In the XIX century, the last German romantic Heinrich Heine created a poem, which was based on his unhappy love. It was translated by Russian poets. Each in its own way. But the best translation was still made by Mikhail Lermontov. “Pine” is a small but unusually beautiful poetic work about loneliness and longing.
Original Heine
Heinrich Heine was not only a witty publicist, but also an unsurpassed master of the lyrical genre. Deciding to devote a poem to his beloved, he wrote an eight-poem about a yearning northern tree. The work was deeply lyrical. And after twelve years, the Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov translated it, which he had never done before. The poet was not fond of literary translation, and what prompted him this time is unknown. But, one way or another, the poem in the Russian translation rather became Lermontov 's own work. It contains motifs that are close to all the work of Russian lyrics. A comparative analysis of Lermontov’s poem “Pine” and the work of a German poet gives an idea of how different the inner experiences of these two talented authors were.
In the original, there are two images: spruce and palm. Moreover, the spruce in the German language is masculine. Heine paid great attention to achieving harmony in his lyric works. And in his poem there is an abundance of long vowel sounds that create a sensual delicate effect. The only word without softness is Ein Fichtenbaum, which means “spruce” in translation. With the help of this phonic technique, the author gives the image of a tree rigidity and masculinity. In the translation of the Russian poet, the main image is pine. Lermontov wrote a poem based on an already created work, but something unique came out of it.
Loneliness
The tragic fate and features of the nature of Mikhail Lermontov are reflected in his lyrics. The motive of loneliness is present in many of his works. Often in his poems there are such words as “one”, “lonely”.
The future poet lost his mother in childhood. He grew up without a father. When I entered the university, I didn’t communicate with anyone. The friendly lyrics that were so close to his idol Pushkin were always alien to him. He never had any friends. A separate character began to form even in childhood, when as a result of the efforts of the maternal grandmother, the future poet was completely deprived of his father's attention.
Later, when Lermontov became an adult, he knew a different kind of frustration. For him, the political situation in Russia became a real tragedy. The disappointment turned into a feeling of loneliness, and these moods were reflected in such works as “Sail”, “Cliff”, “I Go Alone on the Road”, “Pine”. Lermontov wrote a poem about a tree "in the wild north" in 1841, that is, in the year of his death. And the writing of this lyrical work has become one of the rare cases when the translation is not inferior to the original.
Pine
The first stanza is dedicated to the cold but real world in which the tree resides. A pine tree on a bare peak is a symbol of loneliness. A lonely frozen tree yearns and slumbers. The author conveys his feelings through this image. After all, he also all his short life felt incomprehensible, lonely.
Lermontov gives trees the ability to feel, dream, and sadness. This allows him to sincerely express his secret feelings. But the poet himself also expresses disbelief in the existence of a person close to him. For his short life, he had enough reasons to doubt female loyalty.
Palm
The second part of the poem takes us to the sunny land, where, like a pine tree, a palm tree grows sadly. Both trees are feminine. While the German author has a comparison of male and female images, which already speaks of the main theme of Heine. For the German romantic, the main lyrical motive was separation from her lover, which cannot be said about the poem "Pine". Lermontov devoted the verse, rather, to his desire to be understood, heard.
Nevertheless, the poet, in a desire to get rid of loneliness and find a loved one, did not create in his imagination an image of a spiritual friend, but a female appearance. This is clearly indicated by the last lines of the poem, where he presents his dream in the form of a "beautiful palm tree."
Reality and dream
The theme of loneliness was repeatedly addressed by Lermontov. Pine (analysis of the work suggests that this image is not entirely lyrical) expresses the highest degree of these sensations in the poem. The poet paints an atmosphere of hopelessness by creating two small worlds: cold and hot. In the first there is a pine, in the second - a palm. And they will never be together. By contrasting the northern edge with the southern, the author expresses a pipe dream.
Dream or dream?
The clash of dreams and reality is a technique that Lermontov uses in his translation. The pine of the Russian poet languishes, covered in snow. She dreams of a distant desert , but a dream will never come true. This is another difference from the original. In German, “dreaming” and “dreaming” are verbs that are close in meaning and identical in sound. The German poet says: “Er träumt von einer Palme”, which can be translated as “dreams of a palm tree” and as “sees a palm tree in a dream”. But in Russian, the words “dream” and “dream” were never synonyms or paronyms. Perhaps linguistic differences intensified the effect that Lermontov sought to create. “Pine” is not just a successful translation. This poem, permeated by the spirit of hopelessness, which is characteristic of the Russian character. It can be assumed that it is in the Russian interpretation that a dream becomes a pipe dream.
Musicality
Thanks to the alternation of vowels of unusual sound, Lermontov was able to achieve in his work. “Pine” is a poem in which vocalism stands out vividly. In the first stanza, the repetitions of the consonant “s” also attract attention. Perhaps, in the Lermontov translation, the main image was given to a pine tree, and not to a male tree (for example, a cedar), not only because the author was faced with the task of expressing loneliness, in which the tree does not play a role. Rather, the fact is that otherwise the author would not have been able to achieve such a harmonious sound system.