Everyone knows the poem by the great Russian poet A.S. Pushkin entitled “I remember a wonderful moment...”. It is difficult to find lines filled with love and admiration for the woman you love that would surpass this work in its tenderness and reverence.
History of creation
When analyzing the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment,” a student can mention several facts about the history of its creation. It was written in the village of Mikhailovskoye in 1925. The Russian critic N. Skatov was convinced that not a single poet, either before or after Pushkin, could create such an image of love. One of these unusual works is the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment,” the analysis of which is discussed in this article.
This work was dedicated to a young beauty named Anna Kern. For the first time A.S. Pushkin saw her in St. Petersburg in 1819. was the wife of General Kern. Alexander Sergeevich first saw the girl while visiting mutual friends. The then young poet was amazed by the charm of the nineteen-year-old beauty. A.S. Pushkin and Anna Kern just exchanged a few phrases - there was no love connection between them.
A few years later, Alexander Sergeevich again had the opportunity to meet the general’s young wife. It was at that moment that beautiful lines were born, telling about the extraordinary power of love, which is capable of resurrection.
What is the work about?
The action of the poem begins with a description of one seemingly insignificant moment in the life of the poet. It describes a “fleeting moment” that is imprinted in memory. Then, through the description of emotions and experiences, the great Russian poet immerses the reader in the atmosphere of real life. At the same time, the appearance of the lyrical hero of the poem becomes clearer and clearer. His future fate becomes clear:
"In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment
My days passed quietly
Without a deity, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love."
But the phenomenon of the “genius of pure beauty”, to whom the work is addressed, gives the lyrical hero inspiration and rapture.
Intonation
While working on the analysis of the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment,” the student can talk about one of the characteristic features of this work. Namely, about maintaining the same intonation throughout the entire poem. Despite the blows of fate occurring in life, the noisy bustle and various difficulties, it (intonation) remains unchanged.
And suddenly providence presents the lyrical hero with another meeting with his love. Only at this moment does the intonation of the poem begin to change. The lyrical hero is filled with quiet and calm joy because he has the opportunity to once again see a creature dear to his heart. His triumphant voice does not subside, but rushes with even greater force into the heavens:
And the heart beats in ecstasy,
And for him they rose again
And deity and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.
Theme, genre
When analyzing the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” by Pushkin, the student should also indicate the theme and genre of the work. At the end of the poem, the reader can again see the motive of awakening, the joy of life, the delight that the lyrical hero managed to regain. There is no doubt that in this work the dominant feeling is love, which can inspire a person and give him hope in a series of the most difficult storms of life.
So, the main theme of this work is love. The genre of the work is a love letter. However, you can also find philosophical reflections in it about how significant just one moment can be if it is remembered for a lifetime. Every moment like this is valuable.
Artistic media
It cannot be said that there are many artistic devices in the poem. But this is precisely what gives the work both simplicity and sophistication. The epithets used by the great Russian poet are distinguished by both sublimity and extraordinary harmony - “the genius of pure beauty”, “wonderful moment”, “favorite features”.
The simplicity of the image depicted by the author is achieved in the most familiar words. As for the passion of the work, those emotional impulses that are described in it, here Alexander Sergeevich actively uses the technique of metaphor. Love does not die, it lives despite all life circumstances. “Former dreams” are able to dispel the “rebellious impulse of storms,” but they still rise again. It is also worth noting the special melody of the work, achieved through the use of various syntactic means - anaphors, refrains, frames.
A brief analysis of the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” shows that the work uses cross-type rhyme. The technique of alliteration is represented by the sonorant consonant sounds “l”, “m”, “n”. All these techniques contribute to the creation of a special melody in this unusual poem.
Composition
The entire work is written in iambic tetrameter. As for the compositional features, the poem has three equal parts. Each of them is connected with each other, while they are independent in their semantic content. The first of these parts contains memories of the poet’s wonderful meeting with his love.
The second part is more dramatic. Here there is a fading of tender feelings, until the complete onset of “silence”. The final part is structured a little differently. Here the movement goes, on the contrary, forward, with increasing spiritual elation.
Analysis of the poem “I remember a wonderful moment”: work plan
Sometimes students need to not only briefly analyze a poem, but do it according to plan. Let's look at an approximate diagram:
- Author and title of the work.
- History of creation.
- Artistic media.
- Rhythm, size.
- Features of vocabulary.
- Conclusion, student’s opinion.
Conclusion
The poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment,” which was analyzed in this article, today remains the standard of sublime love poetry. It is a real monument to sensual impulse and deep poetic experiences. The poem intertwines images of the beloved woman and love itself - this is something bright and fragile that is painfully familiar to everyone living on earth.
This poem was written by the poet in Mikhailovsky in 1825. It is dedicated and addressed to A.P. Kern (niece of P.A. Osipova), whom Pushkin met in St. Petersburg in 1819. The poet hands this message to the addressee on the day of Anna Kern’s departure from the estate next to the Pushkins, Trigorskoye, on July 19, 1925.
Theme, genre and composition of the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment”
Of course, the main theme of this masterpiece is love. However, there are also reflections of the young author about the philosophical significance of every moment in human life, about the intrinsic value of each such moment.
The genre of this work is a love letter.
Compositionally, the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” reflects the biography of the author in love. So,
- in the first and second quatrains one can trace Pushkin’s St. Petersburg period. We must remember that the poet met this lady for the first time in 1819.
- And already in the third quatrain the period of the author’s southern exile is depicted.
- In the fourth - “imprisonment” in Mikhailovskoye, where the poet’s days dragged on (without a deity, without inspiration...)
- Fifth and sixth – a new meeting and “awakening”
This phenomenon of the “genius of pure beauty” again gives the poet admiration, rapture, enlightenment, and, of course, new lyrical revelations.
Pushkin expresses the omnipotence of love, which cannot be destroyed either by “hopeless sadness” or “anxious worldly vanity.” A wonderful moment of true love can both resurrect and give meaning to life; it is obviously stronger than any suffering and adversity.
Artistic means of the poem
Pushkin pays special attention to them; in the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” there is not much, but they are carefully chosen, which gives this lyric both simplicity and sophistication.
Pushkin's epithets
“genius of pure beauty”, “wonderful moment”, “favorite features”
both sublime and surprisingly harmonious.
The simplicity of the author’s image is achieved, at first glance, by familiar, ordinary words, but the special swiftness and passion is conveyed through metaphors. The poet’s love is not destroyed, only “former dreams” can be dispelled by “a storm of rebellious impulse.”
And the very image of his beloved appears to the poet “like a fleeting vision.” These epithets turn the heroine into an unearthly, slightly mysterious, special creature, but at the same time real and tangible.
It is interesting that Pushkin borrowed the image of “pure beauty” from the poet’s teacher, V. Zhukovsky, which turns it into a literary quotation in this poem.
Separately, it should be noted the melody of the work, which is achieved by syntactic means -
In Pushkin's stanzas of this poem there is an alternation of rhymes:
- Women's - rapture-imprisonment
- Men's - beauty-vanity
The rhyme is of a cross type, alliteration is represented by the sonorant consonants “l”, “m”, “n”.
All this contributes to the special melody of this work. It is well known that this poem especially attracted numerous musicians. Among the famous ones is a romance, moreover, dedicated by Mikhail Ivanovich to the daughter of that same A. Kern.
The poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” is written in the author’s favorite meter – iambic tetrameter. Each quatrain is an independent rhythmic unit, the transition between them is soft, dimly expressed by cross-cutting rhymes, which unite the entire work into a single amazing lyrical and melodic composition of the verse.
Did you like it? Don't hide your joy from the world - share itThe poem “I remember a wonderful moment...”, addressed to a hidden addressee (“K***”), has a real life basis, since it was presented by the poet to the subject of his feelings - Anna Petrovna Kern. The acquaintance with her took place in the house of Kern’s relative (president of the Academy of Arts A.N. Olenin, whose wife A.P. Kern was a niece), during Pushkin’s stay in St. Petersburg, even before exile, in 1819. The second time they met through six years. At this time, the poet was in Mikhailovskoye as an exile. The owner of the estate adjacent to Mikhailovsky, Trigorsky, turned out to be a relative of Kern, P.A. Osipova, in whose family he was warmly received. Anna Petrovna stopped by Osipova for several weeks on her way to Riga. Leaving Trigorsky, she received as a gift from the author a copy of the second chapter of the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin”, which included the message “K***”.
The first stanza (there are six quatrains in total in the poem, iambic tetrameter with cross rhyme) turns to the past, when a meeting took place, which the lyrical hero recalls as a vision of the ideal. Awareness of the reminiscent background helps to identify the meaning of the impression. The image of the “genius of pure beauty” with which the beloved is compared belongs to V.A. Zhukovsky (poem “Lalla Ruk”, 1821, which is an interpretation of the poem of the same name by T. Moore). For him, this is an angel, the embodiment of the heavenly ideal of beauty. In addition to reminding of a specific work, reminiscence is also important due to the fact that it brings to mind a number of characteristics of the ideal in the work of the romantics. For Zhukovsky, beauty is a “guest... from above,” visiting the poet in sleep, in memories, dreams, illuminating earthly life “for a minute,” which is remembered for a long time, “inseparable from the heart.”
Pushkin’s lyrical hero recalls that the meeting with his darling (“cute features”) caused the awakening of emotions and reminded him of the earthly manifestations of the divine principle, that is, both feeling and thought came to life in him in an instant, which made him magical, “wonderful”:
I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
The light of the heavenly ideal falls on the beloved, and her features acquire sublimity and tender, beautiful mystery. These impressions persist even in separation, contrasting with the “noisy bustle” of everyday life. But they sound more and more muffled (in showing a subsiding spiritual storm, the motif of a voice that appears in memory, but then forgotten - stanzas 2-3 is decisive) against its background, the reality of the past is only a dream:
The storms of the outside world are stronger than time, which did not influence the hopeless love of the lyrical hero, but even they do not have the power to “dispel” (as their impulse “Dispelled previous dreams”) his commitment to the ideal. The fourth stanza, central in the compositional division of six quatrains into two parts (three stanzas each), where attention is focused on the two stages of love. If in the first three stanzas of the poem “I remember a wonderful moment...”, the analysis of which interests us, an image is created of a feeling that arose several years ago, which tormented with its hopelessness for whole years, then in the final ones the experience changes in character and becomes an internal sensation. And then everything external is relegated to the background. In the poem there is no motive of a romantic choice between two worlds; dreams and storms of life, “the languor of hopeless sadness” and “anxiety of noisy vanity” fill the life of the lyrical hero, making him rich and diverse (a gentle voice and the noise of storm and vanity sound). The importance of focusing on internal aspects is emphasized in connection with the discovery of their life-giving (Zhukovsky) meaning: the divine principle is manifested in them. The darkness of imprisonment becomes a metaphor for the earthly prison, where the empty days of the lyrical hero stretch endlessly (the emptiness is emphasized thanks to the fivefold repetition of the preposition “without”):
In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment
My days passed quietly,
Without a deity, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.
Love is highlighted among all experiences; the conclusion that it is the main thing that the lyrical hero lacks is facilitated by the rising intonation, the idea of which arises thanks to the enumeration. The pinnacle to which it leads is the word “love.” In addition to intonation, phonic artistic means and unusual rhyming help to elevate the concept. In four of the six stanzas, the same consonances in male rhyme are used (in the first and fifth they repeat each other: you are beauty; in the fourth a new rhyme appears, the task of which is to highlight the key word (my - love). This effect is emphasized by the fact that there is no novelty in the female rhyme of the stanza; it is consonant with the endings of the odd terms in the first quatrain (imprisonment - inspiration - moment - vision).
At the semantic level, the meaning of love is affirmed due to the fact that the resurrection of the lyrical hero, the awakening of his soul, is associated with it. The impression is repeated, he again experiences (stanza 5) a “wonderful moment” (the literal repetition of the images of the first stanza is highlighted):
The soul has awakened,
And here we go again you appeared
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
Love fills the heart, like an ideal, spiritualizing earthly darkness with Divine light. In the context of the analyzed poem “I remember a wonderful moment...” by Pushkin, feeling turns out to be no less important than the desire for the infinite, and, in connection with the reproduction of subjective psychological experiences, appears as a tangible and convincing manifestation of spirituality. The last stanza talks about the miracle he performed - after worries, disappointments, dangers, worries, gloomy forebodings, loneliness, the heart beats again in ecstasy, hopes and creative dreams are resurrected.
Rising intonation leads further, and at the top the main landmark is again highlighted (the intonation elevation, which enlivens oral reading, existing in the reader’s mind, thanks to the inner ear, is facilitated by enumeration - for which the sevenfold repetition of the conjunction “and” is used). The word “love” also stands out thanks to the new consonance. If the female rhyme of the sixth quatrain repeats the one that was used in the first, fourth and fifth stanzas (rapture - inspiration, rhyming with the odd lines of these quatrains, ending with the words: “moment - vision” - 1, “imprisonment - inspiration” - 4, “ awakening - vision" - 5), then the masculine one is built on the assonance “o” (again - love). It encourages one to remember consonant words in the previous text, among which were recognitions of a long memory of a fleeting impression (I remember, before me, fleeting, worries, years, tears - in these words “o” is in the stressed position) and an image expressing the tangibility of the memory : “A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time...” Together with repetitions of the sounds “e” (in addition to rhymes, the words “genius, languor, scattered, former, heavenly, soul, heart, resurrected”), “and” (“appeared, pure , dreamed, dear, your, life”) and “u” (“wonderful, sad, noisy, storms”) the assonance “o” gives a unique musicality to the poem. In the last quatrain it sounds like the final tonic (main, supporting tone):
And the heart beats in ecstasy,
And for him they rose again
Both Divinity and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.
The last chord completes the development of the lyrical plot, where there were wonderful moments, and years of hopeless experiences, and days of imprisonment, with an optimistic emotional note. The inner life of the lyrical hero appears as a whole world where beauty and harmony reign. Its sound, phonic characteristics are not accidental, since the impression of coherence, harmony, proportionality is easier and more convincing to convey through musical artistic means (harmony, from the Latin “proportionate, harmonious”, is the area of expressive means in music based on the combination of tones into consonances and their connections between themselves). Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov, one of the founders of Russian symbolism, called Pushkin’s skill in creating verbal symphonies (from the Greek “consonance”) “sound writing” (one of Bryusov’s many works on Pushkin’s poetry is called “Pushkin’s Sound Writing”, 1923). If you, following Bryusov and many other writers and philologists, are interested in revealing the secrets of the great poet’s talent, you will have to consider his poem not intuitively, but quite consciously and thoughtfully.
Try reading Pushkin’s poem “K***” aloud, reproducing the rising intonation in quatrains 4 and 6 (the last lines of the stanzas, where repeated prepositions or conjunctions sound), as if climbing to the top, where the word that ends the stanza reigns (“love”, “ Love"). In addition, try to hear the melody created by assonances in strong places in the text, their connection with semivowels and sonorants. It will sound major (from the Latin “bigger”, a musical mode, the stable sounds of which create a cheerful, joyful mood), despite the hopelessness and depression expressed in the content. In the second - fourth stanzas, where we talk about the loneliness of the lyrical hero (hopeless sadness, sweet features are only dreamed of, and then completely forgotten, days in the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment), about his difficult experiences, sound repetitions are built on the same consonants, as in the first, fifth and sixth quatrains, which convey completely different feelings. " N», « m", And " l"with vowels form melodic combinations: then mlen yah, sounding l me d ol go g olo With Not and ny, With Nile be nice y, d neither my etc. The combination within the framework of one poem “I remember a wonderful moment...”, the analysis of which we carried out, of multidirectional emotional tendencies allows us to express a harmonious worldview.
It becomes a characteristic feature of the lyrical hero in Pushkin’s poems, demonstrating his desire to accept life in all the diversity of its features, to combine attention to detail with generalization, spontaneity with philosophical depth. For him, there is nothing one-dimensional and complete in the world. For his soul, “Either all are too few, or one is enough” (“Having voluntarily renounced multiplicity...”, 1825), everything depends on the mirror where the real situation is reflected. But whether it brings details closer or allows you to look at life as a whole, the “immortal sun” is always visible above the canvas (“Bacchanalian Song”, 1825), the present is perceived as a stage (“Everything is instantaneous, everything will pass;/What will pass will be sweet” - “If life deceives you...”, 1825), a moment stopped by the will of the artist, beautiful, “wonderful” or sad, gloomy, but always sweet with its uniqueness.
K Kern*
I remember a wonderful moment:
You appeared before me,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
In the languor of hopeless sadness,
In the worries of noisy bustle,
A gentle voice sounded to me for a long time
And I dreamed of cute features.
Years passed. The storm is a rebellious gust
Dispelled old dreams
And I forgot your gentle voice,
Your heavenly features.
In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment
My days passed quietly
Without a deity, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.
The soul has awakened:
And then you appeared again,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
And the heart beats in ecstasy,
And for him they rose again
And deity and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.
Analysis of the poem “I remember a wonderful moment” by Pushkin
The first lines of the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” are known to almost everyone. This is one of Pushkin's most famous lyrical works. The poet was a very amorous person, and dedicated many of his poems to women. In 1819 he met A.P. Kern, who captured his imagination for a long time. In 1825, during the poet’s exile in Mikhailovskoye, the poet’s second meeting with Kern took place. Under the influence of this unexpected meeting, Pushkin wrote the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment.”
The short work is an example of a poetic declaration of love. In just a few stanzas, Pushkin unfolds before the reader the long history of his relationship with Kern. The expression “genius of pure beauty” very succinctly characterizes enthusiastic admiration for a woman. The poet fell in love at first sight, but Kern was married at the time of the first meeting and could not respond to the poet’s advances. The image of a beautiful woman haunts the author. But fate separates Pushkin from Kern for several years. These turbulent years erase the “nice features” from the poet’s memory.
In the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment,” Pushkin shows himself to be a great master of words. He had the amazing ability to say an infinite amount in just a few lines. In a short verse, a period of several years appears before us. Despite the conciseness and simplicity of the style, the author conveys to the reader changes in his emotional mood, allowing him to experience joy and sadness with him.
The poem is written in the genre of pure love lyrics. The emotional impact is enhanced by lexical repetitions of several phrases. Their precise arrangement gives the work its uniqueness and grace.
The creative legacy of the great Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is enormous. “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” is one of the most precious pearls of this treasure.
The theme of love in the lyrics of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is of particular importance. If Nekrasov, for example, had a Muse, which he identified with a peasant woman, then the “sun of Russian poetry” did not have a Muse as such - but there was love, which the poet needed like air, because without love he was not able to create. So Pushkin’s Muses became completely earthly women, who once conquered the poet.
It is worth noting that Pushkin was in love many times - often his chosen ones were married women, for example, Elizaveta Vorontsova or Amalia Riznich. Despite the fact that all these high-society ladies were included in Pushkin’s so-called Don Juan list, compiled by him personally, he did not at all imagine the poet’s closeness with his lovers, with the exception of a spiritual, tender friendship. However, Anna Petrovna Kern, to whom the immortal “I remember a wonderful moment...” is dedicated, becomes Pushkin’s most famous Muse.
This woman captivated the poet in St. Petersburg in 1819 at one of the social events. At that time, Kern had already broken up with her unloved husband, so a romance began between her and the talented descendant of “the Blackmoor Peter the Great,” which high society was unable to condemn.
But the epoch-making poem was created much later, in 1825, when Pushkin meets his former lover again, and his feelings flare up with renewed vigor. Like Katerina, who became a ray of light in a dark kingdom, Anna Petrovna revived the poet, gave him the pleasure of a feeling of love, inspiration, and gave him poetic strength. Thanks to her, one of the most beautiful works of Russian love poetry was born.
So, the history of its creation is well known, which, however, does not prevent literary historians from putting forward other assumptions about the possible addressee of the tender message, including even a certain serf girl Nastenka, about whom, however, nothing is known in Pushkin’s diaries, his personal letters, etc. .
It is important to note that the poem is autobiographical in nature, which is why episodes from the life of the great poet are so easily traced in it, however, the complete identification of the lyrical hero with the author, as well as the lyrical heroine with A.P. Kern, will be incorrect, since the image of the latter, of course, is idealized.
Undoubtedly, the theme of the message “I remember a wonderful moment...” is an intimate revelation, a love confession. As has already been said, Pushkin needed love, not necessarily shared. Thanks to his feelings, he was able to create. At the same time, in the poem one can also find a philosophical theme of the meaning of love in human life.
“I remember a wonderful moment...” - plot poem. In it, the lyrical hero meets a beautiful lover who revives the best feelings in his soul, but over time loses her. Along with the girl, the hero’s romantic dreams and inspiration go away, and the wings curl behind his back. Over the years, the devastation only intensifies, but then the charming woman appears again in the life of her lover, again bringing with her the beautiful, spiritual.
So, if we transfer this plot to the biography of its author, we will note that the first stanza describes the first meeting with Kern in St. Petersburg. The second and third quatrains tell about the southern exile and the period of “imprisonment” in Mikhailovskoye. However, there is a new meeting with the Muse, which resurrects the best in the poet’s soul.
The autobiographical nature of the message determines its composition. The means of artistic expression are quite modest, but at the same time picturesque. The poet resorts to epithets (“ clean" beauty, " wonderful"moment," rebellious"gust of storms, etc.), metaphors (" genius of pure beauty», « awakening of the soul"), personification ( the gust of storms is animated). Particular expressiveness and melody are achieved through the use of stylistic figures, for example, antithesis.
Thus, the hero lives “without a deity, without inspiration,” which are resurrected as soon as his beloved returns to his life. In the last quatrain you can see anaphora, and in the second - assonance (“a gentle voice sounded to me for a long time”). The entire poem is written using the technique of inversion.
Pushkin's lyrical heroine is an image of some unearthly being, angelic, pure and gentle. No wonder the poet compares her to a deity.
“I remember a wonderful moment...” is written in Pushkin’s favorite iambic tetrameter with cross alternation of female and male rhymes.
The amazing tenderness and touchingness of the message to Kern make the romantic work one of the best examples of love lyrics - on a global scale.
