The spruce covered my path with its sleeve. Wind. In the forest alone It’s noisy, and creepy, and sad, and fun, - I won’t understand anything. Wind. Everything around is humming and swaying, Leaves are spinning at your feet. Chu, there, in the distance, you suddenly hear a subtly calling horn. Sweet is the call of the copper herald to me! The sheets are dead to me! It seems that from afar you tenderly greet the poor wanderer.
Analysis of Fet’s poem “The spruce covered my path with its sleeve...”
The last period of Afanasy Fet’s work is inextricably linked with the name of Maria Lazic, a Polish beauty with whom the poet was once in love. He did not want to connect his life with this girl from a ruined family and chose to break off relations with her, which he later bitterly regretted. The situation was aggravated by the fact that Maria Lazich soon died in a fire, and Afanasy Fet blamed himself for her death.
If the early poems of this poet were permeated with the lightness of life and naive enthusiasm, then after the death of Maria Lazic her image began to be invisibly present in almost every work of that author. The poem “If a spruce covered my path with its sleeve...”, written in 1891, is no exception in this regard. It was born after a whole series of penitential works dedicated to his beloved had been written. Fet fully tasted the bitterness of this loss and, according to eyewitnesses, even became mentally damaged due to grief. However, no one, including the poet’s legal wife, until his death could unravel the mystery of his rather strange behavior, because Fet refused to publish poems dedicated to Maria Lazic.
However, the work “If a spruce covered my path with its sleeve...” was published during the poet’s lifetime and was included in the collection “Evening Lights.” This is explained by the fact that the poem contains only an indirect allusion to Maria Lazic, which is simply impossible for an uninitiated person to catch. From the outside it seems that Fet, who at one time was fascinated by philosophical themes, has again returned to landscape lyrics. Indeed, the author masterfully describes a snowy forest in which he feels “creepy, sad, and fun.” A storm arises, due to which the last autumn leaves “spin at our feet,” but in the noise of the wind the poet imagines a “subtly calling horn.”
This sound is so sweet and pleasant to Fet that he is ready to succumb to temptation and go to the call of the “herald of copper,” which he perceives as the voice of fate. But few people realize that in the last line of this poem lies the answer. It seems to the poet that “from afar you tenderly greet the poor wanderer,” and in this phrase we are talking about Maria Lazic. Fet dreams of meeting her, although he understands perfectly well that for this he will have to give up his life. However, such a prospect does not frighten him at all, and he is ready to joyfully obey the mysterious call that draws him into eternity.
The spruce covered my path with its sleeve.
Wind. Alone in the forest
Noisy, and creepy, and sad, and fun, -
I do not understand anything.
Wind. Everything around is humming and swaying,
Leaves are spinning at your feet.
Chu, you can suddenly hear it in the distance
Subtly calling horn.
Sweet is the call of the copper herald to me!
The sheets are dead to me!
It seems from afar as a poor wanderer
You greet tenderly.
Analysis of the poem “The spruce covered my path with its sleeve” by Feta
A. Fet’s poem “The spruce covered my path with its sleeve...” (1891) at first glance belongs to the poet’s traditional genre of landscape lyrics. However, many researchers of his work believe that it contains a hidden indication of the main tragedy in Fet’s life. In his youth, he was passionately in love with M. Lazic, but chose prosperity over love, marrying a rich bride. A prosperous life did not bring happiness to the poet, which was the reason for his constant mental conflict. His beloved died tragically, and Fet blamed himself for her death until the end of his life. He dedicated many of his works, unpublished during his lifetime, to his first love.
The lyrical hero is alone in a deep forest. His soul experiences many conflicting feelings (“both sad and happy”). The author himself cannot figure out which of them is predominant. Nature lives its own life, not paying any attention to the hero: the wind rises, the foliage sways underfoot. Suddenly the situation changes. The lyrical hero hears a loud sound that sharply disturbs his loneliness. It can be assumed that the author depicted a traveler lost in the forest, who has not yet fully realized the seriousness of his situation. The sound of a horn brings him out of his thoughts. The hero understands that he brings him salvation from possible death alone.
Towards the end of his life, Fet increasingly thought about the meaning and significance of the years he had lived. He considered the rejection of M. Lazic his main mistake, which radically changed the fate of both lovers. Taking this into account, it can be assumed that in the image of a traveler in a dense forest, the author imagined himself in his declining years. A long life is like aimless wandering. It flew by quickly and did not bring the long-awaited happiness. In the image of the “call of the brass herald,” Fet represents the call of his longtime lover from another world. She greets the “poor wanderer” and wishes to be reunited with him as soon as possible. The poet was no longer afraid of death, he learned a lot in his life, but never achieved the ideal. Life can no longer bring him anything new. Powerless old age will only bring pain and suffering. Fet hopes for the existence of the afterlife in any form, if only in it he could finally meet the girl who was destined for him by fate. The guilt of her premature death still weighs heavily on the poet, so he believes that with his death he can atone for this grave sin.
Afanasy Fet is a wonderful Russian poet, the founder of the poetic genre - lyrical miniature. The subject matter of his poetry is limited. His poetry is “pure poetry”; it contains no social issues of reality, no civic motives. He chose a stylistic storytelling device that allowed him to hide his soul from the reader behind the external flow of events. Fet cares only about beauty - nature and love. He considers poetry to be the temple of art, and the poet to be the priest of this temple. These two themes of Fet's poetry are closely related to each other. Fet believes that only nature and love can reflect all the beauty and charm of the surrounding reality. The character, experiences, thoughts and feelings of the lyrical hero in Fet’s poetry depend on the poet’s worldview.
Fet sought to convey the beauty of the moment, the momentary state. A striking example of this can be called his poem “The spruce covered my path with its sleeve”:
The spruce covered my path with its sleeve.
Wind. Alone in the forest
Noisy, and creepy, and sad, and fun, -
I do not understand anything.
Fet creates a beautiful image that allows the reader to see the picture painted and admire its unique beauty. In the lines of the poem, the poet uses nominative sentences and sentences with homogeneous members. The last two lines speak of the poet's conflicting feelings. His lyrical hero feels the state of nature. The poem affects the reader. Thanks to the abundance of hissing and whistling sounds, you can hear the sound of the wind:
Everything hums and sways,
Leaves are spinning at your feet.
It is impossible to grasp the mood of the lyrical hero. He has vague feelings - “I don’t understand anything.” He tries to dissolve in the world of nature, tries to comprehend its mysterious depths, to understand the “beautiful soul of nature.” But the sound of the wind dispels this confusion. The hero hears the “subtly calling horn”, “the call of the copper herald” and his mood immediately changes - “Sweet is the call of the copper herald to me!” and “The sheets are dead to me!”
Fet represents nature as a person, sees its beautiful soul, this is evidenced by the metaphor “The spruce covered my path with its sleeve.”
In this poem by Fet, nature merges with human emotions. The poet depicts his hero at the moment of greatest emotional stress, showing his soul against the backdrop of a beautiful moment of nature.
Afanasy Fet is a brilliant creator, a man with a difficult fate, who, thanks to fantastic perseverance and hard work, managed to declare himself and his talent. His creative path, like his life, is filled with moments of rapid ups and tragic falls. In moments when tears of despair rolled into his throat, confusion and misunderstanding overwhelmed his consciousness, Fet turned to poetry. It was in poems that he always found joy. They saved him in the most difficult moments of his life.
One of the most difficult periods of his life, by the poet’s own admission, was the years after the death of Maria Lazic. In 1845, while on military service in the Kherson region, Fet met Elena Lazich. He began to court a young woman, but she was behind her husband and in every possible way rejected his proposals. Then the young man drew attention to Elena’s sister Maria. However, she also announced to Fet that she had long been in love with someone else and wanted to tie the knot with him. The poet retreated, although he continued to see Maria: he liked her erudition, excellent ear for music and extraordinary goodwill towards everyone.
Fet even began to lament in letters that he had missed such a sincere girl. But he did not know that Maria was in love with him from their first meeting and had no fiancé. But she was angry with Fet because he paid attention to her sister and, only after receiving a refusal, switched to her. Such meetings, in which no one could admit the sincerity of their feelings, continued for quite a long time, until Maria’s aunt, seeing the girl’s suffering, personally asked Fet not to come to visit again, to which he easily agreed. A few months later, the young man learns that the girl died in terrible agony from burns she received when she accidentally threw a lit match onto the hem of her dress and fell asleep. In her last appeal to her relatives, Maria asked not to blame Athanasius for anything.
The poet would not be able to forget the girl. He blamed himself for her death. After all, if he had confessed his feelings to her in time, she simply would not have been in this place at that terrible moment, everything would have been different. The poet’s self-flagellation fueled his lyrics, filling his poems with passion and repentance.
One of his works was “The spruce covered my path with its sleeve,” created in the late 90s. 19th century. It arose after the creation of several poems in which the author asks for forgiveness from Lazic. Fet experienced enough of the taste of loss and, according to his contemporaries, almost went crazy with grief.
The creator did not publish most of the poems addressed to the deceased Mary: they were published after the poet’s death. However, this poem was published during the author’s lifetime. Apparently, this decision was influenced by the fact that in this work there is only a vague hint of the image of the beloved. To the unenlightened reader, it seems that the author is again carried away by the theme of nature, which made up the majority of his early works. After all, in it the poet described a forest covered with snow, where the lyrical hero feels either creepy and sad, then suddenly joyful. Fet writes about a storm swirling the remaining leaves of the trees and listens to the sound of the wind. And he likes these sounds, he even agrees to go to this call, compared to the voice of fate. But only a small number of readers will be able to understand that the whole solution to this behavior, and indeed the meaning of the entire poem, lies in its last line.
The one who stands in the distance and whom the poet addresses as “you” appears in it. It was not the image of a creeping harsh winter, but the image of a lost beloved, distant and cold. The author dreams of a date with her, although he realizes that for this he needs to say goodbye to life in this world. This thought does not repulse him at all, but on the contrary, makes him happy.
The poem has three stanzas written in a quatrain with cross rhyme. This gives the work a special firmness, as if hinting at the poet’s determination, at his choice.
The epithets used by the author, such as “brass herald” and “poor wanderer”, personifications of “dead leaves” create a bleak picture of life. The technique of alliteration, that is, the repetition of consonant sounds, allows the reader to “hear” the howling of the wind, the noise in the forest that tormented Fet.
Describing the slow decline of nature, Afanasy Fet spoke about his own extinction: his soul burned from torment like a candle flame, gradually and irrevocably.
The poem by A. A. Fet “The spruce covered my path with its sleeve...” was written in 1891.
The work consists of three stanzas written in quatrain. The poet uses cross rhyme. Dactylic rhyme alternates with masculine rhyme, which gives the poem some special hardness and elasticity, as well as smoothness and melodiousness.
Before us is a work about late autumn, about the beauty of nature and those feelings and impressions that a dull autumn picture evokes. The most contradictory feelings overwhelm the poet:
The spruce covered my path with its sleeve.
Wind. Alone in the forest
Noisy, and creepy, and sad, and fun, -
I do not understand anything.
The work is written in dactyl, which, better than any other meter, gives the verse slowness, smoothness, melody and some kind of majesty.
The hero’s mental life and his feelings are in the foreground of the poem. A. A. Fet speaks of the confusion of the “poor wanderer,” because “everything around is humming and swaying...”. What does the traveler think and worry about? What brings him here in such a deep and gloomy autumn? The feeling of melancholy, despair, and fear does not leave the “wanderer.” But then comes an unexpected salvation:
Chu, you can suddenly hear it in the distance
Subtly calling horn.
Sweet is the call of the copper herald to me!
The sheets are dead to me!
It seems from afar as a poor wanderer
You greet tenderly.
A. A. Fet uses figurative and expressive means: epithets (“herald of the brass”, “poor wanderer”), personifications (“The spruce covered my path with its sleeve”, “dead... leaves”, “you tenderly greet the poor wanderer”), with with the help of which he creates a gloomy and bleak picture. The sound background of the poem is created using repeated sonorous sounds “r”, “l”, “n”, “m”, which allows us to imagine the sad and joyless autumn nature with its wind, noise and bad weather.
For A. A. Fet, autumn is the time of extinction. The poet describes the slow dying of nature. When A.S. Pushkin describes autumn nature, we hear notes of joy. When A. A. Fet speaks about the same time, we feel melancholy.