"Air City" Athanasius Fet
Over there at dawn stretched
Whimsical chorus of clouds:
Everything seems to be roofs, but walls,
Yes, a number of golden domes.It's like my white city
My city is familiar, dear,
High up in the pink sky
Above the dark, sleeping earth.And this whole city is airy
Slowly drifting north...
There is someone beckoning behind him, -
Yes, it won't let you fly!
Analysis of Fet's poem "Air City"
Sensitive Fetov's hero is attentive to the "heavenly" component of the landscape painting. The shimmering moonlight gives the world around it a mysterious "dull silver" sheen. The high spring sun awakens a tender lily of the valley to life, and the low one illuminates the last dahlias, "merry, sad and immodest." The earth, obeying the "breath of the all-conquering spring", is open to the mysterious heavenly darkness. A sign of a bleak landscape is a gray, densely clouded space, on which "not a shred of azure".
The artistic text of 1846 is based on the subjective association of a lyrical hero. He likens the intricate contours of the evening clouds to the ideal world of the "white city". The poet, who is especially sensitive to the sound image of the world, has examples similar to the metaphorical construction “fancy choir”. In the work “On a Haystack at the Southern Night…”, a star panorama is called a “live and friendly” chorus. Both light clouds and bright stars act as attributes of a harmonious space, to which the soul of the lyrical subject rushes.
The contours of houses and roofs, church domes - the general appearance is characterized by white and pink colors interspersed with golden tones. The festive color scheme contrasts with the dark shades of the night nature. The artistic technique, involving the means of color painting, represents the original realization of the antithesis of the heavenly and the earthly.
The picture of an imaginary city is devoid of specific details, but the author declares a reverent attitude towards the fruit of his own imagination. It is expressed by the epithets "familiar, dear".
The opening lines of the final quatrain complement the image of the aerial landscape, giving it dynamism. Beautiful buildings are slowly moving away from the observer, smoothly heading north. The obscure call to follow the movement of the cloudy city finds an answer in the soul of the lyrical "I". The ending emphasizes the unfulfillment of the desires of an exalted contemplator.
The theme of fantastic structures created by clouds and light is developed in Balmont's lyrics. In the poem "", the view of the sunset sky gives rise to a symbolic image of a church filled with "ghostly rows" of pilgrims. Having made silent prayers, the invisible flock rushes to the earth. Heavenly messengers bring precious gifts, consecrated by the golden color of the Sun, which is identified with the divine principle.
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet
Over there at dawn stretched
Whimsical chorus of clouds:
Everything seems to be roofs, but walls,
Yes, a number of golden domes.
It's like my white city
My city is familiar, dear,
High up in the pink sky
Above the dark, sleeping earth.
And this whole city is airy
Slowly drifting north...
There is someone beckoning behind him, -
Yes, it won't let you fly!
Sensitive Fetov's hero is attentive to the "heavenly" component of the landscape painting. The shimmering moonlight gives the world around it a mysterious "dull silver" sheen. The high spring sun awakens the gentle lily of the valley to life, and the low one illuminates the last dahlias, “merry, sad and immodest.” The earth, obeying the "breath of the all-conquering spring", is open to the mysterious heavenly darkness. A sign of a bleak landscape is a gray, densely clouded space, on which "not a shred of azure".
The literary text of 1846 is based on the subjective association of a lyrical hero. He likens the intricate contours of the evening clouds to the ideal world of the "white city". The poet, who is especially sensitive to the sound image of the world, has examples similar to the metaphorical construction “fancy choir”. In the work “On a Haystack at the Southern Night…”, a star panorama is called a “live and friendly” chorus. Both light clouds and bright stars act as attributes of a harmonious space, to which the soul of the lyrical subject rushes.
The contours of houses and roofs, church domes - the general appearance is characterized by white and pink colors interspersed with golden tones. The festive color scheme contrasts with the dark shades of the night nature. The artistic technique, involving the means of color painting, represents the original realization of the antithesis of the heavenly and the earthly.
The picture of an imaginary city is devoid of specific details, but the author declares a reverent attitude towards the fruit of his own imagination. It is expressed by the epithets "familiar, dear".
The opening lines of the final quatrain complement the image of the aerial landscape, giving it dynamism. Beautiful buildings are slowly moving away from the observer, smoothly heading north. The obscure call to follow the movement of the cloudy city finds an answer in the soul of the lyrical "I". The ending emphasizes the unfulfillment of the desires of an exalted contemplator.
The theme of fantastic structures created by clouds and light is developed in Balmont's lyrics. In the poem "Air Temple", the view of the sunset sky gives rise to a symbolic image of a church filled with "ghostly rows" of pilgrims. Having made silent prayers, the invisible flock rushes to the earth. Heavenly messengers bring precious gifts, consecrated by the golden color of the Sun, which is identified with the divine principle.
Biography of Athanasius Fet
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet (Shenshin) was born on December 5 (November 23 according to the old style) in 1820 in the Novoselki estate near the city of Mtsensk, Oryol province (now the Mtsensk district of the Oryol region).
According to other sources, Fet's date of birth is November 10 (October 29, old style) or December 11 (November 29, old style), 1820.
The future poet was born into the family of a landowner, retired captain Athanasius Shenshin, who in 1820 allegedly married abroad according to the Lutheran rite with Charlotte Fet, the daughter of Ober-Kriegs Commissar Karl Becker, who bore the surname Fet after her first husband. This marriage had no legal force in Russia. Until the age of 14, the boy bore the surname Shenshin, and then was forced to take the surname of his mother, as it turned out that the Orthodox wedding of his parents was performed after the birth of the child.
This deprived Fet of all noble privileges.
Until the age of 14, the boy lived and studied at home, and then was sent to a German boarding school in Verro, Livonia province (now the city of Vyru in Estonia).
In 1837, Afanasy Fet arrived in Moscow, spent half a year in the boarding house of Professor Mikhail Pogodin and entered Moscow University, where he studied in 1838-1844, first at the law department, then at the verbal department.
In 1840, the first collection of poems was published under the title "Lyrical Pantheon", the author took refuge behind the initials A.F. From the end of 1841, Fet's poems regularly appeared on the pages of the Moskvityanin magazine published by Pogodin. Since 1842, Fet has been published in the liberal Western journal Otechestvennye Zapiski.
In order to obtain the title of nobility, Fet decided to enter the military service. In 1845 he was accepted into a cuirassier regiment; in 1853 he moved to the Lancers Guards Regiment; in the Crimean campaign was part of the troops guarding the Estonian coast; in 1858 he retired as a staff captain, having not served the nobility.
During the years of military service, Afanasy Fet was in love with a relative of his provincial acquaintances, Maria Lazich, who influenced all his work. In 1850, Lazich died in a fire. Researchers single out a special cycle of Fet's poems related to Lazich.
In 1850, the second collection of Fet's poems, entitled "Poems", was published in Moscow. In 1854, while in St. Petersburg, Afanasy Fet became close to the literary circle of the Sovremennik magazine - Nikolai Nekrasov, Ivan Turgenev, Alexander Druzhinin, Vasily Botkin, and others. His poems began to be published in the magazine. In 1856, a new collection of "Poems by A.A. Fet" was published, reprinted in 1863 in two volumes, and the second included translations.
In 1860, Fet bought the Stepanovka farm in the Mtsensk district of the Oryol province, took care of the household, and lived there all the time. In 1867-1877 he was a justice of the peace. In 1873, the surname Shenshin with all the rights associated with it was approved for Fet. In 1877, he sold Stepanovka, which he had arranged well, bought a house in Moscow and the picturesque Vorobyovka estate in the Shchigrovsky district of the Kursk province.
From 1862 to 1871, in the journals Russky Vestnik, Literary Library, and Zarya, Fet's essays were published under the editorial titles Notes on Volunteer Labor, From the Village, and On the Question of Hiring Workers.
In Stepanovka, Fet began work on the memoirs "My Memoirs", covering the period from 1848 to 1889, they were published in 1890 in two volumes, and the volume "The Early Years of My Life" was published after his death - in 1893.
A lot at this time, Fet was engaged in translations, completed mainly in the 1880s. Fet is known as a translator of Horace, Ovid, Goethe, Heine and other ancient and modern poets.
In 1883-1891, four issues of Fet's collection of poems "Evening Lights" were published. The fifth he did not sing to release. The poems intended for him were partially and in a different order included in the two-volume Lyric Poems (1894), published after his death, prepared by his admirers - the critic Nikolai Strakhov and the poet K.R. (Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov).
Fet's last years were marked by signs of external recognition. In 1884, for the complete translation of the works of Horace, he received the Pushkin Prize of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, in 1886, for the totality of his works, he was elected its corresponding member.
In 1888, Fet received the court rank of chamberlain, personally introduced himself to Emperor Alexander III.
Afanasy Fet died on December 3 (November 21, old style) 1892 in Moscow. The poet was buried in the village of Kleymenovo, the Shenshin family estate.
Afanasy Fet was married to the sister of the literary critic Vasily Botkin - Maria Botkina.
Afanasy Fet's poem "The Air City" is surprising and attractive. The name itself takes us to some other, unusual world. Indeed, the first lines of the work are written in such a way that it seems as if you yourself are watching the floating clouds with the lyrical hero.
And these are not just clouds, but a whole city, which the reader sees through the eyes of the author. There is no doubt that this beautifully arranged settlement with castles in the air is the bright dream of the hero, which he could not bring to life.
Air
The city is the hero's obsession with which he lives and raves. No wonder the author says that the city is familiar and dear to him - it turns out that this is not the first time the dreamer draws these buildings, these streets, intersections, squares and bridges for himself.
Just look at what a pure dream the poet has - a white city in a pink sky. And how he does not want to return to reality, to the sinful earth, painted in a dark color in the poem.
No less important is another point - the clouds are floating in the sky, and this is a demonstration of movement, life. The earth fell asleep, it is motionless. And this contrast, I think, emphasizes that the hero is uncomfortable
On earth, he lives a heavenly life, aspires to the Universe.
But the hero's dream is a fragile and fickle phenomenon, because the airy city floats away, leaving the hero of the poem with his problems and life's cataclysms on the same earth.
And, it would seem, the hero broke with his dream, which turned out to be so deceptive. But, on the other hand, this is a deeply philosophical work in which Fet draws a fine line, separating and uniting life, dreams and reality.
If at the beginning "Air City" is perceived by the reader as a lyrical landscape work, then the end of the verse makes you think, reflect, analyze.
By the way, these are almost all the works of the author, and therefore they should not be read on the run, not on the train or in line, but in seclusion in a calm atmosphere. And think, think, think... Only in this way can one understand the verses of this poet, only in this way can one be imbued with his thoughts and feelings.
