Whisper, timid breath,
trill nightingale,
Silver and flutter
Sleepy stream.
Night light, night shadows,
Shadows without end
A series of magical changes
sweet face,
In smoky clouds purple roses,
reflection of amber,
And kisses, and tears,
And dawn, dawn!..
Analysis of the poem "Whisper, timid breathing" by Fet
A. Fet is rightfully considered one of the best representatives of the romantic school. His works are "art for art's sake". A distinctive feature of Fet's work was an amazing combination of landscape and love lyrics. The poem "Whisper, timid breathing" (1850) is one of the best creations of the lyric poet. It is dedicated to the tragically deceased first beloved of the poet - M. Lazich.
The publication of the poem caused a lot of criticism. Many reproached the poet for being completely out of touch with reality and pointlessness. Fet was blamed for the lightness and airiness of the images. Some critics argued that excessive eroticism was hidden behind vague images. The most unfair were the statements that the poem was just a technically weak trifle, worthy only of a mediocre rhymer. Time has shown that a huge poetic talent was hidden behind the apparent simplicity.
The original feature of the work is that the author does not use a single verb. Even epithets do not play a big role, they only emphasize the characteristic properties of objects and phenomena: “timid”, “night”, “smoky”. The main effect is achieved by a special combination of nouns. Their diversity makes the poem dynamic and figurative. "Human" concepts ("breath", "tears") are intertwined with natural ones, creating a feeling of inextricable connection. It is impossible to draw a line between them. Love relationships are woven into the world. The feeling of passion dissolves in the surrounding colors and sounds. Morning changes in nature are immediately reflected in a person in the form of "changes in a sweet face."
The poem consists of one continuous sentence. This compensates for the lack of verbs and increases dynamics. In general, the work is a combination of sounds, visual images and sensory experiences. The author gives the reader only the general outline of the picture, the missing details must be completed by the imagination. This opens up endless possibilities for a flight of fancy. The culmination of the work is the approaching dawn, symbolizing the highest point of love passion.
Whisper, timid breath,
trill nightingale,
Silver and flutter
sleepy stream,
Night light, night shadows,
Shadows without end
A series of magical changes
sweet face,
In smoky clouds purple roses,
reflection of amber,
And kisses, and tears,
And dawn, dawn!..
Reviews of critics about Fet's poetry
This famous poem by Fet appeared for the first time in the 2nd issue of the Moskvityanin magazine for 1850. But in this early edition, the first line looked like this:
Whisper of the heart, breath of the mouth.
And the eighth and ninth lines read:
The pale glitter and purple of a rose,
Speech is not speaking.
The poem is in a new edition, reflecting the corrections proposed by I.S. Turgenev, was included in Fet's lifetime collections of poetry: Poems by A.A. Feta. SPb., 1856; Poems by A.A. Feta. 2 parts. M., 1863. Part 1.
Fet's first published poems were noted by critics as a whole positively, although recognition did not exclude indications of weaknesses and shortcomings. V.G. Belinsky admitted that "of all the poets living in Moscow, Mr. Fet is the most gifted"; in the review "Russian Literature in 1843" he noted "the rather numerous poems of Mr. Fet, among which there are truly poetic ones." But in a letter to V.P. Botkin dated February 6, 1843, this assessment was clarified and tightened, as Fet's shortcoming was called the poverty of content: "I say:" It's good, but how not ashamed to waste time and ink on such nonsense? "And three years earlier, 26 December 1840, also in a letter to V.P. Botkin V.G. Belinsky admitted: "Mr. F<ет>promises a lot."
B.N. Almazov, evaluating the poem "Wait for a clear day tomorrow ...", reproached Fet for the "uncertainty of the content", which in this work is "carried to the extreme" (Moskvityanin. 1854. Vol. 6. No. 21. Book 1. Journalism. S. 41).
The appearance of Fet was welcomed by the admirer of "pure art" V.P. Botkin: "<…>a poet appears with imperturbable clarity in his eyes, with the gentle soul of a baby who, by some miracle, passed between the warring passions and convictions, untouched by them, and carried his bright outlook on life intact, retained a sense of eternal beauty, if this is not rare, not an exceptional phenomenon in our time?" (article "Poems by A.A. Fet", 1857).
However, he also wrote that “for the vast majority of readers, Mr. Fet’s talent is far from having the same significance that he enjoys among writers. Connoisseurs of his talent consist, one might say, of the few lovers of poetry<…>"[Botkin 2003, p. 302].
He noted that “sometimes Mr. Fet himself is unable to control his inner, poetic impulse, expresses it unsuccessfully, darkly<…>". He pointed to the thematic limitations of Fet's lyrics. Fet has two themes. The first is love, and it is interpreted one-sidedly: "Of all the complex and diverse aspects of the inner human life in the soul of Mr. Fet, only love finds a response, and then for the most part in the form sensory sensation, that is, in its very, so to speak, primitive naive manifestation." The second is nature: "G. Fet is primarily a poet of the impressions of nature.<…>He captures not the plastic reality of the object, but its ideal, melodic reflection in our feeling, namely its beauty, that bright, airy reflection in which its form, essence, color and aroma miraculously merge. And "Whisper, timid breath ..." the critic refers to the "poetry of sensations".
The critic recognized anthological poems as the highest manifestation of Fet's talent - works written on antique motifs and distinguished by an emphasis on plasticity - for Fet, after all, they are not distinctive.
A.V. Druzhinin, as well as V.P. Botkin, who professed the principles of "pure art" and welcomed Fet's poetry, disapprovingly noted that "the poems of Mr. Fet, in their desperate confusion and darkness, surpass almost everything ever written in the Russian dialect."
According to the fair thought of L.M. Rosenblum, "Fet's phenomenon lies in the fact that the very nature of his artistic gift most fully corresponded to the principles of "pure art"" (Rosenblum L.M. A.A. Fet and the aesthetics of "pure art" // Questions of Literature. 2003. No. 2 Quoted from the electronic version: http://magazines.russ.ru/voplit/2003/2/ros.html). This cardinal property made his poetry unacceptable to most of his contemporaries, for whom burning social issues were incommensurably more important than the veneration of beauty and love. V.S. Soloviev defined the poetry of Fet in the article "On lyric poetry. Concerning the last poems of Fet and Polonsky" (1890) "<…>The eternal beauty of nature and the infinite power of love are the main content of pure lyrics.
And Fet not only wrote "unprincipled" poems, he frankly, teasingly declared his artistic position: "... Questions: about the rights of citizenship of poetry between other human activities, about its moral significance, about modernity in this era, etc. I consider nightmares, from whom he got rid of for a long time and forever "(article" On the poems of F. Tyutchev ", 1859). In the same article, he stated: "... Only one side of objects is dear to an artist: their beauty, just like their shape or number is dear to a mathematician."
The talent of the poet as such was nevertheless recognized by critics of the radical democratic trend - opponents of "pure art". N.G. Chernyshevsky staged Fet immediately after N.A. Nekrasov, considering him the second of the contemporary poets.
However, in the circle of writers of Sovremennik, which included N.G. Chernyshevsky, the opinion was established about the primitivism of the content of Fet's lyrics, and about their author as a person of a small mind. This is the opinion of N.G. Chernyshevsky expressed in a late, sharp, obscene remark (in a letter to his sons A.M. and M.N. Chernyshevsky, attached to a letter to his wife dated March 8, 1878) about Fet's poems; as a classically "idiotic" poem, it was called "Whisper, timid breathing ...": "<…>All of them are of such content that a horse could write them if it learned to write poetry - it is always only about impressions and desires that exist in horses, as in humans. I knew Fet. He is a positive idiot: an idiot, of which there are few in the world. But with poetic talent. And he wrote that piece without verbs as a serious thing. As long as Fet was remembered, everyone knew this marvelous play, and when someone began to recite it, everyone, although they knew it by heart themselves, began to laugh until pain in their sides: she was so smart that her effect always remained, like news, amazing.
These notions (characteristic by no means only of writers of a radical persuasion, but also of the quite "moderate" I.S. Turgenev) caused numerous parodies of Fetov's poems. The largest number of parodic "arrows" was directed at "Whisper, timid, breathing ...": "emptiness" (love, nature - and no civil idea, no thought) of the work, the banality of individual images (the nightingale and its trills, the stream), pretentiously beautiful metaphors ("shine of a rose", "purple of amber") irritated, and a rare verbless syntactic construction made the text the most memorable of the poet.
The poem, "having been published on the threshold of the 1850s,<…>became firmly established in the minds of contemporaries as the most "Fetov" from all points of view, as the quintessence of individual Fetov's style, giving rise to both delight and bewilderment.
Disapproval in this poem was caused primarily by the "insignificance", the narrowness of the topic chosen by the author<...>. In close connection with this feature of the poem, its expressive side was also perceived - a simple enumeration of the poet's impressions, separated by commas, too personal, insignificant in nature. Deliberately simple and at the same time insolently non-standard form of the fragment could be regarded as a challenge" (Sukhova N.P. Lyric Afanasy Fet. M., 2000. P. 71).
According to M.L. Gasparov, this poem annoyed the readers first of all by the "discontinuity of images" (Gasparov M.L. Selected Articles. M., 1995. P. 297).
Parodists. ON THE. Dobrolyubov and D.D. Minaev
One of the first "Whispers, timid breathing ..." joked N.A. Dobrolyubov in 1860 under the parodic guise of the "young talent" of Apollon Kapelkin, who allegedly wrote these poems at the age of twelve and was almost flogged by his father for such indecency:
THE FIRST LOVE
Evening. In a cozy room
meek demi-light
And she, my minute guest ...
Caresses and hello;
outline of a small head,
Passionate eyes shine,
Dissolvable lacing
Convulsive crack…
The heat and cold of impatience...
Dropped cover...
The sound of a quick fall
On the floor of shoes ...
sweet hugs,
Kiss (so! - A.R.) dumb, -
And standing over the bed
Golden month...
The parodist retained his "non-verbal" nature, but unlike Fetov's text, his poem is perceived not as one "big" sentence, consisting of a series of nominal sentences, but as a sequence of a number of independent nominal sentences. Fetov's sensuality, passion under the pen of the "mockingbird" turned into an indecent naturalistic, "semi-pornographic scene." The fusion of the world of lovers and nature was completely lost. The word "kiss" in its common pronunciation by Dobrolyubov opposes Fet's poeticism - the archaism of "kiss".
Three years later, the same poem was attacked by another writer of the radical camp - D.D. Minaeva (1863). "Whisper, timid breathing ..." was parodied by him in the fourth and fifth poems from the cycle "Lyrical songs with a civil ebb (dedicated to<ается>A. Fetu)":
Cold, dirty villages,
Puddles and fog
castle destruction,
The speech of the villagers.
There is no bow from the courtyards,
sideways hats,
And worker Seeds
Cunning and laziness.
Other people's geese in the fields
The insolence of the caterpillars, -
Shame, the death of Russia,
And debauchery, debauchery!
The sun was hidden in the fog.
There, in the silence of the valleys,
Sleep sweetly my peasants -
I don't sleep alone.
Summer evening is fading
There are lights in the huts,
The May air is getting colder -
Sleep, men!
This fragrant night
Without closing your eyes
I came up with a legal penalty
Impose on you.
If suddenly someone else's herd
Wanders to me
You will have to pay a fine...
Sleep in silence!
If I meet a goose in the field,
That (and I'll be right)
I will turn to the law
And I'll take a fine from you;
I will be with every cow
Take quarters.
To guard your good
Stop, guys...
Minaev's parodies are more complicated than Dobrolyubov's. If on. Dobrolyubov ridiculed the aestheticization of the erotic and the "emptiness" of Feta-lyric, then D.D. Minaev attacked Fet - a conservative publicist - the author of "Notes on Free Labor" (1862) and essays "From the Village" (1863, 1864, 1868, 1871).
Semyon is a negligent worker on the Fet farm, who was complained about by other civilian workers; he skipped working days and returned the deposit taken from Fet and not worked out only under pressure from the conciliator (essays "From the Village", 1863. - Fet A.A. Stepanovka's Life, or Lyrical Economy / Introductory article, preparation of text and commentary V. A. Kosheleva and S. V. Smirnova, Moscow, 2001, pp. 133-134. Here is also chapter IV "Geese with caterpillars", which tells about six geese with a "row of caterpillars" that climbed into Fet's young wheat crops and spoiled the greenery; these goslings belonged to the owners of local inns. Fet ordered the birds to be arrested and requested a fine from the owners, contenting himself with money only for adult geese and limiting himself to 10 kopecks for one goose instead of the prescribed twenty; in the end he accepted sixty eggs instead of money (Ibid., pp. 140-142).
Fet's thoughts about the worker Semyon and about the episode with the geese that poisoned Fet's crops also evoked an angry response from M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in the review from the cycle "Our Public Life", a sharp review by D.I. Pisarev. The ill-fated geese and the worker Semyon were commemorated by D.D. Minaev and in other parodies of the cycle.
Fetov's essays were perceived by a significant part of the Russian educated society as works of a mossy retrograde. Accusations of serfdom rained down on the author. In particular, M.E. wrote about this in the essays "Our Public Life". Saltykov-Shchedrin, who sarcastically remarked about Fet, a poet and publicist: "<…>In his spare time he partly writes romances, partly misanthropes, first he writes a romance, then he hates people, then he writes a romance again and again he hates people.
In a similar way, another radical writer, D.I. Pisarev in 1864: "<…>a poet can be sincere either in the full grandeur of a reasonable outlook, or in the complete limitation of thoughts, knowledge, feelings and aspirations. In the first case, he is Shakespeare, Dante, Byron, Goethe, Heine. In the second case, he is Mr. Fet. - In the first case, he carries the thoughts and sorrows of the entire modern world. In the second, he sings in a thin fistula about fragrant ringlets and, in an even more touching voice, complains in print about the worker Semyon.<…>The worker Semyon is a wonderful person. He will certainly go down in the history of Russian literature, because it was appointed by Providence to show us the reverse side of the medal in the most ardent representative of languid lyrics. Thanks to the worker Semyon, we saw in the gentle poet, fluttering from flower to flower, a prudent owner, a respectable bourgeois (bourgeois. - A.R.) and a petty person. Then we thought about this fact and quickly became convinced that there was nothing accidental. Such must certainly be the underside of every poet who sings of "a whisper, a timid breath, a nightingale's trills."
The accusation and mocking remarks about the lack of content and poorly developed consciousness in Fet's poetry were constant in radical democratic criticism; so, D.I. Pisarev mentioned the "pointless and aimless cooing" of the poet and noticed Fet and two other poets - L.A. Mee and Ya.P. Polonsky: "Who wants to arm themselves with patience and a microscope in order to follow through a few dozen poems how Mr. Fet, or Mr. Mei, or Mr. Polonsky love their beloved?"
The aged poet-"denunciator" P.V. Schumacher in satirical verses on the celebration of the anniversary of Fetov's poetic activity recalled, although inaccurately: "I took away the goose from Maxim." The liberal and radical press remembered the ill-fated geese for a long time. As the writer P.P. Pertsov, without a reminder of them, "obituaries of the great lyric poet, sometimes even in prominent organs, could not do" (Pertsov 1933 - P.P. Pertsov. Literary memoirs. 1890-1902 / Foreword by B.F. Porshnev. M .; L., 1933 pp. 107).
Fet's assessment as a serf-owner and a hard-hearted owner, who takes away the last pennies of labor from the unfortunate peasant workers, had nothing to do with reality: Fet defended the importance of free hired labor, he used the labor of hired workers, and not serfs, about which he wrote in essays. The owners of the goslings were wealthy innkeepers, and by no means exhausted half-impoverished cultivators; the writer did not self-govern in relation to workers, but pursued dishonesty, laziness and deceit on the part of such as the notorious Semyon, and often unsuccessfully.
As L.M. Rosenblum, "Fet's journalism<…>does not in the least indicate sadness for the bygone serf era" (Rosenblum L.M. A.A. Fet and the aesthetics of "pure art" // Questions of Literature. 2003. No. 2. Quoted from the electronic version: http://magazines .russ.ru/voplit/2003/2/ros.html).
However, we can talk about something else - about Fet's wary attitude towards the consequences of the abolition of serfdom (in which he agrees with Count L.N. Tolstoy, the author of "Anna Karenina"); As for Fet’s ideological views, they became more and more conservative during the post-reform period (among later examples is a letter to K.N. Leontiev dated July 22, 1891 supporting the idea of a monument to the ultra-conservative publicist M.N. assessment of the "snake hissing of imaginary liberals" (Letters from A.A. Fet to S.A. Petrovsky and K.N. Leontiev / Preparing the text, publication, introductory note and note by V.N. Abrosimova // Philologica. 1996. T 3. No. 5/7 Electronic version: http://www.rub.ru.philologica, p. 297).
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“Whisper, timid breathing…” Afanasy Fet
A whisper, a timid breath. Trills of the nightingale, Silver and the ripple of the Sleepy stream. Light of the night, shadows of the night, Shadows without end, A series of magical changes of a sweet face, In smoky clouds the purple of a rose, A reflection of amber, And kisses, and tears, And dawn, dawn! ..
Analysis of Fet's poem "Whisper, timid breathing ..."
Afanasy Fet is rightfully considered one of the most romantic Russian poets. Although the author never identified himself with this literary movement, his works are imbued with the spirit of romanticism. The basis of Fet's work is landscape lyrics. Moreover, in some works it is organically intertwined with love. This is not surprising, since the poet was a staunch supporter of the theory of the unity of man with nature. In his opinion, a person is an integral part of him, as a son is a product of his father. Therefore, it is impossible not to love nature, and this feeling in Fet is sometimes expressed in poetry much more strongly than love for a woman.
The poem "Whisper, timid breath ...", written in 1850, is a vivid example of this. If in his earlier works Fet admired the beauty of a woman, considering her the center of the universe, then the lyrics of a mature poet are characterized, first of all, by admiration for nature - the progenitor of all life on earth. The poem begins with refined and refined lines that describe the early morning. More precisely, that short period when night is replaced by day, and this transition takes a few minutes, separating light from darkness. The first harbinger of the approaching dawn is the nightingale, whose trills are heard through the whisper and timid breath of the night, “silver and the swaying of a sleepy stream”, as well as the amazing play of shadows that create bizarre patterns, as if weaving an invisible web of predictions for the coming day.
The pre-dawn twilight not only transforms the world around it, but is also the reason for the “magical changes in a sweet face”, on which, after a few moments, the rays of the morning sun will sparkle. But before this delightful moment has come, there is time to indulge in love joys that leave tears of admiration on the face, mixing with purple and amber reflections of dawn.
A feature of the poem "Whisper, timid breathing ..." is that it does not contain a single verb. All actions remain, as it were, behind the scenes, and nouns allow you to give each phrase an unusual rhythm, measured and unhurried. At the same time, each stanza is a completed action that states what has already happened. This allows you to create the effect of presence and gives a special liveliness to the poetic picture of an early summer morning, makes the imagination work, which vividly “paints” the missing details.
Despite the fact that the poem "Whisper, timid breathing ..." is a classic of Russian literature, after its publication a flurry of negative reviews hit Afanasy Fet. The author was blamed for the fact that this work is pointless. And the fact that it lacks specifics, and readers have to guess about the coming dawn by chopped short phrases, made critics classify this work as “poetic opuses designed for a narrow circle of people.” Today it can already be said with confidence that both Leo Tolstoy and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin publicly accused Fet of “narrow thinking” for only one simple reason - the poet in his poem will touch on the topic of intimate relationships, which in the 19th century was still subject to unspoken taboo. And although this is not directly mentioned in the work itself, subtle hints turn out to be much more eloquent than any words. However, this poem does not lose its romanticism and charm, refinement and grace, elegance and aristocracy, which are characteristic of the vast majority of the works of Athanasius Fet.
A. Fet is known not only for his poems about the unity of man and nature, but also for his love lyrics. But among the rest, one should especially highlight "Whisper, timid breathing", an analysis of which is presented below. Literary critics consider it "Fetov's", because it is written in a special manner, peculiar only to Afanasy Afanasyevich, and reveals all his poetic talent.
Lyrics by A. A. Fet
In the analysis of "Whisper, timid breath" one can consider the features of the poet's work. In the early poems, the poet admired female beauty, later landscape lyrics occupied a central place. All Fet's work is permeated with the spirit of romanticism, although the poet himself did not consider himself an adherent of this direction.
At the heart of most of the poems was admiration for nature. In some landscape lyrics are intertwined with the theme of love. This is not surprising, because, according to Fet, man was inseparable from nature. In the analysis of "Whisper, Timid Breath" it should be emphasized that this particular poem is an excellent example of how landscape and love lyrics are surprisingly harmoniously combined.
In this verse, descriptions of the surrounding world and sensory experiences alternate. And this creates a whole lyrical picture. The lines reflect the intimate feelings that can be between lovers. And the changing pictures of night and dawn complement the experiences of the lyrical hero. And all this emphasizes the poet's opinion that a person and the world around him should be in harmony.
Composition features
Also one of the points of analysis of "Whisper, timid breath" is the composition of the poem. Grammatically, it is one sentence divided into three stanzas. But it seems to the reader as a single component due to the integrity of the composition, which has a beginning, a climax and an end.
It is written in iambic tetrameter. The type of rhyming is cross, which gives the poem a leisurely and measured rhythm.
The basis of the poem is a comparison of two plans - general and particular. Against the backdrop of nature, the love story of two people is shown. Changing natural phenomena complement the love lyrical component.
Image of nature
In the analysis of "Whisper, timid breath" by Athanasius Fet, it is necessary to consider in detail the image of nature. In this poem, the world around us is shown in harmony with a person, or rather, with lovers. In the first stanza, a nightingale is shown, whose beautiful trills sound over a sleepy stream. This can be compared to the fact that love appears in a person’s life like a beautiful nightingale song that awakens him.
In the second stanza, no natural phenomena are depicted. It is only said that all night shadows cause changes on the face of a cute hero. And in the third stanza, a dawn is drawn in all colors, which appears like a haze, which then flares up brighter and brighter. It is like the feelings of lovers becoming stronger and illuminating human life.
love lyrics
In the analysis of "Whispers, timid breathing, nightingale trills" it is necessary to consider the love line in the poem. The poet does not name names, there are not even any pronouns. But the reader understands that we are talking about secret meetings of two lovers, thanks to the fact that the hero calls the face cute.
Why are the meetings secret? The heroes meet at night, and with the onset of dawn they are forced to say goodbye. At the very beginning of the meeting between them, one feels awkwardness, timidity, which happens with pure and sincere feelings.
And with the sunrise they have to part. But these feelings only flare up more strongly, like the dawn. This poem shows how man and nature can exist in harmony.
Color epithets
In a brief analysis of "Whisper, timid breath" one can write that color epithets play a big role in giving expressiveness to the work. At the very beginning, the poet uses muted colors to add more mystery to the meetings, to show the emergence of feelings.
Then there is a gradual increase in expression. The colors become brighter, as the lovers become bolder in the manifestations of feelings. This color contrast shows the development of the narrative, which does not appear grammatically in any way.
Sound coloration
The poet creates not only a visual, but also a sound picture. The epithets of color are complemented by sound design. The first stanza conveys nightingale trills, in the next stanza a feeling of absolute silence is created.
And again, the poet, thanks to the contrast, gives sound to the plot. But it is worth noting that all sounds organically complement the lyrical component of the poem.
Feature of expressive means
A distinctive feature of this poem is that it does not contain verbs. This simple form of lines is a challenge to society, which at that time reacted negatively to such a "wordless" poem. Using only nouns gives a smooth measured rhythm.
But, despite the absence of verbs, each line is a complete action. At first glance, it may seem to the reader that there is no plot and development of actions in the poem. In fact, this is not so, the poet described his feelings. There are no portraits of lyrical heroes, the poet only indicates that the play of light and shadow is displayed on the sweet hero's face. There is a hidden action in nouns, there is a feeling of dynamism. This creates the development of the plot.
The poet also used other literary tropes. This is a large number of epithets, personifications and metaphors. The last sentence stands out in particular for its emotional coloring. This is facilitated by both repetition and exclamation. The repetition of voiceless consonants makes the lines melodious. All of these means of expression add tenderness and lyricism to the poem.
Criticism of the poem
In the analysis according to the plan of "Whisper, timid breathing" Fet should also talk about how the work was accepted by the public. Some poets and writers spoke ambiguously about him. The main reason is the peculiarity of writing, namely the absence of verbs.
Some felt that the poem had no plot, and said that the theme chosen by the poet was narrow and limited. They also complained about the lack of any events. There were jokes that if you read it from the end, then nothing will change. People behind the images of sensations did not see a gradual increase in expression. They failed to notice the harmony and integrity of the composition.
The work was also criticized for the fact that the poet did not give a specific subject description. And the reader had only to guess what it was about in this or that line. The phrases are written in a chopped style, some critics did not notice the smoothness and unhurried musicality of the poem.
But there is an opinion that this creation was accepted unfavorably by some poets and writers due to the fact that the poet touched on the topic of intimacy of feelings. And although this is not said directly, the reader can guess thanks to allusions. But from this, Fet's creation does not become less refined and elegant, does not lose a drop of its lyricism.
A. A. Fet in his work praised not only the beauty and grandeur of nature. But the poet also described feelings in his work. But for him, man and the world around him are one whole, which is reflected in this poem. This was a brief analysis of the "Whisper, timid breath" plan.
Fet's poem "Whisper, timid breathing ..." appeared in print in 1850. By that time, Fet was already a well-established poet, with his own special voice: with a sharply subjective coloring of lyrical experience, with the ability to fill the word with living concreteness and at the same time catch new overtones, “flickering” nuances in its meaning, with a heightened sense of the role of composition in the poem - a composition that conveys, in essence, the construction, the structure of the development of the author's feeling itself. Fet innovatively developed the figurative structure of the verse, its melody, surprised him with his free use of vocabulary and aroused indignation with his unwillingness to listen to the elementary laws of grammar.
In a word, at the mention of the name Fet in the minds of his contemporaries, an idea arose of a bright, overly pronounced poetic individuality. By the same time, Fet had established himself as a poet who focused on a rather narrow range of problems that were far from the topic of the day, from the vital interests of reality. This secured for his lyrics a reputation of some one-dimensionality, and in the eyes of the most radical figures of the era - even a kind of inferiority.
The poem "Whisper, timid breathing ..." became firmly established in the minds of contemporaries as the most Fetov's from all points of view, as the quintessence of Fet's individual style, giving rise to both delight and bewilderment:
In this poem, disapproval was caused primarily by "insignificance", the narrowness of the topic chosen by the author, the lack of eventfulness - a quality that seemed inherent in Fet's poetry. In close connection with this feature of the poem, its expressive side was also perceived - a simple enumeration of the poet's impressions, separated by commas, too personal, insignificant in nature. Deliberately simple and at the same time impudent non-standard form could be regarded as a challenge. And in response, indeed, sharp and well-aimed, in fact, parodies rained down, since parody, as you know, beats the most characteristic qualities of style, concentrating in itself both its objective properties and the individual artistic preferences of the author. In this case, it was even assumed that Fet's poem would not lose if it was printed in the reverse order - from the end ...
On the other hand, it was impossible not to admit that the poet brilliantly achieved his goal - a colorful image of a picture of night nature, psychological richness, intensity of human feelings, a sense of the organic unity of spiritual and natural life, full of lyrical dedication. In this sense, it is worth citing the statement of Fet's principal opponent in terms of worldview - Saltykov-Shchedrin: "Undoubtedly, in any literature one can rarely find a poem that, with its fragrant freshness, would seduce the reader to such an extent as Mr. Fet's poem "Whisper, timid breath. .."
The opinion of L. Tolstoy, who highly appreciated Fet's poetry, is interesting: "This is a masterful poem; there is not a single verb (predicate) in it. Each expression is a picture ... But read these poems to any peasant, he will be perplexed, not only what is their beauty , but also what their thought is. This is a thing for a small circle of gourmets in art. "
Let's try to determine how Fet achieves that "every expression" becomes a "picture", how he achieves the amazing effect of the momentary nature of what is happening, the feeling of lasting time and, despite the absence of verbs, the presence of internal movement in the poem, the development of action.
Grammatically, the poem is a single exclamatory sentence passing through all three stanzas. But our perception of it as an indivisible text unit is firmly fused with the feeling of its internally compact compositional integrity, which has a semantic beginning, development and culmination. The comma-separated fractional enumeration, which may seem to be the main engine in the dynamics of experience, is in fact only an external structural mechanism. The main engine of the lyrical theme is in its semantic compositional development, which is based on constant comparison, correlation of two plans: private and general, intimate human and generalized natural. This transition from the image of the human world to the world around, from what is "here, nearby" to what is "there, around, far away", and vice versa, is carried out from stanza to stanza. At the same time, the nature of the detail from the human world corresponds to the nature of the detail from the natural world.
