Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet
Whisper, timid breathing.
The trill of a nightingale,
Silver and sway
Sleepy stream.
Night light, night shadows,
Endless shadows
A series of magical changes
Sweet face
There are purple roses in the smoky clouds,
The reflection of amber
And kisses and tears,
And dawn, dawn!..
Drawing by Ya. Polonsky, friend of A. Fet, for the poem “Whisper, timid breathing...”
Y. Polonsky and A. Fet. 1890
Afanasy Fet is rightfully considered one of the most romantic Russian poets. Although the author never considered himself a member of this literary movement, his works are permeated with the spirit of romanticism. The basis of Fet's work is landscape poetry. Moreover, in some works it is organically intertwined with love. This is not surprising, since the poet was a staunch supporter of the theory of the unity of man and nature. In his opinion, man is an integral part of him, just as a son is the offspring of his father. Therefore, it is impossible not to love nature, and Fet’s feeling is sometimes expressed in poetry much stronger than love for a woman.
The poem “Whisper, Timid Breath...”, written in 1850, is a prime example of this. If in his earlier works Fet admired the beauty of a woman, considering her the center of the universe, then the lyrics of the mature poet are characterized, first of all, by admiration for nature - the ancestor of all life on earth. The poem begins with sophisticated and elegant lines that describe the early morning. More precisely, that short period when night gives way to day, and this transition takes a matter of minutes, separating light from darkness. The first harbinger of the approaching dawn is the nightingale, whose trills are heard through the whispers and timid breath of the night, “the silver and swaying of a sleepy stream,” as well as the amazing play of shadows that create bizarre patterns, as if weaving an invisible web of predictions for the coming day.
The pre-dawn twilight not only transforms the world around us, but also causes “magical changes in a sweet face”, on which the rays of the morning sun will sparkle a few moments later. But until this delightful moment comes, there is time to indulge in love joys that leave tears of admiration on the face, mixing with the purple and amber reflections of dawn.
The peculiarity of the poem “Whisper, timid breathing ...” is that it does not contain a single verb. All actions remain, as it were, behind the scenes, and nouns make it possible to give each phrase an unusual rhythm, measured and unhurried. At the same time, each stanza represents a completed action that states what has already happened. This allows you to create the effect of presence and gives a special liveliness to the poetic picture of an early summer morning, makes the imagination work, which vividly “completes” the missing details.
Despite the fact that the poem “Whisper, Timid Breathing...” is a classic of Russian literature, after its publication Afanasy Fet was hit with a flurry of negative reviews. The author was accused of the fact that this work is pointless. And the fact that it lacks specifics, and readers have to guess about the coming dawn from chopped short phrases, forced critics to classify this work as “poetic opuses designed for a narrow circle of people.” Today we can say with confidence that both Leo Tolstoy and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin publicly accused Fet of “narrow-mindedness” for only one simple reason - the poet in his poem touched on the topic of intimate relationships, which in the 19th century was still subject to unspoken taboo. And although this is not directly stated in the work itself, subtle hints turn out to be much more eloquent than any words. However, this poem does not lose its romanticism and charm, sophistication and grace, elegance and aristocracy, which are characteristic of the overwhelming majority of Afanasy Fet’s works.
“Whisper, timid breathing...” Afanasy Fet
Whisper, timid breathing. The trill of the nightingale, the silver and swaying of the Sleepy stream. Night light, night shadows, Shadows without end, A series of magical changes in a sweet face, In the smoky clouds the purple of a rose, A glimmer of amber, And kisses, and tears, And dawn, dawn!..
Analysis of Fet's poem "Whisper, timid breathing..."
Afanasy Fet is rightfully considered one of the most romantic Russian poets. Although the author never considered himself a member of this literary movement, his works are permeated with the spirit of romanticism. The basis of Fet's work is landscape poetry. Moreover, in some works it is organically intertwined with love. This is not surprising, since the poet was a staunch supporter of the theory of the unity of man and nature. In his opinion, man is an integral part of him, just as a son is the offspring of his father. Therefore, it is impossible not to love nature, and Fet’s feeling is sometimes expressed in poetry much stronger than love for a woman.
The poem “Whisper, Timid Breath...”, written in 1850, is a prime example of this. If in his earlier works Fet admired the beauty of a woman, considering her the center of the universe, then the lyrics of the mature poet are characterized, first of all, by admiration for nature - the ancestor of all life on earth. The poem begins with sophisticated and elegant lines that describe the early morning. More precisely, that short period when night gives way to day, and this transition takes a matter of minutes, separating light from darkness. The first harbinger of the approaching dawn is the nightingale, whose trills are heard through the whispers and timid breath of the night, “the silver and swaying of a sleepy stream,” as well as the amazing play of shadows that create bizarre patterns, as if weaving an invisible web of predictions for the coming day.
The pre-dawn twilight not only transforms the world around us, but also causes “magical changes in a sweet face”, on which the rays of the morning sun will sparkle a few moments later. But until this delightful moment comes, there is time to indulge in love joys that leave tears of admiration on the face, mixing with the purple and amber reflections of dawn.
The peculiarity of the poem “Whisper, timid breathing ...” is that it does not contain a single verb. All actions remain, as it were, behind the scenes, and nouns make it possible to give each phrase an unusual rhythm, measured and unhurried. At the same time, each stanza represents a completed action that states what has already happened. This allows you to create the effect of presence and gives a special liveliness to the poetic picture of an early summer morning, makes the imagination work, which vividly “completes” the missing details.
Despite the fact that the poem “Whisper, Timid Breathing...” is a classic of Russian literature, after its publication Afanasy Fet was hit with a flurry of negative reviews. The author was accused of the fact that this work is pointless. And the fact that it lacks specifics, and readers have to guess about the coming dawn from chopped short phrases, forced critics to classify this work as “poetic opuses designed for a narrow circle of people.” Today we can say with confidence that both Leo Tolstoy and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin publicly accused Fet of “narrow-mindedness” for only one simple reason - the poet in his poem will touch on the topic of intimate relationships, which in the 19th century was still subject to unspoken taboo. And although this is not directly stated in the work itself, subtle hints turn out to be much more eloquent than any words. However, this poem does not lose its romanticism and charm, sophistication and grace, elegance and aristocracy, which are characteristic of the overwhelming majority of Afanasy Fet’s works.
Afanasy Fet“Whisper, timid breathing...”
Analysis of the poem.
Historical reference. The poem was written and published in 1850 in the magazine Moskvityanin ("Whisper of the Heart"). This work became a symbol of Fet's poetry. The "wordlessness" of the verse, which managed to convey the excitement of a love date through the subtlest modulations of the feelings of lovers, was surprising.
Fet is still serving, but the service weighs on him, he is extremely dissatisfied with his social position, but his fame is growing. There was true love in the poet's life, but he could not make his beloved happy. He himself was poor, and she (Maria Lazic) was homeless. Soon the girl died tragically. The image of his beloved girl did not leave Fet until the end of his life.The theme of this poem is nature. Nature and love are fused together.
The poem begins with the appearance of the characters themselves: “...Whispers, timid breathing...” the details of the landscape and the details of a love date form a single series, love is a continuation of the life of nature, its rhythm, and one is inseparable from the other.
Lyrical plot. Early morning. Pre-dawn twilight. A short period when night gives way to day, and this transition takes a matter of minutes, separating light from darkness. The first harbinger of the approaching dawn is the nightingale, whose trills are heard through the whispers and timid breathing of the night. But before dawn comes, there is time to indulge in love pleasures. All actions remain behind the scenes.
Compositionally the poem is divided into three parts. The ring composition helps to convey the unity of the two motifs. Merging together the image of nature and internal state
person.
Poetry organization occupies a key place. Metaphorical images and colors are symbolic in nature.
Silver symbol of purity, innocence, purity. Translated from Greek - white, shining. In nature it is a native form.
Purple the color of a rose is a symbol of love. In Christian symbolism - the severity of faith, a clear conscience and peace of mind.
"Reflection amber" - burning stone, stone of the sun.
Fet's poems are often compared to impressionist paintings. As in the paintings of the Impressionists, in the poem the contours are blurred, the image is only outlined. The reader himself should feel the author's hint.
Word shadows repeated twice. The concept of "SHADOW" has a lot of allegorical, metaphorical and figurative meanings. Sometimes the word "GHOST" can serve as a synonym for this word.
Night light. Light (according to the symbolist dictionary) is a symbol of truth, reason, joy, happiness, etc. Manifestation of deity, cosmic creation.
Why is the crown of a love encounter - tears, and in the natural world - dawn? Is the word dawn repeated twice? This is the culmination of the poem: the culmination of the feelings of the lyrical heroes and the culmination in nature. A tear is a symbol of consolation, healing, and newfound peace. Dawn is the beginning of the birth of something joyful and bright.
The image of lyrical heroes their feelings develop from "whispers" and "timid breathing" to "a series of magical changes in the sweet face." With a single line, the author reveals the whole gamut of feelings experienced by the heroes, the magical changes in a sweet face." With a single line, the author reveals the whole gamut of feelings experienced by the heroes.
Feature of the poem is that it does not contain a single verb. Nouns allow you to give each phrase an unusual rhythm, measured and leisurely. At the same time, each stanza represents a completed action, which states that has already happened. Makes your imagination work, fill in the missing details.
Role of the detail. The entire poem is one sentence, consisting of homogeneous members - subjects (a comma is placed between them). The entire work is one big title sentence. Nominal sentences are monosyllabic sentences in which the presence of objects or phenomena is stated: “Whisper, timid breathing...” Naming objects, indicating a place or time, nominative sentences immediately introduce the reader to the setting of the action: “.. Night light, night shadows, shadows without the end..."
The subject can only be extended by definitions: "...Ttimid breathing..."
Genre- miniature, was perceived by contemporaries as an innovative work.
Idea: love is a wonderful feeling on Earth.
Despite the fact that this poem is a classic of literature, after its publication Afanasy Fet was hit with a flurry of negative responses. The author was accused of the fact that this work is pointless. And the fact that it lacks specifics, and readers have to guess the coming dawn from short phrases, made critics classify it as “poetic opuses designed for a narrow circle of people.”
Today we can say with confidence that the poet in this poem touched on the topic of intimate relationships, which was an unspoken taboo in the 19th century. And although this is not directly stated in the work itself, subtle hints turn out to be more eloquent than any words. *** *** ***
The night was shining.Moon the garden was full. were lying Rays at our feet in the living room without lights. The piano was all open, and the strings in it were trembling, just like hearts we have for your song.
You sang before dawn, exhausted in tears, that you are alone - Love that no love different, And I wanted it so much live so that sound without dropping you be in love , hug and cry upon you.
And many years have passed tedious and boring, And now in the silence of the night I hear your voice again, And it blows, as then, in sighs these sonorous , That you are alone - all life that you are alone - Love.
That there are no hard feelings fates and hearts burning flour , A life there is no end, and there is no other goal, As soon as believe in crying sounds, You be in love , hug and cry upon you!
Analysis of the poem.
Historical reference. The poems were written to Leo Tolstoy's sister-in-law Tatyana Kuzminskaya on August 2, 1877. Written based on impressions of night singing in a Yasnaya Polyana house. The poem is a memory. This poem has inspired many composers to write music. One of the best romances by N. Shiryaev, one of the best performers Georgy Vinogradov The theme of this poem is love. A memory of a woman and her singing, which caused an extraordinary elation in the lyrical hero. Lyrical plot. Love date in the garden. This poem is similar to A.S. Pushkin’s poem “I remember a wonderful moment...” “a wonderful moment” in the flow of life. A moment is just a moment, a manifestation of passion that has left a long memory in the soul of the lyrical hero. The lyrical narrative is increasing The composition of the poem is interesting. It consists of two parts. The first is a memory of his beloved woman and her singing, the second is the present of the lyrical hero, in which, after many years of “languorous and boring” he heard her voice in the silence of the night: And it blows, as then, in these sonorous sighs, That you are alone - all life, that you are alone - love. Motif of moment and eternity. The key word is LOVE. Repeated 5 times in the poem! Love is an intimate and deep feeling (Philosophical Encyclopedia), an “unpredictable” expression of the depths of personality; it cannot be forced, nor can it be overcome. “Love that moves the sun and luminaries” (Dante). Evaluate Love as a cosmic principle through which the Universe is pacified and united (Ancient Indian Vedas). The concept of love has many meanings - unification and connection, one of the highest values. (Ancient Greek philosopher Hesiod) According to the horoscope, F. Fet is a Scorpio. Scorpios are looking for a passionate, strong person who is not afraid of pain and suffering. The second stanza is filled with tears of love and suffering. Fate and heart are on a par with the word love. Fate - the totality of all events and circumstances; predetermination of events and actions; rock, fate, a higher power that can be thought of in the form of nature or deity . (Wikipedia) Fate and love have become an inseparable concept. “The one who wants to go is led by fate, the one who does not want to go is dragged” (Cleanthes) Heart - the center of the being, both physical and spiritual, the divine is present in the center. The strings trembled like hearts... The image of a heart is a symbol of love, earthly and heavenly love. In folklore, “The heart protects the soul and troubles the soul.” It hurts, trembles, boils, dies, aches, etc. In astronomy it is Leo. In alchemy: the heart is the sun in man, and the brain is the moon. "Burning torment" - All jealousy, all love - all the torment of burning passion! When will I get rid of their rebellious power? ("Elegy" by B.N. Almazov, 1862) Image of the Moon has always inspired poets. In the biblical book “Song of Songs,” the beauty of Shulamith is compared to the bright moon: “Who is this woman who looks down from on high like the dawn, beautiful as the full moon?” The moon represents feminine power, the Mother Goddess, the Queen of Heaven. Symbol of immortality and eternity, the cyclical rhythm of time. The second brightest object in the earth's sky after the sun. In Buddhism, the full moon is considered a time of increased spiritual power. Genre - love lyrics. The work is very picturesque and very musical. Piano image:“The piano was completely open, and the strings in it were trembling...” Behind this image we see not only the piano itself, but also hear the sounds that come from it. This image affects both directly and indirectly. The poet makes you see and hear what is connected with him. special strength is given by a combination of words, combinations of vowels and consonants, alliteration, internal consonance, sound repetitions.
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The poetry of the classics of Russian literature has always served as an opportunity to look into the most hidden corners of one’s own soul. For some reason, it was forgotten or relegated to the background that the poet, being a living person, often expressed his own thoughts, experiences, anxieties in poems, and perhaps wanted to try to capture a fleeting period of happiness.
It is in the context of this important and interesting aspect that one of the most unique poems in Russian literature called “Whisper, timid breathing...”, written by Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet.
Whisper, timid breathing.
The trill of a nightingale,
Silver and sway
Sleepy stream.
Night light, night shadows,
Endless shadows
A series of magical changes
Sweet face
There are purple roses in the smoky clouds,
The reflection of amber
And kisses and tears,
And dawn, dawn!..
Brief information about the author's personality and biography
Fet's fate can be called truly difficult and even tragic. The future famous poet, lyricist, translator, author of memoirs, was born in Russia, although he could have been born in Germany - his mother, Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker, ran away from her husband from her historical homeland in the 7th month of pregnancy. As a result, she married the nobleman Shenshin; the boy received both his last name and a noble title. However, it later became clear that Afanasy had no legal ties to either Shenshin’s estate or his privileges, and, not being his biological son, could not claim either one or the other.As a result, Afanasy, now bearing the surname assigned to him at birth - Fet - was deprived of Russian citizenship, position, and inheritance. The “fix” idea was for him to return the lost title, but he was able to implement his plan only in 1873 - then Fet was already 53 years old!
Studying was easy for Fet: he graduated from a private German school in Estonia, Verro, and then entered the university, where he published his first collection of poems, called “Lyrical Pantheon”.
From 1845 to 1858, Fet devoted himself to military service, as he believed that it was a prerequisite for the return of the noble title. As a result, by 1853, Fet was sent to a guards regiment located near St. Petersburg, the then capital. This gave Afanasy Afanasyevich the opportunity to meet such famous personalities as Turgenev, Goncharov, Nekrasov, as well as the editors of the leading magazine Sovremennik.
During his military career, Fet had to taste the fruit of a tragic, unsuccessful, but strong love, the memory of which he retained until the end of his days and carried through all his work. The poet wanted to marry an educated girl named Maria Lazic, who came from a poor but good family. However, what could Fet give her then? He was poor - this was an obstacle to the engagement. And after some time, the girl died in a fire under extremely strange circumstances; some talked about suicide. Her last words were addressed to Fet. For the poet, the death of his beloved woman was a real tragedy.
Subsequently, at the age of 37, A.A. Fet took Maria Botkina as his wife. They never had children, but their family life can be called truly happy: the couple lived in perfect harmony, having wealth and weight in society.
The history of the creation of the poem
The poem “Whisper, Timid Breathing...”, unofficially recognized as one of the most romantic works of all Russian poetry, was created by the author in 1850 during a stormy love affair with the already mentioned Maria Lazic. It dates back to the early period of the poet’s work and marks the beginning of real innovation in literature.The fact is that Fet, who is a representative of “pure” poetry, never raised socio-political or socially important issues in his works. The only thing he recognized and for which he was ready to create was beauty, art, love. He was ready to put anything on the altar of chanting the beautiful; The main thing for him invariably remained the desire to reflect the smallest shades of human feelings and emotions.
Here, in this poem, the poet specifically refused to use verbs, since playing with form for maximum emancipation and disclosure of content is something that was generally characteristic of Fet. The action, which, it would seem, should be the engine of the plot, is rejected by Afanasy Afanasievich and forgotten. At the same time, this did not stop him from creating a hymn of nature and love, which descendants remember and know by heart today. In fact, the syntactic structure of the poem is one compound sentence, which, in turn, consists only of nominal sentences. Did any of Fet’s predecessors create something similar? No, I didn’t create it.
Analysis of the poem and main idea
“Whisper, timid breathing...” is a poem consisting of only 12 lines, in which the author, nevertheless, managed to convey the whole world, and not even just one.
Divided into 3 quatrains, each stanza represents a certain side of the experience of the lyrical hero: in the first, the reader and the main character, not mentioned, but silently present (from his face we see everything around us), hears only sounds (“whispering”, “breathing” , “trills”, “swaying”) in the second, they are mixed with visual images (“shadows”, changes in the “sweet face”); finally, in the third, climactic stanza, the end of the date approaches, along with which the sensual moods of the hero and his beloved increase to the limit (“kisses,” “tears”).
In this poem, the author connected the world of human “volatile moods” with the world of nature, and which of them prevails remains unclear - one merges, harmoniously intertwines with the other, now coming to the fore, now retreating back. The game is based on parallelism: from the night landscape Fet quickly but subtly moves on to depicting the most important situations and moments in the relationship between two loving hearts.
In front of the reader, despite the absence of verbal forms, the whole night quickly flashes by: shadows and “night light” give way to the dawn. As a result, the poem leaves a joyful, bright feeling, giving vigor and freshness, like dew appearing on the blades of grass in the early morning.
The final exclamations “And dawn, dawn!..” mark the triumph of a great feeling uniting with eternity. The dawn will come to earth every morning, and every morning lovers will greet it with tears in their eyes, either from the happiness of spending time together, or because of the bitterness of an imminent parting, which brings with it the beginning of a new day. One thing is obvious - as long as nature and the night that favors them exist, their feeling will not subside, and no one will be able to separate them.
Features of the verse: poetics and tropes
In this poem, Afanasy Afanasyevich actively turned to sound and color painting. The first can be observed in the phrases “the trill of a nightingale”, “the swaying of a sleepy stream”, “whisper”, “timid breathing”; the second in the lines “in the smoky clouds”, “purple of the rose”, “glimmer of amber”, “night light”, “endless shadows”. It is the successive, like iridescent sounds and delicate colors that determine the dynamism of the poem, show the movement and change of the entire surrounding space, unfold before the reader a real gradation of the hero’s feelings, make the work colorful, bright and memorable.
The author also uses metaphorization, personification, as well as epithets (“sleepy”, “sweet”, “timid”, “magical”) and repetitions (“night light, night shadows, endless shadows”). The last technique helps to balance the changes in the surrounding world that occur during the poem: despite the fact that all states are actively flowing into one another, these transformations seem to be simultaneously static, they are endless and open into universal eternity. This is a particularly significant moment for creating the image of a lyrical hero, for whom it is important that the time of the night date never stops, and also that the feeling of deep love always lives.
The last duplicate words (“And dawn, dawn!..”) represent an interesting syntactic construction. Thus, the exclamation mark obviously serves to give maximum uplift and solemnity, which should complete the glorification of nature and love between a man and a woman. However, the exclamation is also supplemented by an ellipsis, which seems to indicate that nothing is over yet, and this story, of course, will continue. The repetition of words itself marks both the dawn of love, that is, the purest, brightest, joyful and unbridled stage of a relationship, and the dawn of the morning - a wonderful time of the day when all living things wake up, casting off the shackles of sleep. The idea of awakening and rebirth, connecting both worlds (mental and natural), is thus visible to the naked eye.
Features of rhythm, rhyme, size
The poem “Whisper, timid breathing...” is written in 4-foot trochee in lines 1-3 and 3-foot trochee in lines 2-4. The cross rhyme in lines 1 and 3 is feminine (the stress falls on the penultimate syllables in rhyming words), in lines 2-4 it is masculine (the stress falls on the last syllables).A large number of voiceless consonants leads to slower speech, its ductility, melodiousness, and smoothness. A similar effect is also achieved by the fact that the author does not use periods or final punctuation marks at the end of the first two stanzas, as a result of which they and the last, third, quatrain are read as if in one breath, continuing each other and building one common, long and whole associative series.
Conclusion
The poem “Whisper, timid breathing”, created by A.A. Fet, it is no coincidence that such composers as N.A. were involved in the creation of numerous musical works. Rimsky-Korsakov (in 1897), M.A. Balakirev (in 1904), N.K. Medtner (in 1912). In 2005, the music for it was written by Alexander Matyukhin, who also performed the romance. This is not surprising, because this poem by Afanasy Afanasyevich really inspires, awakens the desire to create, live and love!Ranchin A. M.
Whisper, timid breathing,
The trill of a nightingale,
Silver and sway
Sleepy stream,
Night light, night shadows,
Endless shadows
A series of magical changes
Sweet face
There are purple roses in the smoky clouds,
The reflection of amber
And kisses and tears,
And dawn, dawn!..
Critics' reviews of Fet's poetry
This famous poem by Fet appeared for the first time in the 2nd issue of the magazine “Moskvityanin” for 1850. But in this early edition the first line looked like this:
Whisper of the heart, breath of the mouth.
And the eighth and ninth lines read:
The pale shine and purple of the rose,
Speech - not speaking.
The poem is in a new edition, reflecting the corrections proposed by I.S. Turgenev, was included in Fet’s lifetime collections of poetry: Poems by A.A. Feta. St. Petersburg, 1856; Poems by A.A. Feta. 2 parts. M., 1863. Part 1.
Fet's first published poems were generally praised positively by critics, although recognition did not exclude indications of weaknesses and shortcomings. V.G. Belinsky admitted that “of all the poets living in Moscow, Mr. Fet is the most talented”; in the review “Russian Literature in 1843” he noted “quite numerous poems by Mr. Fet, among which there are truly poetic ones.” But in the letter to V.P. Botkin dated February 6, 1843, this assessment was clarified and stricter, as Fet’s shortcoming was called poverty of content: “I say: “It’s good, but isn’t it a shame to waste time and ink on such nonsense?” And three years earlier, 26 December 1840, also in a letter to V.P. Botkin, V.G. Belinsky admitted: “Mr. F<ет>promises a lot."
B.N. Almazov, assessing the poem “Wait for a clear day tomorrow...”, reproached Fet for the “uncertainty of content,” which in this work “is taken to the extreme” (Moskvityanin. 1854. Vol. 6. No. 21. Book 1. Journalism. P. 41).
The appearance of Fet was welcomed by the admirer of “pure art” V.P. Botkin: "<…>the poet appears with an imperturbable clarity in his gaze, with the gentle soul of a child who, by some miracle, passed between warring passions and convictions, untouched by them, and brought out his bright outlook on life intact, retained a sense of eternal beauty - since this is not rare, not an exceptional phenomenon in our time?" (article "Poems by A.A. Fet", 1857).
However, he also wrote that “for the vast majority of readers, Mr. Fet’s talent is far from having the significance that he enjoys among writers. Connoisseurs of his talent consist, one might say, of a few lovers of poetry<…>"[Botkin 2003, p. 302].
He noted that “sometimes Mr. Fet himself is not able to control his inner, poetic impulse, expresses it unsuccessfully, darkly<…>". Pointed out the thematic limitations of Fet's lyrics. Fet has two themes. The first is love, and interpreted one-sidedly: "Of all the complex and diverse aspects of inner human life in the soul of Mr. Fet, only love finds a response, and then mostly in the form sensory sensation, that is, in its most, so to speak, primitive, naive manifestation." The second is nature: "G. Fet is primarily a poet of nature's impressions."<…>He captures not the plastic reality of an object, but its ideal, melodic reflection in our feeling, namely its beauty, that light, airy reflection in which its form, essence, color and aroma miraculously merge." And "Whisper, timid breathing..." the critic refers to it as “the poetry of sensations.”
The critic recognized anthological poems as the highest manifestation of Fet's talent - works written on ancient motifs and distinguished by an emphasis on plasticity - which were still not distinctive for Fet.
A.V. Druzhinin, as well as V.P. Botkin, who professed the principles of “pure art” and welcomed Fet’s poetry, noted disapprovingly that “Mr. Fet’s poems, with their desperate confusion and darkness, surpass almost everything ever written in the Russian dialect.”
According to the fair thought of L.M. Rosenblum, “the Fet phenomenon lies in the fact that the very nature of his artistic gift most fully corresponded to the principles of “pure art”” (Rozenblum L.M. A.A. Fet and the aesthetics of “pure art” // Questions of Literature. 2003. No. 2 Quoted from the electronic version: http://magazines.russ.ru/voplit/2003/2/ros.html). This cardinal property made his poetry unacceptable to most of his contemporaries, for whom pressing social issues were incomparably more important than the veneration of beauty and love. V.S. Solovyov defined Fet's poetry in the article "On lyric poetry. Regarding the last poems of Fet and Polonsky" (1890) "<…>The eternal beauty of nature and the endless power of love constitute the main content of pure lyrics."
And Fet not only wrote “unprincipled” poetry, he openly, teasingly declared his artistic position: “...I consider questions about the rights of citizenship of poetry among other human activities, about its moral significance, about modernity in a given era, etc., nightmares, from which I got rid of long ago and forever" (article "On the poems of F. Tyutchev", 1859). In the same article, he stated: “...An artist cares about only one aspect of objects: their beauty, just as a mathematician cares about their outlines or numbers.”
The poet’s talent as such was still recognized by critics of the radical democratic trend - opponents of “pure art”. N.G. Chernyshevsky placed Fet immediately after N.A. Nekrasov, considering him the second of the contemporary poets.
However, in the circle of Sovremennik writers, which included N.G. Chernyshevsky, the opinion about the primitivism of the content of Fet’s lyrics, and about their author as a person of small intelligence, was established. This is the opinion of N.G. Chernyshevsky expressed in a later, sharply obscene remark (in a letter to his sons A.M. and M.N. Chernyshevsky, attached to a letter to his wife dated March 8, 1878) about Fet’s poems; as a classically “idiotic” poem, it was called “Whisper, timid breathing...”: “<…>All of them are of such content that a horse could write them if it learned to write poetry - we are always talking only about impressions and desires that exist in horses, as in humans. I knew Fet. He is a positive idiot: an idiot like few in the world. But with poetic talent. And he wrote that play without verbs as a serious thing. As long as Fet was remembered, everyone knew this wonderful play, and when someone began to recite it, everyone, even though they knew it by heart, began to laugh until their sides hurt: she was so smart that her effect remained forever, as if it were news, amazing.”
These ideas (characteristic not only of radical writers, but also of the quite “moderate” I.S. Turgenev) caused numerous parodies of Fetov’s poems. The largest number of parody “arrows” were aimed at “Whisper, timid, breathing...”: the “vacuity” (love, nature - and no civic idea, no thought) of the work, the banality of individual images (the nightingale and its trills, a stream), pretentious- beautiful metaphors (“the reflection of a rose,” “the purple of amber”) were irritating, and the rare verbless syntactic construction made the text the most memorable of the poet.
The poem, "being published on the threshold of the 1850s,<…>strengthened in the consciousness of contemporaries as the most “Fetovsky” from all points of view, as the quintessence of Fetov’s individual style, giving rise to both delight and bewilderment.
Disapproval in this poem was caused primarily by the “insignificance”, the narrowness of the topic chosen by the author<...>. In close connection with this feature of the poem, its expressive side was also perceived - a simple listing, separated by commas, of the poet’s impressions, which were too personal and insignificant in nature. The deliberately simple and at the same time audaciously non-standard form of the fragment could be regarded as a challenge" (Sukhova N.P. Lyrics of Afanasy Fet. M., 2000. P. 71).
According to the remark of M.L. Gasparov, readers were irritated by this poem primarily by the “discontinuity of images” (Gasparov M.L. Selected Articles. M., 1995. P. 297).
Parodists. ON THE. Dobrolyubov and D.D. Minaev
N.A. was one of the first to joke “Whisper, timid breathing...” Dobrolyubov in 1860 under the parody mask of the “young talent” Apollo Kapelkin, who supposedly wrote these poems at the age of twelve and was almost flogged by his father for such indecency:
FIRST LOVE
Evening. In a cozy room
Meek demimonde
And she, my guest for a moment...
Kindness and greetings;
Outline of a small head,
The shine of passionate gazes,
Unraveling lacing
Convulsive crackling...
The heat and cold of impatience...
Shed the cover...
The sound of a quick fall
On the floor of shoes...
Voluptuous embraces
Kiss (so! - A.R.) dumb, -
And standing over the bed
Golden month...
The parodist retained the “verblessness”, but unlike Fetov’s text, his poem is perceived not as one “big” sentence consisting of a series of denominative sentences, but as a sequence of a number of independent denominative sentences. Fetov's sensuality and passion under the pen of "Mockingbird" turned into an indecent, naturalistic, "semi-pornographic scene." The fusion of the world of lovers and nature was completely lost. The word “kiss” in its common pronunciation by Dobrolyubov is opposed to Fetov’s poetism - the archaism of “kissing”.
Three years later, the same poem was attacked by another writer of the radical camp, D.D. Minaeva (1863). “Whisper, timid breathing...” was parodied by him in the fourth and fifth poems from the cycle “Lyrical songs with a civic tint (dedicated to<ается>A. Fetu)":
Cold, dirty villages,
Puddles and fog
Fortress destruction,
The talk of the villagers.
There is no bow from the servants,
Hats on one side,
And the worker Seeds
Cheating and laziness.
There are strange geese in the fields,
The insolence of the goslings, -
Disgrace, the death of Rus',
And debauchery, debauchery!..
The sun hid in the fog.
There, in the silence of the valleys,
My peasants sleep sweetly -
I don't sleep alone.
The summer evening is burning down,
There are lights in the huts,
The May air is getting colder -
Sleep, guys!
This fragrant night,
Without closing my eyes,
I came up with a legal fine
Put it on you.
If suddenly someone else's herd
Will come to me
You will have to pay a fine...
Sleep in silence!
If I meet a goose in the field,
That (and I’ll be right)
I'll turn to the law
And I will take a fine from you;
I will be with every cow
Take quarters
To guard your property you
Come on, guys...
Minaev's parodies are more complex than Dobrolyubov's. If on. Dobrolyubov ridiculed the aestheticization of the erotic and the “vacuum of content” of Feta-lyricist, then D.D. Minaev attacked Fet, a conservative publicist and author of “Notes on Free-Wage Labor” (1862) and the essays “From the Village” (1863, 1864, 1868, 1871).
Semyon is a negligent worker on Fet’s farm, about whom other civilian workers complained; he skipped work days and returned the deposit taken from Fet and not worked out only under pressure from the peace intermediary (essays “From the Village”, 1863. - Fet A.A. Life of Stepanovka, or Lyrical Economy / Introductory article, text preparation and commentary V. A. Kosheleva and S. V. Smirnova, M., 2001, pp. 133-134). Here is chapter IV “Geese with goslings”, which tells about six geese with a “string of goslings” who climbed into Fetov’s crops of young wheat and spoiled the greenery; These goslings belonged to the owners of local inns. Fet ordered the birds to be arrested and asked the owners for a fine, being content with the money only for adult geese and limiting himself to 10 kopecks per goose instead of the required twenty; in the end he accepted sixty eggs instead of money (Ibid. pp. 140-142).
Fet’s thoughts about the worker Semyon and about the episode with the geese that poisoned Fet’s crops also evoked an angry response from M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in a review from the series “Our Social Life”, a sharp review by D.I. Pisareva. The ill-fated geese and the worker Semyon were remembered by D.D. Minaev and in other parodies of the cycle.
Fetov's essays were perceived by a significant part of Russian educated society as the writings of a mossy retrograde. The author was bombarded with accusations of serfdom. In particular, M.E. wrote about this in his essays “Our Social Life.” Saltykov-Shchedrin, who sarcastically remarked about Fet, a poet and publicist: "<…>In his spare time he partly writes romances, partly he hates men; first he will write a romance, then he will be misanthropic, then he will write a romance again and again he will be misanthropic."
In a similar way, another radical writer, D.I., certified the journalism of the author of “Whispers, Timid Breathing...” Pisarev in 1864: "<…>a poet can be sincere either in the full grandeur of a rational worldview, or in the complete limitations of thoughts, knowledge, feelings and aspirations. In the first case, he is Shakespeare, Dante, Byron, Goethe, Heine. In the second case, he is Mr. Fet. – In the first case, he carries within himself the thoughts and sorrows of the entire modern world. In the second, he sings with a thin fistula about fragrant curls and, in an even more touching voice, complains in print about the worker Semyon<…>The worker Semyon is a wonderful person. He will certainly go down in the history of Russian literature, because providence destined him to show us the other side of the coin in the most ardent representative of languid lyricism. Thanks to the worker Semyon, we saw in the gentle poet, fluttering from flower to flower, a prudent owner, a respectable bourgeois (bourgeois - A.R.) and a small person. Then we thought about this fact and quickly became convinced that there was nothing accidental here. This must certainly be the underside of every poet who sings of “the whisper, the timid breathing, the trill of the nightingale.”
Accusations and mocking remarks about the lack of content and poorly developed consciousness in Fet's poetry were constant in radical democratic criticism; so, D.I. Pisarev mentioned the poet’s “pointless and aimless cooing” and remarked about Fet and two other poets – L.A. Mee and Ya.P. Polonsky: “Who wants to arm themselves with patience and a microscope in order to observe, through several dozen poems, the manner in which Mr. Fet, or Mr. May, or Mr. Polonsky loves their beloved?”
The elderly poet-"accuser" P..V. Schumacher, in satirical verses celebrating the anniversary of Fetov’s poetic activity, recalled, although inaccurately: “I took away Maxim’s goose.” The liberal and radical press remembered the ill-fated geese for a long time. As the writer P.P. recalls. Pertsov, “obituaries of the great lyricist sometimes even in prominent organs could not do without a reminder of them” (Pertsov 1933 - Pertsov P.P. Literary memoirs. 1890-1902 / Preface by B.F. Porshnev. M.; Leningrad, 1933 . P. 107).
The assessment of Fet as a serf owner and a hard-hearted owner, taking away the last pennies of labor from the unfortunate peasant workers, had nothing to do with reality: Fet defended the importance of freely hired labor, he used the labor of hired workers, not serfs, which he wrote about in his essays. The owners of the goslings were wealthy inn owners, and not at all exhausted, semi-poor farmers; the writer did not act arbitrarily in relation to workers, but pursued dishonesty, laziness and deception on the part of people like the notorious Semyon, and often unsuccessfully.
As L.M. accurately noted. Rosenblum, "Fet's journalism<…>does not in the least indicate sadness for the bygone serfdom era" (Rosenblum L.M. A.A. Fet and the aesthetics of “pure art” // Questions of literature. 2003. No. 2. Quoted from the electronic version: http://magazines .russ.ru/voplit/2003/2/ros.html).
However, we can talk about something else - about Fet’s wary attitude towards the consequences of the abolition of serfdom (in which he agrees with Count L.N. Tolstoy, the author of “Anna Karenina”); As for Fet’s ideological views, they became more and more conservative throughout the post-reform period (among later examples is a letter to K.N. Leontiev dated July 22, 1891, supporting the idea of a monument to the ultra-conservative publicist M.N. Katkov and sharp assessment of the “snake hissing of imaginary liberals” (Letters from A.A. Fet to S.A. Petrovsky and K.N. Leontiev / Preparatory text, publication, introductory note and notes by V.N. Abrosimova // Philologica. 1996. T 3. No. 5/7. Electronic version: http://www.rub.ru.philologica. P. 297).
“Singer of nightingales and roses” and landowner and horse breeder: two faces of Fet in the assessment of writers
The new occupation, essays and even the appearance of Fet, who was previously perceived as a lyrical poet, hovering in the world of beauty and alien to mercantile calculations, were perceived with bewilderment and caused rejection or amazement. I.S. Turgenev wrote to Ya.P. Polonsky on May 21, 1861: “He has now become an agronomist - a master to the point of despair, has grown a beard down to his loins - with some kind of hair curls behind and under his ears - does not want to hear about literature and scolds magazines with enthusiasm.” Fet himself proudly wrote to former fellow soldier K.F. Revelioti: “...I was a poor man, an officer, a regimental adjutant, and now, thank God, I am an Oryol, Kursk and Voronezh landowner, a horse breeder and I live in a beautiful estate with a magnificent estate and park. I acquired all this through hard work<…>"This pride of Fet in his economic successes remained misunderstood.
Prince D.N. Tsertelev remarked about Fet, the poet, and Fet, the author of essays on estate farming: "<…>It can feel like you're dealing with two completely different people, even though they're both sometimes on the same page. One captures eternal world questions so deeply and with such breadth that the human language does not have enough words with which to express a poetic thought, and only sounds, hints and elusive images remain, the other seems to laugh at him and does not want to know, interpreting about the harvest, about income, about plows, about the stud farm and about justices of the peace. This duality amazed everyone who knew Afanasy Afanasievich closely."
Radical-minded writers drew attention to this striking dissonance between the “pure lyricist”, the singer of nightingales and roses, and the most practical owner - the author of essays, trying not to miss a penny of his money. Accordingly, in Minaev’s parodies the form (poetic meter, “verblessness”) is associated with “pure lyricism”, they preserve the memory of Fet’s “Whisper, timid breathing ...”, and the “down-to-earth” content refers to Fet the publicist.
At least among the radical literary community, the aestheticism of Feta the poet, glorifying love and “silver”<…>stream,” and social conservatism were interpreted as two sides of the same coin: only the “bloodsucker” landowner, who robs the peasants, can admire the “smoky clouds” and the morning dawn at his leisure: the heart of a callous esthete is deaf to the people’s grief, and the income of the landowner allows him to him an idle lifestyle (In reality, Fet had almost no free time in the first years of his economic activity, being busy and traveling; but his critics preferred to forget about this.)
The very celebration of beauty in “Whispers, timid breathing…” teased Fet’s opponents. All of them could repeat after N.A. Nekrasov – the author of the poetic dialogue “The Poet and the Citizen”: “It is even more shameful in times of grief / The beauty of the valleys, the skies and the sea / And to sing of sweet affection...”. The poet’s opponents could recognize the poetic merits of Fet and, in particular, the poem “Whisper, Timid Breathing...”. So, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin noted: “Undoubtedly, in any literature it is rare to find a poem that, with its fragrant freshness, would seduce the reader to such an extent as Mr. Fet’s poem “Whisper, Timid Breath”,” but “the world is small, monotonous and limited to poetic to the reproduction of which Mr. Fet devoted himself,” whose entire work is nothing more than a repetition “in several hundred versions” of this particular poem. However, critics of Fet's poetry felt the absolute inappropriateness of “pure lyrics” at a time when songs of protest and struggle were required.
Count L.N.’s assessment of the poem is also indicative. Tolstoy, who had already experienced a spiritual crisis and now saw the main advantages of true art in simplicity and clarity: S.L. Tolstoy: “About the famous poem “Whisper, Timid Breath,” my father said something like this in the 60s: “This is a masterful poem; there is not a single verb (predicate) in it. Every expression is a picture; The only thing that is not entirely successful is the expression “In the smoky clouds there are purple roses.” But read these poems to any man, he will be perplexed, not only what is their beauty, but also what is their meaning. This is a thing for a small circle of connoisseurs in art" (memoirs of his son, S.L. Tolstoy (L.N. Tolstoy in the memoirs of his contemporaries. M., 1955. T. 1. P. 181).
The situation was accurately assessed by the opponent of radical literature F.M. Dostoevsky in his article “G-bov and the question of art,” 1861), agreed that the appearance of Fet’s poem was, to put it mildly, somewhat untimely: “Let’s assume that we are transported to the eighteenth century, precisely on the day of the Lisbon earthquake. Half of the inhabitants in Lisbon perishes; houses fall apart and fall through; property perishes; each of the survivors has lost something - either an estate or a family. Residents crowd the streets in despair, amazed, maddened with horror. At this time, some famous Portuguese is living in Lisbon poet. The next morning, an issue of the Lisbon "Mercury" comes out (at that time everything was published by "Mercury"). The issue of the magazine, which appeared at such a moment, even arouses some curiosity in the unfortunate Lisbonians, despite the fact that they have no time for magazines at that moment; they hope that the number was published on purpose, to give some information, to convey some news about the dead, about the missing, etc., etc. And suddenly - in the most visible place of the sheet, something like the following catches everyone’s eye: “Whisper, timid breath..." I don’t know for sure how the people of Lisbon would have received their “Mercury,” but it seems to me that they would have immediately publicly executed, in the square, their famous poet, and not at all because he wrote a poem without a verb, but because that instead of the nightingale’s trills the day before, such trills were heard underground, and the swaying of the stream appeared at that moment of such swaying of the whole city that the poor Lisbonians not only had no desire to watch “In the smoky clouds the purple of a rose” or “A glimmer of amber”, but even seemed too "It is insulting and unbrotherly for a poet to sing such funny things at such a moment in their lives."
The earthquake in the Portuguese city of Lisbon (1755), which Dostoevsky mentions, claimed the lives of about 30,000 inhabitants; this exceptional tragic event served as the subject of philosophical speculation that denied good providence (Voltaire, “The Poem on the Death of Lisbon, or Testing the Axiom “All is Good” "" etc.).
Further, Dostoevsky follows with an explanation, and the assessment changes: “Let us note, however, the following: suppose the Lisbon people executed their favorite poet, but the poem with which they were all angry (even if it was about roses and amber) could have been magnificent in its their artistic perfection. Moreover, they would have executed the poet, and in thirty, fifty years they would have erected a monument to him in the square for his amazing poems in general, and at the same time for “The Purple of the Rose” in particular. The poem for which executed the poet as a monument to the perfection of poetry and language, perhaps even brought considerable benefit to the people of Lisbon, later arousing in them aesthetic delight and a sense of beauty, and fell as a beneficial dew on the souls of the younger generation."
The result of the reasoning is this: “Suppose some society is on the verge of destruction, everything that has any mind, soul, heart, will, everything that recognizes a person and a citizen in itself, is occupied with one question, one common cause. Is it really possible?” Well then, only between poets and writers there should be no mind, no soul, no heart, no love for the homeland and sympathy for the common good? The service of the muses, they say, does not tolerate vanity. This, let’s assume, is so. But it would be good if b, for example, poets would not retire into the ether and would not look down on other mortals from there<…>. And art can greatly help other causes through its assistance, because it contains enormous resources and great powers.”
Fet as a “pure poet” and cuirassier officer: another parody of D.D. Minaeva and her context
Once again D.D. Minaev (1863) parodied Fet’s poem, presenting his text as if it were an early, “pre-Turgenev” edition of the author himself; a poem with such a comment was “sent” by “Major Bourbonov”; This is one of D.D.'s parody masks. Minaev, the conventional image of a stupid martinet - “bourbon”. Here is the text of the parody:
Stomping, joyful neighing,
Slender squadron,
The bugler's trill, swaying
Of waving banners,
Peak of the brilliant and sultans;
Sabers drawn
And hussars and lancers
Proud brow;
Ammunition is fine
A reflection of silver, -
And march-march at full speed,
And hurray, hurray!..
Now the poetic form of Fetov’s poem is filled with a completely different content than in Minaev’s parodies “with a civil tint” - very meager: Skalozubov’s delight in the beauty of the military system, rapture in front of good ammunition. The aestheticization of love and nature, present in Fetov’s original, is replaced by the aestheticization of frunt. The parodist seems to be declaring: Mr. Fet has nothing to say and doesn’t care what he “sings” about - the poet Fet clearly does not shine with original thoughts.
In an exaggerated form, D.D. Minaev reflected Fet's actual understanding of the nature of poetry. Fet repeatedly asserted that it requires “madness and nonsense, without which I do not recognize poetry” (letter to Ya.P. Polonsky dated March 31, 1890).
Fet's reputation as a poet without an idea, if not just a stupid creature, and also absolutely indifferent to the themes of his own poems, was very widespread. Here is the testimony of A.Ya. Panaeva: “I remember very well how Turgenev passionately argued to Nekrasov that in one stanza of the poem: “I don’t know what I will sing, but only the song is ripening!” Fet exposed his calf brains” (Panaeva (Golovacheva) A.Ya. Memoirs / Introductory article by K. Chukovsky; Notes by G.V. Krasnov and N.M. Fortunatov. M., 1986. P. 203).
Turgenev’s parody is also very eloquent: “I stood motionless for a long time / And read strange lines; / And those lines that Fet wrote seemed very strange to me. // I read... what I read, I don’t remember, / Some mysterious nonsense...” . A.V. Druzhinin wrote in his diary about the “ridiculous fellow” Fet and his “antediluvian concepts” (entry dated December 18, 1986 (Druzhinin A.V. Stories. Diary. M., 1986. P. 255). In fact, Fet deliberately provoked literary environment with deliberate “absurdities” (cf. observations on this matter in the book: Koshelev V.A. Afanasy Fet: Overcoming Myths. Kursk, 2006. P. 215).
I.S. himself Turgenev asked the poet: “Why are you suspicious and almost contemptuous of one of the inalienable abilities of the human brain, calling it picking, prudence, denial - criticism?” (letter to Fet dated September 10 (22), 1865).
ON THE. Nekrasov, in a printed review (1866), stated: “As you know, we have poets of three kinds: those who “they themselves do not know what they will sing,” in the apt expression of their founder, Mr. Fet. This, so to speak, songbirds." This reputation of Fet was supported by his statements (in poetry and prose) about the irrational, intuitive basis of creativity, about sound, and not meaning, as the source of poetry. This favorite Fet idea was repeatedly ridiculed by parodists: “He sings as the forest woke up, / With every grass, branch, bird<…>And I came running to you, / To find out what this means?" (D.D. Minaev, "Old motive"); "My friend! I am always smart, / During the day I am not averse to meaning. / Nonsense creeps into me / On a warm starry night" ("Quiet Starry Night"); "Dreaming by the fireplace / Afanasy Fet. / He dreams that he has caught the sound / in his hands, and now / He is riding the sound / Floating in the air" (D.D. Minaev, "Wonderful Picture!", 1863).
But Nekrasov, responding to Fet’s collection of 1856, admitted: “We can safely say that a person who understands poetry and willingly opens his soul to its sensations will not find in any Russian author, after Pushkin, as much poetic pleasure as Mr. Fet."
Count L.N. hinted at Fet’s narrow-mindedness (just a “fat, good-natured officer”). Tolstoy V.P. Botkin, July 9 / 21, 1857, feeling some kind of discrepancy between the subtle poems and their creator: “...And in the air behind the nightingale’s song, anxiety and love are heard! - Lovely! And where does this good-natured fat officer get such incomprehensible lyrical audacity, property great poets" (we are talking about the poem "Still May Night", 1857).
Fet, the personality, was perceived primarily as a recent cavalry officer, and this characteristic indicated his limitations, underdevelopment, and simple-mindedness. I.S. Turgenev, ironically responding to Fet’s letter, in which he sharply defended his rights as a landowner and claimed a privileged position as a landowner, remarked: “The state and society must protect Captain Fet’s headquarters like the apple of his eye<…>". In another letter, he was ironic about Fet’s “short cavalry step” (letter to Fet dated November 5, 7 (12, 19), 1860); he already half-ironically (but still only half-and half seriously) called Fet “an inveterate and frenzied serf owner and lieutenant of the old school” (letter to Fet dated August 18, 23 (August 30, September 4), 1862).
Fet’s choice of military service, who graduated from the Imperial Moscow University in 1844 and had already gained some fame as a poet, was dictated by unfavorable life circumstances. His father, hereditary nobleman Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, met Charlotte Elisabeth Föt (née Becker) in Germany; who was already married to Johann-Peter-Karl-Wilhelm Vöth, and took her to Russia. Shenshin and Charlotte Föt may have been first married according to the Protestant rite on October 2, 1820 (the Orthodox wedding did not take place until 1822). Charlotte's divorce from Fet was completed only on December 8, 1821, and the child born from their union, recorded as the son of Shenshin, after an investigation carried out by church and secular authorities (the investigation was caused by a certain denunciation), was recognized in 1835 as the son of Mr. Fet, having lost rights of a Russian nobleman.
Fet himself, apparently, actually considered I. Fet his father, although he carefully hid it; until relatively recently, the prevailing version was that he was in fact the father of the poet; fact of A.N.’s wedding Shenshin with Charlotte Fet was denied according to the Protestant rite (see, for example: Bukhshtab B.Ya. A.A. Fet: Essay on Life and Creativity. L., 1974. P. 4-12, 48). Information from newly found documents testifies, but only indirectly, rather in favor of the version of Shenshin’s paternity (see: Kozhinov V.V. On the secrets of the origin of Afanasy Fet // Problems of studying the life and work of A. A. Fet: Collection of scientific works. Kursk , 1933; Shenshina V.A. A.A. Fet-Shenshin: Poetic worldview. M., 1998. P. 20-24). However, A.N. himself Shenshin undoubtedly considered Afanasy not his son, but Fet. Officially, he was recognized as a hereditary nobleman by Shenshin only in 1873 after submitting a petition to the highest name (see about this: Bukhshtab B.Ya. A.A. Fet: Essay on Life and Creativity. P. 48-49). (For different versions of Fet’s origin, see also, for example: Fedina V.S. A.A. Fet (Shenshin): Materials for the characteristics. Pg., 1915. P. 31-46; Blagoy D. Afanasy Fet - poet and person // A. Fet. Memoirs / Preface by D. Blagoy; Compiled and notes by A. Tarkhov. M., 1983. P. 14-15; Kuzmina I. A. Materials for the biography of A. A. Fet // Russian literature. 2003. No. 1; Shenshina V.A. A.A. Fet-Shenshin: Poetic worldview / 2nd edition, additional M., 2003. P. 212-224; Koshelev V.A. Afanasy Fet: Overcoming myths, pp. 18-28, 37-38; see also A.E. Tarkhov’s commentary on Fet’s autobiographical poem “Two Lipkas” in the publication: Fet A.A. Works: In 2 vols. M., 1982. T. 2. P. 535-537).
Fet decided to curry favor with the nobility; the usual and, as it seemed, the simplest means of achieving this was military service.
In his memoirs “The Early Years of My Life,” Fet names the reasons for choosing military service, in addition to the desire to return the hereditary nobility, to the officer’s uniform as his own “ideal” and family traditions (Fet A. The Early Years of My Life. M., 1893. P. 134); V.A. Koshelev suggests that enlisting in military service was also a means of escaping the “bohemian” existence into which he plunged during his student days” (Koshelev V.A. Afanasy Fet: Overcoming Myths. P. 76). One way or another, Fet’s statements, which, unlike his memoirs, were not intended to be read by a wide circle, indicate a dislike for military service.
Fet entered military service in April 1845 as a non-commissioned officer in the Cuirassier Order Regiment; a year later he received the rank of officer, in 1853 he transferred to the Life Guards Ulan Regiment of His Imperial Highness the Tsarevich, and by 1856 he had risen to the rank of captain. “But in 1856, the new Tsar Alexander II, as if to compensate the nobility for the impending reform, made it even more difficult to penetrate the hereditary nobles. According to the new decree, this began to require not a major, but a colonel’s rank, which Fet could not achieve in the foreseeable future could hope.
Fet decided to leave military service. In 1856, he took a year's leave, which he partially spent abroad (in Germany, France and Italy), at the end of the year's leave, he resigned indefinitely, and in 1857 he retired and settled in Moscow" (Bukhshtab B.Ya. A.A. Fet: Essay on life and creativity, p. 35).
Fet was actually very burdened by military service and in letters to his friend I.P. Borisov spoke very harshly about her: “in an hour, various Gogol Vias will crawl into your eyes, spoonfuls at a time,” which you not only need to endure, but with whom you “still need to smile.”
The following poetic joke of theirs is indicative of the attitude of his colleagues towards the poet: “Oh, you, Fet, / Not a poet, / And there’s chaff in the bag, / Don’t write, / Don’t make us laugh / To us, kid!” These poems are obviously friendly, not mocking, but they clearly do not speak about the understanding of Fetov’s poetry.
The poet asserted: “My ideal world was destroyed long ago.” His life is like a “dirty puddle in which he is drowning; he has reached “the indifference of good and evil.” He admits to Borisov: “I have never been killed morally to such an extent,” his only hope is “to find somewhere a mademoiselle with with a tail of twenty-five thousand in silver, then he would have given up everything.” And in his memoirs “The Early Years of My Life,” he wrote about himself that he “had to bring his most sincere aspirations and feelings to the sober altar of life” (Fet A. The Early Years of My Life M., 1893, p. 543).
These circumstances apparently explain the spiritual callousness and indifference to those around Fet, noted by some of Fet’s contemporaries: “I never heard from Fet that he was interested in someone else’s inner world, I didn’t see that he was offended by other people’s interests. I never noticed in it there are manifestations of participation in another and a desire to find out what someone else’s soul thinks and feels" (T.A. Kuzminskaya about A.A. Fet / Publication by N.P. Puzin // Russian literature. 1968. No. 2. P. 172) . However, it is difficult to recognize the indisputability of such evidence (as well as categorically deny it).
However, after retiring, he defiantly continued to wear a Uhlan cap.
From ridicule to reverence
Another parody of “Whisper, timid breathing…” belongs to N.A. Worms, it is part of the cycle “Spring Melodies (Imitation of Fet)” (1864):
The sounds of music and trills, -
The trill of a nightingale,
And under the thick linden trees
Both she and I.
And she, and I, and trills,
Sky and moon
Trills, me, her and the sky,
Heaven and her.
ON THE. Worms parodies the imaginary emptiness of Fetov's poem: instead of three stanzas of the original, there are only two (why another stanza if there is nothing to say?), and the entire second stanza is built on repetitions of words, as if taken from the first (“trill”, “and she, and I”, “I, she”, “and she”), appearing only in this second quatrain (“sky”). The most common personal pronouns are “I” and “she”, which lack a specific meaning.
Finally, in 1879, he parodied “Whisper, Timid Breathing...” by P.V. Schumacher:
Blue
Forget-me-not on the field
Stone - turquoise,
The color of the sky in Naples,
Lovely eyes,
Sea of Andalusia
Blue, azure, sapphire, -
And a Russian gendarme
Blue uniform!
Once again, Fet’s notorious “vacuum of content” is ridiculed: all absolutely heterogeneous images are selected on the basis of one, completely random attribute - the color blue. (Andalusia is a historical region in Spain..) But the mention of the Russian gendarme (gendarmes wore blue uniforms) is expected in its own way: the parodist hints at the notorious ultra-conservatism of the guard Fet.
A special case is the poem “Overnight in the Village” (1857-1858) by I.S. Nikitin: “its first two stanzas are perceived as an obvious parody of “Whisper, timid breathing... And dawn, dawn!”” (Gasparov M.L. Meter and meaning: About one of the mechanisms of cultural memory. M., 1999. P. 162 ). Here is a fragment from it: “Stuffy air, smoke from a splinter, / Litter underfoot, / Litter on the benches, cobwebs / Patterns in the corners; / Smoky floors, / Stale bread, water, / Cough, spinners, crying children... Oh, need, need!". The parody effect arose, obviously, unintentionally; the author did not strive for it; I.S. Nikitina was let down by her “memory of size”: the size of the verse evokes almost inevitable associations with the famous poem by Fet.
Young poet A.N. Apukhtin, back in 1858, said about Fet’s Muse and her persecutors:
But the stern wife looked with a smile
To the laughter and jumping of the young savage,
And, proud, she walked and shone again
Unfading beauty.
("A.A. Fetu")
But the attitude towards Fet in literary circles changed significantly only towards the end of his life. V.S. Solovyov wrote about Fet’s poetry in a note to his poem “October 19, 1884”: “A.A. Fet, whose exceptional talent as a lyricist was rightly appreciated at the beginning of his literary career, was then subjected to prolonged persecution and mockery for reasons not having nothing to do with poetry. Only in the last decades of his life did this incomparable poet, of whom our literature should be proud, acquire favorable readers." (On Fet’s literary reputation and the perception of his poetry, see also: Elizavetina G.G. The literary fate of A.A. Fet // Time and the fate of Russian writers. M., 1981.)
By the end of the century, the attitude towards Fet’s poem had changed decisively: “For early symbolism, Fet’s repeatedly quoted poem “Whisper, timid breathing ...” served<…>the source of the infinitely diverse development of the whisper paradigm (murmur, rustle, etc.)" (Hansen-Löwe A. Russian symbolism: System of poetic motifs: Early symbolism / Translated from German by S. Bromerlo, A.Ts. Masevich and A. E. Barzakha, St. Petersburg, 1999, p. 181).