"Twenty first. Monday”, analysis of Akhmatova’s poem. Analysis of the poem “Twenty-one. Night. Monday" Akhmatova Life after the bloody revolution

Twenty first. Night. Monday.
The outlines of the capital in the darkness.
Composed by some slacker,
What love happens on earth.

And out of laziness or boredom
Everyone believed, and so they live:
Looking forward to dates, afraid of separation
And they sing love songs.

But to others the secret is revealed,
And silence will rest on them...
I came across this by accident
And since then everything seems to be sick.

Analysis of the poem “Twenty-one. Night. Monday." Akhmatova

In the conditions of the pre-revolutionary crisis, Akhmatova’s creativity becomes more serious. Pure sublime feelings are replaced by motives of melancholy and disappointment. This was due not only to the situation in the country, but also to the personal life of the poetess. She was unhappy in her marriage to N. Gumilev. In 1918 they finally separated. Already in 1914, Akhmatova met B. Anrep. Loyalty to family duty did not allow the poetess to begin a love relationship, but she often met with the person she liked. In 1917, she published another collection of poems, “The White Flock,” many of the works were dedicated to Anrep. The collection also included the poem “Twenty-first. Night. Monday".

The beginning of the work is not typical for Akhmatova. Laconic one-part sentences immediately create the feeling of a diary entry or an official message. Thus, the poetess emphasizes the suddenness and importance of the thought that came to her. Akhmatova comes to the conclusion that love is just an invention of “some slacker.” This conviction shows the heroine’s deep disappointment in love, which came as a result of personal experience.

Developing her idea, Akhmatova claims that people believed this fiction and continue to live in deception. She speaks contemptuously about love affairs, dates and, in general, everything that accompanies a love relationship. The poetess believes that people act this way “out of laziness or boredom.” In fact, there is no love in the world. Recognizing its existence, people try to somehow diversify their lives.

But the last stanza of the poem makes us wonder what Akhmatova meant. The “discovery of a secret” by the poetess can be considered the final verdict of love, negating its significance. On the other hand, this can be regarded as the knowledge of true love, different from that which exists in ordinary consciousness. Perhaps B. Anrep became the reason for such insight for Akhmatova. Accustomed to ordinary “human” love, she was amazed that she met a person who aroused in her a completely new great feeling. This feeling cannot even be expressed in words (“silence will rest upon them”).

In any case, the “discovery of the secret” produced a revolution in the soul of the poetess. Since this significant event, she feels that she still “feels like she’s sick.”

"Twenty first. Night. Monday..." Anna Akhmatova

Twenty first. Night. Monday.
The outlines of the capital in the darkness.
Composed by some slacker,
What love happens on earth.

And out of laziness or boredom
Everyone believed, and so they live:
Looking forward to dates, afraid of separation
And they sing love songs.

But to others the secret is revealed,
And silence will rest on them...
I came across this by accident
And since then everything seems to be sick.

Analysis of Akhmatova’s poem “The Twenty-First. Night. Monday…"

In 1917, Akhmatova’s third collection, “The White Flock,” was released, considered the most significant of her pre-revolutionary books. Contemporary critics practically ignored the publication. The fact is that it came out during a difficult period for Russia. According to Anna Andreevna’s later memoirs, the first printed edition could not get from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Nevertheless, the book still received a certain number of reviews. Most critics noted the stylistic difference between “The White Flock” and “Evening” (1912) and “The Rosary” (1914). Slonimsky believed that the poems included in Akhmatova’s third collection were marked by a new, in-depth worldview, conditioned by the victory of the spiritual over the sensual, to the extreme, feminine. According to Mochulsky, in “The White Flock” the poetess becomes stronger, stricter, and more severe. In her work the image of the Motherland appears and the echo of war is heard. Perhaps the main feature of the collection is polyphony, which many researchers of Akhmatov’s lyrics have written about.

A short poem “Twenty-one. Night. Monday…”, dated 1917, is included in the collection “The White Flock”. His example clearly shows what changes the motif of love has undergone in Anna Andreevna’s poetry. The first quatrain begins with parcellation - a speech device that is an intonational division of a statement into segments, which are graphically designated as independent sentences. The use of this trope allows Akhmatova to achieve greater emotionality, expressiveness, and brightness. It seems that the opening line of the poem is an excerpt from a telegram. Everything is brief, everything is to the point - just a time indication, nothing superfluous, no details.

At first, it seems that the lyrical heroine of the poem treats love with obvious irony. According to her, the existence of this feeling on earth was invented by some slacker. The rest of the people believed him, either out of laziness or boredom. In “The White Flock,” the lyrical heroine no longer treats love with such trepidation. The excitement generated by the first feeling disappeared. The girl who clasped her hands under a dark veil, put the glove on her left hand on her right hand, ran after her endlessly adored man to the gate, and promised to die if he left, was gone. The love dramas she experienced changed her forever, made her calmer and wiser. However, one should not think that she gave up the most beautiful feeling on earth. Rather, the lyrical heroine completely rethought him. She perceives love as a secret, accessible only to selected people. Comprehension of the truth brings them peace (“silence rests upon them”). The heroine of the poem was accidentally lucky enough to fall into the circle of those “others.” Love as a disease, love as a mystery - this is the new perception that is revealed to readers in Akhmatova’s third collection.

The book “The White Flock” was influenced not only by the tragic events that took place in Russia, but also by Anna Andreevna’s relationship with the Russian muralist and writer Boris Anrep, who spent most of his life in Great Britain. The poetess met him in 1914. Before Anrep left the Russian Empire, the lovers saw each other often. Akhmatova dedicated about thirty poems to Boris Vasilyevich, a significant part of them were included in the collection “The White Flock”. Anna Andreevna's last meeting with Anrep took place in 1965, in Paris, after honoring the poetess in Oxford. Boris Vasilyevich later recalled that the image of the once beloved woman seemed to him as young, fresh and charming as in 1917.

Who took the Tatar pseudonym Akhmatova. "Twenty first. Night. Monday…”: we will analyze this short early poem in the article.

Briefly about the biography

Noblewoman Anna Andreevna was the third child in a large family. Her three sisters died of tuberculosis in their youth, her older brother committed suicide, and the youngest died in exile 10 years after Anna’s death. That is, her loved ones and relatives were not with her during difficult moments of her life.

A. Gorenko was born in Odessa in 1889, and spent her childhood in Tsarskoe Selo, where she studied at the Mariinsky Gymnasium. In the summer the family went to Crimea.

The girl learned French by listening to her tutors' conversations with her older sister and brother. She began writing poetry at the age of 11. By 1905, an aspiring poet, the handsome N. Gumilyov, fell in love with her and published her poem in Paris. In 1910, they connected their lives, and Anna Andreevna took the pseudonym Akhmatova - the surname of her great-grandmother. Two years later, their son Lev was born.

After six years, relations between the poets became tense, and in 1918 they divorced. It is no coincidence that the 3rd collection of poems entitled “The White Flock” was published in 1917. It included the work “Twenty-one. Night. Monday…”, the analysis of which will be below. For now, let's say that it sounds like disappointment in love.

Life after the bloody revolution

In the same 1918, at the age of 29, Anna Andreevna quickly married Vladimir Shileiko and after three years broke up with him. At this time, N. Gumilyov was arrested and almost a month later shot. At the age of 33, Anna Andreevna unites her life with art critic N. Punin. During this period, her poems ceased to be published. When my son was 26 years old, he was arrested for five years. The poetess breaks up with N. Punin and will be able to see her son for a short time only in 1943. In 1944, he joined the army and took part in the capture of Berlin. However, in 1949 N. Punin and his son were arrested. Lev was sentenced to 10 years in the camps. The mother knocked on all the doorsteps, stood in lines with parcels, wrote poems singing the glory of Stalin, but they did not let her son out. The 20th Congress of the CPSU brought him freedom.

In 1964, the poetess was awarded a prize in Italy.

In 1965, she traveled to Britain: she received an honorary diploma from the University of Oxford.

And in 1966, at the 77th year of her life, Anna Andreevna died. Could the poetess have imagined such a bitter fate for herself when, at the age of 28, the lines “Twenty-one. Night. Monday..."? An analysis of the work will be given below. Unfulfilled love occupied her thoughts at that moment.

Briefly about the “White Flock” in the works of A. Akhmatova

One might ask: why does the poetess’s third collection have such a strange title? White is innocent, pure, and also the color of the Holy Spirit, who descended to the sinful earth in the form of a dove. This color is also a symbol of death.

The image of birds is freedom, hence the flock that has left the ground and looks at everything with detachment. Pure freedom and death of feelings is the theme of the work “Twenty-one. Night. Monday…". An analysis of the poem shows how the lyrical heroine separated from the “pack” in order to indulge in specific reflection at night alone: is love necessary? A poem without a title. This suggests that the poet fears that the title may be considered a separate text and provide additional meaning that is not required by the author.

"Twenty first. Night. Monday…". Analysis of the poem

The work begins with short, one-line, complete sentences. And one gets the impression that the lyrical heroine is separated from everyone and everything: “Twenty-one. Night. Monday". Analysis of the last two lines of the first stanza shows a nightly conversation in silence with herself, full of confidence that there is no love on earth. It was just written by some slacker. Business people do not experience feelings, according to the lyrical heroine.

The second stanza is no less contemptuous. Everyone believed the slacker only out of laziness and boredom. Instead of being busy, people are full of dreams and hopes for meetings, and suffer from separation.

The last quatrain is dedicated to chosen people, those to whom the secret has been revealed, and therefore nothing disturbs them. At the age of 28, to accidentally stumble upon such a discovery, when you still have your whole life ahead of you, is very bitter. That’s why the lyrical heroine says that she seemed to be sick. For her, unhappy and lonely, it is just as difficult as for a young girl experiencing her first dramatic love.

This collection is largely inspired by meetings with her lover Boris Anrep, whom A. Akhmatova met in 1914 and met often. But fate separated them: Anrep spent his entire life in exile. They met only when Anna Andreevna came to England in 1965. In his opinion, even at that age she was majestic and beautiful.

Concluding the analysis of Akhmatova’s poem “The Twenty-First. Night. Monday…”, it should be added, it is written in anapest.

Akhmatova wrote her work “Twenty-first. Night. Monday” in 1917, when the situation in Russia was quite tense. The poetess's personal life was not successful and some doubts arose about her creative skills.

The theme of the poem is laconic and simple. It carries with it complete disappointment in the existence of love and a rethinking of some values. Akhmatova speaks ironically about this feeling, which brought her pain and suffering.

The first quatrain begins with an exact statement of the date, time and day of the week. It’s all framed in a jagged rhythm, making it seem like you’re reading a telegram. But then comes a line full of peace, reflecting what the poetess sees when she approaches the window. And you get the feeling that you are becoming an involuntary listener to someone else’s letter.

The second quatrain is permeated with annoyance that everyone believed the one who invented love. So they live with meaningless faith in this stupid fairy tale.

The final part of the poem contains the author's main idea. The poetess accidentally learned that there is no love, she is now forced to suffer and this does not allow her to live in peace.

The feeling of lyrical reflection is created by writing the text in the size of a three-foot anapest, the rhythm of which is capable of creating a similar feeling.

Akhmatova writes this work deliberately simple, using only a couple of expressive means. The epithet “love songs” and the high-flown metaphor “silence rests on them.” Such simplicity emphasizes the spiritual indifference of the suffering heroine.

The experienced love drama changes the main character. She is becoming a wise woman who is calm about her feelings. No, she did not lose faith in the sincerity of love, she simply managed to rethink her attitude towards it, which acquired a more earthly understanding.

There is one line of reasoning in the poem. Harmony between form and content appears due to logically constructed sentences.

All the images introduced into the narrative are very simple in essence. This is the whole peculiarity of Akhmatova’s poetic style, which can fill any image with meaning and an emotional component.

Analysis 2

In 1917 The 3rd volume of the poetess entitled “The White Flock” was released, which is the most significant of all the works she wrote.

This poem is quite short, and it is included in the volume “The White Flock”. Where the changes the poetess has undergone are well reflected. It begins with a speech pattern - parcellations, showing the intonation division of the expressed thought into small parts, and sound like independent phrases. This technique helps the poetess achieve significant colors, clarity, and precision. There is a feeling that the first lines of the work are a fragment of a message. Clearly, concisely - as soon as the time is given.

At first it seems that Akhmatova treats feelings with a certain note of irony. According to her, the very fact of the phenomenon of love on earth was invented by a certain lazy person who had nothing to do. Other people trusted him, maybe out of laziness, maybe because they had nothing to do. In the published volume, Akhmatova no longer has any trepidation about falling in love. She disappeared with the appearance of these first feelings. There is no woman who cowered under her dark veil, wore the glove of her left hand on her right hand, and rushed after her beloved young man to the gate, swearing to commit suicide if he disappeared from her life.

Having experienced their dramas of love, they change it for centuries, making it calmer and wiser. But one should not assume that the girl has renounced the most wonderful sensations on earth. It is better to assume that she simply rethought everything and realized it. She perceives love as a kind of secret, accessible only to some people. And recognizing it brings them peace. It was only by chance that the girl managed to be among the chosen ones with this poem. Love, this kind of illness, some kind of mystery - these are these new sensations that are revealed to those who read the third collection of the poetess.

Option 3

The poem is one of the components of the author’s poetry collection entitled “The White Flock” and is distinguished by its autobiography associated with the poetess’s personal experiences.

The main theme of the lyrical work is the author's reflections on love disappointments, leading to a rethinking of human values.

The structural composition is a linear form in which the mental development of the storyline is carried out sequentially, allowing one to understand and penetrate the spiritual world of the lyrical heroine. The first stanza shows the thoughtful depth of a woman’s state, creating a feeling of mental dialogue with herself, in the second stanza the notes of disappointment caused by a feeling of love intensify, and the third stanza is devoted to revealing the main motive of the poem, which consists in the loss of life’s illusions, which deprived the lyrical heroine of the joy of life and hope for happy future.

The poetess chooses a three-foot anapest as the poetic meter of the work, expressing the author's intention in the form of mental reflections through a peculiar sound rhythm.

Among the few means of artistic expression used in the poem, figurative epithets and metaphors stand out, which, despite their sparing use, emphasize the mental suffering of the lyrical heroine in the form of confusion and disappointment, demonstrating the uselessness of pompous phrases and words. At the same time, the author deliberately chooses a simple presentation of the chosen topic in order to describe the spiritual indifference of a suffering and disappointed woman.

A distinctive feature of the poem is the use of a peculiar turn of phrase in the form of parcellations, which consist in the intonation division of the poetic content into small passages that sound as independent expressions that create the impression of a sent fragment of a letter, stated in a clear and concise form.

Analysis of poem Twenty-one. Night. Monday as planned

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Poem “Twenty-one. Night. Monday" was written by Anna Akhmatova in 1917, a turbulent year for all of Russia. And the poetess’s personal life was also shaken: more and more difficulties arose in her relationship with her husband, and, despite the success of her first collections, she began to have doubts about her own talent.

The poem begins with short, chopped phrases, like a telegram. Just a statement of time and place. And then a longer and softer line: “outlines of the capital in the darkness”. It was as if Akhmatova, in a conversation with someone (or at the beginning of a letter), named the date, with her sensitive ear caught the poetic rhythm, went to the window - and further words began to spill out by themselves. This is exactly the impression that arises after reading the first quatrain, and one even glimpses the vague reflection of the poetess in the dark window glass.

“Some slacker wrote that there is love on earth.” This is a conversation between a woman and herself, still young (Anna Andreevna was only twenty-eight), but already faced with drama.

And the second stanza is all permeated with disappointment. To the slacker who invented love, “everyone believed, and that’s how they live”. Both this faith and the actions associated with it are a meaningless fairy tale, according to the lyrical heroine. Like the one that people believed in several centuries ago, about three whales and a turtle. And therefore, the next stanza, in addition to sadness, is also imbued with triumph.

“But to others the secret is revealed, And silence rests upon them.”- word "other" it could very well have been originally "chosen", if the size allowed. At least that's the meaning. "And silence will rest upon them"- as a blessing, as freedom from illusions. In this place, the voice of the lyrical heroine sounds the most firm and confident. But the last two lines give rise to a different feeling: as if they are being uttered by a very young girl who has lost some kind of landmark, who has forgotten something important. “I came across this by accident, and since then it’s been like I’ve been sick.” What is this if not regret? If not the understanding that the lost illusion is the same opened "secret" took away the main joy of life? It is not for nothing that these last words are separated from the calm, confident lines by ellipses. And triumphant righteousness gives way to quiet sadness.

The poem is written in three-foot anapest - a meter most suitable for reflection and lyricism. The entire work is imbued with lyricism, despite the emphasized absence of visual and expressive means. Stilted metaphor “and silence will rest upon them” seems like a foreign element, words that belong not to the lyrical heroine, but to the cold and disappointed woman she appears to be. But the true, soft and sad voice that sounds in the last words, at once overturns the cumbersome structures in the glory of disappointment and leaves the reader with the impression of loss and thirst for love.