On November 23, 1820, in the village of Novoselki, located near Mtsensk, the great Russian poet Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet was born into the family of Carolina Charlotte Fet and Athanasius Neofitovich Shenshin. His parents got married without an Orthodox rite abroad (the poetâs mother was a Lutheran), because of which a marriage legalized in Germany was invalidated in Russia.
Deprivation of a noble title
Later, when the wedding was performed according to the Orthodox rite, Afanasy Afanasevich already lived under the name of his mother - Fet, being considered her illegitimate child. The boy was deprived, in addition to his father's name, and the noble title, Russian citizenship and inheritance rights. For a young man for many years, the most important life goal was to regain the name Shenshin and all the rights associated with it. Only in old age, he was able to achieve this by regaining the hereditary nobility.
Training
The future poet in 1838 entered the boarding house of Professor Pogodin in Moscow, and in August of the same year he was enrolled in the verbal department at Moscow University. In the family of his classmate and friend Apollo Grigoriev, he lived as a student. The friendship of young people contributed to the formation of common ideals and views on art.
The first samples of the pen
Afanasy Afanasevich begins to compose poetry, and in 1840 a poetry collection, published at his own expense, entitled The Lyrical Pantheon, was published. In these poems, the echoes of the poetic works of Yevgeny Baratynsky, Vasily Zhukovsky and Ivan Kozlov were clearly heard . Since 1842, Afanasy Afanasevich has been constantly published in the journal "Domestic Notes". Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky already in 1843 writes that of all the poets living in Moscow, Fet is âmore talentedâ, and sets the verses of this author along with the works of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov.
The need for a military career
Fet strove for literary activity with all his heart, however, the instability of his material and social situation compels the poet to change his fate. Afanasy Afanasevich in 1845 entered as a non-commissioned officer in one of the regiments located in the Kherson province in order to be able to obtain hereditary nobility (the right to which was given by the senior officer rank). Torn off from the literary environment and the life of the capital, he almost stops publishing, also because, due to the fall in demand for poetry, magazines show no interest in his poems.
The tragic event in the personal life of Fet
In the Kherson years, a tragic event that predetermined the personal life of the poet happened: his beloved, Maria Lazich, a girl-dweller, whom he did not dare to marry because of his poverty, died. After Fet's refusal, a strange incident happened to her: a dress lit up from a candle on Mary, she ran into the garden, but could not cope with putting out her clothes and suffocated in smoke. One could suspect this girlâs attempt to commit suicide, and echoes of this tragedy (for example, the poem "When you read the painful lines ...", 1887) will be heard in Fet's poems for a long time.
Admission to the Lub Guard Ulan Regiment
In 1853 there was a sharp turn in the fate of the poet: he managed to enter the guard, in the Ulan regiment, which was stationed near the St. Petersburg Life Guards. Now Afanasy Afanasevich gets the opportunity to visit the capital, resumes his literary activity, begins to regularly publish verses in Sovremennik, Russian Herald, Fatherland Notes, and Reading Library. He draws close with Ivan Turgenev, Nikolai Nekrasov, Vasily Botkin, Alexander Druzhinin - editors of Sovremennik. The name Feta, by then already half-forgotten, appears again in reviews, articles, chronicle of the magazine, and since 1854 his poems have also been printed. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev became a mentor to the poet and even prepared a new edition of his works in 1856.
The fate of the poet in 1856-1877
In the service of Fetu was unlucky: each time the rules for obtaining hereditary nobility were tightened. In 1856, he left his military career, and did not achieve his main goal. In Paris in 1857, Afanasy Afanasevich married the daughter of a wealthy merchant, Maria Petrovna Botkina, and acquired an estate in Mtsensk district. At that time, he almost did not write poetry. Being a supporter of conservative views, Fet sharply negatively perceived the abolition of serfdom in Russia and, starting in 1862, began to regularly publish essays in the Russian Bulletin, denouncing post-reform landowner-landowner positions. In the years 1867-1877 he served as justice of the peace. In 1873, finally Afanasy Afanasyevich received hereditary nobility.
Fet's Fate in the 1880s
The poet returned to literature only in the 1880s, having moved to Moscow and got rich. In 1881, his old dream was realized - he created the translation of his beloved philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, "Peace as a Will and a Representation". In 1883, a translation of all the works of the poet Horace, published by Fet as a student, was published. The period from 1883 to 1991 includes the publication of four issues of the poetry collection "Evening Lights".
Fet's lyrics: general description
Poetry of Athanasius Afanasevich, romantic in its origins, is, as it were, a connecting link between the work of Vasily Zhukovsky and Alexander Blok. The poet's later poems gravitated towards the Tyutchev tradition. The main lyrics of Fet are love and landscape.
In the 1950s and 1960s, during the development of Athanasius Afanasevich as a poet, Nekrasov and his supporters, apologists singing public, civic ideals of poetry, almost completely dominated the literary milieu. Therefore, Afanasy Afanasevich with his work, we can say, made a little untimely. The features of Fet's lyrics did not allow him to join Nekrasov and his group. Indeed, according to representatives of civilian poetry, poetry must necessarily be topical, performing a propaganda and ideological task.
Philosophical motives
The philosophical lyrics of Fet permeate all his work, reflected in landscape and in love poetry. Although Afanasy Afanasyevich was even friends with many poets of the Nekrasov circle, he argued that art should be interested in nothing but beauty. Only in love, nature and art itself (painting, music, sculpture) did he find lasting harmony. The philosophical lyrics of Fet tried to get as far away from reality as possible, contemplating the beauty that was not involved in the bustle and bitterness of everyday life. This led to the adoption of romantic philosophy by Afanasy Afanasyevich in the 1940s, and in the 1960s the so-called theory of pure art.
The prevailing mood in his works is a rapture by nature, beauty, art, memories, delight. These are the features of Fet's lyrics. Often the poet has a motive of flying from the earth away after the moonlight or enchanting music.
Metaphors and epithets
Everything that belongs to the category of sublime and beautiful is endowed with wings, primarily a love feeling and a song. Fetaâs lyrics often use metaphors such as âwinged dreamâ, âwinged songâ, âwinged hourâ, âwinged words soundâ, âinspired by delightâ, etc.
Epithets in his works usually describe not the object itself, but the impression of the lyrical hero of what he saw. Therefore, they can be inexplicable logically and unexpected. For example, a violin might get the definition of melting. The epithets characteristic of Fet are âdead dreamsâ, âfragrant speechesâ, âsilver dreamsâ, âherbs in sobsâ, âwidowed azureâ, etc.
Often a picture is drawn using visual associations. The poem Singer is a prime example. It shows the desire to translate the sensations created by the melody of the song into concrete images and sensations, of which Fet's lyrics are composed.
These verses are very unusual. So, âthe distance ringsâ, and the smile of love shines âmeeklyâ, the âvoice burnsâ and freezes in the distance, like a âdawn over the seaâ, to pear out the pearls with a âloud tideâ again. At that time, Russian poetry did not know such complex, bold images. They established themselves much later, only with the advent of the Symbolists.
Speaking about Fetâs creative manner, impressionism is also mentioned, which is based on the direct fixation of impressions of reality.
Nature in the work of the poet
Fetaâs landscape lyrics are a source of divine beauty in eternal renewal and diversity. Many critics mentioned that nature was described by this author as if from the window of a landownerâs estate or from the perspective of a park, as if specially to evoke admiration. Fetaâs landscape lyrics are a universal expression of the beauty of a world untouched by man.
Nature for Afanasy Afanasevich is part of his own âIâ, a background for his experiences and feelings, a source of inspiration. The lyrics of Fet seem to blur the line between the external and internal world. Therefore, the human properties in his verses can be attributed to darkness, air, even color.
Very often, nature in Fet's lyrics is a night landscape, since it is at night when the daytime bustle calms down that it is easiest to enjoy a comprehensive, indestructible beauty. At this time of day, the poet has no glimpses of chaos that fascinated and frightened Tyutchev. Majestic harmony reigns hidden during the day. Not the wind and darkness, but the stars and the moon come first. According to the stars, Fet reads the "fiery book" of eternity (the poem "Among the Stars").
The themes of Fet's lyrics are not limited to describing nature. A special section of his work is poetry dedicated to love.
Feta Love Lyrics
Love for the poet is a whole sea of ââfeelings: timid languor, and enjoyment of spiritual closeness, and the apotheosis of passion, and the happiness of two souls. The poetic memory of this author knew no bounds, which allowed him to write poems dedicated to first love, even in his declining years, as if he were still impressed by a much-desired recent date.
Most often, the poet described the emergence of feelings, his most enlightened, romantic and reverent moments: the first touch of his hands, long glances, the first evening walk in the garden, giving rise to spiritual closeness, contemplation of the beauty of nature. The lyrical hero says that he values ââthe steps to it no less than happiness itself.
Feta's landscape and love lyrics constitute an inseparable unity. A heightened perception of nature is often caused by love experiences. A vivid example of this is the miniature "Whisper, timid breath ..." (1850). The fact that verbs are absent in the poem is not only an original device, but also a whole philosophy. There is no action because in fact only one moment or a whole series of moments, motionless and self-sufficient, is described. The image of the beloved, described by way of detail, seems to dissolve in the general gamut of feelings of the poet. There is no integral portrait of the heroine - it should complement and recreate the imagination of the reader.
Love in Fet's lyrics is often complemented by other motives. So, in the poem "The night shone. The garden was full of the moon ..." three feelings are united in a single impulse: admiration for music, an ecstatic night and inspired singing, developing into a love for the singer. The whole soul of the poet is dissolved in music and at the same time in the soul of the singing heroine, who is the living embodiment of this feeling.
This poem is difficult to unambiguously be attributed to love lyrics or poems about art. It would be more accurate to define it as a hymn to beauty, combining liveliness of experience, its charm with deep philosophical implication. Such a worldview is called aestheticism.
Afanasy Afanasevich, taking off on the wings of inspiration beyond the limits of earthly existence, feels himself a master, equal to the gods, overcoming the limitations of human capabilities by the power of his poetic genius.
Conclusion
The whole life and work of this poet is a search for beauty in love, nature, even death. Could he find her? Only one who truly understands the creative heritage of this author can answer this question: he heard the music of his works, saw landscape paintings, felt the beauty of poetic lines and learned to find harmony in the world around him.
We examined the main motives of the lyrics of Fet, the characteristic features of the work of this great writer. So, for example, like any poet, Afanasy Afanasyevich writes about the eternal theme of life and death. Neither death nor life frightens him ("Poems of Death"). By his physical death, the poet experiences only cold indifference, and earthly existence is justified by Athanasius Afanasevich Fet only with creative fire, commensurate in his view with the "whole universe". Ancient motifs (for example, "Diana") and Christian motifs ("Ave Maria", "Madonna") also sound in verses.
You can find more information about Fetâs work in school books on Russian literature, in which the lyrics of Afanasy Afanasevich are considered in detail.