Badly Great
Report by Alena Vasilyeva. Moscow, 2006
INTRODUCTION
Yesenin lived only thirty years, but the mark he left in poetry is indelible. The Russian land is rich in talents. Sergei Yesenin rose to the heights of poetry from the depths of folk life. The world of folk poetic images surrounded him from childhood. All beauty native land over the years portrayed in verse, full of love to Russian land:
About Rus' - raspberry field, And the blue that fell into the river I love to joy and pain Your lake longing.
The pains and hardships of peasant Rus', its joys and hopes - all this was reflected in the poetry of Sergei Yesenin. “My lyrics,” Yesenin said not without pride, “are alive alone big love, love for the Motherland. The feeling of the Motherland is the main thing in my work. "Beloved land! My heart dreams Stacks of the sun in the waters of the womb, I would like to get lost In the greenery of your callous," the poet wrote. Such lines, in my opinion, can only be born in the soul true artist for whom the Motherland is life. Yesenin's grandfather, " bright personality, broad nature", according to the poet, had wonderful memory and knew by heart many folk songs and ditties. Yesenin himself knew perfectly Russian folklore, which he studied not from books. Yesenin's mother knew many songs that Yesenin remembered more than once. Yesenin knew the songs, as rarely anyone knew them, he loved them - sad and cheerful, old and modern. Songs, legends, sayings - Sergei Yesenin was brought up on this. About four thousand miniature masterpieces were recorded in his notebooks.
Over time, Yesenin's talent gained strength. Block, before whom he bowed, helped Yesenin enter the literary world. He (Blok) wrote a letter to his friend Gorodetsky asking him to help the young talent. In his diary, Blok wrote: "The verses are fresh, clean, vociferous. I haven't experienced such pleasure for a long time." Later, poems by Sergei Yesenin began to be published in metropolitan magazines: A rural dreamer - I am in the capital Became a first-class poet. One of the reviewers said about the poet's early poems: "A tired, satiated city dweller, reading Yesenin's poems, joins the forgotten aroma of the fields, something joyful emanates from his poetry."
The first World War. With all his heart, with all his soul, the poet is devoted to the Motherland and his people in these long years of grief and sorrow: Oh, you, Rus', my meek homeland, Only for you I save love. The poem "Rus" is a remarkable and widely famous work, it is the artistic credo of the poet. In terms of mood, "Rus" somehow echoes Blok's mournful thoughts about the Motherland:
Russia, impoverished Russia, I have your gray huts, Your songs are windy for me, Like the first tears of love!
Russia, impoverished Russia, I have your gray huts,
Your songs are windy for me, Like the first tears of love!
The time of Yesenin's work is the time of sharp turns in the history of Russia. He wrote in his autobiography: "I accepted the revolution, but with a peasant bias." It couldn't be otherwise. Yesenin is not just a lyricist, he is a poet of great intelligence, deep philosophical reflections. The drama of his attitude, his intense search for truth, error and weakness - all these are the facets of a huge talent, but, studying his creative path, we can safely say that Yesenin was always true to himself in the main thing - in an effort to comprehend difficult fate of his people. The year and a half spent by the poet abroad was an exceptional period in his life: he did not write poetry, nothing inspired the poet away from his native land. It was there that the idea of the tragic poem "The Black Man" arose. This is Yesenin's last poetic work. Only abroad did he realize what grandiose changes were taking place in his homeland. He notes in his diary that perhaps the Russian revolution will save the world from hopeless philistinism. After returning from abroad, Yesenin visits his native land. He is sad, it seems to him that the people do not remember him, that huge changes have taken place in the village, but in which direction, he could not determine. The poet writes: This is the country!
For many years at school they studied the poetry of Demyan Bedny, Lebedev-Kumach, but the youth did not know Khodasevich, talented from God, Yesenin's lyrics were not included in school textbooks, falsely accusing him of lack of ideas, the best poets were deleted from literature. But they are alive, their poems are read, loved, they are believed. Yesenin wrote his poems with the "blood of feelings". Distributing himself, he burned himself early, his poetry is his destiny. Even earlier, in the poem "I'm tired of living in my native land," he predicts his future:
I'm tired of living in my native land In longing for buckwheat expanses, I will leave my hut, I will leave as a vagabond and a thief... And the month will sail and sail, dropping oars on the lakes, And Rus' will still live, dance and cry at the fence.
I'm tired of living in my native land In longing for buckwheat expanses, I will leave my hut, I will leave as a vagabond and a thief... And the month will sail and sail, dropping oars on the lakes,
And Rus' will still live, dance and cry at the fence.
In the poetry of subsequent years, the motive of sadness, regret for the wasted forces, is increasingly heard, some kind of hopelessness emanates from his poetry. In The Black Man, he writes tragic lines: “My friend, I am very, very sick, I don’t know where this pain came from, whether the wind is rustling over an empty and deserted field, or, like a grove in September, alcohol showers brains ". This is not a momentary weakness of the poet, this is a clear understanding that his life is coming to an end. Recently, a message flashed in our press that Yesenin did not commit suicide, that he was killed, because he had a great influence on the minds of the Russian people. The question is debatable, but the lines ("in this life, dying is not new, but life, of course, is not newer") suggests that he is tired of fighting with the surrounding reality. I would like to finish my essay with lines from his poem "We are now leaving little by little." His words are a tribute to the Motherland, to descendants:
I thought many thoughts in silence, I composed many songs about myself,And on this earth gloomyHappy that I breathed and lived.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Yesenin Sergey Alexandrovich (1895-1925 )
From the age of two, I was given to be raised by a rather prosperous maternal grandfather, who had three adult unmarried sons, with whom almost all of my childhood passed. My uncles were mischievous and desperate guys. For three and a half years they put me on a horse without a saddle and immediately put me into a gallop. I remember that I was crazy and held on to the withers very tightly. Then I was taught to swim. One uncle (Uncle Sasha) took me to the boat, drove away from the shore, took off my clothes and, like a puppy, threw me into the water. I clumsily and frightenedly clapped my hands, and until I choked, he kept shouting: “Eh! Bitch! Well, where are you fit? ..” “Bitch” he had an affectionate word. After about eight years, I often replaced a hunting dog for another uncle, swam on the lakes for shot ducks. He was very good at climbing trees. Among the boys he was always a horse-breeder and a big brawler, and he always walked in scratches. Only one grandmother scolded me for mischief, and grandfather sometimes provoked me to fisticuffs and often said to my grandmother: “Don’t touch him, you fool, he will be stronger!” Grandmother loved me with all her urine, and her tenderness knew no bounds. On Saturdays I was washed, my nails were cut, and my head was shirred with garlic oil, because not a single comb took curly hair. But the oil did little to help. I always yelled with a good obscenity, and even now I have some kind of unpleasant feeling by Saturday.
This is how my childhood passed. When I grew up, they really wanted to make a rural teacher out of me, and therefore they sent me to a church teacher's school, after graduating from which I was supposed to enter the Moscow Teachers' Institute. Fortunately, this did not happen.
I started writing poetry early, about nine years old, but I attribute conscious creativity to 16-17 years. Some of the poems of these years are placed in the "Radunitsa".
At the age of eighteen, I was surprised, having sent my poems to magazines, that they were not being published, and I went to Petersburg.
I was received very warmly there. The first one I saw was Blok, the second - Gorodetsky. When I looked at Blok, sweat dripped from me, because for the first time I saw a living poet. Gorodetsky introduced me to Klyuev, whom I had never heard a word about before. Despite all our internal strife, we struck up a great friendship with Klyuev.
In the same years, I entered the Shanyavsky University, where I stayed for only 1 1/2 years, and again left for the countryside. At the University I met the poets Semenovsky, Nasedkin, Kolokolov and Filipchenko.
Of the contemporary poets, I liked Blok, Bely and Klyuev the most. Bely gave me a lot in terms of form, while Blok and Klyuev taught me lyricism.
In 1919, with a number of comrades, I published a manifesto of Imagism. Imagism was the formal school that we wanted to establish. But this school had no ground and died of itself, leaving the truth behind the organic image.
I would gladly discard many of my religious verses and poems, but they have great value as the path of the poet before the revolution.
From the age of eight, my grandmother dragged me to different monasteries, because of her, all sorts of wanderers and pilgrims always huddled with us. Various spiritual verses were sung. Grandfather opposite. Was not a fool to drink. From his side, eternal unmarried weddings were arranged.
After, when I left the village, I had to figure out my way of life for a long time.
During the years of the revolution, he was entirely on the side of October, but he accepted everything in his own way, with a peasant bias.
In terms of formal development, I am now more and more drawn to Pushkin.
As for the rest of the autobiographical information, they are in my poems.
October 1925
The work of Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin, uniquely bright and deep, is now firmly established in our literature and enjoys great success with numerous Soviet and foreign readers. The poet's poems are full of heartfelt warmth and sincerity, passionate love for the boundless expanses of native fields, the "inexhaustible sadness" of which he was able to convey so emotionally and so loudly.
Sergei Yesenin entered our literature as an outstanding lyricist. It is in the lyrics that everything that makes up the soul of Yesenin's creativity is expressed. It contains the full-blooded, sparkling joy of a young man who rediscovers wonderful world, subtly feeling the fullness of earthly charms, and the deep tragedy of a person who has remained too long in the "narrow gap" of old feelings and views. And if in best poems Sergei Yesenin - the "flood" of the most secret, most intimate human feelings, they are filled to the brim with the freshness of pictures of native nature, then in his other works - despair, decay, hopeless sadness. Sergei Yesenin is, first of all, a singer of Rus', and in his verses, sincere and frank in Russian, we feel the beating of a restless tender heart. They have a "Russian spirit", they "smell of Russia". Even in Yesenin's love lyrics, the theme of love merges with the theme of the Motherland. The author of "Persian Motives" is convinced of the fragility of serene happiness away from his native land. And distant Russia becomes the main heroine of the cycle: "No matter how beautiful Shiraz is, it is no better than the expanses of Ryazan." Yesenin met the October Revolution with joy and ardent sympathy. Together with Blok, Mayakovsky, he took her side without hesitation. The works written by Yesenin at that time ("Transfiguration", "Inonia", "Heavenly Drummer") are imbued with rebellious moods. The poet is captured by the storm of the revolution, its greatness, and rushes to the new, to the future. In one of his works, Yesenin exclaimed: "My Motherland, I am a Bolshevik!" But Yesenin, as he himself wrote, took the revolution in his own way, "with a peasant bias", "more spontaneously than consciously." This left a special imprint on the poet's work and largely predetermined his future path. Characteristic were the poet's ideas about the goal of the revolution, about the future, about socialism. In the poem "Inonia" he draws the future as a kind of idyllic kingdom of peasant prosperity, socialism seems to him a blissful "peasant's paradise". Such ideas also affected other works of Yesenin of that time:
I see you, green fields, With a herd of brown horses. With a shepherd's pipe in the willows Apostle Andrew is wandering.
But the fantastic visions of the peasant Irony, of course, were not destined to come true. The revolution was led by the proletariat, the village was led by the city. “After all, there is absolutely not the socialism that I thought about,” says Yesenin in one of the letters of that time. Yesenin begins to curse the "iron guest", bringing death to the patriarchal rural way of life, and mourn the old, outgoing "wooden Rus'". This explains the inconsistency of Yesenin's poetry, who went through a difficult path from a singer of patriarchal, impoverished, destitute Russia to a singer of socialist Russia, Lenin's Russia. After Yesenin's trip abroad and to the Caucasus, a turning point occurs in the life and work of the poet and a new period is indicated. It makes him fall in love with his socialist fatherland more strongly and more strongly and evaluate everything that happens in it in a different way. "... I fell even more in love with communist construction," Yesenin wrote upon returning to his homeland in the essay "Iron Mirgorod". Already in the cycle "Love of a Hooligan", written immediately upon arrival from abroad, moods of loss and hopelessness are replaced by hope for happiness, faith in love and the future. The beautiful poem "A blue fire swept ...", full of self-condemnation, pure and tender love, gives a clear idea of the new motives in Yesenin's lyrics:
A blue fire swept Forgotten relatives gave. For the first time I sang about love, For the first time I refuse to scandal. I was all - like a neglected garden, He was greedy for women and potion. Enjoyed singing and dancing And lose your life without looking back.
Yesenin's work is one of the brightest, deeply exciting pages in the history of Soviet literature. Yesenin's era has passed away, but his poetry continues to live, awakening a feeling of love for his native land, for everything close and different. We are concerned about the sincerity and spirituality of the poet, for whom Rus' was the most precious thing on the entire planet.
The theme of the motherland is one of the main themes in the work of S. Yesenin. It is customary to associate this poet, first of all, with the village, with his native Ryazan region. But the poet left the Ryazan village of Konstantinovo very young, then lived in Moscow, and in St. Petersburg, and abroad, came to his native village from time to time as a guest. It is important to know this in order to understand the position of S. Yesenin. It is separation from native land and gave his poems about her that warmth of memories that distinguishes them. In the very descriptions of nature, the poet has that measure of detachment, which allows this beauty to be seen and felt more sharply.
Already in the early poems of S. Yesenin there are declarations of love for Russia. So, one of his most famous works - "Goy you, my dear Rus' ..." From the very beginning, Rus' appears here as something sacred, the key image of the poem is a comparison of peasant huts with icons, images in robes, and behind this comparison - a whole philosophy, system of values. The world of the village is like a temple with its harmony of earth and sky, man and nature. The world of Rus' for S. Yesenin is also the world of miserable, poor, bitter peasant houses, an abandoned land, a "village in potholes", where joy is short and sadness is endless:
"Sad song, you are Russian pain."
This feeling is especially enhanced in the poet's poems after 1914 - the beginning of the war: the village seems to him a bride, abandoned by her beloved and waiting for news from him from the battlefield. For a poet, his native village in Russia is something unified, his homeland, especially in his early work, is first of all his native land, his native village, something that later, at the end of the 20th century, literary critics defined as the concept of "small motherland". With a tendency inherent in S. Yesenin - the lyrics to animate all living things, everything around him, he also addresses Russia as a person close to him: "Oh, you, Rus', my meek homeland, / I only save love for you." Sometimes the poet's poems take on a note of aching sadness, a feeling of restlessness arises in them, their lyrical hero is a wanderer who left his native hut, rejected and forgotten by everyone. And the only thing that remains unchanged, that preserves the eternal value, is nature and Russia:
And the month will swim and swim Dropping oars across the lakes... And Rus' will still live Dance and cry at the fence.
S. Yesenin lived in a critical era, full of dramatic and even tragic events. In the memory of his generation - war, revolution, war again - now civil. The turning point for Russia - 1917 - the poet met, like many artists of his circle, with hopes for renewal, for a happy turn in the peasant lot. The poets of the circle of S. Yesenin of that time are N. Klyuev, P. Oreshin, S. Klychkov. These hopes are expressed in the words of N. Klyuev, a close friend and poetic mentor of S. Yesenin: "The land of the peasants is now, / And the church will not hire the official." In Yesenin's poetry in 1917, a new feeling of Russia appears: "Already washed away, wiped off the tar / Resurrected Rus'." The feelings and moods of the poet of this time are very complex and contradictory - these are both hopes and expectations of the bright and new, but this is also anxiety for the fate of his native land, philosophical reflections on timeless topics. One of them - the theme of the collision of nature and the human mind, invading it and destroying its harmony - sounds in S. Yesenin's poem "Sorokoust". In it, the competition between the foal and the train, which acquires a deeply symbolic meaning, becomes central. At the same time, the foal, as it were, embodies all the beauty of nature, its touching defenselessness. The locomotive takes on the features of an ominous monster. In Yesenin's "Sorokoust", the eternal theme of confrontation between nature and reason, technological progress merges with reflections on the fate of Russia.
In the post-revolutionary poetry of S. Yesenin, the theme of the homeland is saturated with difficult thoughts about the poet's place in a new life, he is painfully experiencing alienation from his native land, it is difficult for him to find a common language with the new generation, for which the calendar Lenin on the wall replaces the icon, and "pot-bellied" Capital " - The Bible. It is especially bitter for the poet to realize that the new generation sings new songs: “Poor Demyan’s agitation girls sing.” This is all the more sad because S. Yesenin rightly remarks: “I am a poet! And it’s not like some Demyan’s there.” That’s why his lines sound so sad: “My poetry is no longer needed here, / Yes, and, perhaps, I myself am also not needed here.” But even the desire to merge with new life does not force S. Yesenin to abandon his vocation as a Russian poet; he writes: "I will give my whole soul to October and May, / But I will not give only my dear lyre." And so his confession is filled with such deep pathos:
"I will sing With the whole being in the poet sixth of the earth With a short name "Rus".
"I will sing With the whole being in the poet sixth of the earth
With a short name "Rus".
Today, it is difficult for us, living in Russia, to fully understand the meaning of these lines, and yet they were written in 1924, when the very name - Rus - was almost forbidden, and citizens were supposed to live in "Resefeser". With the theme of the motherland, S. Yesenin understands his poetic mission, his position as "the last singer of the village", the keeper of her precepts, her memory. One of the programmatic, important for understanding the theme of the motherland, the poet has become the poem "The feather grass is sleeping":
The feather grass is sleeping.Plain dear And the lead freshness of wormwood! No other homeland Do not pour my warmth into my chest.Know that we all have such a fate, And, perhaps, ask everyone - Rejoicing, raging and tormented, Life is good in Rus'.The light of the moon, mysterious and long, Willows are crying, poplars are whispering, But no one under the cry of a crane He will not stop loving his father's fields.And now that behold the new light And my life touched fate, I still remain a poet Golden log cabin.At night, clinging to the headboard, I see a strong enemy How someone else's youth splashes with new To my glades and meadows.But still cramped by the new, I can sing heartily: Give me in the homeland of my beloved, Loving everything, die in peace."
The feather grass is sleeping.Plain dear And the lead freshness of wormwood! No other homeland Do not pour my warmth into my chest.
Know that we all have such a fate, And, perhaps, ask everyone - Rejoicing, raging and tormented, Life is good in Rus'.
The light of the moon, mysterious and long, Willows are crying, poplars are whispering, But no one under the cry of a crane He will not stop loving his father's fields.
And now that behold the new light And my life touched fate, I still remain a poet Golden log cabin.
At night, clinging to the headboard, I see a strong enemy How someone else's youth splashes with new To my glades and meadows.
But still cramped by the new, I can sing heartily: Give me in the homeland of my beloved, Loving everything, die in peace."
This poem is dated 1925, refers to the mature lyrics of the poet. It expresses his innermost thoughts. In the line "rejoicing, raging and tormented" - a difficult historical experience that fell to the lot of the Yesenin generation. The poem is built on traditionally poetic images: feather grass as a symbol of the Russian landscape and at the same time a symbol of longing, wormwood with its rich symbolism and a crane cry as a sign of separation. The traditional landscape, in which the no less traditional "light of the moon" is the personification of poetry, is opposed by " New World", rather abstract, inanimate, devoid of poetry. And in contrast to it, the recognition sounds lyrical hero Yesenin's poem in adherence to the age-old rural way of life. The poet's epithet "golden" is especially significant: "I will still remain a poet / of the Golden Log Cabin." It is one of the most frequently encountered in the lyrics of S. Yesenin, but usually it is associated with a color concept: golden - that is, yellow, but certainly with a touch of the highest value: "golden grove", "golden frog moon". In this poem, the shade of value prevails: gold is not only the color of the hut, but a symbol of its enduring value as a symbol of the way of village life with its inherent beauty and harmony. The village hut is a whole world, its destruction is not redeemed for the poet by any tempting news. The end of the poem sounds somewhat rhetorical, but in general context poetry of S. Yesenin, he is perceived as a deep and sincere recognition of the author. Thus, the theme of the motherland in the poetry of S. Yesenin develops from an unconscious, almost childishly natural attachment to the native land to a conscious, withstood the test of hard times, changes and fractures of the author's position.
I am not a new person, what to hide, I remained in the past with one foot, In an effort to catch up with the "steel army", I slide and fall with the other. Yesenin "My entire autobiography is in verse," Yesenin wrote. How bigger artist The larger his work, the more original his talent, the more difficult it is for his contemporaries to fully appreciate his contribution to the spiritual life of the nation. In later poems, Yesenin, as if summing up his creative activity, wrote: "My village will be famous only for the fact that here once a woman gave birth to a Russian scandalous piit."
"Cosmos" - (from the Greek order, universe) in the mythological and mythologized early philosophical tradition, the universe, understood as an integral universe organized in accordance with a certain law.
All mythological systems have a common set of features that define the cosmos. It opposes chaos and is always secondary. The relationship between cosmos and chaos is realized not only in time, but also in space. And in this case, the cosmos is often presented as something included in the chaos that surrounds the cosmos from the outside. The cosmic law links the cosmos and man (macrocosm and microcosm) even more closely.
Cosmic motifs can be found in the work of many poets, Yesenin also has them. He has celestial phenomena in almost every poem, space landscapes. So, for example, the month (moon) is mentioned in 52 poems, the sun (10), the stars (32), the sky (14).
If in mythologized concepts the vertical structure of the cosmos is three-membered and consists of the upper world (heaven), middle (earth) and lower ( underworld), then S. Yesenin's space model of the world is two-term (heaven and earth). The first - the upper world - includes celestial phenomena (sky, sun, moon, stars), the second tier - the middle one - includes the earth, trees, animals, people, housing and other buildings. These tiers are very closely related.
At the forest glade - in the ties, heaps of bread, Ate, like spears, rested against the sky. ("The evening smoked…", 1912) The sun went out. Quiet on the lawn. ("Tabun", 1915) I look into the field, I look into the sky - Paradise in the fields and in the sky. ("I'll look in the field...", 1917) A three-star birch forest over a pond...
At the forest glade - in the ties, heaps of bread, Ate, like spears, rested against the sky. ("The evening smoked…", 1912)
The sun went out. Quiet on the lawn. ("Tabun", 1915)
I look into the field, I look into the sky - Paradise in the fields and in the sky. ("I'll look in the field...", 1917)
A three-star birch forest over a pond...
The house, being the center of the universe, is connected to the cosmos through the roof.
Big light from the moon Right on our roof. ("It's already evening. Dew ...", 1910) The moon above the roof is like a golden hillock. ("Under the red elm, a porch and a yard ...", 1915) Rooftop flock Serves vespers to the star. ("Here it is, stupid happiness...", 1918)
Big light from the moon Right on our roof. ("It's already evening. Dew ...", 1910)
The moon above the roof is like a golden hillock. ("Under the red elm, a porch and a yard ...", 1915)
Rooftop flock Serves vespers to the star. ("Here it is, stupid happiness...", 1918)
Leaving the house and going on a journey, the lyrical hero also feels his connection with the universe. This is where the "law of the microcosm and macrocosm" comes into play. Man is a kind of microcosm, with all his sensations and impressions. He receives these impressions from interaction with nature, with other people, that is, from the macrocosm.
I want to measure the ends of the earth, Trusting a ghost star. (“I will go to the skufia as a humble monk…”, 1914) Lodging beckons, not far from the hut, The vegetable garden smells of sluggish dill, On the beds of gray wavy cabbage The horn of the moon pours oil drop by drop. ("Dove", 1916) Silent milkiness does not oppress, Star fear does not disturb I loved the world and eternity, Like a parent hearth ("It was not in vain that the winds blew ...", 1917)
I want to measure the ends of the earth, Trusting a ghost star. (“I will go to the skufia as a humble monk…”, 1914)
Lodging beckons, not far from the hut, The vegetable garden smells of sluggish dill, On the beds of gray wavy cabbage The horn of the moon pours oil drop by drop. ("Dove", 1916)
Silent milkiness does not oppress, Star fear does not disturb I loved the world and eternity, Like a parent hearth ("It was not in vain that the winds blew ...", 1917)
Animals in Yesenin's works are also part of the universe and their experiences, attitudes are also associated with space. For example, in the poem "The Song of the Dog" the author shows the pain of the animal, its suffering through cosmic motifs.
A month appeared to her over the hut One of her puppies. (1915) golden frog moon Spread out on still water. (“I left my dear home…”, 1918)
A month appeared to her over the hut One of her puppies. (1915)
golden frog moon Spread out on still water. (“I left my dear home…”, 1918)
Metaphor in these cases arises in form, figure, silhouette. But the moon is not only a celestial body, but also moonlight, which causes different moods in the lyrical hero.
Moonlight, mysterious and long Willows are crying, poplars are whispering. But no one under the cry of a crane He will not stop loving his father's fields. ("The feather grass is sleeping...", 1925) Blue fog. snow expanse, Subtle lemon moonlight. ("Blue fog...", 1925) Uncomfortable liquid moonlight And the longing of the endless plains... ("Uncomfortable liquid moonlight...", 1925)
Moonlight, mysterious and long Willows are crying, poplars are whispering. But no one under the cry of a crane
He will not stop loving his father's fields. ("The feather grass is sleeping...", 1925)
Blue fog. snow expanse, Subtle lemon moonlight. ("Blue fog...", 1925)
Uncomfortable liquid moonlight And the longing of the endless plains... ("Uncomfortable liquid moonlight...", 1925)
Cosmic motives closely coexist with religious ones.
From the blueness of the invisible bush Star psalms flow.("It is not the winds that shower the forests...", 1914) Quiet - quiet in the divine corner, The moon kneads kutya on the floor. ("Night and the field, and the cry of roosters.", 1917)
From the blueness of the invisible bush Star psalms flow.("It is not the winds that shower the forests...", 1914)
Quiet - quiet in the divine corner, The moon kneads kutya on the floor. ("Night and the field, and the cry of roosters.", 1917)
In this poem, "month" and "kutya" are interconnected by ancient beliefs. Month - in folk beliefs is associated with the afterlife, and kutya is a dish that is prepared for the commemoration of dead people. Also in the works, along with celestial phenomena, "heavenly inhabitants" are also mentioned:
Oh mother of God Fall down like a star off-road, In a deaf ravine. ("Oh Mother of God...", 1917) "O virgin Mary! - Heaven sings. ("Oktoih", 1917)
Oh mother of God Fall down like a star off-road,
In a deaf ravine. ("Oh Mother of God...", 1917)
"O virgin Mary! - Heaven sings. ("Oktoih", 1917)
Religious rites and holidays:
Pure Thursday candle There is a star above you. ("Silver Road", 1918)
In works on revolutionary themes, Yesenin again refers to the "universal" space, trying to understand and rethink the events taking place:
But know Sleeping deep: She caught fire Star of the East! ("The Singing Call", 1917) The sky is like a bell The month is the language My mother is the motherland I am a Bolshevik. ("Jordan Dove", 1918)
But know Sleeping deep: She caught fire
Star of the East! ("The Singing Call", 1917)
The sky is like a bell The month is the language My mother is the motherland I am a Bolshevik. ("Jordan Dove", 1918)
as well as the poems "Heavenly Drummer" (1918) and "Pantocrator" (1919). Yesenin, describing the heavenly bodies, refers to folklore themes in relation to the heavenly bodies. For example, in the poem "Marfa - Posadnitsa" (1914).
Not the sister of the month from the dark swamp She threw the kokoshnik into the sky in pearls, - Oh, how Martha went out the gate ...
In folklore, the "sister of the month" is the sun, which is opposed to it as a source of life, heat and light.
Thus, having examined the lyrics of S. Yesenin, we see that the poet turns to cosmic motives in order to comprehend some events, to understand the world around him.
Nature is a comprehensive, the main element of the poet's work. Many of the poems of early S. Yesenin are imbued with a sense of inextricable connection with the life of nature (" Mother in the bath…", "I do not regret, do not call, do not cry... "). The poet constantly turns to nature when he expresses his most intimate thoughts about himself, about his past, present and future. In his poems, she lives a rich poetic life. Like a person, she is born, grows and dies, sings and whispers, is sad and rejoices.
Yesenin's nature is anthropomorphic: birches are likened to girls, maple is like a tipsy watchman, a lyrical hero. The image of nature is built on associations from rural peasant life, and the human world is usually revealed through associations with the life of nature.
Spiritualization, humanization of nature is characteristic of folk poetry. " ancient man almost did not know inanimate objects, - notes A. Afanasiev, - everywhere he found reason, and feeling and will. In the noise of the forests, in the rustle of the leaves, he could hear those mysterious conversations that the trees have among themselves.
The central, comprehensive concept of the poetic views of the Slavs, according to A. Afanasyev, is the image of the world tree or the "tree of life", personifying world harmony, the unity of all things. Such is this image in folk poetry, such is it in Yesenin's poetics, which is why the image of a tree turned out to be at the center of many of S. Yesenin's poems.
From childhood, the poet absorbed this popular worldview, we can say that it formed his poetic individuality.
“Everything is from the tree - this is the religion of the thought of our people ... The tree is life. Wiping their face on the canvas with the image of a tree, our people mutely say that they have not forgotten the secret of the ancient fathers to wipe themselves with leaves, that they remember themselves as the seed of an overworld tree and, running under the cover of its branches, dipping their face in a towel, they seem to want to imprint on his cheeks at least a small branch of it, so that, like a tree, he could shower cones of words and thoughts from himself and stream a shadow-virtue from the branches of his hands, ”wrote S. Yesenin in his poetic and philosophical treatise“ The Keys of Mary.
In ancient myths, the image of a tree was ambiguous.
The tree, in particular, symbolized life and death (blooming or dry), ancient ideas about the universe (the top is the sky, the bottom is the underworld, the middle is the earth), the tree as a whole could be compared with a person (the head is the top that goes into the sky, legs - roots that feel a fortress in the ground, outstretched arms, like branches, hug the world around). So, the tree is a mythological symbol denoting the universe, the harmony of the universe.
However, for Yesenin, the likening of a person to a tree is more than a “religion of thought”: he did not just believe in the existence of a nodal connection between a person and the natural world, he himself felt himself a part of this nature.
Yesenin's motif of the "tree novel", singled out by M. Epstein, goes back to the traditional motif of assimilation of man to nature. Based on the traditional "man-plant" trope, Yesenin creates a "tree novel" whose heroes are maple, birch and willow.
Humanized images of trees are overgrown with “portrait” details: birch has “stand, hips, breasts, leg, hairstyle, hem, braids”, maple has “leg, head”.
So I want to close my hands Over the woody thighs of the willows. green hair, girl breast, O thin birch, What did you look into the pond? ("Green Hairstyle", 1918) I won't be back soon! For a long time to sing and ring the blizzard. Guards blue Rus' Old maple on one leg. (“I left my dear home…”, 1918)
So I want to close my hands Over the woody thighs of the willows.
green hair, girl breast, O thin birch, What did you look into the pond? ("Green Hairstyle", 1918)
I won't be back soon! For a long time to sing and ring the blizzard. Guards blue Rus' Old maple on one leg. (“I left my dear home…”, 1918)
According to M. Epstein, “largely thanks to Yesenin, birch has become a national poetic symbol Russia. Other favorite plants are linden, mountain ash, bird cherry.
Of the 339 poems examined by S. Yesenin, in 199 poems there is a mention of one or another tree.
Birch most often becomes the heroine of his works - 47. Next come spruce (17), maple (15), bird cherry, willow, pine (14), linden (11), poplar, aspen (10), mountain ash (9), willow ( 8), apple tree (7), lilac (6), willow (5), viburnum (4), oak (3), willow (3), alder and cedar (1).
The most plot-length, the most significant in Yesenin's poetry are still birch and maple.
Birch in Russian folk and classical poetry is national symbol Russia. This is one of the most revered trees among the Slavs. In ancient pagan rites, birch often served as a "Maypole", a symbol of spring.
Yesenin, when describing folk spring holidays, mentions a birch in the meaning of this symbol in the poems "Trinity morning ..." (1914) and "Reeds rustled over the backwater ..." (1914)
Trinity morning, morning canon, In the grove along the birch trees there is a white chime.
In the poem "Reeds rustled over the backwater" we are talking about an important and fascinating action of the Semitsk-Trinity week - fortune-telling on wreaths.
The red maiden told fortunes in seven. A wave unraveled a wreath of dodder.
The girls wove wreaths and threw them into the river. According to a wreath that sailed far away, washed ashore, stopped or drowned, they judged the fate that awaited them (far or near marriage, girlhood, death of a betrothed).
Ah, do not marry a girl in the spring, He frightened her with signs of the forest.
In the poem "Green Hairstyle" (1918), the humanization of the appearance of a birch in Yesenin's work reaches its full development. Birch becomes like a woman.
green hair, girl breast, O thin birch, What did you look into the pond?
In such poems as “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry ...” (1921) and “The golden grove dissuaded ...” (1924), the lyrical hero reflects on his life, about his youth:
I do not regret, do not call, do not cry, Everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees. Withering gold embraced, I won't be young anymore. ... And the country of birch chintz Not tempted to wander around barefoot.
"Apple smoke" - flowering trees in the spring, when everything around is reborn to a new life. "Apple tree", "apples" - in folk poetry it is a symbol of youth - "rejuvenating apples", and "smoke" is a symbol of fragility, fleetingness, ghostliness. In combination, they mean the fleetingness of happiness, youth. Birch, a symbol of spring, adjoins the same meaning. "Country of birch calico" is the "country" of childhood, the time of the most beautiful. No wonder Yesenin writes "walking around barefoot", one can draw a parallel with the expression "barefoot childhood".
All of us, all of us in this world are perishable, Quietly pouring copper from maple leaves ... May you be blessed forever That came to flourish and die.
Before us is a symbol of transience human life. The symbol is based on the trope: “life is the time of flowering”, wilting is the approach of death. In nature, everything inevitably returns, repeats and blooms again. Man, unlike nature, is one-time, and his cycle, coinciding with the natural, is already unique.
The theme of the Motherland is closely intertwined with the image of the birch. Each Yesenin line is warmed by a feeling of boundless love for Russia. The strength of the poet's lyrics lies in the fact that in it the feeling of love for the Motherland is expressed not abstractly, but concretely, in visible images, through pictures of the native landscape.
Maple, unlike other trees, it does not have such a definite, formed figurative core in Russian poetry. In folklore traditions associated with ancient pagan rituals, he did not play a significant role. Poetic views on him in Russian classical literature mainly formed in the 20th century and therefore have not yet acquired a clear outline.
The maple image is most formed in the poetry of S. Yesenin, where he acts as a kind of lyrical hero of the "woody novel". Maple is a daring, slightly rollicking guy, with a wild mop of uncombed hair, since he has a round crown that looks like a mop of hair or a hat. Hence the motif of assimilation, that primary similarity from which the image of the lyrical hero developed.
Because that old maple Head looks like me. ("I left my dear home...", 1918)
In the poem "Son of a bitch" (1924), the lyrical hero is sad about the bygone youth, which "faded",
Like maple rotted under the windows.
In folk poetry, a rotten or withered tree is a symbol of grief, the loss of something dear that cannot be returned.
The hero remembers his youthful love. The symbol of love here is viburnum, with its "bitter" semantics, it is also combined with the "yellow pond". Yellow color in the superstitions of the people is a symbol of separation, grief. Therefore, we can say that parting with a beloved girl was already destined by fate itself.
Maple or sycamore in the ethnological traditions of the Slavs is a tree into which a person has been turned ("sworn"). S. Yesenin also anthropomorphizes the maple, he appears as a person with all his mental states and periods of life. In the poem “You are my fallen maple ...” (1925), the lyrical hero is like a maple with his daring, he draws a parallel between himself and the maple:
And, like a drunken watchman, going out onto the road, He drowned in a snowdrift, froze his leg. Oh, and now I myself have become somewhat unstable, I won't get home from a friendly drinking party.
It is not even always clear who this poem is about - a person or a tree.
There he met a willow, there he noticed a pine tree, He sang songs to them under a blizzard about summer. I myself seemed to be the same maple ...
Reminiscent of maple with its "carefree curly head", poplar at the same time, aristocratically "slender and straight." This harmony, aspiration upward is a distinctive feature of the poplar, up to the poetry of our days.
In the poem "The Village" (1914), S. Yesenin compares poplar leaves with silk:
In silk poplar leaves.
This comparison was made possible by the fact that poplar leaves have a double structure: on the outside, the leaves are shiny green, as if polished, on the inside they are matte silver. Silk fabric also has a double color: the right side is shiny, smooth, and the left side is matte and inexpressive. When silk shimmers, the shades of color can change, just as poplar leaves shimmer with a greenish-silver color in the wind.
Poplars grow along roadsides and are therefore sometimes associated with barefoot wanderers. This theme of wandering is reflected in the poem "Without a hat, with a bast knapsack ..." (1916).
In the works of Yesenin, poplars are also a sign of the Motherland, like birch.
Saying goodbye to the house, leaving for foreign lands, the hero is sad that
They will no longer be winged foliage I need to ring poplars. ("Yes! Now it's decided ...", 1922)
willow called "weeping". The image of a willow is more unambiguous and has the semantics of melancholy.
In Russian folk poetry, willow is a symbol not only of love, but also of any separation, grief of mothers parting with their sons.
In the poetry of S. Yesenin, the image of a willow is traditionally associated with sadness, loneliness, and separation. This sadness for the past youth, for the loss of a loved one, from parting with the homeland.
For example, in the poem "Night and field, and the cry of roosters ..." (1917)
"The dilapidated hem of the willows" - the past, the old time, something that is very expensive, but something that will never return. Destroyed, warped life of the people, the country.
In the same poem, aspen is also mentioned. It emphasizes bitterness, loneliness, as in folk poetry it is always a symbol of sadness.
In other poems, willow, like birch, is a heroine, a girl.
And call the rosary Willows are meek nuns. (“Beloved Land…”, 1914) So I want to close my hands Over the woody thighs of the willows. ("I'm delirious on the first snow...", 1917)
And call the rosary Willows are meek nuns. (“Beloved Land…”, 1914)
So I want to close my hands Over the woody thighs of the willows. ("I'm delirious on the first snow...", 1917)
The lyrical hero, remembering his youth, sad about it, also refers to the image of a willow.
And knocked on my window September with a crimson willow branch, So that I was ready and met His arrival is unpretentious. (“Let you be drunk by others ...”, 1923)
September is autumn, and the autumn of life is the imminent arrival of winter - old age. The hero meets this "age of autumn" calmly, although with a little sadness about "mischievous and rebellious courage", because by this time he had acquired life experience and looks at the world around him already from the height of the past years.
Everything that distinguishes a tree from other forms of vegetation (strength of the trunk, mighty crown) highlights oak among other trees, making, as it were, the king of the tree kingdom. He personifies the highest degree of firmness, courage, strength, greatness.
Tall, mighty, blooming - the characteristic epithets of the oak, which, among poets, acts as an image of vitality.
In the poetry of S. Yesenin, the oak is not such a constant hero as the birch and maple. Oak is mentioned in only three poems ("Bogatyrsky whistle", 1914; "Oktoih" 1917; "Unspeakable, blue, tender..." 1925)
In the poem "Octoechos" the Mauritian oak is mentioned. Yesenin subsequently explained the meaning of this image in his treatise "Keys of Mary" (1918) "... that symbolic tree that means "family", it does not matter at all that in Judea this tree bore the name of the Mauritian oak ..."
Under the Mauritian oak My red-haired grandfather is sitting ...
The introduction of the image of the Mauritian oak into this poem is not accidental, since it speaks of the homeland:
Oh motherland, happy And a non-starting hour!
about relatives -
"my red-haired grandfather."
In the poem "The Heroic Whistle" Yesenin introduces the image of an oak to show the power and strength of Russia, its people. This work can be put on a par with Russian epics about heroes. Ilya Muromets and other heroes, jokingly, effortlessly felled oaks. In this poem, the peasant also "whistles", and from his whistle
century-old oaks trembled, On the oaks, the leaves fall from the whistle.
Coniferous trees convey a different mood and carry a different meaning than leafy ones: not joy and sadness, not various emotional outbursts, but rather a mysterious silence, numbness, self-absorption.
Pine and spruce trees are part of a gloomy, harsh landscape, around them there is wilderness, dusk, silence. Irreplaceable greens evoke associations coniferous trees with eternal peace, deep sleep, over which time has no power, the cycle of nature.
These trees are mentioned in 1914 poems such as" The winds do not shower the forests..." , " The melted clay dries" , " I feel the joy of God ..." , "Moustache", "A cloud tied lace in a grove" (1915).
In Yesenin's poem" powder" (1914) main character- pine acts as an "old woman":
Like a white scarf The pine has tied up. Bent over like an old lady Leaned on a stick...
The forest where the heroine lives is fabulous, magical, also alive, just like her.
Bewitched by the invisible The forest is slumbering under the fairy tale of sleep...
With another fabulous magical forest we meet in a poem" Witch" (1915). But this forest is no longer bright, joyful, but, on the contrary, formidable ("The grove threatens with spruce peaks"), gloomy, severe.
The dark night is silently frightened, The moon is covered with shawls of clouds. The wind is a songbird with a howl of hysterics...
Having examined the poems where images of trees are found, we see that S. Yesenin's poems are imbued with a sense of inextricable connection with the life of nature. It is inseparable from a person, from his thoughts and feelings. The image of the tree in Yesenin's poetry appears in the same meaning as in folk poetry. The author's motif of the "tree novel" goes back to the traditional motif of likening man to nature, based on the traditional trope "man- plant".
Drawing nature, the poet introduces into the story a description of human life, holidays, which are somehow connected with the animal and plant world. Yesenin, as it were, interweaves these two worlds, creates one harmonious and interpenetrating world. He often resorts to impersonation. Nature- this is not a frozen landscape background: it reacts passionately to the destinies of people, the events of history. She is the poet's favorite character.
Animal images in literature- it is a kind of mirror of humanistic consciousness. Just as the self-determination of a person is impossible outside of its relation to another person, so the self-determination of everything human race cannot take place outside of his relation to the animal kingdom.
The cult of animals has existed for a very long time. In a distant era, when the main occupation of the Slavs was hunting, and not agriculture, they believed that wild animals and humans had common ancestors. Each tribe had its own totem, that is, a sacred animal that the tribe worshiped, believing that it was their blood relative.
Images of animals have always been present in the literature of different times. They served as material for the emergence of the Aesopian language in animal tales, and later in fables. In the literature of the "modern time", in the epic and in the lyrics, animals acquire equal rights with humans, becoming the object or subject of narration. Often a person is "tested for humanity" by the attitude towards the animal.
The poetry of the 19th century is dominated by images of domestic and household animals, tamed by man, sharing his life and work. After Pushkin, the everyday genre becomes predominant in animalistic poetry. All living things are placed in the framework of household inventory or household yard (Pushkin, Nekrasov, Fet). In the poetry of the 20th century, images of wild animals became widespread (Bunin, Gumilyov, Mayakovsky). Gone is the worship of the beast. But the "new peasant poets" re-introduce the motif of the "brotherhood of man and animal." Their poetry is dominated by pets- cow, horse, dog, cat. Relationships reveal the features of a family way of life.
In the poetry of Sergei Yesenin, there is also the motive of "blood relationship" with the animal world, he calls them "smaller brothers".
Happy that I kissed women Crumpled flowers, rolled on the grass And the beast, like our smaller brothers Never hit on the head. ("We are now leaving little by little", 1924)
Happy that I kissed women Crumpled flowers, rolled on the grass And the beast, like our smaller brothers
Never hit on the head. ("We are now leaving little by little", 1924)
In him, along with domestic animals, we find images of representatives of the wild. Of the 339 poems examined, 123 mention animals, birds, insects, and fish.
Horse (13), cow (8), raven, dog, nightingale (6), calves, cat, dove, crane (5), sheep, mare, dog (4), foal, swan, rooster, owl (3), sparrow, wolf, capercaillie, cuckoo, horse, frog, fox, mouse, titmouse (2), stork, ram, butterfly, camel, rook, goose, gorilla, toad, snake, oriole, sandpiper, chickens, corncrake, donkey, parrot , magpies, catfish, pig, cockroaches, lapwing, bumblebee, pike, lamb (1).
S. Yesenin most often refers to the image of a horse, a cow. He introduces these animals into the story of peasant life as an integral part of the life of a Russian peasant. Since ancient times, a horse, a cow, a dog and a cat have accompanied a person in his hard work, shared with him both joys and troubles.
The horse was an assistant when working in the field, in transporting goods, in military combat. The dog brought prey, guarded the house. The cow was a drinker and breadwinner in a peasant family, and the cat caught mice and simply personified home comfort.
The image of a horse, as an integral part of everyday life, is found in the poems "Tabun" (1915), "Farewell, dear forest ..." (1916), "Now do not scatter this sadness ..." (1924). Pictures of village life are changing in connection with the events taking place in the country. And if in the first poem we see "in the hills green herds of horses", then in the following already:
Mowed hut, Weeping sheep, and away in the wind The little horse waving its scrawny tail, Looking into the unkind pond. (“This sadness cannot be scattered now…”, 1924)
The village fell into decay and the proud and majestic horse "turned" into a "horse", which personifies the plight of the peasantry in those years.
The innovation and originality of S. Yesenin, the poet, manifested itself in the fact that when drawing or mentioning animals in everyday space (field, river, village, yard, house, etc.), he is not an animal painter, that is, he does not aim to recreate the image of one or another animal. Animals, being part of everyday space and environment, appear in his poetry as a source and means of artistic expression.-philosophical understanding of the surrounding world, allow to reveal the content of a person's spiritual life.
In the poem "Cow" (1915), S. Yesenin uses the principle of anthropomorphism, endowing the animal with human thoughts and feelings. The author describes a specific household and life situation- old age of the animal
decrepit, teeth fell out, scroll of years on the horns ...
and his future fate, "soon ... they will tie a noose around her neck // and lead to the slaughter", he identifies the old animal and the old man
Thinking a sad thought...
If we turn to those works in which the image of a dog occurs, then, for example, in the poem "Song of the Dog" (1915). "Song" (emphasized "high" genre) is a kind of hymnography, which became possible due to the fact that the subject of "singing" is the sacred feeling of motherhood, inherent in the dog to the same extent as in the woman-mother. The animal worries about the death of its cubs, which the "gloomy master" drowned in the hole.
Introducing the image of a dog into his poems, the poet writes about the long-standing friendship of this beast with man. The lyrical hero of S. Yesenin is also a peasant by origin, and in childhood and adolescence- villager. Loving his fellow villagers, he is at the same time, in essence, completely different from them. In relation to animals, this is manifested most clearly. His affection and love for "sister-bitch" and "brother-male"- these are feelings for equals. That is why the dog "was my youth Friend".
The poem "Son of a bitch" reflects the tragedy of the consciousness of the lyrical hero, which arises from the fact that in the world of wildlife and animals everything looks unchanged:
That dog died a long time ago But in the same suit as with a blue tint, With a lively bark-crazed I was shot by her young son.
It seems that the "son" genetically received love for the lyrical hero from his mother. However, the lyrical hero next to this dog feels especially keenly how he has changed externally and internally. For him, returning to his young self is possible only at the level of feeling and for a moment.
With this pain, I feel younger And at least write notes again.
At the same time, the irreversibility of what has passed is realized.
Another animal that has been "accompanying" a person through life for a very long time,- It's a cat. It embodies home comfort, a warm hearth.
An old cat sneaks up to the shawl For fresh milk. ("In the hut", 1914)
In this poem, we also meet with other representatives of the animal world, which are also an invariable "attribute" of the peasant hut. These are cockroaches, chickens, roosters.
Having considered household values images of animals, we turn to their symbolic meanings. The symbols that animals are endowed with are very widespread in folklore and classical poetry. Each poet has his own symbolism, but basically they all rely on folk basis one image or another. Yesenin also uses folk beliefs about animals, but at the same time, many images of animals are rethought by him and receive new significance. Let's go back to the image of the horse.
The horse is one of the sacred animals in Slavic mythology, an attribute of the gods, but at the same time a chthonic creature associated with fertility and death, the afterlife, a guide to the “other world”. The horse was endowed with the ability to portend fate, especially death. A. N. Afanasiev explains the meaning of the horse in the mythology of the ancient Slavs in this way: “As the personification of gusty winds, storms and flying clouds, fairy horses are endowed with wings, which makes them related to mythological birds ... fiery, fire-breathing ... the horse serves as a poetic image of the radiant sun, then a cloud of lightning flashing ... ".
In the poem "Dove" (1916), the horse appears as a "quiet fate." Nothing foreshadows change and the lyrical hero lives a quiet, measured life, with his household chores from day to day, just like his ancestors lived.
The day will go out, flashing with a shock of gold, And in the box of years the works will settle down.
But in the history of the country, the revolutionary events of 1917 take place, and the hero’s soul becomes anxious for the fate of Russia, his region. He understands that now a lot will change in his life. The lyrical hero recalls with sadness his strong, well-established life, which is now broken.
... He took my horse away ... my horse - my strength and strengthen.
He knows that now his future depends on the future of his homeland, he is trying to escape from the events that are taking place
... he beats, rushes about, Pulling a tight lasso ... ("Open to me the sentinel beyond the clouds", 1918)
but he does not succeed, it remains only to submit to fate. In this work, we observe a poetic parallelism between the "behavior" of the horse and his fate and the state of mind of the lyrical hero in the "life torn apart by the storm".
In the 1920 poem "Sorokoust", Yesenin introduces the image of a horse as a symbol of the old patriarchal village, which has not yet realized the transition to a new life. The image of this "past", which is trying with all its might to fight change, is the foal, which appears as a component of the whole symbolic situation of the "competition" between the "cast-iron horse-train" and the "red-maned colt".
Dear, dear, funny fool Well, where is he, where is he chasing? Doesn't he know that living horses Did the steel cavalry win?
The struggle of the village for survival is lost, more and more preference is given to the city.
In other works, the horse becomes a symbol of past youth, a symbol of what a person cannot return, it remains only in memories.
Now I have become more stingy in desires, My life? did you dream of me? Like I'm a spring echoing early Ride on a pink horse. (“I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry…”, 1921)
"Ride on a pink horse"- a symbol of a quickly gone, irrevocable youth. Thanks to the additional symbolism of the color, it appears as a "pink horse" What was my youth friend ("Son of a bitch", 1924)
In this poem, the poet recalls his youth, his first love, which is gone, but lives in memories. However, to replace old love a new one comes to replace the older generation- young, that is, nothing in this life returns, but at the same time the life cycle is uninterrupted.
That dog died a long time ago But in the same suit, with a tint of blue ... I was met by her young son.
If we turn to other representatives of the animal world, for example, ravens, we will see that in Yesenin they have the same symbolism as in folk poetry.
Black crows croaked: Terrible troubles a wide scope. ("Rus", 1914)
In this poem, the raven is a harbinger of impending trouble, namely the war of 1914. The poet introduces the image of this bird not only as folk symbol misfortunes, but also in order to show their negative attitude to ongoing events, feelings for the fate of the Motherland.
Many poets use various types of word transfer to create images, including metaphor. In poetry, metaphor is used mainly in a secondary function for it, introducing attributive and evaluative values into nominal positions. Binary metaphor (metaphor-comparison) is characteristic of poetic speech. Through image, metaphor connects language and myth with the corresponding way of thinking.- mythological. Poets create their own epithets, metaphors, comparisons and images. Metaphorization of images- these are the features of the poet's artistic style. S. Yesenin also turns to the help of metaphors in his poems. He creates them according to the folklore principle: he takes material from the rural world and from the natural world for the image and seeks to characterize one noun by another.
Here is an example of the moon:
"The moon, like a yellow bear, tosses and turns in the wet grass."
Yesenin's motive of nature is supplemented in a peculiar way with images of animals. Most often, the names of animals are given in comparisons, in which objects and phenomena are compared with animals, often not related to them in reality, but combined according to some associative feature that serves as the basis for its selection. ( "curly lamb", "foal", "golden frog", spring- "squirrel", clouds- "wolves." Objects are equated to animals and birds, for example, a mill- "log bird", bake- "camel brick"On the basis of complex associative comparisons, natural phenomena have organs characteristic of animals and birds (paws, muzzles, snouts, claws, beaks):
Cleans the moon in the thatched roof Horns covered in blue. ("The Red Wings of Sunset Go Out", 1916)Waves of white claws Golden sand. ("Heavenly Drummer", 1918)Maple and lindens in the windows of the rooms Throwing branches with paws, Looking for those who remember. ("Honey, Let's Sit Near", 1923)
Cleans the moon in the thatched roof Horns covered in blue. ("The Red Wings of Sunset Go Out", 1916)
Waves of white claws Golden sand. ("Heavenly Drummer", 1918)
Maple and lindens in the windows of the rooms Throwing branches with paws, Looking for those who remember. ("Honey, Let's Sit Near", 1923)
Purely symbolic meaning also acquire the colors of animals: "red horse"- symbol of the revolution, "pink horse"- image of youth, "black horse"- the harbinger of death.
Figurative embodiment, a clear metaphor, a sensitive perception of folklore underlie the artistic research of Sergei Yesenin. The metaphorical use of animalistic vocabulary in original comparisons creates the originality of the poet's style.
Having considered the images of animals in the poetry of S. Yesenin, we can conclude that the poet solves the problem of using animalistics in his works in different ways.
In one case, he turns to them in order to show with their help some historical events, personal emotional experiences. In others- in order to more accurately, more deeply convey the beauty of nature, native land.
CONCLUSION
Summing up, it should be noted that the mythopoetic picture of the world of S. Yesenin is reflected, first of all, in the cosmism of consciousness. The lyrical hero is constantly turned to the sky, he sees and notes the components of the heavenly space: the sun, the stars, the moon-month, the dawn.
Both in depicting the details of outer space and in recreating earthly realities, S. Yesenin's poetry goes back to the mythopoetic archetype of the world tree, personifying world harmony. Yesenin's motif of the "tree novel"- the result of totemistic ideas, which in particular are manifested in the assimilation of a tree to a person. Drawing numerous trees, the poet is not limited to anthropomorphic personifications, but also carries out the reverse process: his lyrical hero feels like a maple, he withers "hair bush golden", maple at the porch of the native house on it "like a head".
Totemism is also manifested in animalistic motifs that occupy Yesenin's poetry. significant place. Poet in literally is not an animalist, that is, does not aim to recreate the image of an animal. Some of them become a motive, that is, periodically arise in certain situations, while acquiring something new, additional in details, meaning. So, for example, we can say that the image of a horse, one of the most mythologized animals, goes back to mythological significance. In Slavic mythology, the horse was endowed with the ability to portend fate. He appears in Yesenin's poetry in the form "silent destiny", a symbol of the old patriarchal village ("red-maned colt"), "pink horse" - youth symbol.
Raven in the works of S. Yesenin has the same meaning as in folk poetry. In a poem "Rus"(1914) he is a messenger of misfortune.
Many animals, for example, a dog, take on a different meaning for Yesenin than they have in folklore. The dog in mythology is a guide to the next world, an assistant to the devil, guards the entrance to the afterlife. In Yesenin's lyrics, a dog- "youth friend".
The poet, drawing animals, most often refers to the principle of anthropomorphism, that is, endows them with human qualities. ("Cow", "Dog Song".). But not limited to this, he also gives an inverse comparison, that is, he gives a person the features of an animal. ("I was like a horse driven in soap...").
Totemistic ideas do not receive wide development from him, although they also occur. Particularly in the poem "We Now we're leaving a little."(1924) there is a motive of "blood relationship" with the animal world, he calls "animal" "smaller brothers".
The mythological use of animalistic vocabulary in original comparisons creates the originality of the poet's style. Most often, the names of animals are given in comparisons in which objects and phenomena are compared with them, often not related to them in reality, but combined according to some associative feature that serves as the basis for its selection. ("On the pond with a swan red // A quiet sunset floats…", "Autumn - red mare - scratching mane…").
Having considered the temporal characteristics of the model of the world in Yesenin's works, one can see that his lyrics reflect the worldview that was formed on the basis of folk mythological ideas about the world, which were enshrined in peasant agricultural and calendar rituals and holidays. As a result, time, reflecting the annual circle, appears as cyclical and is indicated by an indication of a series of holidays and a change of seasons or time of day.
Turning to the spatial characteristics of S. Yesenin's picture of the world, we can say that when describing space, the author also relies on the rich experience of folk and classical poetry. The space appears to him in a "mosaic form", that is, it gradually expands from one poem to another and, on the whole, creates a picture of the author's worldview.
Following the movement of the lyrical hero in this space, we can say that the path of the lyrical hero Yesenin in its structure resembles the path of the hero in the plot fairy tale: a peasant son leaves the house on a journey in order to get something or return the lost and achieves this goal. Yesenin's hero, having left the friendly space of his native home in search of the glory of the poet, finally reaches the city he had long dreamed of getting into. The "conquest" of a city is analogous to hostile space in fairy tales. The "conquest" of this space was interpreted as the assertion of oneself as a poet:
They say I will soon become a famous Russian poet.
The creative affirmation took place, and as a result, the city is perceived as a space attached to its own, friendly.
It is interesting to note that the comprehension of political and social realities is carried out through a system of spatial archetypes. Yes, after October revolution during civil war the city that the hero loved ("I love this elm city..."), gradually takes on a negative characterization. At first, its space narrows down to a tavern ("Noise and din in this creepy lair..."), environment looks like "rabble", with whom the hero is in conflict ("If earlier they hit me in the face, now all in the blood of the soul ... "). The space of the city thus acquires the features of an anti-home, it is hostile to the lyrical hero, their rejection is mutual.
In the future, the attention of the lyrical hero focuses on the opposition "city- village". The space of the city is conceptualized as hostile not only to the hero, but also to his native "space", his beloved home and land. The city is actively hostile in relation to the village, unlike the fabulous "Thirtieth Kingdom", as a rapist and destroyer ("pulls five fingers to ... the plains", "the stone hands of the highway squeezed the neck of the village").
When the lyrical hero returns to native home, then it is not there, it is destroyed, like the entire material and spiritual way of rural Russia: in the space of the hut there are no icons, their "sisters threw out yesterday", but there was a book - "Capital" by Marx, replacing the Bible. Even musical culture has been destroyed: Komsomol members sing "Poor Demyan's agitation".
We see that, unlike the end of a fairy tale, the returned hero of Yesenin does not find that friendly space that was at the beginning of the journey. Space is not restored, and chaos rules everywhere.
LIST OF USED LITERATURE.
1. 2. Literary encyclopedic dictionary. / Ed. M. V. Kozhevnikov and P. A. Nikolaev. M., 1987. 3. Literature and art: Universal encyclopedia of the student. / Comp. A. A. Vorotnikov. Minsk, 1995. 4. Myths of the peoples of the world. Encyclopedia in 2 vols. M., 1987. 5. Rudnev V.P. Dictionary of culture of the 20th century. M., 1997. 6. Dictionary of literary terms. / Ed. L. I. Timofeeva and M. P. Vengrova. M., 1963. 7. Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary / Ch. ed. A. M. Prokhorov. M., 1987. 8. Dictionary of Russian literature. / Ed. M. G. Urtmintseva. N. Novgorod, 1997. 9. Slavic mythology. Encyclopedic Dictionary. M., 1995.
"The singer and herald of wooden Rus'" - this is how Yesenin himself defined himself as a poet. His works are truly sincere and frank. Without too much embarrassment, he bares his Russian soul, which suffers, yearns, rings and rejoices.
Yesenin wrote about what worried him and his contemporaries. He was a child of his era, which knew many cataclysms. That is why the main themes of Yesenin's poetry are the fate of the Russian village, the present and future of Russia, tenderness of nature, love for a woman and religion.
Red thread through everything creative legacy the poet's burning love for the Motherland passes. This feeling is the starting point of all his further literary research. Moreover, Yesenin puts into the concept of the Motherland, first of all, by no means a political meaning, although he did not bypass the sorrows and joys of peasant Rus'. The homeland for the poet is the surrounding fields, forests, plains, which start from the parental home of the lyrical hero and extend into immense distances. The poet drew images of incredible beauty from the memories of childhood and the nature of his patrimony - the village of Konstantinovo, from where his "crimson Rus'" began for Yesenin. Such feelings quivering love to their native land were expressed in the most tender poetic watercolors.
All topics, in particular the theme of love for the motherland, are so closely intertwined that they cannot be distinguished from one another. He admired the world around him like a child "born with songs in a blanket of grass", considering himself an integral part of it.
Love lyrics are a separate layer of creativity of the poet-nugget. The image of a woman from his poems is written off from Russian beauties "with scarlet berry juice on the skin", "with a sheaf of oatmeal hair". But love relationships always take place as if in the background, in the center of action is always the same nature. The poet often compares the girl with a thin birch, and her chosen one with a maple. Early creativity is characterized by youthful ardor, a focus on the physical aspect of relationships ("I kiss you drunk, I'm awake, like a flower"). Over the years, having known bitter disappointments on the personal front, the poet expresses his feelings of contempt for corrupt women, cynically considering love itself as nothing more than an illusion (“our life is a sheet and a bed”). Yesenin himself considered the "Persian Motives" to be the pinnacle of his love lyrics, where the poet's trip to Batumi left an imprint.
It should be noted a lot of philosophical motives in Yesenin's poems. Early work they sparkle with a sense of the fullness of life, an accurate awareness of their place in it and the meaning of being. The lyrical hero finds him in unity with nature, calling himself a shepherd, whose "chambers are the boundaries of unsteady fields." He is aware of the rapid withering of life (“everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees”), and from this his lyrics are streaked with light sadness.
Of particular interest is the theme "God, nature, man in Yesenin's poetry."
The origins of Christian motives in Yesenin must be sought in his childhood. His grandparents were deeply religious people and instilled in their grandson the same reverent attitude towards the Creator.
The poet seeks and finds analogies of the expiatory sacrifice in the phenomena of nature ("the schemer-wind ... kisses the red ulcers on the rowan bush to the invisible Christ", "on the day of sunset the sacrifice atoned for all sin").
Yesenin's God lives in that very old, outgoing Rus', where "the cabbage beds are watered with red water by sunrise." The poet sees the creator first of all in the creation - the surrounding world. God, nature, man in Yesenin's poetry always interact.
But the poet was not always a humble pilgrim. In one period, he appears a whole series of rebellious, atheist poems. This is due to his belief in and acceptance of the new communist ideology. The lyrical hero even challenges the Creator, promising to create a new society without the need for God, "the city of Inonia, where the deity of the living lives." But such a period was short-lived, soon the lyrical hero again calls himself a "humble monk", praying for shocks and herds.
Quite often, the poet portrays his hero as a wanderer walking along the road, or as a guest in this life (“every wanderer in the world will pass, enter and leave the house again”). In many works, Yesenin touches on the antithesis "youth - maturity" ("The golden grove dissuaded ..."). He often thinks about death and sees it as a natural ending for everyone ("I came to this earth in order to leave it as soon as possible"). Everyone can know the meaning of their existence by finding their place in the triad "God - nature - man". In Yesenin's poetry, nature is the main link in this tandem, and the key to happiness is harmony with it.
It is a temple for the poet, and the person in it must be a pilgrim (“I pray for the aly dawns, I take communion by the stream”). In general, the theme of the Almighty and the theme of nature in Yesenin's poetry are so interconnected that there is no clear transition line.
Nature is also the main character of all works. She lives a vibrant, dynamic life. Very often the author uses the method of impersonation (the maple cub sucks a green udder, the red autumn mare scratches its golden mane, the blizzard cries like a gypsy violin, the bird cherry sleeps in a white cape, the pine tree is tied with a white scarf).
The most favorite images are birch, maple, moon, dawns. Yesenin is the author of the so-called wooden romance between a birch-girl and a maple-guy.
As an example of a refined and at the same time simple awareness of being, one can consider the verse "Birch". Since ancient times, this tree has been considered both a symbol of a Russian girl and Russia itself, therefore Yesenin invested in this work deep meaning. Tenderness with a small part of nature develops into admiration for the beauty of the vast Russian land. In ordinary everyday things (snow, birch, branches), the author teaches to see more. This effect is achieved with the help of comparisons (snow - silver), metaphors (snowflakes burn, dawn sprinkles branches). Simple and understandable imagery makes Yesenin's poem "Birch" very similar to the folk one, and this is the highest praise for any poet.
It should be noted that in Yesenin's poetry one can so clearly feel a slight sadness "over the expanses of buckwheat", and sometimes an aching longing even in admiring one's native land. Most likely, the poet foresaw the tragic fate of his Motherland-Rus, which in the future "will still live, dance and cry at the fence." The reader involuntarily conveys pity for all living things, because, despite its beauty, absolutely everything around is fleeting, and the author mourns this in advance: "A sad song, you are Russian pain."
Also noteworthy are some distinctive features poet's style.
Yesenin is the king of metaphors. He so skillfully packed capacious words into a few words that each poem is replete with bright poetic figures ("evening black eyebrows puffed up", "a sunset quietly swims along the pond like a red swan", "a flock of jackdaws on the roof serves vespers to the star").
The proximity of Yesenin's poetry to folklore gives the feeling that some of his poems are folk. They are incredibly easy to fit into the music.
Thanks to these features artistic world the poet of "wooden Rus'" his poems cannot be confused with others. The selfless love for the Motherland, which originates from the Ryazan fields and ends in outer space, cannot but conquer him. The essence of the theme "God - nature - man" in Yesenin's poetry can be summarized by his own words: "I think: how beautiful the earth and man on it ..."
From the letters of Yesenin 1911-1913 emerges Difficult life novice poet, his spiritual maturation. All this was reflected in the poetic world of his lyrics in 1910-1913, when he wrote over 60 poems and poems. Here his love for all living things, for life, for his homeland is expressed. The surrounding nature especially tunes the poet in this way (“The scarlet light of dawn wove on the lake ...”, “Floods in smoke ...”, “Birch”, “Spring evening”, “Night”, “Sunrise”, “Winter sings - haunts ... "," Stars "," Dark night, can not sleep ... ", etc.).
From the very first verses, Yesenin's poetry includes the themes of the motherland and revolution. From January 1914, Yesenin's poems appear in print ("Birch", "Blacksmith", etc.). “In December, he quits his job and devotes himself entirely to poetry, writes all day long,” recalls Izryadnova. The poetic world is becoming more complex, multidimensional, biblical images and Christian motives. In 1913, in a letter to Panfilov, he writes: “Grisha, at the present time I am reading the Gospel and I find a lot of new things for me.” Later, the poet noted: “Religious doubts visited me early. As a child, I have very abrupt transitions: now a band of prayer, now extraordinary mischief, up to blasphemy. And then in my work there were such stripes.
In March 1915, Yesenin arrived in Petrograd, met with Blok, who highly appreciated the “fresh, clean, vociferous”, although “wordy” poems of the “talented peasant poet-nugget”, helped him, introduced him to writers and publishers. In a letter to Nikolai Klyuev, Yesenin reported: “My poems in St. Petersburg were successful. Of the 60, 51 were accepted. In the same year, Yesenin joined the Krasa group of "peasant" poets.
Yesenin becomes famous, he is invited to poetry evenings and literary salons. M. Gorky wrote to R. Rolland: “The city met him with the same admiration as a glutton meets strawberries in January. His poems began to be praised, excessively and insincerely, as hypocrites and envious people know how to praise.
In early 1916, Yesenin's first book, Radunitsa, was published. In the title, the content of most of the poems (1910-1915) and in their selection, Yesenin's dependence on the moods and tastes of the public is visible.
Yesenin's work of 1914-1917 appears complex and contradictory ("Mikola", "Egoriy", "Rus", "Marfa Posadnitsa", "Us", "Jesus the Baby", "Dove" and other poems). These works represent his poetic conception of the world and man. The basis of Yesenin's universe is the hut with all its attributes. In the book “The Keys of Mary” (1918), the poet wrote: “The hut of a commoner is a symbol of concepts and attitudes towards the world, developed even before him by his fathers and ancestors, who subjugated the intangible and distant world by likening things to their gentle hearths.” The huts, surrounded by yards, fenced with wattle fences and “connected” with each other by a road, form a village. And the village, limited by the outskirts, is Yeseninskaya Rus, which is cut off from the big world by forests and swamps, "lost ... in Mordva and Chud." And further:
See no end and end Only blue sucks eyes ...
Later, Yesenin said: "I would ask readers to treat all my Jesuses, Mothers of God and Mykols, as if they were fabulous in poetry." The hero of the lyrics prays to the “smoking earth”, “to the scarlet dawns”, “to the shocks and haystacks”, he worships the motherland: “My lyrics,” Yesenin later said, “are alive with one great love, love for the motherland. The feeling of the motherland is the main thing in my work.
In the pre-revolutionary poetic world of Yesenin, Rus' has many faces: “thoughtful and tender”, humble and violent, poor and cheerful, celebrating “victorious holidays”. In the poem “You didn’t believe in my God ...” (1916), the poet calls Rus' - the “sleepy princess”, located “on the foggy shore”, to the “merry faith”, to which he himself is now committed. In the poem “Clouds from the Colt...” (1916), the poet seems to predict a revolution - the “transformation” of Russia through “torments and the cross”, and a civil war.
And on earth and in heaven, Yesenin contrasts only good and evil, “clean” and “impure”. Along with God and his servants, heavenly and earthly, Yesenin in 1914-1918 has a possible "evil spirits": forest, water and domestic. Evil fate, as the poet thought, also touched his homeland, left its mark on her image:
You didn't believe in my god Russia, my homeland! You, like a witch, gave a measure, And I was like your stepson.
But even in these pre-revolutionary years, the poet believed that the vicious circle would be broken. He believed because he considered everyone to be “close relatives”: it means that a time must come when all people will become “brothers”.
Yesenin village.ppt
image of the Motherland.ppt
The theme of the motherland in the poetry of S. Yesenin and A. Blok
Yesenin's first book of poems "Radunitsa" appeared in 1916 when Block already a well-known poet. Around the same time, Yesenin and Blok met, about which Blok left a detailed entry in his diary. He remembered the story about burbots, which Yesenin told. Burbots, seeing the moon shining through the ice, stick to the ice in order to suck it through and "splash out to the moon." It seemed to Block an allegory of Yesenin's creative method. He wrote in his diary: Images of creativity: grab, bite through. Speaking about Blok's poems, Yesenin noted in them "Dutch romanticism." He was referring to Blok's story about a duel between two wrestlers. The first of them was a "disgusting Russian heavyweight", and the second was a Dutchman whose muscular system was a "perfect mechanism". It would seem that these two poets could have in common? Enough compare poem Blok "Rus" With "Rus" Yesenin, and the commonality will become obvious. "Rus" Blok was written in 1906, and " Rus" Yesenin - in 1914, already during the war. But how similar is the figurative system of these poems.
Rus' is surrounded by rivers And surrounded by wilds, With swamps and cranes, And with the cloudy eyes of a sorcerer...
Block writes. And in Yesenin we read: "The unclean power seized us ... No matter what the hole is, there are sorcerers everywhere." But there is a difference. Blok is limited to what gives a picture of Rus', depicting a magical, dense world. And Yesenin in his poem speaks of the hardships of people's life, recalls the peasants who ended up on the fronts of a distant war. In the last chapter of Yesenin's "Rus" there is an identification of the lyrical hero of the poem with his people, his country.
Sergei Yesenin and Alexander Blok are two great lyricists of the beginning of the century. Both of them took an active part in the literary struggle of their time, adjoining various trends in art. Then this difference might have seemed significant, but today we see how Blok and Yesenin rise above any literary currents. We remember not the Symbolist Blok and the Imagist Esenin, but Symbolism and Imagism as stages in the path of these poets. Time brought Blok and Yesenin closer, and what was common in their work became noticeable. And the most important common feature they had love for one's country.
Name the themes and motives of Yesenin's early lyrics. What was the innovation of his poetry?
Yesenin's aesthetic innovation manifested itself in many features of his poetic work. Yesenin's poet's voice is to a large extent the voice of a peasant working on the land and living in close unity with nature, a Christian walking the difficult path of spiritual search. The poet introduced this point of view into literature more definitely than anyone before him.
The life of the native land, its nature, love, cares and deeds of people - all this becomes the subject of Yesenin's early poetry. Despite the fact that dramatic turns of fate, anxious moods enter Yesenin's poems at an early stage, a bright, life-affirming tone still prevails.
O Rus', crimson field And the blue that fell into the river,
I love to joy and pain Your lake melancholy.
(“Hewn drogs sang…”)
Folk art, along with the classics, was the most important source of Yesenin's poetry. Even Yesenin's poems, thematically close to classical ones, are based on a very original system of figurative expression. For example, the poem "Do not wander, do not crush in the crimson bushes ..." is thematically close to Pushkin's "I loved you: love still, perhaps ...".
Yesenin's poem sounds, like Pushkin's, a sadly enlightened farewell to his beloved. Yesenin's figurative palette is completely unique:
... With a sheaf of your oatmeal hair You left me forever.
With scarlet berry juice on the skin,
Tender, beautiful, you were like a pink sunset And, like snow, radiant and bright.
The grains of your eyes crumbled, withered,
The thin name melted like a sound.
But remained in the folds of a crumpled shawl The smell of honey from innocent hands.
In a quiet hour, when the dawn is on the roof,
Like a kitten, it washes its mouth with its paw,
I hear a meek talk about you Water honeycombs singing with the wind.
The image is so integral, the writing is so dense, that it seems very difficult to selectively quote the quoted passage without the danger of destroying a single living impression. Yesenin embodies the very principle of the worldview of a person, for whom the connection with the living life of the earth is organic, like breathing - not tangible, not controlled, but nevertheless life-giving.
S. Yesenin, with his poems, expressed the need of the people's spirit in creativity and approved creativity as the main content of people's life. The ideas of most of his works are accessible without condescension, the imagery, as a rule, is bright without pretentiousness. The moral position of the poet is most consistent with healthy popular point vision.
Early Yesenin has many poems based on religious aesthetics and imagery. But with all the flights and aspirations, the "spirit" in Yesenin's poetry relies on the tangible dominant of the national-historical "firmament":
If the holy army shouts:
"Throw you Rus', live in paradise!"
I will say: “There is no need for paradise,
Give me my country."
(“Goy you, Rus', my dear ...”)
The poet carefully captures the details of rural household life (the poem "In the House"), his poems about animals are imbued with a feeling of love and compassion for "our smaller brothers": "Cow", "Fox", "Song of the Dog". The nature of the native land in all its infinite diversity is the poet's palette, giving him colors, sounds, smells, an object of creative admiration, an interlocutor in reasoning.
