What are the main motives of Zhukovsky’s romantic poems “Sea” and “Evening.

Emerging needs force a person to actively look for ways to satisfy them and become internal stimulants of activity, or motives. Motive (from Latin movero - to set in motion, to push) is what moves a living being, for which it spends its vital energy. Being an indispensable “fuse” of any actions and their “combustible material”, the motive has always appeared at the level of worldly wisdom in various ideas about feelings (pleasure or displeasure, etc.) - motivations, drives, aspirations, desires, passions, willpower, etc. Further. Motives can be different: interest in the content and process of activity, duty to society, self-affirmation, etc. Thus, a scientist can be motivated to scientific activity by the following motives: self-realization, cognitive interest, self-affirmation, material incentives (monetary reward), social motives (responsibility, desire to benefit society). If a person strives to perform a certain activity, we can say that he has motivation. For example, if a student is diligent in his studies, he is motivated to study; an athlete who strives to achieve high results has a high level of achievement motivation; The desire of the leader to subordinate everyone indicates the presence of a high level of motivation for power.

Motives are relatively stable manifestations and attributes of personality. For example, when we say that a certain person has a cognitive motive, we mean that in many situations he exhibits cognitive motivation.

The motive cannot be explained on its own. It can be understood in the system of those factors - images, relationships, personal actions that make up the general structure of mental life. Its role is to give behavior impetus and direction towards a goal.

Incentive factors can be divided into two relatively independent classes:

· needs and instincts as sources of activity;

· motives as reasons that determine the direction of behavior or activity.

Need is a necessary condition for any activity, but need itself is not yet capable of giving activity a clear direction. For example, the presence of an aesthetic need in a person creates corresponding selectivity, but this does not yet indicate what exactly the person will do to satisfy this need. Perhaps he will listen to music, or perhaps he will try to compose a poem or paint a picture.

What is the difference between need and motive? When analyzing the question of why an individual generally comes into a state of activity, manifestations of needs are considered as sources of activity. If we study the question of what the activity is aimed at, why these particular actions and actions are chosen, then first of all the manifestations of motives (as motivating factors that determine the direction of activity or behavior) are studied. Thus, need encourages activity, and motive motivates directed activity. We can say that a motive is an incentive to activity associated with satisfying the needs of the subject. The study of motives for educational activities among schoolchildren revealed a system of various motives. Some motives are basic, leading, others are secondary, side, they do not have independent meaning and are always subordinate to the leading ones. For one student, the leading motive for learning may be the desire to gain authority in the class, for another it may be the desire to obtain a higher education, for a third it may be an interest in knowledge itself.

How do new needs arise and develop? As a rule, each need is objectified (and specified) in one or several objects that are capable of satisfying this need, for example, an aesthetic need can be defined in music, and in the process of its development can be defined in poetry, i.e. more items can already satisfy her. Consequently, the need develops in the direction of increasing the number of objects that can satisfy it; the change and development of needs occurs through the change and development of objects that meet them and in which they are objectified and concretized.

To motivate a person means to touch on his important interests, to create conditions for him to realize himself in the process of life. To do this, a person must at least: be familiar with success (success is the realization of a goal); to have the opportunity to see yourself in the results of your work, to realize yourself in your work, to feel your importance.

But the meaning of human activity is not only to obtain results. The activity itself can be attractive. A person may enjoy the process of performing an activity, for example, the manifestation of physical and intellectual activity. Like physical activity, mental activity in itself brings pleasure to a person and is a specific need. When a subject is motivated by the process of activity itself, and not by its result, this indicates the presence of a procedural component of motivation. In the learning process, the procedural component plays a very important role.

The desire to overcome difficulties in educational activities, to test one’s strengths and abilities can become a personally significant motive for studying. At the same time, an effective motivational attitude plays an organizing role in the determination of activity, especially if its procedural component (i.e., the process of activity) causes negative emotions. In this case, goals and intentions that mobilize a person’s energy come to the fore. Setting goals and intermediate tasks is a significant motivational factor that is worth using. To understand the essence of the motivational sphere (its composition, structure, which has a multidimensional and multi-level nature, dynamics), it is necessary first of all to consider the connections and relationships of a person with other people, taking into account that this sphere is also formed under the influence of the life of society - its norms, rules, ideology , politicians and others. One of the most important factors determining the motivational sphere of an individual is a person’s belonging to any group. For example, teenagers who are interested in sports are different from their peers who are interested in music. Since any person belongs to a number of groups and in the process of his development the number of such groups grows, naturally his motivational sphere also changes. Therefore, the emergence of motives should be considered not as a process arising from the internal sphere of the individual, but as a phenomenon associated with the development of his relationships with other people. In other words, changes in motives are determined not by the laws of spontaneous development of the individual, but by the development of his relationships and connections with people, with society as a whole.

Personal motives

Personal motives are the need (or system of needs) of the individual for the function of motivation. Internal mental motivations for activity and behavior are determined by the actualization of certain needs of the individual. The motives for activities can be very different:

· organic - aimed at satisfying the natural needs of the body and are associated with the growth, self-preservation and development of the body;

· functional - satisfied through various cultural forms of activity, for example, playing sports;

· material - encourage a person to engage in activities aimed at creating household items, various things and tools;

· social - give rise to various types of activities aimed at taking a certain place in society, gaining recognition and respect;

· spiritual - they underlie those activities that are associated with human self-improvement.

Organic and functional motives together constitute the motivation for the behavior and activity of an individual in certain circumstances and can not only influence, but change each other.

Human needs manifest themselves in specific forms. People may perceive their needs differently. Depending on this, motives are divided into emotional ones - desires, desires, attractions, etc. and rational - aspirations, interests, ideals, beliefs.

There are two groups of interconnected motives of life, behavior and activity of an individual:

· generalized, the content of which expresses the subject of needs and, accordingly, the direction of the individual’s aspirations. The strength of this motive is determined by the significance for a person of the object of his needs;

· instrumental - motives for choosing ways, means, methods of achieving or realizing a goal, determined not only by the need state of the individual, but also by his preparedness, the availability of opportunities to successfully act to realize his goals in given conditions.

There are other approaches to classifying motives. For example, according to the degree of social significance, motives of a broad social plan (ideological, ethnic, professional, religious, etc.), group plan and individual-personal nature are distinguished. There are also motives for achieving a goal, avoiding failures, motives for approval, and affiliation (cooperation, partnership, love). Motives not only encourage a person to act, but also give his actions and actions a personal, subjective meaning. In practice, it is important to take into account that people, performing actions that are identical in form and objective results, are often guided by different, sometimes opposing motives, and attach different personal meaning to their behavior and actions. In accordance with this, the assessment of actions should be different: both moral and legal.

Types of personality motives

Consciously justified motives include values, beliefs, and intentions.

Value

Value is a concept used in philosophy to indicate the personal, socio-cultural significance of certain objects and phenomena. A person’s values form a system of his value orientations, elements of the personality’s internal structure that are especially significant for him. These value orientations form the basis of the consciousness and activity of the individual. Value is a personally colored attitude to the world, arising on the basis of not only knowledge and information, but also one’s own life experience. Values give meaning to human life. Faith, will, doubt, and ideal are of enduring importance in the world of human value orientations. Values are part of culture received from parents, family, religion, organizations, school and environment. Cultural values are widely held beliefs that define what is desirable and what is true. Values can be:

· self-oriented, which concern the individual, reflect his goals and general approach to life;

· oriented others who reflect the desires of society regarding the relationship between the individual and groups;

· environmentally oriented, which embody society's ideas about the desired relationship of the individual with his economic and natural environment.

Beliefs

Beliefs are the motives of practical and theoretical activity, justified by theoretical knowledge and the entire worldview of a person. For example, a person becomes a teacher not only because he is interested in passing on knowledge to children, not only because he loves working with children, but also because he knows well how much in creating a society depends on cultivating consciousness. This means that he chose his profession not only out of interest and inclination towards it, but also according to his convictions. Deeply held beliefs persist throughout a person's life. Beliefs are the most generalized motives. However, if generality and stability are characteristic features of personality properties, then beliefs can no longer be called motives in the accepted sense of the word. The more generalized a motive becomes, the closer it is to a personality trait.

Intention

Intention is a consciously made decision to achieve a specific goal with a clear understanding of the means and methods of action. This is where motivation and planning come together. Intention organizes human behavior.

The types of motives considered cover only the main manifestations of the motivational sphere. In reality, there are as many different motives as there are possible person-environment relationships.

The main motives of Lermontov's lyrics

Lermontov's lyrics are characterized by a variety of themes and motifs. One of the main characteristic features of Lermontov's lyrics is sharp denial of existing reality: if in early lyricism it is directed to all humanity, then in mature creativity it acquires a specific sound ("The Turk's Complaints", 1829; "The Dying Gladiator", 1835; "Farewell, Unwashed Russia...", 1840).
Main image themes of denial - mask image, the apparently prosperous life of the contemporary society of the poet, under which lies lack of spirituality and emptiness (“Confession”, 1831; “How often, surrounded by a motley crowd...”, 1840; “From under a mysterious, cold half-mask...”, 1841) .
In this atmosphere of masquerade and pretense, the lyrical hero also begins to hide his feelings, aspirations, thoughts - comes to the fore theme of proud loneliness, incomprehensibility(“Loneliness”, 1830; “Confession”, 1831; “The Cup of Life”, 1831; “Sail”, 1832; “The Prisoner”, 1837; “No one listens to my words... I am alone...", 1837; "Neighbour", 1837; "Neighbour", 1837; "Captive Knight", 1840).
It expands and complements motives of fatigue and hopelessness(“Both boring and sad”, 1840; “From Goethe” (“Mountain peaks...”), 1840; “I go out alone on the road...”, 1841).
The poet’s thoughts about his contemporary society are refracted on the topic of the fate of the younger generation(“Monologue”, 1829; “Duma”, 1838). The poet thinks about the future of his homeland, in search of an ideal, delves into the historical past of Russia, turns to the life of ordinary people ("Novgorod", 1830; "Borodin's Field", 1831; "Borodino", 1837; "Motherland", 1841).
Landscape lyrics, inextricably linked with the theme of the homeland, Lermontov is filled with spiritualized beauty - a source of spiritual strength; in nature, tragic moments of life are reflected, as in a mirror, changes in the human soul (“Caucasus”, 1830; “Evening after the rain”, 1830; “When the yellowing field is agitated...”, 1837; “Gifts of the Terek”, 1839; “Clouds ", 1840; "In the wild north stands alone...", 1841; "Cliff", 1841).
Lermontov's lyrics are also characterized conveying a deep and capacious concept of love, but he is often accompanied suffering and tossing(“To Friends”, 1828; “The Terrible Fate of Father and Son...”, 1831; “I don’t love you; passions...”, 1831; “Imitations of Byron”, 1831; “In Memory of A. I. Odoevsky” , 1839; "<М. А. Щербатовой>", 1840; "A. I. Smirnova", 1840; "No, it is not you that I love so passionately...", 1841).
Theme of self-knowledge acquires universal proportions in Lermontov’s lyrics: personality is the center of everything, and cosmic motifs appear in the lyrics, motifs of confrontation between earthly and heavenly forces, personifying the struggle of good and evil both inside and outside of man (“My Demon”, 1829, 1831; “Prayer” (“Don’t blame me, Omnipotent.. "), 1829; "Sky and Stars", 1831; "Earth and Sky", 1831; "If only in the submission of ignorance...", 1831; "Angel", 1831; "My Home", 1831; "Battle ", 1832).
The theme of chosenness, the motive of internal kinship with the tragic destinies of Byron and Napoleon- ("Napoleon", 1829; "1830. May 16th"; "Excerpt" ("I spent three nights without sleep - in melancholy..."), 1831; "St. Helena", 1831; "No, I not Byron; I am different...", 1832; "Airship", 1840; "The Last Housewarming", 1841; "The Prophet", 1841).
Continues this the topic of thinking about the fate of a gifted individual in an imperfect society, her relationships with others, the role of poetry as a special kind of weapon in the struggle for high ideals - motives heard in Lermontov’s works (“I want to live! I want sadness...”, 1832; “Death of a Poet”, 1837; “Dagger”, 1837; “Poet” (“My dagger shines with a golden finish...”), 1837; “Journalist, Reader and Writer”, 1840; “Prophet”, 1841).

Conditional, mobile, virtual in nature. The virtuality of needs is that each of them contains its own other, a moment of self-negation. Due to the variety of conditions of implementation, age, environment, biological need becomes material, social or spiritual, i.e. transforms. In the parallelogram of needs (biological need - material - social - spiritual), the dominant need becomes the one that most corresponds to the personal meaning of a person’s life, is better equipped with the means of its satisfaction, i.e. the one who is better motivated.

The transition from need to activity is the process of changing the direction of need from within to the external environment. At the heart of any activity is a motive that encourages a person to do it, but not every activity can satisfy the motive. The mechanism of this transition includes: I) selection and motivation of the subject of need (motivation - justification of the subject to satisfy the need); 2) during the transition from need to activity, the need is transformed into purpose and interest (conscious need).

Thus, need and motivation are closely related: need stimulates a person to activity, and a component of activity is always motive.

Motive of man and personality

Motive- this is what motivates a person to activity, directing him to satisfy a certain need. Motive is a reflection of need, which acts as an objective law, an objective necessity.

For example, the motive can be both hard work with inspiration and enthusiasm, and avoidance as a sign of protest.

Motives can be needs, thoughts, feelings and other mental formations. However, internal motivation is not enough to carry out activities. It is necessary to have an object of activity and correlate the motives with the goals that the individual wants to achieve as a result of the activity. In the motivational-target sphere, the social conditioning of activity appears with particular clarity.

Under [[Motivational-need sphere of personality|need-motivational sphere personality is understood as the whole set of motives that are formed and develop during a person’s life. In general, this sphere is dynamic, but some motives are relatively stable and, subordinating other motives, form, as it were, the core of the entire sphere. These motives reveal the direction of the individual.

Motivation of a person and personality

Motivation - it is a set of internal and external driving forces that encourage a person to act in a specific, purposeful manner; the process of motivating oneself and others to act to achieve organizational or personal goals.

The concept of “motivation” is broader than the concept of “motive”. Motive, in contrast to motivation, is something that belongs to the subject of behavior, is his stable personal property, which internally encourages him to perform certain actions. The concept of “motivation” has a double meaning: firstly, it is a system of factors influencing human behavior (needs, motives, goals, intentions, etc.), secondly, it is a characteristic of the process that stimulates and supports behavioral activity at a certain level. level.

In the motivational sphere, the following are distinguished:

motivational system of a person is a general (holistic) organization of all the motivating forces of activity underlying human behavior, which includes such components as needs, actual motives, interests, drives, beliefs, goals, attitudes, stereotypes, norms, values, etc. .;
achievement motivation - the need to achieve high behavioral results and satisfy all other needs;
self-actualization motivation is the highest level in the hierarchy of personal motives, consisting of the individual’s need for the fullest realization of his potential, the need for self-realization.

Worthy goals, long-term plans, good organization will be ineffective if the interest of the performers in their implementation is not ensured, i.e. motivation. Motivation can compensate for many deficiencies in other functions, such as deficiencies in planning, but weak motivation is almost impossible to compensate for with anything.

Success in any activity depends not only on abilities and knowledge, but also on motivation (the desire to work and achieve high results). The higher the level of motivation and activity, the more factors (i.e. motives) prompt a person to activity, the more effort he is inclined to put in.

Highly motivated individuals work harder and tend to achieve better results in their activities. Motivation is one of the most important factors (along with abilities, knowledge, skills) that ensures success in activity.

It would be wrong to consider the motivational sphere of an individual only as a reflection of the totality of his own individual needs. The needs of the individual are related to the needs of society and are formed and developed in the context of their development. Some needs of an individual can be considered as individualized social needs. In the motivational sphere of a person, both his individual and social needs are reflected in one way or another. The form of reflection depends on the position the individual occupies in the system of social relations.

Motivation

Motivation - This is the process of influencing a person in order to motivate him to certain actions by activating certain motives.

There are two main types of motivation:

external influence on a person with the aim of inducing him to perform certain actions leading to a desired result. This type resembles a trade deal: “I give you what you want, and you satisfy my desire”;
the formation of a certain motivational structure of a person as a type of motivation is educational in nature. Its implementation requires great effort, knowledge, and abilities, but the results exceed those of the first type of motivation.

Basic human motives

Motives can be different: interest in the content and process of activity, duty to society, self-affirmation, etc. Thus, a scientist can be motivated to scientific activity by the following motives: self-realization, cognitive interest, self-affirmation, material incentives (monetary reward), social motives (responsibility, desire to benefit society).

If a person strives to perform a certain activity, we can say that he has motivation. For example, if a student is diligent in his studies, he is motivated to study; an athlete who strives to achieve high results has a high level of achievement motivation; The desire of the leader to subordinate everyone indicates the presence of a high level of motivation for power.

Incentive factors can be divided into two relatively independent classes:

needs and instincts as sources of activity;
motives as reasons that determine the direction of behavior or activity.

How do the concepts differ? When analyzing the question of why an individual generally comes into a state of activity, manifestations of needs are considered as sources of activity. If we study the question of what the activity is aimed at, why these particular actions and actions are chosen, then first of all the manifestations of motives (as motivating factors that determine the direction of activity or behavior) are studied. Thus, need encourages activity, and motive motivates directed activity. We can say that a motive is an incentive to activity associated with satisfying the needs of the subject. The study of motives for educational activities among schoolchildren revealed a system of various motives. Some motives are main, leading, others are secondary, side, they do not have independent meaning and are always subordinate to the leading ones. For one student, the leading motive for learning may be the desire to gain authority in the class, for another it may be the desire to obtain a higher education, for a third it may be an interest in knowledge itself.

How do new needs arise and develop? As a rule, each need is objectified (and specified) in one or several objects that are capable of satisfying this need, for example, an aesthetic need can be objectified in music, and in the process of its development can also be objectified in poetry, i.e. more items can already satisfy her. Consequently, the need develops in the direction of increasing the number of objects that can satisfy it; the change and development of needs occurs through the change and development of objects that meet them and in which they are objectified and concretized.

But the meaning of human activity is not only to obtain results. The activity itself can be attractive. A person may enjoy the process of performing an activity, such as being physically and intellectually active. Like physical activity, mental activity in itself brings pleasure to a person and is a specific need. When a subject is motivated by the process of activity itself, and not by its result, this indicates the presence of a procedural component of motivation. In the learning process, the procedural component plays a very important role. The desire to overcome difficulties in educational activities, to test one’s strengths and abilities can become a personally significant motive for studying.

At the same time, an effective motivational attitude plays an organizing role in the determination of activity, especially if its procedural component (i.e., the process of activity) causes negative emotions. In this case, goals and intentions that mobilize a person’s energy come to the fore. Setting goals and intermediate tasks is a significant motivational factor that is worth using.

To understand the essence of the motivational sphere (its composition, structure, which has a multidimensional and multi-level nature, dynamics), it is necessary first of all to consider the connections and relationships of a person with other people, taking into account that this sphere is also formed under the influence of the life of society - its norms, rules, ideology, politicians, etc.

One of the most important factors determining the motivational sphere of an individual is a person’s belonging to any group. For example, teenagers who are interested in sports are different from their peers who are interested in music. Since any person belongs to a number of groups and in the process of his development the number of such groups grows, naturally his motivational sphere also changes. Therefore, the emergence of motives should be considered not as a process arising from the internal sphere of the individual, but as a phenomenon associated with the development of his relationships with other people. In other words, changes in motives are determined not by the laws of spontaneous development of the individual, but by the development of his relationships and connections with people, with society as a whole.

Personal motives

Personal motives - this is the need (or system of needs) of the individual for the function of motivation. Internal mental motivations for activity and behavior are determined by the actualization of certain needs of the individual. Activity motives can be very different:

organic - aimed at satisfying the natural needs of the body and are associated with the growth, self-preservation and development of the body;
functional - satisfied through various cultural forms of activity, for example playing sports;
material - encourage a person to engage in activities aimed at creating household items, various things and tools;
social - give rise to various types of activities aimed at taking a certain place in society, gaining recognition and respect;
spiritual - they form the basis of those activities that are associated with human self-improvement.

Organic and functional motives together constitute the motivation for the behavior and activity of an individual in certain circumstances and can not only influence, but change each other.

They appear in specific forms. People may perceive their needs differently. Depending on this, motives are divided into emotional ones - desires, desires, attractions, etc. and rational - aspirations, interests, ideals, beliefs.

There are two groups of interconnected motives of life, behavior and activity of an individual:

generalized, the content of which expresses the subject of needs and, accordingly, the direction of the individual’s aspirations. The strength of this motive is determined by the significance for a person of the object of his needs;
instrumental - motives for choosing ways, means, methods of achieving or realizing a goal, conditioned not only by the need state of the individual, but also by his preparedness, the availability of opportunities to successfully act to realize his goals in given conditions.

Motives not only encourage a person to act, but also give his actions and actions a personal, subjective meaning. In practice, it is important to take into account that people, performing actions that are identical in form and objective results, are often guided by different, sometimes opposing motives, and attach different personal meaning to their behavior and actions. In accordance with this, the assessment of actions should be different: both moral and legal.

Types of personality motives

TO consciously justified motives should include values, beliefs, intentions.

Value

Value is a concept used in philosophy to indicate the personal, socio-cultural significance of certain objects and phenomena. A person’s values form a system of his value orientations, elements of the personality’s internal structure that are especially significant for him. These value orientations form the basis of the consciousness and activity of the individual. Value is a personally colored attitude towards the world, arising on the basis of not only knowledge and information, but also one’s own life experience. Values give meaning to human life. Faith, will, doubt, and ideal are of enduring importance in the world of human value orientations. Values are part of culture, learned from parents, family, religion, organizations, school, and environment. Cultural values are widely held beliefs that define what is desirable and what is true. Values can be:

self-oriented, which concern the individual, reflect his goals and general approach to life;
other-oriented, which reflect the desires of society regarding the relationship between the individual and groups;
environmentally oriented, which embody society's ideas about the desired relationship of the individual with his economic and natural environment.

Beliefs

Beliefs - These are the motives of practical and theoretical activity, justified by theoretical knowledge and the entire worldview of a person. For example, a person becomes a teacher not only because he is interested in passing on knowledge to children, not only because he loves working with children, but also because he knows well how much in creating a society depends on cultivating consciousness. This means that he chose his profession not only out of interest and inclination towards it, but also according to his convictions. Deeply held beliefs persist throughout a person's life. Beliefs are the most generalized motives. However, if generalization and stability are characteristic features of personality properties, then beliefs can no longer be called motives in the accepted sense of the word. The more generalized a motive becomes, the closer it is to a personality trait.

Intention

Intention- a conscious decision to achieve a specific goal with a clear understanding of the means and methods of action. This is where motivation and planning come together. Intention organizes human behavior.

The types of motives considered cover only the main manifestations of the motivational sphere. In reality, there are as many different motives as there are possible person-environment relationships.

Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky is rightfully considered the “literary Columbus of Rus'”, who discovered “America of Romanticism in Poetry”. At the beginning of the 19th century, romanticism in Russia was a new movement that came to us from Western European literature. Romanticism brought with it new themes, images, moods, motifs, and artistic techniques of depiction. Moreover, we can say that romanticism defined a new - romantic - attitude to life. Zhukovsky appeared in Russia as the conductor of everything new and unusual that romanticism carried within itself.

Everything that Zhukovsky creates is imbued with special romantic motifs, which reflect the feelings, thoughts, moods, and experiences of his lyrical hero. They can be distinguished in ballads and love lyrics, but, perhaps, these romantic motifs are most clearly manifested in landscape lyrics, which include the poems “Evening” of 1806 and “Sea” of 1822.

A special lyrical landscape is created here, which became a discovery for Russian literature. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that the image of nature in the poem does not so much paint a real picture as it reflects the state of mind, the mood of the lyrical hero. The most characteristic of Zhukovsky’s lyrics is the elegiac mood and the elegiac motifs associated with it. An elegy is always imbued with sadness, associated both with a person’s intimate experiences and with his philosophical reflections on the world.

This is Zhukovsky’s poem “Rural Cemetery” of 1802, which is a free translation of a poem by the English poet T. Gray. It became decisive for the development of not only Zhukovsky’s poetry, but also all subsequent Russian literature. No wonder Vl. Solovyov called elegy “the birthplace of Russian poetry.” The main motive of this poem, dedicated to reflections on the meaning of human life, is sadness and sadness associated with the awareness of the vanity of human existence on earth. The motifs of a person’s doom to death and the loss of the most precious thing in life that appear here will then often be present in Zhukovsky’s poetry. They also appear in the poems “Evening” and “Sea”, but their meaning and origins are different.

Zhukovsky’s first original elegy “Evening” became the highest poetic achievement of his work at this time. It embodied the special quality of Zhukovsky’s poetry, which made it both new and very close to many people - this is its deeply personal, biographical beginning. This has never happened before in Russian poetry. Belinsky very correctly noted that before Zhukovsky, the Russian reader did not even suspect that “a person’s life could be closely connected with his poetry,” and his works became “his best biography.” The elegy “Evening” truly reflected the poet’s life, his aspirations and thoughts about his fate. Even in the landscape, one can easily discern the signs of the poet’s native places - Mishensky and Belev:

The sunset is captivating like the sun behind the mountain -

When the fields are in the shade and the groves are distant

And in the mirror of water there is swaying hail

Illuminated with a crimson shine...

Hence the intimacy of the poet’s experiences expressed in the poem; the events of his life are the source of his main motives. Three years before the creation of this elegy, Zhukovsky’s closest friend Andrei Turgenev died - he was only 22 years old! This death shocked the poet and made him think about the transience of life, about the losses that haunt a person. Hence the motive of longing and memory of the departed:

I sit thinking; in the soul of my dreams;

I fly with memories of times gone by...

O spring of my days, how quickly you disappeared,

With your bliss and suffering!

Where are you, my friends, you, my companions?

Is it possible that connections will never ripen?

One - a minute color - rested, and undisturbed,

And the timeless coffin of love sprinkles with tears:..

And yet the peace of nature, dying in the evening silence, is gratifying for the poet. He is dissolved in nature and does not oppose the world, does not recognize life as a whole as something hostile to his soul. Here is the motive of reconciliation and humility before the greatness of the Divine, dissolved in nature:

Fate destined me to wander along an unknown path,

To be a friend of peaceful villages, to love the beauty of Nature,

Breathe oak forest silence above the dusk

And, looking down at the foam of water,

Sing the Creator, friends, love and happiness.

The exclamation about the possibility of imminent death that concludes the poem does not threaten melancholy. Dissolution, merging turns out to be a general law of the universe. Just as the rays of the sun melt in the evening twilight, merging with the fading nature, so a person fades away and still remains to live in memories.

Why, despite everything, is a wonderful evening for a poet? This is a moment of harmony in nature, when “everything is quiet”, when the blowing of the wind and the “fluttering of the flexible willow”, the splashing of the river exist in the same rhythm, when “the incense is fused with the coolness”. This amazingly beautiful description of a summer evening, full of colorful epithets and metaphors, striking with the sophistication of the melodic pattern and sound harmony of the verse, cannot leave today’s reader indifferent. It is not without reason that when Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky for the opera “The Queen of Spades” needed to choose several of the most melodious and at the same time typical lines from poems depicting Russian nature, he settled on “Evening” by Zhukovsky, a fragment of which sounds in the famous duet of Lisa and Polina:

It’s already evening... the edges of the clouds have darkened,

The last ray of dawn on the towers dies;

The last shining stream in the river

With the extinct sky it fades away.

But this harmony is possible only in dying, when “the last brilliant stream in the river with the extinct sky fades away.” This is the position of elegiac, contemplative romanticism, which is reflected in Zhukovsky’s poetry. Knowing about the contradictions and imperfections of the world around him, he does not complain, since the poet’s soul strives to see not only the real world, in which there is “an abyss of tears and suffering,” but rather an ideal, but it is beyond the boundaries of earthly existence.

The poet speaks about the futility of trying to find this sublime ideal on earth in the poem “The Sea,” which is all permeated with the motif of the contradiction between the ideal and reality, their incompatibility. It, like “Evening,” is full of romantic themes, images, moods, and motives. This is not just a seascape, although, when reading the poem, you vividly imagine the sea: it is either quiet, calm, the “azure sea”, or a terrible raging element that is immersed in darkness. But for a romantic, the natural world is also a mystery that he is trying to unravel. Is there such a secret in this poem by Zhukovsky? To answer this question, it is necessary to trace how the artistic images created here by the poet develop, how various motifs are intertwined.

First of all, what attracts attention is that the poet, while painting a seascape, constantly compares the natural and human worlds. To do this, he uses metaphors and personifications: “you are breathing,” “you are filled with anxious thoughts,” “full of your past anxiety,” “you have been raising frightened waves for a long time.” But this is not only an expression of human feelings and thoughts through a description of nature. This technique was used by many poets before Zhukovsky. The peculiarity of this poem is that it is not individual parts of the landscape that are animated, but the sea itself becomes a living being. It seems that the lyrical hero is talking to a thinking and feeling interlocutor, maybe with a friend, or maybe with some mysterious stranger.

Special mention should be made about the composition of Zhukovsky’s poem. This is a kind of lyrical plot that constitutes movement, the development of the state not so much of the lyrical hero himself or the nature that he observes, but of the soul of the sea. But can the sea element have a soul? Romantics have no doubt about this. After all, according to their ideas, it is in nature that the Divine dissolves; through communication with nature one can speak with God, penetrate into the mystery of existence, and come into contact with the World Soul. That is why in the works of the romantics that special lyrical symbolic landscape so often appears, which we see in Zhukovsky’s poem “The Sea”. Its peculiar plot can be divided into three parts. I will call them this: “The Silent Sea” - the first part; “Storm” - the second part; “Deceptive peace” - the third part.

The first part paints a beautiful picture of the “azure sea,” calm and silent. Epithets emphasize the purity of the sea, the light that permeates the entire picture. But this purity and clarity is inherent in the sea soul “in the pure presence” of the “distant bright sky”:

You are pure in his pure presence:

You flow with its luminous azure,

You burn with evening and morning light,

You caress his golden clouds

And you joyfully sparkle with its stars.

It is the “luminous azure” of the sky that gives the sea its amazing colors. The sky here is not just an element of air stretching over the abyss of the sea. This symbol is an expression of another world, divine, pure and beautiful. It is not for nothing that the poet selects epithets rich in Christian symbolism of the divine; azure, light, radiant. Endowed with the ability to capture even the most imperceptible shades, the lyrical hero of the poem, reflecting on the sea, realizes that some secret is hidden in it, which he is trying to comprehend:

Silent sea, azure sea,

Reveal to me your deep secret:

What moves your vast bosom?

What is your tense chest breathing?

Or pulls you from earthly bondage

Distant, bright sky to yourself?..

The second part of the poem lifts the veil over this secret. We see the soul of the sea revealed during a storm. It turns out that when the light of the sky disappears and the darkness thickens, the sea, immersed in darkness, begins to tear, beat, it is filled with anxiety and fear:

When the dark clouds gather,

To take away the clear sky from you -

You fight, you howl, you raise waves,

You tear and torment the hostile darkness...

Why is the sea so scary? After all, a storm is the same natural state of the sea element as peace. The words from Lermontov’s “Sails” come to mind:

And he, the rebellious one, asks for a storm,

As if there is peace in the storms.

Zhukovsky paints a picture of a storm with amazing skill. It seems that you can hear the roar of the oncoming waves. This effect is achieved through the use of a special technique - alliteration, that is, repetition of the same sounds in several words. Here it is alliteration into sibilants, moreover, supported by the rhythm of a dactylic line, imitating the movement of waves: “You fight, you howl, you raise waves, You tear and torment the hostile darkness.”

And yet this is not just a picture of a raging disaster. The soul of the sea is similar to the human soul, where darkness and light, good and evil, joy and sorrow are united. It also reaches out to everything bright - to the sky, to God. But, like everything on earth, the sea finds itself in captivity, which it is unable to overcome: “Or is it pulling you out of earthly captivity.” This is a very important idea for Zhukovsky. For the romantic poet, who believed in the “enchanted There,” that is, another world in which everything is beautiful, perfect and harmonious, the earth has always seemed to be a world of suffering, sorrow and sadness, where there is no place for perfection. “Ah, Genius does not live with us / pure beauty,” he wrote in one of his poems, depicting a Genius who visited the earth only for a moment and again rushed off into his beautiful, but inaccessible to earthly man, world.

It turns out that the sea, like man, suffers on earth, where everything is changeable and impermanent, full of losses and disappointments. Only there - in the sky - everything is eternal and beautiful. That is why the sea reaches there, as does the soul of the poet, striving to break earthly ties. The sea admires this distant, luminous sky, “trembles” for it, that is, it is afraid of losing it forever. But the sea is not allowed to connect with it.

This idea becomes clear only in the third part of the poem, where the “returned heavens” can no longer completely restore the picture of peace and serenity:

And the sweet shine of the returned skies

It doesn’t give you back silence at all;

Deceiving your immobility appearance:

You hide confusion in the dead abyss.

You, admiring the sky, tremble for it.

This is how the secret of the sea is revealed to the lyrical hero. Now we know why confusion is hidden in his “dead abyss”. But the poet’s confusion remains, facing the insoluble riddle of existence, the mystery of the universe. And can it be resolved? If necessary? But man is designed in such a way that again and again he asks himself the same questions, painfully trying to answer them.

In Russian poetry after Zhukovsky there will be many poems that paint pictures of the evening nature of the Central Russian strip, the vast sea in its vastness. They are all very different, because they are seen through the eyes of poets, each of whom has their own inner world, unique and inimitable, and therefore motives, their defining characteristics will be equally varied. But Zhukovsky’s discoveries will forever remain the golden fund of Russian poetry, and for each of us his poems are the path to understanding the world and ourselves.

V.A. Zhukovsky is one of the poets who discovered the world of romanticism in poetry, which came from Europe.

In his landscape lyrics, the poet, drawing nature, reflects in it the mood and feelings of the main lyrical character. His elegies are full of sadness and sad reflections...

This is more typical for the two poems “Evening” and “Sea”. His first elegy “Evening” becomes a special achievement in the field of poetic art.

In “Evening,” the poet’s very personality is clearly palpable: all his thoughts, aspirations, experiences.

Even in the nature around him, one can easily recognize the distinctive features of his native places. Also clearly visible is the motive of sadness about the departed, about the short time allotted to everyone.

A poem full of colorful epithets and metaphors, despite the imposed sadness, brings the state of mind into harmony. Russian evening nature surrounding the poet, the blow of a gentle wind, the fluttering of a weeping willow - all this makes the evening beautiful and unites Zhukovsky with nature.

The poem “The Sea” is a poem about the futility of attempts to achieve lofty ideals, the contradictions between cruel reality and a distant, intangible ideal. The peculiarity of the poem is that the sea is a living interlocutor, an almost tangible random passer-by. And the lyrical hero stands alone with the sea and talks with it.

The romantic hero, watching the sea, tries to discern its soul. Here it is, the beautiful azure sea, serene, divine... But then the sea breaks into a storm. It rushes about, tears like a wounded animal, roars...

What appears before us is not just a picture of a soulless element. The poet compares the sea with the human soul. A soul full of light and warmth, like a clean and calm surface of sea water, and a soul full of suffering and sadness, tormented by the waves of the soul like a raging storm.

The sea, like the human soul, is tied to earthly impermanent life, full of suffering, sadness and loss.

The secret of the lyrical hero and the sea is one for two. They both seek serenity and dream of finding long-awaited peace. But will this be given to them?