Landscape lyrics feta. Fet is one of the most remarkable Russian landscape poets

The realism movement in Russian art of the 19th century was so powerful that all outstanding artists experienced its influence in their work. In the poetry of A. A. Fet, the influence of realism was especially evident in poems about nature.
Fet is one of the most remarkable Russian landscape poets. In his poems, all the seasons of the year appear in all their beauty: summer, winter, spring with flowering trees and the first flowers, and autumn with cranes calling in the steppe. It seems to me that the image of cranes, so beloved by many Russian poets, was first depicted by Fet.
In Fet's poetry, nature is depicted in detail. In this regard, he is an innovator. Before Fet, generalization reigned in Russian poetry addressed to nature. In Fet's poems we meet not only traditional birds with their usual poetic aura, such as the nightingale, swan, lark, eagle, but also such simple and unpoetic birds as the owl, harrier, lapwing, and swift. For example:
And I hear: in a dewy setting
The corncrakes murmur in a low voice.
It is significant that here we are dealing with an author who distinguishes birds by their voice, and moreover, notices where this bird is located. This, of course, is not just a consequence of a good knowledge of nature, but the poet’s long-standing and deep love for it.
Apparently, when working on poetry about nature, the author must have unerring taste, because otherwise he immediately risks falling into imitation of folk poetry, which abounds in such descriptions.
S. Ya. Marshak is right in his admiration for the freshness and spontaneity of Fetov’s perception of nature: “His poems entered Russian nature, became its integral part, wonderful lines about spring rain, the flight of a butterfly, soulful landscapes.”
In my opinion, Marshak accurately noticed another feature of Fet’s poetry: “His nature is as if on the first day of creation: thickets of trees, a light ribbon of a river, a nightingale’s peace, a sweetly murmuring spring... If annoying modernity sometimes invades this closed world, then it immediately loses its practical meaning and acquires a decorative character.”
As an important facet of Feta the landscape painter, I would like to note his impressionism. The impressionist does not shy away from the outside world; he vigilantly peers into it, depicting it as it appears to his immediate eye. The impressionist is not interested in the subject, but in the impression:
You alone glide along the azure paths;
Everything around is motionless...
Let the night pour in its bottomless urn
Myriads of stars are coming to us.
It is clear to the reader that the external world is depicted here in the form that the poet’s mood gave it. With all the specificity of the description of details, nature still seems to dissolve in Fet’s lyrical feeling.
The poet’s nature is humanized like none of his predecessors. His flowers smile, the stars pray, the pond dreams, the birches wait, the willow is “friendly with painful dreams.” The moment of nature’s “response” to the poet’s feelings is interesting:
...in the air behind the nightingale's song
Anxiety and love spread.
Leo Tolstoy wrote about this couplet: “And where does this good-natured fat officer get such incomprehensible lyrical audacity, a property of great poets?” One must assume that Lev Nikolayevich, at the same time “grumbling,” recognized Fet as a great poet. He wasn't wrong.
Fet is also good at love lyrics. His landscape background came in handy in his romantic love poems. Fet always chose only beauty as a theme for his poems - in nature, in man. The poet himself was sure: “Without a sense of beauty, life comes down to feeding hounds in a stuffy, fetid kennel.”
Beautiful, brilliant Fetov landscapes will always decorate our lives.

The realism movement in Russian art of the 19th century was so powerful and significant that all outstanding artists experienced its influence in their work. In the poetry of A. A. Fet, the influence of realism was especially evident in poems about nature. Fet is one of the most remarkable Russian landscape poets. In his poems, the Russian spring appears in all its beauty, with blooming trees, the first flowers, and cranes calling in the steppe. Apparently, the image of cranes, so beloved by many Russian poets, was first depicted by Fet.

In Fet's poetry, nature is depicted in detail. In this regard, he is an innovator. Before Fet, generalization reigned in Russian poetry addressed to nature. In Fet we encounter not only traditional birds surrounded by the usual poetic aura (nightingale, swan, lark, eagle), but also seemingly simple and unpoetic ones (owl, harrier, lapwing, swift). For example:

It is significant that the author distinguishes birds by their voice and can determine where this bird is located. This means not just a good knowledge of nature, but the poet’s love for it, long-standing and thorough. Undoubtedly, the author of poetry about nature must have extraordinary taste, otherwise he risks falling into imitation of folk poetry, which abounds in such images.

S. Ya. Marshak was right when he admired the freshness and spontaneity of Fetov’s perception of nature and argued that the poet’s poems entered Russian nature, became its integral part, wonderful lines about spring rain, the flight of a butterfly, and soulful landscapes. Marshak, in addition, accurately noticed one more feature of Fet’s poetry, arguing that his nature is exactly like on the first day of creation: thickets of trees, a light ribbon of a river, a nightingale’s peace, a sweetly murmuring spring...

As an important facet of Feta’s talent as a landscape painter, one cannot fail to note his characteristic

creativity impressionism. The poet does not shy away from the outside world; he vigilantly peers into it, depicting it as it appears to his immediate gaze. The impressionist is not interested in the subject, but in the impression:

You alone glide along the Azure path;

Everything around is motionless...

Let the night pour in its bottomless urn

Myriads of stars are coming to us.

The external world in these lines is depicted in the form that the poet’s mood gave it. Despite all the specificity of the description of details, nature still seems to dissolve in the author’s lyrical feeling. Fet's nature is humanized like none of his predecessors. His flowers smile, the stars pray, the pond dreams, the birches wait, the willow is “friendly with painful dreams.” The moment of nature’s “response” to the poet’s feelings is interesting:

In the air behind the nightingale's song, anxiety and love are heard.

This couplet delighted Leo Tolstoy, and he wondered where this “good-natured fat officer got such incomprehensible lyrical audacity, a property of great poets.” Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, at the same time grumbling, recognized Fet as a great poet. And he was not mistaken. Fet also truly succeeded in love lyrics. His landscape background came in handy in his romantic love poems. He always chose only beauty as a theme for his poems - both in nature and in man. The poet himself was sure that “without a sense of beauty, life comes down to feeding hounds in a stuffy, fetid kennel.” The beauty of its rhythms and landscapes will always delight the reader.

Throughout his life he defended the theory of “pure art”. Having thus distanced himself from philosophical and civil themes, the poet worked exclusively in the genres of love and landscape lyrics.

In depicting nature, he reached unprecedented heights in poetry, but at the same time was subjected to sharp condemnation from critics. Fet was accused of a complete lack of civic position, and his delightful poems were called “trifles.”

2.Features. Home distinctive feature Fet's landscape poetry is his desire to express fleeting impressions that arise when contemplating natural phenomena. This creates a feeling of incredible lightness and airiness.

In the poet's works, epithets are very often found: “airy”, “winged”. The tendency to break away from the real world and “soar” into the realm of pure aesthetics is clearly expressed. Fet considered nature to be the embodiment of eternal and unchanging beauty, existing independently of humans.

The poet's task is to feel this beauty and express it in his work. Fet himself declared that poetry is a “lie,” because a pure lyricist turns a blind eye to all the shortcomings of the world around him. The poet was sure that the task of poetry is not to depict the subject, but its “one-sided ideal.”

Thanks to such a narrow view, Fet’s landscape lyrics acquired a special charm and aesthetic charm. Fet sought to depict nature using the fusion of the basic senses: sight, hearing and smell. It is characteristic of him live game shades and halftones.

The poet’s special technique was to use reflections of the landscape in rivers and bays. The described object remained motionless, but its “double” “oscillated,” “trembled,” and “trembled,” which created a feeling of dynamics. Fet once called his poetry “fragrant.”

Nature in his works is saturated with all kinds of aromas - the smells of herbs and flowers. Various sounds play a huge role in all of Fet’s landscape lyrics. This fusion leads to the emergence of a special “sixth” sense inherent in a real poet. A special space arises in which it is impossible to distinguish an object from a smell or sound.

The incredible musicality of Fet's lyrics is confirmed by the fact that many of his poems have become famous romances. Another characteristic feature of Fet’s landscape lyrics is its “pointlessness,” for which the poet was often criticized. The most striking example is the poem “Whisper, timid breathing...”, in which there is not a single verb. Fet very rarely has the figure of a lyrical hero, and generally lacks any subjective view. The observer is in a state of rapt contemplation; his presence can be guessed only by indirect signs.

3. Main motives. The central motif of Fetov’s landscape lyrics was the depiction of special “borderline” states of nature: morning and evening hours, pictures of spring. Fet was attracted by subtle changes in nature, which he sought to capture, as if “photographing” them.

In his depiction of spring and morning, Fet adhered to the traditional poetry view of them as a time of awakening and the beginning of a new life. Evening is usually associated with extinction, sadness and melancholy. For Fet, evening time meant a period of achieving special harmony. The soul, exhausted during the day, finds peace and well-deserved rest.

4.Poems. Fet owns a huge number of poems written in the genre of landscape lyrics. It is enough to list only the most famous of them: “Whisper, timid breathing...”, “I came to you with greetings...”, “Dawn bids farewell to the earth” and many others. etc. Works dedicated to nature make up entire poetic cycles in Fet’s work: “Spring”, “Summer”, “Autumn”, “Snow”.

5.Results. Fet is considered one of the leading Russian landscape poets. He fully deserved this title not only for his rich creative heritage, but also for his special attitude towards nature. She was for the poet an object of enthusiastic worship. Only love, according to Fet, is capable of challenging nature’s right to unlimited veneration. A century later civil position No one is interested in Fet, but he is wonderful poems gained immortality.

Fet is without a doubt one of the most remarkable Russian landscape poets. In his poems, the Russian spring appears before us - with fluffy willows, with the first lily of the valley asking for the sun's rays, with translucent leaves of blossoming birches, with bees crawling “into every carnation of fragrant lilacs,” with cranes calling in the steppe. And the Russian summer with sparkling, burning air, with a blue sky covered in haze, with the golden tints of ripening rye in the wind, with the purple smoke of sunset, with the aroma of mown flowers over the fading steppe. And Russian autumn with colorful forest slopes, with birds stretching into the distance or fluttering in leafless bushes, with herds on trampled stubble. And Russian winter with distant sleighs running on shiny snow, with the play of dawn on a snow-covered birch tree, with frost patterns on the double window glass.

Love for nature is felt already in Fet’s early poems; nevertheless, the landscape does not appear immediately in his poetry. In the poems of the 40s, the images of nature are general, not detailed even in such successful poems as “Wonderful Picture...”, where the image of a bright winter night is created by such features as “a white plain, full moon, the light of the high heavens, and the shining snow." The main thing here is emotional expression, excited by nature; there is no close “peering” yet.

At least now: I’ll look outside the window at the cheerful greenery

Spring trees, but suddenly the wind will carry it to me

The morning smell of flowers and birds, sonorous songs -

So he would have rushed into the garden shouting: let's go, let's go!

(“A strange feeling took over for a few days...”)

Fet describes natural phenomena in more detail and appears more specific than those of his predecessors. In Fet’s poems we will meet, for example, not only traditional birds that have received the usual symbolic coloring, such as the eagle, nightingale, swan, lark, but also such as the harrier, owl, little black owl, sandpiper, lapwing, swift, etc. And each the bird is shown in its originality. When Fet writes:

("Steppe in the evening")

Here poetry includes the observations of a person who determines by voice not only which bird is singing, but also where it is, and what the strength of the sounds is in relation to the normal strength of its voice, and even what the meaning of the sounds heard is. Indeed, in another poem (“I’m waiting, overwhelmed with anxiety...”), in the impenetrable darkness of the night, the crake “called hoarsely to his friend.”

And a distant unknown cry.

Night flowers sleep all day long,

The leaves are quietly opening,

And I hear my heart bloom.

The author teaches us to open our hearts to nature, to let it into our souls, to enrich ourselves spiritually, returning this beauty to those around us. By being able to appreciate all the diversity of the world, you become richer and purer - isn’t that main value communication with the poetry of a great master.

Words cannot express anyone!

Streams spin into foam!

In the ether the song trembles and melts,

“You’ll survive another spring!”

Nature in the poems of Afanasy Afanasyevich is not deserted, it is filled with the presence of man, his familiar world of sounds, smells, forms. You can really feel it, it “responds” to any touch: with a word, with a hand, with a thought... It is a great joy to communicate with the work of A. A. Fet.

Of course, Fet’s poems about nature are strong not only in their specificity and detail. Their charm lies primarily in their emotionality. Fet combines the concreteness of his observations with the freedom of metaphorical transformations of words and the bold flight of associations. In addition to phenological signs, the feeling of spring, summer or autumn can be created by, say, images of “day”:

Light as a light dream,

From the bright east the days flew wider and wider...

("Sick")

And in front of us on the sand

The day was golden all around.

("One more acacia...")

The last radiant day has faded.

("Poplar")

When the end-to-end web

Spreads threads of clear days...

(in autumn")

The novelty of Fet’s depiction of natural phenomena is associated with a bias towards impressionism. The poet vigilantly peers into the outside world and shows it as it appears to his perception, as it seems to him at the moment. He is interested not so much in the object as in the impression made by the object. Fet says so: “For an artist, the impression that caused the work is more valuable than the thing itself that caused this impression.”

A fire blazes in the forest with the bright sun,

And, shrinking, the juniper cracks;

Like drunken giants, a crowded choir, Flushed, staggers the spruce forest.

It is natural to understand this picture in such a way that the spruce trees are swaying in the wind. But what kind of storm does it take to make the trees in the forest stagger like drunken people! However, the final stanza, which closes the poem “in a ring,” again connects the “staggering” of the spruce forest only with the light of the fire:

But the night will frown - the fire will flare up,

And, curling, the juniper will crackle,

And, like drunken giants, a crowded choir,

Blushing, the spruce tree staggers.

This means that the spruce tree is not actually staggering, but only seems to be staggering in the uncertain glow of the fire. Fet describes the “apparent” as real. Like an impressionist painter, he finds special conditions of light and reflection, special angles in which the picture of the world appears unusual.

Over the lake a swan reached into the reeds,

The forest overturned in the water,

With the jagged peaks he sank at dawn,

Between two curving skies.

The forest is described as it appeared to the poet’s eyes: the forest and its reflection in the water are given as one whole, like a forest curved between two peaks, drowned in the dawn of two heavens. Moreover, by juxtaposing “the swan reached out” and “the forest overturned,” the last verb is given a parallel meaning to the first one of the action that has just taken place: the forest seemed to overturn under the gaze of the poet. In another poem:

The sun, shining from the transparent skies.

Quiet streams overturned the forest.

(“Noisy herons waved from their nests...”)

The vault of heaven is overturned in the water,

Speckles the bay with blush.

(“How beautiful it is on a slightly shimmering morning...”)

It must be said that in general the motif of “reflection in water” is found unusually often in Fet’s works. Obviously, an unsteady reflection provides more freedom to the artist’s imagination than the reflected object itself:

I'm on fire in the water...

(“After early bad weather...”)

In this mirror under the willow tree

My jealous eye caught

Lovely features...

Softer is your proud gaze...

I'm shaking, looking happy,

Just like you tremble in the water.

Fet depicts the outside world in the form that the poet’s mood gave it. For all the truthfulness and concreteness of the description of nature, it primarily serves as a means of expressing lyrical feelings.

Native nature in its immediate real life appears in Fet's poetry as the main sphere of manifestation of beauty. But “low life,” the boredom of long evenings, the languid melancholy of everyday monotony, the painful disharmony of the soul of the Russian Hamlet become the subject of poetic comprehension in his work.

One of Fet’s poems speaks about the special nature of the poet’s aesthetic perception of nature, that the gloomy and disharmonious elements of the northern landscape seem beautiful to him, that this feeling of beauty is inseparable from his love for his homeland:

I'm Russian, I love the silence given to the nasty,

Under the canopy of snow, monotonous death,

Forests under the caps or in gray frost,

Yes, the river is ringing under the dark blue ice.

Winded ditches, blown mountains,

Sleepy blades of grass - or among the naked fields,

Where the hill is bizarre, like some kind of mausoleum,

Sculpted at midnight - the whirling of distant whirlwinds

And a solemn shine at the sounds of funeral!

The poet's spiritual world, reflected in this poem, is paradoxical. Fet creates a tragic, disharmonious image of the nature of the north. The desolation, deadness of the winter expanse and the loneliness of a person lost in it are expressed in this poem both through the general coloring of the picture and through every detail of it. A snowdrift that has appeared overnight is likened to a mausoleum, fields covered with snow, with their monotony, evoke the thought of death, the sounds of a snowstorm seem like a funeral chant. At the same time, this nature, meager and sad, is infinitely dear to the poet. The motives of joy and sadness are merged in the poem. The lyrical hero, and ultimately the poet himself, admires the gloomy expanse of the icy desert and finds in it not only a unique ideal of beauty, but moral support. He is not abandoned, not “imprisoned” in this harsh world, but generated by it and passionately attached to it.

In this regard, the poem “I am Russian, I love the silence of the vile night...” can be compared with the famous “Motherland” written shortly before by Lermontov.

The difference between Fet’s perception of his native space and that expressed in his works by Lermontov and (in “ Dead souls ah") Gogol, consists in the greater spatial limitation of his images. If Gogol, in the lyrical digressions of “Dead Souls,” looks around, as it were, the entire Russian plain from a point of view elevated above it, and Lermontov sees a vast panorama of his homeland through the eyes of a person traveling along her endless roads and fields of the wanderer, Fet perceives the nature directly surrounding his sedentary life, his home. His vision is closed by the horizon, he notes the dynamic changes of dead winter nature precisely because they occur in an area well known to him in the smallest details:

How they love to find thoughtful gazes

Winded ditches, blown mountains<...>

or among the naked fields,

Where is the fancy hill<...>

Sculpted at midnight, -

whirling of distant whirlwinds..."

A poet writes who knows where there were ditches covered with snow, noting that a flat field was covered with snowdrifts, that a hill that was not there grew up overnight.

The poet is surrounded by a special sphere, “his own space,” and this space is for him the image of his homeland.

This circle of lyrical motifs is reflected, for example, in Fet’s poem “Sad Birch...”. The image of a birch tree in the poems of many poets symbolizes Russian nature. “The Couple of White Birches” also appears in Lermontov’s “Motherland” as the embodiment of Russia. Fet depicts one birch tree, which he sees every day through the window of his room, and the slightest changes on this tree, naked in winter, as if deadened by the frost, for the poet serve as the embodiment of the beauty and unique life of the winter nature of his native land.

The space surrounding the poet, akin to him, corresponds to a certain moral atmosphere. In the fourth poem of the “Snow” cycle, the picture of deathly winter nature with a troika rushing through a blizzard is given a touch of ballad mystery.

The wind is angry, the wind is steep in the field

Poured,

And a snowdrift on the steppe will

Curls.

When there is moonlight, it's frosty a mile away -

With lights.

The wind carried the news about the living

With vertebrae.

Here, as in the poem “I am Russian, I love...”, the poet creates a picture of the Russian winter with the help of images of a snowdrift inspired by a blizzard, a snow blizzard in a field.

Pushkin and Gogol saw the pillars measuring miles on the main road through the eyes of a traveler racing on a greyhound troika:

And miles, delighting the idle gaze,

They flash in your eyes like a fence.

(Pushkin. "Eugene Onegin")

Fet sees them while wandering around the field on foot at night. In front of him is one pillar covered with “lights” of frost. The troika rushes past him, and only the wind carries the ringing of bells, announcing that the unknown and instant visitor to the deserted, native corner of the poet has rushed further to “count the miles.”

The originality of Fet's poetic perception of nature is conveyed in his poem "Village". In its own way compositional structure and to a large extent, in terms of poetic idea, it is close to the first poem of the “Snow” cycle (the theme of love for one’s native places).

I love your sad shelter,

And the evening of the village is deaf...

The poet loves the village as the world surrounding the girl he loves, which is her “sphere”. The poet’s gaze seems to circle around this sphere, first describing its outer boundary along the horizon, then approaching a small circle inside this circle - the house, looking into it and finding another one in this circle - a “close circle” of people at the tea table. The poet loves nature and the people surrounding the girl, the sounds and play of light around her, the aromas and movement of the air of her forest, her meadows, her home. He loves the cat that frolics at her feet and the work in her hands.

All this is her. The listing of objects that fill “her space”, details of the situation and landscape cannot be considered as fractional elements of the description. It is not for nothing that the poem bears the collective title “Village”, i.e. a world constituting a living and organic unity. The girl is the soul of this unity, but she is inseparable from it, from her family, her home, her village.

Therefore, the poet speaks of the village as a shelter for the whole family (“I love your sad shelter...”). Within this poetic circle, there is no hierarchy of objects for the poet - they are all equally dear to him and important to him. The poet himself becomes part of it, and he opens up a new attitude towards himself. He begins to love himself as part of this world, to love his own stories, which from now on become part of the moral atmosphere surrounding the girl, and give him access to the center of the circle - her eyes, to her spiritual world. At the same time, although the work depicts "space" - and this is its main poetic image - the poet perceives it in time. This is not only a "village", but also a "deaf village evening", and the poetic image conveys the flow of this evening from "blagovesta" before the sunrise of the month, a time that gives the opportunity to refill and drink the samovar more than once, tell "fairy tales" of "your own invention", exhaust the topics of conversation ("speeches in slow motion") and finally ensure that the "sweet, shy granddaughter" raises eyes on the guest. Here the parallelism of the “fading birds” and the slow conversation of people, as well as the light of the moon and the shaking of cups in this light has a double meaning. These are phenomena located “nearby” in space and time. Fet demonstrated the extraordinary acuteness of the sensation of movement in nature and the amazing novelty of the techniques of its poetic recreation in the poem “Whisper, timid breathing...”. The first thing that catches the eye and what was immediately noticed by readers is the absence of verbs in this poem, which conveys the dynamics of the night life of nature and human feelings. The poet depicted the night as a succession of meaningful moments full of content, as a flow of events. The poem tells how night gives way to dawn and clarity comes in the relationship between lovers after an explanation. The action develops in parallel between people and in nature. Parallelism in the depiction of man and nature as a typical feature of Fet’s poetry was noted more than once by researchers of Fet’s work (B. M. Eikhenbaum, B. Ya. Bukhshtab, P. P. Gromov). IN in this case this parallelism acts as the main constructive principle of constructing the poem. Having created a clear, extremely naked composition and using a special method of description, as if “highlighting” the most significant, “talking” details of the picture, the poet puts a very broad content into an extremely compressed, almost incredibly small volume of the poem. Since in non-anthological, lyrical poems, Fet considers kineticity, the movement of image objects, to be a more significant feature of them than plasticity and form, he replaces detailed description a catchy detail and, activating the reader’s imagination with the understatement, some mystery of the narrative, forces him to fill in the missing parts of the picture. But these missing parts of the picture are not so important for Fet. After all, the action develops, as if “pulsating”, and he notes those meaningful moments, when changes occur in the state of nature and man. The movement of shadows and light “marks” the passage of time. The month illuminates objects differently in different periods, moments of the night, and the appearance of the first rays of the sun heralds the onset of morning. Likewise, the expression of a woman’s face, illuminated by the changing light of night and morning, reflects the vicissitudes of the feelings experienced during the night. The very conciseness of the poetic story in the poem conveys the brevity of the summer night and serves as a means of poetic expressiveness.

In the last line of the poem there is a final merging of a laconic narrative about the events in the lives of people and nature. “Dawn” is the beginning (of a new day in the life of nature and human hearts. This line, ending the poem with “open breathing,” is more like a beginning than an end in the usual sense of the word. This feature of the endings of poems is characteristic of Fet, who considers any mental state or any picture of nature as a fragment of an endless process. In the poem “Whisper, timid breathing...”, a summer night full of lyrical events is depicted as a prelude, the beginning of happiness and a joyful day of a new life.

The flowering of life, its beauty and its movement are the content of art. The secret of art lies in the fact that it conveys the beauty of life, its dynamics, but also preserves the perfection of the form that has once arisen, gives eternity to a beautiful moment of the highest flowering, making it imperishable. After all, every transition from one state to another gives rise to new beauty.

Fet sees the vastness of the flood of one river, the Dnieper, in the place that he crosses on a sailboat. He sees it from coast to coast, recording all the variety of pictures that change as he overcomes this large space - and thus conveys its extent. He depicts the riot of elemental forces through an unusual, “paradoxical” landscape.

The first stanza, unexpectedly cutting through the metaphor and giving it an even stranger sound, sets up a keen perception of the amazing picture and recreates with its somewhat difficult syntax the effort that is required to overcome the resistance of the river rapids and cast off from the shore.

It was getting light. The wind bent the elastic glass

Dnieper, still in the waves without awakening a sound.

The old man set sail, leaning on an oar,

Meanwhile, he grumbled at his grandson.

Further stanzas convey all the vicissitudes of the struggle with the river, all the changing “relationships” of the sailboat and the water element as it moves along it. At the same time, they paint pictures that open up as the boat speeds up and the point of view changes:

And there the flooded forest flew towards...

Mirror bays burst into it;

There the poplar was green above the sleepy moisture,

The apple trees called and the willows trembled.

In the first publication in the Sovremennik magazine, a powerful panorama of the river flood was followed by an expanded lyrical ending, revealing the feelings of the poet who, admiring the pictures of nature, renounces the bustle of city life. This ending, along with many others, was abolished on Turgenev’s advice in the 1856 edition of the poems, and here only one line remained from it, commenting on the subtext of the entire poetic description and turning out to be quite sufficient to clarify it:

I would stay here to breathe,

watch and listen forever...

Fet's nature is always calm, quiet, as if it had frozen. And at the same time, it is surprisingly rich in sounds and colors, living its own life. It is filled with enchanting romance:

What is that sound in the evening twilight?

God knows! - Either the sandpiper moaned or the owl.

There is parting in it,

and there is suffering in him,

And a distant unknown cry.

Like sick dreams of sleepless nights

In this crying sound merged...

Fet’s nature lives its own mysterious life, and a person can only be involved in it at the peak of his spiritual development:

Night flowers sleep all day long,

But as soon as the sun sets behind the grove, the leaves quietly open,

And I hear my heart bloom.

Over time, in Fet’s poems we find more and more parallels between the life of nature and man. A feeling of harmony fills the poet’s lines:

The sun is gone, there is no day of tireless striving,

Only the sunset will burn slightly visibly for a long time;

Oh, if only the sky promised without heavy languor

It’s the same for me, looking back at life, to die!..

Fet does not sing of passionate feelings; in his poems we do not find words of deep despair or delight. He writes about the simplest things - about rain and snow, about the sea and mountains, about the forest, about the stars, conveying to us his momentary impressions, capturing moments of beauty. Such poetic masterpieces of Afanasy Fet as “Whisper, timid breathing...”, “I came to you with greetings...”, “At dawn, don’t wake her up...”, “Dawn bids farewell to the earth” are filled with light and peace. ..." and others.

Nature in the poems of Afanasy Afanasyevich is not deserted, it is filled with the presence of man, his familiar world of sounds, smells, forms. You can really feel it, it “responds” to any touch: with a word, with a hand, with a thought... It is a great joy to communicate with the work of A. A. Fet. The poet notices subtle transitions in the state of nature, and nature in Fet’s lyrics does not exist on its own, it reflects the internal state of the author or his lyrical hero. Sometimes they are so close that it is difficult to understand where, whose voice is. Very often poems sound dissonant, but it is the surrounding world that invades poetry.

I'll just meet your smile

Or I’ll catch your joyful glance, -

In you I sing a song of love,

And your beauty is indescribable.

It seems that the poet is omnipotent, any “peaks and depths” are available to him. This is the ability of a genius to speak the familiar Russian language. Nature itself, harmony and beauty sing in his soul.

The night was shining. The garden was full of moonlight.

The Rays lay at our feet in the living room without lights.

The piano was all open, and the strings in it were trembling,

Just like our hearts follow your song.

Starting from a concrete and real picture, the poet moves on to a lyrical symbol. Addressing readers, “I” brings my creation closer to millions of poetry lovers, forcing them to perceive the beauty and charm of natural science, which was so clearly revealed to the author.

Fet's poems are natural, like all the surrounding nature.

Sounded over the clear river,

It rang in a darkened meadow,

Rolled over the silent grove,

It lit up on the other side.

To know, flowers that are not more cherished,

Have you blossomed into self-willed bliss?

To know, and the hundred-year-old cactus turned white,

And a banana and a praying lotus?

The removal of this sphere, which emphasized the objectivity of the miracle occurring in nature, its reality, did not change the general meaning of the poem, but increased its fantastic nature. Meanwhile, the stanza about the blooming of “cherished” flowers connects this poem with Fet’s late story “Cactus,” where the poet in a direct, declarative form expresses the idea of ​​​​the special significance of rare, exceptional moments in the life of nature, about the deep meaning of the moment of flowering.

Faith in the infinity of nature's life and in the possibility of man's harmonious fusion with it permeates many of the poems in the collection of 1850 and, being their philosophical basis, gives them a bright, peaceful sound.

The flowering of life, its beauty and its movement are the content of art. The secret of art lies in the fact that it conveys the beauty of life, its dynamics, but also preserves the perfection of the form that has once arisen, gives eternity to a beautiful moment of the highest flowering, making it imperishable. After all, each transition from one state to another gives rise to new beauty, but also brings loss. Fet's anthological poems are permeated with this feeling.

The approach of spring and autumn withering, a fragrant summer night and a frosty day, an endless rye field and a dense shady forest - he writes about all this in his poems. Fet's nature is always calm, quiet, as if it had frozen. And at the same time, it is surprisingly rich in sounds and colors, living its own life.

Fet’s depiction of nature is filled with enchanting romance:

What is that sound in the evening twilight?

God knows! - Either the sandpiper moaned or the owl.

There is parting in it, and there is suffering in it,

And a distant unknown cry.

Like sick dreams of sleepless nights

In this crying sound merged...

The poet notices the slightest changes in her:

End of the alley

Again in the morning he disappeared into the dust,

Silver snakes again

They crawled through the snowdrifts.

There is not a shred of azure in the sky,

In the steppe everything is smooth, everything is white,

Only one raven against the storm

It flaps its wings heavily.

And it doesn’t dawn on the soul:

It’s the same cold that’s all around.

Lazy thoughts fall asleep

Over dying labor.

And all the hope in the heart is smoldering,

That, perhaps, even by chance,

The soul will become younger again,

Again the native will see the land,

Where storms fly by

Where the passionate thought is pure -

And only visibly to the initiates

Spring and beauty are blooming." (1862)

Fet’s nature lives its own mysterious life, and a person can only be involved in it at the peak of his spiritual development:

Night flowers sleep all day long,

But as soon as the sun sets behind the grove,

The leaves are quietly opening,

And I hear my heart bloom.

A. Fet does not sing of passionate feelings; in his poems we do not find words of deep despair or delight. He writes about the simplest things - about rain and snow, about the sea and mountains, about the forest, about the stars, conveying to us his momentary impressions, capturing moments of beauty. The poet conveys in his poems the “fragrant freshness of feelings” inspired by nature. His poems are imbued with a bright, joyful mood, the happiness of love. Even the slightest movements of the human soul do not escape the attentive gaze of the poet - he unusually subtly conveys all the shades of human experiences.

The picture of nature (winter, silver snakes of drifting snow, gloomy sky) is at the same time, as it were, a picture of the human soul. But nature is changing, the time will come when the snow will melt and, hopefully, lyrical hero, “the soul will become younger again.” And besides, art is that “native land” where there are no storms, where “spring and beauty bloom.”

Feta the poet is led forward by the impression of the world around him, this impression is conveyed in living images to the person reading his poems. Fet, seeing the beauty of the world, tries to preserve it in his poems. The poems of A. A. Fet show the beautiful and pure world of nature, its artless beauty and freshness. And it is not so important how they are conveyed, as long as it is true, it comes from the depths of the soul. The author teaches us to open our hearts to nature, to let it into our souls, to enrich ourselves spiritually, returning this beauty to those around us. Being able to appreciate all the diversity of the world, you become richer and purer - isn’t this the main value of communicating with the poetry of a great master.

How the chest breathes freshly and capaciously -

Words cannot express anyone!

As loud as the ravines at noon

Streams spin into foam!

In the ether the song trembles and melts,

“You’ll survive another spring!”

The poet shows the close relationship between man and nature - this is the spring from which you can draw strength endlessly if you treat it with care and soul. But nature is also surprisingly vulnerable, it is easy to destroy and cause irreparable damage. You understand this acutely when reading Fet’s wonderful poems. His poetic world is surprisingly diverse and fragile, and his subtle lyricism makes one understand the full depth of the changes taking place.

She covered the path for me with her sleeve.

Wind. In the forest alone it is dark, and creepy, and sad, and fun, -

I do not understand anything.

The wind, everything around is humming and swaying,

Leaves are spinning at your feet.

And there, in the distance, you suddenly hear

Subtly calling horn.

Fet’s nature is a living being, it is filled with the presence of man, his familiar world of sounds, smells, forms. You can really feel it, it “responds” to any touch: with a word, with a hand, with a thought... The poet conveys human properties to nature (“tired and the color of heaven”)

Open your arms to me,
Dense, spreading forest!

The realism movement in Russian art of the 19th century was so powerful that all outstanding artists experienced its influence in their work. In the poetry of A. A. Fet, this influence of realism was especially evident in poems about nature.

Fet is one of the most remarkable Russian landscape poets.

In his poems, the Russian spring appears in all its beauty - with blooming trees, the first flowers, with cranes calling in the steppe. It seems to me that the image of cranes, so beloved by many Russian poets, was first depicted by Fet.

In Fet's poetry, nature is depicted in detail. In this regard, he is an innovator. Before Fet, generalization reigned in Russian poetry addressed to nature. In Fet’s poems we meet not only traditional birds with the usual poetic aura - like the nightingale, swan, lark, eagle, but also such seemingly simple and unpoetic ones as the owl, harrier, lapwing, and swift. For example:

It is significant that here we are dealing with an author who distinguishes birds by their voice and, moreover, notices where this bird is located. This, of course, is not just a consequence of a good knowledge of nature, but the poet’s love for it, long-standing and thorough.

Apparently, when working on poetry about nature, the author must have extraordinary taste. Because otherwise, he immediately risks falling into imitation of folk poetry, which is replete with such options.

S. Ya. Marshak is right in his admiration for the freshness and spontaneity of Fetov’s perception of nature: “His poems entered Russian nature, became its integral part, wonderful lines about spring rain, the flight of a butterfly, soulful landscapes.”

In my opinion, Marshak accurately noticed one more feature of Fet’s poetry: “His nature is as if on the first day of creation: thickets of trees, a light ribbon of a river, a nightingale’s peace, a sweetly murmuring spring... If annoying modernity sometimes invades this closed world, then it immediately loses its practical meaning and acquires a decorative character.”

As an important facet of Feta the landscape painter, I would like to note his impressionism. The impressionist does not shy away from the outside world; he vigilantly peers into it, depicting it as it appears to his immediate eye. The impressionist is not interested in the subject, but in the impression:

You alone glide along the azure paths;
Everything around is motionless...
Let the night pour in its bottomless urn
Myriads of stars are coming to us.

It is clear to the reader that the external world is depicted here in the form that the poet’s mood gave it. With all the specificity of the description of details, nature still seems to dissolve in Fet’s lyrical feeling.

The poet’s nature is humanized like none of his predecessors. His flowers smile, the stars pray, the pond dreams, the birches wait, the willow is “friendly with painful dreams.” The moment of nature’s “response” to the poet’s feelings is interesting:

In the air behind the nightingale's song
Anxiety and love spread.

Leo Tolstoy wrote about this couplet: “And where does this good-natured fat officer get such incomprehensible lyrical audacity, a property of great poets?” One must assume that Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, at the same time “grumbling,” recognized Fet as a great poet. He wasn't wrong.

Fet is also strong in love lyrics. His landscape background came in handy in his romantic love poems. I would say that he always chose only beauty as a theme for his poems - in nature, in man. The poet himself was sure: “without a sense of beauty, life comes down to feeding hounds in a stuffy, fetid kennel.”

The beauty of its rhythms and landscapes will always decorate our lives.