power of his poetic genius.

Conclusion

The whole life and work of this poet is a search for beauty in love, nature, even death. Was he able to find her? Only those who truly understood the creative heritage of this author can answer this question: heard the music of his works, saw landscape paintings, felt the beauty of poetic lines and learned to find harmony in the world around them.

We examined the main motives of Fet's lyrics, the characteristic features of the work of this great writer. So, for example, like any poet, Afanasy Afanasyevich writes about the eternal theme of life and death. He is not equally frightened by either death or life (“Poems about Death”). The poet experiences only cold indifference to physical death, and Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet justifies his earthly existence only by creative fire, commensurate in his view with the “entire universe.” The poems contain both ancient motifs (for example, “Diana”) and Christian ones (“Ave Maria”, “Madonna”).

You can find more detailed information about Fet’s work in school textbooks on Russian literature, in which Afanasy Afanasyevich’s lyrics are discussed in some detail.