From analysis of the lyrics by A.A. Feta

By means of caesura, the pronoun “I” and a number of other key lexemes are highlighted in the text: yearn, tremble, long ago, night.

Features of the syntax: parallelism of the first and second lines, built according to the scheme: adverb + numeral + + adjective-definer + the noun it defines, acting as the subject. At the same time, both verses begin in the same way - such a stylistic figure as anaphora (unity of beginnings) is used: “One more...”, “One more...”.

Anaphora (union And) is also present in the next two verses, however, the syntactic pattern of these lines is different, partly mirrored in relation to each other: in the third verse there is a sequence verb-predicate in an indefinite form + personal pronoun-subject + + verb-linking (“to yearn<…>I<…>I will become"), while in the fourth this sequence is reversed: linking verb + personal pronoun - subject (“I will be”).

The first stanza is structured as one conditional complex sentence (“[If you say] One more forgettable word, / [or / if you utter] Another random half-sigh, / And [then, having heard them] my heart will begin to yearn again, / And [then , having heard them] I will again be at these feet”). Moreover, each of the simple sentences that make up a complex sentence is equal to one verse: four lines - four sentences.

The syntactic pattern of the second stanza is different. Here there are three sentences corresponding to four lines; the last of them (“And under the moon in life’s cemetery / Both the night and one’s own shadow are terrible”) is expanded into two verses. The seventh line is entirely occupied by secondary members of the sentence - two circumstances (“by the moon” and “in the cemetery”) with one definition (“life”). In metrical terms, the members of the sentence that make up this verse are equated with the main members of the sentence that form the eighth and last line. Thanks to this, the significance of both the metaphorical “night” landscape and the entire bleak ending is emphasized.

The distinctive features of rhyme are, firstly, the correlation of words with contrasting meanings (“day - shadow”) and, secondly, the emphasis on secondary members of the sentence - function words (adverb again, adjective in comparative form cleaner).

“How poor our language is! “I want to but I can’t...”

How poor is our language! - I want to but I can’t, -

This cannot be conveyed to either friend or enemy,

What rages in the chest like a transparent wave.

In vain is the eternal languor of hearts,

And the venerable sage bows his head

Before this fatal lie.

Only you, poet, have a winged sound

Grabs on the fly and fastens suddenly

And the dark delirium of the soul and the vague smell of herbs;

So, for the boundless, leaving the meager valley,

An eagle flies beyond the clouds of Jupiter,

Carrying an instant sheaf of lightning in faithful paws.

Text sources

The first publication was as part of Fet’s lifetime collection of poetry “Evening Lights”. Third edition of unpublished poems by A. Fet. M., 1888.

Place in the structure of lifetime collections

When published in the collection, the poem was placed as the eighth of the sixty-one texts that make up the book. The motive of poetry, the high purpose of the poet, expressed in this poem, is key and cross-cutting in the collection. The third issue of “Evening Lights” opens with the poem “Muse” (“You want to curse, sobbing and groaning...”), equipped with a programmatic epigraph from Pushkin’s “The Poet and the Crowd” and calling the purpose of poetry “high pleasure” and “healing from torment.” The seventh text that precedes the poem “How poor is our language! “I want and I can’t,” dedication “E”<го>And<мператорскому в<ысочеству>Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich,” the author of poetic works, as stated in the last lines of Fet, who mentions the laurel crown of the august recipient: “From under the crown of the sovereign family / The imperishable ivy turns green.” The collection is completed by two poems in memory of writers and critics - connoisseurs and adherents of “pure art”: “On the death of Alexander Vasilyevich Druzhinin on January 19, 1864” (1864) and “In memory of Vasily Petrovich Botkin on October 16, 1869” (1869). A.V. Druzhinin and V.P. Botkin, the authors of reviews of the collection in 1856, rated Feta-lyric very highly.

Composition. Motive structure

The poem consists of two stanzas - six lines, which use paired rhyme (the first two lines in one and the other stanzas, respectively) and ring, or encircling, rhyme (the third - sixth and fourth - fifth lines in one and the other stanza).

The poem opens with a saying about the poverty of language; the second half of the first line is an incomplete sentence in which the structure of the verbal predicate is destroyed (it should be: I want and cannot do something, a verb in an indefinite form is needed) and the necessary complement is missing (I want and cannot say something). This sentence structure at the syntactic level conveys the motive of the impossibility of expressing deep-seated experiences in words (“What rages in the chest like a transparent wave”).

In the three initial lines, the motif of the inexpressible is related to human language in general (“our language” is not Russian, but any language), including, at first glance, to the poet’s word, since the author speaks of his own inability to express deep meanings and feelings. In the three final verses of the first six-line, the impossibility of self-expression for any person is stated (“In vain is the eternal languor of hearts”), and then, somewhat unexpectedly, a “wise man” is mentioned, humbled (“bowing his head”) “before this fatal lie.” “Fatal lie” is a human word and the thought it tries in vain to express; the expression goes back to the maxim of F.I. Tyutchev from the poem “Silentium!” (“Silence!”, lat.): “How can the heart express itself? / How can someone else understand you”, “A thought expressed is a lie” [Tyutchev 2002–2003, vol. 1, p. 123].

The mention of the “sage” is perceived as strengthening the thought already expressed at the beginning of the stanza: no one, not even such a “sage,” is able to express himself.

However, in the second stanza, contrasted with the first, there is an unexpected change of emphasis: it turns out that there is only one being - a poet, capable of expressing hidden and vague experiences (“dark delirium of the soul”), and capturing the subtle beauty of being, flowing life (“the unclear smell of grass "). The poet is contrasted with the “sage”-philosopher: “Fet directly compares the mute sage with all his profundity and the poet who can express everything in the world in complete naivety” [Nikolsky 1912, p. 28].

This interpretation is dominant, but not the only one. N. V. Nedobrovo [Nedobrovo 2001, p. 208–209], and after him V. S. Fedina [Fedina 1915, p. 76] drew attention to the statement in the first stanza about the impossibility of any person (in their opinion, including the poet) to express the depths of his soul: “The eternal longing of hearts is in vain.” At first glance, its contrast is the statement in the second stanza about the poet’s gift. But both interpreters believe that through the particle only the “poverty” of the language of a philosopher or an ordinary person is not at all opposed to the “winged word sound” of a poet; the poet is also not able to express all the secrets of his soul. The meaning of the second stanza, from the point of view of Nedobrovo and Fedina, is different. The poet “grabs on the fly” the impression of being, and the eagle, compared with the poet, carries “in its faithful paws” an “instant”, capable of soon disappearing, but kept for divine eternity “behind the clouds” “a sheaf of lightning”. This means: the poet is able to stop a moment, preserve the transient, short-term (“dark delirium of the soul”, “unclear smell of herbs”, “sheaf of lightning”) in the world of eternity, “behind the clouds”.

Analysis of the poem - How poor our language is!..

When published in the collection, the poem was placed eighth of the sixty-one texts that make up the book. The motive of poetry, the high purpose of the poet, expressed in this poem, is key and cross-cutting in the collection. The third issue of “Evening Lights” opens with the poem “Muse” (“You want to curse, sobbing and groaning...”), equipped with a programmatic epigraph from Pushkin’s “The Poet and the Crowd” (“We were born for inspiration, For sweet sounds and prayers. Pushkin”) and calling the purpose of poetry “high pleasure” and “healing from torment.” The seventh text that precedes the poem “How poor is our language! “I want and I can’t,” a dedication “to E and Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich,” the author of poetic works, as stated in the last lines of Fet, who mentions the laurel crown of the august addressee: “From under the crown of the sovereign family / The imperishable ivy turns green.” The collection ends with two poems in memory of writers and critics - connoisseurs and adherents of “pure art”: “On the death of Alexander Vasilyevich Druzhinin on January 19, 1864” (1864) and “In memory of Vasily Petrovich Botkin on October 16, 1869” (1869). A.V. Druzhinin and V.P. Botkin, the authors of reviews of the collection in 1856, rated Feta-lyric very highly.

Composition. Motive structure

The poem consists of two stanzas - six lines, which use paired rhyming (the first two lines in one and the other stanzas, respectively) and a ring or encircling rhyme (the third - sixth and fourth - fifth lines in one and the other stanzas).

In the three initial lines, the motif of the inexpressible is related to human language in general (“our language” is not Russian, but any language), including, at first glance, to the poet’s word, since the author talks about his own inability to express deep meanings and feelings . In the three final verses of the first six-line, the impossibility of self-expression for any person is stated (“In vain is the eternal languor of hearts”), and then, somewhat unexpectedly, a “wise man” is mentioned, humbled (“bowing his head”) “before this fatal lie.” “Fatal lie” is a human word and the thought that it tries in vain to express; the expression goes back to the maxim of F.I. Tyutchev from the poem “Silentium!” (“Silence”, Latin): “How can the heart express itself? / How can someone else understand you,” “A spoken thought is a lie.”

The mention of the “sage” is perceived as strengthening the thought already expressed at the beginning of the stanza: no one, not even such a “sage,” is able to express himself.

However, in the second stanza, contrasted with the first, an unexpected change of emphasis occurs: it turns out that there is only one being - a poet, capable of expressing hidden and vague experiences (“dark delirium of the soul”), and capturing the subtle beauty of being, flowing life (“the unclear smell of grass ").

The wonderful property of poetry, according to Fet, lies, in particular, in the fact that it is able to convey olfactory sensations (“smell”) through “sound” (words). Indeed, there are such examples in Fet’s poetry; cf: “Oh, how it smelled like spring! / It’s probably you!” (“I’m waiting, overwhelmed with anxiety...”, 1886).

Fet associates grass with “soil”, the basis of being, with life itself: “That grass that is far away, on your grave, / Here, in your heart, the older it is, the fresher it is” (“Alter ego”, 1878 [“Second I.” – lat. – A. R.]). The smell of grass, including cut grass, along with the smell of water and the fragrance of roses, is a sign of life: “Fragrance flowed from the waves and herbs” (“On the Dnieper in the flood,” 1853), “the fragrance of the grass was stronger” (“I was again in your garden...", 1857), "The smell of roses under the balcony and hay around" ("azure looks at the mown meadow...", 1892).

The poet is contrasted with the “sage”-philosopher: “Fet directly compares the mute sage with all his profundity and the poet who can express everything in the world in complete naivety” (Nikolsky B.V. The main elements of Fet’s lyrics // Complete 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.. 28).

This interpretation is dominant, but not the only one. N. V. Nedobrovo (Nedobrovo N. Vremeborets (Fet) // Nedobrovo N. Sweet voice: Selected works / Comp., afterword and notes. M. Kralin. Tomsk, 2001. P. 208-209), and after him V.S. Fedina (Fedina V.S.A.A. Fet (Shenshin): Materials for the characteristics. Pg., 1915. P. 76) drew attention to the statement in the first stanza about the impossibility of any person (in their opinion, including the poet) to express the depths of his soul: “The eternal longing of hearts is in vain.” At first glance, its contrast is the statement in the second stanza about the poet’s gift. But both interpreters believe that through the particle “only” the “poverty” of the language of a philosopher or an ordinary person is not at all opposed to the “winged word sound” of a poet; the poet is also not able to express all the secrets of his soul. The meaning of the second stanza, from the point of view of N.V. Nedobrovo and V.S. Fedina, is different. The poet “grabs on the fly” the impression of being, and the eagle, compared with the poet, carries “in its faithful paws” an “instant”, capable of soon disappearing, but kept for divine eternity “behind the clouds” “a sheaf of lightning”. This means: the poet is able to stop a moment, preserve the transient, short-term (“dark delirium of the soul”, “unclear smell of herbs”, “sheaf of lightning”) in the world of eternity, “behind the clouds”.

This interpretation is interesting, but controversial. In this case, the clear contrast indicated by the particle “only” turns out to be unjustified: after all, it turns out that the second stanza contains not a contrasting, but a completely new thought in comparison with the first. In addition, the feeling raging in the chest that is spoken of in the first stanza is the same “dark delirium of the soul” that is spoken of in the second six-line.

Natural bewilderment: how then to explain the combination of the statement about the impossibility of any person, including the lyrical “I,” to express himself (“I want and cannot. – I can’t convey this to either friend or enemy...”) with the idea of the omnipotence of the poet’s word? In my opinion, in the first stanza the lyrical “I” is presented not as a poet, but as a speaker of “prosaic”, “ordinary language” - not his own, but common to people - “ours”. The “winged word sound”, poetic “sound speech” is completely different: it is precisely capable of conveying both the intimate and the fleeting.

The idea of the poet’s ability to “stop a moment” only accompanies the main idea of the poem.

The motive of the impossibility of expressing deep experiences goes back in Russian poetry to the idea of the inexpressibility of the highest states of the soul and the meaning of existence, clearly presented in the famous poem by V. A. Zhukovsky “The Inexpressible”: “What is our earthly language compared to wondrous nature?”; “Is the inexpressible subject to expression?”; “We want to give a name to the unnamed - / And art is exhausted and silent.”

It is generally accepted that the idea of the poem “The Inexpressible” was influenced by the writings of German romantics - F.W.J. Schelling, W. G. Wackenroder, L. Tieck;. However, perhaps the idea of the "Ineffable" is of pre-Romantic origin; according to V. E. Vatsuro, in V. A. Zhukovsky it goes back to the works of F. Schiller (Vatsuro V. E. Lyrics of Pushkin’s era: “Elegiac School”. St. Petersburg, 1994. pp. 65-66).

F.I. Tyutchev, although in a slightly different meaning, in the poem “Silentium!” this thought was repeated; in Tyutchev’s text it already has a distinct romantic character. “Following Zhukovsky and Tyutchev (with all the difference between their poetic declarations), Fet, already in his early poems, affirms the inexpressibility of God’s world and the inner world of man in the word” (Sobolev L.I. Fet’s life and poetry // Literature. 2004. No. 38; quoted from the electronic version: http://lit.1september.ru/2004/38/12).

The thought of the inexpressibility of experiences and thoughts in inert everyday words occupied Fet even in his youth. So, he wrote to his friend I. I. Vvedensky on December 22, 1840. “When I sit down to write to you, there is such a rush of the brightest thoughts, the warmest feelings that these waves are necessarily mixed, crushed against the clumsy stones of my prosaic eloquence , and sprinkle the paper with gray sand of nasty handwriting. I could tell you a lot, a lot, and these words are what he says:

While they penetrate your ears and your heart

They freeze in the air, they freeze in my mouth.”

As the publisher of the letter, G.P., wrote, “two verses from Mickiewicz are quoted by Fet in his own translation. The translation of the entire play (poem - A.R.) (“Oh dear maiden”) was published only thirty years later. Its main motive - the powerlessness of the word - so characteristic of old Fet, apparently worried him in his youth: in 1841, in another poem (“My friend, words are powerless”), he independently processed the topic raised by Mickiewicz” (Blok G. Birth poet: The Tale of Fet's Youth: Based on Unpublished Materials, Leningrad, 1924, pp. 71-72)[i].

However, if V. A. Zhukovsky spoke about the powerlessness of art, the word before the mystery and beauty of being (however, at the same time trying to resolve the insoluble, to express the inexpressible), and F. I. Tyutchev calls any thought, verbally formulated meaning “a lie,” then Fet asserts , that the poet is able to convey in words (“winged word sound”) everything – both what is happening in the depths of the soul and what exists in the world around.

But the motif of the inexpressible is presented in Fet’s poetry and in the traditional interpretation: “In my silent and stubborn verse / In vain I want to express / The impulse of my soul...” (untitled poem, 1842). In this example, it is very important that the failure of self-expression is associated with the “silence” of the verse: a subtle and deep meaning can be expressed only through sound or with its decisive participation. Other examples: “It is not us / Powerlessness has experienced words to express desires. / Silent torment has been felt by people for centuries, / But it’s our turn, and the series of trials will end / Not with us” (“In vain!”, 1852), “How the chest breathes freshly and capaciously - / No one’s words can express it!” (“Spring is Outside”, 1855), “I can’t find words for the song of my heart” (“Sonnet”, 1857), “But what’s burning in my chest - / I don’t know how to tell you. // This whole night at your feet / Will rise in the sounds of chants, / But the secret of happiness in this moment / I will take away without expression” (“How bright is the full moon...”, 1859 (?)), “And in the heart, like a captive bird , A wingless song languishes” (“Like the clarity of a cloudless night...”, 1862), “And what your gaze alone expresses, / That the poet cannot portray” (“Whose crown is the goddess of beauty...”, 1865), “It is not given to me floridity: not for me / Deliberate babble of connected words!” (“Look into my eyes even for a moment...”, 1890), “But the silence of exhausted beauty / There (in the land of fragrant flowers. - A.R.) leaves a stamp on everything” (“Behind the mountains, sands, seas...”, 1891).

According to E. Klenin, the psychological reason for Fet’s acute sense of the limited possibilities of words was bilingualism (bilingualism): Fet felt both Russian and German, which he was perfectly trained in at the German boarding school in the city of Verro (now Võru in Estonia), where he was assigned at the age of fourteen age (this idea is developed by the researcher in the book: Klenin E. The Poetics o

How poor is our language! “I want to but I can’t.”
This cannot be conveyed to either friend or enemy,
What rages in the chest like a transparent wave.
In vain is the eternal languor of hearts,
And the venerable sage bows his head
Before this fatal lie.

Only you, poet, have a winged sound
Grabs on the fly and fastens suddenly
And the dark delirium of the soul and the vague smell of herbs;
So, for the boundless, leaving the meager valley,
An eagle flies beyond the clouds of Jupiter,
Carrying an instant sheaf of lightning in faithful paws.

Analysis of the poem “How poor our language” by Fet

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet in his poem “How poor our language” in his declining years talks about the phenomenon of language, its capabilities, limits, insights.

The poem was written in the summer of 1887. Its author is 67 years old at this time, he is the owner of a prosperous estate, the author of several volumes of poems. By genre - elegy, by size - iambic hexameter with mixed (adjacent and ring) rhyme, 2 stanzas. The lyrical hero is the author himself. The composition is conventionally divided into 2 parts: in the first, the hero admits his powerlessness to express himself and his feelings through words and speech. In the second, he sings the praises of the skill of poets who are able to reflect the world and everything in it with one stroke and consonance. “Our language”: this means, of course, not just Russian, but human language in general. “I want and I can’t”: the understatement of this phrase illustrates the hero’s helplessness. Neither open your soul to a friend, nor parry an enemy’s attack. “A transparent wave in the chest”: a metaphysical, in some ways even amorphous, description of a person’s inner world. The efforts of the “sage” to educate people on certain issues, in the desire to convey his own philosophy in a harmonious and consistent form, are in vain.

“Fatal lie”: here is a echo of the famous line. “Only with you, poet”: it’s strange that the author – himself a pet of the Muses – is addressing some abstract “poet”. Perhaps A. Fet here bows down to those whom he considers geniuses. Compared to them, he is an apprentice. “Words are sound”: the hero believes that the poems are conducting a mysterious conversation with his heart. “Dark delirium of the soul”: under the pen of the master, the most elusive movements of the soul emerge from the shadows. The power of poetry for A. Fet extends to the ability to convey smells, colors and sounds. The work ends in a classical spirit with the obligatory ancient comparison: an eagle flies beyond the clouds of Jupiter. This bird is a typical companion of the Roman deity. “An instant sheaf of lightning”: the poet’s insight is a flash, a meteor on the horizon of everyday life. The poet himself sometimes cannot explain it. He transmits images and symbols to humanity, discovers new things, revives forgotten concepts and dreams from the ashes. A. Fet represents the poet as a kind of winged demiurge, who left the earthly “meager valley” “for the boundless.” The vocabulary is sublime. Epithets: eternal, venerable, unclear, faithful. Metaphor: head before a lie, raging in the chest. Inversion: fatal lie. Personification: the sound is enough on the fly.

Since his youth, devoted to the romantic worldview, A. Fet in his work “How poor our language” speaks of the high purpose of the poet.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet

Afanasy Fet

Afanasy Fet went down in the history of Russian literature as an unsurpassed lyricist and master of landscape. His early poems became textbooks due to their lightness, grace and amazingly beautiful images so masterfully created by this poet. However, Fet's later works lack the grace and purity for which his earlier poems are famous. There are several reasons for such metamorphoses, and one of them lies in the personal drama of the poet, who consciously abandoned love for the sake of financial well-being, which he later regretted for the rest of his life. Based on some indirect signs, it can be argued that Fet’s internal dissatisfaction gradually drove him crazy. Therefore, it is not surprising that from year to year after the poet broke up with Maria Lazic, and then learned that she had died, his poems became darker and more hopeless, acquiring not only a characteristic “heaviness”, but also a shade of philosophical reflection.

In 1887, Fet published the poem “How poor our language is!...”, in which he lifts the veil of secrecy over his own work. The poet realizes that he can no longer, as before, easily handle words, creating with their help surprisingly bright and exciting images. He notes that he is not able to “convey to either friend or enemy what is raging in his chest like a transparent wave.” This depresses the poet so much that he considers every written phrase a “fatal lie,” but at the same time he does not know how to appease the “eternal languor of hearts.” In this case, we are talking about the very process of creating poetry, the stimulus for which is inspiration. But at the same time, Fet realizes that he personally no longer has enough of those feelings and emotions that can awaken the soul from slumber, in order to convey his feelings as accurately as possible. It turns out to be a vicious circle from which the author sees no way out, counting only on the fact that one day a miracle will happen, and the “winged word sound” will be able to convey “the dark delirium of the soul and the unclear smell of herbs.”

Fet compares his creativity itself to a sheaf of lightning that an eagle carries “in its faithful paws.” The author openly admits that poetry has a certain mystical component, thanks to which poems leave an indelible mark on a person’s soul. But at the same time, Fet does not want to come to terms with the idea that talent and inspiration are fickle concepts, which at certain periods of life can manifest themselves with particular force, and later disappear due to the fact that a person makes mistakes or unseemly acts. It is possible that the deal with conscience that the poet made in his youth in order to restore his social status became the reason for the loss of the brilliance and lightness that were originally inherent in Fet’s poems. However, the poet blames not himself for this, but the Russian language, considering it poor and unsuitable for poetry. Such a misconception not only sends the author down the wrong path, but also has a very negative impact on Fet’s work. The poet himself extremely rarely pays attention to the objects and phenomena that surround him, immersed in the world of illusions and memories. It is for this reason that the poems of this author’s later period can no longer boast of that amazing imagery, thanks to which the poet was able to convey colors and smells. Only occasionally do romantic lines appear from Fet’s pen, in the same vein. These are echoes of past love, which over time flares up with renewed vigor in the poet’s soul, but instead of joy it causes him great pain, since he is unable to return the past. And this hopelessness is reflected in the works of the poet, who understands that he did not live his life at all as he dreamed.

1.1.3. Compare the description of the steppe in the above fragment with the image of nature in A. P. Chekhov’s story “The Steppe”. How are the landscapes similar?

1.2.3. Compare the poem by V. A. Zhukovsky “The Inexpressible” with the poem below by A. A. Fet “How poor is our language! “I want to but I can’t...” What conclusions did this comparison lead you to?

Read the fragments of the works below and complete task 1.1.3.

The further the steppe went, the more beautiful it became. Then the entire south, all that space that makes up present-day Novorossiya, right up to the Black Sea, was a green, virgin desert. Never has a plow passed through immeasurable waves of wild plants. Only the horses, hiding in them, as in a forest, trampled them. Nothing in nature could be better than them. The entire surface of the earth seemed like a green-golden ocean, over which millions of different colors splashed. Blue, blue and purple hairs showed through the thin, tall stems of grass; yellow gorse jumped up with its pyramidal top; white porridge dotted the surface with umbrella-shaped caps; the ear of wheat brought in from God knows where was pouring into the thicket.

Partridges darted under their thin roots, stretching out their necks. The air was filled with a thousand different bird whistles. Hawks stood motionless in the sky, spreading their wings and motionlessly fixing their eyes on the grass. The cry of a cloud of wild geese moving to the side was heard in God knows what distant lake. A seagull rose from the grass with measured strokes and bathed luxuriously in the blue waves of air. There she has disappeared in the heights and only flickers like a single black dot. There she turned her wings and flashed in front of the sun. Damn you, steppes, how good you are!

Our travelers only stopped for a few minutes for lunch, and the detachment of ten Cossacks traveling with them dismounted from their horses, untied wooden eggplants with a burner and pumpkins used instead of vessels. They ate only bread with lard or shortcakes, drank only one glass at a time, solely for refreshment, because Taras Bulba never allowed people to get drunk on the road, and continued on their way until the evening. In the evening the whole steppe changed completely. Its entire motley space was covered by the last bright reflection of the sun and gradually darkened, so that one could see how the shadow ran across it, and it became dark green; the vapors rose thicker, every flower, every herb gave off ambergris, and the whole steppe was smoking with incense. Wide stripes of rose gold were painted across the blue-dark sky, as if with a gigantic brush; From time to time, light and transparent clouds appeared in white tufts, and the freshest, seductive, like sea waves, breeze barely swayed across the tops of the grass and barely touched the cheeks. All the music that filled the day died down and was replaced by something else. The colorful gully creatures crawled out of their holes, stood on their hind legs and filled the steppe with their whistles. The chattering of the grasshoppers became more audible. Sometimes the cry of a swan was heard from some secluded lake and echoed in the air like silver. The travelers, stopping among the fields, chose a place to stay for the night, laid out a fire and placed a cauldron on it, in which they cooked ku-lish for themselves; the steam separated and smoked indirectly in the air. Having had dinner, the Cossacks went to bed, letting their tangled horses run across the grass. They were spread out on scrolls. The night stars looked directly at them. They heard with their ears the whole countless world of insects that filled the grass, all their crackling, whistling, cracking; all this resounded loudly in the middle of the night, was cleared in the fresh night air and reached the ear harmoniously. If one of them got up and stood up for a while, then the steppe seemed to him dotted with brilliant sparks of glowing worms. Sometimes the night sky in different places was illuminated by a distant glow from dry reeds burned across meadows and rivers, and a dark line of swans flying to the north was suddenly illuminated by a silver-pink light, and then it seemed as if red scarves were flying across the dark sky.

The travelers traveled without any incidents. Nowhere did they come across trees, the same endless, free, beautiful steppe. At times, only to the side were the blue tops of the distant forest stretching along the banks of the Dnieper. Only once did Taras point out to his sons a small blackened point in the distant grass, saying: “Look, children, there’s a Tatar galloping!” A small head with a mustache stared straight at them from a distance with its narrow eyes, sniffed the air like a hound dog, and, like a chamois, disappeared when it saw that there were thirteen Cossacks. “Come on, children, try to catch up with the Tatar!.. and don’t try - you’ll never catch him: his horse is faster than my Devil.” However, Bulba took precautions, fearing an ambush hidden somewhere. They galloped to a small river called Tatarka, which flows into the Dnieper, rushed into the water with their horses and swam along it for a long time to hide their trace, and then, having climbed ashore, they continued on their way.

N.V. Gogol “Taras Bulba”

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Meanwhile, before the eyes of those traveling, a wide, endless plain, intercepted by a chain of hills, spread out. Crowded and peeking out from behind each other, these hills merge into a hill that stretches to the right of the road to the very horizon and disappears into the purple distance; you drive and drive and you can’t figure out where it begins and where it ends... The sun had already peeked out from behind the city and quietly, without any fuss, it began its work. First, far ahead, where the sky meets the earth, near the mounds and the windmill, which from afar looks like a little man waving his arms, a wide bright yellow stripe crawled along the ground; a minute later, the same stripe appeared a little closer, crawled to the right and enveloped the hills; something warm touched Yegorushka’s back, a stripe of light, creeping up from behind, dashed through the chaise and horses, rushed towards other stripes, and suddenly the entire wide steppe threw off the morning penumbra, smiled and sparkled with dew.

Compressed rye, weeds, milkweed, wild hemp - everything, browned from the heat, red and half-dead, now washed with dew and caressed by the sun, came to life to bloom again. Old men rushed over the road shouting cheerfully, gophers called to each other in the grass, and somewhere far to the left lapwings cried. A flock of partridges, frightened by the chaise, fluttered up and flew towards the hills with their soft “trrr”. Grasshoppers, crickets, violinists and mole crickets began to sing their creaky, monotonous music in the grass.

But a little time passed, the dew evaporated, the air froze, and the deceived steppe took on its dull July appearance. The grass drooped, life froze. The tanned hills, brown-green, purple in the distance, with their calm, shadow-like tones, the plain with a foggy distance and the sky overturned above them, which in the steppe, where there are no forests and high mountains, seems terribly deep and transparent, now seemed endless, numb with melancholy...

How stuffy and dull! The chaise is running, but Yegorushka sees everything the same - the sky, the plain, the hills... The music in the grass has died down. The old men have flown away, the partridges are not visible. Over the faded grass, with nothing to do, rooks rush; they all look alike and make the steppe even more monotonous.

A kite flies just above the ground, smoothly flapping its wings, and suddenly stops in the air, as if thinking about the boredom of life, then shakes its wings and rushes like an arrow over the steppe, and it is not clear why it flies and what it needs. And in the distance the mill flaps its wings...

For a change, a white skull or cobblestone will flash among the weeds; a gray stone woman or a dried willow with a blue raksha on the top branch will grow for a moment, a gopher will cross the road, and - again weeds, hills, rooks will run past your eyes...

Read the work below and complete task 1.2.3.

Unspeakable

What is our earthly language compared to wondrous nature?

With what careless and easy freedom

She scattered beauty everywhere

And diversity agreed with unity!

But where, what brush painted it?

Barely one of her features

With effort you will be able to catch inspiration...

But is it possible to transfer living things to the dead?

Who could recreate a creation in words?

Is the inexpressible subject to expression?..

Holy sacraments, only the heart knows you.

Is it not often at the majestic hour

Evening land of transformation -

When the troubled soul is full

By the prophecy of a great vision

And carried away into the boundless, -

A painful feeling lingers in my chest,

We want to keep the beautiful in flight,

We want to give a name to the unnamed -

And art is silent and exhausted?

What is visible to the eye is this flame of clouds,

Flying across the quiet sky,

This trembling of shining waters,

These pictures of the shores

In the fire of a magnificent sunset -

These are such striking features -

They are easily caught by the winged thought,

And there are words for their brilliant beauty.

But what is fused with this brilliant beauty,

This is so vague, disturbing us,

This one listened to by one soul

Enchanting voice

This is for a distant aspiration,

This past hello

(Like a sudden blow

From the meadow of the homeland, where there was once a flower,

Holy youth, where hope lived),

This memory whispered to the soul

About sweet joyful and sorrowful times of old,

This shrine descending from on high,

This presence of the Creator in creation -

What is their language?.. The soul flies with grief,

Everything immensity is crowded into a single sigh,

And only silence speaks clearly.

V. A. Zhukovsky

***

How poor is our language! -

I want to and I can’t. -

This cannot be conveyed to either friend or enemy,

What rages in the chest like a transparent wave.

In vain is the eternal languor of hearts,

And the venerable sage bows his head

Before this fatal lie.

And the dark delirium of the soul, and the unclear smell of herbs;

So, for the boundless, leaving the meager valley,

An eagle flies beyond the clouds of Jupiter,

Carrying an instant sheaf of lightning in faithful paws.

A. Fet

Explanation.

1.1.3. There are several excellent descriptions of the Russian steppe in Russian literature. This, of course, is the steppe of Gogol (“Taras Bulba”), the steppe of Turgenev (“Forest and Steppe” in “Notes of a Hunter”) and the steppe of Chekhov.

In both Gogol and Chekhov, the steppe is animated, likened to a living person, a whole world that exists according to its own laws, and represents an ideal image of harmony, contrasted with the world of people. The Gogol steppe is bright. The passage is replete with adjectives of color: green, green-gold, blue, black. And there are millions of flowers! This is where the riot of colors is! There are more verbs and more action in Chekhov's description. Both Gogol and Chekhov give a large place to birds in the description of the steppe. They are the closest inhabitants of the steppe to humans. And it is they who remind both heroes and readers of the desire for freedom, development, and the fullness of a wonderful life.

1.2.3. In the poem “The Inexpressible,” Zhukovsky himself defined the originality of his work: the subject of his poetry was not the depiction of visible phenomena, but the expression of fleeting, elusive experiences. It is very difficult to do this; you need to find words for everything you feel, see, and live. The same thought is heard in Fet’s poem “How poor our language is...”:

Only you, poet, have a winged sound

Grabs on the fly and fastens suddenly

And the dark delirium of the soul, and the unclear smell of herbs...