"You have been corrupted by autocracy..." The experience of reading one poem by F. I. Tyutchev"
Vladimir VOROPAYEV, doctor philological sciences, professor at Moscow State University
("Literary Russia" No. 38 dated September 17, 2004)
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Decembrists - historical accident, overgrown with literature.
V. O. Klyuchevsky
We will talk about F. I. Tyutchev’s poem “December 14, 1825” (“You have been corrupted by Autocracy...”), which was not published during the poet’s lifetime. It was first published in 1881 in the Russian Archive magazine. On the autograph stored in the Russian state archive literature and art (Moscow), in the right top corner The pagination “9”, made in blue pencil by the hand of Prince Ivan Sergeevich Gagarin, has been crossed out. On the back of the sheet is the autograph of the poem "Evening" with the same pagination - "10". The notes of Prince Gagarin, a famous political emigrant, an old acquaintance of Tyutchev, clarify creative history poem "December 14, 1825". For a long time his autograph, along with other manuscripts of the poet, was in his possession, and then was given to Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov. This follows from their correspondence, published in Tyutchev’s volume of Literary Heritage.
On November 14/26, 1874, Prince Gagarin wrote to Ivan Aksakov from Paris: “I value Tyutchev’s manuscripts very much and probably would not give them up to anyone. I cannot refuse you - you have them more rights, rather than me, their place is in Moscow, in your hands, rather than in Paris in mine. In addition, I am very pleased to fulfill the wish of my respected opponent, the publisher of Den and Moscow. Consequently, all of Tyutchev’s poems, written by his hand, and stored with me, belong to you.”
In a reply letter dated November 24/December 6, 1874, Aksakov thanks the prince from the bottom of his heart for his promise to give him the manuscript of Tyutchev’s poems: “I see that the interests of Russian literature are still dear to you, that the Russian feeling is alive in you, that, placed by personal fate outside native land, you have not broken your spiritual connection with her." Here Aksakov also speaks about the poem "December 14, 1825": "Of the two poems you sent, one, I believe, refers to the Decembrists ("You were corrupted by autocracy..."), became be: written in 1826, when he was 23 years old. It is harsh in its judgment. Neither Pushkin, nor anyone at that time, for fear of being branded as illiberal, would have dared to express such an independent opinion - and completely sincere, alien to any calculations, because until now, except for you, it has not been communicated to anyone for almost fifty years.”
So, the poem dates from the second half of 1826. The reason for its writing was the publication of the verdict in the Decembrist case. Here it is.
Autocracy has corrupted you,
And his sword struck you, -
And in incorruptible impartiality
This sentence was sealed by the Law.
The people, shunning treachery,
Blasphemes your names -
And your memory for posterity,
Like a corpse in the ground, buried.
O victims of reckless thought,
Maybe you hoped
That your blood will become scarce,
To melt the eternal pole!
Barely, smoking, she sparkled
On a century-old the vastness of the ice,
The iron winter has died -
And there were no traces left.
Commentators on the poem are unanimous in their understanding of its meaning. K.V. Pigarev writes: “It would seem that Tyutchev is entirely on the side of the government: for the poet the Decembrists are “victims of reckless thought” who dared to encroach on the historically established system. However, for what happened, Tyutchev blames not only the Decembrists, but also arbitrariness “autocracy.” And for the system itself, he found no other poetic images except the “eternal pole,” the “centuries-old mass of ice,” and the “iron winter.”
V.V. Kozhinov interprets the poem in the same vein: “At first glance, it may seem that Tyutchev is here “condemning” the Decembrists. In fact, his position is complex and multi-valued. Already in the first line, the historical “blame” is placed on “Amocracy” ", which in the final stanza appears in extremely gloomy tones: "eternal pole", "centuries-old mass of ice", "iron winter". Tyutchev speaks of the deliberate doom of the Decembrists - and in this he is historically right: the uprising narrow circle noble revolutionaries were doomed to defeat. He is just as right when he speaks of the complete isolation of the Decembrists from the people... But Tyutchev was decisively mistaken in one thing: he believed that “posterity” would forget the Decembrists, but in reality they became an example for subsequent generations of revolutionaries. In wonderful last lines the poet captured the selfless, “reckless” heroism of the Decembrists, who gave their “scanty blood”, which “smoking... sparkled on the centuries-old mass of ice.”
In essence, the meaning of the poem is interpreted in exactly the same way in the new Full meeting works and letters of Tyutchev. V. N. Kasatkina’s commentary notes “the duality of the author’s position in relation to the Decembrists”: “Autocracy” is a corrupting force, it is an “eternal pole”, “a century-old mass of ice”, but the efforts of the figures of December 14 are fruitless and historically unpromising because of their small numbers (“scanty blood”) and ethical impermissibility (“treachery”), the poet appeals to the objectivity (“incorruptibility”) of the law.”
It is not difficult to notice that in such interpretations of the poem, “autocracy” (or the arbitrariness of autocracy, which is the same thing) is identical to the historically established system, in other words, autocracy. At the same time, it remains unclear how Tyutchev, a convinced monarchist, opponent of all revolutions, could lay at least part of the blame on the autocracy and sympathize with the December rebellion. Political Views the poet is well known. As the same Ivan Aksakov testified, autocracy was recognized by Tyutchev as “that national uniform rule, outside of which Russia cannot yet imagine any other without leaving the national historical form, without a final, disastrous break between society and the people."
A. L. Ospovat, who dedicated a special article to the poem “December 14, 1825,” seems to make an important clarification: “You were corrupted by Autocracy...” is by no means equivalent to the judgment: “You were provoked into rebellion by Autocracy.” According to the researcher, the “political enemy” of the Decembrists and Tyutchev is “not autocracy as such, but “autocracy,” that is, despotism.”
However, such a clarification does not bring anything new to the understanding of the meaning of the poem. The “corrupting” autocracy (the arbitrariness of the autocracy) prompted the Decembrists to revolt. And the “sword” of this autocracy struck the rebels. The same “ambivalence” remains in Tyutchev’s attitude towards the Decembrists. I. Nepomnyashchiy in a recent work devoted to literary sources poem, comes to the conclusion: “The historical thinker, Tyutchev, while agreeing with the Decembrist criticism of autocratic-serfdom reality, cannot agree with those lawless means of change political system which the conspirators chose."
Meanwhile, for the poet’s contemporaries, the meaning of the poem did not contain any duality. According to Ivan Aksakov, “it is harsh in its verdict.” The memory of the Decembrists is “buried like a corpse in the ground.” We still do not know the exact burial place of the executed Decembrists. The publisher of the “Russian Archive” Pyotr Bartenev noted: “... in Yaroslavl the people threw frozen mud at the Decembrists, which gave F. I. Tyutchev the opportunity to write the poem: “The people, shunning treachery, vilify your names.”
It seems that the main idea The poem is contained in its first line, more precisely, in the word “autocracy”. In modern academic dictionary Russian language gives two meanings of this word: 1. “sole, Not limited power(ruler, sovereign), as well as the system government controlled, based on such power; autocracy." 2. "the tendency to rule, to command, to subordinate everything to one's will, lust for power, imperiousness." Approximately the same was understood given word and in the era of Tyutchev. Let's take, for example, the dictionary of Pushkin's language. It is noted there: “Autocracy is unlimited power, despotism.” As an example of such word usage, the famous lines from the poem “To Chaadaev” (1818) are given:
Comrade, believe: she will rise,
Star of captivating happiness,
Russia will wake up from sleep
And on the ruins of autocracy
They will write our names!
IN in this case the word "autocracy" is close in meaning to the concept of "autocracy". But in the ode “Liberty” (1817), Pushkin speaks not about autocracy, but precisely about autocracy (despotism), the personification of which is Napoleon.
Autocratic Villain!
I hate you, your throne,
Your death, the death of children
I see it with cruel joy.
As is known, Pushkin had a negative attitude towards the French Revolution (see the elegy “Andrei Chenier”), as well as towards rebellion in general (“God forbid that we see a Russian revolt, senseless and merciless”). According to the poet, power should be based on the Law.
Lords! You have a crown and a throne
The Law gives, not nature;
You stand above the people,
But the eternal Law is above you.
The king, the monarch, must first bow before the eternal Law, have humility before the Providence of God. If he becomes an autocratic tyrant, then he violates the legality of his autocracy, blessed by God at his coronation. This brings trouble to those over whom he is placed, and to himself. He becomes a victim of an uprising, a conspiracy.
And learn today, O kings:
No punishment, no reward,
Neither the shelter of dungeons, nor altars
The fences are not right for you.
Bow your heads first
Under the safe canopy of the Law,
And they will become eternal guardians of the throne
Freedom and peace for the people.
Pushkin, even in his early “freedom-loving” lyrics (paying tribute to his time) had very moderate views. There is nothing revolutionary or seditious in the ode “Liberty”. Emperor Alexander I himself expressed similar thoughts. The question, however, is how to understand the Law. The Age of Enlightenment introduced the idea of law as separate from God's purpose. This is the Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. According to the French enlightenment philosopher, people enter into an agreement among themselves and obey it. And everything seemed to be fine. Such a materialistic understanding of the law is unacceptable for a Russian person who has an Orthodox dispensation of soul. The law is only firm and unshakable when it is established from above, not by people. Then there is no danger in obeying such a law and the monarch. For in this law he submits to God's will. On the other side, French revolution showed how vulnerable is the social contract created by people intoxicated with autocracy, seeking to subjugate others to their will.
This understanding of “autocracy” is confirmed in Pushkin’s poem “Anchar” (1828). Anchar is a tree of poison, a source of death, a curse of nature.
Nature of thirsty steppes
She gave birth to him on the day of wrath,
And green dead branches
And she gave the roots poison.
But the tree itself cannot be accused of bringing evil. This was allowed by the Creator of nature. Anchar does not threaten anyone but a person with trouble:
Not even a bird flies to him,
And the tiger is missing...
Man is a being, although created by God, but endowed with autocracy, that is, free will. I. I. Sreznevsky in the dictionary Old Russian language indicates: "Autocracy - free will". In Orthodox asceticism, "autocracy" is understood human as a rational being, the ability to consciously choose between good and evil. If he still has power over other people, he does not always pass this test with honor.
Human man
Sent to the anchor with an imperious glance,
And he obediently went on his way
And in the morning he returned with poison.
And the king fed that poison
Your obedient arrows
And with them he sent death
To neighbors in alien borders.
In the draft, Pushkin’s thought is expressed even more clearly: “He sent it to the anchar autocratically.” The source of evil is the autocratic will of man. The Pushkin Dictionary of Language notes: “Absolutely - at personal discretion, arbitrariness, without permission.” In Pushkin, not only the tsar, but also the robber can act autocratically. The dictionary gives an example of such word usage from " The captain's daughter": "Gangs of robbers committed crimes everywhere; the commanders of individual detachments autocratically punished and pardoned..."
In this - Pushkin's - context, it seems to us that the meaning of the poem "December 14, 1825" should be understood. Tyutchev’s article “Russia and the Revolution,” written in French and first published in Paris in 1849, helps clarify it. Here, in particular, it says: “The human self, wanting to depend only on itself, not recognizing or accepting any other law than its own will, in a word, the human self, replacing God, of course, is not something new among people ; the autocracy of the human self, elevated to political and public law and striving with its help to take over society. This innovation received the name of the French Revolution in 1789."
The same thought is heard in Tyutchev’s poem “Napoleon”:
Son of the Revolution, you are with a terrible mother
He bravely entered the battle - and was exhausted in the struggle...
Your autocratic genius did not overcome her!..
The fight is impossible, the work is in vain!..
You carried it all within yourself...
Thus, Tyutchev is trying to determine the spiritual causes of the revolution. Its idea is “the autocracy of the human self, elevated to political and social law.” It is in this sense that the word “autocracy” is used in the poem “December 14, 1825.” Ivan Aksakov, who knew Tyutchev closely and wrote his biography, noted that “in his writings from the very early years remarkable independence and unity of thought were expressed." Corrupted by the "arbitrary power of the human self" ("You have been corrupted by Autocracy..."), the Decembrists bore punishment within themselves ("And his sword struck you..."). According to Tyutchev, the cause of the rebellion and The death of the Decembrists in relation to them was not external - autocracy (autocracy), but internal - the desire to assert the power of one’s own “I”.
Tyutchev’s “autocracy” is largely understood as “arbitrary power” - the desire to rule. Here again it is appropriate to recall Pushkin:
Lord of my days! sad spirit of idleness,
Lust of power, this hidden serpent,
And do not give idle talk to my soul
(“Desert fathers and blameless wives...”, 1836).
In Pushkin's dictionary of language, only one meaning of the word “lust of power” is given - “lust for power, the desire to rule over others.” But the passion of covetousness is diverse. This is not only lust for power, but also exaltation and pride. It (covetousness) directly contradicts the Gospel commandment: “Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant; and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave” (Matthew 20:26-27). Adam and Eve's violation of God's prohibition was not simply disobedience. “And you will be like gods,” the serpent told them in temptation (Gen. 3:5). This is where the source of the autocracy of the rebel Decembrists lies.
As for the second stanza of the poem, its images - “the eternal pole”, “the centuries-old mass of ice”, “iron winter” - are associated with the symbolism of Russian statehood. On the contrary, the melting of snow and ice symbolized revolution in that era. According to Tyutchev, the Decembrists encroached on the fundamental laws of Russian life, on which rested Russian empire, and therefore their reckless rebellion was doomed: “And not a trace remained.”
In the poem “December 14, 1825,” Tyutchev depicts the Decembrist uprising as not accepted by the people (“The people, shunning treachery, Blame your names”) and by history, a sacrifice, a feat unworthy of the name heroic, doomed to oblivion, a consequence of blindness, a fatal delusion. Tyutchev condemns the Decembrists, but the condemnation contained in his poem is ambiguous and not absolute.
Sweeping aside their ideals, their political doctrines as unrealizable, utopian, he portrays them as victims of enthusiasm and dreams of liberation. It is in this poem that Tyutchev creates a generalized image of the feudal monarchy of Russia as an “eternal pole”, permeated with the iron breath of the night - an image that anticipates the symbolic picture of the post-December reaction given by Herzen (“On the development of revolutionary ideas in Russia”).
The stanza that ends “December 14th, 1825” is ambiguous, like the rest of the poem. Warm blood, smoking and freezing in the iron wind, is an image expressing the human defenselessness of the victims of despotism and the cruelty of the force against which they rebelled. Researcher of Tyutchev’s work N.V. Koroleva notes that the image of blood in the poet’s poems always has a high and tragic meaning.
At the same time, the last verse of this work - “And no traces remained” - gives reason to bring “December 14, 1825” closer to Tyutchev’s lyrics of the 40-50s. , in which the theme of unclear tragedy, everyday existence “without joy and without tears,” “silent”, traceless death becomes one of the leading ones.
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It is important that our students understand: a metaphor or comparison is not just a decoration for a poem, only after perceiving and comprehending everything language features poetic work, we will come closer to understanding it. Now, it seems, no one disputes this. And yet, a well-known literary critic can write in his article: “It seems that the main idea of the poem is contained in its first line.” It's about about one poem by Tyutchev.
Let us use his example to see how tropes can actually influence the meaning of a poetic statement.
Autocracy has corrupted you,
And his sword struck you down,
And in incorruptible impartiality
The law sealed this verdict.
The people, shunning treachery,
Blasphemes your names -
And your memory from posterity,
Like a corpse in the ground, buried.
O victims of reckless thought,
Maybe you hoped
That your blood will become scarce,
To melt the eternal pole.
Barely smoking, she sparkled
On the centuries-old mass of ice,
The iron winter has died -
And there were no traces left.
Tyutchev’s poem is addressed to participants in the 1825 uprising and was written immediately after the Decembrists were sentenced - in 1826. This is a sample civil lyrics, with a solemn oratorical intonation, with a clearly formulated position. The first line can be understood in different ways: it is unclear how guilty autocracy what happened most likely means that it was lenient towards the conspirators for too long and did not take decisive measures. But otherwise the assessment contained in the first eight-line is obvious: the participants uprisings corrupted their behavior named treachery, they are convicted and supreme power, and the law that made the conclusion in incorruptible impartiality, that is, objectively and fairly, and by the people who vilifies names traitors, recoiled from them. (Note that this poem shows the agreement of three forces, the ideal hierarchy of which is indicated in Pushkin’s ode “Liberty”:
Lords! You have a crown and a throne
The Law gives, not nature.
You stand above the people,
But the eternal Law is above you.)
Except for the words autocracy And law, which can be perceived as traditional for political lyrics of this era of personification or metonymy (autocracy as a method of government = king, law = statesmen, lawyers), there are only two tropes in the eight-line. This is a familiar metaphor for state punishment the sword... struck and a final comparison: descendants will not know about the rebels, the memory of them, buried like a corpse in the ground.
At a quick glance, the second eight-line repeats what was said in the first. No new heroes and events appeared - in the center of the second part is power and those to whom the poem is addressed, the unconditional victory of power is shown. You can write the correspondences:
you - you, victims of reckless thoughts;
autocracy is the eternal pole, the age-old mass of ice, the iron winter;
his sword<самовластья>struck - the iron winter died;
memory... like a corpse in the ground, buried - there are no traces left.
It turns out that the entire poem ends with the same thought as the first part. Why was the second written, what is new in it? The answer is revealed by the same table of correspondences: the same thing is said differently, which means something else is said.
Only the first lines are written in the usual manner - addressing with a solemn “O”, abstract vocabulary. But already here we are talking about the feelings of the conspirators - they hoped that is, they hoped, - and the word sounded victims, whose emotional strength will be supported by words blood. They were ready to shed their blood to achieve their goal. And then the unequal duel between victims and power is conveyed by a grandiose metaphor of confrontation: on the one hand, something huge, cold ( eternal pole, perhaps reminiscent of permafrost), existing for centuries and unshakable, and in the penultimate line it is also monstrous, fantastic ( iron winter), scary, capable die and destroy, on the other hand, small ( meager blood), warm, steaming, light ( sparkled), probably bright, red. There is no direct assessment in the second part, except for the epithet reckless.
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F.I. Tyutchev. Unknown artist.
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Reason, indeed, should have stopped the hopeless enterprise. Impartiality and objectivity, calm and measuredness (two lines each about power, law, people and memory, two equal-sized compound sentences) reign in the first half of the poem. But is it natural for a person to always be on the side of sober reason and condemn those who enter into an unequal and hopeless battle?
In the second part, the same story is told as if from the inside - we learn about the hopes and sacrifices of the conspirators, and the last quatrain contains not a logical conclusion, but a very vivid visual image, which contradicts what was said in the first part: it causes powerful emotions and makes the reader experience what is described as a tragedy. At the end of the poem, shock and grief sound, and not the triumph of justice. This is exactly how the poem is perceived, despite the fact that we know political views F.I. Tyutchev would be more accurately expressed if it consisted only of the first eight lines.
However, the presence of comparisons, metaphors, and metonymies is not at all necessary for a real poem. Here are the poems of our contemporary Igor Kholin.
Today is Saturday,
Today's salary
They'll get drunk today
The guys are in the barracks.
Today is Saturday,
Today, however,
Guys don't drink
They don't hang out in the barracks.
The guys are making noise
At the gates of the plant -
Today again
Salaries were delayed.
This poem is written without a single trope, and only in unpoetic, demonstratively “prosaic” words, moreover, these words are few, the same ones are repeated several times. The poem has 12 lines, 2 significant words in each, a total of 23 (“however” we will not count), and at the same time the time of action is indicated 6 times – “today”, 2 times – “Saturday”, the characters are called “guys” three times, the barracks are mentioned twice; there is no evaluative or emotional word, not a single adjective - there is an obvious poverty of vocabulary. And this unusual poverty itself becomes a very powerful poetic device - it allows you to feel the hopelessness of the wretched life of the “guys”, flowing between the barracks and the plant - a life, the main event of which is the weekly salary followed by revelry or discontent, “clamor” when this salary is delayed . The feeling of monotony is reinforced by the sound - in all rhyming words there is a stressed [a] and one or two more unstressed ones: salary, guys, however, in the barracks, plant, salary; let's also note the words they're making noise And again.
But not everything is so poor in the poem. The intonations are rich and varied - in the first stanza with expressive anaphora (triple “today”) - either a festive expectation, or a dejected statement of the inevitable; in the second stanza there is an intriguing change: exactly in the middle of the poem there is “however”, and only in the last line of the third stanza does an explanation appear. The two halves of the poem are also contrasted rhythmically. In the first half, complete balance reigns - each line contains two three-syllable words with the emphasis on the second; every word is an amphibrachic foot. In the second, as if emphasizing the violation of the order of the children’s lives, the rhythmic order is also disrupted, a regular shift appears: odd lines end stressed syllable (drinking, making noise, again), and an unstressed syllable is added to the beginnings of even numbers.
Let's continue observing the rhythm. Since only odd lines rhyme, the quatrains can be perceived by ear as couplets written in amphibrach tetrameter. This meter evokes memories of a ballad, a poem with a plot and mystery (let us recall, for example, Goethe’s “The Forest King” in Zhukovsky’s translation: Who gallops, who rushes under the cold mist?// A belated rider, with him a young son– or Ryleev’s Duma “Ivan Susanin”: “Where have you taken us? You can’t see a thing!”) (“The meter of a poem,” wrote M.L. Gasparov, “carries... a semantic load bequeathed by other poems of other poets and eras”).
It turns out that the rhythm and intonation set the expectation of something significant and mysterious, but insignificant content is embedded in this form. “This is what intrigue, mystery, poetry is like for people from the barracks...” these poems seem to be telling us, either funny or hopelessly bitter.
As we have seen, no last role In understanding the poem, attention to poetic meter plays a role.
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To practice distinguishing poetic meters and moving from one to another, we use couplets composed specifically for this occasion. Let students will check, whether each of them is really written in the size that is named in it, and by adding, replacing or subtracting words, the “mistakes” will be corrected. There are four options for the task here.
Find couplets with errors in meter and correct them.
If only everyone wrote iambics,
There would be fewer holes in the garden.
I am writing in amphibrachium. Scary.
Anapest can be very different:
Who studies geography?
Who composes amphibrachs?
Dactyls spin in a waltz,
The songs touch the soul.
I'll write a letter in trochee,
May it arrive sooner.
If only everyone would write iambics,
I write in amphibrachium. Scary.
But I rush into hand-to-hand combat.
Anapest can be very different:
Either sad or somehow impudent.
One to study geography,
Others can compose amphibrachs.
Dactyls spin in a waltz,
The songs touch the soul.
I'll write a letter in trochee,
May it arrive sooner.
If only everyone would write iambics,
There would be fewer holes in the garden.
I am writing in amphibrachium. Scary.
I rush into hand-to-hand combat.
Who studies geography?
Who composes amphibrachs?
Dactyls spin in a waltz,
The songs touch the soul.
I will write a letter in trochee,
Then it will arrive sooner.
If only everyone wrote iambics,
There would be fewer holes in the garden.
I am writing in amphibrachium. Scary.
I rush into hand-to-hand combat.
Yes, anapest can be very different:
Either he is sad or somehow impudent.
Who studies geography?
Who composes amphibrachs?
And the dactyls are spinning in a waltz
And the song fills the soul.
I'll write a letter in trochee,
May it arrive sooner.
ON THE. SHAPIRO,
Moscow
Tyutchev's significant response to fatal moments history became the poem “December 14, 1825,” which we will analyze. It was created in 1826. As the title indicates, the poet dedicated it to the Decembrist uprising.
The position taken by Tyutchev is very indicative of the early period of his work. Let us remember how, in his message to Siberia, Pushkin highly appreciated the feat of prisoners of convict holes, supporting them with his love, friendship and faith in the immortality of their cause. Herzen will speak of the “firstborn of freedom” as a phalanx of heroes who shocked Russia with their feat of self-sacrifice. Tyutchev approached the assessment of the event, which had fatal consequences, in his own way. The poet does not accept the tactics of the Decembrists and assesses their performance as recklessness. He is convinced that members secret societies became “the victim of a reckless thought” that they went against the “incorruptible law.” The death of people on December 14, 1825, according to Tyutchev, is pointless; their “meager” blood will not leave its traces. “The people, shunning treachery, // vilify your names,” the poet declares condemningly. “And your memory for posterity, // Like a corpse in the ground, is buried.”
But at the same time with this assessment, the poem characterizes the other side of the historical conflict. The first verse talks about Autocracy, which in the language of that era meant “autocracy.” It was this, according to the poet’s conviction, that with its arbitrariness “corrupted” its citizens, and therefore the Decembrists, and became the culprit of the uprising, provoking it. It brought its sword down on the heads of its victims. Tyutchev also speaks courageously about the fact that Autocracy tried to erase the memory of the Decembrists from posterity, burying it like a corpse in the ground. Even the burial place of the brave men, the poet hints, remained unknown to people.
The condemnation of the authorities becomes even sharper in the second stanza of the analyzed poem. Autocracy is metaphorically defined here as an “eternal pole” that cannot be melted, like a “centuries-old mass of ice,” like an “iron winter.” All these paraphrases emphasize the icy coldness, which is contrasted with the warmth of the steaming blood of the heroes of the work. The epithet “iron” evokes associations with similar definitions in civic poetry that era where it was applied to power, its reins, law and age. As we see, the poet’s position is distinguished by its inconsistency, and the poem “December 14, 1825,” the analysis of which interests us, is distinguished by obvious duality and sometimes ambiguity. But it is absolutely clear that a constant monarchist, like Tyutchev, does not accept the idea of a violent overthrow of the autocracy and does not consider the performance of enemies of the throne to be a feat. Probably, feeling the ambiguity and some vagueness of his assessments, Tyutchev did not consider it possible to publish this poem. It will be published only after the poet’s death, in 1881.
Great ones about poetry:
Poetry is like painting: some works will captivate you more if you look at them closely, and others if you move further away.
Small cutesy poems irritate the nerves more than the creaking of unoiled wheels.
The most valuable thing in life and in poetry is what has gone wrong.
Marina Tsvetaeva
Of all the arts, poetry is the most susceptible to the temptation to replace its own peculiar beauty with stolen splendors.
Humboldt V.
Poems are successful if they are created with spiritual clarity.
The writing of poetry is closer to worship than is usually believed.
If only you knew from what rubbish poems grow without knowing shame... Like a dandelion on a fence, like burdocks and quinoa.
A. A. Akhmatova
Poetry is not only in verses: it is poured out everywhere, it is all around us. Look at these trees, at this sky - beauty and life emanate from everywhere, and where there is beauty and life, there is poetry.
I. S. Turgenev
For many people, writing poetry is a growing pain of the mind.
G. Lichtenberg
A beautiful verse is like a bow drawn through the sonorous fibers of our being. The poet makes our thoughts sing within us, not our own. By telling us about the woman he loves, he delightfully awakens in our souls our love and our sorrow. He's a magician. By understanding him, we become poets like him.
Where graceful poetry flows, there is no room for vanity.
Murasaki Shikibu
I turn to Russian versification. I think that over time we will turn to blank verse. There are too few rhymes in the Russian language. One calls the other. The flame inevitably drags the stone behind it. It is through feeling that art certainly emerges. Who is not tired of love and blood, difficult and wonderful, faithful and hypocritical, and so on.
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin
-...Are your poems good, tell me yourself?
- Monstrous! – Ivan suddenly said boldly and frankly.
- Do not write anymore! – the newcomer asked pleadingly.
- I promise and swear! - Ivan said solemnly...
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov. "Master and Margarita"
We all write poetry; poets differ from others only in that they write in their words.
John Fowles. "The French Lieutenant's Mistress"
Every poem is a veil stretched over the edges of a few words. These words shine like stars, and because of them the poem exists.
Alexander Alexandrovich Blok
Ancient poets, unlike modern ones, rarely wrote more than a dozen poems during their long lives. This is understandable: they were all excellent magicians and did not like to waste themselves on trifles. Therefore, behind each poetic work of those times, a whole Universe was certainly hidden, filled with miracles - often dangerous for those who carelessly awaken the dozing lines.
Max Fry. "Chatty Dead"
I gave one of my clumsy hippopotamuses this heavenly tail:...
Mayakovsky! Your poems do not warm, do not excite, do not infect!
- My poems are not a stove, not a sea, and not a plague!
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky
Poems are our inner music, clothed in words, permeated with thin strings of meanings and dreams, and therefore, drive away the critics. They are just pathetic sippers of poetry. What can a critic say about the depths of your soul? Don't let his vulgar groping hands in there. Let poetry seem to him like an absurd moo, a chaotic pile-up of words. For us, this is a song of freedom from a boring mind, a glorious song sounding on the snow-white slopes of our amazing soul.
Boris Krieger. "A Thousand Lives"
Poems are the thrill of the heart, the excitement of the soul and tears. And tears are nothing more than pure poetry that has rejected the word.