Athanasius Fet: analysis of the poem "Another May Night"

Before analyzing the poem "Another May Night", it is necessary to say a few words about the aesthetic views of the poet. Athanasius Fet lived and worked at the same time as Nekrasov, but the idea of the appointment of poetry and lyrics in the poets themselves were diametrically opposed. If Nekrasov saw his Muza as a grumbling sister to the "tormented" people, then Fet had a source of "pure thoughts" designed to carry away from "worldly agitation". In the era of democratic sentiments, Feta's lyrics were alien to the progressive and popular magazines at that time, the poet was ridiculed, criticized and wrote dozens of parodies of his elegant and not at all social verses.

The meaning of art

Poet Fet "Another May Night" was written in 1857. In it, he appears as a true apologist for "pure art". This term means that the goal of art is to proclaim eternal values, strive for perfect beauty, and not depend on current events, and even less to denounce the existing riots in society. The creative spirit, according to Fet, is needed just to overcome the "dark darkness" of everyday life, to escape from it.

Analysis of the poem "Another May Night": content

The secret of true poetry lies in the fact that, no matter how much you read (or listened to) the lyric work, it finds a deep response and every time causes new feelings and images. This is due to the fact that the poet brings to the forefront the image-feeling, image-experience and uses expressive artistic means to embody it. This is also Fet's poem "May Night". To fully enjoy the poetic masterpiece, to feel it together with the poet, we will read the poem several times thoughtfully. First we will see that the lyrical hero enthusiastically admires the spring night, breathing in her air, listening to her sounds.

The subsequent reading will surprise us with a whole range of emotions that the poet experiences. He is full of excitement, gratitude, bliss and anxiety. A sharp intrigue is manifested in the fact that the face of the May night gives rapture and at the same time gives rise to thoughts about the finitude of being.

Composition of the poem

This exquisite lyric work consists of four quatrains that consistently reinforce each other. The first begins and ends with an exclamation, reflects admiration and introduces into the atmosphere of spring. The second quatrain repeats in the first line an exclamation and gives sound and visual images that prepare the excited mood of expectation unfolded in the next quatrain. It opens with the metaphor of the bride-birch, which "trembles" - in this word the physical trembling of the foliage in the wind and the emotional state are combined. In the fourth quatrain, the author again turns to the night, "explaining" to her as a "disembodied" beloved. The song of the nightingale (serene and easy) gives way to the "involuntary song" of the inner "I". Both songs arise instinctively, involuntarily. The last line of the poem, which at first glance sounds dissonant with a general mood, was nevertheless prepared: the longing that first had a blissful shade gradually flowed into a sense of confusion.

Expressive means

Confusion lyrical hero conveys through the face of birches, which "wait" for something. Remarkable is the image of stars, not distant and cold, as usual, but "warmly and meekly" looking into the soul. This avatar instantly reduces the time and space of the poem. Everything now seems closely interconnected, woven in a mysterious and tender union of a huge universe and a human soul, containing all of it. It is no accident that the poet uses the metaphorical image of the bride in the poem "Another May Night". An analysis of the synonymous series, in which this image is given, demonstrates a delightfully gentle and intimate intonation. These are carefully chosen metaphors and epithets: "the maiden newlyweds", "nega", "fresh", "clean", "translucent", "meekly", "shyly", "trembling", "beckoning and teshit."

Analysis of the poem "Another May Night" opens one more of its peculiarity: the opposition of images and feelings moves from external and scale perception to the inner, elusive and intimate. So, the static kingdom of blizzards, ice and snow is contrasted with fresh flying May, tangible tenderness - incorporeity. Joy is opposed to alienation, anxiety vies with love, perfect beauty - with a possible death. Poets are always keenly aware of the gap between an infinite cosmos, an eternally renewing nature and a mortal man. It is not alien to this idea and Athanasius Fet. "Another May Night" represents this antithesis: the youngest breath of spring is opposed by the last song. But Fet would not be himself, if he did not soften this opposition with a mysterious "maybe." In general, it is not in the rules of the poets of the school of "pure art" to lay out clear accents and confident strokes. On the contrary, it is welcomed that there is a lack of consensus, the presence of secrets, light contours and hints. So the poet overcomes the finiteness of being, unites the restless soul with the boundless power of love. From this, the sadness becomes light, it gains wings.

The central idea

Carrying out the analysis of the poem "Another May Night", it is worth mentioning that in it, Fet goes further than the landscape lyrics, in which his pen feels so free. Before us is a work of philosophy, expressing the idea of the harmony of nature and the impotence of the mind to comprehend this harmony. To this end, the author intentionally uses a non-existent grammatical form - "incorporeal", where the comparative degree does not arise from the qualitative but from the relative adjective. The idea of the poem is confirmed by its sound organization. Written with a five-foot iambic cross-rhyme, it has a sublime-solemn intonation.