Fet A. A. Poems about nature. Short, little poems by the Russian poet Afanasy Fet about night, evening, stars. Personal fate of Fet

Great ones about poetry:

Poetry is like painting: some works will captivate you more if you look at them closely, and others if you move further away.

Small cutesy poems irritate the nerves more than the creaking of unoiled wheels.

The most valuable thing in life and in poetry is what has gone wrong.

Marina Tsvetaeva

Of all the arts, poetry is the most susceptible to the temptation to replace its own peculiar beauty with stolen splendors.

Humboldt V.

Poems are successful if they are created with spiritual clarity.

The writing of poetry is closer to worship than is usually believed.

If only you knew from what rubbish poems grow without shame... Like a dandelion on a fence, like burdocks and quinoa.

A. A. Akhmatova

Poetry is not only in verses: it is poured out everywhere, it is all around us. Look at these trees, at this sky - beauty and life emanate from everywhere, and where there is beauty and life, there is poetry.

I. S. Turgenev

For many people, writing poetry is a growing pain of the mind.

G. Lichtenberg

A beautiful verse is like a bow drawn through the sonorous fibers of our being. The poet makes our thoughts sing within us, not our own. By telling us about the woman he loves, he delightfully awakens in our souls our love and our sorrow. He's a magician. By understanding him, we become poets like him.

Where graceful poetry flows, there is no room for vanity.

Murasaki Shikibu

I turn to Russian versification. I think that over time we will turn to blank verse. There are too few rhymes in the Russian language. One calls the other. The flame inevitably drags the stone behind it. It is through feeling that art certainly emerges. Who is not tired of love and blood, difficult and wonderful, faithful and hypocritical, and so on.

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin

-...Are your poems good, tell me yourself?
- Monstrous! – Ivan suddenly said boldly and frankly.
- Do not write anymore! – the newcomer asked pleadingly.
- I promise and swear! - Ivan said solemnly...

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov. "Master and Margarita"

We all write poetry; poets differ from others only in that they write in their words.

John Fowles. "The French Lieutenant's Mistress"

Every poem is a veil stretched over the edges of a few words. These words shine like stars, and because of them the poem exists.

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok

Ancient poets, unlike modern ones, rarely wrote more than a dozen poems during their long lives. This is understandable: they were all excellent magicians and did not like to waste themselves on trifles. Therefore, behind every poetic work of those times there is certainly hidden an entire Universe, filled with miracles - often dangerous for those who carelessly awaken the dozing lines.

Max Fry. "Chatty Dead"

I gave one of my clumsy hippopotamuses this heavenly tail:...

Mayakovsky! Your poems do not warm, do not excite, do not infect!
- My poems are not a stove, not a sea, and not a plague!

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky

Poems are our inner music, clothed in words, permeated with thin strings of meanings and dreams, and therefore, drive away the critics. They are just pathetic sippers of poetry. What can a critic say about the depths of your soul? Don't let his vulgar groping hands in there. Let poetry seem to him like an absurd moo, a chaotic pile-up of words. For us, this is a song of freedom from a boring mind, a glorious song sounding on the snow-white slopes of our amazing soul.

Boris Krieger. "A Thousand Lives"

Poems are the thrill of the heart, the excitement of the soul and tears. And tears are nothing more than pure poetry that has rejected the word.

“In the Moonlight” Afanasy Fet

Let's go out with you to wander
In the moonlight!
How long does it take to languish the soul?
In dark silence!

Pond like shiny steel
The grass is crying
Mill, river and distance
In the moonlight.

Is it possible to grieve and not live?
Are we in fascination?
Let's go out and wander quietly
In the moonlight!

Analysis of Fet's poem "In the Moonlight"

The favorite time of day for Fetov’s lyrical hero is a windless, clear night. The serenely sleeping nature is illuminated by the radiance of stars and the “crescent moon”, which resembles the shine of silver. Epithets associated with soft cold light are given to various details of the landscape: grass and foliage of trees, a transparent stream of a stream, the roof of a house. The hero, immersed in the charm of the “silver-edged” darkness, goes for a walk or looks forward to a date. A moonlit night is the time for passionate confessions of a “mad” lover, a moment that gives rise to “airy aspirations”, incredible dreams, and a time of insight, immersion in the mysterious “abyss” of an unknown mountain height.

In the refrain sounding in the poetic text of 1885, motivating intonations are expressed using a verb in the imperative mood. The lyrical subject, attracted by the iridescent beauty of the dim light, invites his addressee on a romantic walk. The role of the latter is played by the beloved - this is evidenced by the peculiarities of the ideological and figurative content of Fetov’s artistic world.

The refrain is followed by a remark that clarifies the state of mind of the addressee. Parallel to the motive of the walk, a storyline arises associated with mental discomfort, “languishing.” According to the hero, walking under the moon will help overcome internal anxiety and sadness.

The central quatrain is dedicated to the depiction of a landscape sketch. Her attractive appearance is intended to induce her to agree, so the hero lists and “strings” natural realities, as if he were gathering arguments in favor of his proposal. What can attract a night contemplator? From close objects - a pond and grass in the night dew, from distant objects - a panorama that covers a mill, a river and a general perspective. The dominants, presented in close-up, are enriched with artistic tropes: calm water is compared to “shining steel,” and the metaphorical construction “in sobbing” not only indicates abundant dew, but also serves to indicate the fullness of feelings. In the last of the tropes, the visual image and the impressions generated by it merge into one.

The rhetorical question that opens the final episode returns the lyrical situation to the theme of spiritual anguish stated at the beginning. With the help of a stylistic figure, the idea of ​​the untimeliness and inappropriateness of sadness is strengthened against the backdrop of a magnificent sketch. To close the composition, the poet resorts to a proven method - he uses a refrain, as in the works “Don’t leave me ...” or “”.

(November 23, 1820, Novoselki estate, Mtsensk district, Oryol province - November 21, 1892, Moscow)

Biography

Childhood.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (Shenshin) was born on October 29 (new style - November 10), 1820. In his documentary biography, much is not entirely accurate - his date of birth is also inaccurate. It is interesting that Fet himself celebrated November 23 as his birthday.

The birthplace of the future poet is Oryol province, the village of Novoselki, not far from the city of Mtsensk, the family estate of his father, Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin.

Afanasy Neoftovich spent many years of his life, starting from the age of seventeen, in military service. Participated in the war with Napoleon. For valor shown in battles, he was awarded orders. In 1807, due to illness, he resigned (with the rank of captain) and began to serve in the civilian field. In 1812, he was elected to the post of Mtsensk district marshal of the nobility.

The Shenshin family belonged to ancient noble families. But Fet’s father was not rich. Afanasy Neofitovich was in constant debt, in constant household and family worries. Perhaps this circumstance partly explains his gloominess, his restraint and even dryness towards his wife, Fet’s mother, and towards his children. Fet's mother, whose maiden name was Charlotte Becker, who by birth belonged to a wealthy German burgher family, was a timid and submissive woman. She did not take a decisive part in household affairs, but she was involved in raising her son to the best of her ability and ability.

The story of her marriage is interesting and somewhat mysterious. Shenshin was her second husband. Until 1820 she lived in Germany, in Darmstadt, in her father's house. Apparently, after her divorce from her first husband, Johann Fet, having a young daughter in her arms, she met 44-year-old Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin. He was in Darishtadt for treatment, met Charlotte Feth and became interested in her. It all ended with him persuading Charlotte to flee with him to Russia, where they got married. In Russia, very soon after her arrival, Charlotte Fet, who became Shenshina, gave birth to a son, named Afanasy Shenshin and baptized according to the Orthodox rite.

Fet's childhood was both sad and good. There is perhaps even more good than bad. Many of Fet's first teachers turned out to be narrow-minded when it came to book science. But there was another school - not a book school. The school is natural, directly life-like. Most of all, he was taught and educated by the surrounding nature and the living impressions of life; he was educated by the entire way of peasant and rural life. This is, of course, more important than book literacy. Most of all, communication with servants, ordinary people, and peasants was educational. One of them is Ilya Afanasyevich. He served as valet for Father Fet. Ilya Afanasyevich behaved with children with dignity and importance, he loved to instruct them. In addition to him, the future poet’s educators were: the inhabitants of the girls’ rooms – the maids. For young Fet, maidenhood is the latest news and these are enchanting legends and fairy tales. The maid Praskovya was an expert in telling fairy tales.

Fet’s first teacher of Russian literacy, at his mother’s choice, was Afanasy, an excellent cook, but far from being an excellent teacher. Afanasy soon taught the boy the letters of the Russian alphabet. The second teacher was seminarian Pyotr Stepanovich, an apparently capable man who decided to teach Fet the rules of Russian grammar, but never taught him to read. After Fet lost his seminary teacher, he was given the full care of the old courtyard man Philip Agofonovich, who held the position of hairdresser under Fet’s grandfather. Being illiterate himself, Philip Agafonovich could not teach the boy anything, but at the same time he forced him to practice reading, offering to read prayers. When Fet was already in his tenth year, a new seminarian teacher, Vasily Vasilyevich, was hired for him. At the same time, for the benefit of education and training, to excite the spirit of competition, it was decided to teach the clerk’s son Mitka Fedorov together with Fet. In close communication with the peasant son, Fet was enriched with a living knowledge of life. It can be considered that the great life of the poet Fet, like many other Russian poets and prose writers, began with a meeting with Pushkin. Pushkin's poems instilled a love of poetry in Fet's soul. They lit a poetic lamp in him, awakened his first poetic impulses, and made him feel the joy of a high, rhymed, rhythmic word.

Fet lived in his father's house until he was fourteen years old. In 1834 he entered the Krümmer boarding school in Verreaux, where he learned a lot. One day Fet, who previously bore the surname Shenshin, received a letter from his father. In the letter, the father reported that from now on Afanasy Shenshin, in accordance with the corrected official papers, should be called official papers, should be called the son of his mother’s first husband, John Fet, - Afanasy Fet. What happened? When Fet was born and, according to the custom of that time, he was baptized, he was registered as Afanasyevich Shenshin. The fact is that Shenshin married Fet’s mother according to the Orthodox rite only in September 1822, i.e. two years after the birth of the future poet, and, therefore, could not consider him his legal father.

The beginning of a creative journey.

At the end of 1837, by the decision of Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, Fet left the Krummer boarding house and sent him to Moscow to prepare for admission to Moscow University. Before Fet entered the university, he lived and studied at Pogodin’s private boarding school for six months. Fet distinguished himself while studying at the boarding school and distinguished himself when entering the university. Initially, Fet entered the Faculty of Law at Moscow University, but soon changed his mind and switched to the literature department.

Fet's serious study of poetry begins in his first year. He writes down his poems in a specially created “yellow notebook.” Soon the number of poems written reaches three dozen. Fet decides to show the notebook to Pogodin. Pogodin hands the notebook to Gogol. And a week later, Fet receives the notebook back from Pogodin with the words: “Gogol said, this is an undoubted talent.”

Fet's fate is not only bitter and tragic, but also happy. Happy in the fact that the great Pushkin was the first to reveal to him the joy of poetry, and the great Gogol blessed him to serve her. Fet's fellow students were interested in the poems. And at this time Fet met Apollo Grigoriev. Fet's closeness with A. Grigoriev became increasingly closer and soon turned into friendship. As a result, Fet moves from Pogodin’s house to Grigoriev’s house. Fet later admitted: “The Grigorievs’ house was the true cradle of my mental self.” Fet and A. Grigoriev constantly, interestedly and emotionally communicated with each other.

They supported each other even in difficult moments of life. Grigoriev Fet, - when Fet especially acutely felt rejection, social and human restlessness. Fet Grigoriev - in those hours when his love was rejected, and he was ready to flee from Moscow to Siberia.

The Grigorievs' house became a gathering place for talented university youth. Students of the literature and law faculties Ya. P. Polonsky, S. M. Solovyov, the son of the Decembrist N. M. Orlov, P. M. Boklevsky, N. K. Kalaidovich visited here. Around A. Grigoriev and Fet, not just a friendly company of interlocutors is formed, but a kind of literary and philosophical circle.

While at the university, Fet published the first collection of his poems. It is called somewhat intricately: “Lyrical Pantheon”. Apollon Grigoriev helped in publishing the collection of activities. The collection turned out to be unprofitable. The release of the “Lyrical Pantheon” did not bring Fet positive satisfaction and joy, but, nevertheless, noticeably inspired him. He began to write poetry more and more energetically than before. And not only write, but also publish. I willingly publish it in the two largest magazines “Moskvityanin” and “Otechestvennye zapiski”. Moreover, some of Fet’s poems are included in the then-known “Chrestomathy” by A.D. Galakhov, the first edition of which was published in 1843.

Fet began publishing in Moskvityanin at the end of 1841. The editors of this journal were professors from Moscow University - M. P. Pogodin and S. P. Shevyrev. From mid-1842, Fet began publishing in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski, whose leading critic was the great Belinsky. Over the course of several years, from 1841 to 1845, Fet published 85 poems in these magazines, including the textbook poem “I came to you with greetings...”.

The first misfortune that befell Fet is connected with his mother. The thought of her evoked tenderness and pain in him. In November 1844, her death occurred. Although there was nothing unexpected in the death of his mother, the news of this shocked Fet. At the same time, in the fall of 1844, Uncle Fet, brother of Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, Pyotr Neofitovich, suddenly died. He promised to leave Fet his capital. Now he has died, and his money has mysteriously disappeared. This was another shock.

And he begins to have financial problems. He decides to sacrifice his literary activities and enter military service. In this he sees for himself the only practical and worthy way out. Service in the army allows him to return to the social position in which he was before receiving that ill-fated letter from his father and which he considered to be his, rightfully his.

To this it should be added that military service was not disgusting to Fet. On the contrary, once in childhood he even dreamed about her.

Basic collections.

Fet's first collection was published in 1840 and was called “Lyrical Pantheon”, it was published with only the author’s initials “A. F." It is interesting that in the same year, Nekrasov’s first collection of poems, “Dreams and Sounds,” was published. The simultaneous release of both collections involuntarily suggests a comparison between them, and they are often compared. At the same time, a commonality is revealed in the fate of the collections. It is emphasized that both Fet and Nekrasov failed in their poetic debut, that both of them did not immediately find their path, their unique “I”.

But unlike Nekrasov, who was forced to buy up the collection and destroy it, Fet did not suffer any obvious failure. His collection was both criticized and praised. The collection turned out to be unprofitable. Fet did not even manage to return the money he spent on printing. “The Lyrical Pantheon” is in many ways still a student’s book. The influence of a variety of poets is noticeable in it (Byron, Goethe, Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Venevitinov, Lermontov, Schiller and contemporary Fet Benediktov).

As a critic of Otechestvennye Zapiski noted, an unearthly, noble simplicity and “grace” were visible in the poems in the collection. The musicality of the verse was also noted - a quality that would be highly characteristic of the mature Fet. In the collection, the greatest preference was given to two genres: the ballad, so beloved by romantics (“Abduction from a Harem,” “Castle Raufenbach,” etc.), and the genre of anthological poems.

At the end of September 1847, he received leave and went to Moscow. Here, for two months, he diligently works on his new collection: he compiles it, rewrites it, submits it to the censor, and even receives censorship permission for publication. Meanwhile, vacation time is running out. He never managed to publish the collection - he had to return to the Kherson province to serve.

Fet was able to come to Moscow again only in December 1849. It was then that he completed the work he started two years ago. Now he does everything in a hurry, remembering his experience two years ago. At the beginning of 1850, the collection was published. The haste affected the quality of the publication: there are many typos and dark places. Nevertheless, the book was a success. Positive reviews about her appeared in Sovremennik, in Otechestvennye zapiski, in Moskvityanin, that is, in the leading magazines of that time. It was also a success among the readership. The entire circulation of the book sold out within five years. This is not such a long time, especially when compared with the fate of the first collection. This was affected by Fet’s increased fame, based on his numerous publications in the early 40s, and by the new wave of poetry that was celebrated in Russia in those years.

In 1856, Fet published another collection, which was preceded by the publication of 1850, which included 182 poems. On the advice of Turgenev, 95 poems were transferred to the new edition, of which only 27 were left in their original form. 68 poems were subject to major or partial editing. But let's return to the 1856 collection. In literary circles, among poetry connoisseurs, he was a great success. The famous critic A.V. Druzhinin responded with a thorough article to the new collection. In the article, Druzhinin not only admired Fet’s poems, but also subjected them to a deep analysis. Druzhinin especially emphasizes the musicality of Fetov’s verse.

In the last period of his life, a collection of his original poems, “Evening Lights,” was published. Published in Moscow, in four issues. The fifth was prepared by Fet, but he did not have time to publish it. The first collection was published in 1883, the second in 1885, the third in 1889, the fourth in 1891, a year before his death.

“Evening Lights” is the main title of Fet’s collections. Their second title is “Collected Unpublished Poems by Fet.” “Evening Lights,” with rare exceptions, included poems that had not yet been published until that time. Mainly those that Fet wrote after 1863. There was simply no need to reprint works created earlier and included in the collections of 1863: the collection never sold out, anyone could buy this book. The greatest assistance during the publication was provided by N. N. Strakhov and V. S. Solovyov. So, during the preparation of the third issue of “Evening Lights”, in July 1887, both friends came to Vorobyovka.

Fet's journal and editorial activities.

The first acquaintance with Turgenev took place in May 1853. And, probably, after this Fet’s magazine activity began. But before that, Fet published his poems in the then famous magazines “Otechestvennye zapiski” and “Moskvityanin”. Spassky Fet read his poems to Turgenev. Fet also took with him his translations from Horace’s odes. Turgenev was most delighted with these translations. It is interesting that Fetov’s translations of Horace earned praise not only from Turgenev - Sovremennik gave them a high rating.

Based on his travels in 1856, Fet wrote a long article entitled “From Abroad. Travel impressions.” It was published in the Sovremennik magazine - in No. 11 for 1856 and in No. 2 and No. 7 for 1857.

Fet is engaged in translations not only from Latin, but also from English: he diligently translates Shakespeare. And he collaborates not only in “Sovremennik”, but also in other magazines: “Library for Reading”, “Russian Bulletin”, and since 1859 - in “Russian Word”, a magazine that later became very popular thanks to the participation of Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev in it. In 1858, Fet came up with the idea of ​​​​creating a completely new, purely literary magazine, which would be led, besides him, by L. Tolstoy, Botkin and Turgenev.

In 1859, Fet broke off cooperation with the Sovremennik magazine. The prerequisites for this break were the declaration of war by Sovremennik on literature, which he considered indifferent to the interests of the day and to the direct needs of the working people. In addition, Sovremennik published an article sharply criticizing Fetov’s translations of Shakespeare.

In February 1860, Fet bought the Stepanovka estate. Here he was in charge for seventeen years. It was precisely his good knowledge of rural life and rural activities in Stepanovka that allowed Fet to create several journalistic works dedicated to the village. Fet’s essays were called: “From the Village.” They were published in the magazine “Russian Bulletin”.

In the village, Fet was engaged not only in rural affairs and writing essays, but also translated the works of the German philosopher Schopenhauer.

Fet's personal fate.

After the death of Pyotr Neofitovich, Fet begins to have financial problems. And he decides to sacrifice his literary activities and enter military service. On April 21, 1845, Fet was accepted as a non-commissioned officer into the cuirassier (cavalry) regiment of the Military Order. By this time he had almost completely said goodbye to poetry. For three years, from 1841 to 1843, he wrote a lot and published a lot, but in 1844, apparently due to the difficult circumstances known to us, a decline in creativity was noticeable: that year he wrote only ten original poems and translated thirteen odes from Roman poet Horace. In 1845, only five poems were created.

Of course, even during his years of service, Fet had genuine joys - lofty, truly human, spiritual. These are, first of all, meetings with pleasant and kind people, interesting acquaintances. Such interesting acquaintances, which left a memory for a lifetime, include the acquaintance with the Brazhesky spouses.

Fet has another particularly important event associated with the Brzeski family: through them he met the Petkovich family. In the hospitable home of the Petkovichs, Fet met their young relative, Maria Lazic. She became the heroine of his love lyrics. When Fet met Lazic, she was 24 years old and he was 28. Fet saw in Maria Lazich not only an attractive girl, but also an extremely cultured person, musically and literary educated.

Maria Lazic turned out to be close to Fet in spirit - not only in heart. But she was as poor as Fet. And he, deprived of a fortune and a solid social foundation, did not decide to connect his fate with her. Fet convinced Maria Lazic that they needed to break up. Lazic agreed verbally, but could not break off the relationship. Neither could Fet. They continued to meet. Soon Fet had to leave for a while due to official needs. When he returned, terrible news awaited him: Maria Lazic was no longer alive. As they told Fet, at that tragic hour she was lying in a white muslin dress, reading a book. She lit a cigarette and threw the match on the floor. The match continued to burn. She set her muslin dress on fire. A few moments later the girl was all on fire. It was not possible to save her. Her last words were: “Save the letters!” And she also asked not to blame the one she loved for anything...

After the tragic death of Maria Lazic, Fet comes to the full realization of love. Unique and unique love. Now all his life he will remember, talk, and sing about this love - in lofty, beautiful, amazing verses.

That grass that is far away on your grave,
here in the heart, the older it is, the fresher it is...

At the end of September 1847, he received leave and went to Moscow. Here he is diligently working on his new collection, submits it to the censor, and passes it, but he was unable to publish the collection. He had to return to the Kherson province to serve. The collection was published only 3 years later. He publishes it in a hurry, but despite this, the collection is a great success.

On May 2, 1853, Fet was transferred to the guard, to the Uhlan regiment. The Guards Regiment was stationed near St. Petersburg, in the Krasnoselsky camp. And Fet has the opportunity, while still in military service, to enter the St. Petersburg literary environment - into the circle of the most famous and most progressive magazine of that time, Sovremennik.

Most of all, Fet becomes close to Turgenev. Fet's first acquaintance with Turgenev took place in May 1853 in Volkovo. Then Fet, at the invitation of Turgenev, visited his estate Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, where Turgenev was in exile by government sentence. The conversation between them in Spassky was devoted mainly to literary matters and topics. Fet also took with him his translations from Horace’s odes. Turgenev was most delighted with these translations. Turgenev also edited a new collection of original poems by Fet. A new collection of Fet's poems was published in 1856. When a new edition of Fet's poems is published, he takes a year off from work and uses it not only for literary affairs, but also for traveling abroad. Fet has been abroad twice. The first time I went hastily – to pick up my older sister Lina and to settle payments for my mother’s inheritance. The trip left few impressions.

His second trip abroad, in 1856, was longer and more impressive. Based on his impressions, Fet wrote a large article on foreign impressions entitled “From Abroad. Travel impressions.”

While traveling, Fet visited Rome, Naples, Genoa, Livorno, Paris and other famous Italian and French cities. In Paris, Fet met the family of Polina Viardot, whom Turgenev loved. And yet the trip abroad did not bring Fet any lasting joy. On the contrary, he was most sad and mopey abroad. He had almost already reached the rank of major, which was supposed to automatically return the lost nobility to him, but in 1856, the new Tsar Alexander II, by a special decree, established new rules for obtaining nobility; from now on, not a major, but only a colonel has the right to nobility.

“For health reasons, I expect, rather, death and I look at marriage as something unattainable for me.” Fet's words about the unattainability of marriage were spoken by Fet less than a year before his marriage to Maria Petrovna Botkina.

Maria Petrovna was the sister of Vasily Petrovich Botkin, a famous writer, critic, close friend of Belinsky, friend and connoisseur of Fet. Maria Petrovna belonged to a large merchant family. Seven Botkins were not only talented, but also friendly. Fet's future wife was in a special position in the family. The brothers lived their own lives, the older sisters were married off and had their own families, only Maria Petrovna remained in the house. Her situation seemed exceptional to her and greatly oppressed her.

Fet's proposal was made, and in response there was agreement. It was decided to celebrate the wedding soon. But it so happened that Maria Petrovna had to go abroad without delay to accompany her sick married sister. The wedding was postponed until she returned. However, Fet did not wait for the bride to return from abroad - he went after her himself. There, in Paris, the wedding ceremony took place and a modest wedding was played.

Fet married Maria Petrovna, not having a strong feeling of love for her, but out of sympathy and common sense. Such marriages are often no less successful than marriages due to old age. Fet's marriage was successful in the most moral sense. Everyone who knew her spoke only well of Maria Petrovna, only with respect and genuine affection.

Maria Petrovna was a good, educated woman, a good musician. She became her husband's assistant and was attached to him. Fet always felt this and could not help but be grateful.

By February 1860, Fet had the idea of ​​purchasing the estate. By the middle of the year, he realizes his dream-thought. The Stepanovka estate, which he bought, was located in the south of the same Mtsensk district of the Oryol province, where his native Novoselki estate was located. It was a fairly large farm, 200 acres in size, located in the steppe strip, in an empty place. Turgenev joked about this: “it’s a fat pancake and there’s a bump on it,” “instead of nature... one space.”

This is where Fet was in charge - for seventeen years. Here he spent most of the year, only going to Moscow for a short time in the winter.

Fet was not just a good owner, he was passionate. His ardor in rural labors and the organization of the estate had serious psychological justification: he in fact regained his involvement in the class of noble landowners, eliminated what seemed to him a great injustice towards himself. In Stepanovka, Fet taught two peasant children to read and write and built a hospital for the peasants. During times of crop shortage and famine, he helps peasants with money and other means. From 1867 and for ten years, Fet served as a justice of the peace. He took his responsibilities seriously and responsibly.

Last years of life.

The last years of Fet's life were marked by a new, unexpected and highest rise in his creativity. In 1877, Fet sold his old estate, Stepanovka, and bought a new one, Vorobyovka. This estate is located in the Kursk province, on the Tuskari River. It turned out that in Vorobyovka Fet was invariably busy with work all day and all hours. Poetic and mental work.

No matter how important translation works were for Fet, the biggest event in the last years of his life was the publication of collections of his original poems - “Evening Lights”. The poems amaze, first of all, with their depth and wisdom. These are both bright and tragic thoughts of the poet. Such, for example, are the poems “Death”, “Insignificance”, “Not by that, Lord, mighty, incomprehensible...”. The last poem is glory to man, glory to the eternal fire of the spirit that lives in man.

In “Evening Lights,” as in all of Fet’s poetry, there are many poems about love. Beautiful, unique and unforgettable poems. One of them is “Alexandra Lvovna Brzeskaya”.

Nature occupies a prominent place in Fet's late poetry. In his poems, she is always closely connected with a person. In late Fet, nature helps solve riddles and secrets of human existence. Through nature, Fet comprehends the subtlest psychological truth about man. At the end of his life, Fet became a rich man. By decree of Emperor Alexander II, his noble dignity and the surname Shenshin, so desired by him, were returned to him. His fiftieth literary anniversary in 1889 was celebrated solemnly, magnificently and quite officially. The new Emperor Alexander III granted him the title of senior rank - chamberlain.

Fet died on November 21, 1892, two days short of his seventy-second birthday. The circumstances of his death are as follows.

On the morning of November 21, sick but still on his feet, Fet unexpectedly wished for champagne. His wife, Maria Petrovna, recalled that the doctor did not allow this. Fet began to insist that she immediately go to the doctor for permission. While they were harnessing the horses, Fet was worried and hurried: “Is it soon?” At parting he said to Maria Petrovna: “Well, go away, mommy, and come back soon.”

After his wife left, he said to the secretary: “Come on, I’ll dictate to you.” - "Letter?" – she asked. - "No". Under his dictation, the secretary wrote at the top of the sheet: “I don’t understand the deliberate increase in inevitable suffering. I voluntarily go towards the inevitable.” Fet himself signed this: “November 21, Fet (Shenshin).”

On his table lay a steel cutting knife in the shape of a stiletto. Fet took it. The alarmed secretary vomited. Then Fet, without giving up the idea of ​​suicide, went to the dining room, where table knives were stored in the wardrobe. He tried to open the wardrobe, but to no avail. Suddenly, breathing rapidly, his eyes wide open, he fell onto a chair.

Thus death came to him.

Three days later, on November 24, the funeral ceremony took place. The funeral service was held in the university church. Then the coffin with Fet’s body was taken to the village of Kleymenovo Mtsenskon, Oryol province, the Shenshins’ family estate. Fet was buried there.

Bibliography:

* Maimin E. A. Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet: A book for students. – Moscow: Enlightenment 1989 – 159 p. – (Biography of the writer).

Biography

Born into the family of landowner Shenshin.

The surname Fet (more precisely, Fet, German Foeth) became for the poet, as he later recalled, “the name of all his sufferings and sorrows.” The son of the Oryol landowner Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin (1775-1855) and Caroline Charlotte Föth, who he brought from Germany, he was recorded at birth (probably for a bribe) as the legitimate son of his parents, although he was born a month after Charlotte arrived in Russia and a year before their marriage. When he was 14 years old, an “error” in the documents was discovered, and he was deprived of his surname, nobility and Russian citizenship and became “Hessendarmstadt subject Afanasy Fet” (thus, Charlotte’s first husband, the German Fet, began to be considered his father; who in reality was Afanasy's father is unknown). In 1873, he officially regained his surname Shenshin, but continued to sign his literary works and translations with the surname Fet (with an “e”).

In 1835-1837 he studied at the German private boarding school of Krümmer in Verro (now Võru, Estonia). At this time, Fet begins to write poetry and shows interest in classical philology.

In 1838-1844 he studied at Moscow University.

In 1840, a collection of Fet’s poems “Lyrical Pantheon” was published with the participation of A. Grigoriev, Fet’s friend from the university.

In 1842 - publications in the magazines “Moskvityanin” and “Domestic Notes”.

In 1845, he entered military service in the cuirassier regiment of the Military Order and became a cavalryman. In 1846 he was awarded the first officer rank.

In 1850 - Fet's second collection, positive reviews from critics in the magazines Sovremennik, Moskvityanin and Otechestvennye zapiski. The death of Maria Kozminichna Lazich, the poet’s beloved, to whose memories the poem “Talisman” is dedicated, the poems “Old Letters”, “You suffered, I still suffer...”, “No, I haven’t changed. Until deep old age..." and many of his other poems.

* 1853 - Fet is transferred to a guards regiment stationed near St. Petersburg. The poet often visits St. Petersburg, then the capital. Fet's meetings with Turgenev, Nekrasov, Goncharov and others. Rapprochement with the editors of the Sovremennik magazine

* 1854 - service in the Baltic Port, described in his memoirs “My Memories”

* 1856 - Fet’s third collection. Editor - Turgenev

* 1857 - Fet’s marriage to M. P. Botkina, sister of the doctor S. P. Botkin

* 1858 - the poet resigns with the rank of guards captain and settles in Moscow

* 1859 - break with Sovremennik magazine

* 1863 - publication of a two-volume collection of poems by Fet

* 1867 - Fet was elected justice of the peace for 11 years

* 1873 - nobility and the surname Shenshin were returned. The poet continued to sign his literary works and translations with the surname Fet.

* 1883-1891 - publication of four issues of the collection “Evening Lights”

* 1892, November 21 - death of Fet in Moscow. According to some reports, his death from a heart attack was preceded by a suicide attempt. He was buried in the village of Kleymenovo, the family estate of the Shenshins.

Bibliography

Editions. Collections

* Poems. 2010
* Poems. 1970
* Afanasy Fet. Lyrics. 2006
* Poems. Poems. 2005
* Poems. Prose. Letters. 1988
* Prose of the poet. 2001
* Spiritual poetry. 2007

Poems

*Two sticky
* Sabina
* Dream
* Student
* Talisman

Translations

* Beautiful Night (from Goethe)
* The Traveler's Night Song (from Goethe)
* The Limits of Humanity (from Goethe)
* Bertrand de Born (from Uhland)
* “You are covered in pearls and diamonds” (from Heine)
* “Child, we were still children” (from Heine)
* Gods of Greece (from Schiller)
* Imitation of oriental poets (from Saadi)
* From Rückert
* Songs of the Caucasian highlanders
* Dupont and Durand (from Alfred Musset)
* “Be Theocritus, O most charming one” (from Merike)
* “He who was equal to God was chosen by fate” (from Catullus)
* Ovid's Book of Love
* Philemon and Baucis (from the book "Metamorphoses" by Ovid)
* On poetic art (To the Piso) (from Horace)

Stories

* Out of fashion
* Uncle and cousin
* Cactus
* Kalenik
* Goltz family

Journalism

Articles about poetry and art:

* About Tyutchev’s poems
* From the article “About the statue of Mr. Ivanov”
* From the article “Two letters on the importance of ancient languages ​​in our education”
* From the preface to the translation of Ovid's Metamorphosis
* Preface to the third issue of "Evening Lights"
* Preface to the fourth issue of "Evening Lights"
* From the book "My Memories"
* From the article “Response to New Time”
* From letters
* Comments

Memoirs:

*Early years of my life
* My memories

Interesting Facts

Fet's plans included a translation of the Critique of Pure Reason, but N. Strakhov dissuaded Fet from translating this book by Kant, pointing out that a Russian translation of this book already existed. After this, Fet turned to Schopenhauer's translation. He translated two works by Schopenhauer:

* “The World as Will and Idea” (1880, 2nd ed. in 1888) and
* “On the fourfold root of the law of sufficient reason” (1886).

The heroine of Fet's lyrics is considered to be Maria Lazic, who died tragically in 1850. Fet felt guilty about her for the rest of his life and continued to harbor deep feelings.

"No, I haven't changed. Until I'm very old
I am the same devotee, I am the slave of your love,
And the old poison of chains, joyful and cruel,
It still burns in my blood.

Although memory insists that there is a grave between us,
Even though every day I wander wearily to another, -
I can't believe that you would forget me,
When you're here in front of me.

Will another beauty flash for a moment,
It seems to me that I’m about to recognize you;
And I hear a breath of former tenderness,
And, shuddering, I sing."

The works of A. Fet - The main motives of lyrics in the works of A. A. Fet (abstracts on the works of A.A. Fet)

And I tremble, and my heart avoids

And the brighter the moon shone,

She became paler and paler,

There are purple roses in the smoky clouds,
The reflection of amber
And kisses and tears,
And dawn, dawn!...

Biography

Shenshin Afanasy Afanasyevich (aka Fet) is a famous Russian lyric poet. Born on November 23, 1820, near the city of Mtsensk, Oryol province, in the village of Novoselki, the son of a wealthy landowner, retired captain, Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin. The latter married a Lutheran abroad, but without the Orthodox rite, as a result of which the marriage, legal in Germany, was declared illegal in Russia; when the Orthodox wedding ceremony was performed in Russia, the future poet was already living under his mother’s surname “Foeth”, considered an illegitimate child; Only in his old age did Fet begin to bother about legalization and received his father’s surname. Until the age of 14, Sh. lived and studied at home, and then in the city of Verro (Livland province), in the Krommer boarding house. In 1837 he was transported to Moscow and placed with M.P. Weather; Soon after, Sh. entered Moscow University, the Faculty of History and Philology. Sh. lived almost all of his student time in the family of his university friend, the future literary critic Apollo Grigoriev, who had an influence on the development of Sh.’s poetic gift. Already in 1840, Sh.’s first collection of poems appeared in Moscow: “The Lyrical Pantheon of A. F.” . The collection was not a success among the public, but attracted the attention of journalists, and from 1842 Pogodinsky’s “Moskvityanin” often included poems by Fet (who retained this surname as a literary pseudonym until the end of his life) and A. D. Galakhov contributed some of them in the very first edition of his “Chrestomathy”, 1843. Heine had the greatest literary influence on Sh., as a lyricist, at that time. The desire to rise to the nobility prompted Fet to enter military service. In 1845 he was accepted into the cuirassier regiment; in 1853 he transferred to the Uhlan Guards Regiment; during the Crimean campaign he was part of the troops guarding the Estonian coast; in 1858 he retired, like his father, as a headquarters captain. Sh., however, was not able to achieve noble rights at that time: the qualification required for this increased as Fet was promoted. Meanwhile, his poetic fame grew; The success of the book “Poems by A. Fet”, published in Moscow in 1850, gave him access to the Sovremennik circle in St. Petersburg, where he met Turgenev and V.P. Botkin; he became friends with the latter, and the former already in 1856 wrote to Fet: “What are you writing to me about Heine? - you are taller than Heine!” Later Sh. met L.N. from Turgenev. Tolstoy, who returned from Sevastopol. The Sovremennik circle jointly selected, edited and beautifully published a new collection of “Poems by A. A. Fet" (St. Petersburg, 1856); in 1863 it was republished by Soldatenkov in two volumes, and the 2nd included translations of Horace and others. Literary successes prompted Sh. to leave military service; besides, he in 1857 Mr. married Marya Petrovna Botkina in Paris and, feeling a practical streak in himself, decided to devote himself, like Horace, to agriculture.In 1860, he bought the Stepanovka farm with 200 acres of land, in Mtsensk district, and energetically began to manage, living there without going anywhere and only in winter, visiting Moscow for a short time.For more than ten years (1867 - 1877) Sh. himself as such a convinced and tenacious Russian “agrarian” that he soon received the nickname “serf owner” from the populist press. Sh. turned out to be an excellent owner, in 1877 he left Stepanovka and bought the Vorobyovka estate in Shchigrovsky district, Kursk province, near Korennaya for 105,000 rubles Deserts; at the end of his life, Sh.’s fortune reached a level that can be called wealth. In 1873, the surname Sh. was approved for Fet with all the rights associated with it. In 1881, Sh. bought a house in Moscow and began to come to Vorobyovka in the spring and summer as a summer resident, renting out the farm to the manager. At this time of contentment and honor, Sh. with new energy began to write original and translated poetry, and memoirs. He published in Moscow: four collections of lyrical poems "Evening Lights" (1883, 1885, 1888, 1891) and translations of Horace (1883), Juvenal (1885), Catullus (1886), Tibullus (1886), Ovid (1887), Virgil (1888), Propertius (1889), Persia (1889) and Martial (1891); translation of both parts of Goethe's Faust (1882 and 1888); wrote a memoir, "The Early Years of My Life, Before 1848." (posthumous edition, 1893) and “My Memoirs, 1848 - 1889.” (in two volumes, 1890); translation of the works of A. Schopenhauer: 1) on the fourth root of the law of sufficient reason and 2) on the will in nature (1886) and “The World as Will and Idea” (2nd edition - 1888). On January 28 and 29, 1889, the anniversary of Fet’s 50-year literary activity was solemnly celebrated in Moscow; soon after that he was granted the title of chamberlain by the Highest. Sh. died on November 21, 1892 in Moscow, two days short of turning 72; buried in the Shenshin family estate, the village of Kleimenov, in Mtsensk district, 25 versts from Orel. Posthumous editions of his original poems: in two volumes - 1894 ("Lyrical Poems of A. Fet", St. Petersburg, with a biography written by K. R. and edited by K.R. and N.N. Strakhov) and in three volumes - 1901 ("Complete Collection of Poems", St. Petersburg, edited by B.V. Nikolsky). As a person, Sh. is a unique product of the Russian landowner and noble pre-reform environment; in 1862, Turgenev calls Sh., in a letter to him, “an inveterate and frenzied serf owner and lieutenant of the ancient temper.” He treated his legitimation with painful pride, which caused the ridicule of the same Turgenev, in a letter to Sh. in 1874, “like Fet, you had a name; like Shenshin, you only have a surname.” Other distinctive features of his character are extreme individualism and a jealous defense of his independence from outside influences; for example, when traveling in Italy, he covered the windows so as not to look at the view that his sister invited him to admire, and in Russia he once ran away from his wife, from a Bosio concert, imagining that he was “obliged” to admire the music! Within the family and friendly circle, Sh. was distinguished by his gentleness and kindness, which are repeatedly spoken of with great and sincere praise in letters to I. Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, V. Botkin and others. Individualism explains both Sh.’s practicality and his an ardent fight against weeds and mowing, which he naively reported to the public in his magazine articles “From the Village,” to the detriment of his own reputation. This also determines the indifference that Sh. displays in his “memoirs” to the great political “issues” that worried his contemporaries. About the event of February 19, 1861, Sh. says that it did not arouse anything in him “except childish curiosity.” Having heard “Oblomov” read for the first time, Sh. fell asleep from boredom; he missed Turgenev’s “Fathers and Sons,” and the novel “What to Do” horrified him, and he wrote a polemical article in Katkov’s “Russian Messenger,” but so harsh that even Katkov did not dare to publish it. Regarding Turgenev’s acquaintance with the disgraced Shevchenko, Sh. noted in his “memoirs”: it was not without reason that “I had to hear that Turgenev n” etait pas un enfant de bonne maison!” Shenshin did not even rise to the level of understanding literary class interests; Sh.’s judgments about society "Literary Fund", according to Turgenev (in 1872), "to put it bluntly, outrageous"; "it would be great happiness if you really were the poorest Russian writer"! - adds Turgenev. In the 1870s in the correspondence of Turgenev and Sh. there are more and more harsh words (“you have smelled Katkovsky’s rotten spirit!” Turgenev wrote in 1872) and the difference in political beliefs finally led to a break, which Fet himself mourned most of all. In 1878, Turgenev resumed correspondence with Sh. and explained to him with sad irony: “old age, bringing us closer to final simplification, simplifies all life relationships; I willingly shake the hand you extended”... Speaking in his “memoirs” about his activities, as a justice of the peace, the poet expresses complete contempt for laws in general and laws on jurisdiction in particular. As a poet, Fet rises significantly above Sh. the man. It seems as if a person’s very shortcomings are transformed into the poet’s virtues: individualism promotes self-deepening and introspection, without which a lyricist is unthinkable, and practicality, inseparable from materialism, presupposes the presence of that sensual love of being, without which the vivid imagery, so valuable in the original lyrics of Sh .and in his translated poetics (in translations of Horace and other ancient classics). Sh.'s main literary merit lies in his original lyrics. Sh. never forgets Voltaire’s rule “le secret d”ennyer c”est celui de tout dire” and that “inscription” (tabula votiva) of Schiller “The Artist”, which (translated by Minsky) reads: “Masters of other arts according to what he said is judged; the master of only syllables shines with the knowledge of what to keep silent about.” Sh. always counts on a thoughtful reader and remembers the wise rule of Aristotle that in the enjoyment of beauty there is an element of pleasure in thinking. His best poems are always characterized by laconicism. An example is the following eight-line from “Evening Lights”: “Don’t laugh, don’t marvel at me in childish, rude bewilderment, that in front of this decrepit oak tree I am again standing in the old way. A few leaves on the brow of the sick old man survived; but again with spring the turtle doves have flown in and are huddling in the hollow." Here the poet does not say that he himself is like a decrepit oak tree, the cheerful dreams in his heart are like turtle doves in a hollow; the reader must guess this himself - and the reader guesses easily and with pleasure, since Fet’s stylistic laconicism is closely connected with poetic symbolism, that is, with the eloquent language of images and picture parallels. Fet's second advantage as a lyricist, closely connected with his symbolism, is his allegorism, that is, his ability, having accurately identified the subject of the chant in the title, to select successful poetic comparisons for it, reviving interest in a prosaic phenomenon; examples are the poems “On the Railway” (comparing a railway train with a “fiery serpent”) and “Steamboat” (comparing a steamboat with an “evil dolphin”). The third virtue of a great lyricist is the ability to casually sketch words, pictures and images, without connecting them stylistically, in full confidence that the internal connection will result in what is called mood; well-known examples: “whisper. .. timid breathing... trills of a nightingale"... etc. and "wonderful picture, how dear you are to me: a white plain... full moon"... etc. Such poems are especially suitable for music , namely for the romance. It is not surprising that, on the one hand, Fet designated a whole category of his poems with the word “melodies”, and on the other hand, many of Fet’s poems are illustrated with music by Russian composers (“Silent Starry Night”, “At the Dawn You Don’t Know Her”) wake up", "Don't leave me", "I won't tell you anything", music by Tchaikovsky, etc.) and foreign (the same "Silent Starry Night", "Whisper, Timid Breath" and "I stood motionless for a long time ", music by Mrs. Viardot). The fourth positive quality of Fet's lyrics is his versification, rhythmically diverse, due to the variety in the number of feet of the same size (example: “Silently the evening is burning out” - iambic 4-foot, “Golden Mountains” - 3- foot, etc., in the same order) and with successful attempts at innovation in the combination of two-syllable meters with three-syllable ones, for example, iambic with amphibrach, which has long been practiced in German versification, theoretically allowed in our Russia by Lomonosov, but in Russian versification before Fet was very rare (example from “Evening Lights”, 1891: “For a long time there has been little joy in love” - iambic tetrameter - “sighs without response, tears without joy” - amphibrach tetrameter, etc. in the same order). All of the above-mentioned advantages are inherent in the entire field of Fetov’s original lyrics, regardless of its content. Sometimes, however, Fet loses his sense of proportion and, bypassing the Scylla of excessive clarity and prosaicity, ends up in the Charybdis of excessive darkness and poetic pomposity, ignoring Turgenev’s behest that “bewilderment is the enemy of aesthetic pleasure,” and forgetting that in Schiller’s words about the wise in silence, it is necessary to emphasize the word “wise” and that Aristotle’s “delight in thinking” excludes puzzling work on charade verses and rebus verses. For example, when in “Evening Lights” Fet, praising the beauty, writes: “Subject to the flow of spring gusts, I breathed a pure and passionate stream from the captive angel from the blowing wings,” then one involuntarily recalls the words of Turgenev in a letter to Fet in 1858: “ Oedipus, having solved the riddle of the Sphinx, would have howled in horror and would have run away from these two chaotic, cloudy, incomprehensible verses.” These ambiguities of Fetov’s style should be mentioned simply because they are imitated by Russian decadents. According to its content, Sh.’s original poetics can be divided into lyrics of moods: 1) love, 2) natural, 3) philosophical and 4) social. As a singer of a woman and love for her, Fet can be called the Slavic Heine; This is Heine, gentle, without social irony and without world sorrow, but just as subtle and nervous, and even more tender. If Fet often speaks in his poems about the “fragrant circle” surrounding a woman, then his love lyrics are a narrow area of ​​fragrances and idealistic beauty. It is difficult to imagine a more chivalrously tender worship of a woman than in Fet’s poems. When he says to the tired beauty (in the poem: “There are patterns on the double glass”): “You were cunning, you were hiding, you were smart: you haven’t rested for a long time, you are tired. Full of gentle excitement, sweet dreams, I will wait for the reassurance of pure beauty”; when he, seeing a couple in love, whose feelings cannot be expressed, exclaims with the most lively excitement (in the poem “She is an instant image to him,” 1892): “But who knows, and who will tell them this?”; when the troubadour sings with cheerful joy the morning serenade: “I came to you with greetings” and with quiet tenderness the evening serenade “Silently the evening is burning out”; when he, with the hysteria of a passionate lover, declares to his beloved (in the poem “Oh, don’t call!”) that she does not need to call him with the words: “And don’t call - but sing a song of love at random; at the first sound, I, like a child, will cry, and - behind you! "; when he lights his “evening lights” in front of a woman, “kneeling and touched by beauty” (1883 poem to “Polonyansky”); when he (in the poem “If the morning pleases you”) asks the maiden: “Give this rose to the poet” and promises her in exchange eternally fragrant poems, “in a touching verse you will find this eternally fragrant rose,” - is it then possible not to admire this love lyrics, and isn’t the grateful Russian woman ready to repeat, while reading Fet, the exclamation of Eva in Richard Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger of Nuremberg,” crowning her troubadour, Walter, with laurels: “No one but you can seek love with such charm!” (“Keiner, wie du, so suss zu werben mag!”). Sh. has a lot of successful love and lyrical poems; they can be counted in almost dozens. A great connoisseur and connoisseur of nature in general and Russian nature in particular, Fet created a number of masterpieces in the field of lyric poetry of natural moods; These lyrics should be looked for under the headings "Spring. Summer. Autumn. Snow. Sea." Who is not familiar with the poems “The sad shore at my window”, “The warm wind blows quietly, the steppe breathes fresh life”, “On the Dnieper in the flood” (“It was getting light. The wind bent the elastic glass”) from the anthologies? And how many other poems Fet has, less well-known, but similar and not worse! He loves nature in its entirety, not only the landscape, but also the plant and animal kingdoms in all its details; That’s why his poems “The First Lily of the Valley”, “Cuckoo” (1886) and “Fish” (“Warmth in the Sun”, known from anthologies) are so good. Fet's variety of natural moods is amazing; he is equally successful in autumn pictures (for example, “Spleen”, with its final verses: “Over a steaming glass of cooling tea, thank God! little by little, like evening, I fall asleep.”) and spring (for example, “Spring is outside,” with an optimistic conclusion : “On the air, the song trembles and melts, the rye turns green on the rock - and a gentle voice sings: you will survive spring yet!”). In the field of this kind of lyricism, Fet stands on a par with Tyutchev, that Russian pantheist or, more precisely, panpsychist who spiritualizes nature. Fet is noticeably lower than Tyutchev in his lyrical poems dedicated to philosophical contemplations; but a sincerely religious poet, who wrote his “memoirs” with the aim of tracing the “finger of God” in his life, in “Evening Lights” gave several excellent examples of abstract philosophical and religious lyrics. These are the poems “On the Ship” (1857), “Who has a crown: the goddess or beauty” (1865), “The Lord is not powerful, incomprehensible” (1879), “When the Divine fled human speeches” (1883), “I am shocked when around" (1885), etc. Characteristic of Fet's poetics is the following difference between him and Lermontov: in the poem "On the Ocean of Air" (in "The Demon") Lermontov glorifies the Byronic dispassion of the heavenly bodies, in the poem "The Stars Pray" (in " Evening Lights") Fet sings of the meek and Christian-religious compassion of the stars for people ("Tears in the diamond tremble in their gaze - yet their prayers burn silently"); Lermontov has world sorrow, Fet has only world love. This worldly love of Fet, however, is not deep, for it is not able to embrace humanity and modern Russian society, which in the 1860s was worried about broad, to a certain extent, universal issues. Fet's social lyrics are very weak. Together with Maykov and Polonsky, he decided to completely ignore civil poetry, proclaiming it a pariah among other types of lyrics. The name of Pushkin was remembered in vain; the theory of “art for art’s sake” was preached, which was completely arbitrary, identifying with “art for art’s sake” art without a social tendency, without social content and meaning. Fet shared this sad delusion: “Evening Lights” turned out to be equipped with completely unpoetical prefaces on topics about “art for art’s sake,” and in “Poems for Occasion” there were sharp echoes of Katkov’s editorials. In the poem “To the Pushkin Monument” (1880), Sh., for example, characterizes contemporary Russian society in this way: “The market place... where there is din and crowding, where common Russian sense has fallen silent, like an orphan, loudest of all - there is a murderer and an atheist , for whom a stove pot is the limit of all thoughts! In the poem “Quail” (1885), Sh. praises the “smart” literary “titmouse”, which “quietly and intelligently got along with the “iron cage”, while the “quail” from the “iron needles” “only jumped on his bald head”! Not a very significant place in Sh.'s literary activity is occupied by his numerous translations. They are distinguished by their literalness, but their style is much more tense, artificial and not more correct than in Fet's original lyrics. Sh. lost sight of the main technique of the best of Russian poetic translators, Zhukovsky: translate the thought, and not the expression of the original, replacing these expressions with equivalent ones, but composed in the spirit of the Russian language; with this technique, Zhukovsky achieved the lightness and grace of his translated verse, which almost did not need comments, with which Fet too abundantly equips his translations of ancient classics. less so, these are still the best poetic translations of all the others available on the Russian literary market and devoted to the interpretation of the same authors.Especially known are Fetov’s translations of Horace, whom Sh. translated apparently con amore, savoring the epicurean poetry of the ancient lyric landowner and mentally drawing parallels between the idyllic complacency of Horace and his own village life. Possessing an excellent knowledge of the German language, Sh. very successfully translated Schopenhauer and Goethe's Faust. As a result, the best part of Fet's original lyrics secures for him a very prominent place not only in Russian, but also in Western European poetry of the 19th century. The best articles about Fet: V. P. Botkin (1857), Vladimir Solovyov (Russian Review, 1890, No. 12) and R. Disterlo (in the same magazine).

Life and creative destiny of A. A. Fet

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet was born in the Novoselki estate in Mtsensk district in November 1820. The story of his birth is not entirely ordinary. His father, Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, a retired captain, belonged to an old noble family and was a wealthy landowner. While undergoing treatment in Germany, he married Charlotte Feth, whom he took to Russia from her husband and daughter. Two months later, Charlotte gave birth to a boy named Afanasy and given the surname Shenshin. Fourteen years later, the spiritual authorities of Orel discovered that the child was born before the parents' wedding, and Afanasy was deprived of the right to bear his father's surname and deprived of his noble title. This event wounded the impressionable child, and he spent almost his entire life experiencing the ambiguity of his position. In addition, he had to earn his rights of nobility, which the church deprived him of. He graduated from the university, where he studied first at the Faculty of Law and then at the Faculty of Philology. At this time, in 1840, he published his first works as a separate book, which, however, did not have any success.

Having received his education, Afanasy. Afanasyevich decided to become a military man, since the officer rank provided the opportunity to receive a noble title. But in 1858 A. Fet was forced to resign. He never won the rights of the nobility - at that time the nobility gave only the rank of colonel, and he was a headquarters captain. But the years of military service can be considered the heyday of his poetic activity. In 1850, “Poems” by A. Fet was published in Moscow, which was greeted with delight by readers. In St. Petersburg he met Nekrasov, Panaev, Druzhinin, Goncharov, Yazykov. Later he became friends with Leo Tolstoy. This friendship was long and fruitful for both.

During his years of military service, Afanasy Fet experienced a tragic love for Maria Lazich, a fan of his poetry, a very talented and educated girl. She also fell in love with him, but they were both poor, and for this reason Fet did not dare to join his destiny with his beloved girl. Soon Maria Lazic died. Until his death, the poet remembered his unhappy love; in many of his poems one can hear its unfading breath.

In 1856, the poet’s new book was published. After retiring, A. Fet bought land in Mtsensk district and decided to devote himself to agriculture. Soon he married M.P. Botkina. Fet lived in the village of Stepanovka for seventeen years, visiting Moscow only briefly. Here he received the highest decree that the surname Shenshin with all the rights associated with it had finally been approved for him.

In 1877, Afanasy Afanasyevich bought the village of Vorobyovka in the Kursk province, where he spent the rest of his life, only leaving for Moscow for the winter. These years, unlike the years lived in Stepanovka, were marked by his return to literature. The poet signed all his poems with the surname Fet: under this name he acquired poetic fame, and it was dear to him. During this period, A. Fet published a collection of his works entitled “Evening Lights” - there were four issues in total.

A. A. Fet lived a long and difficult life. His literary fate was also difficult. Of his creative heritage, modern readers know mainly poetry and much less prose, journalism, translations, memoirs, and letters. Without Afanasy Fet it is difficult to imagine the life of literary Moscow in the 19th century. Many famous people visited his house on Plyushchikha. For many years he was friends with A. Grigoriev and I. Turgenev. All of literary and musical Moscow attended Fet’s musical evenings.

A. Fet's poems are pure poetry in the sense that there is not a drop of prose. He did not sing about hot feelings, despair, delight, lofty thoughts, no, he wrote about the simplest things - about nature, about the simplest movements of the soul, even about momentary impressions. His poetry is joyful and bright, it is filled with light and peace. The poet writes even about his ruined love lightly and calmly, although his feeling is deep and fresh, as in the first minutes. Until the end of his life, Fet did not lose the ability to rejoice.

The beauty, naturalness, and sincerity of his poetry reach complete perfection; his verse is amazingly expressive, imaginative, and musical. It is not for nothing that Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev, Rachmaninov, and other composers turned to his poetry. “This is not just a poet, but rather a poet-musician...” - Tchaikovsky said about him. Many romances were written based on Fet's poems, which quickly gained wide popularity.

Fet can be called a singer of Russian nature. The approach of spring and autumn withering, a fragrant summer night and a frosty day, a rye field stretching endlessly and without edge and a dense shady forest - he writes about all this in his poems. Fet's nature is always calm, quiet, as if frozen. And at the same time, it is surprisingly rich in sounds and colors, living its own life, hidden from the inattentive eye:

I came to you with greetings,

What is it with hot light
The sheets began to flutter;

Tell me that the forest has woken up,
All woke up, every branch,
Every bird was startled
And full of thirst in spring...

Fet also perfectly conveys the “fragrant freshness of feelings” inspired by nature, its beauty and charm. His poems are imbued with a bright, joyful mood, the happiness of love. The poet unusually subtly reveals the various shades of human experiences. He knows how to capture and put into bright, living images even fleeting mental movements that are difficult to identify and convey in words:

Whisper, timid breathing,
The trill of a nightingale,
Silver and sway
Sleepy stream,
Night light, night shadows,
Endless shadows
A series of magical changes
Sweet face
There are purple roses in the smoky clouds,
The reflection of amber
And kisses and tears,
And dawn, dawn!..

Usually A. Fet in his poems dwells on one figure, on one turn of feelings, and at the same time his poetry cannot be called monotonous; on the contrary, it amazes with its diversity and multitude of themes. The special charm of his poems, in addition to the content, lies precisely in the nature of the mood of the poetry. Fet's muse is light, airy, as if there is nothing earthly in it, although she tells us exactly about the earthly. There is almost no action in his poetry; each of his verses is a whole series of impressions, thoughts, joys and sorrows. Take at least such of them as “Your ray, flying far...,” “Motionless eyes, crazy eyes...”, “The sun’s ray between the linden trees...”, “I stretch out my hand to you in silence... " and others.

The poet sang beauty where he saw it, and he found it everywhere. He was an artist with an exceptionally developed sense of beauty; This is probably why the pictures of nature in his poems are so beautiful, which he reproduced as it is, without allowing any decorations of reality. In his poems we recognize a specific landscape - central Russia.

In all descriptions of nature, the poet is impeccably faithful to its smallest features, shades, and moods. It was thanks to this that such poetic masterpieces were created as “Whisper, timid breathing...”, “I came to you with greetings...”, “At dawn, don’t wake her...”, “Dawn bids farewell to the earth. .."

Fet's love lyrics are the most frank page of his poetry. The poet's heart is open, he does not spare it, and the drama of his poems is literally shocking, despite the fact that, as a rule, their main tonality is light, major.

The poems of A. A. Fet are loved in our country. Time has unconditionally confirmed the value of his poetry, shown that we, people of the 21st century, need it, because it speaks about the eternal and most intimate, reveals the beauty of the world around us.

The main motives of lyrics in the works of A. A. Fet (Examination abstract work. Completed by 9th grade student “B” Ratkovsky A.A. Secondary school No. 646. Moscow, 2004)

Creativity of A. Fet

A. A. Fet occupies a very special position in Russian poetry of the second half of the 19th century. The social situation in Russia in those years implied the active participation of literature in civil processes, that is, the pomp of poetry and prose, as well as their pronounced civic orientation. Nekrasov gave rise to this movement by declaring that every writer is obliged to “report” to society, to be first of all a citizen, and then a person of art. Fet did not adhere to this principle, remaining outside of politics, and thus filled his niche in the poetry of that era, sharing it with Tyutchev.

But if we remember Tyutchev’s lyrics, then they consider human existence in its tragedy, while Fet was considered a poet of serene rural joys, gravitating towards contemplation. The poet’s landscape is distinguished by calmness and peace. But perhaps this is the external side? Indeed, if you look closely, Fet’s lyrics are filled with drama and philosophical depth, which have always distinguished “great” poets from ephemeral authors. One of Fetov’s main themes is the tragedy of unrequited love. Poems on this topic reveal the facts of Fet’s biography, or more precisely, the fact that he survived the death of his beloved woman. Poems related to this topic rightly received the name “monologues to the deceased.”

You suffered, I still suffer,
I'm destined to breathe with doubt,
And I tremble, and my heart avoids
Seek what cannot be understood.

Intertwined with this tragic motif are other poems by the poet, the titles of which speak eloquently about the theme: “Death”, “Life flashed by without an obvious trace”, “Simply in the darkness of memories...” As you can see, the idyll is not just “diluted” by the poet’s sadness , it is absent altogether. The illusion of well-being is created by the poet’s desire to overcome suffering, to dissolve it in the joy of everyday life, extracted from pain, in the harmony of the surrounding world. The poet rejoices along with all nature after the storm:

When, under a cloud, it’s transparent and clean,
The dawn will tell you that the day of bad weather has passed,
You won’t find a blade of grass and you won’t find a bush,
So that he does not cry and does not shine with happiness...

Fet's view of nature is similar to Tyutchev's: the main thing in it is movement, the direction of the flow of vital energy that charges people and their poems. Fet wrote to Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy: “in a work of art, tension is a great thing.” It is not surprising that Fet’s lyrical plot unfolds at a time of greatest tension in man’s spiritual powers. The poem “Don’t wake her up at dawn” demonstrates just such a moment,” reflecting the heroine’s state:

And the brighter the moon shone,
And the louder the nightingale whistled,
She became paler and paler,
My heart beat more and more painfully.

In consonance with this verse is the appearance of another heroine: “You sang until dawn, exhausted in tears.” But Fet’s most striking masterpiece, which reflected an internal spiritual event in a person’s life, is the poem “Whisper, timid breathing...” In this poem there is a lyrical plot, that is, nothing happens at the event level, but a detailed development of the hero’s feelings and experiences is given, a change states of a soul in love, coloring the night date - namely, it is described in the poem - in bizarre colors. Against the background of night shadows, the silver of a quiet stream shines, and the wonderful night picture is complemented by the change in the appearance of the beloved. The last stanza is metaphorically complex, since it is the emotional climax of the poem:

There are purple roses in the smoky clouds,
The reflection of amber
And kisses and tears,
And dawn, dawn!...

Behind these unexpected images are hidden the features of the beloved, her lips, the sparkle of her smile. With this and other fresh poems, Fet is trying to prove that poetry is audacity, which claims to change the usual course of existence. In this regard, the verse “With one push can drive away a living boat...” is indicative. Its theme is the nature of the poet's inspiration. Creativity is seen as a high takeoff, a leap, an attempt to achieve the unattainable. Fet directly names his poetic guidelines:

Interrupt a dreary dream with a single sound,
Suddenly revel in the unknown, dear,
Give life a sigh, give sweetness to secret torments...

Another super-task of poetry is to consolidate the world in eternity, to reflect the random, elusive (“Instantly feel someone else’s as your own”). But in order for the images to reach the reader’s consciousness, a special, unique musicality is needed. Fet uses many sound writing techniques (alliteration, assonance), and Tchaikovsky even said: “Fet, in his best moments, goes beyond the limits indicated by poetry and boldly takes a step into our field.”

So what did Fet’s lyrics show us? He walked from the darkness of the death of a loved one to the light of the joy of being, illuminating his path with fire and light in his poems. For this he is called the sunniest poet of Russian literature (everyone knows the lines: “I came to you with greetings, to tell you that the sun has risen”). Fet is not afraid of life after shocks, he believes and maintains faith in the victory of art over time, in the immortality of a beautiful moment.

A. Fet's poems are pure poetry, in the sense that there is not a drop of prose. Usually he did not sing about hot feelings, despair, delight, lofty thoughts, no, he wrote about the simplest things - about pictures of nature, about rain, about snow, about the sea, about mountains, about forests, about stars, about the simplest movements of the soul, even about momentary impressions. His poetry is joyful and bright, it is characterized by a feeling of light and peace. He even writes about his ruined love lightly and calmly, although his feeling is deep and fresh, as in the first minutes. Until the end of his life, Fet was not changed by the joy that permeates almost all of his poems.

The beauty, naturalness, and sincerity of his poetry reach complete perfection; his verse is amazingly expressive, imaginative, and musical. It is not for nothing that Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev, Rachmaninov, and other composers turned to his poetry.

“Fet’s poetry is nature itself, looking mirror-like through the human soul...”

In traditional world and Russian lyrics, the theme of nature is one of the main, necessarily addressed topics. And Fet also reflects this theme in many of his poems. The theme of nature in his works is closely intertwined with love lyrics and with Fet’s characteristic theme of beauty, one and indivisible. In the early poems of the 40s, the theme of nature is not expressed explicitly; the images of nature are general and not detailed:

Wonderful picture
How dear you are to me:
White plain,
Full moon...

When describing nature, poets of the 40s relied mainly on techniques characteristic of Heine, i.e. Instead of a coherent description, individual impressions were given. Many of Fet's early poems were considered "Heine" by critics. For example, “The midnight blizzard was noisy,” where the poet expresses the mood without psychological analysis of it and without clarifying the plot situation with which it is connected. The outside world is, as it were, colored by the moods of the lyrical “I”, enlivened, animated by them. This is how Fet’s characteristic humanization of nature appears; emotional expression, excited by nature, often appears; there are no bright and precise details that are so characteristic later, allowing one to judge the picture as a whole. Fet's love for nature, knowledge of it, concretization and subtle observations of it are fully manifested in his poems in the 50s. Probably, his passion for landscape poetry at that time was influenced by his rapprochement with Turgenev. The phenomena of nature become more detailed, more specific than those of Fet’s predecessors, which is also characteristic of Turgenev’s prose of the day. Fet depicts not a birch tree in general, as a symbol of the Russian landscape, but a specific birch tree at the porch of his own house, not a road in general with its infinity and unpredictability, but that specific road that can be seen right now from the threshold of the house. Or, for example, in his poems there are not only traditional birds that have a clear symbolic meaning, but also birds such as harrier, owl, black duck, sandpiper, lapwing, swift and others, each of which is shown in its own uniqueness:

Half hidden behind the cloud,
The moon doesn't dare shine during the day yet.
So the beetle took off and buzzed angrily,
Now the harrier swam by without moving its wing.

The landscapes of Turgenev and Fet are similar not only in the accuracy and subtlety of observations of natural phenomena, but also in sensations and images (for example, the image of a sleeping earth, “resting nature”). Fet, like Turgenev, strives to record and describe changes in nature. His observations can be easily grouped or, for example, in the depiction of the seasons, the period can be clearly defined. Is late autumn depicted:

The last flowers were about to die
And they waited with sadness for the breath of frost;
The maple leaves turned red around the edges,
The peas faded and the rose fell, -

or end of winter:

More fragrant spring bliss
She didn’t have time to come down to us,
The ravines are still full of snow,
Even before dawn the cart rattles
On the frozen path...

This can be easily understood, because... The description is given accurately and clearly. Fet likes to describe precisely a certain time of day, signs of this or that weather, the beginning of this or that phenomenon in nature (for example, rain in “Spring Rain”). In the same way, it can be determined that Fet, for the most part, gives a description of the central regions of Russia.

The cycle of poems “Snow” and many poems from other cycles are dedicated to the nature of central Russia. According to Fet, this nature is beautiful, but not everyone is able to capture this dim beauty. He is not afraid to repeatedly repeat declarations of love for this nature, for the play of light and sound in it” to that natural circle, which the poet many times calls a shelter: “I love your sad shelter and the dull evening of the village...”. Fet always worshiped beauty; the beauty of nature, the beauty of man, the beauty of love - these independent lyrical motifs are stitched together in the poet’s artistic world into a single and indivisible idea of ​​beauty. He escapes from everyday life to “where thunderstorms fly by...” For Fet, nature is an object of artistic delight and aesthetic pleasure. She is man's best mentor and wise advisor. It is nature that helps solve the riddles and mysteries of human existence. In addition, for example, in the poem “Whisper, timid breathing...” the poet perfectly conveys instant sensations, and, alternating them, he conveys the state of the characters, in harmony with nature with the human soul, and the happiness of love:

Whispers, timid breathing,
The trill of a nightingale,
Silver and sway
Sleepy stream....

Fet managed to convey the movements of the soul and nature without verbs, which undoubtedly was an innovation in Russian literature. But does he also have paintings in which verbs become the main supports, as, for example, in the poem “Evening”?

Sounded over the clear river,
It rang in a darkened meadow"
Rolled over the silent grove,
It lit up on the other side...

Such a transfer of what is happening speaks of another feature of Fet’s landscape lyrics: the main tonality is set by elusive impressions of sounds, smells, vague outlines, which are very difficult to convey in words. It is the combination of concrete observations with bold and unusual associations that allows us to clearly imagine the described picture of nature. We can also talk about the impressionism of Fet’s poetry; It is precisely with the bias towards impressionism that innovation in the depiction of natural phenomena is associated. More precisely, objects and phenomena are depicted by the poet as they appeared to his perception, as they seemed to him at the time of writing. And the description focuses not on the image itself, but on the impression it makes. Fet describes the apparent as real:

Over the lake the swan pulled the reeds,
The forest overturned in the water,
With the jagged peaks he sank at dawn,
Between two curving skies.

In general, the motif of “reflection in water” is found quite often in the poet’s work. Probably, an unsteady reflection provides more freedom to the artist’s imagination than the reflected object itself. Fet depicts the outside world as his mood gave it. For all its truthfulness and specificity, the description of nature primarily serves as a means of expressing lyrical feelings.

Usually A. Fet in his poems dwells on one figure, on one turn of feelings, and at the same time his poetry cannot be called monotonous; on the contrary, it amazes with its diversity and multitude of themes. The special charm of his poems, in addition to the content, lies precisely in the nature of the mood of the poetry. Fet's muse is light, airy, as if there is nothing earthly in it, although she tells us exactly about the earthly. There is almost no action in his poetry; each of his verses is a whole kind of impressions, thoughts, joys and sorrows. Take at least such of them as “Your ray, flying far...,” “Motionless eyes, crazy eyes...”, “The sun’s ray between the linden trees...”, “I stretch out my hand to you in silence... " and etc.

The poet sang beauty where he saw it, and he found it everywhere. He was an artist with an exceptionally developed sense of beauty, which is probably why the pictures of nature in his poems are so beautiful, which he took as it is, without allowing any decorations of reality. The landscape of central Russia is clearly visible in his poems.

In all descriptions of nature, A. Fet is impeccably faithful to its smallest features, shades, and moods. It is thanks to this that the poet created amazing works that for so many years have amazed us with psychological precision, filigree precision. These include such poetic masterpieces as “Whisper, timid breathing...”, “I came to you with greetings... ", "Don't wake her up at dawn...", "Dawn bids farewell to the earth...".

Fet builds a picture of the world that he sees, feels, touches, hears. And in this world everything is important and significant: the clouds, the moon, the beetle, the harrier, the crake, the stars, and the Milky Way. Every bird, every flower, every tree and every blade of grass are not just components of the overall picture - they all have unique characteristics, even character. Let's pay attention to the poem "Butterfly":

You are right. With one airy outline
I'm so sweet.
All the velvet is mine with its living blinking -
Only two wings.
Don't ask: where did it come from?
Where am I hurrying?
Here I lightly sank onto a flower
And here I am breathing.
For how long, without purpose, without effort,
Do I want to breathe?
Just now, sparkling, I will spread my wings
And I'll fly away.

Fet's “sense of nature” is universal. It is almost impossible to highlight Fet's purely landscape lyrics without breaking ties with its vital organ - the human personality, subject to the general laws of natural life.

Defining the quality of his worldview, Fet wrote: “Only man, and only he alone in the entire universe, feels the need to ask: what is the surrounding nature? Where does all this come from? What is he himself? Where? Where? For what? And the higher a person is, the more powerful his moral nature, the more sincerely these questions arise in him.” “Nature created this poet in order to eavesdrop on itself, spy on it and understand itself. In order to find out what a person, her brainchild, thinks about her, nature, how he perceives her. Nature created Fet in order to find out how the sensitive human soul perceives it” (L. Ozerov).

Fet's relationship with nature is a complete dissolution in its world, a state of anxious anticipation of a miracle:

I'm waiting... Nightingale echo
Rushing from the shining river,
Grass under the moon in diamonds,
Fireflies burn on caraway seeds.
I'm waiting... Dark blue sky
In both small and large stars,
I can hear the heartbeat
And trembling in the arms and legs.
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!

Let us turn to one of Fet's most famous poems, which at one time brought the author a lot of grief, causing the delight of some, confusion of others, numerous ridicule of adherents of traditional poetry - in general, a whole literary scandal. This little poem became for democratic critics the embodiment of the idea of ​​the emptiness and lack of ideas of poetry. More than thirty parodies have been written on this poem. Here it is:

Whisper, timid breathing,
The trill of a nightingale,
Silver and sway
Sleepy Creek
Night light, night shadows,
Endless shadows
A series of magical changes
Sweet face
There are purple roses in the smoky clouds,
The reflection of amber
And kisses and tears,
And dawn, dawn!...

A feeling of movement, dynamic changes occurring not only in nature, but also in the human soul is immediately created. Meanwhile, there is not a single verb in the poem. And how much joyful rapture of love and life there is in this poem! It is no coincidence that Fet’s favorite time of day was night. She, like poetry, is a refuge from the hustle and bustle of the day:

At night it’s somehow easier for me to breathe,
Somehow more spacious...

the poet admits. He can speak to the night, he addresses it as a living creature, close and dear:

Hello! a thousand times my greetings to you, night!
Again and again I love you
Quiet, warm,
Silver-edged!
Timidly, after putting out the candle, I go to the window...
You can't see me, but I see everything myself...

The poems of A. A. Fet are loved in our country. Time has unconditionally confirmed the value of his poetry, showing that we, the people of the 20th century, need it, because it touches the innermost strings of the soul and reveals the beauty of the world around us.

Fet's aesthetic views

Aesthetics is the science of beauty. And the poet’s views on what is beautiful in this life are formed under the influence of a variety of circumstances. Here everything plays its own special role - the conditions in which the poet spent his childhood, which shaped his ideas about life and beauty, and the influence of teachers, books, favorite authors and thinkers, and the level of education, and the conditions of his entire subsequent life. Therefore, we can say that Fet’s aesthetics are a reflection of the tragedy of the duality of his life and poetic destiny.

So Polonsky very correctly and accurately defined the confrontation between two worlds - the everyday world and the poetic world, which the poet not only felt, but also declared as a given. “My ideal world was destroyed a long time ago...” Fet admitted back in 1850. And in place of this destroyed ideal world, he erected another world - a purely real, everyday one, filled with prosaic affairs and concerns aimed at achieving a far from lofty poetic goal. And this world unbearably weighed on the poet’s soul, not letting go of his mind for a minute. It is in this duality of existence that Fet’s aesthetics is formed, the main principle of which he formulated for himself once and for all and never deviated from it: poetry and life are incompatible, and they will never merge. Fet was convinced; to live for life means to die for art, to be resurrected for art means to die for life. That is why, immersed in economic affairs, Fet left literature for many years.

Life is hard work, oppressive melancholy and
suffering:
To suffer, to suffer for the whole century, aimlessly, without compensation,
Try to fill the emptiness and look,
As with every new attempt the abyss becomes deeper,
Again go crazy, strive and suffer.

In understanding the relationship between life and art, Fet proceeded from the teachings of his favorite German philosopher Schopenhauer, whose book “The World as Will and Representation” he translated into Russian.

Schopenhauer argued that our world is the worst of all possible worlds,” that suffering is an inevitable part of life. This world is nothing more than an arena of tortured and intimidated creatures, and the only possible way out of this world is death, which gives rise to an apology for suicide in Schopenhauer's ethics. Based on the teachings of Schopenhauer, and even before meeting him, Fet never tired of repeating that life in general is base, meaningless, boring, that its main content is suffering and there is only one mysterious, incomprehensible sphere of true, pure joy in this world of sorrow and boredom - the sphere of beauty, a special world,

Where storms fly by
Where the passionate thought is pure, -
And only visibly to the initiates
Spring blossoms and beauty
(“What sadness! The end of the alley...”)

The poetic state is a cleansing from everything too human, an exit into the open space from the narrowness of life, an awakening from sleep, but above all, poetry is the overcoming of suffering. Fet speaks about this in his poetic manifesto “Muse”, the epigraph of which is Pushkin’s words “We were born for inspiration, For sweet sounds and prayers.”

Fet says about himself as a poet:

By His Divine Power

And to human happiness.

The key images of this poem and Fet’s entire aesthetic system are the words “Divine power” and “high pleasure.” Possessing enormous power over the human soul, truly Divine, poetry is capable of transforming life, cleansing the human soul of everything earthly and superficial, only it is capable of “giving life a sigh, giving sweetness to secret torments.”

According to Fet, the eternal object of art is beauty. “The world in all its parts,” wrote Fet, “is equally beautiful. Beauty is spread throughout the universe. The entire poetic world of A. Fet is located in this area of ​​​​beauty and fluctuates between three peaks - nature, love and creativity. All these three poetic objects not only come into contact with each other, but are also closely interconnected, penetrate each other, forming a single fused artistic world - Fetov’s universe of beauty, the sun of which is the harmonic, diffused in everything, hidden for the ordinary eye, but sensitively perceived by the poet’s sixth sense the essence of the world is music. According to L. Ozerov, “Russian lyricism found in Fet one of the most musically gifted masters. Written on paper in letters, his lyrics sound like notes, though for those who know how to read these notes

Fet's words were composed by Tchaikovsky and Taneyev, Rimsky-Korsakov and Grechaninov, Arensky and Spendiarov, Rebikov and Viardot-Garcia, Varlamov and Konyus, Balakirev and Rachmaninov, Zolotarev and Goldenweiser, Napravnik and Kalinnikov and many, many others. The number of musical opuses is measured in hundreds.”

Motives of love in Fet's lyrics.

In his later years, Fet “lit the evening lights” and lived with the dreams of his youth. Thoughts about the past did not leave him, and visited him at the most unexpected moments. The slightest external reason was enough, say, the sound of words similar to those spoken long ago, the glimpse of a dress on a dam or in an alley, similar to what was seen on it in those days.

This happened thirty years ago. In the Kherson outback he met a girl. Her name was Maria, she was twenty-four years old, he was twenty-eight. Her father, Kozma Lazic, is a Serb by origin, a descendant of those two hundred of his fellow tribesmen who in the middle of the 18th century moved to the south of Russia along with Ivan Horvat, who founded the first military settlement here in Novorossiya. Of the daughters of retired general Lazic, the eldest Nadezhda, graceful and playful, an excellent dancer, had bright beauty and a cheerful disposition. But it was not she who captivated the heart of the young cuirassier Fet, but the less flashy Maria.

A tall, slender brunette, reserved, not to say strict, she was, however, inferior to her sister in everything, but surpassed her in the luxury of her black, thick hair. This must have been what made Fet pay attention to her, who valued hair in the beauty of women, as many lines of his poems convince.

Usually not participating in noisy fun in the house of her uncle Petkovich, where she often visited and where young people gathered, Maria preferred to play for those dancing on the piano, because she was an excellent musician, which Franz Liszt himself noted when he once heard her play.

Having spoken to Maria, Fet was amazed at how extensive her knowledge of literature was, especially poetry. In addition, she turned out to be a long-time fan of his own work. It was unexpected and pleasant. But the main “field of rapprochement” was George Sand with her charming language, inspired descriptions of nature and completely new, unprecedented relationships between lovers. Nothing brings people together like art in general—poetry in the broad sense of the word. Such unanimity is poetry in itself. People become more sensitive and feel and understand something that no words are enough to fully explain.

“There was no doubt,” Afanasy Afanasyevich would recall in his later life, “that she had long understood the sincere trepidation with which I entered her sympathetic atmosphere. I also realized that words and silence in this case are equivalent.”

In a word, a deep feeling flared up between them, and Fet, filled with it, writes to his friend: “I met a girl - a wonderful home, education, I was not looking for her - she was me, but fate - and we found out that we would be very happy after various everyday storms, if only they could live peacefully without any claims to anything. We said this to each other, but for this it is necessary somehow and somewhere? You know my means, she has nothing either...”

The material issue has become the main stumbling block on the path to happiness. Fet believed that the most painful grief in the present does not give them the right to go to the inevitable grief of the rest of their lives - since there will be no prosperity.

Nevertheless, their conversations continued. Sometimes everyone would leave, it would be past midnight, and they couldn’t talk enough. They sit on the sofa in the alcove of the living room and talk, talk in the dim light of a colored lantern, but they never talk about their mutual feelings.

Their conversations in a secluded corner did not go unnoticed. Fet felt responsible for the girl’s honor - after all, he is not a boy who gets carried away by the moment, and was very afraid of putting her in an unfavorable light.

And then one day, in order to burn the ships of their mutual hopes at once, he gathered his courage and bluntly expressed to her his thoughts about the fact that he considered marriage impossible for himself. To which she replied that she liked to talk with him, without any encroachment on his freedom. As for people’s rumors, I especially don’t intend to deprive myself of the happiness of communicating with him because of gossip.

“I will not marry Lazic,” he writes to a friend, “and she knows this, and yet she begs not to interrupt our relationship, she is purer than snow in front of me - interrupt indelicately and not interrupt indelicately - she is a girl - Solomon is needed.” A wise decision was needed.

And a strange thing: Fet, who himself considered indecision the main trait of his character, suddenly showed firmness. However, was it really so unexpected? If we remember his own words that the school of life, which kept him in check all the time, developed reflection in him to the extreme and he never allowed himself to take a step thoughtlessly, then this decision of his will become clearer. Those who knew Fet well, for example, L. Tolstoy, noted his “attachment to everyday things,” his practicality and utilitarianism. It would be more accurate to say that the earthly and the spiritual fought in him, the mind fought with the heart, often prevailing. It was a difficult struggle with his own soul, deeply hidden from prying eyes, as he himself said, “the rape of idealism into a vulgar life.”

So, Fet decided to end his relationship with Maria, which he wrote to her about. In response came “the most friendly and reassuring letter.” This, it seemed, ended the time of “spring of his soul.” After some time, he was told the terrible news. Maria Lazic died tragically. She died a terrible death, the mystery of which has not yet been revealed. There is reason to think, as D.D. Blagoy believes, for example, that the girl committed suicide. He saw her with some special power of love, almost with physical and mental closeness, and he realized more and more clearly that the happiness that he experienced then was so much that it was scary and sinful to wish and ask God for more.

In one of his most beloved poems, Fet wrote:

I dare to mentally caress,
Awaken your dream with the strength of your heart
And with bliss, timid and sad
Remember your love.

Natural and human in fusion give harmony and a sense of beauty. Fet's lyrics inspire love for life, for its origins, for the simple joys of life. Over the years, getting rid of the poetic cliches of time, Fet asserts himself in his lyrical mission as a singer of love and nature. The morning of the day and the morning of the year remain symbols of Fetov's lyrics.

The image of love-memories in Fet's lyrics

A. Fet's love lyrics are a very unique phenomenon, since almost all of them are addressed to one woman - Fet's beloved Maria Lazic, who died untimely, and this gives it a special emotional flavor.

The death of Mary completely poisoned the already “bitter” life of the poet - his poems tell us about this. “The enthusiastic singer of love and beauty did not follow his feelings. But the feeling experienced by Fet passed through his entire life until he was very old. Love for Lazic vengefully broke through into Fet’s lyrics, giving it drama, confessional looseness and removing from it the shade of idyllicity and tenderness.”

Maria Lazic died in 1850, and the more than forty years that the poet lived without her were filled with bitter memories of his “burnt love.” Moreover, this metaphor, traditional for denoting a departed feeling, in Fet’s mind and lyrics was filled with quite real and therefore even more terrible content.

For the last time your image is cute
I dare to mentally caress,
Awaken your dream with the strength of your heart
And with bliss, timid and sad
Remembering your love...

What fate could not unite, poetry united, and in his poems Fet again and again turns to his beloved as a living being, listening to him with love,

What a genius you are, unexpected, slender,
A light flew from heaven to me,
She calmed my restless mind,
She attracted my eyes to my face.

The poems of this group are distinguished by a special emotional flavor: they are filled with joy, rapture, and delight. The image of love-experience, often merged with the image of nature, dominates here. Fet's lyrics become the embodied memory of Mary, a monument, a “living statue” of the poet’s love. A tragic shade is given to Fet's love lyrics by the motives of guilt and punishment, which are clearly heard in many poems.

For a long time I dreamed of the cries of your sobs, -
It was a voice of resentment, a cry of powerlessness;
For a long, long time I dreamed of that joyful moment,
As I, the unfortunate executioner, begged you...
You gave me your hand and asked: “Are you coming?”
I just noticed two drops of tears in my eyes;
These sparkles in the eyes and cold trembling
I endured sleepless nights forever.

The stable and infinitely varied motif of love and burning in Fet’s love lyrics is noteworthy. Truly burned, Maria Lazic also scorched the poetry of her lover. “No matter what he wrote about, even in poems addressed to other women, her image, her short life, burned with love, is vengefully present. No matter how banal this image or its verbal expression may sometimes be, Fet’s work is convincing. Moreover, it forms the basis of his love lyrics."

The lyrical hero calls himself an “executioner,” thereby emphasizing his awareness of his guilt. But he is an “unhappy” executioner, since, having destroyed his beloved, he also destroyed himself, his own life. And therefore, in love lyrics, next to the image of love-memory, the motif of death persistently sounds as the only opportunity not only to atone for one’s guilt, but also to reunite with one’s beloved. Only death can return what life has taken away:

Those eyes are gone - and I’m not afraid of coffins,
I envy your silence,
And, without judging either stupidity or malice,
Hurry, hurry into your oblivion!

Life lost its meaning for the hero, turning into a chain of suffering and loss, into a “bitter”, “poisoned” cup, which he had to drink to the bottom. In Fet's lyrics, an inherently tragic opposition arises between two images - the lyrical hero and heroine. He is alive, but dead in soul, and she, long dead, lives in his memory and in poetry. And he will remain faithful to this memory until the end of his days.

Perhaps Fet's love lyrics are the only area of ​​the poet's work in which his life impressions are reflected. This is probably why poems about love are so different from those dedicated to nature. They do not have that joy, the feeling of happiness in life that we will see in Fet’s landscape lyrics. As L. Ozerov wrote, “Fet’s love lyrics are the most inflamed zone of his experiences. Here he is not afraid of anything: neither self-condemnation, nor curses from the outside, nor direct speech, nor indirect, nor forte, nor pianissimo. Here the lyricist judges himself. Goes to execution. Burns himself."

Features of impressionism in Fet's lyrics

Impressionism is a special movement in the art of the 19th century, which emerged in French painting in the 70s. Impressionism means impression, that is, an image not of an object as such, but of the impression that this object produces, the artist’s recording of his subjective observations and impressions of reality, changeable sensations and experiences. A special feature of this style was “the desire to convey the subject in sketchy strokes that instantly capture every sensation.”

Fet's desire to show the phenomenon in all the diversity of its changeable forms brings the poet closer to impressionism. Vigilantly peering into the outside world and showing it as it appears at the moment, Fet develops completely new techniques for poetry, an impressionistic style.

He is interested not so much in the object as in the impression made by the object. Fet depicts the outside world in a form that corresponds to the poet’s momentary mood. Despite all the truthfulness and specificity, descriptions of nature primarily serve as a means of expressing lyrical feelings.

Fet's innovation was so bold that many contemporaries did not understand his poems. During Fet's lifetime, his poetry did not find the proper response from his contemporaries. Only the twentieth century truly discovered Fet, his amazing poetry, which gives us the joy of recognizing the world, knowing its harmony and perfection.

“For everyone who touches Fet’s lyrics a century after its creation, what is important, first of all, is its spirituality, spiritual attentiveness, the unspentness of the young forces of life, the trembling of spring and the transparent wisdom of autumn,” wrote L. Ozerov. - You read Fet - and you give up: your whole life is still ahead of you. The day ahead promises so much good. Worth living! This is Fet.

In a poem written in September 1892 - two months before his death - Fet admits:

The thought is fresh, the soul is free;
Every moment I want to say:
"It's me!" But I am silent.
Is the poet silent? No. His poetry speaks."

Bibliography

* R. S. Belausov “Russian love lyrics” printed in the printing house Kurskaya Pravda - 1986.
* G. Aslanova “Captive of legends and fantasies” 1997. Vol. 5.
* M. L. Gasparov “Selected Works” Moscow. 1997. T.2
* A.V. Druzhinin “Beautiful and Eternal” Moscow. 1989.
* V. Solovyov “The Meaning of Love” Selected Works. Moscow. 1991.
* I. Sukhikh “The Myth of Fet: Moment and Eternity // Zvezda” 1995. No. 11.
* To prepare this work, materials were used from the site http://www.referat.ru/

Was A.A. Is Fet a romantic? (Ranchin A. M.)

The poem “How poor our language is! “I want and I can’t…” is considered to be one of the poetic manifestos of Feta the Romantic. Fet's characterization as a romantic poet is almost universally accepted. But there is another opinion: “The widespread ideas about the fundamentally romantic nature of Fet’s lyrics seem dubious. Being such in terms of psychological prerequisites (repulsion from the prose of life), it is opposite to romanticism in terms of the result, in terms of the realized ideal. Fet has practically no motives of alienation, departure, flight, characteristic of romanticism, contrasting “natural life with the artificial existence of civilized cities,” etc. Fet’s beauty (unlike, say, Zhukovsky and, subsequently, Blok) is completely earthly, this-worldly. He simply leaves one of the oppositions of an ordinary romantic conflict outside the borders of his world.

Fet’s artistic world is homogeneous” (Sukhikh I.N. Shenshin and Fet: life and poetry // Fet A. Poems / Introductory article by I.N. Sukhikh; Compiled and notes by A.V. Uspenskaya. St. Petersburg, 2001 (“New Library of the Poet. Small Series”). pp. 40-41) Or here’s another statement: “What is Fet’s world? This is nature seen close up, close-up, in detail, but at the same time a little detached, beyond practical expediency, through the prism of beauty" (Ibid. P. 43, when characterizing antitheses, oppositions expressing the idea of ​​two worlds, as a sign of romanticism I. N. Sukhikh refers to the book: Mann Yu. V. Dynamics of Russian Romanticism (Moscow, 1995). Meanwhile, the distinction between the ideal world and the real world in poetry classified as romantic does not necessarily have the character of a rigid antithesis; Thus, the early German romantics emphasized the unity of the ideal world and the real world (see: Zhirmunsky V.M. German Romanticism and Modern Mysticism / Preface and commentary by A.G. Astvatsaturov. St. Petersburg, 1996. pp. 146-147 ).

According to V.L. Korovin, “Fet’s poetry is jubilant, festive. Even his tragic poems bring some kind of liberation. Hardly any other poet has so much “light” and “happiness” - the inexplicable and causeless happiness that Fet’s bees experience, from which leaves and blades of grass cry and shine. “A painful trembling of insane happiness” - these words from one early poem indicate the prevailing mood in his lyrics, right up to the very latest poems” (Korovin V.L. Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (1820-1892): an essay on life and work // http:/ /www.portal-slovo.ru/rus/philology/258/421).

This is a “common place” in the literature about Fet, who is usually called “one of the brightest” Russian poets” (Lotman L.M. A.A. Fet // History of Russian literature: In 4 vols. L., 1982. Vol. 3. P. 425). However, unlike many others who have written and are writing about Fet, the researcher makes several very important clarifications: the motifs of the harmony of the natural world and man are characteristic of the lyrics of the 1850s, while in the 1840s. conflicts in nature and in the human soul are depicted in the lyrics of the late 1850s - 1860s. The harmony of nature is opposed by the disharmony of the experiences of the “I”; in the lyrics of the 1870s, the motif of discord grows and the theme of death prevails; in works of 1880 – early 1890s. “The poet opposes low reality and life’s struggle not with art and unity with nature, but with reason and knowledge” (Ibid. p. 443). This periodization (as, strictly speaking, any other) can be reproached for being schematic and subjective, but it rightly corrects the idea of ​​Fet as a singer of the joy of life.

Back in 1919, the poet A.V. Tufanov spoke of Fet’s poetry as a “cheerful hymn to the delight and enlightenment of the spirit” of the artist (thesis of the report “Lyricism and Futurism”; quoted from the article: Krusanov A. A. V. Tufanov: Arkhangelsk period (1918-1919) // New Literary Review, 1998, No. 30, p. 97). According to D.D. Blagoy, “nothing terrible, cruel, ugly has access to the world of Fetov’s lyrics: it is woven only from beauty” (Blagoy D. Afanasy Fet - poet and person // A. Fet. Memoirs / Preface by D. Blagoy; Comp. and notes A. Tarkhova, M., 1983. 20). But: Fet's poetry for D.D. Blagogo, unlike I.N. Sukhikh, nevertheless “romantic in pathos and method”, as a “romantic version” of Pushkin’s “poetry of reality” (Ibid. p. 19).

A.E. Tarkhov interpreted the poem “I came to you with greetings...” (1843) as the quintessence of the motifs of Fetov’s creativity: “In four of his stanzas, with four repetitions of the verb “tell,” Fet seemed to publicly name everything that he came to tell about in Russian poetry, about the joyful shine of a sunny morning and the passionate thrill of a young, spring life, about a soul in love thirsting for happiness and an irrepressible song, ready to merge with the joy of the world" (Tarkhov A. Lyricist Afanasy Fet // Fet A.A. Poems. Poems. Translations M., 1985. P. 3).

In another article, the researcher, based on the text of this poem, gives a unique list of repeating, unchanging motifs of Fet’s poetry: “In first place let’s put the expression beloved by critics: “fragrant freshness” - it denoted Fet’s unique “feeling of spring.”

Fet's inclination to find poetry in the circle of the most simple, ordinary, domestic objects can be defined as “intimate domesticity.”

The feeling of love in Fet’s poetry was presented to many critics as “passionate sensuality.”

The completeness and primordial nature of human nature in Fetov’s poetry is its “primitive naturalness.”

And finally, Fet’s characteristic motif of “fun” can be called “joyful festivity”" (Tarkhov A.E. “Music of the Breast” (On the life and poetry of Afanasy Fet) // Fet A.A. Works: In 2 vols. M., 1982. T. 1. P. 10).

However, A.E. Tarkhov stipulates that such a characteristic can be attributed primarily to the 1850s - to the time of the “highest rise” of Fet’s “poetic fame” (Ibid. p. 6). As a turning point, a crisis for the poet A.E. Tarkhov names the year 1859, when he wrote the alarming “A fire burns in the forest like a bright sun...” and the joyless one, containing motives of gracelessness and melancholy of life and aging, “Quails are screaming, corncrakes are crackling...” (Ibid. pp. 34-37). It should, however, be taken into account that 1859 is the time of publication of both poems; when they were written is not known exactly.

But the opinion of A.S. Kushner: “Perhaps no one else, except early Pasternak, expressed with such frank, almost shameless force this emotional outburst, delight in the joy and miracle of life - in the first line of the poem: “How rich I am in crazy verses!” ", "What a night! There is such bliss in everything!..”, “Oh, this rural day and its beautiful shine...”, etc.

And the saddest motives are still accompanied by this fullness of feelings, hot breath: “What sadness! The end of the alley…”, “What a cold autumn!..”, “Sorry! In the darkness of a memory...” (Kushner A.S. A sigh of poetry // Kushner A. Apollo in the grass: Essays/poems. M., 2005. P. 8-9). Wed. conditional common impressionistic definition of the properties of Fet’s poetry, given by M.L. Gasparov: “The world of Fet is night, a fragrant garden, a divinely flowing melody and a heart overflowing with love...” (Gasparov M.L. Selected Articles. M., 1995 (New Literary Review. Scientific Supplement. Issue 2). P. 281 ). However, these properties of Fet’s poetry do not prevent the researcher from classifying him as a romantic (see: Ibid. pp. 287, 389; cf. p. 296). The movement of meaning in Fetov’s poems from the depiction of the external world to the expression of the inner world, to the feeling of the nature surrounding the lyrical “I” is “the dominant principle of romantic lyrics” (Ibid. p. 176).

This idea is not new, it was expressed at the beginning of the last century (see: Darsky D.S. “The Joy of the Earth.” A study of Fet’s lyrics. M., 1916). B.V. Nikolsky described the emotional world of Fetov’s lyrics as follows: “All the integrity and enthusiasm of his swift mind was most clearly reflected precisely in the cult of beauty”; “a cheerful hymn of an artist-pantheist, unshakably closed in his vocation (believing in the divine essence, the animation of nature. - A.R.) to the graceful delight and enlightenment of the spirit in the midst of a beautiful world - this is what Fet’s poetry is in its philosophical content”; but at the same time, the background of Fet’s joy is suffering as an unchanging law of existence: “The trembling fullness of being, delight and inspiration - this is what suffering is comprehended by, this is where the artist and the person are reconciled” (Nikolsky B.V. The main elements of Fet’s lyrics // Complete collection of poems by A. A. Fet / With an introductory article by N. N. Strakhov and B. V. Nikolsky and with a portrait of A. A. Fet / Supplement to the magazine “Niva” for 1912. St. Petersburg, 1912. T. 1. pp. 48, 52, 41).

The first critics wrote about this, but they knew only Fet’s early poetry: “But we also forgot to point out the special character of Mr. Fet’s works: they contain a sound that had not been heard before in Russian poetry - this is the sound of a bright festive feelings of life" (Botkin V.P. Poems by A.A. Fet (1857) // Library of Russian Criticism / Criticism of the 50s of the 19th century. M., 2003. P. 332).

This assessment of Fetov’s poetry is very inaccurate and largely incorrect. To some extent, Fet begins to look the same as in the perception of D.I. Pisarev and other radical critics, but only with a “plus” sign. First of all, in Fet’s view, happiness is “crazy” (“...The epithet “crazy” is one of the most frequently repeated in his love poems: crazy love, crazy dream, crazy dreams, crazy desires, crazy happiness, crazy days, crazy words, crazy poems." - Blagoy D.D. The world as beauty (About “Evening lights” by A. Fet) // Fet A.A. Complete collection of poems / Introductory article, text preparation and notes by B.Ya. Bukhshtab . L., 1959 (“The Poet’s Library. Large series. Second edition”). P. 608), that is, the impossible and perceptible only by a madman; This interpretation is definitely romantic. Indicative, for example, is a poem that begins like this: “How rich I am in crazy verses!..” (1887). The lines look ultra-romantic: “And the sounds are the same and the same fragrances, / And I feel that my head is on fire, / And I whisper crazy desires, / And I whisper crazy words!..” (“Yesterday I walked through the illuminated hall...”, 1858 ).

As S.G. writes Bocharov about the poem “He wished for my madness, who combined / This rose’s curls (curls. - A.R.), and sparkles, and dew...” (1887), “aesthetic extremism of such a degree and such quality (“The Crazy Whim of a Singer” ), rooted in historical despair" (Bocharov S.G. Plots of Russian literature. M., 1999. P. 326).

Fet could have drawn the idea of ​​“madness” as the true state of an inspired poet from the ancient tradition. In Plato’s dialogue “Ion” it is said: “All good poets compose their poems not thanks to art, but only in a state of inspiration and obsession do they create these beautiful chants in a frenzy; they are overcome by harmony and rhythm and become obsessed. A poet can create only when he becomes inspired and frantic and there is no longer any reason in him; and while a person has this gift, he is not able to create and prophesy. ...For this reason, God takes away their reason and makes them his servants, divine broadcasters and prophets, so that we, listening to them, know that it is not they, devoid of reason, who speak such precious words, but God himself speaks and through them gives us his voice" (533e-534d, trans. Y.M. Borovsky. - Plato. Works: In 3 volumes / Under the general editorship of A.F. Losev and V.F. Asmus. M., 1968. Vol. 1 pp. 138-139). This idea is also found in other ancient Greek philosophers, such as Democritus. However, in the romantic era, the motif of poetic madness sounded with new and greater force - already in fine literature, and Fet could not help but perceive it outside this new romantic aura.

The cult of beauty and love is a protective screen not only from the grimaces of history, but also from the horror of life and non-existence. B.Ya. Bukhshtab noted: “The major tone of Fet’s poetry, the joyful feeling prevailing in it and the theme of enjoying life do not at all indicate an optimistic worldview. Behind the “beautiful” poetry is a deeply pessimistic worldview. It is not for nothing that Fet was fascinated by the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer (Arthur Schopenhauer, German thinker, 1788-1860, whose main work “The World as Will and Idea” was translated by Fet. - A.R.). Life is sad, art is joyful - this is Fet’s usual thought” (Bukhshtab B.Ya. Fet // History of Russian Literature. M.; Leningrad, 1956. T. 8. Literature of the sixties. Part 2. P. 254).

The opposition is not at all alien to Feta’s lyrics, the antithesis of boring everyday life and the higher world - dreams, beauty, love: “But the color of inspiration / Is sad among everyday thorns” (“Like midges I dawn...”, 1844). The earthly, material world and the heavenly, eternal, spiritual world are contrastingly divided: “I understood those tears, I understood those torments, / Where the word goes numb, where sounds reign, / Where you hear not a song, but the soul of the singer, / Where the spirit leaves an unnecessary body "("I saw your milky, baby hair...", 1884). Contrasted with each other are the happy sky and the sad earth (“The stars pray, twinkle and blush…”, 1883), the earthly, the carnal and the spiritual (“I understood those tears, I understood those torments, / Where the word is numb, where sounds reign, / Where you hear not a song, but the soul of the singer, / Where the spirit leaves an unnecessary body” - “I saw your milky, baby hair...”, 1884).

Glimpses of the highest ideal are visible, for example, in the beautiful eyes of a girl: “And the secrets of the heavenly ether / They are visible in the living azure” (“She”, 1889).

Fet repeatedly declares his commitment to romantic dual worlds: “Where is happiness? Not here, in a wretched environment, / But there it is, like smoke. / Follow him! follow him! along the airy road - / And we’ll fly away into eternity!” (“May Night”, 1870 (?)); “My spirit, oh night! as a fallen seraphim (seraphim are an angelic “rank.” - A.R.), / Recognized kinship with the imperishable life of the stars” (“How tender are you, silver night...”, 1865). The purpose of a dream is “towards the invisible, to the unknown” (“Winged dreams rose in swarms…”, 1889). The poet is a messenger of the higher world: “I am with a speech that is not here, I am with a message from paradise,” and a beautiful woman is a revelation of an unearthly existence: “a young soul looks into my eyes, / I stand, covered in another life”; this moment of bliss is “not earthly”, this meeting is contrasted with “everyday thunderstorms” (“In the suffering of bliss I stand before you...”, 1882).

The earthly world with its anxieties is a dream, the lyrical “I” is directed towards the eternal:

Dream.
Awakening
The darkness is melting.
Like in spring
Above me
The heights are bright.

Inevitably,
Passionately, tenderly
Hope
Easily
With the splash of wings
Fly in –

Into the world of aspirations
Obeisances
And prayers...

(“Quasi una fantasia”, 1889)

More examples: “Give, let / Me rush / With you to a distant light” (“Dreams and Shadows...”, 1859); “To this miraculous song / So the stubborn world is subjugated; / Let the heart, full of torment, / May the hour of separation triumph, / And when the sounds fade away - / Suddenly burst!” (“To Chopin”, 1882).

The poet is like a demigod: despite the advice “But don’t be a thought deity”:

But if on the wings of pride
You dare to know, like God,
Don’t bring shrines into the world
Your worries and worries.

Pari, all-seeing and all-powerful,
And from unsullied heights
Good and evil are like grave dust,
Will disappear into the crowds of people

(“Good and Evil”, 1884)

Thus, the daring demigod is opposed to the “crowd” and the earthly world itself, subject to the distinction of good and evil; he is above this difference, like God. .

An ultra-romantic interpretation of the purpose of poetry is expressed in the speech of the Muse:

Cherishing captivating dreams in reality,
By your divine power
I call for high pleasure
And to human happiness.

("Muse", 1887)

Dreams, “daydreams” are higher than low reality, the power of poetry is sacred and called “divine”. Of course, this “a stable literary device that marks (marks, endows. - A.R.) the figure of the poet with signs of divine inspiration, involvement in heavenly mysteries,” is characteristic of the ancient tradition, and has been found in Russian poetry since the first third of the 18th century” ( Peskov A.M. “Russian idea” and “Russian soul”: Essays on Russian historiosophy. M., 2007. P. 10), however, it is in the romantic era that it receives a special resonance due to its serious philosophical and aesthetic justification.

Characteristic as a reflection of Fet's romantic ideas are statements in letters and articles. Here is one of them: “Whoever unfolds my poems will see a man with dull eyes, with crazy words and foam on his lips, running over stones and thorns in tattered clothes” (Ya.P. Polonsky, quote given in Fet’s letter to K.R. dated June 22, 1888 - A. A. Fet and K. R. (Publication by L. I. Kuzmina and G. A. Krylova) // K. R. Selected correspondence / Sub-editor E. V. Vinogradov, A.V. Dubrovsky, L.D. Zarodova, G.A. Krylova, L.I. Kuzmina, N.N. Lavrova, L.K. Khitrovo. St. Petersburg, 1999. P. 283).

And here’s another: “Whoever is not able to throw himself from the seventh floor headfirst, with an unshakable belief that he will soar through the air, is not a lyricist” (“On the poems of F. Tyutchev,” 1859 - Fet A. Poems. Prose. Letters / Introductory article by A.E. Tarkhov; Compiled and notes by G.D. Aslanova, N.G. Okhotin and A.E. Tarkhov. M., 1988. P. 292). (However, this scandalous statement is adjacent to the remark that the poet should also have the opposite quality - “the greatest caution (the greatest sense of proportion.”)

Romantic disdain for the crowd that does not understand true poetry is evident in the preface to the fourth edition of the collection “Evening Lights”: “A man who does not curtain his illuminated windows in the evening gives access to all indifferent, and perhaps hostile, gazes from the street; but it would be unfair to conclude that he illuminates the rooms not for friends, but in anticipation of the gaze of the crowd. After the touching and highly significant sympathy of our friends for the fiftieth anniversary of our muse, it is obviously impossible for us to complain about their indifference. As for the mass of readers who establish so-called popularity, this mass is absolutely right in sharing with us mutual indifference. We have nothing to look for from each other” (A.A. Fet. Evening Lights. P. 315). The confession, couched in romantic categories, to a friend of I.P. is also indicative. Borisov (letter dated April 22, 1849) about his behavior as a catastrophe for a romantic - about “the rape of idealism into a vulgar life” (A.A. Fet. Works: In 2 vols. T. 2. P. 193). Or such ultra-romantic remarks: “People don’t need my literature, and I don’t need fools” (letter to N.N. Strakhov, November 1877 (Ibid., p. 316); “we care little about the verdict of the majority, confident that out of a thousand people who do not understand the matter, it is impossible to make even one expert"; "I would be insulted if the majority knew and understood my poems" (letter to V.I. Stein dated October 12, 1887. - Russian Bibliophile. 1916. No. 4. S.).

I.N. Sukhikh notes about these statements: “In theoretical statements and nakedly programmatic poetic texts, Fet shares the romantic idea of ​​​​an artist obsessed with inspiration, far from practical life, serving the god of beauty and imbued with the spirit of music” (Sukhikh I.N. Shenshin and Fet: life and poems, p. 51). But these motives, contrary to the researcher’s assertion, permeate Fet’s poetic work itself.

Fet’s romantic ideas have a philosophical basis: “The philosophical root of Fet’s grain is deep. “I sing not a song of love to you, / But to your beloved beauty” (Hereinafter the poem “Only I will meet your smile...” (1873 (?)). - A. R. is quoted. These two lines are immersed in the centuries-old history of philosophical idealism, Platonic in the broad sense, in a tradition that has deeply penetrated Christian philosophy. The separation of an enduring essence and a transitory phenomenon is a constant figure in Fet’s poetry. They are divided - beauty as such and its phenomena, manifestations - beauty and beauty, beauty and art: “Beauty doesn’t even need songs.” But in the same way, the eternal fire in the chest is separated from life and death” (Bocharov S.G. Plots of Russian literature. P. 330-331).

To those given by S.G. You can add the following lines to Bocharov’s quotes: “It is impossible in front of eternal beauty / Not to sing, not to praise, not to pray” (“She came, and everything around melts ...”, 1866) and a statement from a letter to Count L.N. Tolstoy on October 19, 1862: “Eh, Lev Nikolaevich, try, if possible, to open the window into the world of art. There is paradise, there are the possibilities of things - ideals” (A.A. Fet. Works: In 2 vols. T. 2. P. 218). But, on the other hand, Fet also has a motive for the ephemerality of beauty, at least in its earthly manifestation: “This leaf, which withered and fell, / Burns with eternal gold in song” (“To Poets”, 1890) - just a word the poet gives eternal existence to things; Also indicative is the poem about the fragility of beauty - “Butterfly” (1884): “With one airy outline / I am so sweet”; “For how long, without a goal, without effort / I want to breathe.” The same are the clouds “...impossibly, undoubtedly / Permeated with golden fire, / With the sunset instantly / The smoke of the bright palaces melts away” (“Today is your day of enlightenment...”, 1887). But not only the butterfly, which appeared in the world for a brief moment, and the air cloud are ephemeral, but also the stars, usually associated with eternity: “Why did all the stars become / A motionless string / And, admiring each other, / Don’t fly one to the other? // Spark to spark furrow / Sometimes it will rush by, / But you know, it won’t live long: / It’s a shooting star” (“Stars”, 1842). “Aerial” (ephemeral), mobile and involved in time, and not eternity, is the beauty of a woman: “How difficult it is to repeat the living beauty / of Your airy outlines; / Where do I have the strength to grab them on the fly / Amid continuous fluctuations” (1888).

In a letter to V.S. To Solovyov on July 26, 1889, Fet expressed thoughts about spirituality and beauty, far from their Platonic understanding: “I understand the word spiritual in the sense not of an intelligible, but of a vital experiential nature, and, of course, in its visible expression, physicality there will be beauty that changes its face with a change in character. The handsome drunken Silenus does not look like Doris in Hercules. Take this body away from spirituality, and you will not outline it with anything" (Fet A.A. “It was a wonderful May day in Moscow...”: Poems. Poems. Pages of prose and memories. Letters / Compiled by A.E. Tarkhov and G. D. Aslanova; Introductory article by A.E. Tarkhov; Notes by G.D. Aslanova. M., 1989 (series “Moscow Parnassus”), p. 364). Apparently, it is impossible to strictly connect Fet’s understanding of beauty with one specific philosophical tradition. As noted by V.S. Fedin, “Fet’s poems indeed provide very fertile material for heated debates on a wide variety of issues, where a successful selection of quotes makes it easy to defend opposing opinions.” The reason is “in the flexibility and richness of his nature” (Fedina V.S. A.A. Fet (Shenshin): Materials for characterization. Pg., 1915. P. 60).

V.Ya. wrote long ago about the Platonic idealistic basis of Fetov’s poetry. Bryusov: “Fet’s thought distinguished between the world of phenomena and the world of essences. He said about the first that it is “only a dream, only a fleeting dream”, that it is “instant ice”, under which there is a “bottomless ocean” of death. He personified the second in the image of the “sun of the world.” He branded that human life, which is completely immersed in a “fleeting dream” and does not look for anything else, with the name “market”, “bazaar.” But Fet did not consider us hopelessly locked in the world of phenomena, in this “blue prison,” as he once said. He believed that for us there are exits to freedom, there are clearings... He found such clearings in ecstasy, in supersensible intuition, in inspiration. He himself talks about moments when “he somehow strangely begins to see clearly” (Bryusov V.Ya. Distant and Close. M., 1912. P. 20-21).

In poetry, the same interpretation of Fetov’s work was expressed by another symbolist poet, V.I. Ivanov:

Secret of the Night, gentle Tyutchev,
The spirit is voluptuous and rebellious,
Whose wonderful light is so magical;
And gasping Fet
Before hopeless eternity,
In the wilderness there is a snow-white lily of the valley,
Under the landslide there is a blossoming flower;
And a spirit seer, across the boundless
A poet yearning for love -
Vladimir Soloviev; there are three of them,
In the earthly those who have seen the unearthly
And those who showed us the way.
Like their native constellation
Should I not be remembered as a saint?

The influence of Fetov’s poetry on the work of the Symbolists - neo-romantics is also indicative: “In Russian literature of the 1880s. There are definitely layers that stand out that are objectively close to the “new art” of the next decade and that attracted the attention of symbolists, who can be united under the concept of “pre-symbolism.” This is the poetry of Fet’s school” (Mints Z.G. Selected works: In 3 books. Poetics of Russian symbolism: Blok and Russian symbolism. St. Petersburg, 2004. P. 163); Wed a remark about the impressionism of the “Fet school”, which stood at the origins of “decadence” (Ibid. p. 187). Back in 1914 V.M. Zhirmunsky built a line of succession: “German romantics - V.A. Zhukovsky - F.I. Tyutchev - Fet - poet and philosopher V.S. Soloviev - Symbolists" (Zhirmunsky V.M. German Romanticism and Modern Mysticism. P. 205, note 61; cf.: Bukhshtab B.Ya. Fet // History of Russian Literature. M.; L., 1956. T. 8 Literature of the sixties, part 2, p. 260).

Ultimately, the solution to the question of the degree of philosophicalness of Fet's poetry and Fet's closeness to the Platonic dual world, so significant for the romantics, depends largely on the position of the researcher, whether to interpret Fet's poetic concepts of “eternity” and “eternal beauty” as a kind of philosophical categories reflecting the author’s worldview, or to see in them only conventional images inspired by tradition. Despite the similarity of the poetics of V.A. Zhukovsky and Fet, in general we can agree with the statement of D.D. Blagogo: “In the ideal world of Fet’s lyrics, in contrast to Zhukovsky, there is nothing mystical and otherworldly. Fet believes that the eternal object of art is beauty. But this beauty is not “news” from some otherworldly world, it is not a subjective embellishment, an aesthetic poeticization of reality - it is inherent in itself” (Blagoy D.D. The World as Beauty (About “Evening Lights” by A. Fet).

As for the opinion about the absence of tragedy and romantic discord in Fetov’s poetry, it is relatively fair - but with very significant reservations - only for the lyrics of the 1940-1850s. “In the second period of creativity (1870s), the image of the lyrical hero changes. The life-affirming dominant in his moods disappears, the disharmony between ideal beauty and the earthly “crazy” world is acutely felt” (Buslakova T.P. Russian literature of the 19th century: Educational minimum for applicants. M., 2005. P. 239).

The romantic sense of self was nourished by the situation - the rejection of Fet's poetry by readers, the sharp rejection by most of society of his conservative views. N.N. Strakhov wrote to Count L.N. Tolstoy: Fet “explained to me both then and the next day that he felt completely alone with his thoughts about the ugliness of the entire course of our life” (letter of 1879 - Correspondence of L.N. Tolstoy with N.N. Strakhov. 1870-1894. Published by the Tolstoy Museum, St. Petersburg, 1914, p. 200).

Finally, it is not at all necessary to look for signs of romanticism only in the sphere of ideas and/or motives. Fet’s poetic style, with its emphasis on metaphorical and semi-metaphorical shades of meaning and on melodically sounding words, is akin to the style of such an author, traditionally classified as a romantic, as V.A. Zhukovsky.

And one last thing. The very concept of “romanticism” and the idea of ​​the “standard” of a romantic poem are very conditional. According to A. Lovejoy, romanticism is one of the “isms that are fraught with misunderstandings and often vague definitions (so that some want to completely erase them from the dictionary of both philosophers and historians)”, which “are designations of complexes, and not of something integral” (Lovejoy A. The Great Chain of Being: The History of an Idea / Translated from English by V. Sofronova-Antomoni. M., 2001. P. 11). Thus, the same V.A., usually classified as a romantic. Zhukovsky can also be understood as a sentimentalist (Veselovsky A.N. V.A. Zhukovsky. Poetry of feeling and “heartfelt imagination” / Scientific ed., preface, translations by A.E. Makhov. M., 1999. P. 1999) , and as a pre-romanticist (Vatsuro V.E. Lyrics of Pushkin’s era: “Elegiac School”. St. Petersburg, 1994). And yet, if we do not refuse to use the term “romanticism,” it is hardly justified to deny the romantic foundations and nature of the poetics of the author of “Evening Lights.”

Fet suffered from asthma. – A.R.

Biography ("Literary encyclopedia." At 11 vol.; M.: 1929-1939)

Fet (Shenshin) Afanasy Afanasyevich (1820-1892) - famous Russian poet. The son of a wealthy noble landowner. He spent his childhood on the estate of the Oryol province. At Moscow University he became close to the circle of the Moskvityanin magazine, where his poems were published. He published the collection “Lyrical Pantheon” (1840). As an "illegitimate" Fet was deprived of nobility, the right of inheritance and his father's name; from youth to old age he persistently sought the restoration of lost rights and well-being in various ways. From 1845 to 1858 he served in the army. In the 50s became close to the circle of the Sovremennik magazine (with Turgenev, Botkin, L. Tolstoy, etc.). In 1850, “Poems” were published. ed. Grigoriev, in 1856, ed. Turgenev). From 1860 Fet devoted himself to estate "house building". Hostile to the reforms of 1861 and to the revolutionary democratic movement, Fet broke up even with his liberal friends in the 60s and 70s. fell silent like a poet. During these years, he acted only as a reactionary publicist; in Katkov’s “Russian Messenger” (in letters “From the Village”) he condemned the new order and attacked the “nihilists”. In the era of reaction of the 80s. Fet returned to artistic creativity (collection “Evening Lights”, 1883, 1885, 1888, 1891, translations).

In the 40-50s. Fet was the largest representative of a galaxy of poets (Maikov, Shcherbina, etc.), who acted under the slogan of “pure art.” As a poet of “eternal values” and “absolute beauty”, Fet was promoted by aesthetic and partly Slavophile criticism of the 50s. (Druzhinin, Botkin, Grigoriev, etc.). For revolutionary democratic and radical criticism of the 60s. Fet's poems were an example of poetic idle talk, unprincipled chatter about love and nature (Dobrolyubov, Pisarev). This criticism exposed Fet as a singer of serfdom, who, under serfdom, “saw only festive pictures” (Minaev in the Russian Word, Shchedrin in Sovremennik). Turgenev contrasted Fet, the great poet, with the landowner and publicist Shenshin, “an inveterate and frenzied serf owner, a conservative and lieutenant of the old school.”

In the 40-50s. Fet (like Maikov, Shcherbina and others) acted as a successor to the new classicism that took shape in the poetry of Batyushkov, Delvig and some other poets of Pushkin’s circle. The most revealing poems for Fet during this period were his anthological poems. In the spirit of this new classicism, the poetry of young Fet strives to capture reflections of absolute beauty, eternal values, opposing in their resting perfection “low” existence, full of vain movement. The poetry of young Fet is characterized by: the “pagan” cult of beautiful “flesh”, objectivity, contemplation of idealized, resting sensual forms, concreteness, clarity, detail of images, their clarity, sharpness, plasticity; the main theme of love takes on a sensual character. Fet's poetry rests on the aesthetics of beauty - on the principles of harmony, measure, balance. It reproduces mental states devoid of any conflict, struggle, or harsh effects; reason does not fight with feeling, the “naive” enjoyment of life is not overshadowed by moral motives. Joyful life affirmation takes the form of moderate Horatian epicureanism. The task of Fet's poetry is to reveal beauty in nature and man; she is not characterized by humor or the sublime, pathetic, she hovers in the sphere of the elegant, graceful. Fet's closed form often receives expression in the ring composition of the poem, architectonicity and completeness - in emphasized stanzaicity (with an extreme variety of stanzas), special lightness and at the same time harmony - in the regulated alternation of long and short lines. In beauty, for Fet, the connection between the ideal and the given, “spiritual” and “carnal” is realized; the harmonious combination of the two worlds is expressed in Fet’s aesthetic pantheism. Fet constantly strives to reveal the “absolute” in the individual, to connect the “beautiful moment” to eternity. Enlightened and peaceful lyrical contemplation is the main mood of Fet’s poetry. The usual objects of contemplation for the young Fet are landscapes, ancient or Central Russian, sometimes with mythological figures, groups from the ancient and mythological world, works of sculpture, etc. Sound contemplation, the cult of euphony, and eurythmy play a huge role in Fet’s poetry. In terms of the richness of rhythm and the variety of metric and strophic construction, Feta occupies one of the first places in Russian poetry.

Fet's work marks not only the completion, but also the decomposition of the noble-estate poetry of the new classicism. Already in the poems of young Fet, other tendencies are growing. Fet moves from clear plasticity to gentle watercolors, the “flesh” of the world Fet glorifies becomes more and more ephemeral; his poetry is now directed not so much at an objectively given external object, but at flickering, vague sensations and the elusive, melting emotions excited by them; it becomes poetry of intimate mental states, germs and reflections of feelings; she

“Grabs on the fly and fastens suddenly
And the dark delirium of the soul, and the vague smell of herbs,”

becomes the poetry of the unconscious, reproduces dreams, dreams, fantasies; The motif of the inexpressibility of experience resounds persistently in it. Poetry consolidates an instant impulse of living feeling; the homogeneity of experience is disrupted, combinations of opposites appear, although harmoniously reconciled (“suffering of bliss,” “joy of suffering,” etc.). Poems take on the character of improvisation. Syntax, reflecting the development of experience, often contradicts grammatical and logical norms; the verse acquires a special suggestiveness, melodiousness, and the musicality of “trembling melodies.” It is less and less saturated with material images, which become only support points for the disclosure of emotions. In this case, mental states are revealed, not processes; For the first time in Russian poetry, Fet introduces verbless poems (“Whisper”, “Storm”, etc.). The motifs characteristic of this line of Fet’s poetry are impressions of nature in the fullness of sensations (visual, auditory, olfactory, etc.), love longing, nascent, yet unexpressed love. This stream of Fet's poetry, continuing the line of Zhukovsky and moving him away from Maikov and Shcherbina, makes him the forerunner of impressionism in Russian poetry (having a particularly strong influence on Balmont). To a certain extent, Fet turns out to be in tune with Turgenev.

Towards the end of Fet's life, his lyrics became more and more philosophical, more and more imbued with metaphysical idealism. Fet now constantly sounds the motif of the unity of the human and world spirit, the merging of “I” with the world, the presence of “everything” in “one,” the universal in the individual. Love has turned into a priestly service of eternal femininity, absolute beauty, uniting and reconciling two worlds. Nature appears as a cosmic landscape. Real reality, the changing world of movement and activity, socio-historical life with its processes hostile to the poet, the “noisy bazaar,” appears as a “fleeting dream,” like a ghost, like Schopenhauer’s “world-representation.” But this is not a dream of individual consciousness, not a subjective phantasmagoria, this is a “universal dream”, “the same dream of life in which we are all immersed” (F.’s epigraph from Schopenhauer). The highest reality and value are transferred to the resting world of eternal ideas, unchanging metaphysical essences. One of Fet’s main themes is a breakthrough into another world, flight, and the image of wings. The moment being captured now is the moment of intuitive comprehension by the poet-prophet of the world of entities. In Fet's poetry a shade of pessimism appears in relation to earthly life; his acceptance of the world is now not a direct enjoyment of the festive jubilation of the “earthly”, “carnal” life of the eternally young world, but a philosophical reconciliation with the end, with death as a return to eternity. As the soil slipped away from under the estate-patriarchal world, the material, concrete, real slipped away from Fet’s poetry, and the center of gravity shifted to the “ideal”, “spiritual”. From the aesthetics of the beautiful, Fet comes to the aesthetics of the sublime, from Epicureanism to Platonism, from “naive realism” through sensationalism and psychologism to spiritualism. In this last phase of his work, Fet approached the threshold of symbolism, had a great influence on the poetry of V. Solovyov, and then Blok, stylistically - on Sologub.

Fet's work is associated with the world of the estate and nobility, he is characterized by a narrow outlook, indifference to the social evil of his time, but there are no direct reactionary tendencies characteristic of Fet the publicist (except for a few poems on occasion). Fet's life-affirming lyrics captivate with their sincerity and freshness, radically different from the artificial, decadent lyrics of the impressionists and symbolists. The best of Fet's legacy is the lyrics of love and nature, subtle and noble human feelings, embodied in an exceptionally rich and musical poetic form.

Biography

A.A. Fet was born on November 23 on the Novoselki estate in Mtsensk district, Oryol province, which belonged to retired officer A.N. Shenshin. In 1835, the Oryol spiritual consistory recognized him as an illegitimate son and was deprived of the rights of a hereditary nobleman. The desire to return the Shenshin surname and all rights became an important life goal for Fet for many years.

In 1835-1837 he studies at the German boarding school Krümer in Livonia, in the city of Verro (now Võru, Estonia); The main subjects in the boarding school are ancient languages ​​and mathematics. In 1838 he entered the Moscow boarding school of Professor M.P. Pogodin, and in August of the same year he was admitted to Moscow University in the verbal department of the Faculty of Philology. During his student years, Fet lived in the house of his friend and classmate A. Grigoriev, later a famous critic and poet.

In 1840 The first collection of poems "Lyrical Pantheon" was published under the initials "A.F.", his poems began to be published in the magazine "Moskvityanin", and since 1842 he became a regular author of the magazine "Domestic Notes".

After graduating from the university, in 1845, seeking the return of his noble title, Fet decided to join the army and served as a non-commissioned officer in a cavalry regiment stationed in the remote corners of the Kherson province. He is poor, deprived of a literary environment, and his romance with Maria Lazic ends tragically. During this period, the collection “Poems of A. Fet” (1850) was published.

1853 - a sharp turn in the poet’s fate: he managed to transfer to the guard, to the Life Ulan regiment, stationed near St. Petersburg. He gets the opportunity to visit the capital, resumes his literary activities, and regularly begins to publish in Sovremennik, Otechestvennye Zapiski, Russky Vestnik, and Library for Reading. In 1856, a collection of Fet's poems prepared by Turgenev was published. In the same year, Fet takes a year's leave, which he partially spends abroad (in Germany, France, Italy) and, after which he retires. He marries M.P. Botkina and settles in Moscow.

In 1860, having received 200 acres of land in Mtsensk district, he moved to the village of Stepanovka and engaged in agriculture. Three years later, a two-volume collection of his poems was published, and practically, from that time and for 10 years, Fet wrote very little and studied philosophy.

In 1873 The long-awaited decree of Alexander II to the Senate is issued, according to which Fet receives the right to join “the family of his father Shenshin with all the rights and titles belonging to the family.” Fet sells Stepanovka and buys the large estate Vorobyovka in the Kursk province.

In the late 70s - early 80s he was engaged in translations (Goethe's Faust, Schopenhauer's The World as Representation, etc.). His book, which Fet had been working on since his student years, is published - a poetic translation of the entire Horace (1883). And in 1886, Fet was awarded the title of corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences for his translations of ancient classics.

For the period 1885-1891. Four editions of the book “Evening Lights”, two volumes of “My Memoirs” were published, and the book “Early Years of My Life” was published after the author’s death in 1893.

Biography (Encyclopedia "Cyril and Methodius")

The story of his birth is not entirely ordinary. His father, Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, a retired captain, belonged to an old noble family and was a wealthy landowner. While undergoing treatment in Germany, he married Charlotte Feth, whom he took to Russia from her living husband and daughter. Two months later, Charlotte gave birth to a boy named Afanasy and given the surname Shenshin. Fourteen years later, the spiritual authorities of Orel discovered that the child was born before the parents’ wedding and Afanasy was deprived of the right to bear his father’s surname and was deprived of his noble title. This event wounded the impressionable soul of the child, and he experienced the ambiguity of his position almost all his life.

The special position in the family influenced the future fate of Afanasy Fet; he had to earn his noble rights, which the church deprived him of. First of all, he graduated from the university, where he studied first at the Faculty of Law and then at the Faculty of Philology. At this time, in 1840, he published his first works as a separate book, which, however, did not have any success.

Having received his education, Afanasy Afanasyevich decided to become a military man, since the rank of officer gave him the opportunity to receive a title of nobility. But in 1858 A. Fet was forced to retire. He never won the rights of the nobility; at that time, the nobility gave only the rank of colonel, and he was a captain. Of course, military service was not in vain for Fet: these were the years of the dawn of his poetic activity. In 1850, “Poems” by A. Fet was published in Moscow, which was greeted with delight by readers. In St. Petersburg he met Nekrasov, Panayev, Druzhinin, Goncharov, Yazykov. Later he became friends with Leo Tolstoy. This friendship was duty-bound and necessary for both.

During his military service, Afanasy Fet experienced a tragic love that influenced all of his work. It was love for Maria Lazic, a fan of his poetry, a very talented and educated girl. She also fell in love with him, but they were both poor, and A. Fet for this reason did not dare to join his fate with his beloved girl. Soon Maria Lazic died, she was burned. Until his death, the poet remembered his unhappy love; in many of his poems one can hear its unfading breath.

In 1856, a new book by the poet was published.

After retiring, A. Fet bought land in Mtsensk district and decided to devote himself to agriculture. Soon Fet married M.P. Botkina. Fet lived in the village of Stepanovka for seventeen years, visiting Moscow only briefly. Here he received the highest decree that the name Shenshin, with all the rights associated with it, was finally approved for him.

In 1877, Afanasy Afanasyevich bought the village of Vorobyovka in the Kursk province, where he spent the rest of his life, only leaving for Moscow for the winter. These years, in contrast to the years lived in Stepanovka, are characterized by his return to literature. The poet signed all his poems with the surname Fet: under this name he acquired poetic fame, and it was dear to him. During this period, A. Fet published a collection of his works entitled “Evening Lights” - there were four issues in total.

In January 1889, the fiftieth anniversary of A. A. Fet’s literary activity was solemnly celebrated in Moscow, and in 1892 the poet died, two days shy of 72 years old. He was buried in the village of Kleymenovo - the family estate of the Shenshins, 25 versts from Orel.

Biography (en.wikipedia.org)

Father - Johann Peter Karl Wilhelm Föth (1789-1825), assessor of the Darmstadt city court. Mother - Charlotte Elizabeth Becker (1798-1844). Sister - Caroline-Charlotte-Georgina-Ernestina Föt (1819-?). Stepfather - Shenshin Afanasy Neofitovich (1775-1855). Maternal grandfather - Karl Wilhelm Becker (1766-1826), privy councilor, military commissar. Paternal grandfather - Johann Vöth, paternal grandmother - Miles Sibylla. Maternal grandmother - Gagern Henrietta.

Wife - Botkina Maria Petrovna (1828-1894), from the Botkin family (her elder brother, V.P. Botkin, famous literary and art critic, author of one of the most significant articles about the work of A.A. Fet, S.P. Botkin - a doctor after whom a hospital in Moscow is named, D. P. Botkin - a collector of paintings), there were no children in the marriage. Nephew - E. S. Botkin, shot in 1918 in Yekaterinburg along with the family of Nicholas II.

On May 18, 1818, the marriage of 20-year-old Charlotte Elisabeth Becker and Johann Peter Wilhelm Vöth took place in Darmstadt. On September 18-19, 1820, 45-year-old Afanasy Shenshin and Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker, who was 7 months pregnant with her second child, secretly left for Russia. In November-December 1820, in the village of Novoselki, Charlotte Elizabeth Becker had a son, Afanasy.

Around November 30 of the same year, in the village of Novoselki, the son of Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker was baptized according to the Orthodox rite, named Afanasy, and recorded in the registry register as the son of Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin. In 1821-1823, Charlotte-Elizabeth had a daughter from Afanasy Shenshin, Anna, and a son, Vasily, who died in infancy. On September 4, 1822, Afanasy Shenshin married Becker, who before the wedding converted to Orthodoxy and began to be called Elizaveta Petrovna Fet.

On November 7, 1823, Charlotte Elisabeth wrote a letter to Darmstadt to her brother Ernst Becker, in which she complained about her ex-husband Johann Peter Karl Wilhelm Vöth, who frightened her and offered to adopt her son Athanasius if his debts were paid.

In 1824, Johann Fet remarried his daughter Caroline's teacher. In May 1824, in Mtsensk, Charlotte-Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter from Afanasy Shenshin - Lyuba (1824-?). On August 25, 1825, Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker wrote a letter to her brother Ernst, in which she talked about how well Shenshin takes care of her son Afanasy, that even: “... No one will notice that this is not his natural child...”. In March 1826, she again wrote to her brother that her first husband, who had died a month earlier, had not left her and the child any money: “... To take revenge on me and Shenshin, he forgot his own child, disinherited him and put a stain on him... Try, if possible , to beg our dear father to help restore this child to his rights and honor; he should get a surname..." Then, in the next letter: "... It is very surprising to me that Fet forgot and did not recognize his son in his will. A person can make mistakes, but denying the laws of nature is a very big mistake. Apparently, before his death he was quite ill...”, the poet’s beloved, to whose memories the poem “The Talisman” is dedicated, the poems “Old Letters”, “You suffered, I still suffer...”, “No, I have not changed. Until deep old age..." and many of his other poems.
1853 - Fet is transferred to a guards regiment stationed near St. Petersburg. The poet often visits St. Petersburg, then the capital. Fet's meetings with Turgenev, Nekrasov, Goncharov and others. Rapprochement with the editors of the Sovremennik magazine.
1854 - service in the Baltic Port, described in his memoirs “My Memoirs”.
1856 - Fet's third collection. Editor - I. S. Turgenev.
1857 - Fet’s marriage to M. P. Botkina, sister of the critic V. P. Botkin.
1858 - the poet retires with the rank of guards captain and settles in Moscow.
1859 - break with the Sovremennik magazine.
1863 - publication of a two-volume collection of Fet's poems.
1867 - Fet was elected justice of the peace for 11 years.
1873 - nobility and the surname Shenshin were returned. The poet continued to sign his literary works and translations with the surname Fet.
1883-1891 - publication of four issues of the collection “Evening Lights”.
November 21, 1892 - Fet’s death in Moscow. According to some reports, his death from a heart attack was preceded by a suicide attempt. He was buried in the village of Kleymenovo, the family estate of the Shenshins.

Creation

Being one of the most sophisticated lyricists, Fet amazed his contemporaries by the fact that this did not prevent him from being at the same time an extremely businesslike, enterprising and successful landowner. The famous palindrome phrase written by Fet and included in A. Tolstoy’s “The Adventures of Pinocchio” is “And the rose fell on Azor’s paw.”

Poetry

Fet's creativity is characterized by the desire to escape from everyday reality into the “bright kingdom of dreams.” The main content of his poetry is love and nature. His poems are distinguished by the subtlety of their poetic mood and great artistic skill.

Fet is a representative of the so-called pure poetry. In this regard, throughout his life he argued with N. A. Nekrasov, a representative of social poetry.

The peculiarity of Fet's poetics is that the conversation about the most important is limited to a transparent hint. The most striking example is the poem “Whisper, timid breathing...”.

Whispers, timid breathing,
Nightingale trills
Silver and sway
Sleepy Creek

Night light, night shadows
Endless shadows
A series of magical changes
Sweet face

There are purple roses in the smoky clouds,
The reflection of amber
And kisses and tears,
And dawn, dawn!..

There is not a single verb in this poem, but the static description of space conveys the very movement of time.

The poem is one of the best poetic works of the lyrical genre. First published in the magazine “Moskvityanin” (1850), then revised and in its final version, six years later, in the collection “Poems of A. A. Fet” (published under the editorship of I. S. Turgenev).

It is written in multi-foot trochee with feminine and masculine cross rhyme (quite rare for the Russian classical tradition). At least three times it became the object of literary analysis.

The romance “At dawn, don’t wake her up” was written based on Fet’s poems.

Another famous poem by Fet:
I came to you with greetings
Tell me that the sun has risen
What is it with hot light
The sheets began to tremble.

Translations

both parts of Goethe's Faust (1882-83),
a number of Latin poets:
Horace, all of whose works in Fetov's translation were published in 1883.
satires of Juvenal (1885),
poems of Catullus (1886),
Elegies of Tibullus (1886),
XV books of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1887),
Virgil's Aeneid (1888),
Elegies of Propertius (1888),
satyrs Persia (1889) and
Epigrams of Martial (1891). Fet's plans included a translation of the Critique of Pure Reason, but N. Strakhov dissuaded Fet from translating this book by Kant, pointing out that a Russian translation of this book already existed. After this, Fet turned to Schopenhauer's translation. He translated two of Schopenhauer's works: “The World as Will and Idea” (1880, 2nd ed. in 1888) and “On the Fourfold Root of the Law of Sufficient Reason” (1886).

Editions

* Fet A. A. Poems and poems / Intro. art., comp. and note. B. Ya. Bukhshtaba. - L.: Sov. writer, 1986. - 752 p. (The Poet's Library. Large series. Third edition.)
* Fet A. A. Collected works and letters in 20 volumes. - Kursk: Kursk State Publishing House. University, 2003-... (publication continues).

Notes

1. 1 2 Blok G. P. Chronicle of Fet’s life // A. A. Fet: The problem of studying life and creativity. - Kursk, 1984. - P. 279.
2. In “The Early Years of My Life” Fet calls her Elena Larina. Her real name was established in the 1920s by the biographer of the poet G. P. Blok.
3. A. F. Losev in his book “Vladimir Solovyov” (Young Guard, 2009. - P. 75) writes about Fet’s suicide, referring to the works of V. S. Fedina (A. A. Fet (Shenshin). Materials for characteristics. - Pg., 1915. - P. 47-53) and D. D. Blagoy (The world as beauty // Fet A. A. Evening lights. - M., 1971. - P. 630).
4. G. D. Gulia. The life and death of Mikhail Lermontov. - M.: Fiction, 1980 (referring to the memoirs of N. D. Tsertelev).
5. 1 2 O. N. Greenbaum HARMONY OF RHYTHM IN A. A. FETA’S POEM “WHISPERING, TIMID BREATHING...” (Language and speech activity. - St. Petersburg, 2001. - Vol. 4. Part 1. - P. 109 -116)

Literature

* Blagoy D. D. The world as beauty (About “Evening Lights” by A. Fet) // Fet A. A. Evening Lights. - M., 1981 (series “Literary Monuments”).
* Bukhshtab B. Ya. A. A. Fet. Essay on life and creativity. - Ed. 2nd - L., 1990.
* Lotman L. M. A. A. Fet // History of Russian literature. In 4 volumes. - Volume 3. - L.: Science, 1980.
* Eikhenbaum B. M. Fet // Eikhenbaum B. M. About poetry. - L., 1969.

“Life is a harmonious fusion of opposites and constant struggle between them; a good villain, a brilliant madman, melting ice. With the cessation of the struggle and with the final victory of one of the opposing principles, life itself ceases as such.”

A. Fet

I. Repin Portrait of A. Fet 1882

Afanasy Fet is one of the magnificent poets of the Russian land. His birth, as well as his death, are shrouded in a shroud of uncertainty, speculation, and legends. Much has been written about this, but still once again, once again about... love.

The date of birth and the name of the father have not been established, and disputes about this matter continue to this day. Although, according to the official version, he was born on November 23, 1820 (according to another version, November 19 (December 1), 1820) in the village of Novoselki, Oryol province. Being the illegitimate son of the landowner A.N. Shenshin and Caroline Fet (which was revealed when the future poet was already 14 years old), the rich heir suddenly turned into a “man without a name” and he was deprived of all noble privileges. But not only the family secrets of the brilliant lyric poet arouse keen interest, not only his premature and mysterious death became the subject of controversy during his life and after. Fet's love is also full of secrets and the desire to seek the truth.

No, I haven't changed it. Until old age
I am the same devotee, I am the slave of your love,
And the old poison of chains, joyful and cruel,
It still burns in my blood.

Although memory insists that there is a grave between us,
Even though every day I wander wearily to another, -
I can't believe that you would forget me,
When you're here in front of me.

Will another beauty flash for a moment,
It seems to me that I’m about to recognize you;
And I hear a breath of former tenderness,
And, shuddering, I sing.

In the spring of 1845, Afanasy Fet served as a non-commissioned officer in a cuirassier regiment, which was located in the south of Russia, in the Kherson province. Here Fet, a great connoisseur of beautiful ladies, met and became friends with the Lazic sisters - Elena and Maria. The eldest was married, and the regimental adjutant’s courtship of a woman who sincerely loved her husband led nowhere.

A. Fet upon entering service in the Life Guards Uhlan Regiment, 1850

Having no hopes of rapprochement, his sympathies soon passed to her sister, whose heart was also given to another - soon she finally announced her engagement to her fiancé. As it turned out, the enthusiastic poet did not immediately recognize the girl, who had known and appreciated his lyrics since childhood and was also familiar with other famous poets: “I began to look around, and my eyes involuntarily stopped at her (Elena’s) reserved, not to say strict, sister ..."

In the poet’s memoirs, Maria Lazic appeared as a tall “slender brunette” with “extraordinary luxury of black, bluish-tinged hair.” She was a “magnificent musician.” In 1847, Maria’s abilities were highly appreciated by the famous Franz Liszt, who came to Elisavetgrad for a concert. According to Fet, Liszt wrote “a farewell musical phrase of extraordinary spiritual beauty” in Maria Lazic’s album, and then Maria repeated this phrase on the piano more than once. “Under the influence of the latter, I wrote a poem: Some sounds are rushing around...” - Liszt’s inspiration echoed in Fet’s soul in poetry.

There are some sounds
And they cling to my headboard.
They are full of languid separation,
Trembling with unprecedented love.

It would seem, well? Sounded off
The last tender caress
Dust ran down the street,
The postal stroller disappeared...

And only... But the song of separation
Unrealistic teases with love,
And bright sounds rush
And they cling to my headboard.

In one of the letters to his close friend (sister’s husband), Fet wrote: “... I met a girl - a wonderful home and education - I wasn’t looking for her - she was me; but - fate, and we found out that we would be very happy...” There would be... The reasons for the impossibility of their union are prosaic. Lazic did not represent a suitable match for Fet, who dreams of returning to his noble origins and acquiring a decent fortune and position in society. Maria was not a mademoiselle with a rich dowry; she had none at all.

Afanasy Fet was 28, Maria Lazic was 22. He soon realized that their conversations about the novels of Georges Sand and reading poetry were developing into something else - into the “Gordian knot of love.” “I’ll go on a hike - I don’t feel sorry for myself, because the devil is in me, but I feel sorry for the beautiful creature,” Fet wrote to the all-understanding Borisov. “...I won’t marry Larina, and she knows it, and yet she begs not to interrupt our relationship, she is purer than snow in front of me - interrupt indelicately and not interrupt indelicately - she is a girl - we need Solomon...” Under the pseudonym Larina, A. Fet encrypted the name Maria Lazic.

“There is no calculation, there is no love, and I don’t see the nobility of making one or the other miserable…. I will not marry Lazic, and she knows this, but meanwhile she begs not to interrupt our relationship...” Mary, this noble creature, understood everything and even sympathized with the “undeserved” suffering of her lover. To put an end to their unpromising meetings, the poet gathered his courage and frankly expressed his thoughts regarding the impossibility of their marriage. Maria in response extended her hand with the words: “I love to talk with you without any encroachment on your freedom.”

We didn’t talk about feelings, we read poems to each other. Probably, it was at such a moment that Fet started the conversation openly, but Maria calmly accepted the egoism of the “object of adoration.” Even after such a confession, she asked not to stop meetings, and secluded evening conversations continued. Soon they turned from oral to written - the regiment, having switched to martial law, set out for the Austrian border, where the Hungarian company was deployed.

Maria “cut” it, or maybe fate itself. Fet was soon told about the tragedy in Fedorovka: Maria Lazich burned to death in a fire that broke out in her room from a carelessly left cigarette. The girl’s white muslin dress caught fire, she ran out onto the balcony, then rushed into the garden. But the fresh wind only fanned the flames... Dying, Maria allegedly asked to keep his, Fet’s, letters. And she also asked that he not be blamed for anything...

Until the end of his days, Fet could not forget Maria Lazich; the drama of life, like a key, fed his lyrics and gave the poems a special sound. It is believed that his love lines had one addressee; they are the poet’s monologue to the deceased Mary, filled with repentance and passionate. Her image was revived more than once in Fetov’s lyrics: “I will carry your light through earthly life...”.

Painfully inviting and in vain
Your pure ray burned before me;
He aroused silent delight autocratically,
But he couldn’t overcome the darkness all around.
Let them curse, worrying and arguing,
Let them say: this is the delirium of a sick soul;
But I walk on the shaky foam of the sea
With a brave, unsinking foot.
I will carry your light through earthly life;
He is mine - and with him a double being
You presented it, and I - I triumph
Although for a moment my immortality.

A few years after this tragic incident, Afanasy Fet linked his life by legal marriage with the daughter of the tea merchant Botkin. He showed himself to be a good master, increased his wife’s fortune, and in his sixties he finally achieved the highest command and returned the name of his father Shenshin with all the rights belonging to his family and rank. The failed love feeling turned into a poetic feeling; from it were born Fetov’s amazing poems, inspired by memories of Maria Lazic. In one of these poems, the poet “talks” with “old letters”:

Long forgotten, under a light layer of dust,
Treasured features, you are in front of me again
And in an hour of mental anguish they instantly resurrected
Everything that was long, long ago, was lost by the soul.

Burning with the fire of shame, their eyes meet again
Just trust, hope and love,
And sincere words faded patterns
Blood is driven from my heart to my cheeks.

I am condemned by you, silent witnesses
The spring of my soul and the gloomy winter.
You are the same bright, holy, young,
Like in that terrible hour when we said goodbye.

And I trusted the treacherous sound, -
As if there is anything in the world outside of love!
I boldly pushed away the hand that was writing you,
I condemned myself to eternal separation
And with a cold feeling in his chest he set off on a long journey.

Why, with the same smile of tenderness?
Whisper to me about love, look into my eyes?
Even the voice of forgiveness will not resurrect the soul,
Even a burning tear will not wash away these lines.

Researchers of the poet's work suggest that Fet's death is suicide. Knowing how destructive alcohol is for him, he, seriously ill, sends his wife for champagne, and after she leaves he quickly dictates to his secretary: “I don’t understand the deliberate increase in suffering, I voluntarily go towards the inevitable.” He grabs a heavy stiletto for cutting paper, it is taken away, but the corpulent and purple-faced old man, gasping for breath, runs into the dining room. Halfway there he suddenly collapses on a chair and dies...

...In Fet’s famous “Evening Lights” there are piercing lines about the one who, dying, thought about her beloved: “And although I am destined to drag out life without you, we are together with you, we cannot be separated...”.

ALTER EGO

How a lily looks into a mountain stream,
You stood over my first song,
And was there a victory, and whose, -
Is it near a stream from a flower, is it near a flower from a stream?

You understood everything with your infant soul,
What did the secret power give me to say?
And although I am destined to drag out life without you,
But we are together with you, we cannot be separated.

That grass that is in the distance, on your grave,
Here, in the heart, the older it is, the fresher it is,
And I know, sometimes looking at the stars,
That we looked at them like gods and you.

Love has words - those words will not die.
A special judgment awaits you and me;
He will be able to immediately distinguish us in the crowd,
And we will come together, we cannot be separated!

Weary and boring years passed, but every time in the silence of the night the poet heard the voice of a girl from the Kherson steppes. She was his whole life, his one and only love.

The night was shining. The garden was full of moonlight. were lying
Rays at our feet in a living room with no lights
The piano was all open, and the strings in it were trembling,
Just like our hearts are for your song.

You sang until dawn, exhausted in tears,
That you alone are love, that there is no other love,
And I wanted to live so much, so that without making a sound,
To love you, hug you and cry over you.

And many years have passed, tedious and boring,
And in the silence of the night I hear your voice again,
And it blows, as then, in these sonorous sighs,
That you are alone - all life, that you are alone - love.

That there are no insults from fate and burning torment in the heart,
But there is no end to life, and there is no other goal,
As soon as you believe in the sobbing sounds,
Love you, hug you and cry over you!

Russian philosopher, poet, friend of Fet in the last years of Vl. Soloviev commented on the poem “The Night Shined”: "This true love, over which time and death are powerless, does not remain only in the poet’s heartfelt thought, it is embodied in tangible images and sounds and with its posthumous power captures his entire being".

, , Poems about nature.

Biography of Fet A.A.

Fet, Shenshin, Afanasy Afanasyevich, Russian poet. Son of landowner A.N. Shenshin and Caroline Fet; was recorded as the son of Shenshin. However, at the age of 14, the legal illegality of this entry became clear, which deprived Fet of all noble privileges. In 1844 he graduated from the verbal department of the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow University and, in order to receive the title of nobility, entered military service (1845). The first collection of poems is “Lyrical Pantheon” (1840). Fet’s journalistic speeches in defense of the rights of landowners, which were emphatically retrograde in nature, date back to the early 60s, a period of sharp demarcation of social forces associated with the revolutionary situation. Shortly before this, Fet retired and took up farming on his estate; I wrote little at this time. Only in his declining years did the poet return to creativity, releasing 4 collections of poems under the general title “Evening Lights” (1883–91).

Fet is a principled supporter of the doctrine of “pure art”, who in his poetic practice avoided addressing social reality and direct response to the burning issues of our time. At the same time, his poetry - in a broader sense - has solid grounding in life. The poet, driven by a spontaneous desire to embody the very “stuff of existence” in poetry, managed to masterfully convey the material reality of the world, given to man in his direct perception. Feeling life as an omnipotent, exciting force (“Spring and night covered the valley”, 1856?), the poet seems to dissolve his “I” in the elements of organic life (“What happiness: both the night and we are alone!”, 1854). Nature evokes unusually sharp lyrical emotions in Fet - “the mysterious power of spring” (“Another May Night”, 1857), “wonderful pictures” of winter (“What sadness! The end of the alley”, 1862), evening and night (“Whisper, timid breathing ", 1850, "On a haystack at night in the south", 1857). Fet’s “Landscape of the Soul” is presented in motion, full of living details of the objective world, visual images, and rich in auditory and visual sensations. Fet’s taste for picturesque, plastic paintings was especially pronounced in anthological poems (“The Bacchae”, 1843, “Diana”, 1847). The uniqueness of Fet’s psychologism is that he, with a specificity hitherto unusual in Russian poetry, recreated in his lyrics fleeting mental moods and states - this fluid “matter” of all human life. Fet's poetry is musical and melodic. The poet sometimes prefers to deal not with meaning, but with sound - a particularly malleable material for expressing a momentary mood.

Fet is known as a translator of Horace, Ovid, J. V. Goethe and others. ancient and new poets. For the first time he translated into Russian A. Schopenhauer’s treatise “The World as Will and Representation” (1881). Author of the memoirs “My Memoirs” (parts 1–2, 1890), “The Early Years of My Life” (published in 1893). Many of Fet's poems are set to music.