Lesson objectives: by analyzing a specific poem, to see the features of K. Balmont’s poetic style, to understand his creative “laboratory”, to understand the significance of the poet’s work for the development of Russian poetry as a whole.
During the classes
Teacher: Literary era at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. The almost half-century reign of realism, glorified by the names of Pushkin and Lermontov, gave way to an era of unbridled creative experimentation. The speed with which new directions, currents, and schools appear is amazing. One of the first researchers of this era, Vengerov, notes: “None of the previous periods of our literature knew so many literary names, did not know such rapid achievement of fame, such dizzying bookselling successes...” If we consider the space from 1890 to 1910, we get the impression of what something like a kaleidoscope. Although Russian symbolism arose as an integral movement, it very soon became refracted into bright, independent individuals. Which poet, in your opinion, is the most prominent representative of Russian symbolism?
Student: V. Bryusov, D. Merezhkovsky, Z. Gippius, K. Balmont, F. Sologub...
Teacher: In one sentence, name a striking feature of each person’s poetics.
Student: V. Bryusov – all creativity is characterized by a materialistic view of the world; in his poetry there is no mystical symbolism characteristic of symbolists; his lyrical hero is an individualist who does not accept modernity and worships only art; D. Merezhkovsky - characterized by awareness of fatal loneliness, dual personality, preaching beauty; Z. Gippius - mysticism, spiritual melancholy, loneliness, discord between reality and dreams; K. Balmont - rejection of the outside world, grief, exaltation of love, nature; powerful musicality of the verse; his poetry is impressionistic; F. Sologub – deeply pessimistic poetry; mythological and folklore images are typical.
Teacher: But their work has a lot in common.
Student: Yes, what they have in common is their desire, with the help of artistic images-symbols, often mysterious in meaning, to reflect the secret aspects of existence in fiction; they believed in the saving mission of beauty and protested against reality, confident in the dysfunction and death of the modern social order.
Teacher: Today we again turn to the work of a unique, original poet. A poet who was admired and called a genius. So, K. Balmont, poem “Fantasy”. Year of writing: 1893. What events took place in Balmont’s life and work during this period?
Student: In 1892, Balmont visited Scandinavia for the first time, which he not only fell in love with, but also became close to. Reflections of Scandinavian impressions sparkled in the book of poems “Under the Northern Sky,” where the second poem was “Fantasy.” This collection of poems became not only a significant event in Balmont’s creative biography, but also marked a new artistic direction - symbolism. In a number of poems, the imitation of Fet and Tyutchev is still noticeable, but a fresh, original poetic gift was felt in everything.
Reading a poem by heart.
Teacher: If you look at the poem, you can visually distinguish 3 stanzas, 3 semantic parts.
Conversation with the class on the first semantic part.
What picture was drawn by Balmont in part 1? – Picture of a sleeping winter forest. Nature is immersed not just in sleep, but in a state of peaceful calm, everything is shrouded in drowsiness, laziness (“they slumber calmly,” “it’s pleasant to rest”). The author seems to be describing the real material world, but when reading the poem, we seem to break away from earthly realities and go to some fairy-tale, mysterious world, fantastic (for some reason we remember the fairy tale by A. Rowe “Morozko”).
How does the poet achieve this? What do we see? – We do not see pine, spruce and birch trees, but their outlines. It seems that if you close your eyes for a moment and open them again, they will already disappear. We do not see the moon itself, but only “sparks of moonlight,” “bright shine.” There is a feeling of a moment, a moment, lightness, instability, changeability of what is happening. What do we hear? – We hear “the murmur of the wind”, “the quiet groan of a blizzard”, the whisper of fir and pine trees (alliteration “sch”, “w”, “ch”, “t”, “s” helps). It seems that someone has put a finger to their lips and quietly says: “Shhhhh.” Which visual medium does Balmont prefer? - Personification. Before us is a living image of nature. She lives, although she “sleeps”; behind her dormancy lies a stormy inner life: the forest is “prophetic” (foreseeing the future, prophetic), “filled with secret dreams” (dreams unknown to anyone, hidden, deeply personal), etc. And only the penultimate line “Remembering nothing, cursing no one” indicates the presence of a deeply emotional lyrical hero.
What images - symbols are found in the first semantic part? - Image of the moon. The moon is an extraterrestrial world, a world of dreams, fantasies, where philosophical thought is born, where creative fantasy and imagination comes; a world very far from reality. The moon is associated with space, and space with eternity, and eternity with immortality. Let us remember how in 1942 in Paris, the sick and beggar Balmont, saying goodbye to life, to the sun, to poetry, said that he would go along the Milky Way into eternity: “I have been on this shore enough... Having accomplished my cherished goal, I guard the hour of the morning, So that in the Milky Way, where new stars are conceived...” There are also images - symbols of the free elements of a blizzard and wind (we understand that the poet’s imagination is not constrained by anything, nothing is stopping him now, the poet is free, free...).
Student presentation on the topic: “Images - symbols in Balmont’s work.”
Balmont often uses various images - symbols. Having analyzed 3 collections of the poet’s poems (“Under the Northern Sky,” “Silence,” “In the Vastness”), I came to the conclusion that one of the most common is the image of the moon. Here are a few lines from the poem: “Why does the Moon always intoxicate us? Because she is cold and pale. The Sun gives us too much radiance, And no one will sing such a song to him, That the nightingale sings to the Moon, under the Moon, between the dark branches, on a fragrant night”; “When the Moon sparkles in the darkness of the night with Its crescent, brilliant and tender, My soul strives for another world, Captivated by everything distant, everything boundless” (“Moonlight”); “On the diamond cover of snow, Under the cold radiance of the Moon, It’s good for you and me... How joyful it is to dream and love... In the kingdom of pure snow, In the kingdom of the pale Moon” (Without a smile, without words).
“The evening wind breathes a dying breath. The full moon has a changeable face. The joy is insane. The sadness is incomprehensible. A moment of the impossible. A moment of happiness.” ("Song without Words"). In the following collections of poems (for example, “Burning Buildings”) the Moon appears somewhat less frequently and is called “fading,” “pale,” “dying,” but in the later collection “Let’s Be Like the Sun,” the Moon again becomes a frequent image—a symbol, although the poet says that he “came into this world to see the sun.” The very names of the poems in the collection speak about this: “In Praise of the Moon”, “Influence of the Moon”, “New Moon”, “Moon Silence”. We can conclude that the Moon for Balmont is “the dominion of great silence”; this mysterious queen of dreams and daydreams marks the other side of existence, the unmanifest, hidden world. The moon is a symbol of another, beautiful world, a world of dreams and visions, it is a departure from the present into a sublime world. No wonder he wrote: “I can’t live in the present, I love restless dreams...”
Conversation with the class on the second semantic part.
In part 2, a gate opens before the reader into a boundless and wonderful world of imagination, fantasy, far from reality, but which so excites the poet and calls the lyrical hero on a long journey. As in a kaleidoscope, the faces of the winter night, its moments, change here, and Balmont’s fantasy also changes quickly. What do we hear now? – Already “sighs”, “praying”, nature seems to be tormented by anxiety, “longing”, but here – “ecstasy”, i.e. state of delight, pleasure. Lexical repetitions are often used in Part 2, words are repeated as if they are lulling (how can one not remember V. Mayakovsky, who said that “Balmont’s poems are smooth and measured, like rocking chairs and Turkish sofas...”!). But this state is characteristic not only of nature. Who else? – To a person, a lyrical hero. We, together with the lyrical hero, feel this state of delight. “Spirits of the night” (cherished desires, memories) appear, sometimes memories of the past torment, the soul becomes painful. Some kind of anxiety arises (“as if they feel sorry for something”). Why is it a pity for the lyrical hero? – It’s a pity that all this is not in reality, that it is a fairy-tale deception (“something that people will not dream about”). The lyrical hero approaches this philosophically.
Conversation with the class on the third semantic part.
In the third, smallest part, everything returns to normal. There is no longer any tension, no fatal secrets, no rhetorical questions. Where does part 3 begin? – From the conjunction “a”, the second and third parts are opposed, and the first and third parts seem to frame the second. In Part 3, everything calmed down (“sweetly slumbering,” “indifferently... listening,” “accepting with calm”). Why? – Probably, both nature and the lyrical hero are preparing to meet new impressions. There will be many more wonderful moments and discoveries. And this was only a short moment in the endless flow of time. – Yes, Balmont was able to “stop a moment”, capture it in a poem, he showed us a personal, and at the same time, momentary perception of the night. He is an impressionist artist (I recall the words of Goethe: “Stop, moment, you are beautiful”).
What is the meaning of the title of the poem?– Fantasy is the ability for creative imagination, which reaches its culmination point when the natural world and the inner world of man are in harmony. Harmony of the majestic world of nature, the vast cosmos and the boundless depths of the human soul, the visions, dreams and dreams of each of us.
Balmont loved color very much (just remember “Red Sail in a Blue Sea, in a Blue Sea...”). But in this poem “Fantasy” there is practically no color scheme. Why? – Balmont deliberately emphasizes the auditory, tactile, and visual perception of the surrounding reality. Only the life-affirming epithet “bright” appears in the poem. It should be noted that the poem does not have a pronounced division into individual stanzas. Why? – This is explained by the fact that the author initially conceived the poem to be very musical and melodious. After all, Balmont was musically gifted. Music fills everything in his work. His poems, like notes, can be marked with musical symbols. About 500 romances were created based on his poems. The work “Fantasy” is not read, but sung, and this is facilitated by internal rhymes, which the poet so often resorts to. Indeed, when you read Balmont, you find yourself in a fairy tale, listening to spring.
Final word. Every spring in the city of Shuya, Ivanovo region, a bright and interesting holiday opens - the Balmont children's poetry festival “Sunny Elf”, in which children from all schools in the city take part. The festival is attended by many guests, including K. Balmont’s daughter S.K. Shal. The festival lasts a whole week, during which children visit exhibitions, exhibitions of drawings based on the works of K. Balmont, and a competition for the best reading of the poet’s poems is also held as part of the festival. The poet is remembered because every line of his works cannot but touch the most tender and subtle strings of any human soul, and Balmont’s refined perception of nature will not leave any reader indifferent.
"Fantasy"
Like living statues, in the sparkles of the moonlight,
The outlines of pines, spruces and birches tremble slightly;
The prophetic forest calmly sleeps, the bright shine of the moon accepts
And he listens to the murmur of the wind, all filled with secret dreams.
Hearing the quiet groan of a blizzard, pine trees whisper, spruce trees whisper,
It is pleasant for them to rest in a soft velvet bed,
Without remembering anything, without cursing anything,
Slender branches bend, listen to the sounds of midnight.
Someone's sighs, someone's singing, someone's mournful prayer,
And melancholy and rapture, like a star sparkling,
It’s like light rain flowing, and the trees seem to be dreaming of something.
Something that people will never dream of, no one ever.
These are the spirits of the night rushing, these are their eyes sparkling,
At the hour of deep midnight, spirits rush through the forest.
What torments them, what worries them? What, like a worm, is secretly eating them?
Why can’t their swarm sing the joyful hymn of heaven?
Their singing sounds more and more loudly, the languor in it becomes more and more audible,
Tireless striving, constant sadness, -
It’s as if they are tormented by anxiety, thirst for faith, thirst for God,
It’s as if they have so much torment, as if they feel sorry for something.
And the moon still shines, and without pain, without suffering
The outlines of prophetic fairy-tale trunks tremble slightly;
They are all dozing so sweetly, listening indifferently to the moans
And they calmly accept the charms of clear, bright dreams.
"Fantasy" Konstantin Balmont
Like living statues, in the sparkles of the moonlight,
The outlines of pines, spruces and birches tremble slightly;
The prophetic forest calmly sleeps, the bright shine of the moon accepts
And he listens to the murmur of the wind, all filled with secret dreams.
Hearing the quiet groan of a blizzard, pine trees whisper, spruce trees whisper,
It is pleasant for them to rest in a soft velvet bed,
Without remembering anything, without cursing anything,
Slender branches bend, listen to the sounds of midnight.Someone's sighs, someone's singing, someone's mournful prayer,
And melancholy and rapture, like a star sparkling,
It’s like light rain flowing, and the trees seem to be dreaming of something.
Something that people will never dream of, no one ever.
These are the spirits of the night rushing, these are their eyes sparkling,
At the hour of deep midnight, spirits rush through the forest.
What torments them, what worries them? What, like a worm, is secretly eating them?
Why can’t their swarm sing the joyful hymn of heaven?Their singing sounds more and more loudly, the languor in it becomes more and more audible,
Tireless striving, unchanging sadness, -
It’s as if they are tormented by anxiety, thirst for faith, thirst for God,
It’s as if they have so much torment, as if they feel sorry for something.
And the moon still shines, and without pain, without suffering
The outlines of prophetic fairy-tale trunks tremble slightly;
They are all dozing so sweetly, listening indifferently to the moans
And they calmly accept the charms of clear, bright dreams.
Analysis of Balmont's poem "Fantasy"
The path to literature for Konstantin Balmont was by no means strewn with roses. Despite the fact that the future poet composed his first poem at the age of 10, almost a quarter of a century passed before its author became truly famous. This is due to the restless character of Balmont, who was a true romantic at heart, so he constantly got into ridiculous stories. Some of them ended very badly, such as expulsion from the university for promoting revolutionary ideas, as well as a ban on living in large Russian cities after the poet took part in an anti-government rally.
By 1894, when the poem “Fantasy” was published, Konstantin Balmont had already gained fame as a rebel and supporter of revolutionary ideas. However, in the literary field he remained an aspiring poet, who was still preparing his first collection of poems for publication. It was there that the lyrical and very sublime “Fantasy” was included, which stands out sharply against the background of other works of this period with its lightness and grace of style.
In his fascination with the teachings of the ideologists of socialism, Balmont still did not lose the opportunity to admire the world around him, which, according to Marx and Engels, was supposed to be gloomy and devoid of attractiveness. Of course, in any country at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries one could find many shortcomings, and semi-wild Russia, which had just embarked on the path of capitalism, was a rather depressing sight. However, the poet also saw the other side of the coin, admiring the beauty of Russian fields and forests, their pristine purity and harmony. True, in those literary circles where Balmont moved, it was not customary to write about such things at that time, since pessimistic sentiments reigned in both prose and poetry. Ladies wrote about unrequited love and suicide, and men called people to the barricades. Balmont, for all his rebellious nature, after imprisonment and exile, wanted to fill his soul with simple human joys. Probably for this reason, the romantic “Fantasy” was born, in which the author reveals the beauty of the winter forest. “The pines whisper, the spruce trees whisper, it is pleasant for them to rest in a soft velvet bed,” the poet notes, very elegantly and figuratively conveying the fragility of this perfect world. The dream of trees covered with snow evokes in the poet not only tenderness, but also a feeling of slight envy. He understands that a person is not given the opportunity to forget himself like this and get rid of all his troubles, sorrows and failures. Balmont understands that he personally will never become as serene and peaceful as the trees that can afford to “bow their slender branches and listen to the sounds of midnight.”
The poet associates himself, rather, with the spirits of the night who are rushing through the forest. “What torments them, what worries them?” the author asks. And he finds the answer to it quite easily by looking into his own soul. There is complete confusion there, since Balmont does not know what awaits him ahead, what he should strive for and what he should hope for. He, like the forest inhabitants, is “tormented by anxiety, thirst for faith, thirst for God.” However, no one is able to help either the poet or the spirits of the night to find peace and regain their life purpose. Therefore, Balmont can only fantasize about the snow-covered forest, which seems to the poet a refuge from everyday storms, although the author understands that only trees “slumber sweetly” in this amazing kingdom. And he will never find in this fairy-tale world what is commonly called the meaning of life, which the poet is deprived of due to the desire to be a rebel and the desire to change this world for the better.
Russian symbolist poet Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont wrote the poem “Fantasy” in 1893. In this immortal lyrical work, he described his own impressions of the wonderful nature and sleeping forest.
The poet does not just admire the outline of the trees in the fabulous moonlight. He endows them with vitality, comparing them to living statues filled with secret dreams. His forest trembles and calmly slumbers, listens to the murmur of the wind and whispers, hearing the groan of the blizzard.
Balmont sees the unearthly in nature, inaccessible to the human mind. The fantasy that played out in the poet’s admiring imagination paints an image of someone living his own life, not subject to anyone’s control.
The natural elements, wind, and blizzard in the poem are endowed with mysterious forces capable of drawing extraordinary pictures in the imagination. It is pleasant for pines and firs to rest, “remembering nothing, cursing nothing.” Balmont is very happy about this. The fantasy of his soul is permeated with a feeling of satisfaction and harmony.
Slender branches, listening to the sounds of midnight, indifferently and calmly remain in the spell of their bright dreams. The forces of the night invisible to the human eye - spirits, throwing sparks from their eyes, rush through the forest. They fill the space with their sighs, their singing.
Balmont uses these magical images in his work. The poet's fantasy, striving beyond the limits of human understanding, populates nature with creatures. They pray, they experience melancholy and rapture.
Images of spirits, filled with life, appear in the trees, in the author’s mind. Using such expressive means of language in his verses, Balmont made them artistic, lyrical and romantic.
All shades of the soul and the intoxicated gaze of a person observing the greatness of nature are shown here. The reader is immediately tuned in to the desired perception. Together with the author, he plunges into the atmosphere of a fairy tale and uses the musicality of rhymes in his brilliant “Fantasy” - a work in which the great master of words shares his perception of the world around him, masterfully depicting its beauty and spirituality.
“Fantasy” shows the eternal question of existence: “What is beyond?” Many writers and poets of our time will address this issue more than once or twice.
“At the hour of deep midnight, spirits rush through the forest.” The poet asks the question about what torments and worries them? And he answers it himself. Thirst for faith, thirst for God. By asking rhetorical questions, he wanted to emphasize the mystery of our world, the anxiety before the unknown of existence.
They left a deep mark on art. A whole armada of talented people left behind permanent works, including Balmont’s “Fantasy”. An analysis of the chronological events of that era shows that the fate and creativity of those who wrote poetry in those distant days are often very close in spirit to our contemporaries.
After all, true poetry is eternal. She calls for spiritual development. The galaxy of talented authors, prominent representatives of this period, loved and revered today, is proof of this.
Like living statues, in the sparkles of the moonlight,
The outlines of pines, spruces and birches tremble slightly;
The prophetic forest calmly sleeps, the bright shine of the moon accepts
And he listens to the murmur of the wind, all filled with secret dreams.
Hearing the quiet groan of a blizzard, pine trees whisper, spruce trees whisper,
It is pleasant for them to rest in a soft velvet bed,
Without remembering anything, without cursing anything,
Slender branches bend, listen to the sounds of midnight.
Someone's sighs, someone's singing, someone's mournful prayer,
And melancholy and rapture, like a star sparkling,
It’s like light rain flowing, and the trees seem to be dreaming of something.
Something that people will never dream of, no one ever.
These are the spirits of the night rushing, these are their eyes sparkling,
At the hour of deep midnight, spirits rush through the forest.
What torments them, what worries them? What, like a worm, is secretly eating them?
Why can’t their swarm sing the joyful hymn of heaven?
Their singing sounds more and more loudly, the languor in it becomes more and more audible,
Tireless striving, constant sadness, -
It’s as if they are tormented by anxiety, thirst for faith, thirst for God,
It’s as if they have so much torment, as if they feel sorry for something.
And the moon still shines, and without pain, without suffering
The outlines of prophetic fairy-tale trunks tremble slightly;
They are all dozing so sweetly, listening indifferently to the moans
And they calmly accept the charms of clear, bright dreams.
Analysis of the poem “Fantasy” by Balmont
“Fantasy” by Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont is an ornate, whimsical work in the spirit of turn-of-the-century symbolism.
The poem was written in 1894. Its author at this moment turned 27 years old, he is an aspiring poet who is looking for his path in literature. It should be noted that the young poet’s debut book did not make much of an impression on critics and the reading public. By genre - landscape lyrics, by size - trochee with alternating rhyming and non-rhyming lines, 3 stanzas. The lyrical hero is a contemplator. The first eight-line is a romantic night landscape. A scattering of comparisons and personifications: here are trees, “like statues,” and the necessarily dormant “prophetic forest,” and the moon mentioned several times with its inevitable “brilliance” and “radiance,” and “the murmur of the wind.” And the ligature of alliteration with lexical repetitions, designed to captivate the unwary reader. Inversion: the pines whisper. Trees “rest” (sleep) in their “bed”, they have neither memory nor desires, they live only in the present moment and that’s why they are strong. However, in stanza 2 new characters appear: the spirits of the night. They “rush” and their eyes (eyes) “sparkle”. The poet makes it clear that these are rebellious spirits, evil spirits that reject praise to the Creator. In the final eight-line, chaos increases, dissonance sounds in the sleepy world. The poet suggests that they are driven by an unsatisfied “thirst for God,” whom they have rejected. Now, finding no peace, they rush around the world, which seems too clear and harmonious to them. It seems that the poet himself echoes them. He does not accept simple explanations; for him, night is a time of discovery and fantasy, not rest and sleep. He fully sympathizes with the anxiety in the air and is almost angry with the Moon (that’s right, with a capital letter), shedding radiance “without torment, without suffering.” In the finale, words and images from the first stanza are repeated, albeit in a different form. This allows us to consider the composition of the work to be circular. The vocabulary is sublime. The poems are full of epithets: sweet, secret, velvety, light, slender. Metaphor: listen to the sounds of midnight. There are several rhetorical questions. Anaphora: exactly. The poem is full of verbs. Enumerative gradation is one of the main means of expressiveness. K. Balmont explores the possibilities of musical verse, trying to bring the meaning of form to the depths of content.
“Fantasy” by K. Balmont was included in the collection of the poet’s early lyrics “Under the Northern Sky.”
