Father - Johann-Peter-Karl-Wilhelm Vöth (1789-1825), assessor of the city court of Darmstadt.
Mother - Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker (1798-1844). In 1818, he married Johann-Peter-Karl-Wilhelm, and in 1820, at the seventh month of pregnancy, secretly left for Russia with Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, leaving his daughter Caroline-Charlotte-Georgina-Ernestina to raise her husband. Johann-Peter-Karl-Wilhelm did not recognize Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet as his son. Here is what Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker wrote to her brother: “It is very surprising to me that Fet forgot in his will and did not recognize his son.”
Stepfather - Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin (1775-1855). A retired captain, he belonged to an old noble family and was a wealthy landowner. He married Charlotte Becker in 1822, who converted to Orthodoxy before the wedding and became known as Elizaveta Petrovna Fet.
A.A. Fet was born in 1820 and was baptized according to the Orthodox rite in the same year. In the register of births, he is recorded as the son of Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin. Fourteen years later, the spiritual authorities of the Eagle discovered that the child was born before the wedding of his parents and Athanasius was deprived of the right to bear his father's surname, and deprived of his noble title. This event wounded the impressionable soul of the child, and he experienced the ambiguity of his position almost all his life. From now on, he had to bear the surname Fet, a rich heir suddenly turned into a "man without a name", the son of an unknown foreigner of dubious origin. Fet took it as a disgrace. To return the lost position became an obsession that determined his entire life path.
He studied at a German boarding school in the city of Verro (now Võru, Estonia), then at the boarding school of Professor Pogodin, a historian, writer, journalist, where he entered Moscow University for training. He graduated from the university, where he studied first at the Faculty of Law and then at the Faculty of Philology. At this time, in 1840, he published his first works as a separate book, which, however, did not have any success.
The special position in the family influenced the further fate of Athanasius Fet, he had to earn for himself the rights of the nobility, which the church deprived him of and in 1845 Fet entered military service in one of the southern regiments.
In 1850, in the journal Sovremennik, owned by Nekrasov, Fet's poems are published, which are admired by critics of all directions. He was received among the most famous writers (Nekrasov and Turgenev, Botkin and Druzhinin, etc.), thanks to literary earnings, he improved his financial situation, which gave him the opportunity to travel around Europe.
In 1853, Fet was transferred to the guards regiment stationed near St. Petersburg. The poet often visits St. Petersburg, then the capital. Fet's meetings with Turgenev, Nekrasov, Goncharov and others. Rapprochement with the editors of the Sovremennik magazine.
Since 1854, the service in the Baltic Port, described in his memoirs "My memories".
In 1856 he published Fet's collection edited by I.S. Turgenev.
In 1857, in Paris, he married the daughter of the richest tea merchant and the sister of his admirer, the critic V. Botkin, M. Botkina.
In 1858, the poet retired with the rank of guards captain and settled in Moscow. Service in the army did not return Fet a title of nobility. At that time, the nobility gave only the rank of colonel.
1859 - break with the magazine Sovremennik.
1863 - the release of a two-volume collection of poems by Fet.
In 1867 he was elected justice of the peace in Vorobyovka for 11 years.
In 1873, the nobility and the surname Shenshin were returned to Fet, but the poet continued to sign literary works and translations with the surname Fet. He considered the day when the surname "Shenshin" was returned to him, "one of the happiest days of his life."
In 1877, Afanasy Afanasyevich bought the village of Vorobyovka in the Kursk province, where he spent the rest of his life, only leaving for Moscow for the winter.
In the late 1870s, Fet began to write poetry with renewed vigor. The sixty-three-year-old poet gave the name "Evening Lights" to the collection of poems. (More than three hundred poems are included in five editions, four of which were published in 1883, 1885, 1888, 1891. The poet prepared the fifth edition, but did not manage to publish it.)
November 21, 1892 - Fet's death in Moscow. According to some reports, his death from a heart attack was preceded by a suicide attempt. He was buried in the village of Kleymenovo, the Shenshin family estate.
(November 23, 1820, Novoselki estate, Mtsensk district, Oryol province - November 21, 1892, Moscow)
Biography
Childhood.
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (Shenshin) was born on October 29 (November 10 according to the new style), 1820. In his documentary biography, much is not entirely accurate - the date of birth is also inaccurate. Interestingly, Fet himself celebrated November 23 as his birthday.
The birthplace of the future poet is the Oryol province, the village of Novoselki, not far from the city of Mtsensk, the family estate of his father, Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin.
Afanasy Neftovich spent many years of his life, starting at the age of seventeen, in military service. Participated in the war with Napoleon. For the valor shown in battles, he was awarded orders. In 1807, due to illness, he retired (with the rank of captain) and began to serve in the civilian field. In 1812 he was elected to the post of marshal of the nobility in the Mtsensk district.
The Shenshin family belonged to ancient noble families. But Fet's father was not rich. Afanasy Neofitovich was in constant debt, in constant household and family concerns. Perhaps this circumstance partly explains his gloominess, his restraint and even dryness both in relation to his wife, Fet's mother, and in relation to children. Fet's mother, nee Charlotte Becker, who belonged by birth to a wealthy German burgher family, was a timid and submissive woman. She did not take a decisive part in household affairs, but she was engaged in raising her son to the best of her ability and ability.
The story of her marriage is interesting and somewhat mysterious. Shenshin was her second husband. Until 1820 she lived in Germany, in Darmstadt, in her father's house. Apparently, already after the divorce from her first husband, Johann Fet, having a young daughter in her arms, she met 44-year-old Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin. He was in Darishtadt for treatment, met Charlotte Fet and became interested in her. It all ended with the fact that he persuaded Charlotte to run away with him to Russia, where they got married. In Russia, very soon after their arrival, Charlotte Fet, who became Shenshina, gave birth to a son named Athanasius Shenshin and baptized according to the Orthodox rite.
Fet's childhood was both sad and good. Good even, perhaps, more than bad. Many of Fet's first teachers turned out to be narrow-minded when it comes to book science. But there was another school - not a book school. The school is natural, directly vital. Most of all, they taught and educated the surrounding nature and the living impressions of being, brought up the whole way of peasant, rural life. This, of course, is more important than book literacy. Most of all, I brought up communication with courtyards, ordinary people, and peasants. One of them is Ilya Afanasyevich. He served as a valet for Father Fet. With children, Ilya Afanasyevich behaved with dignity and importance, he loved to instruct them. In addition to his educators of the future poet were: the inhabitants of the girls' rooms - the maids. Girlish for young Fet is the latest news and these are charming legends and fairy tales. The maid Praskovya was a master of telling fairy tales.
The first teacher of Russian literacy, at the choice of his mother, was for Fet an excellent cook, but far from being an excellent teacher, the man Athanasius. Athanasius soon taught the boy the letters of the Russian alphabet. The second teacher was the seminarian Pyotr Stepanovich, a man apparently capable, who decided to teach Fet the rules of Russian grammar, but never taught him to read. After Fet lost his seminary teacher, he was given to the full care of the old yard man Philip Agofonovich, who held the position of a hairdresser under Fet's grandfather. Being illiterate himself, Philip Agafonovich could not teach the boy anything, and at the same time forced him to practice reading, offering to read prayers. When Feta was already in his tenth year, a new seminarian teacher, Vasily Vasilyevich, was hired to him. At the same time - for the benefit of education and training, to excite the spirit of competition - it was decided to teach, along with Fet, the clerk's son Mitka Fedorov. In close contact with the peasant son, Fet was enriched with a living knowledge of life. We can assume that the great life of the poet Fet, like many other Russian poets and prose writers, began with a meeting with Pushkin. Pushkin's poems instilled in Fet's soul a love of poetry. They lit a poetic lamp in him, awakened the first poetic impulses, made him feel the joy of a high rhymed, rhythmic word.
Fet lived in his father's house until the age of fourteen. In 1834 he entered Krümmer's boarding school in Verro, where he learned a lot. One day, Fet, who previously had the surname Shenshin, received a letter from his father. In the letter, the father informed that from now on, Afanasy Shenshin, in accordance with the corrected official papers, should be called official papers, should be called the son of the mother's first husband, John Fet, - Afanasy Fet. What happened? When Fet was born and, according to the then custom, he was baptized, he was recorded by Afanasyevich Shenshin. The fact is that Shenshin married Fet's mother according to the Orthodox rite only in September 1822, i.e. two years after the birth of the future poet, and, therefore, he could not be considered his legal father.
The beginning of the creative path.
At the end of 1837, by the decision of Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, Fet left Krummer's boarding school and sent him to Moscow to prepare for admission to Moscow University. Before Fet entered the university, he lived for six months, studied at Pogodin's private boarding school. Fet distinguished himself when studying at a boarding school and distinguished himself when entering the university. Initially, Fet entered the law faculty of Moscow University, but soon changed his mind and switched to the verbal department.
A serious study of poetry begins with Fet already in the first year. He writes down his poems in a “yellow notebook” specially set up for this purpose. Soon the number of composed poems reaches three dozen. Fet decides to show the notebook to Pogodin. Pogodin passes the notebook to Gogol. And a week later, Fet receives a notebook from Pogodin back with the words: “Gogol said this is an undoubted talent.”
The fate of Fet is not only bitter and tragic, but also happy. Happy already because the great Pushkin was the first to discover to him the joy of poetry, and the great Gogol blessed him to serve it. The poems interested Fet's fellow students. And at this time, Fet met Apollon Grigoriev. The proximity of Fet with A. Grigoriev became closer and closer and soon turned into friendship. As a result, Fet moves from Pogodin's house to Grigoriev's house. Fet later admitted: "The Grigorievs' house was the true cradle of my mental self." Fet and A. Grigoriev constantly, interested sincerely communicated with each other.
They supported each other even in difficult moments of life. Grigoriev Fetu, - when Fet especially acutely felt rejection, social and human restlessness. Fet Grigoriev - in those hours when his love was rejected, and he was ready to flee from Moscow to Siberia.
The Grigoriev House became a gathering place for talented university youth. Here there were students of verbal and law faculties Ya. P. Polonsky, S. M. Solovyov, the son of the Decembrist N. M. Orlov, P. M. Boklevsky, N. K. Kalaidovich. Around A. Grigoriev and Fet, not just a friendly company of interlocutors is formed, but a kind of literary and philosophical circle.
During his stay at the university, Fet published the first collection of his poems. It is called somewhat intricately: "Lyrical Pantheon". Apollon Grigoriev helped in the publication of the collection of activities. The collection turned out to be unprofitable. The release of the “Lyrical Pantheon” did not bring Fet positive satisfaction and joy, but, nevertheless, noticeably inspired him. He began to write poetry more and more energetically than before. And not only write, but also print. I gladly print it, the two largest magazines of that time, Moskvityanin and Otechestvennye Zapiski. Moreover, some of Fet’s poems fall into the well-known at that time “Reader” by A. D. Galakhov, the first edition of which was published in 1843.
In "Moskvityanin" Fet began to be printed from the end of 1841. The editors of this journal were professors of Moscow University - M.P. Pogodin and S.P. Shevyrev. From the middle of 1842, Fet began to publish in the journal Fatherland Notes, the leading critic of which was the great Belinsky. For several years, from 1841 to 1845, Fet published 85 poems in these magazines, including the textbook poem “I came to you with greetings ...”.
The first misfortune that befell Fet is connected with his mother. The thought of her evoked tenderness and pain in him. In November 1844, she died. Although there was nothing unexpected in the death of his mother, the news of this shocked Fet. Then, in the autumn of 1844, Uncle Fet, the brother of Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, Pyotr Neofitovich, died suddenly. He promised to leave Fet his capital. Now he is dead and his money has mysteriously disappeared. This was another shock.
And he has financial problems. He decides to sacrifice his literary activities and enlist in the military. In this he sees for himself the only practically expedient and worthy way out. Serving in the army allows him to regain the social position in which he was before receiving that ill-fated letter from his father and which he considered his own, which belongs to him by right.
To this it should be added that military service was not disgusting to Fet. On the contrary, once in his childhood he even dreamed of her.
main collections.
Fet's first collection was published in 1840 and was called "Lyrical Pantheon", was published with only one initials of the author "A. F." It is interesting that in the same year the first collection of Nekrasov's poems, Dreams and Sounds, was also published. The simultaneity of the release of both collections involuntarily leads to their comparison, and they are often compared. At the same time, a commonality is revealed in the fate of the collections. It is emphasized that both Fet and Nekrasov failed in their poetic debut, that both of them did not immediately find their way, their unique “I”.
But unlike Nekrasov, who was forced to buy up the circulation of the collection and destroy it, Fet by no means suffered a clear failure. His collection was both criticized and praised. The collection turned out to be unprofitable. Fet was not even able to return the money he had spent on printing. "Lyrical Pantheon" is a book in many respects still student's. It shows the influence of various poets (Byron, Goethe, Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Venevitinov, Lermontov, Schiller and contemporary Fet Benediktov).
As the critic of Otechestvennye Zapiski noted, in the verses of the collection one could see an unearthly, noble simplicity, “grace”. The musicality of the verse was also noted - that quality that will be highly characteristic of a mature Fet. In the collection, the greatest preference was given to two genres: the ballad, so beloved by romantics (“Abduction from the harem”, “Castle Raufenbach”, etc.), and the genre of anthological poems.
At the end of September 1847, he receives leave and travels to Moscow. Here, for two months, he has been diligently working on his new collection: he composes it, rewrites it, submits it to censorship, and even receives censorship permission to publish it. Meanwhile, vacation time is running out. He did not have time to publish the collection - he had to return to the Kherson province, to the service.
Fet was able to come to Moscow again only in December 1849. It was then that he completed the work begun two years ago. Now he does everything in a hurry, remembering his experience two years ago. In early 1850, the collection was published. The haste affected the quality of the publication: it contains many typos and dark places. However, the book was a success. Positive reviews about her appeared in Sovremennik, Otechestvennye Zapiski, Moskvityanin, that is, in the leading magazines of that time. She also had success among the readership. The entire print run of the book sold out within five years. This is not such a long time, especially when compared with the fate of the first collection. The increased fame of Fet, based on his numerous publications in the early 1940s, and the new wave of poetry that was celebrated in Russia in those years also affected here.
In 1856, Fet published another collection, which was preceded by the 1850 edition, which included 182 poems. In the new edition, on the advice of Turgenev, 95 poems were transferred, of which only 27 were left in their original form. 68 poems were subjected to thorough or partial editing. But back to the collection of 1856. In literary circles, among connoisseurs of poetry, he was a great success. A well-known critic A. V. Druzhinin responded with a thorough article to the new collection. Druzhinin in the article not only admired Fet's poems, but also subjected them to a deep analysis. Druzhinin especially emphasizes the musicality of Fetov's verse.
In the last period of his life, a collection of his original poems, “Evening Lights,” was published. Published in Moscow in four editions. The fifth was prepared by Fet, but he did not have time to publish it. The first collection was published in 1883, the second - in 1885, the third - in 1889, the fourth - in 1891, a year before his death.
“Evening Lights” is the main title of Fet's collections. Their second name is “Collection of unpublished poems by Fet”. Evening Lights, with rare exceptions, included really unpublished poems until that time. Mostly those that Fet wrote after 1863. There was simply no need to reprint the works created earlier and included in the collections of 1863: the circulation of the collection did not sell out, those who wished could buy this book. N. N. Strakhov and V. S. Solovyov provided the greatest assistance in the publication. So, in the preparation of the third issue of "Evening Lights", in July 1887, both friends arrived in Vorobyovka.
Journal and editorial activities of Fet.
The first acquaintance with Turgenev took place in May 1853. And, probably, after that, Fet's journal activity began. But before that, Fet published his poems in the then well-known magazines “Domestic Notes” and “Moskvityanin”. Spassky Fet read his poems to Turgenev. Fet took with him his translations from the odes of Horace. These translations Turgenev was most admired. It is interesting that Fet's translations of Horace earned praise not only from Turgenev - Sovremennik gave them a high rating.
Based on his travels in 1856, Fet wrote a long article entitled “From abroad. Travel impressions. It was published in the Sovremennik magazine - in No. 11 for 1856 and in No. 2 and No. 7 for 1857.
Fet is engaged in translations not only from Latin, but also from English: he diligently translates Shakespeare. And he collaborates not only in Sovremennik, but also in other magazines: Library for Reading, Russky Vestnik, since 1859 - in Russkoe Slovo, a magazine that later became very popular thanks to the participation of Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev in it. In 1858, Fet came up with the idea of creating a completely new, purely literary journal, which would be led, besides him, by L. Tolstoy, Botkin and Turgenev.
In 1859, Fet broke off cooperation with the Sovremennik magazine. The prerequisites for this break were the declaration of war by Sovremennik on literature, which he considered indifferent to the interests of the day and to the direct needs of the working people. In addition, Sovremennik published an article sharply criticizing Fet's translations of Shakespeare.
In February 1860, Fet bought the Stepanovka estate. Here he was in charge for seventeen years. Namely, a good knowledge of rural life and rural activities in Stepanovka allowed Fet to create several journalistic works dedicated to the village. Fet's essays were called: "From the village." They were published in the Russian Bulletin magazine.
In the village, Fet was engaged not only in rural affairs and writing essays, but also translated the works of the German philosopher Schopenhauer.
Fet's personal fate.
After the death of Pyotr Neofitovich, Fet begins to have financial problems. And he decides to sacrifice his literary activity and enter the military service. On April 21, 1845, Fet was accepted as a non-commissioned officer in the cuirassier (cavalry) regiment of the Military Order. By this time, he had almost completely said goodbye to poetry. For three years, from 1841 to 1843, he wrote a lot and published a lot, but in 1844, apparently due to difficult circumstances known to us, a decline in creativity was noticeable: this year he wrote only ten original poems and translated thirteen odes of Roman poet Horace. In 1845, only five poems were created.
Of course, during the years of service, Fet had genuine joys - high, truly human, spiritual. These are, first of all, meetings with pleasant and kind people, interesting acquaintances. Such interesting acquaintances, which left a memory for a lifetime, include the acquaintance with the Brazhesky spouses.
Fet has another, especially important event connected with the Brzeski family: through them he met the Petkovich family. In the hospitable house of the Petkovichs, Fet met their young relative, Maria Lazich. She became the heroine of his love lyrics. When Fet met Lazich, she was 24 years old, and he was 28. Fet saw in Maria Lazich not only an attractive girl, but also an extremely cultured person, musically and literary educated.
Maria Lazich turned out to be close to Fet in spirit - not only in heart. But she was as poor as Fet. And he, deprived of a fortune and a solid social foundation, did not decide to link his fate with her. Fet convinced Maria Lazich that they needed to leave. Lazich agreed in words, but she could not break off relations. Nor could Fet. They continued to meet. Soon, Fet had to leave for a while due to official needs. When he returned, terrible news awaited him: Maria Lazich was no longer alive. As Fet was told, at that tragic hour she was lying in a white muslin dress, reading a book. She lit a cigarette and threw the match on the floor. The match continued to burn. Her muslin dress caught fire. In a few moments, the girl was all on fire. It was not possible to save her. Her last words were: “Save the letters!” And she also asked not to blame the one she loved for anything ...
After the tragic death of Maria Lazich, Fet comes to the full realization of love. Love unique and unique. Now he will remember all his life, will speak, and sing about this love - high, beautiful, amazing verses.
That grass that is far away on your grave,
here in the heart, the older it is, the fresher ...
At the end of September 1847, he receives leave and travels to Moscow. Here he is diligently working on his new collection, censoring it, but he failed to publish the collection. He had to return to the Kherson province, to the service. The collection was published only 3 years later. He publishes it in a hurry, but, despite this, the collection is a great success.
On May 2, 1853, Fet was transferred to the guard, to the uhlan regiment. The guards regiment was stationed near St. Petersburg, in the Krasnoselsky camp. And Fet has the opportunity, while still in military service, to enter the St. Petersburg literary environment - into the circle of the then most famous and most progressive magazine Sovremennik.
Most of all, Fet draws closer to Turgenev. Fet's first acquaintance with Turgenev took place in May 1853 in Volkovo. Then Fet, at the invitation of Turgenev, visited his estate Spasskoe-Lutovinovo, where Turgenev was in exile by government verdict. The conversation between them in Spasskoye was devoted chiefly to literary matters and themes. Fet took with him his translations from the odes of Horace. These translations Turgenev was most admired. Turgenev also edited a new collection of Fet's original poems. A new collection of Fet's poems was published in 1856. When a new edition of Fet's poems is published, he takes a year off from work and uses it not only for literary affairs, but also for traveling abroad. Fet was abroad twice. The first time he went hastily - for his older sister Lina and to pay for the inheritance of his mother. The trip left little impression.
His second trip abroad, in 1856, was longer and more impressive. Based on his impressions, Fet wrote a long article on foreign impressions under the title “From abroad. Travel impressions.
Traveling, Fet visited Rome, Naples, Genoa, Livorno, Paris and other famous Italian and French cities. In Paris, Fet met the family of Pauline Viardot, whom Turgenev loved. And yet, traveling abroad did not bring Fet any sustained joy. On the contrary, abroad, he most of all yearned and moped. He had almost reached the rank of major, which was supposed to automatically return the lost nobility to him, but in 1856 the new Tsar Alexander II, by a special decree, established new rules for obtaining nobility from now on, not a major, but only a colonel has the right to nobility.
“For health reasons, I expect rather death and I look at marriage as an unattainable thing for me.” Fet's words about the unattainability of marriage were said by Fet less than a year before his marriage to Maria Petrovna Botkina.
Maria Petrovna was the sister of Vasily Petrovich Botkin, a famous writer, critic, close friend of Belinsky, friend and connoisseur of Fet. Maria Petrovna belonged to a large merchant family. Seven Botkins was not only talented, but also friendly. Fet's future wife was in a special position in the family. The brothers lived their own lives, the older sisters were married off and had their own families, only Maria Petrovna remained in the house. Her position seemed to her exceptional and greatly oppressed her.
Fet's proposal was made, and in response to it, consent followed. It was decided to celebrate the wedding soon. But it so happened that Maria Petrovna had to go abroad without delay to accompany her sick married sister. The wedding was postponed until she returned. However, Fet did not wait for the bride to return from abroad - he went after her himself. There, in Paris, a wedding ceremony took place, and a modest wedding was played.
Fet married Maria Petrovna, not having a strong love feeling for her, but out of sympathy and common sense. Such marriages are often no less successful than old-age marriages. Fet's marriage was successful in the most moral sense. Everyone who knew her spoke only well of Maria Petrovna, only with respect and genuine affection.
Maria Petrovna was a good educated woman, a good musician. She became an assistant to her husband, tied to him. Fet always felt this and could not help but be grateful.
By February 1860, Fet had the idea of acquiring the estate. By the middle of the year, he realizes his thought-dream. The Stepanovka estate, which he bought, was located in the south of the same Mtsensk district of the Oryol province, where his native estate Novoselki was also located. It was a fairly large farm, 200 acres in size, located in the steppe zone, on a bare spot. Turgenev joked about this: “a fat pancake and a bump on it”, “instead of nature ... one space.”
Here Fet was in charge - for seventeen years. Here he spent most of the year, only in winter leaving for a short time in Moscow.
The owner of Fet was not just good - earnest. His zeal in rural work and the organization of the estate had serious psychological justification: he actually regained his involvement in the class of noble landowners, eliminated the great, as it seemed to him, injustice towards himself. In Stepanovka, Fet taught two peasant children to read and write, built a hospital for the peasants. During crop shortages and famine, it helps the peasants with money and other means. From 1867 and for ten years, Fet served as a justice of the peace. He took his duties seriously and responsibly.
Last years of life.
The last years of Fet's life were marked by a new, unexpected and highest rise in his work. In 1877, Fet sold the old estate, Stepanovka, and bought a new one, Vorobyovka. This estate is located in the Kursk province, on the Tuskari River. It so happened that in Vorobyovka, Fet is invariably, all days and hours, busy with work. Poetic and mental work.
No matter how important translation works were for Fet, the biggest event in the last years of his life was the release of collections of his original poems - “Evening Lights”. Poems amaze, first of all, with depth and wisdom. These are both bright and tragic thoughts of the poet. Such, for example, are the poems “Death”, “Insignificance”, “Not by that, the Lord, mighty, incomprehensible ...”. The last poem is glory to man, glory to the eternal fire of the spirit that lives in man.
In "Evening Lights", as in all of Fet's poetry, there are many poems about love. Beautiful, unique and unforgettable poems. One of them is “Alexandra Lvovna Brzeska”.
Nature occupies a prominent place in Fet's late lyrics. In his poems, she is always closely connected with a person. In the late Fet, nature helps to solve riddles, the secrets of human existence. Through nature, Fet comprehends the subtlest psychological truth about a person. At the end of his life, Fet became a rich man. By decree of Emperor Alexander II, he was returned to the dignity of nobility and the surname Shenshin, which was so desirable for him. His fiftieth literary jubilee in 1889 was celebrated solemnly, magnificently and quite officially. The new emperor Alexander III granted him the title of senior rank - chamberlain.
Fet died on November 21, 1892, two days before his seventy-two birthday. The circumstances of his death are as follows.
On the morning of November 21, ill, but still on his feet, Fet unexpectedly wished for champagne. His wife, Maria Petrovna, reminded me that the doctor had not allowed this. Fet began to insist that she immediately go to the doctor for permission. While the horses were harnessed, Fet was worried and hurried: “Will it be soon?” At parting, Maria Petrovna said: “Well, go away, mommy, but come back soon.”
After the departure of his wife, he said to the secretary: "Let's go, I'll dictate to you." - "Letter?" she asked. - "Not". Under his dictation, the secretary wrote at the top of the sheet: “I do not understand the conscious increase in inevitable suffering. Volunteering towards the inevitable.” Under this, Fet himself signed: “November 21, Fet (Shenshin).”
On the table he had a steel cutting knife in the form of a stiletto. Fet took it. The alarmed secretary vomited. Then Fet, not abandoning the thought of suicide, went to the dining room, where table knives were kept in a chiffonier. He tried to open the chiffonier, but to no avail. Suddenly, breathing rapidly, eyes wide, he fell into a chair.
So death came to him.
Three days later, on November 24, the funeral ceremony took place. Funeral services were held at the university church. Then the coffin with the body of Fet was taken to the village of Kleymenovo Mtsenskono, Oryol province, the Shenshin family estate. Fet was buried there.
Bibliography:
* Maimin E. A. Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet: A book for students. - Moscow: Enlightenment 1989 - 159 p. - (Biography of the writer).
Biography
Born in the family of the landowner Shenshin.
The surname Fet (more precisely, Fet, German Foeth) became for the poet, as he later recalled, "the name of all his sufferings and sorrows." The son of the Oryol landowner Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin (1775-1855) and Caroline Charlotte Feth, who he brought from Germany, he was recorded at birth (probably for a bribe) as the legitimate son of his parents, although he was born a month after Charlotte's arrival in Russia and a year before their marriage. When he was 14 years old, a “mistake” in the documents was discovered, and he was deprived of his surname, nobility and Russian citizenship and became “Hessendarstadt subject Athanasius Fet” (thus, Charlotte’s first husband, the German Fet, was considered his father; who really was Afanasy's father is unknown). In 1873, he officially regained the surname Shenshin, but continued to sign literary works and translations with the surname Fet (through "e").
In 1835-1837 he studied at the German private boarding school Krümmer in Verro (now Võru, Estonia). At this time, Fet begins to write poetry, shows interest in classical philology.
In 1838-1844 he studied at Moscow University.
In 1840, the collection of Fet's poems "Lyrical Pantheon" was published with the participation of A. Grigoriev, Fet's friend from the university.
In 1842 - publications in the magazines "Moskvityanin" and "Notes of the Fatherland".
In 1845, he entered military service in the cuirassier regiment of the Military Order, became a cavalryman. In 1846 he was awarded the first officer rank.
In 1850 - the second collection of Fet, positive reviews from critics in the magazines Sovremennik, Moskvityanin and Domestic Notes. The death of Maria Kozminichna Lazich, the poet's beloved, whose memories are dedicated to the poem "Talisman", the poems "Old Letters", "You suffered, I still suffer ...", "No, I have not changed. Until deep old age ... ”and many other of his poems.
* 1853 - Fet is transferred to the guards regiment stationed near St. Petersburg. The poet often visits St. Petersburg, then the capital. Fet's meetings with Turgenev, Nekrasov, Goncharov and others. Rapprochement with the editors of the Sovremennik magazine
* 1854 - service in the Baltic Port, described in his memoirs "My memories"
* 1856 - Fet's third collection. Editor - Turgenev
* 1857 - Fet's marriage to M. P. Botkina, sister of the doctor S. P. Botkin
* 1858 - the poet retires with the rank of guards headquarters captain, settles in Moscow
* 1859 - break with the Sovremennik magazine
* 1863 - the release of a two-volume collection of poems by Fet
* 1867 - Fet was elected a justice of the peace for 11 years
* 1873 - returned the nobility and the surname Shenshin. The poet continued to sign literary works and translations with the surname Fet.
* 1883-1891 - publication of four issues of the collection "Evening Lights"
* 1892, November 21 - Fet's death in Moscow. According to some reports, his death from a heart attack was preceded by a suicide attempt. He was buried in the village of Kleymenovo, the Shenshin family estate.
Bibliography
Editions. Collections
* Poems. 2010
* Poems. 1970
* Athanasius Fet. Lyrics. 2006
* Poems. Poems. 2005
* Poems. Prose. Letters. 1988
* Prose of the poet. 2001
* Spiritual poetry. 2007
poems
* Two stickies
* Sabina
* Dream
* Student
* Talisman
Translations
* Beautiful night (from Goethe)
* Traveler's Night Song (from Goethe)
* Frontiers of Humanity (from Goethe)
* Bertrand de Born (from Uhland)
* "You are all in pearls and diamonds" (from Heine)
* "Child, we were still children" (from Heine)
* Gods of Greece (from Schiller)
* Imitation of Eastern poets (from Saadi)
*From Rückert
* Songs of the Caucasian highlanders
* Dupont and Duran (from Alfred Musset)
* "Be Theocritus, O most charming" (from Merike)
* "That God-equal was chosen by fate" (from Catullus)
* Ovid's book of love
* Philemon and Baucis (from the book Metamorphoses by Ovid)
* On Poetic Art (To the Pisons) (from Horace)
stories
*Out of fashion
* Uncle and cousin
* Cactus
* Kalenik
* Goltz family
Publicism
Articles about poetry and art:
* About Tyutchev's poems
* From the article "Regarding the statue of Mr. Ivanov"
* From the article "Two Letters on the Significance of Ancient Languages in Our Education"
* From the preface to the translation of Ovid's "Transformations"
* Preface to the third issue of "Evening Lights"
* Preface to the fourth issue of "Evening Lights"
* From the book "My Memories"
* From the article "Answer to New Times"
* From letters
* Comments
Memoirs:
*Early years of my life
* My memories
Interesting Facts
Fet planned to translate the Critique of Pure Reason, but N. Strakhov dissuaded Fet from translating this book of Kant, pointing out that a Russian translation of this book already exists. After that, Fet turned to Schopenhauer's translation. He translated two works by Schopenhauer:
* The World as Will and Representation (1880, 2nd ed. in 1888) and
* "On the Fourfold Root of the Law of Sufficient Reason" (1886).
The heroine of Fet's lyrics is Maria Lazich, who died tragically in 1850. For the rest of his life, Fet felt guilty before her and continued to keep deep feelings.
"No, I have not changed. Until deep old age
I'm the same devotee, I'm a slave to your love
And the old poison of chains, sweet and cruel,
Still burning in my blood
Although memory insists that there is a grave between us,
Though every day I wander languidly to another, -
I can't believe that you forget me
When you are here in front of me.
Will another beauty flash for a moment,
It seems to me, just about, I recognize you;
And tenderness of the past I hear a breath,
And, shuddering, I sing."
Creativity A. Fet - The main motives of the lyrics in the work of A. A. Fet (abstracts on the work of A.A. Fet)
And I tremble, and my heart avoids
And the brighter the moon shone
She became more and more pale
In smoky clouds purple roses,
reflection of amber,
And kisses, and tears,
And dawn, dawn! ...
Biography
Shenshin Afanasy Afanasyevich (aka Fet) is a famous Russian lyric poet. Born on November 23, 1820, near the city of Mtsensk, Oryol province, in the village of Novoselki, the son of a wealthy landowner, retired captain, Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin. The latter married a Lutheran abroad, but without an Orthodox rite, as a result of which the marriage, legal in Germany, was declared illegal in Russia; when the Orthodox wedding ceremony was performed in Russia, the future poet already lived under the maternal surname "Fet" (Foeth), being considered an illegitimate child; only in his old age did Fet begin to fuss about legalization and received his father's surname. Until the age of 14, Sh. lived and studied at home, and then in the city of Verro (Livland province), in the boarding house of Krommer. In 1837 he was transferred to Moscow and placed with M.P. Pogodin; shortly thereafter W. entered the Moscow University, the Faculty of History and Philology. Almost all of his student time, Sh. lived in the family of his university friend, the future literary critic Apollon Grigoriev, who had an influence on the development of Sh.'s poetic gift. Already in 1840, the first collection of Sh. . The collection was not successful in the public, but attracted the attention of journalism, and since 1842, poems by Fet (who retained this surname as a literary pseudonym until the end of his life) were often placed in Pogodin's "Moskvityanin" and A. D. Galakhov contributed some of these, in the very first edition of his Reader, in 1843. Heine had the greatest literary influence on Sh., as lyrics, at that time. The desire to rise to the nobility prompted Fet to enter the military service. In 1845 he was accepted into a cuirassier regiment; in 1853 he moved to the Lancers Guards Regiment; in the Crimean campaign was part of the troops guarding the Estonian coast; in 1858 he retired, like his father, as a staff captain. Sh.'s noble rights, however, were not achieved at that time: the qualification required for this increased as Fet rose in the service. Meanwhile, his poetic fame grew; The success of the book Poems by A. Fet, published in Moscow in 1850, opened him access to the Sovremennik circle in St. Petersburg, where he met Turgenev and V.P. Botkin; he became friends with the latter, and the former already in 1856 wrote to Fet: "What are you writing to me about Heine? - you are higher than Heine!" Later Sh. met Turgenev with L.N. Tolstoy, who returned from Sevastopol. The Sovremennik circle chose, edited and beautifully printed a new collection of Poems by A. A. Fet "(St. Petersburg, 1856); in 1863 it was republished by Soldatenkov in two volumes, and the 2nd included translations of Horace and others. Literary successes prompted Sh. to leave military service; besides, in 1857 he In 1860, he married Marya Petrovna Botkina in Paris and, feeling a practical streak in himself, decided to devote himself, like Horace, to agriculture. there without a break and only in winter, briefly visiting Moscow.For more than ten years (1867 - 1877) Sh. he became such a convinced and tenacious Russian “agrarian” that he soon received the nickname “serf-owner” from the populist press. Deserts; at the end of life sos Sh.'s standing reached a value that can be called wealth. In 1873, the surname Sh. with all the rights associated with it was approved for Fet. In 1881, Sh. bought a house in Moscow and began to come to Vorobyovka for the spring and summer already as a summer resident, having handed over the farm to the manager. At this time of contentment and honor Sh. with new energy set to original and translated poetry, and memoirs. He published in Moscow: four collections of lyric poems "Evening Lights" (1883, 1885, 1888, 1891) and translations of Horace (1883), Juvenal (1885), Catullus (1886), Tibullus (1886), Ovid (1887), Virgil (1888), Propertia (1889), Persia (1889) and Martial (1891); translation of both parts of Goethe's Faust (1882 and 1888); wrote memoirs "Early years of my life, before 1848" (posthumous edition, 1893) and "My memories, 1848 - 1889" (in two volumes, 1890); translation of the works of A. Schopenhauer: 1) on the fourth root of the law of sufficient reason and 2) on the will in nature (1886) and "The World as Will and Representation" (2nd edition - 1888). On January 28 and 29, 1889, the anniversary of the 50-year literary activity of Fet was solemnly celebrated in Moscow; shortly after that, he was granted the title of chamberlain by the Highest. Sh. died on November 21, 1892 in Moscow, two days before the age of 72; buried in the family estate of the Shenshins, the village of Kleimenov, in the Mtsensk district, 25 miles from Orel. Posthumous editions of his original poems: in two volumes - 1894 ("Lyric poems by A. Fet", St. Petersburg, with a biography written by K. R. and edited by K. R. and N.N. Strakhov) and in three volumes - 1901 ("Complete collection of poems", St. Petersburg, edited by B.V. Nikolsky). As a personality, Sh. is a unique product of the Russian landowner and gentry pre-reform milieu; in 1862, Turgenev calls Sh., in a letter to him, "an inveterate and frenzied serf-owner and lieutenant of the old temper." He treated his legitimization with morbid pride, which provoked the ridicule of the same Turgenev, in a letter to Sh. in 1874 "like Fet, you had a name; like Shenshin, you have only a surname." Other distinguishing features of his character are extreme individualism and jealous upholding of his independence from extraneous influences; so, for example, when traveling in Italy, he covered the windows so as not to look at the view that his sister invited to admire, and in Russia he once ran away from his wife, from a Bosio concert, imagining that he was "obliged" to admire music! Within the family and friendly circle, Sh. was distinguished by gentleness and kindness, which are repeatedly, with great and sincere praise, responded in letters to I. Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, V. Botkin, and others. Individualism explains both Sh.'s practicality and his ardent fight against grass and mowing, which he naively reported to the public in his journal articles "From the Village", to the detriment of his own reputation. This is also the reason for the indifference that Sh. discovers in his "memoirs" to the great political "issues" that worried his contemporaries. On the event of February 19, 1861, Sh. says that it aroused nothing in him, "except for childish curiosity." For the first time he heard the reading of "Oblomov", Sh. fell asleep from boredom; he missed Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons", and the novel "Chto delat" horrified him, and he wrote a polemical article in Katkov's "Russian Messenger", but so sharp that even Katkov did not dare to publish it. Regarding Turgenev's acquaintance with the disgraced Shevchenko, Sh. noted in his "memoirs": it was not without reason that "I had to hear that Turgenev n" etait pas un enfant de bonne maison "! Shenshin did not rise even to the understanding of literary and class interests; Sh. society "Literary Fund", according to Turgenev's recall (in 1872), "speaking without embellishment, outrageous"; "It would be a great happiness if you really were the poorest Russian writer! "adds Turgenev. In the 1870s in the correspondence between Turgenev and Sh., there are more and more harshness (“you sniffed Katkovsky’s rotten spirit!” Turgenev wrote in 1872) and the difference in political convictions finally led to a break, about which Fet himself grieved most of all. In 1878, Turgenev resumed correspondence with Sh. and with sad irony explained to him: “old age, bringing us closer to final simplification, simplifies all life relationships; I willingly shake your outstretched hand” ... Speaking in his “memoirs” about his activities, as a justice of the peace, the poet expresses complete contempt for the laws in general and for the laws of jurisdiction in particular. As a poet, Fet rises significantly above Sh. - a man. It seems as if the very shortcomings of a person turn into the virtues of a poet: individualism contributes to self-deepening and self-observation, without which the lyricist is inconceivable, and practicality, inseparable from materialism, suggests the presence of that sensual love for being, without which vivid imagery, so valuable in the original lyrics, is impossible. . and in his translation poetics (in the translations of Horace and other ancient classics). Sh.'s main literary merit is in his original lyrics. Sh. never forgets Voltaire's rules "le secret d" ennyer c "est celui de tout dire" and that "inscription" (tabula votiva) of Schiller's "Artist", which (translated by Minsky) reads: "Masters of other arts by what he has said is judged; the master of only a syllable shines with knowledge of what to keep silent about. Sh always counts on a thoughtful reader and remembers Aristotle's wise rule that in enjoying beauty there is an element of enjoying thinking. Laconism is always inherent in his best poems. An example is the following 8-verse from "Evening Lights": "Do not laugh, do not marvel at me in my childishly rude bewilderment that in front of this decrepit oak I am again standing in the old days. A few leaves on the forehead of the sick old man survived; but again with the spring the doves have flown in and are huddling in the hollow." Here the poet does not say that he himself is like a decrepit oak, cheerful dreams in his heart are like turtledoves in a hollow; the reader must guess this for himself - and the reader guesses easily and with pleasure, since Fet's stylistic laconism is closely connected with poetic symbolism, that is, with the eloquent language of images and pictorial parallels. The second advantage of Fet as a lyricist, closely related to his symbolism, is his allegorism, i.e., the ability, having accurately indicated the subject of the chant in the title, to select successful poetic comparisons for it, reviving interest in a prosaic phenomenon; examples are the poems "On the Railroad" (a comparison of a railway train with a "fiery serpent") and "Steamboat" (a comparison of a steamer with an "evil dolphin"). The third virtue of a great lyricist is the ability to throw words, pictures and images carelessly, without stylistically linking them, in full confidence that the internal connection will result in what is called mood; well-known examples: "whisper. .. timid breathing ... the trills of a nightingale "... etc. and "a wonderful picture, how dear you are to me: a white plain ... a full moon" ... etc. Such poems are especially convenient for music It is not surprising that, on the one hand, Fet designated a whole category of his poems with the word "melodies", and on the other hand, many of Fet's poems are illustrated with music by Russian composers ("Quiet Starry Night", "At dawn you do not wake up", "Don't leave me", "I won't tell you anything", music by Tchaikovsky, etc.) and foreign (the same "Quiet starry night", "Whisper, timid breathing" and "I stood motionless for a long time ", the music of Madame Viardot). The fourth positive quality of Fet's lyrics is its versification, rhythmically diverse, due to the diversity in the number of feet of the same size (example: "Quiet evening is burning down" - 4-foot iambic, "Mountains of gold" - 3- foot, etc., in the same order) and with successful attempts at innovation in the combination of two-syllable sizes with three-syllable ones, for example, iambic with amphibra chiem, which has long been practiced in German versification, was theoretically allowed in Russia already by Lomonosov, but in Russian versification before Fet it was very rare (an example from "Evening Lights", 1891: "For a long time there has been little joy in love" - 4- foot iambic - "sighs without recall, tears without joy" - 4-foot amphibrach, etc. in the same order). All these advantages are inherent in the entire field of Fetov's original lyrics, regardless of its content. Sometimes, however, Fet loses his sense of proportion and, bypassing the Scylla of excessive clarity and prosaicness, falls into the Charybdis of excessive darkness and poetic pomposity, ignoring Turgenev's testament that "perplexity is the enemy of aesthetic pleasure", and forgetting that in Schiller's words about the wise In silence, the word "wise" must be emphasized, and that Aristotle's "enjoyment of thinking" excludes puzzling work on verses-charades and verses-puzzles. For example, when in "Evening Lights" Fet, singing the beauty, writes: "Subject to a raid of spring gusts, I breathed in a stream and clean and passionate from a captive angel from blowing wings," then one involuntarily recalls the words of Turgenev in a letter to Fet in 1858: " Oedipus, who had solved the riddle of the Sphinx, would have howled in horror and would have run away from these two chaotic-cloudy-incomprehensible verses. These obscurities of Fetov's style should be mentioned, if only because they are imitated by the Russian decadents. According to its content, Sh.'s original poetics can be subdivided into lyrics of moods: 1) love, 2) natural, 3) philosophical, and 4) social. As a singer of a woman and love for her, Fet can be called the Slavic Heine; this is Heine, mild-mannered, without social irony and without world sorrow, but just as subtle and nervous, and even more tender. If Fet often speaks in his poems about the "fragrant circle" surrounding a woman, then his love lyrics are also a close area of fragrances, idealistic beauty. It is difficult to imagine a more chivalrous and gentle worship of a woman than in Fet's poetry. When he says to a tired beauty (in a poem: "There are patterns on double glass"): "You were cunning, you hid, you were smart: you have not rested for a long time, you are tired. Full of gentle excitement, sweet dreams, I will wait for the calm of pure beauty"; when he, seeing a couple in love, whose feelings are inexpressible, exclaims with lively excitement (in the poem "She is an instant image to him", 1892): "But who knows, but who will tell them this?"; when the troubadour sings with cheerful joy the morning serenade: "I came to you with greetings" and with quiet tenderness the evening serenade "Quietly the evening is burning down"; when, with the hysteria of a passionately in love, he declares to his beloved (in the poem "Oh, do not call!") That she does not need to call him with the words: "And do not call - but sing a song of love at random; at the first sound I, like a child, will cry, and - for you!"; when he lights his “evening lights” in front of a woman, “kneeling and touched by beauty” (a poem of 1883 to “Polonyansky”); when he (in the poem "If the morning makes you happy") asks the maiden: "give this rose to the poet" and promises her eternally fragrant verses in exchange, "you will find this eternally fragrant rose in a tender verse" - is it then possible not to admire this love lyrics, and is not ready to repeat, reading Fet, a grateful Russian woman Eve's exclamation in Richard Wagner's Nuremberg Mastersingers, crowning her troubadour, Walter, with laurels: "No one but you can covet love with such charm!" ("Keiner, wie du, so suss zu werben mag!"). Sh. has a lot of successful love-lyrical poems; there are almost dozens of them. A great connoisseur and connoisseur of nature in general and Russian in particular, Fet created a number of masterpieces in the field of the lyrics of natural moods; these lyrics should be sought from him under the headings "Spring. Summer. Autumn. Snow. Sea." Who does not know from the anthologies of the poem "The sad coast at my window", "The warm wind blows softly, the steppe breathes fresh life", "On the Dnieper in the flood" ("It was getting light. The wind bent the elastic glass")? And how many more Fet poems are less well-known, but similar and not worse! He loves nature in its entirety, not only the landscape, but also the vegetable kingdom, and the animal in every detail; that is why his poems "The First Lily of the Valley", "Cuckoo" (1886) and "Fish" ("Heat in the Sun", known from anthologies) are so good. The variety of natural moods in Fet is amazing; he equally succeeds in autumn pictures (for example, "The Blues", with its final verses: "Over a steaming glass of cooling tea, thank God! Little by little, like evening, I fall asleep.") And spring (for example, "Spring in the yard", with an optimistic conclusion : "On the air, the song trembles and melts, rye turns green on a block - and a gentle voice sings: you will survive the spring!"). In the field of this kind of lyrics, Fet is on a par with Tyutchev, this Russian pantheist, or, more precisely, a panpsychist who spiritualizes nature. Noticeably lower than Tyutcheva is Fet in his lyrical poems dedicated to philosophical contemplation; but the sincerely religious poet, who wrote his "memoirs" with the aim of tracing the "finger of God" in his life, in "Evening Lights" gave several excellent examples of abstract philosophical-religious lyrics. Such are the poems "On the Ship" (1857), "Who is the crown: the goddess of beauty" (1865), "The Lord is not powerful, incomprehensible" (1879), "When the Divine fled human speeches" (1883), "I am shocked when around "(1885), etc. Characteristic of Fet's poetics is the following difference between him and Lermontov: in the poem "On the Air Ocean" (in "The Demon") Lermontov sings the Byronic dispassion of the heavenly bodies, in the poem "The stars are praying" (in " Evening fires") Fet sings of the meek and Christian-religious compassion of the stars for people ("Tears in the diamond tremble in their eyes, yet their prayers silently burn"); Lermontov has world sorrow, Fet has only world love. This worldly love of Fet, however, is not deep, because it is not able to embrace humanity and contemporary Sh. Russian society, which was worried in the 1860s by broad, to a certain extent, universal questions. Fet's social lyrics are very weak. Together with Maikov and Polonsky, he decided to completely ignore civil poetry, proclaiming it a pariah among other kinds of lyrics. The name of Pushkin was mentioned in vain; the theory of "art for art's sake" was preached, completely arbitrary, identifying with "art for art's sake" art without a social tendency, without social content and meaning. Fet shared this sad delusion: "Evening Lights" turned out to be provided with completely unpoetic prefaces on the themes of "art for art's sake", and in "Poems for the Occasion" harsh echoes of Katkov's editorials sounded. In the poem "To the Monument of Pushkin" (1880), Sh., for example, characterizes contemporary Russian society in this way: "The market place ... where - din and crampedness, where common Russian sense fell silent, like an orphan, louder than all - there, the murderer and the atheist to whom the stove pot is the limit of all thoughts! In the poem "Quail" (1885), Sh. praises the "smart" literary "titmouse", which "quietly and cleverly got used to the" iron cage ", while" quail "from" iron needles "only jumped his bald head"! Special, not a very significant place in Sh.'s literary activity is occupied by his numerous translations. They differ in literalness, but their style is much more intense, artificial and not more correct than in Fet's original lyrics. Sh. lost sight of the main technique of the best of Russian poetic translators, Zhukovsky: to translate the thought, and not the expression of the original, replacing these expressions with equivalent ones, but composed in the spirit of the Russian language; Zhukovsky by this technique achieved the lightness and grace of his translated verse, which almost did not need comments, with which Fet too abundantly equips his translations of ancient classics. least of all, these are still the best poetic translations of all others available on the Russian literary market and dedicated to the interpretation of the same authors. tons of Fet's translations of Horace, whom Sh. apparently translated con amore, savoring the epicurean poetry of the ancient lyric-landowner and mentally drawing parallels between Horace's idyllic complacency and his own village life. With excellent knowledge of the German language, W. very successfully translated Schopenhauer and Goethe's Faust. As a result, the best part of Fet's original lyrics provides him with a very prominent place not only in Russian, but also in Western European poetry of the 19th century. The best articles about Fet: V. P. Botkin (1857), Vladimir Solovyov (Russian Review, 1890, Љ 12) and R. Disterlo (in the same journal).
Life and creative destiny of A. A. Fet
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet was born in the estate of Novoselki, Mtsensk district, in November 1820. The story of his birth is not quite usual. His father, Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, a retired captain, belonged to an old noble family and was a wealthy landowner. While being treated in Germany, he married Charlotte Fet, whom he took to Russia from her husband and daughter. Two months later, Charlotte gave birth to a boy named Athanasius and given the surname Shenshin. Fourteen years later, the spiritual authorities of Orel discovered that the child was born before the wedding of his parents, and Athanasius was deprived of the right to bear his father's surname and deprived of his noble title. This event wounded the impressionable child, and he experienced the ambiguity of his position almost all his life. In addition, he had to earn for himself the rights of the nobility, which the church deprived him of. He graduated from the university, where he studied first at the law, then at the philological faculty. At this time, in 1840, he published his first works as a separate book, which, however, did not have any success.
Having received an education, Athanasius. Afanasyevich decided to become a military man, since the officer's rank made it possible to obtain a title of nobility. But in 1858 A. Fet was forced to retire. He never won the noble rights - at that time the nobility gave only the rank of colonel, and he was a headquarters captain. But the years of military service can be considered the heyday of his poetic activity. In 1850, "Poems" by A. Fet were published in Moscow, greeted by readers with delight. In St. Petersburg, he met Nekrasov, Panaev, Druzhinin, Goncharov, Yazykov. He later became friends with Leo Tolstoy. This friendship was long and fruitful for both.
During the years of military service, Afanasy Fet experienced a tragic love for Maria Lazich, a fan of his poetry, a very talented and educated girl. She also fell in love with him, but they were both poor, and for this reason Fet did not dare to join his fate with his beloved girl. Soon Maria Lazich died. Until his death, the poet remembered his unhappy love; in many of his poems, her unfading breath is heard.
In 1856, a new book of the poet was published. After retiring, A. Fet bought land in the Mtsensk district and decided to devote himself to agriculture. Soon he married MP Botkina. Fet lived in the village of Stepanovka for seventeen years, only briefly visiting Moscow. Here he found his royal decree that the surname Shenshin with all the rights associated with it was finally approved for him.
In 1877, Afanasy Afanasyevich bought the village of Vorobyovka in the Kursk province, where he spent the rest of his life, only leaving for Moscow for the winter. These years, in contrast to the years he lived in Stepanovka, were marked by his return to literature. The poet signed all his poems with the surname Fet: under this name he acquired poetic fame, and it was dear to him. During this period, A. Fet published a collection of his works called "Evening Lights" - there were four issues in total.
A. A. Fet lived a long and difficult life. His literary fate was also difficult. Of his creative heritage, the modern reader knows mainly poetry and much less - prose, journalism, translations, memoirs, letters. Without Afanasy Fet, it is difficult to imagine the life of literary Moscow in the 19th century. Many famous people visited his house on Plyushchikha. For many years he was friends with A. Grigoriev, I. Turgenev. All literary and musical Moscow visited Fet at musical evenings.
A. Fet's poems are pure poetry in the sense that there is not a drop of prose. He did not sing of hot feelings, despair, delight, lofty thoughts, no, he wrote about the simplest - about nature, about the simplest movements of the soul, even about momentary impressions. His poetry is joyful and bright, it is filled with light and peace. Even about his ruined love, the poet writes lightly and calmly, although his feeling is deep and fresh, as in the first minutes. Until the end of his life, Fet did not lose the ability to rejoice.
The beauty, naturalness, sincerity of his poetry reach complete perfection, his verse is amazingly expressive, figurative, musical. Not without reason did Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev, Rakhmaninov and other composers turn to his poetry. “This is not just a poet, but rather a poet-musician ...” - Tchaikovsky said about him. Many romances were written to Fet's poems, which quickly gained wide popularity.
Fet can be called a singer of Russian nature. The approach of spring and autumn withering, a fragrant summer night and a frosty day, a rye field stretching endlessly and without edge and a dense shady forest - he writes about all this in his poems. Fet's nature is always calm, hushed, as if frozen. And at the same time, it is surprisingly rich in sounds and colors, lives its own life, hidden from the inattentive eye:
I came to you with greetings
What is hot light
The sheets fluttered;
Tell that the forest woke up
All woke up, each branch,
Startled by every bird
And full of spring thirst...
Fet perfectly conveys the "fragrant freshness of feelings" inspired by nature, its beauty, charm. His poems are imbued with a bright, joyful mood, the happiness of love. The poet unusually subtly reveals the various shades of human experiences. He knows how to catch and clothe in bright, vivid images even fleeting spiritual movements that are difficult to identify and convey in words:
Whisper, timid breath,
trill nightingale,
Silver and flutter
sleepy stream,
Night light, night shadows,
Shadows without end
A series of magical changes
sweet face,
In smoky clouds purple roses,
reflection of amber,
And kisses, and tears,
And dawn, dawn!..
Usually A. Fet in his poems dwells on one figure, on one turn of feelings, and at the same time, his poetry cannot be called monotonous, on the contrary, it strikes with diversity and a multitude of topics. The special charm of his poems, in addition to the content, is precisely in the nature of the mood of poetry. Muse Fet is light, airy, as if there is nothing earthly in her, although she tells us exactly about the earth. There is almost no action in his poetry, each of his verses is a whole series of impressions, thoughts, joys and sorrows. Take at least such of them as “Your Ray, flying far ...”, “Still eyes, crazy eyes ...”, “The sun is a ray between lindens ...”, “I extend my hand to you in silence ... " and others.
The poet sang beauty where he saw it, and he found it everywhere. He was an artist with an exceptionally developed sense of beauty; Perhaps that is why the pictures of nature are so beautiful in his poems, which he reproduced as it is, without allowing any decorations of reality. In his poems, a specific landscape is recognizable - the middle zone of Russia.
In all descriptions of nature, the poet is impeccably faithful to her smallest features, shades, moods. It was thanks to this that such poetic masterpieces were created as “Whisper, timid breathing ...”, “I came to you with greetings ...”, “Do not wake her at dawn ...”, “Dawn says goodbye to the earth. ..".
Fet's love lyrics are the most frank page of his poetry. The poet's heart is open, he does not spare him, and the drama of his poems is literally amazing, despite the fact that, as a rule, their main key is light, major.
The poems of A. A. Fet are loved in our country. Time unconditionally confirmed the value of his poetry, showed that we, the people of the 21st century, need it, because it speaks of the eternal and the most intimate, reveals the beauty of the surrounding world.
The main motives of the lyrics in the work of A. A. Fet (Exam abstract work. Completed by Pupil of Grade 9 “B” Ratkovsky A.A. Secondary school No. 646. Moscow, 2004)
Creativity A. Fet
A. A. Fet occupies a very special position in Russian poetry of the second half of the 19th century. The social situation in Russia in those years implied the active participation of literature in civil processes, that is, the splendor of poetry and prose, as well as their pronounced civic orientation. Nekrasov gave rise to this movement, declaring that every writer is obliged to "report" to society, to be first of all a citizen, and then a man of art. Fet did not adhere to this principle, remaining out of politics, and thus filled his niche in the poetry of that era, sharing it with Tyutchev.
But if we recall Tyutchev's lyrics, then she considers human existence in its tragedy, while Fet was considered a poet of serene rural joys, gravitating towards contemplation. The landscape of the poet is distinguished by calmness, peace. But maybe it's the outside? Indeed, if you look closely, Fet's lyrics are filled with drama, philosophical depth, which have always distinguished "great" poets from one-day authors. One of the main Fetov themes is the tragedy of unrequited love. Poems on such a subject reveal the facts of Fet's biography, more precisely, that he survived the death of his beloved woman. Poems related to this topic have rightly received the name "monologues to the deceased."
You suffered, I still suffer
Doubt I'm destined to breathe
And I tremble, and my heart avoids
Look for what you can't understand.
Other poems of the poet are intertwined with this tragic motif, the titles of which speak eloquently about the theme: “Death”, “Life flashed by without a clear trace”, “Simple in the haze of memories ...” As you can see, the idyll is not just “diluted” with the poet’s sadness , it is absent altogether. The illusion of well-being is created by the poet's desire to overcome suffering, to dissolve them in the joy of everyday life, obtained from pain, in the harmony of the surrounding world. The poet rejoices with all nature after the storm:
When under a cloud, transparent and pure,
The dawn will tell that the day of bad weather has passed,
You won’t find a blade of grass and you won’t find a bush,
So that he does not cry and does not shine with happiness ...
Fet's view of nature is similar to Tyutchev's: the main thing in it is movement, the direction of the flow of vital energy that energizes people and their poems. Fet wrote to Leo Tolstoy: "in a work of art, tension is a great thing." It is not surprising that Fet's lyrical plot unfolds during the greatest tension of a person's spiritual forces. The poem “At dawn, don’t wake her up” demonstrates just such a moment” reflecting the state of the heroine:
And the brighter the moon shone
And the louder the nightingale whistled,
She became more and more pale
My heart was beating harder and harder.
In consonance with this verse - the appearance of another heroine: "You sang until dawn, exhausted in tears." But the most striking masterpiece of Fet, which depicted an internal spiritual event in a person’s life, is the poem “Whisper, timid breathing ...” In this verse there is a lyrical plot, that is, nothing happens at the event level, but a detailed development of the feelings and states of a soul in love, coloring a night date - namely, it is described in a poem - in bizarre colors. Against the background of night shadows, the silver of a quiet stream shines, and the wonderful night picture is complemented by a change in the appearance of the beloved. The last stanza is metaphorically complex, since it is precisely on it that the emotional climax of the poem falls:
In smoky clouds purple roses,
reflection of amber,
And kisses, and tears,
And dawn, dawn! ...
Behind these unexpected images are the features of the beloved, her lips, the sparkle of her smile. With this and other fresh poems, Fet is trying to prove that poetry is audacity, which claims to change the usual course of existence. In this regard, the verse "With one push to drive away the living boat ..." is indicative. Its theme is the nature of the poet's inspiration. Creativity is seen as a high rise, a breakthrough, an attempt to achieve the unattainable. Fet directly names his poetic landmarks:
To interrupt a dreary dream with a single sound,
Get drunk suddenly unknown, dear,
Give life a breath, give sweetness to secret torment...
Another super-task of poetry is the consolidation of the world in eternity, a reflection of the random, the elusive (“to feel someone else’s in an instant as your own”). But in order for the images to reach the reader's consciousness, a special musicality is needed, unlike anything else. Fet uses many methods of sound writing (alliteration, assonance), and Tchaikovsky even said: “Fet in his best moments goes beyond the limits indicated by poetry, and boldly takes a step into our field.”
So what did Fet's lyrics reveal to us? He walked from the darkness of the death of a loved one to the light of the joy of being, illuminating his path with fire and light in his poems. For this he is called the sunniest poet of Russian literature (everyone knows the lines: “I came to you with greetings, to tell you that the sun has risen”). Fet is not afraid of life after shocks, he believes and keeps faith in the victory of arts over time, in the immortality of a beautiful moment.
A. Fet's poems are pure poetry, in the sense that there is not a drop of prose. Usually he did not sing of hot feelings, despair, delight, lofty thoughts, no, he wrote about the simplest things - about pictures of nature, about rain, about snow, about the sea, about mountains, about forests, about stars, about the simplest movements of the soul, even about minute impressions. His poetry is joyful and bright, it has a sense of light and peace. Even about his ruined love, he writes lightly and calmly, although his feeling is deep and fresh, as in the first minutes. Until the end of his life, Fetu did not change the joy that pervaded almost all of his poems.
The beauty, naturalness, sincerity of his poetry reach complete perfection, his verse is amazingly expressive, figurative, musical. Not without reason did Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev, Rakhmaninov and other composers turn to his poetry.
"Fet's poetry is nature itself, looking like a mirror through the human soul..."
In traditional world and Russian lyrics, the theme of nature is one of the main, necessarily touched upon topics. And Fet also reflects this theme in many of his poems. The theme of nature in his works is closely intertwined with love lyrics, and with the theme of beauty characteristic of Fet, one and indivisible. In the early poems of the 40s, the theme of nature is not expressed explicitly, the images of nature are general, not detailed:
wonderful picture,
How are you related to me?
white plain,
Full moon...
The poets of the 40s, when describing nature, relied mainly on the techniques characteristic of Heine, i.e. separate impressions were given instead of a coherent description. Many early Fet's poems were criticized as "Heine's". For example, "The Noisy Midnight Blizzard", where the poet expresses the mood without a psychological analysis of it and without clarifying the plot situation with which it is connected. The outside world is, as it were, colored by the moods of the lyrical "I", enlivened, animated by them. This is how Fet's characteristic humanization of nature appears; often there is an emotional expression excited by nature, there are no such bright and accurate details that are so characteristic later, allowing one to judge the picture as a whole. Fet's love for nature, knowledge of it, concretization and subtle observations of it are fully manifested in his poems in the 50s. Probably, his rapprochement with Turgenev influenced his passion for landscape lyrics at that time. The phenomena of nature become more detailed, more specific than those of Fet's predecessors, which is also characteristic of the day of Turgenev's prose. Fet depicts not a birch in general, as a symbol of the Russian landscape, but a specific birch at the porch of his own house, not in general the road with its infinity and unpredictability, but that specific road that can be seen right now from the threshold of the house. Or, for example, in his poems there are not only traditional birds that have a clear symbolic meaning, but also such birds as harrier, owl, blackie, sandpiper, lapwing, swift and others, each of which is shown in its own originality:
Half hidden behind a cloud
The moon does not yet dare to shine during the day.
Here the beetle took off and buzzed angrily,
Here the harrier swam without moving its wing.
The landscapes of Turgenev and Fet are similar not only in the accuracy and subtlety of observations of natural phenomena, but also in sensations, images (for example, the image of the sleeping earth, "resting nature"). Fet, like Turgenev, seeks to fix, describe changes in nature. His observations can be easily grouped or, for example, in the image of the seasons, a period can be clearly defined. Is late autumn depicted:
The last flowers were about to die
And they waited with sadness for the breath of frost;
Maple leaves blushed along the edges,
The peas faded, and the rose fell off, -
or the end of winter:
More fragrant bliss of spring
We did not have time to descend,
More ravines are full of snow
Still at dawn the cart rumbles
On a frozen path...
This can be easily understood, because the description is accurate and clear. Fet likes to describe a precisely defined time of day, signs of this or that weather, the beginning of this or that phenomenon in nature (for example, rain in "Spring Rain"). Similarly, it can be determined that Fet, for the most part, gives a description of the central regions of Russia.
It is the nature of central Russia that is dedicated to the cycle of poems "Snow" and many poems from other cycles. According to Fet, this nature is beautiful, but not everyone is able to catch this dim beauty. He is not afraid to repeatedly repeat declarations of love for this nature, for the play of light and sound in it "to that natural circle, which the poet many times calls a shelter: "I love your sad shelter and the evening of the village is deaf ...". Fet has always worshiped beauty; the beauty of nature, the beauty of man, the beauty of love - these independent lyrical motifs are sewn together in the artistic world of the poet into a single and indivisible idea of beauty. From everyday life, he goes to “where thunderstorms fly by ...” For Fet, nature is an object of artistic delight, aesthetic pleasure. She is the best mentor and wise adviser of man. It is nature that helps to solve riddles, the secrets of human existence. In addition, for example, in the poem "Whisper, timid breathing ..." the poet perfectly conveys instantaneous sensations, and, alternating them, he conveys the state of the heroes, in harmony with nature to the human soul, and the happiness of love:
Whisper, timid breath,
trill nightingale,
Silver and flutter
Sleepy stream....
Fet was able to convey the movements of the soul and nature without verbs, which was undoubtedly an innovation in Russian literature. But does he also have pictures in which verbs become the main pillars, as, for example, in the poem "Evening"?
Sounded over a clear river,
Rang in the faded meadow "
It swept over the mute grove,
Lit up on that shore...
Such a transfer of what is happening speaks of another feature of Fet's landscape lyrics: the main tone is set by subtle impressions of sounds, smells, vague outlines, which are very difficult to convey in words. It is the combination of concrete observations with bold and unusual associations that makes it possible to clearly represent the described picture of nature. We can also talk about the impressionism of Fet's poetry; it is with the bias towards impressionism that innovation in the depiction of natural phenomena is associated. More precisely, objects and phenomena are depicted by the poet as they appeared to his perception, as they seemed to him at the time of writing. And the description does not focus on the image itself, but on the impression it makes. The apparent Fet describes as real:
Over the lake the swan pulled into the reed,
The forest overturned in the water,
He drowned in the dawn with the teeth of the peaks,
Between two curving skies.
In general, the motif of "reflection in the water" is found quite often in the poet. Probably, a shaky reflection provides more freedom to the artist's imagination than the reflected object itself. Fet depicts the outside world in the form that his mood gave him. With all the truthfulness and concreteness, the description of nature primarily serves as a means of expressing a lyrical feeling.
Usually A. Fet in his poems dwells on one figure, on one turn of feelings, and at the same time, his poetry cannot be called monotonous, on the contrary, it strikes with diversity and a multitude of topics. The special charm of his poems, in addition to the content, is precisely in the nature of the mood of poetry. Muse Fet is light, airy, as if there is nothing earthly in her, although she tells us exactly about the earth. There is almost no action in his poetry, each of his verses is a whole kind of impressions, thoughts, joys and sorrows. Take at least such of them as “Your Ray, flying far ...”, “Still eyes, crazy eyes ...”, “The sun is a ray between lindens ...”, “I extend my hand to you in silence ... " and etc.
The poet sang beauty where he saw it, and he found it everywhere. He was an artist with an exceptionally developed sense of beauty, which is probably why the pictures of nature in his poems are so beautiful, which he took as she is, without allowing any decorations of reality. In his poems, the landscape of central Russia is visibly visible.
In all descriptions of nature, A. Fet is impeccably faithful to its smallest features, shades, moods. It is thanks to this that the poet created amazing works that have been striking us for so many years with psychological accuracy, filigree accuracy. Among them are such poetic masterpieces as “Whisper, timid breathing ...”, “I came to you with greetings ... ”,“ At dawn, don’t wake her up ...”, “Dawn says goodbye to the earth ...”.
Fet builds a picture of the world that he sees, feels, touches, hears. And in this world everything is important and significant: the clouds, and the moon, and the beetle, and the harrier, and the corncrake, and the stars, and the Milky Way. Each bird, each flower, each tree and each blade of grass is not just a part of the overall picture - they all have only their characteristic signs, even character. Let's pay attention to the poem "Butterfly":
You're right. One aerial outline
I'm so sweet
All my velvet with its live blinking -
Only two wings.
Don't ask: where did it come from?
Where am I in a hurry?
Here on a flower I sank lightly
And here I am breathing.
How long, without purpose, without effort,
Do you want to breathe?
Right now, sparkling, I will spread my wings
And I'll fly away.
Fet's "feeling of nature" is universal. It is almost impossible to single out the purely landscape lyrics of Fet without breaking the ties with its vital organ - the human personality, subject to the general laws of natural life.
Defining the property of his attitude, Fet wrote: “Only a person, and only he alone in the whole universe, feels the need to ask: what is the surrounding nature? Where does all this come from? What is he himself? Where? Where? What for? And the higher a person is, the more powerful his moral nature, the more sincerely these questions arise in him. “Nature created this poet in order to eavesdrop on herself, peep and understand herself. In order to find out what he thinks about her, nature, man, her offspring, how he perceives her. Nature created Fet in order to visit - how the sensitive soul of a person perceives it ”(L. Ozerov).
Fet's relationship with nature is a complete dissolution in her world, this is a state of anxious expectation of a miracle:
I'm waiting... Nightingale echo
Rushing from the shining river
Grass under the moon in diamonds,
Fireflies are burning on the cumin.
I'm waiting... Dark blue skies
Both in small and large stars,
I hear a heartbeat
And trembling in the hands and feet.
I'm waiting... Here's a breeze from the south;
It is warm for me to stand and go;
A star rolled to the west...
I'm sorry, golden, I'm sorry!
Let us turn to one of Fet's most famous poems, which at one time brought the author a lot of grief, causing the admiration of some, the confusion of others, numerous ridicule of adherents of traditional poetry - in general, a whole literary scandal. This little poem has become for democratic critics the embodiment of the thought of the emptiness and lack of ideas of poetry. Over thirty parodies have been written of this poem. Here it is:
Whisper, timid breath,
trill nightingale,
Silver and flutter
sleepy creek
Night light, night shadows,
Shadows without end
A series of magical changes
sweet face,
In smoky clouds purple roses,
reflection of amber,
And kisses, and tears,
And dawn, dawn! ...
Immediately there is a feeling of movement, dynamic changes that occur not only in nature, but also in the human soul. Meanwhile, there is not a single verb in the poem. And how much joyful intoxication with love and life in this poem! It is no coincidence that Fet's favorite time of day was night. She, like poetry, is a refuge from the hustle and bustle of the day:
At night, somehow I can breathe more freely,
A little more spacious...
recognized by the poet. He can speak with the night, he addresses her as a living being, close and dear:
Hello! a thousand times my greetings to you, night!
Again and again I love you
Quiet, warm
Silver lined!
Timidly, extinguishing the candle, I go to the window...
You can’t see me, but I myself see everything ...
The poems of A. A. Fet are loved in our country. Time unconditionally confirmed the value of his poetry, showed that we, the people of the 20th century, need it, because it touches the most intimate strings of the soul, reveals the beauty of the surrounding world.
Aesthetic views of Fet
Aesthetics is the science of beauty. And the poet's views on what is beautiful in this life are formed under the influence of a variety of circumstances. Here everything plays its special role - the conditions in which the poet's childhood passed, which formed his ideas about life and beauty, and the influence of teachers, books, favorite authors and thinkers, and the level of education, and the conditions of all subsequent life. Therefore, we can say that Fet's aesthetics is a reflection of the tragedy of the duality of his life and poetic fate.
So Polonsky very correctly and accurately defined the confrontation between the two worlds - the world of life and the poetic world, which the poet not only felt, but also declared as a given. “My ideal world was destroyed a long time ago ...” - Fet admitted back in 1850. And on the site of this destroyed ideal world, he erected another world - a purely real, everyday, filled with prosaic deeds and worries aimed at achieving a far from high poetic goal. And this world unbearably burdened the soul of the poet, never letting go of his mind for a minute. It is in this duality of existence that Fet's aesthetics is formed, the main principle of which he formulated for himself once and for all and never retreated from it: poetry and life are incompatible, and they will never merge. Fet was convinced; to live for life is to die for art, to rise for art is to die for life. That is why, plunging into economic affairs, Fet left literature for many years.
Life is hard work, oppressive melancholy and
suffering:
Suffer, suffer all the time, aimlessly, gratuitously,
Try to fill the void and look
As with each new attempt, the abyss is deeper,
Again go crazy, strive and suffer.
In understanding the relationship between life and art, Fet proceeded from the teachings of his beloved German philosopher Schopenhauer, whose book “The World as Will and Representation” he translated into Russian.
Schopenhauer argued that our world is the worst of all possible worlds, that suffering is inevitable in life. This world is nothing but an arena of tortured and frightened creatures, and the only possible way out of this world is death, which gives rise to an apology for suicide in Schopenhauer's ethics. Based on the teachings of Schopenhauer, and even before meeting him, Fet did not get tired of repeating that life in general is base, meaningless, boring, that its main content is suffering and there is only one mysterious, incomprehensible sphere of true, pure joy in this world of sorrow and boredom. - the sphere of beauty, a special world,
Where the storms fly by
Where the passionate thought is pure, -
And dedicated only visibly
Spring blooms and beauty
(“What sadness! The end of the alley…”)
The poetic state is a cleansing of everything too human, an exit to the open space from the gorges of life, awakening from sleep, but above all, poetry is the overcoming of suffering. Fet speaks about this in his poetic manifesto "Muse", the epigraph to which he takes Pushkin's words "We were born for inspiration, For sweet sounds and prayers."
About himself as a poet, Fet says:
By your divine power
And to human happiness.
The key images of this poem and Fet's entire aesthetic system are the words "Divine power" and "high pleasure." Possessing great power over the human soul, truly Divine, poetry is able to transform life, cleanse the human soul from everything earthly and superficial, only it is able to "give life a sigh, give sweetness to secret torments."
The eternal object of art, according to Fet, is beauty. “The world in all its parts,” Fet wrote, “is equally beautiful. Beauty is spilled throughout the universe. The whole poetic world of A. Fet is located in this area of beauty and fluctuates between three peaks - nature, love and creativity. All these three poetic objects are not only in contact with each other, but are also closely interconnected, penetrate each other, forming a single fused artistic world - Fetov's universe of beauty, the sun of which is the harmonic the essence of the world is music. According to L. Ozerov, “Russian lyrics found in Fet one of the most musically gifted masters. Written on paper in letters, his lyrics sound like notes, true for those who can read these notes.
Tchaikovsky and Taneyev, Rimsky-Korsakov and Grechaninov, Arensky and Spendiarov, Rebikov and Viardo-Garcia, Varlamov and Konyus, Balakirev and Rachmaninoff, Zolotarev and Goldenweiser, Napravnik and Kalinnikov and many, many others composed music to Fet's words. The number of musical opuses is measured in hundreds.
Motives of love in Fet's lyrics.
On the slope of life, Fet "lit the evening lights", lived in the dreams of youth. Thoughts about the past did not leave him, and visited at the most unexpected moments. It was enough for the slightest external reason, say, to sound like words that were spoken long ago, to flash on a dam or in an alley of a dress similar to what she had seen on her in those days.
It happened thirty years ago. In the outback of Kherson he met a girl. Her name was Maria, she was twenty-four years old, he was twenty-eight. Her father, Kozma Lazich, was a Serb by origin, a descendant of those two hundred of his compatriots who, in the middle of the 18th century, moved to the south of Russia together with Ivan Horvat, who founded the first military settlement here in Novorossia. Of the daughters of retired general Lazich, the eldest Nadezhda, graceful and frisky, a wonderful dancer, had a bright beauty and a cheerful disposition. But it was not she who captivated the heart of the young cuirassier Fet, but the less flashy Maria.
A tall, slender brunette, restrained, not to say strict, she, however, was inferior to her sister in everything, but she surpassed her in the luxury of black, thick hair. This must have made Fet pay attention to her, who valued the beauty of women, first of all, hair, as many lines of his poems convince.
Usually not participating in noisy fun in the house of her uncle Petkovich, where she often stayed and where young people gathered, Maria preferred to play for those dancing on the piano, because she was an excellent musician, which Franz Liszt himself noted when he once heard her play.
Having spoken with Maria, Fet was amazed at how extensive her knowledge of literature, especially poetry. In addition, she turned out to be a longtime admirer of his own work. It was unexpected and pleasant. But the main “field of rapprochement” was George Sand with her charming language, inspired descriptions of nature and completely new, unprecedented relationships between lovers. Nothing brings people together like art in general - poetry in the broadest sense of the word. Such unanimity is poetry in itself. People become more sensitive and feel and understand what no words are enough to fully explain.
“There was no doubt,” Afanasy Afanasyevich will recall in his later life, “that she had long understood the sincere awe with which I entered her pleasant atmosphere. I also understood that words and silence in this case are equivalent.
In a word, a deep feeling flared up between them, and Fet, filled with it, writes to his friend: “I met a girl - a wonderful home, education, I was not looking for her - she is me, but fate - and we learned that we would be very happy after various worldly storms, if they could live peacefully without any claims to anything. We said this to each other, but is it necessary somehow and somewhere? My funds are known to you - she also has nothing ... "
The material question has become the main stumbling block on the path to happiness. Fet believed that the most tormenting sorrow in the present does not give them the right to go to the inevitable grief of the rest of their lives - once there will be no prosperity.
However, their conversations continued. It happened that everyone would disperse, it was already past midnight, and they could not talk enough. They sit on the sofa in the living room alcove and talk, talk in the dim light of a colored lantern, but they never let out their mutual feelings.
Their conversations in a secluded corner did not go unnoticed. Fet felt responsible for the honor of the girl - after all, he is not a boy who is fond of a minute, and he was very afraid to put her in an unfavorable light.
And then one day, in order to burn the ships of their mutual hopes at once, he gathered his courage and bluntly expressed his thoughts to her about the fact that he considers marriage impossible for himself. To which she replied that she liked to talk with him, without any encroachment on his freedom. As for the rumors of the people, all the more, she does not intend to deprive herself of the happiness of communicating with him because of gossip.
“I will not marry Lazich,” he writes to a friend, “and she knows this, but meanwhile she begs not to interrupt our relationship, she is purer than snow in front of me - to interrupt indelicately and not to interrupt indelicately - she is a girl - you need Solomon.” A wise decision was needed.
And a strange thing: Fet, who himself considered indecision to be the main feature of his character, then unexpectedly showed firmness. However, was it really that unexpected? If we recall his own words that the school of life, which held him all the time in a tight grip, developed reflection in him to the extreme and he never allowed himself to take a step thoughtlessly, then his decision will become clearer. Those who knew Fet well, for example, L. Tolstoy, noted this “attachment to worldly things”, his practicality and utilitarianism. It would be more accurate to say that the earthly and spiritual struggled in him, reason fought with the heart, often prevailing. It was not an easy struggle with one's own soul, deeply hidden from prying eyes, as he himself said, "the rape of idealism towards a vulgar life."
So, Fet decided to end the relationship with Maria, about which he wrote to her. In response came "the most friendly and reassuring letter." This, it seemed, ended the time of "the spring of his soul." After a while he received the terrible news. Maria Lazich died tragically. She died a terrible death, the secret of which has not yet been revealed. There is reason to think, as, for example, D. D. Blagoi believes, that the girl committed suicide. He saw her with some special power of love, almost with bodily and spiritual intimacy, and he realized more and more clearly that the happiness that he experienced then was so much that it was terrible and sinful to wish and ask God for more.
In one of his most beloved poems, Fet wrote:
I dare to mentally caress
Awaken the dream with the power of the heart
And with bliss, timid and dull
Remember your love.
Natural and human in fusion give harmony, a sense of beauty. Fet's lyrics inspire love for life, for its origins, for the simple joys of being. Over the years, getting rid of the poetic stamps of the times, Fet asserts himself in his lyrical mission as a singer of love and nature. The morning of the day and the morning of the year remain symbols of Fet's lyrics.
The image of love-memories in the lyrics of Fet
A. Fet's love lyrics are a very unique phenomenon, since almost all of them are addressed to one woman - Fet's beloved Maria Lazich, who died untimely, and this gives her a special emotional flavor.
The death of Mary finally poisoned the already “bitter” life of the poet - his poems tell us about this. “The enthusiastic singer of love and beauty did not follow his feelings. But the feeling experienced by Fet passed through his whole life to a ripe old age. Love for Lazich vindictively broke into Fet's lyrics, giving her drama, confessional looseness and removing from her a hint of idyllicness and tenderness.
Maria Lazich died in 1850, and more than forty years that the poet lived without her were filled with bitter memories of his "burnt love." Moreover, this metaphor, traditional for designating a departed feeling, in the mind and lyrics of Fet was filled with quite real and therefore even more terrible content.
The last time your image is cute
I dare to mentally caress
Awaken the dream with the power of the heart
And with bliss, timid and dull
Remember your love...
What fate could not connect was connected by poetry, and in his poems Fet again and again refers to his beloved as a living being, listening to him with love,
Like a genius you are, unexpected, slender,
From heaven flew me light,
Subdued my restless mind,
She drew her eyes to her face.
The poems of this group are distinguished by a special emotional flavor: they are filled with joy, ecstasy, delight. Here the image of love-experience dominates, often merged with the image of nature. Fet's lyrics become the embodiment of the memory of Mary, a monument, a "living statue" of the poet's love. A tragic shade is given to Fet's love lyrics by the motives of guilt and punishment, which are clearly heard in many poems.
For a long time I dreamed of the cries of your sobs, -
It was the voice of resentment, impotence crying;
For a long, long time I dreamed of that joyful moment,
As I begged you - the unfortunate executioner ...
You gave me your hand, asked: “Are you coming?”
Just in the eyes I noticed two drops of tears;
Those sparks in your eyes and cold shivers
I endured forever in sleepless nights.
The steady and infinitely varied motif of love and burning in Fet's love lyrics draws attention to itself. Truly burnt Maria Lazich scorched the poetry of her lover. “Whatever he writes about, even in poems addressed to other women, her image is vengefully present, her short life, burned with love. No matter how banal this image or its verbal expression is sometimes, it is convincing in Fet. Moreover, it forms the basis of his love lyrics.
The lyrical hero calls himself an "executioner", thereby emphasizing the awareness of his guilt. But he is an “unfortunate” executioner, because, having destroyed his beloved, he also destroyed himself, his own life. And therefore, in the love lyrics, next to the image of love-memories, the motif of death persistently sounds as the only opportunity not only to atone for one's guilt, but also to reunite with the beloved. Only death can return what life has taken away:
There are no those eyes - and I am not afraid of coffins,
I envy your silence
And, judging neither stupidity nor malice,
Hurry, hurry into your oblivion!
Life lost its meaning for the hero, turning into a chain of suffering and loss, into a “bitter”, “poisoned” cup, which he had to drink to the bottom. In Fet's lyrics, a tragic in essence opposition of two images arises - a lyrical hero and a heroine. He is alive, but dead in soul, and she, long dead, lives in his memory and in poetry. And he will remain faithful to this memory until the end of his days.
Perhaps Fet's love lyrics are the only area of the poet's work in which his life impressions are reflected. Perhaps that is why love poems are so different from those devoted to nature. They do not have that joy, a feeling of happiness in life, which we will see in Fet's landscape lyrics. As L. Ozerov wrote, “Fet's love lyrics are the most inflamed zone of his experiences. Here he is not afraid of anything: neither self-condemnation, nor curses from outside, neither direct speech, nor indirect, neither forte, nor pianissimo. Here the lyricist judges himself. Goes to execution. It burns itself."
Features of impressionism in the lyrics of Fet
Impressionism is a special trend in the art of the 19th century, which developed in French painting in the 70s. Impressionism means an impression, that is, an image not of an object as such, but of the impression that this object produces, the fixation by the artist of his subjective observations and impressions of reality, changeable sensations and experiences. A special feature of this style was "the desire to convey the subject in fragmentary strokes that instantly capture every sensation."
Fet's desire to show the phenomenon in all its variety of changeable forms brings the poet closer to impressionism. Vigilantly peering into the outside world and showing it as it appears at the moment, Fet develops completely new techniques for poetry, an impressionistic style.
He is interested not so much in the object as in the impression made by the object. Fet depicts the outside world in the form that corresponds to the momentary mood of the poet. For all their truthfulness and concreteness, descriptions of nature primarily serve as a means of expressing lyrical feelings.
Fet's innovation was so bold that many of his contemporaries did not understand his poems. During the life of Fet, his poetry did not find a proper response from his contemporaries. Only the twentieth century truly opened Fet, his amazing poetry, which gives us the joy of recognizing the world, knowing its harmony and perfection.
“For everyone who touches Fet’s lyrics a century after its creation, what is important, first of all, is its spirituality, spiritual intentness, the unspentness of the young forces of life, the thrill of spring and the transparent wisdom of autumn,” wrote L. Ozerov. - You read Fet - and surrenders: your whole life is still ahead. How much good promises the coming day. Worth living! Such is Fet.
In a poem written in September 1892 - two months before his death - Fet admits:
The thought is fresh, the soul is free;
Every moment I want to say:
"It's me!" But I am silent.
Is the poet silent? No. His poetry speaks.
Bibliography
* R. S. Belausov "Russian Love Lyrics" printed in the printing house Kurskaya Pravda - 1986.
* G. Aslanova “In the captivity of legends and fantasies” 1997. Issue. 5.
* M. L. Gasparov “Selected Works” Moscow. 1997. Vol.2
* A. V. Druzhinin “Beautiful and Eternal” Moscow. 1989.
* V. Solovyov “The Meaning of Love” Selected works. Moscow. 1991.
* I. Sukhikh “The Myth of Fet: Moment and Eternity // Star” 1995. No. 11.
* For the preparation of this work, materials from the site http://www.referat.ru/ were used
Was A.A. Fet romantic? (Ranchin A. M.)
The poem “How poor is our language! “I want and I can’t ...” is considered to be one of the poetic manifestos of Feta-romantic. Fet's characterization as a romantic poet is almost universally accepted. But there is another opinion: “The widespread ideas about the inherently romantic nature of Fet's lyrics seem doubtful. Being such according to psychological prerequisites (repulsion from the prose of life), it is opposite to romanticism in terms of the result, in terms of the realized ideal. Fet has practically no motifs of alienation, departure, flight, opposing “natural life to the artificial existence of civilized cities”, etc., characteristic of romanticism, etc. Fet’s beauty (unlike, say, Zhukovsky and, later, Blok) is completely earthly, this-worldly. He simply leaves one of the oppositions of the usual romantic conflict outside the boundaries of his world.
The artistic world of Fet is homogeneous ”(Sukhikh I.N. Shenshin and Fet: life and poetry // Fet A. Poems / Introductory article I.N. Sukhikh; Compiled and commented by A.V. Uspenskaya. St. Petersburg, 2001 (“The New Library of the Poet. Small Series”), pp.40-41) Or here is another statement: “What is the Fetovsky world? This is nature seen close up, close-up, in detail, but at the same time a little detached, beyond practical expediency, through the prism of beauty ”(Ibid., p. 43, when characterizing antitheses, oppositions expressing the idea of dual worlds, as a sign of romanticism I. N. Sukhikh refers to the book: Yu. V. Mann, Dynamics of Russian Romanticism, Moscow, 1995). Meanwhile, the distinction between the ideal world and the real world in poetry classified as romantic does not necessarily have the character of a rigid antithesis; Thus, the early German romantics emphasized the unity of the ideal world and the real world (see: Zhirmunsky V.M. German romanticism and modern mysticism / Foreword and commentary by A.G. Astvatsaturov. St. Petersburg, 1996. P. 146-147 ).
According to V.L. Korovin, “Fet's poetry is jubilant, festive. Even his tragic poems carry some kind of liberation. Hardly any other poet has so much “light” and “happiness” - the inexplicable and causeless happiness that bees experience in Fet, from which leaves and blades of grass cry and shine. “Insane happiness, a weary thrill” - these words from one early poem indicate the mood prevailing in his lyrics, right up to the latest poems ”(Korovin V.L. Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (1820-1892): essay on life and work // http: / /www.portal-slovo.ru/rus/philology/258/421).
This is a “common place” in literature about Fet, who is usually called “one of the most “bright” Russian poets” (Lotman L.M. A.A. Fet // History of Russian Literature: In 4 vols. L., 1982. T. 3. S. 425). However, unlike many others who wrote and write about Fet, the researcher makes several very important clarifications: the motives for the harmony of the world of nature and man are characteristic of the lyrics of the period of the 1850s, while in the 1840s. conflicts in nature and in the human soul are depicted in the lyrics of the late 1850s - 1860s. the harmony of nature is opposed by the disharmony of the experiences of the "I"; in the lyrics of the 1870s, the motive of discord grows and the theme of death prevails; in the works of 1880 - early 1890s. “The poet opposes the low reality and life struggle not with art and unity with nature, but with reason and knowledge” (Ibid., p. 443). This periodization (as, strictly speaking, any other) can be reproached for being schematic and subjective, but it rightly corrects the idea of Fet - the singer of the joy of life.
Back in 1919, the poet A.V. Tufanov spoke of Fet's poetry as a "cheerful hymn to the delight and enlightenment of the spirit" of the artist (abstracts of the report "Lyrics and Futurism"; quoted from the article: Krusanov A.A.V. Tufanov: the Arkhangelsk period (1918-1919) // New Literary Review, 1998, No. 30, p. 97). According to D.D. Good, “nothing terrible, cruel, ugly access to the world of Fetov’s lyrics is there: it is woven only of beauty” (Good D. Athanasius Fet is a poet and a man // A. Fet. Memoirs / Foreword by D. Blagogo; Comp. and note A. Tarkhova, Moscow, 1983, 20). But: Fet's poetry for D.D. Blagogo, unlike I.N. Dry, yet "romantic in pathos and method", as a "romantic version" of Pushkin's "poetry of reality" (Ibid., p. 19).
A.E. Tarkhov interpreted the poem “I came to you with greetings ...” (1843) as the quintessence of the motives of Fetov’s creativity: “In its four stanzas, with the fourfold repetition of the verb“ tell ”, Fet, as it were, publicly called everything that he came to tell in Russian poetry, about the joyful brilliance of a sunny morning and the passionate trembling of a young, spring life, about a soul longing for happiness and an unstoppable song ready to merge with the joy of the world ”(Tarkhov A. Lyric Afanasy Fet // Fet A.A. Poems. Poems. Translations Moscow, 1985, p. 3).
In another article, the researcher, based on the text of this poem, gives a kind of list of repetitive, unchanging motifs in Fet's poetry: “In the first place, let's put the favorite expression of criticism: “fragrant freshness” - it denoted Fet's unique “sense of spring”.
Fet's inclination to find poetry in the circle of the most simple, ordinary, domestic objects can be defined as "intimate domesticity."
The feeling of love in Fet's poetry was presented to many critics as "passionate sensuality."
The fullness and originality of human nature in Fet's poetry is its "primitive naturalness".
And finally, the characteristic Fetovsky motive of “fun” can be called “joyful festivity” ”(Tarkhov A.E. “Music of the chest” (On the life and poetry of Afanasy Fet) // Fet A.A. Works: In 2 vols. M., 1982. T. 1. S. 10).
However, A.E. Tarkhov stipulates that such a characteristic can be attributed primarily to the 1850s - to the time of the "highest rise" of Fet's "poetic glory" (Ibid., p. 6). As a turning point, a crisis for the poet A.E. Tarkhov names the year 1859, when the disturbing “A bonfire is blazing in the forest with the bright sun ...” and the joyless, containing motifs of gracelessness and longing of being and aging “Quails are screaming, corncrakes are cracking ...” (Ibid., pp. 34-37). However, it should be borne in mind that 1859 is the time when both poems were published, when they were written is not known exactly.
But the opinion of A.S. Kushner: “Perhaps, no one else, except perhaps the early Pasternak, expressed this emotional impulse with such frank, almost shameless force, delight in the joy and miracle of life - in the first line of the poem: “How rich I am in crazy verses! .. ”, “What a night! What a bliss for everything!..”, “Oh, this rural day and its beautiful brilliance…”, etc.
And the saddest motives are still accompanied by this fullness of feelings, hot breath: “What sadness! The end of the alley…”, “What a cold autumn!..”, “Sorry! In the darkness of remembrance ... "" (Kushner A.S. Sigh of poetry // Kushner A. Apollo in the grass: Essays / poems. M., 2005. P. 8-9). Wed conditional conventional impressionistic definition of the properties of Fet's poetry, given by M.L. Gasparov: “The world of Fet is a night, a fragrant garden, a divinely flowing melody and a heart overflowing with love ...” (Gasparov M.L. Selected articles. M., 1995 (New literary review. Scientific application. Issue 2). S. 281 ). However, these properties of Fet's poetry do not prevent the researcher from classifying him among the romantics (see: Ibid., pp. 287, 389; cf. p. 296). The movement of meaning in Fetov's poems from depicting the external world to expressing the inner world, to empathizing with the surrounding lyrical "I" nature, is "the dominant principle of romantic lyrics" (Ibid., p. 176).
This idea is not new, it was expressed at the beginning of the last century (see: Darsky D.S. "Joy of the Earth". Fet's Lyric Research. M., 1916). B.V. Nikolsky described the emotional world of Fetov's lyrics as follows: "All the integrity and enthusiasm of his impetuous mind was most clearly reflected precisely in the cult of beauty"; “The cheerful anthem of the pantheist artist unshakably closed in his vocation (believing in the divine essence, the animation of nature. - A. R.) to the graceful delight and enlightenment of the spirit among the beautiful world - this is what Fet’s poetry is in its philosophical content”; but at the same time, Fet’s background of joy is suffering as an unchanging law of being: “The quivering fullness of being, delight and inspiration is what suffering is meaningful, this is where the artist and the person are reconciled” (Nikolsky B.V. The main elements of Fet’s lyrics // Full collection of poems by A. A. Fet / With an introductory article by N. N. Strakhov and B. V. Nikolsky and with a portrait of A. A. Fet / Supplement to the Niva magazine for 1912. St. Petersburg, 1912. T. 1. S. 48, 52, 41).
The first critics wrote about this, but they knew only Fet’s early poetry: “But we also forgot to point out the special nature of Mr. Fet’s works: they have a sound that was not heard before him in Russian poetry - this is the sound of a bright festive feelings of life ”(V.P. Botkin. Poems by A.A. Fet (1857) // Library of Russian Criticism / Criticism of the 50s of the XIX century. M., 2003. P. 332).
Such an assessment of Fet's poetry is very inaccurate and largely incorrect. To some extent, Fet begins to look the same as in the perception of D.I. Pisarev and other radical critics, but only with a plus sign. First of all, in Fet’s view, happiness is “crazy” (“... The epithet “crazy” is one of the most frequently repeated in his love poems: crazy love, crazy dream, crazy dreams, crazy desires, crazy happiness, crazy days, crazy words, crazy poems". - Blagoy D.D. The world as beauty (About "Evening Lights" by A. Fet) // Fet A.A. Complete collection of poems / Introductory article, preparation of the text and notes by B.Ya. Bukhshtab L., 1959 (“Poet's Library. Large Series. Second Edition”), p. 608), that is, the impossible and tangible only by a madman; This interpretation is undeniably romantic. It is significant, for example, a poem that begins like this: “How rich I am in crazy verses! ..” (1887). The lines look ultra-romantic: “And the sounds of the same fragrance, / And I feel my head is burning, / And I whisper insane desires, / And I whisper insane words! ..” (“Yesterday I walked along the illuminated hall ...”, 1858 ).
As S.G. Bocharov about the poem “My madness was desired by those who adjoined / This rose curls (curls. - A. R.), and sparkles, and dew ...” (1887), “aesthetic extremism of such a degree and such quality (“The crazy whim of the singer” ), rooted in historical despair ”(Bocharov S.G. Plots of Russian literature. M., 1999. P. 326).
The idea of "madness" as the true state of an inspired poet Fet could draw from the ancient tradition. Plato's dialogue "Ion" says: "All good poets compose their poems not thanks to art, but only in a state of inspiration and obsession, they create these beautiful chants in a frenzy; harmony and rhythm take possession of them, and they become obsessed. The poet can create only when he becomes inspired and frenzied and there is no more reason in him; and while a person has this gift, he is not able to create and prophesy. ... For the sake of this, God takes away their reason and makes them his servants, divine broadcasters and prophets, so that we, listening to them, know that it is not they, deprived of reason, who speak such precious words, but God himself speaks and through them gives us his voice "(533e-534d, trans. Y.M. Borovsky. - Plato. Works: In 3 volumes / Under the general editorship of A.F. Losev and V.F. Asmus. M., 1968. Vol. 1 pp. 138-139). This idea is also found in other ancient Greek philosophers, such as Democritus. However, in the romantic era, the motif of poetic madness sounded with new and greater force - already in belles-lettres, and Fet could not help but perceive it outside this new romantic halo.
The cult of beauty and love is a protective screen not only from the grimace of history, but also from the horror of life and non-existence. B.Ya. Buchshtab noted: “The major tone of Fet’s poetry, the joyful feeling that prevails in it and the theme of enjoying life do not at all indicate an optimistic worldview. Behind the "beautiful" poetry is a deeply pessimistic worldview. No wonder Fet was fond of the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer (Arthur Schopenhauer, German thinker, 1788-1860, whose main work, The World as Will and Representation, was translated by Fet. - A. R.). Life is sad, art is joyful - such is the usual thought of Fet ”(Bukhshtab B.Ya. Fet // History of Russian literature. M .; L., 1956. V. 8. Literature of the sixties. Part 2. S. 254).
Fet’s lyrics are not at all alien to opposition, the antithesis of boring everyday life and the higher world - dreams, beauty, love: “But the color of inspiration / Sad among everyday thorns” (“Like midges dawn ...”, 1844). The earthly, material world and the heavenly, eternal, spiritual world are contrasted: “I understood those tears, I understood those torments, / Where the word becomes numb, where sounds reign, / Where you hear not a song, but the soul of a singer, / Where the spirit leaves an unnecessary body "("I saw your milky, baby hair ...", 1884). Both the happy sky and the sad earth are opposed to each other (“The stars are praying, twinkling and glowing ...”, 1883), earthly, carnal - and spiritual (“I understood those tears, I understood those torments, / Where the word grows numb, where sounds reign, / Where you hear not a song, but the soul of a singer, / Where the spirit leaves an unnecessary body” - “I saw your milky, baby hair…”, 1884).
Glimpses of the highest ideal are visible, for example, in the beautiful eyes of a girl: “And the secrets of the mountain ether / They shine through in the living azure” (“She”, 1889).
Fet repeatedly declares his commitment to the romantic dual world: “Where is happiness? Not here, in a miserable environment, / And there it is - like smoke. / Behind him! after him! air way - / And fly away to eternity! (“May Night”, 1870 (?)); "My spirit, O night! like a fallen seraphim (seraphim - angelic "rank" - A.R.), / Recognized kinship with the imperishable life of the star" ("How undead you are, silver night ...", 1865). The purpose of a dream is “towards the invisible, towards the unknown” (“Winged dreams rose in swarms ...”, 1889). The poet is the messenger of the higher world: “I am with an unearthly speech, I am with news from paradise,” and a beautiful woman is a revelation of unearthly existence: “A young soul looks into my eyes, / I stand, fanned by a different life”; this moment of bliss is “not earthly”, this meeting is opposed to “worldly thunderstorms” (“In the suffering of bliss I stand before you ...”, 1882).
The earthly world with its anxieties is a dream, the lyrical “I” aspires to the eternal:
Dream.
awakening
There is darkness.
Like in the spring
Above me
The sky is bright.
Inevitably,
Passionately, tenderly
hope
Easily
With a splash of wings
Fly in -
To the world of aspirations
worship
And prayers...
("Quasi una fantasia", 1889)
More examples: “Give, let / I rush off / With you to the distant light” (“Dreams and Shadows ...”, 1859); “To this miraculous song / So the stubborn world is subdued; / Let the heart, full of torment, / The hour of separation triumph, / And when the sounds die out - / It will suddenly burst! ("To Chopin", 1882).
The poet is like a demigod, despite the advice "But do not be a thought of a deity":
But if on the wings of pride
You dare to know, like a god,
Do not bring into the world of shrines
Your worries and anxieties.
Pari, all-seeing and all-powerful,
And from unstained heights
Good and evil, like grave dust,
In the crowds of people will disappear
("Good and Evil", 1884)
Thus, the impudent demigod is opposed to the "crowd" and the earthly world itself, subject to the distinction between good and evil; he is above this difference, like God. .
The ultra-romantic interpretation of the purpose of poetry is expressed in the Muse's speech:
Captivating dreams cherishing in reality,
By your divine power
I call to the high pleasure
And to human happiness.
("Muse", 1887)
Dreams, “waking dreams” are higher than low reality, the power of poetry is sacred and is called “divine”. Of course, this is “a stable literary device that marks (marks, endows. - A. R.) the poet’s figure with signs of divine inspiration, involvement in heavenly secrets”, is also characteristic of the ancient tradition, and has been found in Russian poetry since the first third of the 18th century ”( Peskov A. M. “Russian Idea” and “Russian Soul”: Essays on Russian Historiosophy, M., 2007, p. 10), however, it was in the Romantic era that it received a special sound due to its serious philosophical and aesthetic justification.
Characteristic as a reflection of Fet's romantic ideas are statements in letters and articles. Here is one of them: “Whoever unfolds my poems will see a man with clouded eyes, with crazy words and foam on his lips, running over stones and thorns in torn robes” (Y.P. Polonsky, quote is given in a letter from Fet K.R. dated June 22, 1888 - A. A. Fet and K. R. (Publication by L. I. Kuzmina and G. A. Krylova) // K. R. Selected correspondence / Edited by E. V. Vinogradov, A. V. Dubrovsky, L. D. Zarodova, G. A. Krylova, L. I. Kuzmina, N. N. Lavrova, and L. K. Khitrovo (St. Petersburg, 1999, p. 283).
And here's another: "Whoever is not able to throw himself from the seventh floor upside down, with an unshakable belief that he will soar through the air, he is not a lyricist" ("On the poems of F. Tyutchev", 1859 - Fet A. Poems. Prose. Letters / Introductory article by A. E. Tarkhov, Compiled and commented by G. D. Aslanova, N. G. Okhotin and A. E. Tarkhov (Moscow, 1988, p. 292). (However, this scandalous statement goes hand in hand with the remark that the opposite quality must also be inherent in the poet - “the greatest caution (the greatest sense of proportion.”)
Romantic contempt for the crowd, which does not understand true poetry, comes through in the preface to the fourth edition of the collection “Evening Lights”: “A person who has not curtained his illuminated windows in the evening gives access to all indifferent, and perhaps even hostile, looks from the street; but it would be unfair to conclude that he lights rooms not for friends, but in anticipation of the views of the crowd. After the touching and highly significant for us sympathy of friends for the fiftieth anniversary of our muse, it is obviously impossible for us to complain about their indifference. As for the mass of readers who establish the so-called popularity, this mass is quite right in sharing with us mutual indifference. We have nothing to look for from each other ”(Fet A.A. Evening lights. S. 315). The confession, sustained in romantic categories, to a friend I.P. Borisov (letter dated April 22, 1849) about his behavior as a romantic catastrophe - about “the rape of idealism to a vulgar life” (Fet A.A. Works: In 2 vols. T. 2. P. 193). Or such ultra-romantic remarks: “People do not need my literature, but I do not need fools” (letter to N.N. Strakhov, November 1877 (Ibid., p. 316); “we care little about the verdict of the majority, confident that out of a thousand people who do not understand the matter, it is impossible to make even one connoisseur"; "it would be insulting to me if the majority knew and understood my poems" (letter to V.I. Stein dated October 12, 1887. - Russian bibliophile. 1916. No. 4. C.).
I.N. Sukhikh notes about these statements “In theoretical statements and naked program poetic texts, Fet shares the romantic idea of an artist obsessed with inspiration, far from practical life, serving the god of beauty and imbued with the spirit of music” (Sukhikh I.N. Shenshin and Fet: life and poems, p. 51). But these motives, contrary to the assertion of the researcher, permeate Fet's poetic work itself.
Fet's romantic ideas have a philosophical basis: “The philosophical root of Fet's grain is deep. “It is not for you that I sing a song of love, / But for your beloved beauty” (Hereinafter, the poem “I will only meet your smile ...” is quoted (1873 (?)). - A. R.). These two lines are immersed in the age-old history of philosophical idealism, Platonic in the broadest sense, in a tradition that has penetrated deeply into Christian philosophy. The separation of an enduring essence and a transient phenomenon is a constant figure in Fet's poetry. They are divided - beauty as such and its manifestations, manifestations - beauty and beauty, beauty and art: "Beauty does not need songs." But in the same way, the eternal fire in the chest is separated from life and death ”(Bocharov S.G. Plots of Russian literature. P. 330-331).
To the above S.G. Bocharov’s quotes can be supplemented with the lines: “It is impossible before eternal beauty / Do not sing, do not praise, do not pray” (“She came, and everything around melts ...”, 1866) and a statement from a letter to Count L.N. Tolstoy dated October 19, 1862: “Oh, Lev Nikolayevich, try, if possible, to slightly open the window into the world of art. There is paradise, there are the possibilities of things - ideals ”(Fet A.A. Works: In 2 vols. T. 2. S. 218). But, on the other hand, Fet also has a motif of the ephemerality of beauty, at least in its earthly manifestation: “This leaf that withered and fell off, / Burns with golden eternal in hymns” (“To Poets”, 1890) - only a word the poet gives eternal being to things; also revealing is a poem about the fragility of beauty - “Butterfly” (1884): “With one airy outline / I am so sweet”; “For how long, without purpose, without effort / I want to breathe.” The clouds are the same “...impossibly-undoubtedly / Fire is permeated with gold, / Instantly with the sunset / Halls of bright smoke melts” (“Today is your day of enlightenment ...”, 1887). But not only a butterfly that briefly appeared in the world and an air cloud are ephemeral, but also the stars, usually associated with eternity: “Why did all the stars become / An immovable series / And, admiring each other, / Do not fly one to another? // A spark to a spark furrow / It will sometimes flash, / But you know, she will not live long: / That is a shooting star ”(“ Stars ”, 1842). “Aerial” (ephemeral), mobile and involved in time, and not eternity, is the beauty of a woman: “How difficult it is to repeat the living beauty / Your airy outlines; / Where do I have the strength to grab them on the fly / Amid continuous fluctuations ”(1888).
In a letter to V.S. Solovyov on July 26, 1889, Fet expressed thoughts about spirituality and beauty, far from their Platonic understanding: “I understand the word spiritual in the sense of not intelligible, but a vital experimental character, and, of course, its visible expression, corporality there will be beauty that changes its face with a change of character. The handsome drunk Silenus does not look like Hercules' Dorida. Take away this body from spirituality, and you will not outline it in any way "(Fet A.A. "It was a wonderful May day in Moscow ...": Poems. Poems. Pages of prose and memoirs. Letters / Compiled by A.E. Tarkhov and G. D. Aslanova, Introductory article by A.E. Tarkhov, Note by G.D. Aslanova, M., 1989 (Moscow Parnassus series, p. 364). Apparently, it is impossible to rigidly link Fet's understanding of beauty with one specific philosophical tradition. As noted by V.S. Fedin, "Fet's poems really provide very fertile material for fierce disputes on a wide variety of issues, where it is easy to defend opposing opinions with a successful selection of quotations." The reason is “in the flexibility and richness of his nature” (Fedina V.S. A.A. Fet (Shenshin): Materials for characterization. Pg., 1915. P. 60).
V.Ya. Bryusov: “Fet's thought distinguished between the world of phenomena and the world of entities. He said about the first one that it is “only a dream, only a fleeting dream”, that it is “instant ice”, under which there is a “bottomless ocean” of death. He personified the second in the image of the “sun of the world”. That human life, which is completely immersed in a “fleeting dream” and does not look for anything else, he branded with the name “market”, “bazaar”. But Fet did not consider us hopelessly closed in the world of phenomena, in this “blue prison”, as he once said. He believed that for us there are exits to freedom, there are gaps ... He found such gaps in ecstasy, in supersensible intuition, in inspiration. He himself speaks of the moments when “he somehow strangely sees his sight” ”(Bryusov V.Ya. Far and near. M., 1912. P. 20-21).
In verse, the same interpretation of Fetov's work was expressed by another symbolist poet, V.I. Ivanov:
Secret of the Night, Gentle Tyutchev,
The spirit is voluptuous and rebellious,
Whose wonderful light is so magical;
And panting Fet
Hopeless before eternity
In the wilderness, snow-white lily of the valley,
Under the landslide bloomed color;
And the visionary, along the boundless
Love yearning poet -
Vladimir Solovyov; there are three of them
In the earthly sighted unearthly
And who showed us the way.
Like their native constellation
Can't remember me in the saints?
The influence of Fetov's poetry on the work of the symbolists - neo-romantics is also indicative: “In Russian literature of the 1880s. layers are definitely distinguished that are objectively close to the “new art” of the next decade and attracted the attention of symbolists, which can be united by the concept of “pre-symbolism”. This is the lyrics of the Fet school "(Mints Z.G. Selected works: In 3 books. Poetics of Russian symbolism: Blok and Russian symbolism. St. Petersburg, 2004. P. 163); cf. a remark about the impressionism of the “Fet school”, which stood at the origins of “decadence” (Ibid., p. 187). Back in 1914, V.M. Zhirmunsky built a succession line: “German romantics - V.A. Zhukovsky - F.I. Tyutchev - Fet - poet and philosopher V.S. Solovyov - symbolists "(Zhirmunsky V.M. German romanticism and modern mysticism. S. 205, note 61; cf.: Bukhshtab B.Ya. Fet // History of Russian literature. M .; L., 1956. T. 8 Literature of the sixties, part 2, p. 260).
Ultimately, the solution to the question of the degree of philosophicalness of Fet's poetry and of Fet's proximity to the Platonic dual world, so significant for romantics, depends largely on the position of the researcher, whether to interpret Fet's poetic concepts of "eternity" and "eternal beauty" as a kind of philosophical category that reflects worldview of the author, or to see in them only conditional images inspired by tradition. Despite the similarity of the poetics of V.A. Zhukovsky and Fet, in general, we can agree with the statement of D.D. Blagogo: “In the ideal world of Fet's lyrics, in contrast to Zhukovsky, there is nothing mystical and otherworldly. The eternal object of art, Fet believes, is beauty. But this beauty is not “message” from some unearthly world, it is not a subjective embellishment, an aesthetic poeticization of reality - it is inherent in itself ”(Blagoy D.D. World as beauty (About“ Evening Lights ”by A. Fet).
As for the opinion about the absence of tragedy, romantic discord in Fetov's poetry, it is relatively true - but with very significant reservations - only for the lyrics of the 1940-1850s. “In the second period of creativity (1870s), the image of the lyrical hero changes. The life-affirming dominant in his moods disappears, disharmony between ideal beauty and the earthly “crazy” world is acutely felt ”(Buslakova T.P. Russian literature of the 19th century: Educational minimum for applicants. M., 2005. P. 239).
Romantic self-awareness was fed by the situation - the rejection of Fet's poetry by readers, the sharp rejection of his conservative views by most of the society. N.N. Strakhov wrote to Count L.N. Tolstoy: Fet “interpreted to me both then and the next day that he felt completely alone with his thoughts about the ugliness of the whole course of our life” (letter of 1879 - Correspondence of L.N. Tolstoy with N.N. Strakhov. 1870-1894. Published by the Tolstoy Museum, St. Petersburg, 1914, p. 200).
Finally, it is not at all necessary to look for signs of romanticism only in the sphere of ideas and/or motives. Fet's poetic style, with an emphasis on metaphorical and semi-metaphorical shades of meaning and on a melodically sounding word, is related to the style of such an author, traditionally ranked among the romantics, as V.A. Zhukovsky.
And the last. The very concept of "romanticism" and ideas about the "standard" of a romantic poem are very arbitrary. According to A. Lovejoy, romanticism is one of “fraught with misunderstandings and often vague definitions - isms (so that some wish to delete them altogether from the dictionary of both philosophers and historians)”, which “are the designations of complexes, and not something whole» (Lovejoy A. The Great Chain of Being: The History of an Idea / Translated from English by V. Sofronova-Antomoni. M., 2001. P. 11). So, the same V.A. Zhukovsky can also be understood as a sentimentalist (Veselovsky A.N. V.A. Zhukovsky. Poetry of feeling and "cordial imagination" / Scientific ed., foreword, translations by A.E. Makhov. M., 1999. S. 1999) , and as a pre-romantic (Vatsuro V.E. Lyrics of Pushkin's time: "Elegiac School". St. Petersburg, 1994). And yet, if one does not abandon the use of the term "romanticism", it is hardly justified to deny the romantic foundations and nature of the poetics of the author of "Evening Lights".
Fet suffered from asthma. – A. R.
Biography ("Literary encyclopedia." In 11 tons; M.: 1929-1939)
Fet (Shenshin) Afanasy Afanasyevich (1820-1892) - a famous Russian poet. The son of a wealthy noble landowner. He spent his childhood on the estate of the Oryol province. In Moscow University, he became close to the circle of the Moskvityanin magazine, where his poems were published. He appeared in print with the collection Lyrical Pantheon (1840). As an "illegitimate" Fet was deprived of the nobility, the right to inherit and his father's name; from a young age to old age, he stubbornly sought the restoration of lost rights and well-being in various ways. From 1845 to 1858 he served in the army. In the 50s. became close to the circle of the Sovremennik magazine (with Turgenev, Botkin, L. Tolstoy and others). In 1850, "Poems" appeared under. ed. Grigoriev, in 1856, ed. Turgenev). From 1860, Fet devoted himself to the estate "house-building". Hostile to the reforms of 1861 and to the revolutionary democratic movement, Fet parted even with his liberal friends in the 60s and 70s. silent like a poet. During these years, he acted only as a reactionary publicist, in Katkov's Russky Vestnik (in his letters From the Village) he condemned the new order and attacked the "nihilists". In the era of reaction in the 80s. Fet returned to artistic creativity (collection "Evening Lights", 1883, 1885, 1888, 1891, translations).
In the 40-50s. Fet was the largest representative of a galaxy of poets (Maikov, Shcherbina, etc.), who acted under the slogan of "pure art". As a poet of "eternal values", "absolute beauty" Fet was promoted by aesthetic and partly Slavophile criticism of the 50s. (Druzhinin, Botkin, Grigoriev and others). For revolutionary democratic and radical criticism of the 60s. Fet's poems were an example of poetic idle talk, unprincipled chirping about love and nature (Dobrolyubov, Pisarev). This criticism exposed Fet as a singer of serfdom, who, under serfdom, “saw only one festive picture” (Minaev in The Russian Word, Shchedrin in Sovremennik). Turgenev, on the other hand, contrasted Fet, the great poet, landowner and publicist Shenshin, "an inveterate and frenzied serf-owner, conservative and lieutenant of the old school."
In the 40-50s. Fet (like Maykov, Shcherbina and others) acted as the successor of that new classicism that developed in the poetry of Batyushkov, Delvig and some other poets of Pushkin's circle. The most indicative for Fet during this period are anthological poems. In the spirit of this new classicism, the poetry of the young Fet seeks to capture reflections of absolute beauty, eternal values that oppose in their resting perfection the “low” being, full of vain movement. The poetry of the young Fet is characterized by: the "pagan" cult of the beautiful "flesh", objectivity, contemplation of idealized, resting sensual forms, concreteness, visibility, detailing of images, their clarity, clarity, plasticity; the main theme of love takes on a sensual character. Fet's poetry rests on the aesthetics of the beautiful, on the principles of harmony, measure, balance. It reproduces mental states, devoid of any conflict, struggle, sharp effects; reason does not struggle with feeling, "naive" enjoyment of life is not overshadowed by moral impulses. Joyful life-affirmation takes the form of moderate Horatian epicureanism. The task of Fet's poetry is to reveal beauty in nature and man; she is not characterized by humor or the sublime, pathetic, she hovers in the sphere of the elegant, graceful. The closedness of form often finds expression in Fet in the ring composition of the poem, architectonicity, completeness - in emphasized strophicity (with an extreme variety of stanzas), special lightness and at the same time harmony - in the regulated alternation of long and short lines. In beauty, for Fet, the connection between the ideal and the given, the “spiritual” and the “carnal” is realized; the harmonious combination of the two worlds is expressed in the aesthetic pantheism of Fet. Fet constantly strives to reveal the “absolute” in the individual, to attach the “beautiful moment” to eternity. Enlightened and peaceful lyrical contemplation is the main mood of Fet's poetry. The usual objects of contemplation for young Fet are landscapes, antique or Central Russian, sometimes with mythological figures, groups from the ancient and mythological world, sculptures, etc. A huge role in Fet's poetry is played by sound contemplation, the cult of euphony, eurythmy. In terms of the richness of rhythm, the variety of metrical and strophic construction, Feta occupies one of the first places in Russian poetry.
Fet's work marks not only the completion, but also the decomposition of the nobility-estate poetry of the new classicism. Already in the poems of the young Fet, other trends are growing. From a clear plasticity, Fet moves to a gentle watercolor, the “flesh” of the world sung by Fet becomes more and more ephemeral; his poetry is now directed not so much at an objectively given external object, as at flickering, vague sensations and the elusive, melting emotions aroused by them; it becomes the poetry of intimate states of mind, germs and reflections of feelings; she is
“Grabs on the fly and fixes suddenly
And the dark delirium of the soul, and the vague smell of herbs,
becomes the poetry of the unconscious, reproduces dreams, daydreams, fantasies; persistently sounds in it the motive of the inexpressible experience. Poetry consolidates the momentary impulse of living feeling; the homogeneity of experience is broken, combinations of opposites appear, although they are harmoniously reconciled (“the suffering of bliss”, “the joy of suffering”, etc.). Poems acquire the character of improvisation. Syntax, reflecting the formation of experience, often contradicts grammatical and logical norms, the verse receives a special suggestiveness, melodiousness, musicality of “trembling tunes”. It is less and less saturated with material images, which become only points of support in the disclosure of emotions. At the same time, mental states are revealed, not processes; For the first time, Fet introduces verbless verses into Russian poetry (“Whisper”, “Storm”, etc.). The motifs characteristic of this line of Fet's poetry are impressions of nature in the fullness of sensations (visual, auditory, olfactory, etc.), love yearning, nascent, still unspoken love. This stream of Fet's poetry, continuing the line of Zhukovsky and moving him away from Maikov, Shcherbina, makes him a forerunner of impressionism in Russian poetry (having had a particularly strong influence on Balmont). To a certain extent, Fet turns out to be consonant with Turgenev.
By the end of Fet's life, his lyrics became more and more philosophical, more and more imbued with metaphysical idealism. Fet now constantly sounds the motive of the unity of the human and world spirit, the merger of the “I” with the world, the presence of “everything” in the “one”, the universal in the individual. Love has turned into a priestly ministry of eternal femininity, absolute beauty, uniting and reconciling the two worlds. Nature acts as a cosmic landscape. Reality, the changeable world of movement and activity, socio-historical life with its processes hostile to the poet, the "noisy bazaar", appear as a "fleeting dream", like a ghost, like Schopenhauer's "representation world". But this is not a dream of individual consciousness, not a subjective phantasmagoria, it is a "universal dream", "the same dream of life in which we are all immersed" (epigraph F. from Schopenhauer). The highest reality and value are transferred to the resting world of eternal ideas, immutable metaphysical essences. One of the main ones in Fet is the theme of a breakthrough into another world, flight, the image of wings. The moment imprinted now is the moment of intuitive comprehension by the poet-prophet of the world of essences. In Fet's poetry, a shade of pessimism appears in relation to earthly life; his acceptance of the world now is not a direct enjoyment of the festive jubilation of the "earthly", "carnal" life of the eternally youthful world, but a philosophical reconciliation with the end, with death as a return to eternity. As the ground slipped from under the estate-patriarchal world, the material, concrete, real slipped out of Fet's poetry, and the center of gravity was transferred to the "ideal", "spiritual". From the aesthetics of the beautiful, Fet comes to the aesthetics of the sublime, from Epicureanism to Platonism, from "naive realism" through sensationalism and psychologism to spiritualism. In this last phase of his work, Fet approached the threshold of symbolism, had a great influence on the poetry of V. Solovyov, and then - Blok, stylistically - on Sologub.
Fet's work is connected with the estate-noble world, he is characterized by a narrow outlook, indifference to the social evil of his time, but there are no direct reactionary tendencies inherent in Fet the publicist (except for a few poems on occasion). The life-affirming lyrics of Fet captivate with their sincerity, freshness, decisively different from the artificial, decadent lyrics of the Impressionists and Symbolists. The best in Fet's legacy is the lyrics of love and nature, subtle and noble human feelings, embodied in an exceptionally rich and musical poetic form.
Biography
A.A. Fet was born on November 23 in the Novoselki estate of the Mtsensk district of the Oryol province, which belonged to a retired officer A.N. Shenshin. In 1835, the Oryol spiritual consistory was recognized as an illegitimate son and deprived of the rights of a hereditary nobleman. The desire to return the Shenshin surname and all rights has become an important life goal for Fet for many years.
In 1835-1837. he studies at the German boarding school Krumer in Livonia, in the city of Verro (now Võru, Estonia); the main subjects in the boarding school: ancient languages and mathematics. In 1838 he entered the Moscow boarding school of Professor M.P. Pogodin, and in August of the same year he was admitted to the Moscow University at the Faculty of Philology. Fet spent his student years in the house of his friend and classmate A. Grigoriev, later a well-known critic and poet.
In 1840 the first collection of poems "Lyrical Pantheon" was published under the initials "AF", his poems began to be published in the magazine "Moskvityanin", and since 1842 he became a regular contributor to the magazine "Domestic Notes".
After graduating from the university, in 1845, seeking the return of the title of nobility, Fet decides to enter the army and serves as a non-commissioned officer in a cavalry regiment stationed in the remote corners of the Kherson province. He is poor, deprived of a literary environment, his romance with Maria Lazich ends tragically. During this period, the collection "Poems by A. Fet" (1850) was published.
1853 - a sharp turn in the fate of the poet: he managed to go to the guard, to the Life Lancers regiment stationed near St. Petersburg. He gets the opportunity to visit the capital, resumes his literary activity, and regularly begins to publish in Sovremennik, Otechestvennye Zapiski, Russkiy Vestnik, and Library for Reading. In 1856, a collection of poems by Fet, prepared by Turgenev, was published. In the same year, Fet takes an annual vacation, which he partially spends abroad (in Germany, France, Italy) and, after which he retires. He marries M.P. Botkina and settled in Moscow.
In 1860, having received 200 acres of land in the Mtsensk district, he moved to the village of Stepanovka and engaged in agriculture. Three years later, a two-volume collection of his poems was published, and practically, from that time and for 10 years, Fet writes very little, is engaged in philosophy.
In 1873 the long-awaited decree of Alexander II to the Senate is issued, according to which Fet receives the right to join "the family of his father Shenshin with all the rights and titles belonging to the family." Fet sells Stepanovka and buys a large estate Vorobyovka in the Kursk province.
In the late 70s - early 80s, he was engaged in translations ("Faust" by Goethe, "The World as Representation" by Schopenhauer, etc.). His book is published, on which Fet has been working since his student years - a verse translation of the whole of Horace (1883). And in 1886, Fet was awarded the title of Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences for translations of ancient classics.
For the period 1885-1891. four editions of the book "Evening Lights", two volumes of "My Memoirs" were published, and the book "The Early Years of My Life" was published after the death of the author in 1893.
Biography (Encyclopedia "Cyril and Methodius")
The story of his birth is not quite usual. His father, Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, a retired captain, belonged to an old noble family and was a wealthy landowner. While being treated in Germany, he married Charlotte Feth, whom he took to Russia from her living husband and daughter. Two months later, Charlotte gave birth to a boy named Athanasius and given the surname Shenshin. Fourteen years later, the spiritual authorities of Orel discovered that the child was born before the wedding of the parents, and Athanasius was deprived of the right to bear his father's surname, and deprived of his noble title. This event wounded the impressionable soul of the child, and he experienced the ambiguity of his position almost all his life.
The special position in the family influenced the further fate of Afanasy Fet, he had to earn for himself the rights of the nobility, which the church deprived him of. First of all, he graduated from the university, where he studied first at the law and then at the philological faculty. At this time, in 1840, he published his first works as a separate book, which, however, did not have any success.
Having received an education, Afanasy Afanasyevich decided to become a military man, since the officer rank made it possible to obtain a title of nobility. But in 1858 A. Fet was forced to retire. He never won the noble rights, at that time the nobility gave only the rank of colonel, and he was a staff captain. Of course, military service was not in vain for Fet: these were the dawn years of his poetic activity. In 1850, "Poems" by A. Fet were published in Moscow, greeted by readers with enthusiasm. In St. Petersburg, he met Nekrasov, Panaev, Druzhinin, Goncharov, Yazykov. Later he became friends with Leo Tolstoy. This friendship was long and necessary for both.
During the years of military service, Afanasy Fet experienced a tragic love that influenced all his work. It was love for Maria Lazich, a fan of his poetry, a very talented and educated girl. She also fell in love with him, but they were both poor, and for this reason A. Fet did not dare to join his fate with his beloved girl. Soon Maria Lazich died, she burned down. Until his death, the poet remembered his unhappy love; in many of his poems, her unfading breath is heard.
In 1856 a new book of the poet was published.
After retiring, A. Fet bought land in the Mtsensk district and decided to dedicate himself to agriculture. Fet soon married M.P. Botkina. Fet lived in the village of Stepanovka for seventeen years, only briefly visiting Moscow. Here he found his royal decree that the surname Shenshin, with all the rights associated with it, was finally approved for him.
In 1877, Afanasy Afanasyevich bought the village of Vorobyovka in the Kursk province, where he spent the rest of his life, only leaving for Moscow for the winter. These years, in contrast to the years spent in Stepanovka, are characterized by his return to literature. The poet signed all his poems with the surname Fet: under this name he acquired poetic fame, and it was dear to him. During this period, A. Fet published a collection of his works called "Evening Lights" - there were four issues in total.
In 1889, in January, the fiftieth anniversary of the literary activity of A. A. Fet was solemnly celebrated in Moscow, and in 1892 the poet died, two days before the age of 72. He was buried in the village of Kleymenovo - the Shenshin family estate, 25 miles from Orel.
Biography (en.wikipedia.org)
Father - Johann-Peter-Karl-Wilhelm Vöth (1789-1825), assessor of the city court of Darmstadt. Mother - Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker (1798-1844). Sister - Caroline-Charlotte-Georgina-Ernestina Feth (1819-?). Stepfather - Shenshin Afanasy Neofitovich (1775-1855). Maternal grandfather - Karl Wilhelm Becker (1766-1826), Privy Councilor, military commissar. Paternal grandfather - Johann Vöth, paternal grandmother - Milens Sibylla. Maternal grandmother - Gagern Henrietta.
Wife - Botkina Maria Petrovna (1828-1894), from the Botkin family (her elder brother, V.P. Botkin, a well-known literary and art critic, author of one of the most significant articles on the work of A. A. Fet, S. P. Botkin - a doctor, whose name is a hospital in Moscow, D.P. Botkin - a collector of paintings), there were no children in the marriage. Nephew - E. S. Botkin, shot in 1918 in Yekaterinburg, along with the family of Nicholas II.
On May 18, 1818, the marriage of 20-year-old Charlotte-Elisabeth Becker and Johann-Peter-Wilhelm Vöth took place in Darmstadt. On September 18-19, 1820, 45-year-old Afanasy Shenshin and Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker, pregnant at 7 months with their second child, secretly left for Russia. In November-December 1820, in the village of Novoselki, Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker had a son, Athanasius.
Around November 30 of the same year in the village of Novoselki, the son of Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker was baptized according to the Orthodox rite, named Athanasius, and recorded in the birth register as the son of Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin. In 1821-1823, Charlotte-Elizabeth had a daughter from Afanasy Shenshin, Anna, and a son, Vasily, who died in infancy. On September 4, 1822, Afanasy Shenshin married Becker, who converted to Orthodoxy before the wedding and became known as Elizaveta Petrovna Fet.
On November 7, 1823, Charlotte-Elizabeth wrote a letter to her brother Ernst Becker in Darmstadt, in which she complained about her ex-husband Johann-Peter-Karl-Wilhelm Föth, who frightened her and offered to adopt her son Athanasius if his debts were paid.
In 1824, Johann Feth remarried the tutor of his daughter Caroline. In May 1824, in Mtsensk, Charlotte-Elizabeth had a daughter from Afanasy Shenshin - Lyuba (1824-?). On August 25, 1825, Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker wrote a letter to her brother Ernst, in which she talked about how well Shenshin takes care of her son Athanasius, that even: "... No one will notice that this is not his blood child ...". In March 1826, she again wrote to her brother that her first husband, who had died a month ago, had not left her and the child money: “... To take revenge on me and Shenshin, he forgot his own child, disinherited him and put a stain on him ... Try, if possible , to beg our dear father to help restore this child his rights and honor; he must get a surname ... "Then, in the following letter:" ... It is very surprising to me that Fet forgot in his will and did not recognize his son. A person can make mistakes, but to deny the laws of nature is a very big mistake. It can be seen that before his death he was completely sick ... ", the poet's beloved, whose memories are dedicated to the poem" Talisman ", the poems" Old Letters "," You suffered, I still suffer ... "," No, I have not changed. Until deep old age ... ”and many other of his poems.
1853 - Fet is transferred to the guards regiment stationed near St. Petersburg. The poet often visits St. Petersburg, then the capital. Fet's meetings with Turgenev, Nekrasov, Goncharov and others. Rapprochement with the editors of the Sovremennik magazine.
1854 - service in the Baltic Port, described in his memoirs "My memories".
1856 - Fet's third collection. Editor - I. S. Turgenev.
1857 - Fet's marriage to M. P. Botkina, sister of the critic V. P. Botkin.
1858 - the poet retires with the rank of guards captain, settles in Moscow.
1859 - break with the magazine Sovremennik.
1863 - the release of a two-volume collection of poems by Fet.
1867 - Fet is elected justice of the peace for 11 years.
1873 - the nobility and the surname Shenshin are returned. The poet continued to sign literary works and translations with the surname Fet.
1883-1891 - publication of four issues of the collection "Evening Lights".
November 21, 1892 - Fet's death in Moscow. According to some reports, his death from a heart attack was preceded by a suicide attempt. He was buried in the village of Kleymenovo, the Shenshin family estate.
Creation
Being one of the most refined lyricists, Fet amazed his contemporaries by the fact that this did not prevent him from being an extremely businesslike, enterprising and successful landowner at the same time. The famous palindromic phrase written by Fet and included in A. Tolstoy's "The Adventures of Pinocchio" is "A rose fell on Azor's paw."
Poetry
Fet's work is characterized by the desire to escape from everyday reality into the "bright realm of dreams." The main content of his poetry is love and nature. His poems are distinguished by the subtlety of the poetic mood and great artistic skill.
Fet is a representative of the so-called pure poetry. In this regard, throughout his life he argued with N. A. Nekrasov, a representative of social poetry.
A feature of Fet's poetics is that the conversation about the most important is limited to a transparent hint. The most striking example is the poem "Whisper, timid breathing ...".
Whisper, timid breath,
trill nightingale
Silver and flutter
sleepy creek
Night light, night shadows
Shadows without end
A series of magical changes
sweet face,
In smoky clouds purple roses,
reflection of amber,
And kisses, and tears,
And dawn, dawn!..
There is not a single verb in this poem, but the static description of space conveys the very movement of time.
The poem is one of the best poetic works of the lyrical genre. First published in the Moskvityanin magazine (1850), then revised and finalized, six years later, in the collection Poems by A. A. Fet (published under the editorship of I. S. Turgenev).
Written in a multi-footed trochaic with female and male cross-rhyming (rather rare for the Russian classical tradition in size). At least three times it became the object of literary analysis.
The romance "At dawn, you don't wake her" was written on Fet's verses.
Another famous poem by Fet:
I came to you with greetings
Say that the sun has risen
What is hot light
The sheets fluttered.
Translations
both parts of Goethe's Faust (1882-83),
a number of Latin poets:
Horace, all of whose works in Fetov's translation were published in 1883.
satires by Juvenal (1885),
poems by Catullus (1886),
elegies of Tibullus (1886),
XV books of "Transformations" by Ovid (1887),
"Aeneid" by Virgil (1888),
elegy Propertius (1888),
satires Persia (1889) and
epigrams of Martial (1891). Fet planned to translate the Critique of Pure Reason, but N. Strakhov dissuaded Fet from translating this book of Kant, pointing out that a Russian translation of this book already exists. After that, Fet turned to Schopenhauer's translation. He translated two of Schopenhauer's works: The World as Will and Representation (1880, 2nd ed. in 1888) and On the Fourfold Root of the Law of Sufficient Reason (1886).
Editions
* Fet A. A. Poems and poems / Entry. Art., comp. and note. B. Ya. Bukhshtaba. - L.: Owls. writer, 1986. - 752 p. (Library of the poet. Large series. Third edition.)
* Fet A. A. Collected works and letters in 20 vols. - Kursk: Publishing House of the Kursk State. un-ta, 2003-… (publication continues).
Notes
1. 1 2 Blok G. P. The chronicle of Fet's life // A. A. Fet: The problem of studying life and creativity. - Kursk, 1984. - S. 279.
2. In The Early Years of My Life, Fet calls her Elena Larina. Her real name was established in the 1920s by the biographer of the poet G. P. Blok.
3. A. F. Losev in his book “Vladimir Solovyov” (Young Guard, 2009. - P. 75) writes about Fet’s suicide, referring to the works of V. S. Fedina (A. A. Fet (Shenshin). Materials for characteristics. - Pg., 1915. - S. 47-53) and D. D. Blagogoy (The world as beauty // Fet A. A. Evening lights. - M., 1971. - P. 630).
4. G. D. Gulia. Life and death of Mikhail Lermontov. - M .: Fiction, 1980 (refers to the memoirs of N. D. Tsertelev).
5. 1 2 O. N. Grinbaum THE HARMONY OF RHYTHM IN A. A. FETA’S POEM “SHOPOT, timid breathing ...” (Language and speech activity. - St. Petersburg, 2001. - V. 4. Part 1. - P. 109 -116)
Literature
* Good D. D. The world as beauty (About "Evening Lights" by A. Fet) // Fet A. A. Evening Lights. - M., 1981 (series "Literary monuments").
* Bukhshtab B. Ya. A. A. Fet. Essay on life and creativity. - Ed. 2nd - L., 1990.
* Lotman L. M. A. A. Fet // History of Russian Literature. In 4 volumes. - Volume 3. - L .: Nauka, 1980.
* Eichenbaum B. M. Fet // Eichenbaum B. M. On poetry. - L., 1969.
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (correctly Fet) for the first 14 and the last 19 years of his life officially bore the surname Shenshin. Born on November 23 (December 5), 1820 in the estate of Novoselki, Mtsensk district, Oryol province - died on November 21 (December 3), 1892 in Moscow. Russian lyric poet of German origin, translator, memoirist, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1886).
Father - Johann-Peter-Karl-Wilhelm Fet (Fet) (1789-1825), assessor of the city court of Darmstadt.
Mother - Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker (1798-1844). Sister - Caroline-Charlotte-Georgina-Ernestina Feth (1819-1868).
Stepfather - Shenshin Afanasy Neofitovich (1775-1855).
Maternal grandfather - Karl-Wilhelm Becker (1766-1826), Privy Councilor, military commissar.
Paternal grandfather - Johann Vöth.
Paternal grandmother - Milens Sibylla.
Maternal grandmother - Gagern Henriette.
On May 18, 1818, the marriage of 20-year-old Charlotte-Elisabeth Becker and Johann-Peter-Karl-Wilhelm Vöth took place in Darmstadt. In 1820, a 45-year-old Russian landowner, a hereditary nobleman Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin, came to Darmstadt and stayed at the Fetov house. An affair broke out between him and Charlotte Elizabeth, despite the fact that the young woman was expecting a second child. On September 18, 1820, Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin and Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker secretly left for Russia.
On November 23 (December 5), 1820, in the village of Novoselki, Mtsensk district, Oryol province, a son was born to Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker, who on November 30 was baptized according to the Orthodox rite and named Athanasius. In the register of births, he was recorded as the son of Afanasy Neofitovich Shenshin. However, the couple got married only in 1822, after Charlotte-Elizabeth converted to Orthodoxy and became known as Elizaveta Petrovna Fet. In 1821-1823, Afanasy Shenshin gave birth to Charlotte-Elizabeth's daughter Anna and son Vasily, who died in infancy, and in May 1824, daughter Lyuba.
Johann Feth in 1824 married the tutor of his daughter Caroline. On November 7, 1823, Charlotte-Elizabeth wrote a letter to her brother Ernst Becker in Darmstadt, in which she complained about her ex-husband Johann-Peter-Karl-Wilhelm Fet, who frightened her and offered to adopt her son Athanasius if his debts were paid. On August 25, 1825, Charlotte-Elizabeth Becker wrote a letter to her brother Ernst about how well Shenshin takes care of her son Athanasius: "no one will notice that this is not his blood child."
In March 1826, she again wrote to her brother that her first husband, who had died a month ago, had not left her and the child money: “in order to take revenge on me and Shenshin, he forgot his own child, disinherited him and put a stain on him ... Try, if possible, to beg our dear father to help restore this child his rights and honor; he must get a surname ... "Then, in the following letter:" ... It is very surprising to me that Fet forgot in his will and did not recognize his son. A person can make mistakes, but to deny the laws of nature is a very big mistake. Apparently, before his death, he was quite sick ... ".
When Athanasius Shenshin was 14 years old, the diocesan authorities found out that he was born before the marriage, and he was deprived of his surname, Russian citizenship and nobility and became "Afanasy Fet, a Hessendarstadt subject." This event abruptly changed the whole life of a young man. Together with the surname, he lost his position in society and the right to inheritance. The goal of his life was to receive a noble rank, so he went to serve in a cuirassier regiment, despite the fact that he graduated from the verbal department of the philosophical faculty of Moscow University. According to the laws of that time, along with the officer rank, a noble rank was also given, and a junior officer rank could be obtained after six months of service. However, it was at this time that Nicholas I issued a decree according to which the nobility was supposed to be only for senior officers, and this meant that Athanasius would have to serve for 15-20 years.
Only in 1873 did Afanasy Fet officially regain the surname Shenshin, but continued to sign literary works and translations with the surname Fet.
In 1835-1837, Athanasius studied at the German private boarding school of Krümmer in Verro (now Võru, Estonia). At this time, he began to write poetry, to show interest in classical philology. In 1838 he entered Moscow University, first at the Faculty of Law, then at the Historical and Philological (Verbal) Department of the Faculty of Philosophy. Studied for 6 years: 1838-1844.
In 1840, a collection of Fet's poems "Lyrical Pantheon" was published with the participation of Apollon Grigoriev, Fet's friend from the university. In 1842 - publications in the magazines "Moskvityanin" and "Notes of the Fatherland". In 1845 he entered military service in the cuirassier regiment of the Military Order, became a cavalryman. In 1846 he was awarded the first officer rank.
In 1850, Fet's second collection was published, which received positive reviews from critics in the journals Sovremennik, Moskvityanin, and Otechestvennye Zapiski. At this time, Maria Kozminichna Lazich, the poet’s beloved, died, whose memories are dedicated to the poem “Talisman”, the poems “Old Letters”, “You suffered, I still suffer ...”, “No, I have not changed. To deep old age ... ”and many other of his poems.
In 1853, Fet was transferred to the guards regiment stationed near St. Petersburg. The poet often visited St. Petersburg, then the capital of Russia. There Fet met with, and others, as well as his rapprochement with the editors of the Sovremennik magazine.
In 1854 he served in the Baltic Port, which he described in his memoirs "My Memoirs".
In 1856, the third collection of Fet was published, edited by I. S. Turgenev.
In 1857, Fet married Maria Petrovna Botkina, the sister of the critic V.P. Botkin.
In 1858 he retired with the rank of Guards Staff Captain and settled in Moscow.
In 1859, the poet broke with the journalist Dolgoruky A.V. from Sovremennik.
In 1863, a two-volume collection of Fet's poems was published.
In 1867, Afanasy Fet was elected justice of the peace for 11 years.
In 1873, the nobility and the surname Shenshin were returned to Afanasy Fet. The poet continued to sign literary works and translations with the surname Fet.
In 1883-1891 - the publication of four issues of the collection "Evening Lights".
He died on November 21, 1892 in Moscow. According to some reports, his death from a heart attack was preceded by a suicide attempt. He was buried in the village of Kleymenovo, the Shenshin family estate.
Family of Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet:
Wife - Maria Petrovna Botkina (1828-1894), from the Botkin family. Her brothers: V. P. Botkin, a well-known literary and art critic, the author of one of the most significant articles on the work of A. A. Fet, S. P. Botkin - a doctor whose name is given to a hospital in Moscow, D. P. Botkin - picture collector. There were no children in the marriage.
Nephew - E. S. Botkin, shot in 1918 in Yekaterinburg, along with the family of Nicholas II.
Being one of the most refined lyricists, Fet amazed his contemporaries by the fact that this did not prevent him from being an extremely businesslike, enterprising and successful landowner at the same time. in many works, especially in the novel "The Diary of a Provincial in St. Petersburg", he repeatedly and completely unfairly accused him of adherence to the serfdom.
The famous palindrome phrase written by Fet and included in the "Adventures of Pinocchio" by A. N. Tolstoy - "And the rose fell on the paw of Azor".
Philologist O. Sharovskaya writes about him: “In Fet's lyrics there are no complete psychological portraits, characters, the images of the addressees are not outlined, even the image of the beloved is abstract. There is no lyrical hero in the narrow sense either: nothing is known about his social position, life experience, habits. The main place of "action" is a garden in general, a house in general, etc. Time is presented as "cosmic" (the existence of life on earth - its disappearance), natural (season, time of day) and only in the most general form as biological (life - death, youth, or, more precisely, the years of fullness of strength - old age, and there are no milestones and boundaries here), but by no means historical time. Thoughts, feelings, sensations are expressed, designed to have a universal meaning, albeit small, private, but understandable to any thinking and feeling person.
Fet is a late romantic with a clear inclination towards psychological realism and the accuracy of subject descriptions, but thematically narrow. Its three main themes are nature, love, art (usually poetry and most often "song"), united by the theme of beauty.
Afanasy Fet is an outstanding Russian poet, translator and memoirist, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. His poems are known and read not only in Russia, but also far beyond its borders.
Afanasy Fet in his youth Soon he successfully passed the exams at Moscow University at the Faculty of Law, but then transferred to the verbal department of the Faculty of Philosophy.
At the university, the student became friends with the famous writer and journalist Mikhail Pogodin.
While studying at the university, Afanasy Fet did not stop composing new poems. Once he wanted to know Pogodin's opinion regarding his work.
He responded positively to his poems and even decided to show them.
Imagine Fet's surprise when he learned that his work made a great impression on the famous writer. Gogol called the young poet "an undoubted talent."
Fet's works
Inspired by praise, in 1840 Afanasy Fet published the poetry collection "Lyrical Pantheon", which turned out to be the first in his creative biography. Since that time, his poems began to appear in various Moscow publications.
A few years later, serious changes took place in Fet's life. In 1844, his mother and beloved uncle passed away.
It is worth noting that after the death of his uncle, he expected to receive an inheritance from him. However, for some unknown reason, the money disappeared.
As a result, Afanasy Afanasyevich was left practically without a livelihood. In order to make a fortune for himself, he decided to become a cavalryman and rise to the rank of officer.
In 1850, the second collection of Afanasy Fet was published, which aroused great interest among critics and ordinary readers. After 6 years, a third collection appeared, edited by .
In 1863, Fet published a two-volume collection of his own poems. There were many lyrical works in it, in which he perfectly described human qualities. In addition to poetry, he was also fond of writing elegies and ballads.
It is worth noting that Afanasy Fet gained great popularity as a translator. For his biography, he managed to translate both parts of Faust and many works of Latin poets, including Horace, Juvenal, Ovid and Virgil.
An interesting fact is that at one time Fet wanted to translate the Bible into, since he considered the synodal translation unsatisfactory. He also planned to translate The Critique of Pure Reason. However, these plans never materialized.
Fet's poems
Among the hundreds of poems in Fet's biography, the most popular are:
- If the morning pleases you...
- Steppe in the evening
- Just meet your smile...
- I stood still for a long time...
- I came to you with greetings ...
Personal life
By nature, Afanasy Fet was a rather extraordinary person. Many saw in him a serious and thoughtful person.
As a result, his fans could not understand how such a closed personality managed to vividly, vividly and easily describe nature and human feelings.
One day in the summer of 1848, Fet was invited to a ball. Getting acquainted with the invited guests and watching the dances, he noticed a black-haired girl Maria Lazich, who was the daughter of a retired general.
Interestingly, Maria was already familiar with the work of Afanasy Fet, because she loved poetry.
Soon a correspondence began between the young people. Later, the girl inspired Fet to write many poems and played an important role in his biography.
However, Afanasy Fet did not want to propose to Mary, because she was as poor as he was. As a result, their correspondence ceased, and at the same time, any communication.
Soon Maria Lazich tragically died. From an accidentally thrown match, her outfit caught fire, as a result of which she received many burns incompatible with life.
Some biographers of Fet claim that the death of the young beauty was a suicide.
When the writer gained some popularity and was able to improve his financial situation, he went on a trip to the cities of Europe.
Abroad, Fet met a wealthy woman, Maria Botkina, who later became his wife. And although this marriage was not for love, but for convenience, the couple lived a happy life together.
Death
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet died on November 21, 1892 from a heart attack at the age of 71.
Some researchers of Fet's biography believe that his death was preceded by a suicide attempt, but this version does not have reliable facts.
The poet was buried in the village of Kleymenovo, the Shenshin family estate in the Oryol region of Russia.
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Fet Afanasy Afanasyevich (1820 -1892). Fet holds one of the most honorable places among the writers who sang Russian nature. His poems convey subtle images, melodious lyrics of his father's expanses and poignant romance of feelings.
Fet was born in the family of a poor landowner with German roots, in the Novoselki estate. By the age of fifteen he was sent to a private boarding house and three years later he entered Moscow University. While studying at the verbal faculty, he began to try himself in the literary field. In 1840, his collection Lyrical Pantheon was published, which delighted readers with sincerity and purity.
The poet's second book came out only ten years later, and was overshadowed by the death of his beloved, Maria Lazich. At this time, Afanasy Afanasievich was in military service. He needed to regain the nobility, which he was deprived of due to the peculiarities of Russian jurisprudence. Being transferred to the Life Guards, the poet has the opportunity to communicate with Turgenev, Nekrasov, Goncharov.
Ivan Turgenev edits Fet's third poetry collection, published in 1856. It included about a hundred works; both old and new. This edition was highly acclaimed by both readers and critics.
In 1856, Afanasy Fet married and retired the following year. He acquires a vast estate, where he becomes a successful landowner. His poems, previously published in separate books and published in leading domestic journals, are published in a two-volume edition of 1863.
After the resignation, Fet successfully leads the landowner's economy, zealously protecting the old way of life. His noble family name - Shenshin and privileges are returned to him. Issues of his collection "Evening Lights" and a book of memoirs are published. But health wears out a deadly disease.
During one of the attacks, the poet decides to commit suicide, but falls dead, barely opening a cabinet with table knives.
