Analysis of the lyric poem “The Death of a Poet. Analysis of the poem "The Death of a Poet" by Lermontov Death of a Poet Representation of the image of a lyrical hero
Lermontov's poem "The Death of a Poet" is distinguished by its complex composition. A number of studies substantiate the view on the tripartite nature of the poem and state that the first 33 verses resemble an angry invective, the next 22 verses are dominated by elegiac motifs, and in the famous “addition”, consisting of 16 verses, the theme of worthlessness and emptiness of the society that killed the poet sounds passionately.
Such a desire for an orderly look at the overall composition of the poem, which, on the whole, would be convenient for its school analysis,
still has no clear evidence.
Notes of passionate denunciation of light run through the entire poem; in all its parts, the reader is presented with the personality of Pushkin from his “young years” to his tragic death; persistently indicated in the poem and the theme of the position of the poet in modern society that pervades the entire work.
In search of a sequence of school analysis of the poem "The Death of a Poet", which is "an amazing fusion of elegy and satire", one cannot but pay attention to the external graphics of the poem, that is, to its uneven parts, which are separated from each other by spaces, and the final part - "addition" in different editions is separated from the main part either by an asterisk or a ruler.
The whole poem consists of six graphically distinguished parts, each of which is unequal in the number of verses included in it: in the first part - twenty verses, in the second - thirteen, in the third - five, in the fourth - six, in the fifth - twelve verses. All these parts made up the text of the poem, written on February 28, 1837, when Pushkin was still alive, but St. Petersburg was already full of rumors about the death of the poet. Finally, the "addition" created by Lermontov on February 7, 1837, consists of sixteen verses.
The re-reading of the first part is accompanied by the question of what feelings the author's thoughts about Pushkin's death are permeated with. In this part of the poem, a feeling of bitterness, grief from an irreparable loss is combined with indignation, an angry denunciation of the perpetrators of the poet's death. The intonational-syntactic analysis of the first part of the poem will allow focusing on its genre features, emphasizing the oratorical beginning inherent in its style.
The first part of "Death of a Poet" is a strictly organized iambic tetrameter with cross-rhyming, diverse in its intonation and melodic pattern. The speech period includes
three exclamatory, two interrogative and one declarative sentences.
The intonation structure of this part of the poem is enriched by the so-called non-final exclamation and question marks, which refer to individual parts of the sentence (“The poet died!”, “Killed:”, “Well?”). The expression of the exclamation, which prevails in the first three quatrains of the period, is succinctly
conveys the deep emotion of the poet in connection with the tragic loss. The intonation of questioning, imperiously invading the third and fourth stanzas, is addressed to the persecutors of the poet and is permeated with notes of denunciation and indignation.
The final stanza of the first part of the poem, beginning with the question "Well?", is characterized by a decrease in intonation, and is of a narrative and descriptive nature. It closely combines the motives of irretrievable loss and grief. The completeness and integrity of the speech period is communicated by the semantic roll-call of the initial and final stanza (ring composition). The oratorical intonation of the entire first part is closely connected not only with syntactic beginnings, but also with lexical beginnings.
Turning to the motives of the death of the poet, the students will name synonymous verbs that are saturated with the entire speech period: “died”, “fell”, “killed” (one cannot but pay attention to the contact repetition of the word “killed”, which in both cases is accompanied by an exclamation point), “faded”, “faded”. Verbs with the prefix "y" ("faded", "faded"), which conclude this series and indicate the fullness of the manifestation of the action, are part of the memorable metaphors:
Faded like a beacon, wondrous genius,
Withered solemn wreath.
There is no doubt that, relying only on the text of the first part of the poem, we will pay attention to the epithets “wonderful genius”, “free, courageous gift”, “proud head” And to the words “he rebelled against the opinions of the world”, which contain an assessment of Pushkin, a poet and a person, and which will be developed in subsequent parts of the poem.
Complementing the image of the poet and the words "slave of honor", borrowed by Lermontov from the first part of Pushkin's poem "Prisoner of the Caucasus", which is not devoid of autobiographical features:
Slave of merciless honor,
He saw his end up close,
In fights, hard, cold,
Encountering fatal lead.
If the first speech period. judging by the draft autograph, it was written almost without corrections (corrections were made only in the 15th and 19th verses), the second period, consisting of thirteen verses, underwent significant editing, especially the second quatrain. whose autograph is difficult to read. And this gives reason to assume that, in addition to the well-known draft autograph, there may have been an unpreserved autograph, which was copied "in tens of thousands of copies."
The second part of the poem is written in the same energetic iambic tetrameter as the first, but changes are made to the rhyme system: along with the cross rhyme, adjacent and embracing rhymes appear. The first four verses recreate the picture of the duel.
The next nine verses, beginning with the interrogative sentence "And what a wonder?" contain a devastating characterization of the killer. The students' attention will be focused on the opposition of the pronouns "us", "our", in which the author of the poem unites himself with those who cherish the poet, personifying Russian glory, and the three times repeated pronoun "he", denoting an indifferent foreigner. The expression of the exclamation of the second speech period, which conveys the poet's indignation, is emphasized both by the general lexical system and by the repetition of negative verbs at the beginning of the poetic lines: "I could not spare ...", "I could not understand ...".
In the fifth part of the poem, it is difficult to get past the opposition of the pronouns they - he. A feature of lyrics as a kind of literature is the high significance of nominations-pronouns, which displace in
proper names in the poem. The heroes of a lyrical plot, as a rule, are mentioned precisely in pronouns.
In the poem "The Death of a Poet" the name of Pushkin is never mentioned. And even in the title of the poem, his name is not mentioned, but the reader, knowing the circumstances of the poet's life, understands that the poem is dedicated specifically to Pushkin.
The last part of the poem, the famous "addition", was written on February 7, 1837 in response to the judgments of those who justified Pushkin's murderer.
The saturation of the final lines with exclamatory sentences is not
only reinforces the accusatory beginning inherent in the poem: in this part of it, "the accusation grows into a curse."
The initial four verses of the final part of the "Death of a Poet", which are a complicated appeal, make us recall the words from Pushkin's poem "My Genealogy" - "A decrepit fragment of childbirth / (And, unfortunately, not one), / I am a descendant of the old boyars." Lermontov not only borrows Pushkin's metaphor "fragments of ... genera", but also retains the rhyme "fragments - descendants", using rhyming nouns in
plural, and not in the singular, as in Pushkin.
The sharpness of the poet's accusatory position is emphasized in the final verses by a complex change of rhythm, agitated, "intermittent syntax of exclamatory sentences prevailing in this part, piercing vocabulary and capacious phrases ("greedy crowd", "lurk", "slander"), contrasting comparison ("black blood" - "righteous blood").
A peculiar author's commentary on the poem, including its final part, is "Explanation of the Cornet of the Life Guards
Hussar regiment of Lermontov”, written between February 19 and 23, in which the poet, referring to the persecutors of Pushkin, emphasized: “Involuntary, but strong indignation flared up in me against these people who attacked a man who had already been slain by the hand of God, who had done them no harm and had once been praised by them ... ".
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The poem "The Death of a Poet" refers to the second period of the poet's work and dates back to 1837. It is believed that Mikhail Lermontov at this time, the author began to feel most acutely the realities of the reality around him. The poem became Mikhail Yurievich's response to tragic death Pushkin.
The work shows not only the personal feelings of the author, but also the attitude towards the loss that Russia suffered after the death of Pushkin. Reflecting on the reasons for the death of Pushkin, Lermontov shows a vivid picture of public persecution, slander, which was the enemy. The poet became a victim of slander affecting his dignity - the enemies achieved their goal.
The poet is dead! - slave of honor -
Pal, slandered by rumor,
With lead in my chest and a thirst for revenge,
Hanging your proud head!
Despite the death of Pushkin, the confrontation between the poet (as a figurative phenomenon) and the vile crowd did not stop. The crowd in this poem is an instrument of fate, in which there is no reasonable beginning. But God sees and hears everything, he will judge the guilty justly. It cannot be bribed with gold, money, like our earthly court, which is in the power of the rich.
But there is also God's judgment, confidants - debauchery!
There is a formidable judgment: it waits;
He is not available to the sound of gold,
He knows both thoughts and deeds in advance.
God's punishment will be eternal for them, since innocent death
you will never redeem.
And you won't wash away with all your black blood
Poet's righteous blood!
But, until God's judgment has come true, Lermontov is merciless to Dantes: the murderer of Pushkin. He calls him a cold-blooded killer, a man who despises Russia itself and its people.
To increase the aesthetic impact on the reader, to emphasize the expressiveness of the language, the author uses figurative means: trails.
In order to better convey how and why the poet died, how the people of the nobility treated him, how after his death they realized what they had lost, and, also, to show what Alexander Sergeevich was like, Lermontov uses a lot of epithets: “pecked by rumors”, “petty insults”, “empty praise, an unnecessary choir and pathetic babble of justification”, “free, bold gift”, “wonderful genius”, “solemn wreath”). Metaphors are also used in order to present what is happening before us in a more vivid form: “a slave of honor”, “a bloody world”, etc., as well as paraphrases: “taken by the grave”, “sorrow on his lips”; comparisons:
And he is killed - and taken by the grave, like that singer,
unknown but cute...
...Slain, like him, by a ruthless hand.;
Hyperbolas:
... Fifth slave repaired the wreckage.
... Fell, slandered by rumors ...
Hanging your proud head
Then to the penultimate one:
The poet is dead! - slave of honor ...
With lead in my chest and a thirst for revenge ...
"The Death of a Poet" is not just a poem, but the speech of those who did not agree with the current state of affairs, new pattern politics, lyrics, hitting right on target.
Traditionally, Lermontov's work is divided into three periods: 1828 - 1832 (the time of apprenticeship, searching for his path, his own voice, awareness of his gift), 1833 - 1836 (formative years, searching for his own themes, the final determination of the position of the poet's lyrical hero in relation to the world), 1837 - 1841 (the last period of creativity begins with the poem "The Death of a Poet", after the appearance of which Lermontov, like Byron once after the publication of the first two songs of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", "woke up famous"; the thinking people of Russia perceive Lermontov as the legitimate heir of Pushkin, but the young poet does not follow the path of development and deepening of realism, but continues and completes, according to the researcher V. S. Baevsky, the era of high romanticism in Russian poetry).
Lermontov's main theme is personality in the process of self-knowledge and development. The nature of most of his poems of the early period is very indicative: these are lyrical sketches, excerpts from a diary - it is not for nothing that he often titles them, like diary entries - with a date or the words "excerpt", "confession", "monologue". Lermontov's lyrics are a chronicle of the formation of the soul, and in this confession, absolute sincerity, it is the author's artistic discovery. The lyrical hero of all Lermontov's work is extremely close to the author, while the entire inner structure of the poet himself deeply corresponds to rebellious, Byronian romanticism - with its cult of the chosen personality, high Destiny, the fight against Fate, craving for peace - and rejection from people. Often Lermontov's poems are variations on the theme of the same poetic plot, where we meet a stable image of a lyrical hero: the romantic hero of Lermontov's poetry is whole, uncompromising, striving for freedom, but ultimately, catastrophically lonely. The lone hero confronts the crowd, the whole world, God. This is one and the same type of hero, however, it must be remembered that in the "Demon", for example, the "pessimistic" is embodied, and in "Mtsyri" - the "harmonic version of the lyrical hero". The lyrical hero, proud and adamant, always pays in full not only for freedom (a key concept for Lermontov's poetry), like the Demon, but even for the impulse to freedom, like the hero of the poem "Mtsyri".
Lermontov's creative method, at least before A Hero of Our Time, can be defined as psychological romanticism (Russian literary experience has already been enriched by Pushkin's psychologism and historicism as fundamental artistic principles, which could not but be reflected in Lermontov's poetry). The soul and personality interest Lermontov as the main realities of being. The mystery of life and death is perceived by him within the framework of eternal life spirit. Thus, we find the key words to the poet's worldview: it is built on the concepts of freedom, personality and destiny. These categories are perceived by Lermontov in all their ambiguity. And the very ambiguity of concepts leads to the internal conflict of the poet's worldview.
Lermontov plunges into the study of the complex spiritual world of a person whose thought is always awake in an effort to know the truth and achieve absolute perfection. This craving for the ideal, for the highest perfection, while realizing the imperfection of the world and man, is an amazing, purely Lermontov interpretation of the main romantic conflict between the imperfection of the world in general and the ideal aspirations of the individual. Romantic duality, as V.S. Baevsky, presented by Lermontov with unusual persistence and persuasiveness. The worse, more hopeless earthly life, the more stubbornly the poet's lyrical hero strives away from it - to heaven, to the ideal, to the world of his memories, his soul. But the soul of the hero is also subject to the corrosive, poisonous influence of the world. In the traditional "external" conflict of romanticism (personality and the world), Lermontov introduced the deepest internal conflict of the personality, the constant confrontation of multidirectional forces - the forces of good and evil - in the soul of the person himself. That is why he called one of his early autobiographical heroes "a strange person", thereby defining novelty, strangeness for society and this type of consciousness, similar to the psychology of the individual. The originality of the Lermontov hero lies precisely in the fact that at times he strives to merge with nature, his soul is open to goodness, love, God. Such is the poem "When the yellowing field is agitated ...", ending with the lines:
And I can comprehend happiness on earth,
And in the sky I see God.
But at times, "world sorrow", caused by the unsatisfactory state of the world, where there is no place for a powerful personality, turns into soul-corroding skepticism in the poet's lyrics. Here is how the hero of the poem “Both boring and sad” sums up the mournful reflections on life:
And life, as you look around with cold attention, -
Such an empty and stupid joke...
In Lermontov's work, one can often find poems that are contrasting in mood expressed in them, but written almost simultaneously: (“Branch of Palestine” and “Prisoner” (1837), “Prayer” (“In a difficult moment of life ...”) and “Do not believe yourself ...” (1839)). Thus, the pessimistic worldview in the soul of the lyrical hero is adjacent, intertwined with the desire for harmony, craving for the high and eternal, which is characteristic of all Lermontov's poetry. Exploring the origins of good and evil, Lermontov comes to understand the most important law of life: both good and evil are not outside a person, but inside him, in his soul. And it is impossible, improving the world, to expect that he, having changed for the better, will change people. Therefore, there is so little reflection in Lermontov's lyrics outer life: All his attention is focused on the spiritual path of the hero. Best of all, he himself formulated his main creative principle in “A Hero of Our Time”: “The history of the human soul, even the smallest soul, is almost more curious and not more useful than history a whole people...” The lyrical hero of Lermontov creates his own Destiny.
One of the most important motifs in Lermontov's work is Earth and Sky in opposition to their symbolic meanings. Since ancient times, Heaven and Earth have symbolized the Spirit and the Flesh, the sublime and the mundane, absolute Good and abstract Evil. Lermontov does not deny these meanings, but, relying on them, puts his own accents, fills abstract philosophical categories with personal content. For him there is no absolute Good and absolute Evil. The poet sees the meaning of these concepts only when they are correlated with a specific person. And then pantheistic (pantheism (from Gr. pan - everything and theos - god) - a religious and philosophical doctrine that identifies God with nature and considers nature as the embodiment of a deity) and theomachic motives begin to exist on an equal footing in his work. Comprehending the biblical legends, he seeks to recreate (without correction for centuries of interpretation) their original meaning, to see the flesh of these legends. And then his Demon ceases to be the receptacle of vice. A restless soul opens before us fallen angel, who doubted the wisdom of God, the unambiguity of Good - and rejected both Good and God. Thus, doubt, that is, spiritual search, is the source of evil, a curse. But this "evil" moves the world. Unconditional faith in the wisdom of God leads to static, to a stop on the spiritual path, to a dead end. And "The spirit of denial, the spirit of doubt," the Demon chooses its own path - the path of an endless lonely search. The images of the Demon and the Angel embody for Lermontov the clash of irreconcilable ideas of eternal doubt and unconditional faith.
In the poem "Angel", the poet creates a picture of the beginning earthly path souls. The soul enters the “world of sorrow and tears”, retaining the memory of the “holy song” of the Angel. This memory is transformed into a craving for the ideal, for absolute perfection, a craving that torments the soul:
And the sounds of heaven could not be replaced
She bored the songs of the earth.
And this same “remembrance” of the soul about Heaven, about an unattainable ideal, becomes a diabolical temptation:
And the proud demon will not lag behind,
As long as I live, from me.
And it will illuminate my mind
Ray of wonderful fire;
Show the image of perfection
And suddenly take away forever
And, giving a premonition of bliss,
Never give me happiness.
("My Demon", 1831)
But in a complex, contradictory spiritual world Lermontov's lyrical hero, doubt and temptation can lead to faith:
When in the humility of ignorance
The creator condemned us to live,
Impossible desires
He would not have invested in our soul,
He wouldn't let aspire
To what should not happen
He wouldn't let me search
In yourself and in the world of perfection,
When would we be complete bliss
Shouldn't have known forever.
(“When in the humility of ignorance…”, 1831)
Earth and Sky in Lermontov's understanding are not just opposed to each other. They, expressing multidirectional forces, exist only in their unity, moreover, in mutual penetration. Let's read the 1830 poem "Night I", let's try to understand the essence of this poetic-philosophical meditation. What happens to a person at the moment of death, what does the soul acquire, “without hearing the fetters of the body on itself”, is the body truly a prison of the soul, fetters that do not allow it to fly freely in infinity? Now the soul has freed itself from the fetters of earthly life - and what then?! The body, which during life was only a prison, turns out to be not the fetters of the soul, but its natural continuation. At the sight of a decaying body, the soul experiences physical suffering, “convulsive pain”. Just think about it: convulsive pain - souls! Spirit and Flesh turn out to be one, Earth and Heaven in a person are inseparable. An amazing philosophical understanding of this tragic essence of man is given by Lermontov in the poem “June 11, 1831”:
There is time - the quick mind freezes;
There is a twilight of the soul when the subject
Desires are gloomy: lulling thoughts;
Between joy and sorrow half light;
The soul is constrained by itself,
Life is hateful, but death is also terrible.
You find the root of torment in yourself,
And the sky can not be blamed for anything.
I'm used to this state
But I couldn't express it clearly.
Neither angelic nor demonic language:
They do not know such worries,
In one, everything is pure, and in the other, everything is evil.
Could only be found in a person
Sacred with vicious. All of it
That's where the pain comes from.
This poem explains a lot in the spiritual world of the lyrical hero Lermontov. A person is more complicated than just purity and just evil, therefore his soul consists of a conjugation of angelic and demonic forces. This chaos of contradictions, by its very essence, strives to achieve harmony, because chaos is not self-sufficient. Therefore, the cosmic scale of Lermontov's creativity is so important: attraction to the Cosmos as to the highest harmony, the absolute Ideal is the natural and only way to overcome the internal contradictions of the individual.
The motive of wandering, wandering is another important motive in the poet's work. The theme of wandering, as you know, was widely developed in Western European romantic literature (by Byron, German romantics), in Russian poetry it was addressed by V.A. Zhukovsky, K.N. Batyushkov, A.S. Pushkin. "Wanderers", "wanderers" were often recognized by the romantic poets themselves, including Lermontov, who wrote in 1832:
No, I'm not Byron, I'm different
Still unknown chosen one,
Like him, a wanderer persecuted by the world,
But only with a Russian soul...
And five years later - in 1837 in the poem "Prayer" - he writes:
I do not pray for my desert soul,
For the soul of a wanderer, in the light of the rootless...
This expressed the classic stereotype of a romantic poet (a wanderer who opposes the world), which combines both “chosenness” and “persecution”. Before us is a special - voluntary - loneliness of a wanderer, when rejection from the outside world becomes for the lyrical hero not a stigma of damnation, but a sign of being chosen:
Exile from the native country
Praise everywhere as freedom...
(“K ***” (“Oh, it’s enough to excuse debauchery!”), 1830)
But the motive of wandering, wandering in Lermontov goes beyond the specific, individual fate of the poet and becomes an expression of the fate of the entire generation contemporary to the author. In the mature work of Lermontov, this traditionally romantic motif becomes one of the central ones. It is enough to recall the conditionally symbolic images of a “wanderer” leaf (“Leaf”), heavenly clouds - “eternal wanderers” (“Clouds”), a whole generation in Lermontov’s “Duma” becomes “wanderers”, in a special way “wandering” is interpreted in the poem “Mtsyri”. The motive of wandering is one of the leading ones in the novel "A Hero of Our Time".
Bibliography
Monakhova O.P., Malkhazova M.V. Russian literature of the 19th century. Part 1. - M., 1994.
Baevsky V.S. History of Russian poetry: 1730-1980 Compedium. - Smolensk: Rusich, 1994.
Composition
Modest in volume compared to other Russian classics, Lermontov's work is internally united and purposeful. Lermontov repeated the character of his lyrical hero in all other forms of his work: in the heroes of poems, and in Arbenin, and in Pechorin. The integrity of the lyrical hero of Lermontov is given by the system of the main motives of his lyrics, which runs through absolutely all the poems of the great Russian romantic. And as it should be for a true romantic, the motive of a sharply negative attitude towards social life turns out to be the initial and determining one. It is concretized in the image of a tyrant and the leading antithesis of the image of noble society: external goodness and cruel internal inhumanity (“Death of a poet”, How often he is surrounded by a motley crowd”).
Negatively evaluates Lermontov and reverse side the active inhumanity of the noble world - emptiness, inner death, weak-willed, slavish obedience of a person to executioners and ignoramuses. This motive is leading and universal in “Duma” (“I look sadly at our generation”), where the poet recognizes all generally accepted values as false. Lermontov confronts tyrants and slaves with a sharp mind and a lively feeling, and this feeling is the love of freedom. The desire for freedom gives rise to rebelliousness ("Sail"), the desire to actively fight for it ("I want to live! I want sorrow." 1832). Therefore, the destiny of such a person remains loneliness in the “country of slaves, the country of masters” - the second most important Lermontov motive (“Cliff”, “In the wild north”). The hero is doomed to be an eternal wanderer (“No, I am not Byron”, “Dagger”, “Leaf”), an exile (“Clouds”), a prisoner (“Desire” - 1832, “Prisoner”, “Neighbour”). Therefore, the hero withdraws into himself, into his inner world.
Already Belinsky showed that self-deepening, reflection, was socially significant in the 1930s, preparing future activity. In his reflections, the lyrical hero of Lermontov shows steadfastness, courage and intransigence (“Prophet”). Withdrawal, the lyrical hero of Lermontov makes his soul an arena internal conflict, reflecting his intransigence with the society of slave masters. Before Lermontov, Russian literature did not know the internal conflict of the personality; in Onegin it is only outlined and will develop after the end of the novel. The meaning of this conflict is revealed by the lines from the Duma:
* And some kind of secret cold reigns in the chest,
* When the fire boils in the blood”,
thirst for an active life and the consciousness of its impossibility. Both sides of this internal conflict received further disclosure in Lermontov's poems. “Secret cold” leads the hero to pessimism and emptiness:
* And life, as you look around with cold attention
* Such an empty and stupid joke”;
* And we hurry to the grave without happiness and without glory,
*Looking back mockingly”
"Fire in the blood" makes you look for another life, hope for it - the third and also the most characteristic Lermontov's motive. The desire to find another life can lead to an afterlife unity with God (“Angel”, “Palestine Branch”), but most often we find the hero in search of a kindred soul (“In the wild north”, “Cliff”, “In the midday heat in the valley of Dagestan”). However, he does not believe in friendship (“... poisonous slander of friends ...”), as for love -
* Love ... but whom? on time - not worth the trouble,
* But it is impossible to love forever.
Therefore, love in Lermontov's poems is always unrequited, fickle, ending in betrayal. Lermontov's irresponsibility and inconstancy of female feelings cannot be explained by the poet's biography: his unhappy love is socially conditioned. The hero finds deliverance from loneliness in connection with nature. Here, like Pushkin (from “Do I wander along the noisy streets” to “I visited again”), Lermontov from stating the indifference of nature to man in the poem “When the yellowing field is agitated” comes to overcoming this feeling in his late masterpiece “I go out alone on the road”. Frees the hero from internal conflict and loneliness, the path to the people, to folk life. “Borodino” is a very important milestone on this path, the clearest manifestation of the unity of the hero and the masses outside the antithesis of slave masters. The same is in the poem “Valerik” (“I write to you by chance”).
The people help the hero find a homeland. Motherland is one of the eternal themes of lyrics. First, Lermontov interprets the homeland Byronically in the spirit of Pushkin's elegy “The daylight went out”, the feeling of the homeland replaces the joy of the exile (“Desire”, “Why am I not a bird, not a steppe raven”, “Hurrying north from afar”). Here, the homeland is presented in the spirit of Pushkin's late lyrics as the birthplace of the future final peace. The results of the search for the hero are found in the poems “Borodino” and “Motherland”, in them the motherland is the people in war and peace. Characteristic in the last poem is the development of lyrical thought from abstract ideas to concrete everyday images.
Communication with the people as the only effective cure for loneliness determined Lermontov's understanding of the figure of the poet. The poet for Lermontov is one of the concrete manifestations of the activity of the personality in general.
A significant part of his work M.Yu. Lermontov devoted to the problem of mutual understanding of the poet and society. In the poet's work, this is the theme of an active and often even hostile relationship between a creative person and environment. It seems to me that the problems of these relationships are expressed most clearly in the poem “Prophet”. It should be noted that Lermontov begins this poem exactly from the point where A. S. Pushkin stopped in his “Prophet”: “Since the eternal judge gave me the all-seeing of the prophet ...” One can note the idea of continuity in these two works: from Pushkin’s social optimism to the absolute loneliness and tragedy of Lermontov’s lyrical hero.
And if Pushkin shows us the process of creating a prophet by the Creator, then Lermontov showed us the result of the prophet's activity. The life of Lermontov's hero is full of suffering and torment from misunderstanding and disbelief of people: "All my neighbors threw stones at me furiously." "Noisy City" meets Lermontov's hero with ridicule of "conceited" vulgarity, contempt. The difference in the interpretation of the prophets Pushkin and Lermontov was reflected in the very appearance.
Pushkin endows his hero with supernatural properties, while Lermontov introduces purely human features, even everyday details: he is thin, pale, dressed in rags, he makes his way through the city, hearing insulting exclamations behind him: ... How gloomy, and thin, and pale he is! See how naked and poor he is, How everyone despise him! In Pushkin we see faith in freedom, in society, optimism, in Lermontov we notice a completely different mood: there are no hopes and faith. His poem is deeply pessimistic.
The theme of the poet and society appears and becomes the main one in such works of Lermontov as “The Death of a Poet” and “The Poet”, “Journalist, Reader and Writer”, etc. So the poem “The Death of a Poet” became not only the work that glorified Lermontov, but also changed his fate, for which the poet was exiled to the Caucasus. In this passionate poem dedicated to the death of Pushkin, the poet stigmatizes those "who are the greedy crowd" at the throne, who were the true cause of Pushkin's death. It was they, the persecutors of talent, gossips, earphones, “executioners of freedom, genius and glory” that caused the death of the poet.
In another poem, called “The Poet” by Lermontov, this theme of the relationship between the poet and the crowd, the poet and the mob, the poet and society, is revealed in a different way. Here Lermontov uses a different artistic technique, the technique of parallelism of images. The poem can be divided into two parts. In the first part, Lermontov tells us about the dagger, once combat weapon, and now an unnecessary gilded toy hanging on the wall. In the second part, the author compares the fate of the dagger with the fate of the poet. The poet is silent, his voice is not heard, past deeds (when his voice sounded “like a bell on a veche tower amid the triumphs and troubles of the people”) are forgotten, the crowd despises him.
But in conclusion, the pessimistic tone changes to an encouraging one:
* Will you wake up again
* The ridiculed prophet,
* Or never to the voice of vengeance
* You can’t pull out of the golden scabbard
* Own blade,
* Rusted with contempt!
Not without reason, at the end of this poem, the image of the prophet reappears, which is a symbol of civil, the god of this poetry. The theme of the poet and poetry, the appointment of the poet has become one of the significant topics in Russian literature. Nekrasov, Mayakovsky, Akhmatova, Pasternak and other poets of our time can be considered the successors of this theme.
Lermontov's first surviving poems were written by a fourteen-year-old boy. Since that time, Lermontov has been composing in various literary genres and types: two novels (both remained unfinished), six dramas, and more than twenty poems. Among the many lyrical poems (Lermontov wrote more than three hundred of them in five years), only a very few turn out to be aesthetically significant. For the early period of Lermontov's work (B. M. Eikhenbaum calls it school) not individual artistic successes are important, but tendencies, poetic principles. It was Lermontov's creative laboratory, a school of style, without which Borodino, Duma and Rodina could not have appeared.
Using individual biographical details, Lermontov creates the image of a lyrical hero, linking more and less successful works into a single whole, a kind of lyrical novel, the hero of which, however, differs significantly from Pushkin's Author in Eugene Onegin.
Behind Pushkin in the era of work on the novel in verse were several generations of well-born ancestors, lyceum friendship, the recognition of Derzhavin, Zhukovsky and Chaadaev, the admiration of the readers of Ruslan and Lyudmila and Gypsies. Lermontov could only oppose this to the legendary Scot Lermontov, from whom the surname, the love of his grandmother, and his poems came from - and nothing more.
Lermontov's lyrical hero is lonely, deprived of a close circle of relatives and friends and, in general, support in the world around him. In the world of Lermontov, unlike real life, no grandmother, no nanny, no university comrades, not even neighbors at a feast.
How terrible is this life of shackles
We are alone to drag.
Share the fun - everyone is ready -
Nobody wants to share sadness.
I am alone here, like the king of the air,
Suffering in the heart is constrained,
And I see how, obediently to fate,
Years pass like dreams...
("Loneliness", 1830)
Let's not forget: a sixteen-year-old boy writes about the passing years, suffering and fate!
The motif of loneliness is repeated many times in Lermontov’s poems: “Alone in the midst of human noise / I grew up under the shadow of an alien me” (“Alone in the midst of human noise ...”), “How forgotten, how lonely I am” (“Night”), “I stand alone over the abyss” (“Give me a hand, bow to the poet’s chest ...”), “And I drag out painful days / Without a goal, slandered, lonely” (“1831 June 11 days").
However, the alienation of the hero is compensated by the richness of his inner life. Countless treasures lurk in his soul: he dreams of fame, longs for love, enjoys nature, calls to God, remembers the past, looks into the future, sometimes makes amazing prophecies.
A year will come, a black year for Russia,
When the kings crown will fall;
The mob will forget their former love for them,
And the food of many will be death and blood...
("Prediction", 1830)
Of course, in most poems and poems, Lermontov reproduces the common motifs of romantic poetry, often directly using his favorite Byron and Pushkin (they like to discover the so-called Lermontov plagiarisms in him - numerous quotations from previous literature). However, already in these early poems, an important property of the lyrical hero was manifested: intensity, authenticity, scale of feeling. What for others was a game or a pose became life for Lermontov.
“The romanticism of the 1930s was suffocating from its own grandiosity - it was full of grandiose themes, grandiose characters, passions, words. And it was no secret to anyone that these were just words, - the famous literary critic L. Ya. Ginzburg notes. But here comes the literary miracle.<…>The poetic world of the novice Lermontov is imbued with unity and authenticity, in which one cannot be deceived. The authenticity of love, enmity, suffering, reflection. Big words this time are equal to their subject - the young heroic soul of a person ”(“ On Lyrics ”).
Lermontov "justified pathetic poetics". Romanticism with the idea of escape to another world became for him not a literary game, but a vital task. Creativity turned out to be not only a reflection, but also a compensation for what was not received in real life.
A poet is not only an author, but also main character Lermontov's world. It is no coincidence that “The Death of a Poet” (1837) became a turning point, thanks to which Lermontov from a solitary “poet for himself” became a poet for everyone – the defender and heir of Pushkin in Russian culture.
Pushkin is never called by name. Lermontov makes no attempt to draw a recognizable Pushkin portrait, nor to give any biographical features or details of the duel. The details scattered in the poem create an idealized image of the Poet in general, a great, but lonely creator with tragic fate. He is a singer (like Lensky), the creator of wonderful songs, a torch, a wondrous genius, with a glorious brow and a proud head, his gift is free and bold.
The world opposing it is depicted in the same generalized way, but in a sharply negative, accusatory manner: it is an envious and stuffy light, mocking ignoramuses and insignificant slanderers, with false words and caresses. Merciless is the characterization not of an opponent in a duel (as it was in reality), but of a cold-blooded killer with an empty heart and an unwavering hand, who boldly despises the land of a foreign language and customs (that is, national traditions, culture, which the poet embodies).
Such conflict and contrast arises in the main part of the poem. But a few days later, after a conversation with a relative who justified Dantes, Lermontov adds sixteen verses, thanks to which the meaning of the poem changes significantly, becomes tougher.
And you, arrogant descendants
By the well-known meanness of the illustrious fathers,
Fifth slave corrected the wreckage
The game of happiness offended childbirth!
You, a greedy crowd standing at the throne,
Freedom, Genius and Glory executioners!
You hide under the shadow of the law,
Before you is the court and the truth - everything is silent! ..
But there is also God's judgment, the confidants of depravity!
There is a formidable judgment: it waits;
He is inaccessible to the sound of gold,
And he knows his thoughts and deeds in advance.
Then in vain will you resort to slander:
It won't help you again
And you won't wash away with all your black blood
Poet's righteous blood!
“Already in the first part, the social murderer of Pushkin is named correctly, but too broadly (“light”), and the conflict between “light” and Pushkin is depicted from the point of view of Russian sentimentalism (the true world of friendship, happiness, muses and the false world of secular insignificance and hypocrisy). All this first part belongs stylistically to the old Russian tradition; it is full of Pushkin's phrases, almost Pushkin's poems.<…>There is no direct verbal insult; the harshest words (“to the worthless slanderers”, “mocking ignoramuses”) are half-quotes from Pushkin, and the thought expressed by them belongs to the worldview of sentimentalism. Quite differently, the second part is written in a new language of satirical aggression. The words are insulting and merciless (“with a certain meanness”, “confidants of debauchery”, “with all your black blood”). A reminder of the fathers of the new aristocracy, that is, about the lovers of Catherine II and the scoundrels of the court of Paul I, is conceived as an indelible, bloody insult to the enemy. From the sentimental concept (the artificial life of the world and the true life of a great man) there is no trace; her place- new concept: Pushkin was killed by villains "(L. V. Pumpyansky. "Lermontov's verse speech").
It is no coincidence that one of the lists of the "Death of a Poet", which reached the tsar, contained a postscript: "Appeal to the Revolution." Of course, this was an exaggeration: in the epigraph, Lermontov directly addressed the supreme authority. But the unsanctioned boldness and harshness of the statement surprised and amazed.
The denunciation of the killer and the light was a personal act of another poet and therefore looked defiant. Using the later author's definition, L. V. Pumpyansky claims that Lermontov's iron verse appears already in The Death of a Poet. The intonation, high style and vocabulary of the ode serve a different purpose in this case: not glorification, but anger, denial, satire.
The theme of "Death of a Poet" continues and develops in "The Poet" (1838). The composition of the poem is based on a detailed comparison: a dagger is a poet. A little earlier, Lermontov already used this juxtaposition in the finale of The Dagger (1838): “Yes, I will not change and I will be firm in soul, / Like you, like you, my iron friend.”
The first part of the “Poet” is a “text within a text”, an almost independent ballad about a dagger (in the previous poem, its history was only briefly outlined: the dagger was forged by a “pensive Georgian”, sharpened by a “free Circassian”, and presented by the “lily hand” of his beloved girl). This dagger has changed four owners. At first, it served its intended purpose as a "rider in the mountains", was used in battles, and its decoration seemed "alien and shameful attire." Then, after the death of the highlander (we do not know either his nationality or the specific circumstances of what happened), he was taken by a “brave Cossack” and after the sale ended up “in an Armenian camping shop”, where he was apparently discovered by the last owner, who decorated the wall with him, turned formidable weapon into an inglorious and harmless "golden toy".
The second part of the poem is organized by a chain of rhetorical questions directly addressed to the contemporary poet. The fate of the poet repeats the path of the dagger: in his life the lofty past was replaced by a bleak present. Before "the measured sound of your mighty words / Ignite the fighter for battle." Poetry is compared with things needed at a turning point, highlights human life: a bowl for feasts, incense during the hours of prayer.
The apology of the poetic word is crowned with a remarkable stanza:
Your verse, like God's spirit, hovered over the crowd;
And the recall of noble thoughts
It sounded like a bell on a veche tower,
In the days of celebrations and troubles of the people.
Lermontov does not specify the boundaries of our century, but the contrast on which the poem is built is obvious. In some fabulous past, heroic age, poetic word was as sharp and necessary a weapon as a dagger; it inspired and united the crowd "during the days of celebrations and troubles of the people", turning it into a people.
In modern times, the reverse process has taken place. The people turned into a crowd, which is entertained by "glitters and deceptions", and the poet "lost his appointment", exchanged "God-given power" for gold, turned out to be a "ridiculed prophet".
This final image throws a bridge to one of Lermontov's last poems, which, in essence, completes the theme of the poet and poetry. The Prophet (1841), like much in Lermontov's work, enters into a dialogue with Pushkin's poem of the same name (1826), continuing his lyrical plot.
Pushkin's prophet, after a painful transformation, acquired a great word, capable, in turn, of shaking the world.
Like a corpse in the desert I lay,
And God's voice called out to me:
“Arise, prophet, and see, and listen,
Fulfill my will
And, bypassing the seas and lands,
Burn people's hearts with the verb."
("Prophet")
Lermontov’s hero, who also received the “omniscience of a prophet” from the “eternal judge”, God, tried to burn hearts with a verb (word), but received only anger, hatred, stoning in response (almost every Lermontov’s image has a biblical prototype). And he flees into the desert, where he preaches only to the beasts (creatures of the earth) and the stars. And this poem ends with the image of the "ridiculed prophet":
When through the noisy hail
I'm rushing through
That the elders say to the children
With a selfish smile:
“Look: here is an example for you!
He was proud, did not get along with us.
Fool, wanted to assure us
That God speaks through his mouth!
Look, children, at him:
How gloomy and thin and pale he is!
See how naked and poor he is,
How they all despise him!
Lermontov's prophet, however, does not always move away from the world. In other Lermontov poems, he himself becomes a formidable judge. Turning now into a hopelessly in love, now into a contemptuous observer at the ball, now into a mournful thinker, he regularly reminds himself of himself, enters into an endless litigation with the world. Rebellion, intransigence, protest against the usual truths determine many of Lermontov's lyrical themes.
The iron verse, which determined the content and intonation of "The Death of a Poet", extends far beyond the boundaries of this poem.