A. A. Fet is a poet who has admired the beauty of nature all his life. He recorded his enthusiastic attitude in poems. But often in his works the theme of nature and love were woven together, because Afanasy Afanasyevich believed that man should live in harmony with nature. The reader sees such a connection in the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath,” the analysis of which is presented below.
Title corrections
The analysis of the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath” should begin with the fact that during publication this work was somewhat modified. There are various spellings of the title. This is due to changes in spelling rules. And some adjustments were made by I. S. Turgenev, who published the poem in a magazine in 1850.
The writer changed some lines, believing that the poem would sound more harmonious. Turgenev often corrected Fet's poems in such a way that it did not always benefit them. Because the poet had his own, special style.
Some believe that Fet dedicated this work, like many others, to his beloved Maria Lazic. This love ended tragically, but Afanasy Afanasyevich continued to remember it. This poem is one of the best works of the poet, in which the beauty of nature is intertwined with human feelings, which gives the work a special charm.
Features of the composition
The analysis of the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath” should be continued with compositional features. Despite its apparent simplicity and the absence of any plot, the reader does not perceive it as a list of words, because this work has a holistic composition, with its own beginning, climax and ending.
The verse consists of three stanzas, and each refers to a specific element of the composition. At the very beginning, the poet describes sleepy nature, which begins its awakening with the trills of a nightingale. Also, behind the first line you can guess the images of lovers who came on a date.
In the next stanza there is a denouement - the night changes to morning. But they replace each other in a matter of moments. And the poet depicts this play of light and shadow on the hero’s sweet face. And in the last stanza, the intensity of passions reaches its peak, as well as the beauty of nature - the dawn appears, a new day begins. With a more detailed analysis of the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath,” you can see that it contains a plot about two lovers observing the beauty of nature together.
Motif of love
In the analysis of the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath” by Fet, it should be noted that, in parallel with the description of the change of night and morning, the development of a love line also occurs. Although the work does not mention any lovers, the reader understands from subtle hints that we are talking about them.
These are two lovers who rarely meet, and for them every date is exciting. The very first line in the work speaks about this. The hero treats his dear one with tenderness and warmth. These feelings are reflected in the line that mentions the play of light and shadow on a sweet face.
In the last stanza, the lovers have already become bolder, their passion flares up more and more. Just as the dawn becomes brighter. And the tears are caused by separation, because when morning comes they have to part. Thus, in his poem, the poet very subtly and delicately touches on an intimate topic, which in the 19th century was a bold decision.
Comparison of two topics
In the analysis of Fet's poem "Whisper, Timid Breath" it is important to note that the lyrical motif in the work develops thanks to the constant comparison of two themes. These are themes of landscape and love lyrics. Each of these lines develops in parallel, which makes the work richer and more expressive.
Throughout the poem there is a development in the direction from less to more. If at the very beginning there was timidity and embarrassment between the characters, and nature was still asleep, then there is a gradual increase in the intensity of emotions. And at the same time, the hero’s perception of nature expands. His gaze covers more and more, as if with increased feelings he understands natural beauty more subtly and deeply. This emphasizes the poet’s opinion that a person should live in harmony with the world around him.
Poetic meter and method of rhyming
In a brief analysis of the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath,” one of the points is the meter of the poem and the way it rhymes. This work is written in trochaic tetrameter. It consists of three stanzas, each with four lines. The rhyming method is cross.
Features in creating images
In a brief analysis of Fet’s poem “Whisper, Timid Breath,” it is worth noting how, with the help of colors, the poet managed to give his creation even more expressiveness and lyricism. Here, just as in the case of the plot, the reader sees a gradual gradation. At the very beginning, a calm, muted shade was chosen - silver.
In the second stanza, the poet continues to adhere to this range, and the outline of the images themselves is still quite blurred and unclear. But a mixture of different shades is already taking place (the play of light and shadow is described). In the final lines, the reader already notices the brightness of the colors (purple, amber), which correspond to a beautiful phenomenon - the dawn. Thus, the color scheme complements the lyricism of the picture described in the poem.
Literary tropes and means of expression
An important point in the linguistic analysis of Fet’s poem “Whisper, Timid Breath” is its verblessness. So the poet focuses only on sensations, and actions remain behind the scenes. And this wordlessness gives the poem a special smooth rhythm, unhurriedness.
The epithets chosen by the poet very accurately reflect the emotional state of the characters. And the use of personification in describing the world around us emphasizes the idea of the unity of man and nature. Metaphors give the poem more lightness, weightlessness, and make the line between two lovers thinner.
Many of Afanasy Afanasyevich’s poems formed the basis of romances due to their special musicality. And in this poem, the poet resorted to the melody of words: alliteration and assonance gave the lines melodiousness and smoothness. And the laconicism of the phrases gives the work a touch of personal, emotional conversation.
Criticism of the poem
Not all of Fet's contemporaries were able to appreciate his creation. Many criticized the narrowness of his thinking, the absence of any action in the poem. At that time, society was already talking about revolutionary ideas and the need for reforms, so contemporaries did not like the topic chosen by the poet for his work. They said that his creation was absolutely unprincipled, and its main theme was already ordinary and uninteresting.
Also, for some critics, the poem was not expressive enough. Not everyone was able to appreciate the purity and lyricism of the description of the poet’s experiences. Indeed, for that time, Fet, who boldly wrote a poem in such a laconic form, touching on quite intimate details, seemed to challenge society. But there were those who were able to appreciate the beauty and purity of this creation.
An analysis of the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath” according to plan shows the reader how original the style of A. A. Fet is. This work is one of his best creations, in which the poet touched on his personal intimate experiences, describing all this, using all the beauty and richness of the Russian language.
“Whisper, timid breathing...”
Another early poem is the lyrical play “Whisper, Timid Breath...”. Like the two previous ones, this poem is truly innovative. It was a new poetic word both for Russian literature and for Fet himself. The poet perfectly conveys the “fragrant freshness of feelings” inspired by nature, its beauty and charm. His poems are imbued with a bright, joyful mood, the happiness of love. He unusually subtly reveals the various shades of human experiences. Fet knows how to capture and put into bright, living images even fleeting mental movements that are difficult to identify and convey in words:
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!
The poem was written in the late 40s. First published in the magazine “Moskvityanin” in 1850, in the second issue.
Of all Fet’s early poems, “Whisper, Timid Breathing...” is the most unusual and unconventional. And it could not help but attract the attention of criticism - both positive and negative. Much has been written about the poem, and on various occasions. Parodies were written. In the minds of readers and critics, it became “the most Fetov-esque poem,” a kind of poetic “self-portrait.”
Having a generally negative attitude toward Fet’s poetry, Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote in an article in 1863: “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 the following poem by Mr. Fet. ..” - and then Shchedrin cited the text of the poem “Whisper, timid breathing...”. However, already in the 70s Shchedrin was able to see in Fetov’s work exclusively a subject for irony. Describing the idle sensations of idle people, the great satirist also recalls Fet’s poem: “What kind of sensations were experienced in this enchanting setting! Whispers, sighs, half-words...” And, quoting “Whispers, timid breathing...”, he continues: “And kisses, kisses, kisses - endlessly.”
Shchedrin now emphasizes in Fetov’s poem his supposedly erotic, lovingly sensual character. It is interesting that even before Shchedrin, in 1860, in the magazine “Whistle” Fet Dobrolyubov also interpreted the poem erotically. This is evidenced by his witty and in his own way talented parody of Fet:
Evening. In a cozy room
Meek half-light.
And she, my guest for a moment...
Kindness and greetings;
Outline of a cute little head,
The shine of passionate gazes,
Unraveling lacing
Convulsive crackling...
The critical attitude towards Fet's poem was opposed, however, by an approving one. The poem was highly valued by Turgenev and Druzhinin, Botkin and Dostoevsky. In 1910, before his death, Leo Tolstoy quoted this poem and spoke of it with great praise.
Now, years later, we no longer have any doubts. We are aware of how differently Fet’s work could have been perceived in the turbulent pre-revolutionary era of the second half of the 19th century. But now is a different era - and much in literature is perceived differently than then. For us, Fet's poem is certainly one of the best examples of his lyrics.
Fet’s poetic style, as revealed in the poem “Whisper, timid breathing...”, is sometimes called impressionistic . Impressionism As an artistic movement, it first emerged in the art of painting, in France. Its representatives were artists Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir. Impressionism comes from a French word meaning: impression. In the so-called art, objects are drawn not in their full volume and specificity, but in unexpected lighting, from some unusual side - they are drawn as they appear to the artist with a special, individual look at them.
Parallel to impressionism in painting, something similar arose in literature and poetry. Both in Western and Russian. Fet became one of the first “impressionists” in Russian poetry.
As in painting, impressionism in poetry is the depiction of objects not in their integrity, but as if in instantaneous and random snapshots of memory. The object is not so much depicted as recorded. Individual fragments of phenomena pass before us, but these “scraps,” taken together, perceived together, form an unexpectedly integral and psychologically very reliable picture. It turns out approximately as described by Leo Tolstoy: “You look at how a man seems to smear paints indiscriminately, and these strokes seem to have no relationship with each other. But if you go some distance away, you look, and in general you get a complete impression.”
Tolstoy here means the impression of a work of painting, but this can also be attributed to a poetic work created according to the laws of impressionist art. Specifically, this can be applied to many of Fet’s poems.
The poem is built on fragments of events and phenomena, on private fixation of individual objects - but on the whole the result is a truthful poetic story and high recognition. The interaction of words hidden in the subtext most of all determines the development and semantic solution of the topic. But the fact that the words turn out to be not valuable in themselves and not entirely objective is precisely what removes any possible eroticism from the poem. Love is given by hints, subtle references - and therefore not at all grounded, but high. This is not so much carnal as spiritual love, as the ending of the poem indicates. As always with Fet, it is very significant and truly completes the lyrical plot. The last words of the poem -- And dawn, dawn...- do not sound in line with others, but stand out. Dawn is not just another phenomenon, but a strong metaphor and a strong ending. In the context of the poem, dawn is the highest expression of feeling, the light of love.
The poet sang beauty where he saw it, and he found it everywhere. He was an artist with an exceptionally developed sense of beauty, which is probably why the pictures of nature in his poems are so beautiful, which he took as it is, without allowing any decorations of reality. The landscape of central Russia is clearly visible in his poems.
In all descriptions of nature, A. Fet is impeccably faithful to its smallest features, shades, and moods. It was thanks to this that the poet created amazing works that for so many years have amazed us with psychological accuracy, filigree precision.
The poem was written by A. Fet in 1850 and is one of the central ones in all of his work. Since its publication, the work immediately received a number of mixed reviews. Critics noted the innovation and amazing lyricism of the poem. At the same time, Fet was accused of being pointless and excessively intimate.
The poem is written in the genre of love lyrics. In this area, Fet most clearly revealed himself as a poet.
The main theme of the poem is love and unity with nature. In just a few lines, Fet masterfully conveys a love atmosphere. Like an artist, the poet, with a few bright but confident strokes, paints a wonderful picture of sensory relationships inextricably linked with the sound and visual sensations of natural phenomena.
In terms of composition, the poem alternates descriptions of the human and the natural, which creates the impression of an organic connection. It becomes impossible to separate “whisper” from “trills”, “glimmer of amber” from “kisses”.
The meter of the poem combines tetrameter and trimeter trochee and cross rhyme.
The highlight of the work is that it does not contain a single verb. Nouns predominate, which makes the poem extremely unusual. Lack of movement does not make it static. Dynamics is achieved by a skillful combination of expressive means. The epithets are dim, but used appropriately, each “in its place” (“timid”, “sleepy”, “night”). The metaphors are amazingly beautiful: “silver of the stream” and “purple of the rose.”
The smoothness and lyricism of the poem is emphasized by the flow of words in the second stanza: “night-night-shadows-shadows.” The emotionality intensifies at the end due to the repeated repetition of the conjunction “and”. The exclamation and at the same time the ellipsis at the end create a feeling of solemnity and incompleteness. The reader understands that happiness has no boundaries.
In general, the poem is one of the examples of love lyrics in a minimal size.
Option 2
Afanasy Fet is rightfully considered one of the romantics of the Russian land, since he described feelings that only a few managed to repeat. And although the author himself did not consider himself to be a member of this movement in literature, all his works were written in the spirit of typical romance. Landscape lyrics are the basis of Fet’s work, and they are often intertwined with love lyrics. At the same time, the author believes that man is a true son of his native nature, and his love for the world around him is much stronger than for a woman.
This poem was written in 1850, it became a striking example of the author’s ability to accurately intertwine his attitude towards a woman with reverence for nature, which he considers his mother. The poem begins with lines that describe early morning. This is the period of time when night gives way to daylight, and it does not last long. A few minutes of transition become for him an opportunity to enjoy the moment.
Changing the time of day is also an opportunity to enjoy the changes in the face, which seems sweet and sublime to the lyrical hero. And until the sun has fully risen, the man tries to enjoy the joys of love, which leaves tears of admiration on his face, and the tears themselves reflect the colors of the dawn, which illuminate the whole face and make it even more beautiful and desirable.
There are no verbs in the poem itself; the author seems to leave all actions behind the scenes, allowing the reader to understand what is happening for himself. The rhythm of the verse is measured and unhurried, showing that the young people are enjoying the moment they can spend in each other's company.
Despite this, after the work was published, the author was accused of lacking specificity in the poem. The narrative sentences are short, and the reader has to figure out what is happening for himself. Later it was recognized as a classic of Russian literature. The author’s narration style becomes his individual feature; each reader can complete the existing picture himself, literally visit the scene of events, and become a participant in what is happening. Later, authors will appear who will imitate his writing style, try to adopt the existing style, but will never reach his level.
Fet Whisper-timid breathing analysis of the poem
In the poetry of A.A. Feta, the theme of nature is almost always interconnected with the theme of love, and this poem is no exception. A feature of the poet’s love lyrics is the absence of a specific image of the lyrical heroine, who has characteristic features. His lyrics convey the feeling of first falling in love, a state of joy and happiness, surprise at the world and rediscovering it for oneself, when a person feels harmony and unity with the outside world. And She becomes the center of the universe for the lyrical hero.
The poem depicts a meeting between lovers: waiting, meeting. We hear the trills of a nightingale, the whispers and timid breathing of lovers, excited by the meeting. The world around them seems to freeze, empathizing with their meeting and, as if afraid to frighten away the charm of the moment.
In the second stanza we see that night is coming, which changes the world around us:
Night light, night shadows,
Endless shadows...
The lyrical repetitions used by the poet help create an accurate, vivid, three-dimensional picture of what is happening. However, for the lyrical hero it is not the change in the external world that is important; he notices only Her. He sees how the night shadows change the illumination of his beloved’s face and it seems magical to him.
But dawn comes, the lovers see a “glimmer of amber”, “the purple of a rose” in the sky, and realize that the moment of parting will soon come for them.
The characters feel sadness from the upcoming separation, confusion of feelings and see the beauty of the world around them. Here the author uses polyunion, this helps to increase the pace of the poem in order to more clearly and accurately show the mental state of the characters. A.A. Fet masterfully conveyed this with the following lines:
And kisses and tears,
And dawn, dawn!..
Reading this poem, you don’t immediately realize that it was written without a single verb. This style of writing was not chosen by chance; it helps the poet to depict the intertwining of 2 worlds: nature and the emotional experiences of the characters. In addition, this contributes to the creation of more vivid tangible images. To create which A.A. Fet uses such figurative and expressive means as metaphors: “purple of a rose”, “silver of a sleepy stream”, epithets “sweet face”.
The poem is written in trochee; this two-foot meter is distinguished by the fact that it gives the work rhythmicity and expressiveness. This is also facilitated by the cross rhyme of the lines of the poem.
Analysis 4
Poem by A.A. Fet “Whisper, timid breathing...” published in 1850. It is dedicated to the tragic death of the poet’s first lover, Maria Lazic.
The poem is unusual in its structure, syntax, and sound design. It contains only one nominal sentences. Apart from two prepositions and four conjunctions, the vocabulary of this poem consists of 30 words: 23 nouns and 7 adjectives. Twelve short lines, but how much is said about nature, the meeting of two people who sympathize with each other. Not a single verb, and nature is depicted in constant change depending on the time of day, and the relationships of the characters also change.
“Ttimid breathing” says that those present are still shy of each other, excited about the meeting. The following lines - sketches of nature - give an idea of where and when the whispering speakers met. Their date takes place away from people, alone, in the evening. This is confirmed by the trills of the nightingale. But his singing can be heard during the day, however, the expression “swaying of a sleepy stream” clarifies: not asleep, but sleepy. So, in the evening.
In the second stanza we learn more fully about those who speak in whispers. Night comes into its own. The reflection of moonlight (“night light”) falls on objects. “Shadows without end” suggests that there is a slight breeze in the air that sways the branches of the trees, and they give rise to shadows. Meeting in private, talking about secrets affects the expression on their faces. And the woman’s face seems magically sweet.
In the poem, Fet’s “hints” are quite objective: whispers, timid breathing, kisses, tears. The final line is connected with the entire cheerful aspiration of the poem. The word “dawn” in a figurative sense means the birth of something joyful and significant. And something important came into the lives of the heroes of the poem.
The novelty of the poem is that it contains a minimum of words and a maximum of poetic information. Sometimes a word carries a lot of meaning. For example, the word “silver” implies the color of the water of a stream. The rays of the sun reflected in the water give it a silvery tint. Dynamism is achieved by the rapid change of pictures of nature. Summer evening gives way to night, then dawn with its dazzlingly bright colors. The relationships between the characters also change: from shyness to hugs.
The poem is written in tetrameter and bimeter trochee. Cross rhyme, masculine and feminine rhymes are used. The author uses such figurative and expressive means as metaphors and epithets: “silver of a sleepy stream”, “endless shadows”, “a glimmer of amber”, “sweet face”, “smoky clouds”, “magical changes”.
This poem by A. Fet inspires, awakens the desire to create, live and love.
Analysis of the poem Whisper, timid breathing according to plan
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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!..
Analysis of the poem “Whisper, Timid Breath” by Fet
A. Fet is rightfully considered one of the best representatives of the romantic school. His works represent "art for art's sake." A distinctive feature of Fet’s work was the amazing combination of landscape and love lyrics. The poem “Whisper, Timid Breath” (1850) is one of the best creations of the lyric poet. It is dedicated to the tragic death of the poet’s first lover, M. Lazic.
The publication of the poem caused a lot of critical reviews. Many reproached the poet for being completely out of touch with reality and pointless. Fet was blamed for the lightness and airiness of the images. Some critics argued that the vague imagery concealed excessive eroticism. The most unfair were the statements that the poem was simply a technically weak trinket, worthy only of a mediocre rhymer. Time has shown that behind the apparent simplicity there was hidden enormous poetic talent.
The original feature of the work is that the author does not use a single verb. Even epithets do not play a big role, they only emphasize the characteristic properties of objects and phenomena: “timid”, “night”, “smoky”. The main effect is achieved by a special combination of nouns. Their diversity makes the poem dynamic and imaginative. “Human” concepts (“breath”, “tears”) are intertwined with natural ones, creating a feeling of inextricable connection. It is impossible to draw a boundary between them. Love relationships are woven into the world. The feeling of passion dissolves in the surrounding colors and sounds. Morning changes in nature are immediately reflected on a person in the form of “changes in a cute face.”
The poem consists of one continuous sentence. This compensates for the lack of verbs and increases dynamics. The whole work is a combination of sounds, visual images and sensory experiences. The author gives the reader only the general outline of the picture; the missing details must be filled in by imagination. This opens up endless possibilities for flights of fancy. The culmination of the work is the coming dawn, symbolizing the highest point of love passion.
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 an 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).
