This is the first line from famous poem A.S. Pushkin "The Poet". Today we will talk about poets. The poem needs to be analyzed in detail; this is a very important text when the poet talks about the essence and source of poetic inspiration. Since I am not a humanist, due to my meager understanding, I will use an authoritative source and present it as best I can. So, the first part of the poem:
Doesn't require a poet yet
To the sacred sacrifice Apollo,
In the cares of the vain world
He is cowardly immersed;
Keeps him silent holy lyre;
The soul tastes a cold sleep,
And among the insignificant children of the world,
Perhaps he is the most insignificant of all
There are two things to note here. First, Pushkin says that a poet is a priest who makes sacrifices to Apollo. Moreover, he sacrifices himself. Apollo is the leader and patron of the Muses, who, according to ancient Greek mythology brought to him by his own aunts, in addition, Apollo is a healer god, a soothsayer, personifying the rational principle, as opposed to the sensual, emotional, Dionysian principle. Apollo and Dionysus symbolize the opposition of the heavenly and earthly principles, respectively. And Pushkin connects his poetic inspiration precisely with Apollo and the Muses:
...In those days in the mysterious valleys,
In the spring, when the swan calls,
Near the waters shining in silence,
The Muse began to appear to me.
The second thing is that while this channel between the poet and the divine principle is in closed state, then the poet is, as it were, not a poet, but the last among equals - “perhaps he is the most insignificant of all.” Therefore, those who like to throw mud at Pushkin’s life, he supposedly cheated on his wife, drank and partied, lost fortunes at cards, etc. and so on. I can only say one thing. Pushkin the poet is not identical to Pushkin the man. I will quote Alexander Sergeevich himself on this issue:
« We know Byron quite well. They saw him on the throne of glory, they saw him in torment great soul, seen in a coffin in the middle of a resurrected Greece. - You would like to see him on the ship. The crowd greedily reads confessions, notes, etc., because in their meanness they rejoice at the humiliation of the high, the weaknesses of the mighty. At the discovery of any abomination, she is delighted. He is small, like us, he is vile, like us! You are lying, scoundrels: he is both small and vile - not like you - differently.»
So the presence of this channel is a divine gift that distinguishes a poet from ordinary person. And when the channel opens, a miracle happens:
But only a divine verb
Touches sensitive ears,
The poet's soul will stir,
Like an awakened eagle.
He yearns for the amusements of the world,
Human rumors are shunned,
At the feet of the people's idol
Doesn't hang his proud head;
He runs, wild and harsh,
And full of sounds and confusion,
On the shores of desert waves,
In the noisy oak forests...
To put it roughly, we can say that Pushkin’s poet is a receiver tuned to the frequency of Apollo. And when the receiver catches the “divine verb” (what is called inspiration), it transforms it and produces poetry, that is, something expressed in human language and that's why understandable to people. And not just understandable, but evoking a lively response. At these moments, the poet does not notice or shuns everything earthly. In a certain sense, an analogy can be drawn between a poet and a prophet. Prophets also have the ability to capture messages from the divine and broadcast them to people:
We are tormented by spiritual thirst,
I dragged myself in the dark desert,
...
I lay like a corpse in the desert,
And God's voice called to me:
“Rise up, prophet, and see and listen,
Be fulfilled by my will,
And, bypassing the seas and lands,
Burn the hearts of people with the verb"
Since we are talking about Greek mythology, we need to say a few words about the ancient Greeks themselves. So that Pushkin's lines do not look like a metaphor or artistic image, divorced from reality. In Plato's dialogue Ion, Socrates says of poets that they are inspired by God:
« Here, in my opinion, God showed us everything more clearly than ever, so that we would not doubt that these beautiful creations are not human and do not belong to people, but that they are divine and belong to the gods, poets are nothing more than transmitters of the gods, each possessed by the god who will take possession of them. To prove this, God deliberately sang the most beautiful song through the lips of the weakest poet. Am I wrong in your opinion, Ion?»
Socrates himself, speaking in court before the Athenians who accused him of atheism, said that since childhood he heard a voice that gave him advice:
« In this case, it may seem strange that I give advice only privately, going around everyone and interfering in everything, but I do not dare to speak publicly in the assembly and give advice to the city. The reason here is what you have heard from me often and everywhere: something divine or demonic happens to me, which Melitus laughed at in his denunciation. It started for me in childhood: some kind of voice arises that every time deviates me from what I intend to do, but never persuades me to do anything. It is this voice that forbids me to study state affairs. And, in my opinion, he does a great job of forbidding. Rest assured, Athenians, that if I had tried to get involved in state affairs, I would have died long ago and would have brought no benefit either to myself or to you..»
and further: “ But why do some people like to spend a long time with me? You have already heard, Athenians - I told you the whole truth - that they like to listen to how I test those who consider themselves wise, although in fact they are not. It's very funny. And to do this, I repeat, is entrusted to me by God both in prophecies, and in dreams, and in general in all the ways in which the divine determination has ever been revealed and entrusted something to be fulfilled by a person.»
Socrates, while engaged in philosophy, thereby fulfills the divine will, in a sense, becoming like the Pushkin prophet - he burns with a verb. Not hearts, but minds, but that doesn’t matter: Socrates is the largest figure of antiquity. After the death sentence is pronounced, Socrates says, among other things:
« Something amazing happened to me, judges—I, in fairness, can call you judges. In fact, before, all the time, my usual prophetic voice was constantly heard by me and held me back even in unimportant cases, if I intended to do something wrong, but now, when, as you yourself see, something happened to me that everyone would recognize - and so it is considered - the worst misfortune, the divine sign did not stop me either in the morning when I left the house, or when I entered the courthouse, or during my entire speech, no matter what I was going to say. After all, before, when I said something, it often stopped me mid-sentence, but now, while the trial was going on, it never stopped me from a single action, not a single word. How should I understand this? I will tell you: perhaps all this happened for my good, and, apparently, the opinion of all those who think that death is evil is wrong. I now have great proof of this: it is impossible that a familiar sign would not stop me if I intended to do something bad.»
Socrates dies, seeing the divine will in the verdict. The authority of Socrates as a philosopher, and the authority of his student Plato, who wrote down the words of the teacher, is indisputable. It is unlikely that Socrates is telling a lie about the voice that accompanied him. Many cases of similar advice received by Socrates from his voice (daimon) are described. In some situations, having obeyed the voice, Socrates survived, unlike his comrades. Iamblichus states that Pythagoras also had the ability to hear the divine (music of the spheres):
« This man organized himself and prepared himself for the perception of not the kind of music that arises from playing strings or instruments, but, using some inexpressible and difficult to comprehend divine ability, he strained his hearing and focused his mind on the highest harmonies of the world order, listening attentively ( as it turned out, he alone possessed this ability) and perceiving the universal harmony of the spheres and the luminaries moving along them and their consonant singing (some kind of song, more full-voiced and soulful than the songs of mortals!), heard because the movement and circulation of the luminaries, composed from their noises, speeds, magnitudes, positions in the constellation, on the one hand, unequal and variously different from each other, on the other - ordered in relation to each other by a certain musical proportion, is carried out in the most melodious way and at the same time with a remarkably beautiful variety. (66) Feeding his mind from this source, he ordered the verb inherent in the mind, and, so to speak, for the sake of exercise, began to invent for his students some closest possible resemblances of all this, imitating the heavenly sound with the help of instruments or singing without musical accompaniment. For he believed that he alone, of all those living on earth, understood and heard cosmic sounds, and he considered himself capable of learning something from this natural universal source and root and teaching others, creating similarities through research and imitation celestial phenomena, since he alone was so happily created with the divine principle growing in him.»
It turns out that not only poets and prophets, but also philosophers have a connection with the divine. Pushkin’s words about the divine verb are not exclusively an artistic image or figure of speech. This is a tradition coming from antiquity. IN " Egyptian nights» Pushkin describes the moment of inspiration in more detail:
« But already the improviser felt the approach of God... His face turned terribly pale, he shook as if in a fever; his eyes sparkled with a wonderful fire; He lifted his black hair with his hand and wiped his tall forehead, covered with drops of sweat.».
And here, as if repeating the words from the letter to Vyazemsky, he narrates how the Italian improviser is petty and greedy in ordinary earthly life.
There are known examples when such inspiration was observed among generals - Publius Scipio Africanus and Joan of Arc. Leaving aside the hypothesis that these were forms mental disorder, it is safe to say that if it had been disorder alone, it is unlikely that Scipio or D'Arc would have been able to turn history around. And they obviously turned it around. As Appian, Polybius and other ancient authors testify, Scipio was repeatedly guided by divine revelations in battles and plans of operations. Modern people, armed scientific knowledge, such an approach may seem naive and even ridiculous, but the ancient Greeks, and even more so the Romans (who retained their piety and religiosity when fashionable atheism ruled everywhere in Greece) perceived such cases of divine intervention with reverence, and the lucky ones involved in the secret of communication with other worlds, respected and revered.
Returning to the poets, we can confidently say that poets (and not rhyme writers, coupletists and similar artisans) are in contact with Apollo and the Muses. Alexander Blok speaks about this especially clearly and in detail. He argued that poets draw inspiration from constant communication with “other worlds”. Talking about his wanderings through these worlds, he writes:
« The reality I described is the only one that for me gives meaning to life, the world and art. Either those worlds exist or they don't. For those who say “no,” we will remain simply “so-so decadents,” creators of unprecedented sensations... For myself personally, I can say that if I ever had, I have finally lost the desire to convince someone of the existence of that , what is further and higher than myself; I would dare to add, by the way, that I would humbly ask the most respected public not to waste time misunderstanding my poems, for my poems are only a detailed and consistent description of what I am talking about in this article»
Blok argues that poets are intermediaries between other worlds and our reality: “ We don’t yet have any other means other than art. Artists, like messengers of ancient tragedies, come from there to us, in a measured life, with the stamp of madness and fate on their faces»
What Pushkin speaks about allegorically, Blok describes in plain text as the reality given to him (and the poets in in a broad sense) in sensations. Novella Matveeva says approximately the same thing:
Matveeva is not Ancient Greece or Russian empire, where religiosity was normal. This is the USSR with its atheism and scientific communism. Poets come from SOMEWHERE, right? And they bring something with them, since they can update words and objects, and most importantly, they can solve the damned questions. Since we have quoted Pythagoras with his music of the spheres, I will give another quote from Blok:
« At the bottomless depths of the spirit, where a person ceases to be a person, at depths inaccessible to the state and society created by civilization - are rolling sound waves, wave-like ether that embraces the universe; there are rhythmic vibrations, similar to the processes that form mountains, winds, sea currents, Flora and fauna».
I repeat once again that it is a mistake to consider the sounds described by Blok as some kind of allegory. Blok says that a poet is not someone who writes poetry. On the contrary, he writes poetry precisely because he is a poet. A poet is one who joins the sound element of the universe. And in this sense, Scipio, Socrates, and Pythagoras were poets. The question of what kind of element this is and how to join it remains open...
Bobrovnikova T. A. “Scipio Africanus” Moscow 2009 Chapter 4, “The Chosen One of the Gods”
Pushkin A.S. "Eugene Onegin", chapter VIII
Pushkin A.S. Letter from P.A. Vyazemsky, second half of November 1825. From Mikhailovsky to Moscow
Pushkin A.S. "Prophet"
Plato "Apology of Socrates"
Iamblichus "Life of Pythagoras" chapter XV
Polybius "History" X, 2, 9
Protocols of the indictment of Joan of Arc (
There is not a single poet who would not think about the problem of the creator’s purpose, about his essence, his mission on this earth. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was no exception. In his work, a significant place is devoted to the theme of the poet and poetry. “Prophet”, “Echo”, “Monument” - only a small part of the whole variety of works that reflected this topic. In this article we will analyze the poem “The Poet”, where the author also spoke about the role of a person of art in the life of the whole world.
The poem was written in 1827, when the poet arrived in Mikhailovskoye, with whom A.S. Pushkin was tied up all his life mature life: here he was in exile, here he worked.
In 1826, Alexander Sergeevich’s exile in Mikhailovsky ended, but already in next year the poet himself comes here from St. Petersburg to take a break from the social bustle of the capital and engage in free creativity. During this period, he wrote a lot, conceived his first work in prose, “The Blackamoor of Peter the Great.” In the silence of the village, the poet’s muse woke up, soared, and the poem “The Poet” very accurately reflects such a fantastic awakening of the poet, when he turns from a persecuted layman into a Prophet.
Genre, size and direction
Genre work "Poet" - lyric poem. The work is written on behalf of the author, who talks about the features of such unusual people as creators. According to the author, outstanding person one may not be noticed in the crowd, but until the hand of Apollo touches him. When he plunges into the world of the muses, he is completely transformed. The world around him is changing.
The poem can be clearly divided into two parts: a person in the real world, the worldly world before he is touched by the “divine verb”; and a poet in the world of creativity, in the kingdom of the god of music and the arts. Means, this work can be attributed to romantic lyrics. One of characteristic features Romanticism is the principle of two worlds, which we observe in the poem “Poet”.
The size of the work is iambic tetrameter, with the help of which an even, smooth rhythm is created. The poem begins to be perceived as a parable. When you say the word “parable,” you immediately picture in your mind a gray-haired old man who calmly and measuredly tells about some beautiful and wise story. So it is here. Alexander Sergeevich created the atmosphere beautiful legend, which hypnotizes with its smoothness, immerses the reader after lyrical hero into the world of dreams and music.
The main characters and their characteristics
At the center of the poem is a poet who appears before readers in his two forms. At first he is pitiful and insignificant, he is part of the gray mass:
In the cares of the vain world
He is cowardly immersed;
But as soon as the “divine verb” touches the poet’s soul, he blossoms, he awakens from sleep. Now he does not want and cannot live as before, he is not ready to put up with a philistine existence, petty interests and material concerns are alien to him. If before he was the same, he was blind, now he has received his sight, he is suffocating in a world of self-interest and lies. He runs away from this vain world into freedom, space, freedom!
Topics and issues
- In his poem A.S. Pushkin touches on one of the the most important topics for the poet himself, this creativity theme, human transformation, which became possible thanks to art. Alexander Sergeevich shows how with one movement, one breath, a muse can change life.
- Moreover, the poet raises the problem of “blindness” of society. The first part of the work is dedicated to her. The world is indifferent, mercantile, insignificant. This is how a person with a sleeping soul acts, indifferent person. A poet cannot be like that, he reacts sharply to everything that happens around him, he sees the depravity of the people around him and cannot put up with it. And the world that seemed familiar opens up in a new, unsightly light.
Besides everything, A.S. Pushkin talks about the specifics of inspiration: the muse comes and leaves the poet, she is independent, she is willful.
Meaning
In the poem, as already mentioned, two parts are distinguished: a “blind” life with a sleeping soul and the destiny of a person who has received his sight, who does not hide behind everyday trifles from the meaninglessness of vegetation, who is ready to directly and boldly face all adversities. This is the ideal of personality; Pushkin glorifies it. the main idea The work lies not even in the fact that the author exalts his skill, but in the fact that any person can and should strive to become higher than everyday and everyday little things, which often replace all spiritual needs. We must not close our eyes, not reconcile ourselves with evil, but go against it, so that other people can see that we need to change the situation for the better.
Thus, the poet calls for indifference. The poet soared like an eagle as soon as he could hear the “divine verb.” The main thing is to be able to open your soul to this voice, which will reveal the world to you in all its manifestations.
Means of expression (tropes)
In the poem “Poet” by A.S. Pushkin uses such means of expression as metaphors (“his holy lyre is silent,” “the soul tastes a cold sleep”), which create a poetic image of something frightening. We see that the “holy lyre” is silent. When saints are silent, demons begin to rule. The soul not only sleeps, but actually “tastes,” which creates the impression of bourgeois satiety and idle well-being. She is satisfied with the comfort of her blind existence, aspirations and dreams are alien to her, powerful emotions and feelings.
The epithets used by the poet are interesting (“sacred sacrifice”, “vain light”, “cold sleep”, “divine verb”). They emphasize main principle constructing a poem. The work is built on an antithesis: the first part is vanity and darkness, the second is light, illumination.
Also, the author uses inversion at the beginning of the poem (“Until Apollo demands the poet / To the sacred sacrifice”), which already tells the reader that the author will tell us what happens to the poet in moments of inspiration. It also points to the temporary nature of the poet’s stay in this sleepy, dead state; we believe that sooner or later his soul will wake up.
Criticism
Destiny A.S. Pushkin was not simple: he most his conscious life spent in the links. And in this poem“Poet” Alexander Sergeevich wanted to express the thirst for freedom of creativity, to show that the poet is not his own master, he is at the mercy of creativity, muses, and art.
To A.S. Pushkin was treated differently: some admired him, others did not accept the poet’s fame on the scale that the former attributed to him. For example, he was bitterly criticized by Thaddeus Bulgarin, editor of the government magazine Northern Bee.
I would like to end with the words of the Russian poet and literary critic Apollo Aleksandrovich Grigoriev:
Interesting? Save it on your wall!The “poet” appeared, the great one appeared creative power, equal in makings to everything that was not only great, but even the greatest in the world: Homer, Dante, Shakespeare - Pushkin appeared...
This is the first line from the famous poem by A.S. Pushkin "The Poet". Today we will talk about poets. The poem needs to be analyzed in detail; this is a very important text when the poet talks about the essence and source of poetic inspiration. Since I am not a humanist, due to my meager understanding, I will use an authoritative source and present it as best I can. So, the first part of the poem:
Doesn't require a poet yet
To the sacred sacrifice Apollo,
In the cares of the vain world
He is cowardly immersed;
Keeps him silent holy lyre;
The soul tastes a cold sleep,
And among the insignificant children of the world,
Perhaps he is the most insignificant of all
There are two things to note here. First, Pushkin says that a poet is a priest who makes sacrifices to Apollo. Moreover, he sacrifices himself. Apollo is the leader and patron of the Muses, who, according to ancient Greek mythology, are brought to him by his own aunts; in addition, Apollo is a healer god, a soothsayer, personifying the rational principle, as opposed to the sensual, emotional, Dionysian principle. Apollo and Dionysus symbolize the opposition of the heavenly and earthly principles, respectively. And Pushkin connects his poetic inspiration precisely with Apollo and the Muses:
...In those days in the mysterious valleys,
In the spring, when the swan calls,
Near the waters shining in silence,
The Muse began to appear to me.
The second is that while this channel between the poet and the divine principle is in a closed state, then the poet is, as it were, not a poet, but the last among equals - “perhaps he is the most insignificant of all.” Therefore, those who like to throw mud at Pushkin’s life, he supposedly cheated on his wife, drank and partied, lost fortunes at cards, etc. and so on. I can only say one thing. Pushkin the poet is not identical to Pushkin the man. I will quote Alexander Sergeevich himself on this issue:
« We know Byron quite well. They saw him on the throne of glory, they saw him in the torments of a great soul, they saw him in the tomb in the middle of resurrecting Greece. - You would like to see him on the ship. The crowd greedily reads confessions, notes, etc., because in their meanness they rejoice at the humiliation of the high, the weaknesses of the mighty. At the discovery of any abomination, she is delighted. He is small, like us, he is vile, like us! You are lying, scoundrels: he is both small and vile - not like you - differently.»
So the presence of this channel is a divine gift that distinguishes a poet from an ordinary person. And when the channel opens, a miracle happens:
But only a divine verb
Touches sensitive ears,
The poet's soul will stir,
Like an awakened eagle.
He yearns for the amusements of the world,
Human rumors are shunned,
At the feet of the people's idol
Doesn't hang his proud head;
He runs, wild and harsh,
And full of sounds and confusion,
On the shores of desert waves,
In the noisy oak forests...
To put it roughly, we can say that Pushkin’s poet is a receiver tuned to the frequency of Apollo. And when the receiver catches the “divine verb” (what is called inspiration), it transforms it and produces poetry, that is, something expressed in human language and therefore understandable to people. And not just understandable, but evoking a lively response. At these moments, the poet does not notice or shuns everything earthly. In a certain sense, an analogy can be drawn between a poet and a prophet. Prophets also have the ability to capture messages from the divine and broadcast them to people:
We are tormented by spiritual thirst,
I dragged myself in the dark desert,
...
I lay like a corpse in the desert,
And God's voice called to me:
“Rise up, prophet, and see and listen,
Be fulfilled by my will,
And, bypassing the seas and lands,
Burn the hearts of people with the verb"
Since we are talking about Greek mythology, we need to say a few words about the ancient Greeks themselves. So that Pushkin's lines do not look like a metaphor or an artistic image, divorced from reality. In Plato's dialogue Ion, Socrates says of poets that they are inspired by God:
« Here, in my opinion, God showed us everything more clearly than ever, so that we would not doubt that these beautiful creations are not human and do not belong to people, but that they are divine and belong to the gods, poets are nothing more than transmitters of the gods, each possessed by the god who will take possession of them. To prove this, God deliberately sang the most beautiful song through the lips of the weakest poet. Am I wrong in your opinion, Ion?»
Socrates himself, speaking in court before the Athenians who accused him of atheism, said that since childhood he heard a voice that gave him advice:
« In this case, it may seem strange that I give advice only privately, going around everyone and interfering in everything, but I do not dare to speak publicly in the assembly and give advice to the city. The reason here is what you have heard from me often and everywhere: something divine or demonic happens to me, which Melitus laughed at in his denunciation. It started for me in childhood: some kind of voice arises that every time deviates me from what I intend to do, but never persuades me to do anything. It is this voice that forbids me to engage in government affairs. And, in my opinion, he does a great job of forbidding. Rest assured, Athenians, that if I had tried to get involved in state affairs, I would have died long ago and would have brought no benefit either to myself or to you..»
and further: “ But why do some people like to spend a long time with me? You have already heard, Athenians - I told you the whole truth - that they like to listen to how I test those who consider themselves wise, although in fact they are not. It's very funny. And to do this, I repeat, is entrusted to me by God both in prophecies, and in dreams, and in general in all the ways in which the divine determination has ever been revealed and entrusted something to be fulfilled by a person.»
Socrates, while engaged in philosophy, thereby fulfills the divine will, in a sense, becoming like the Pushkin prophet - he burns with a verb. Not hearts, but minds, but that doesn’t matter: Socrates is the largest figure of antiquity. After the death sentence is pronounced, Socrates says, among other things:
« Something amazing happened to me, judges—I, in fairness, can call you judges. In fact, before, all the time, my usual prophetic voice was constantly heard by me and held me back even in unimportant cases, if I intended to do something wrong, but now, when, as you yourself see, something happened to me that everyone would recognize - and so it is considered - the worst misfortune, the divine sign did not stop me either in the morning when I left the house, or when I entered the courthouse, or during my entire speech, no matter what I was going to say. After all, before, when I said something, it often stopped me mid-sentence, but now, while the trial was going on, it never stopped me from a single action, not a single word. How should I understand this? I will tell you: perhaps all this happened for my good, and, apparently, the opinion of all those who think that death is evil is wrong. I now have great proof of this: it is impossible that a familiar sign would not stop me if I intended to do something bad.»
Socrates dies, seeing the divine will in the verdict. The authority of Socrates as a philosopher, and the authority of his student Plato, who wrote down the words of the teacher, is indisputable. It is unlikely that Socrates is telling a lie about the voice that accompanied him. Many cases of similar advice received by Socrates from his voice (daimon) are described. In some situations, having obeyed the voice, Socrates survived, unlike his comrades. Iamblichus states that Pythagoras also had the ability to hear the divine (music of the spheres):
« This man organized himself and prepared himself for the perception of not the kind of music that arises from playing strings or instruments, but, using some inexpressible and difficult to comprehend divine ability, he strained his hearing and focused his mind on the highest harmonies of the world order, listening attentively ( as it turned out, he alone possessed this ability) and perceiving the universal harmony of the spheres and the luminaries moving along them and their consonant singing (some kind of song, more full-voiced and soulful than the songs of mortals!), heard because the movement and circulation of the luminaries, composed from their noises, speeds, magnitudes, positions in the constellation, on the one hand, unequal and variously different from each other, on the other - ordered in relation to each other by a certain musical proportion, is carried out in the most melodious way and at the same time with a remarkably beautiful variety. (66) Feeding his mind from this source, he ordered the verb inherent in the mind, and, so to speak, for the sake of exercise, began to invent for his students some closest possible resemblances of all this, imitating the heavenly sound with the help of instruments or singing without musical accompaniment. For he believed that he alone of all those living on earth understood and heard cosmic sounds, and he considered himself capable of learning something from this natural universal source and root and teaching others, creating, through research and imitation, similarities of celestial phenomena, since only he alone was so happily created with the divine principle growing within him.»
It turns out that not only poets and prophets, but also philosophers have a connection with the divine. Pushkin’s words about the divine verb are not exclusively an artistic image or figure of speech. This is a tradition coming from antiquity. In “Egyptian Nights” Pushkin describes the moment of inspiration in more detail:
« But already the improviser felt the approach of God... His face turned terribly pale, he shook as if in a fever; his eyes sparkled with a wonderful fire; He lifted his black hair with his hand and wiped his tall forehead, covered with drops of sweat.».
And here, as if repeating the words from the letter to Vyazemsky, he narrates how the Italian improviser is petty and greedy in ordinary earthly life.
There are known examples when such inspiration was observed among generals - Publius Scipio Africanus and Joan of Arc. Leaving aside the hypotheses that these were forms of mental disorder, we can confidently say that if it were only a disorder, it would hardly Scipio or D'Arc were able to turn history around. And they obviously turned it around. As Appian, Polybius and other ancient authors testify, Scipio was repeatedly guided by divine revelations in battles and plans of operations. To modern people, armed with scientific knowledge, such an approach may seem naive and even funny, but the ancient Greeks, and even more so the Romans (who retained their piety and religiosity when fashionable atheism ruled the roost everywhere in Greece) perceived such cases of divine intervention with reverence, and the lucky ones involved in the secret of communication with other worlds were respected and revered.
Returning to the poets, we can confidently say that poets (and not rhyme writers, coupletists and similar artisans) are in contact with Apollo and the Muses. Alexander Blok speaks about this especially clearly and in detail. He argued that poets draw inspiration from constant communication with “other worlds.” Talking about his wanderings through these worlds, he writes:
« The reality I described is the only one that for me gives meaning to life, the world and art. Either those worlds exist or they don't. For those who say “no,” we will remain simply “so-so decadents,” creators of unprecedented sensations... For myself personally, I can say that if I ever had, I have finally lost the desire to convince someone of the existence of that , what is further and higher than myself; I would dare to add, by the way, that I would humbly ask the most respected public not to waste time misunderstanding my poems, for my poems are only a detailed and consistent description of what I am talking about in this article»
Blok argues that poets are intermediaries between other worlds and our reality: “ We don’t yet have any other means other than art. Artists, like messengers of ancient tragedies, come from there to us, in a measured life, with the stamp of madness and fate on their faces»
What Pushkin speaks about allegorically, Blok describes in plain text as reality given to him (and poets in a broad sense) in sensations. Novella Matveeva says approximately the same thing:
Matveeva is not Ancient Greece or the Russian Empire, where religiosity was normal. This is the USSR with its atheism and scientific communism. Poets come from SOMEWHERE, right? And they bring something with them, since they can update words and objects, and most importantly, they can solve the damned questions. Since we have quoted Pythagoras with his music of the spheres, I will give another quote from Blok:
« At the bottomless depths of the spirit, where a person ceases to be a person, at depths inaccessible to the state and society created by civilization - sound waves roll, similar to the waves of ether that embrace the universe; there are rhythmic vibrations similar to the processes that form mountains, winds, sea currents, flora and fauna».
I repeat once again that it is a mistake to consider the sounds described by Blok as some kind of allegory. Blok says that a poet is not someone who writes poetry. On the contrary, he writes poetry precisely because he is a poet. A poet is one who joins the sound element of the universe. And in this sense, Scipio, Socrates, and Pythagoras were poets. The question of what kind of element this is and how to join it remains open...
Bobrovnikova T. A. “Scipio Africanus” Moscow 2009 Chapter 4, “The Chosen One of the Gods”
Pushkin A.S. "Eugene Onegin", chapter VIII
Pushkin A.S. Letter from P.A. Vyazemsky, second half of November 1825. From Mikhailovsky to Moscow
Pushkin A.S. "Prophet"
Plato "Apology of Socrates"
Iamblichus "Life of Pythagoras" chapter XV
Polybius "History" X, 2, 9
Protocols of the indictment of Joan of Arc (
Doesn't require a poet yet
To the sacred sacrifice Apollo,
In the cares of the vain world
He is cowardly immersed;
His holy lyre is silent;
The soul tastes a cold sleep,
And among the insignificant children of the world,
Perhaps he is the most insignificant of all.
But only a divine verb
It will touch sensitive ears,
The poet's soul will stir,
Like an awakened eagle.
He yearns for the amusements of the world,
Human rumors are shunned,
At the feet of the people's idol
Doesn't hang his proud head;
He runs, wild and harsh,
And full of sounds and confusion,
On the shores of desert waves,
In the noisy oak forests...
Analysis of the poem “Poet” by Pushkin
Throughout his life, A. S. Pushkin was interested in the topic of the purpose and meaning of the poet’s activity. He devoted more than one poem to this issue. In 1827, Pushkin again returned to this topic in his work “The Poet”. It is traditionally believed that the immediate reason for writing was the poet’s visit to Mikhailovskoye. Noisy social life In Moscow, Pushkin exchanged for rural solitude, immediately feeling a powerful surge of inspiration.
The work does not contain Pushkin’s traditional calls to fulfill civic duty and pompous words about great mission poet. He's just thinking about various states creative person. Accordingly, the poem is clearly divided into two parts.
The first part describes the poet in a state of mental peace. Until he felt the divine touch of the Muse, secular laws ruled over him. The poet is “cravenly immersed” in the traditional entertainment of his society: balls and masquerades. Pushkin is quite self-critical in assessing this state. He believes that during this period the poet is “the most insignificant of all,” since he was born for something completely different. By becoming like the empty people around him, the poet goes against his nature.
The second part is devoted to the poet’s transformation under the influence of the “divine verb” he heard, symbolizing inspiration. It completely embraces the poet’s soul, turning it into an “awakened eagle.” Secular entertainments instantly become useless vanity for him. He rises above the crowd, looking indifferently at the “people's idol” revered by everyone. Contempt for stupid society forces the poet to seek solitude in wild and deserted places. In the lap of virgin nature, he can calmly pick up his “holy lyre” and express the creative ideas overwhelming him in words and sounds.
Despite the criticism calm state poet, Pushkin admits that inspiration cannot be caused artificially. The “Divine verb” visits a person arbitrarily; it can happen at any moment. The poet can only not miss this state of mind. Trying to stifle your inspiration will be a real crime.
It is worth noting that the poem “Poet” very accurately conveys the feature creative activity Pushkin. During periods when the poet was in secular society, he was more interested in having fun and courting women. Creative activity Pushkin fell significantly. Moving to the village (suffice it to mention the famous Boldino autumns), great poet created his best works with incredible speed.