Blessed is the embittered poet of analysis. Blessed is the gentle poet Nekrasov
3 866 0
Nikolay Nekrasov, like many of his predecessors, often wondered what role was assigned to the writer in society. Reflecting on this topic, in 1852 he created a poem dedicated to the anniversary of the death of Nikolai Gogol. The addressee's name is never mentioned in this work, since by that time Gogol was in disgrace. However, he was convinced that Russia had lost one of the greatest Russian writers, whose contribution to literature had yet to be appreciated by posterity.
In his poem, the author draws a clear line between poets whose work is liked by ordinary people, and those whose poems cause a storm of indignation among readers. He calls the first ones gentle and blessed, since they always live in peace with themselves and with others. Their poems are devoid of criticism and sarcasm, but at the same time they do not force people to think about the problems that everyone has. Such a poet “firmly rules the crowd with his peace-loving lyre” and at the same time can count on the fact that a monument from grateful admirers will be erected to him during his lifetime. But years will pass, and his work, which does not contain a grain of rationalism, is empty and devoid of true emotions, will sink into oblivion.
The second category of poets are born rebels who not only see all the vices and shortcomings of society, but also reveal them in their works. Therefore, it is quite natural that no one likes their poems. Even sensible people, who realize that every line of such an accusatory poem is designed to change the world for the better, prefer to join the indignant crowd, in which the author is cursed “from all sides.” Moreover, he is not taken seriously at all, since the offense from fair, but sometimes very harsh criticism, prevents one from realizing that there is some truth in the poems.
However, such a poet perceives blasphemy and curses addressed to him as “sounds of approval,” realizing that he managed to touch the soul of people with his poems, to evoke in them, albeit negative, but still vivid emotions. In his words, sometimes offensive and rude, there is much more love and justice than in the unctuous speeches of one who prefers laudatory odes to criticism. But, unfortunately, the fate of a rebel poet is always tragic: having spoken out against society, he can never count on recognition. And only after his death those who considered such a poet a troublemaker and an ignoramus, “will understand how much he did, and how he loved - while hating!”
“Blessed is the gentle poet” Nekrasov
“Blessed is the gentle poet” analysis of the work - theme, idea, genre, plot, composition, characters, issues and other issues are revealed in this article.
History of creation
The poem “Blessed is the gentle poet” was written in February 1852 on the death of Gogol and published in the Sovremennik magazine No. 3 for 1852. The poem echoes the lyrical digression in the first volume of Gogol’s “Dead Souls”. Gogol's retreat is a kind of manifesto of the civil literary movement (the so-called “Gogolian”) against the direction of “pure art.”
The prototype of the satirical poet was Gogol, but the image of the poet is generalized. This is the leading poet of his time. Nekrasov counted himself among these. It is not known who was the prototype of the kindly poet, perhaps Zhukovsky.
Literary direction, genre
The poem belongs to the genre of civil poetry. Nekrasov, as a poet of the realistic school, proves that only a poet with a strong civic position, a denouncing poet, is the true essence of a poet.
Theme, main idea and composition
The poem consists of 10 stanzas and is conventionally divided into 2 parts. The first 4 stanzas are dedicated to a gentle poet, the last 6 - to an accusatory poet, a satirical poet. The composition is based on antithesis.
The theme of the poem is traditional for Nekrasov - the theme of the poet and poetry, and more broadly - the creator and the subject of his work. This is a dispute about the genres of poems, a competition between intimate, landscape lyrics and civil ones.
The main idea: the life of a civil satirist poet is devoid of glory and honors; only after time will they understand that the basis of his ridicule is love and the desire to change the world. But this is exactly what a poet should be.
Paths and images
In the poem, not only the first stanzas are contrasted with the last, the whole thing is entirely built on antitheses. Considering the work of a kindly poet, Nekrasov not only describes his benefits, but also contrasts them with the inconveniences of which he is deprived: little bile - a lot of feeling, crowd sympathy - self-doubt, carelessness and peace, peace-loving lyre - daring satire, monument during life - persecuted, slandered. Nekrasov does not mock the gentle poet. He even seems to envy him. Blessed means surrounded by goodness and happiness. The image of the poet is accompanied by positive epithets: kindly poet, sincere greetings, peace-loving lyre, great mind. The irony is visible only in the mention of greetings from friends quiet art(Nekrasov had a negative attitude towards “pure art”, which is clear from this poem). With the help of comparisons and metaphors, Nekrasov depicts the greatness of the gentle poet: the sympathy of the crowd caresses the ear like the murmur of waves, “he firmly rules the crowd with his peace-loving lyre”. Nekrasov calls self-doubts, to which the poet is alien, torture of the creative spirit(metaphor). Nekrasov himself was inclined to this torture.
Nekrasov talks about the gentle poet in one breath, in one complex sentence in three stanzas.
The second type of poet is also described using contrasts: a noble genius is an exposer of the passions and delusions of the crowd, “the sounds of approval are not in the sweet murmur of praise, but in the wild cries of anger,” love in the hostile word of denial, loves while hating. But the antitheses of the second part are incomplete: the poet finds the positive in the negative, includes the good in the bad.
Drawing the poet’s creative path in the second part, Nekrasov uses metaphors: Fate has no mercy, he goes through a thorny path, he is pursued by blasphemers, the sounds of his speeches breed harsh enemies, he is cursed from all sides. The reason for such a difficult life is the poet’s civil, accusatory position: a noble genius exposes the passions and delusions of the crowd, he feeds his chest with hatred, arms his lips with satire, his lyre punishes him(metaphors). Such opposition leads to doubts: he believes and does not believe again in the “dream of a high calling”.
But the poet cannot remain silent, because the motive of denunciation is love: through hostile denial he preaches love, he loves while hating. It would seem that this is an oxymoron, a combination of incompatible things. But you can love people and hate their flaws. People scold the accuser because he touches the hidden strings of their souls, reveals the truth that they hid even from themselves. Severe Enemies multiply from smart, and from empty people(epithets) who hear the sounds of reproof. The poet is branded and cursed "from all sides", that is, even educated people are not inclined to joyfully accept reproof. This is human nature.
Nekrasov hopes that after the death of the poet All They will understand his noble motives, look at themselves from the outside, repent and honor the poet.
Meter and rhyme
The poem is written in iambic tetrameter. Male rhyme alternates with female rhyme. Cross rhyme.
Of these two works, the poem “Blessed is the gentle poet” appeared first in 1852. It was written immediately after Gogol's death. And although Gogol’s name is not remembered, lyrical digressions from “Dead Souls” are clearly visible in the text.
Nekrasov was completely convinced that Russia had lost one of the great writers. It was as if he was trying to convey to the reader how underestimated the work of Gogol was, whom many contemporaries considered a simplified satirist writer.
Nikolai Alekseevich was sure that descendants would be able to appreciate Gogol’s talent. And he was right.
Not all poets, writers, and artists were able to gain fame during their lifetime. However, they did not write to please the authorities and the crowd, but spoke about pressing problems of society. This was able to raise them above their helpful contemporaries, and make them idols in the eyes of their descendants.
Blessed is the gentle poet
Blessed is the gentle poet,
In whom there is little bile, a lot of feeling:
Hello to him so sincerely
Friends of Quiet Art;
There's sympathy for him in the crowd,
Like the murmur of waves, caresses the ear;
He is alien to self-doubt -
This torture of the creative spirit;
Loving carelessness and peace,
Disdaining daring satire,
He firmly dominates the crowd
With your peace-loving lyre.
Marveling at the great mind,
He is not persecuted, he is not slandered,
And his contemporaries
During his lifetime, a monument is being prepared...
But fate has no mercy
To him whose noble genius
Became an accuser of the crowd,
Her passions and delusions.
Feeding my chest with hatred,
Armed with satire,
He goes through a thorny path
With your punishing lyre.
He is being pursued by blasphemers:
He catches the sounds of approval
Not in the sweet murmur of praise,
And in the wild screams of anger.
And believing and not believing again
The dream of a high calling,
He preaches love
With a hostile word of denial, -
And every sound of his speeches
Produces severe enemies for him,
And smart and empty people,
Equally branding him ready.
They curse him from all sides
And just seeing his corpse,
They will understand how much he has done,
And how he loved - while hating!
Most likely, when speaking about a gentle poet, Nekrasov had in mind the poet Vasily Zhukovsky, who, being undoubtedly a talented person, became famous for his romanticism in Russian poetry. He wrote elegies, romances, ballads. He was loved at court and was the mentor of Alexander II.
But there was another type of poet.
Poets who are strong in spirit, who write not to please the existing government, who know how to expose the vices of society and reflect the problems of the people will always delight their descendants. Such poets very subtly highlight lies, farce, and hypocrisy. They are not afraid of criticism and are ready for it.
It is this truth that Nekrasov talks about in his work. A negative reaction from the powers that be can sometimes be considered better than any praise. Often this is the recognition of all kinds of vices.
Ungrateful truth
Rebellion, disagreement, rebellion have always been viewed with disapproval. Truth is not a priority for information content. It is much easier for a writer and poet to adapt to the current regime, to write to order, whatever the customer wants. Don’t disturb people’s minds, don’t throw out slogans full of sarcasm, avoid sharp corners. Many people do this. Nekrasov calls such gentle scribblers blessed.
But the other side of the coin is also affected. Nekrasov writes in his work that the fate of gentle poets is easy, he is met everywhere, everyone likes him, however, he should ask himself a question, because after death all his works will disappear, and another like him will come after him and will throw dust in people’s eyes :
“Is he satisfied with his fate, is he pleased with such human praise, which he deserved only by his humility and helpfulness?”
Death as a reward
In the history of art there are countless biographies where, during his lifetime, an underrated genius was persecuted. They either didn’t understand him or didn’t want to understand him. And this did not stop the talented man. Geniuses did not set the goal of life as fame. Such individuals simply could not live differently. They created all their lives: they wrote poetry, plays, music, paintings, and made scientific discoveries.
Some of them were lucky enough to become famous after death. They were lucky, not because their name became known, but because they were able to achieve their goal - to convey their thoughts and feelings to the public.
Perhaps, in decades or even centuries, grateful descendants will be able to discern instructive lines in the poet’s work that are relevant for any time. This is the calling of a true writer.
Analysis of the poem
The work describes in detail the fate of the poets of that time from two sides. The first ones were always against satire and basically told what the censors liked to hear. Although these poems were about nothing, they had many listeners and the authorities treated them with recognition and supported them in every possible way: "And his contemporaries
During his lifetime, a monument is being prepared...”
Perhaps he is talking about some of his worries and sorrows, however, this is not at all what the real problem of society is. Although there are real tragedies on a large scale, the average person sympathizes only with the author’s momentary experiences. All this is transmitted en masse and makes it easy to control many people without even working hard. However, Nekrasov emphasizes that this fame quickly passes, the poems become empty, they are put on the shelf and no one remembers about it anymore. The true details remain behind the scenes:
"...whose noble genius
Became an accuser of the crowd"
Such a poet did not set himself the goal of being liked by society. He simply created and wrote what he thought. And the flurry of accusations and indignation on the part of the inspection bodies could only serve as confirmation that the path was correctly chosen. For example, on the issue of the fight against serfdom.
Such works could not earn unequivocal public approval. This resulted in constant persecution of writers. Each line of satirical text was like a catalyst for increasing the number of enemies of the author of a certain verse. No one praises such a poet, says thank you or admires him. What such a daredevil could definitely get were threats, intimidation, and even arrest.
It is fearlessness that makes such writers and poets real heroes who do not seek praise, but seek understanding.
Afterword
The question that Nikrasov raised in the poem “Blessed is the gentle poet” runs like a red stripe through the entire work. What's better?
A quiet life as a writer, on topics set by the existing government, with recognition, decent fees, and grateful reviews. Working in this mode, you won’t have to work on mistakes, because the poems do not carry any irritating factor. Descriptions of simple everyday situations, a little everyday humor - everything is simple in such creativity.
Or the lot of a rebel poet, with all the ensuing consequences, where there is a place for oppression, negativity, and open criticism. Where censors, subordinate to the authorities, constantly see a threat to the existing system and are ready to fall into disgrace at any moment.
Discussing the topic of the “correctness” of the poet, Nekrasov, undoubtedly, also thinks about his place in literary art. Being a fairly well-known writer, a magazine editor who managed to find his niche at that difficult time, he was sometimes overcome by doubts about the correctness of his chosen path. Thoughts about the ideal poet, about his place among writers, were frequent guests in Nikolai Alekseevich’s head.
In his reasoning, the writer came to the conclusion that literary and public opinion largely helps the masses. Because of this, his poems acquired a special color, where, with the help of veiled techniques, he tried to convey to the reader the most pressing problems. And he succeeded.
Polonsky was well aware of Nekrasov’s poem “Blessed is the gentle poet...”, written in 1852:
Blessed is the gentle poet,
In whom there is little bile, a lot of feeling:
Hello to him so sincerely
Friends of Quiet Art;
There's sympathy for him in the crowd,
Like the murmur of waves, caresses the ear;
He is alien to self-doubt -
This torture of the creative spirit;
Loving carelessness and peace,
Disdaining daring satire,
He firmly dominates the crowd
With your peace-loving lyre.
Yakov Petrovich, in his poem written in 1872, differently develops the theme outlined by the “sorrower of the people’s grief” and creates a generalized image of the poet-citizen:
Blessed is the embittered poet,
Even if he were a moral cripple,
He's crowned, hello to him
Children of an embittered age.
He shakes the darkness like a titan,
Looking for a way out, then for light,
He doesn't trust people - he trusts the mind,
And he doesn’t expect an answer from the gods.
With your prophetic verse
Disturbing the sleep of respectable husbands,
He himself suffers under the yoke
The contradictions are obvious.
With all the ardor of your heart
Loving, he can’t stand the mask
And nothing purchased
He doesn’t ask for happiness in exchange.
…………………………..
His involuntary cry is our cry,
His vices are ours, ours!
He drinks from a common cup with us,
How we are poisoned - and great.
Publisher of “Bulletin of Europe” M.M. Stasyulevich, to whom Polonsky offered the poem, refused to publish it, apparently out of fear of gaining a reputation as an editor who encourages poetry with a revolutionary and journalistic sound. In a letter to Polonsky, Mikhail Matveevich, who knew the poet’s character well, frankly admitted: “Dear Yakov Petrovich, if you had not given me these poems yourself, you would not have believed that they were yours. This is not like you at all: you don’t know how to get angry and swear, but here you have both. Finally, the blind will see to whom you are addressing these verses: this is a person.” In a response letter dated February 23, 1872, Yakov Petrovich objected: “When I wrote my poems, I did not mean Nekrasov at all, but the Truth - that truth that Nekrasov did not guess when he wrote his poems: “Blessed is the gentle poet.” .. To address my poems to him - and only to him - would be decent if it were fair. But this is unfair, and therefore indecent. The fact is that in the 19th century, European society sympathizes not with the gentle, but with the embittered - and my poems are nothing more than a poetic formula expressing this fact. Why is this so? What is the reason that the deeper, bolder and more comprehensive the denial, the more enthusiastic sympathy we have, and why positive ideals, no matter how large and brilliant they may be, do not stir our minds with sweet delight?
This is no longer my business to decide - this is a matter for criticism (if there is one). I myself half sympathize with the deniers, I myself cannot free myself from their influence and I find that there is a great, legitimate reason for our development...
Do you know, I’ll tell you by the way, why my wanderings around the editorial offices occur? You probably think that this is due to the weakness of my character. On the contrary, because I have too much of it. I just can’t apply it to anything or anyone - write in one tone, connect my thoughts. I am completely unable to please anyone, no editor will print everything that I want to write - each one certainly wants to, so to speak, strain me. Can the personality or characteristics of the writer be preserved? Hardly. Destroy the bad sides of the face, smooth out the angularities, erase the shadows - and there will be no face.”
This letter from Polonsky goes beyond the poet’s private message to the publisher. In it, the author reflects on the creative behavior of the writer in general and his character in particular. Polonsky could not squander his money on trifles; he did not tolerate the dual personality of the creator and preferred to send his works to different editors, instead of editing them to please one or another editor or publisher. He understood the main thing in literary (though not only literary) creativity: the main thing is to remain yourself. Time will do the rest.
Polonsky explained his creative position to the editor-publisher of Vestnik Evropy quite convincingly, but the cautious Stasyulevich refused to publish the poem.
It is believed that the original version of Polonsky’s poem, sent to Stasyulevich, was sharper and tendentious. It clearly contained anti-Nekrasov motives.
Blessed is the embittered poet, Even if he is a moral cripple, He receives such sincere greetings from the sick children of a sick century! Who considers his artistic work to be vain amusement, Who himself does not believe in human judgment, But greedily pursues glory - Who keeps an expensive supply of bile as the best gift of suffering, Who frightens us like children with the cold laughter of denial...
Scold the one we scold, And if you are invulnerable, Like God, we don’t want to deal with such deities...
Obviously, correspondence with Stasyulevich forced Polonsky to rework his poem, smoothing out some “sharp corners” and softening controversial passages. It first saw the light two years later in the literary collection “Skladchina,” published in St. Petersburg in 1874 to benefit those affected by the famine in the Samara province.
Turgenev, who did not favor Nekrasov at all, assessed Polonsky’s poem, which echoes Nekrasov’s “muse of revenge and sadness,” very restrainedly. In a letter to the author of the poem from Paris dated March 2 (14), 1872, he said: “According to our habit of being frank, I will tell you that the poem you sent, “Blessed is the Embittered Poet,” is not entirely to my liking, although it bears the stamp of your virtuosity. It somehow awkwardly vacillates between irony and seriousness - it is either dissatisfied evil or not quite enthusiastic - and produces an impression at the same time of being unclear and tense.”
Polonsky, with a tinge of some envy towards the “citizen poet,” wrote to Turgenev in 1873: “Of all the two-legged creatures I have met on earth, I positively do not know anyone happier than Nekrasov. Everything was given to him - fame, money, love, work, and freedom.” Polonsky himself had nothing but inner freedom and love. What about glory? As you know, she is a capricious lady - not everyone can handle it.
“They will say that I am a lover of love,” he wrote in his diary, “but I have neither love of money nor lust - a living person must have at least some kind of passion...”
But, oddly enough, a trail of bad fame, or rather outright gossip, followed him throughout St. Petersburg. People who knew well the poet’s kind character and his sober way of life could not believe these rumors, but was it possible to hide somewhere from evil tongues? Polonsky himself admitted: “Once I went to see a doctor, it seems Krasilnikov, he asked me: was I in such and such a hospital?
I have never been to any hospital.
Never?
Never!
It’s strange - some Polonsky, who called himself a poet, lay there for a short time, rowded, sent servants for vodka and threatened in all newspapers to publish a denunciation or libel against the hospital authorities if they restrained his arbitrariness.”
Here is another confession of Polonsky: “My colleague, a member of the Lovers Committee, once rode in a stagecoach to Pargolovo. The stagecoach was talking about Russian poets:
“They’re all drunkards,” said one of the passengers.
And Polonsky? - asked another.
I’ve been drunk since the morning without waking up,” the same passenger said affirmatively.” Yakov Petrovich took such gossip to heart, but his real fame, the glory of a deeply original Russian poet, became stronger and broader over the years.
Aesthetically sensitive critics grasped the need to overcome the negative extremes of each of the established poetic movements. Such critics, in particular, turned out to be M. L. Mikhailov and Lee. Grigoriev. It is not for nothing that L. Blok so persistently brought them together as the later descendants of Pushkin, heirs of Pushkin’s culture: “Here are also people who are so similar in many ways, but who belonged to hostile camps; By a strange coincidence, fate never collided with them even once.”
At the same time, such overcoming was hardly possible. In this sense, the fate of Ya. Polonsky (1819-1898) is interesting. The poet took a sort of middle position between Nekrasov and Fet. He has many things in common with Fet, above all devotion to art. At the same time, art, nature and love were not absolutized by Polonsky. Moreover, Polonsky sympathized with Nekrasov and considered the civil, social, democratic orientation of his poetry to be in keeping with the spirit of the times and necessary. In the poems “Blessed is the embittered poet...”, polemicizing with the famous Nekrasov poem “Blessed is the gentle poet...”, Polonsky testified to the full power of “embarrassed” poetry, sympathy for it and even envy of it. Polonsky himself was neither a “kindly” nor an “embittered” poet, rather eclectically combining the motives of this or that poetry and never achieving tragic force either in the top or in another poetic sphere, as was the case with Nekrasov, on the one hand, or Fet, on the other. In this sense, being a comparatively lesser poet, not only in terms of the significance of his POETRY, but also in its secondary nature, Polonsky is interesting as an expression of the mass, as it were, reader’s perception of the poetry of the “titans”, about whom he wrote in the poem “Blessed is the embittered poet...” (1872).
- His involuntary cry is our cry, His vices are ours, ours! He drinks from a common cup with us, Just as we are poisoned - and great. “Like us...”, but - “great”.
And Polonsky’s poetic forms largely came from the mass democratic “folklore” form of song and urban romance.
When defining different poetic trends of the era - “pure art” and democratic poetry - one must keep in mind that in general democratization is a process that captured all Russian poetry of that time in its most significant phenomena. Finally, such CONCEPTS as democracy and nationality in the poetry of the 50s and 60s also appear in rather complex relationships. So, even in relation to Nekrasov, with the undeniable and constant democratism of his poetry, we can talk about a complex movement - towards mastering the nationality in its national epic meaning. This eventually found expression in his poems of the early 60s.
Democracy often appears in poetry as raznochinstvo, philistinism. Actually, the poetic people in their connection with national, folk, especially peasant origins sometimes turn out to be quite elitist. It is hardly possible to talk about the nationality of such characteristic representatives of democratic art as D. Minaev, for example, or I. Golts-Miller. At the same time, posing the problem of the nationality of Count A. Tolstoy’s work seems justified even to his democratic contemporaries. From this point of view, the Iskrist poet N. Kurochkin contrasted A.K. Tolstoy with D. Minaev. He wrote in connection with Minaev: “Everything new, living and fresh will not be born for us; our heir will be another, collective person, who has only recently been called to life and whom neither Mr. Minaev nor the majority of us, who live an artificial, theoretical and, so to speak, hothouse-literary life, know... this person is the people, to which the best of us, of course, always treated with sympathy, but our sympathies almost always turned out to be fruitless.”
By the beginning of the 00s, poetry as a whole was entering a period of definite decline, and the further it went, the more so. Interest in poetry is once again weakening, both in terms of the place it is given on the pages of magazines and in the nature of critical assessments. Many poets fall silent for many years. Particularly characteristic, perhaps, is the almost complete silence of such a “pure” lyricist as Fet. And it would be superficial to see the reason for this only in the sharp criticism of Fet on the pages of democratic publications, especially “Russian Word” and “Iskra”. Even more, perhaps, the fierce attacks on Nekrasov on the pages of reactionary publications did not weaken his poetic drive in the least. The crisis in poetry, it was not only “pure art” that captured it. In the second half of the 60s, democratic poetry was just as noticeably experiencing it. At the same time, poets who gravitated toward the epic, even from the camp of “pure art,” were intensively creating: thus, returning to creation folk ballads by A.K. Tolstoy.
But only Nekrasov’s epic poetry will reach its true flowering. In the 60s, the awakened, moving peasant country, which, however, had not yet lost the moral and aesthetic foundations that had developed in the conditions of patriarchal life, determined the possibility of a surprisingly organic fusion of the social-analytical element with oral folk poetry, which we find in poetry Nekrasov of this time.
Loading...
