Education and pedagogical sciences UDC 81 Education and Pedagogical Sciences DOI: 10.17748/2075-9908.2015.7.4.148-152 KELBEKHANOVA Madina Ragimkhanovna, candidate philological sciences, Associate Professor KELBEKHANOVA Madina Ragimhanovna, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor THE THEME OF LIFE AND DEATH IN S. ESENINA’S LYRICS The article examines S. Yesenin’s poems “Sorokoust”, “I the last poet villages”, “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry”, “Now we are leaving little by little”, “The golden grove dissuaded”, “This sadness cannot be scattered now.” The author shows how they combine two themes: life and death. The lyrical hero in most poems is a man in love with life, with nature, but who does not forget that death awaits him. Basic compositional technique, used in the poems, is a contrast. The article shows that the poet’s favorite poetic device is metaphor, which he uses masterfully. THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND DEATH IN YESENIN’S WORKS The article studies the problem of life and death in Yesenin’s verses “I Do Not Regret, And I Do Not Shed Tears”, “ The Golden Birch-Tree Grove Has Fallen Silent”, “We'll Depart This World For Ever, Surely”, “Now My Grief Won't Be Split By The Ringing”, “I Am The Last Poet Of The Village”, “Forty Days Prayers For The Dead.” Persona of the most of Yesenin’s verses is a man infatuated with love and nature, but abidingly aware of death, and this sadness penetrates all his poems. The poet skillfully employs antithesis as a compositional device and metaphor as a figure of speech. Keywords: poet, Yesenin, verse, heart, soul, Keywords: poet, Yesenin, verse, heart, soul, life, death, life, death, nature, sadness, antithesis, metaphor. nature, sadness, antithesis, metaphor. The theme of life and death is eternal and universal. There is no poet or writer who would not be interested in it for one reason or another, to one degree or another. In the works of S. Yesenin this topic occupies great place, especially before 1917. Was it a desire to unravel its mystery or did the poet already have a presentiment of death at that time? It is difficult to answer this question. Of the poems in which a 15–17-year-old author writes about death, “Imitation of a Song,” “Dead Man,” and “Beloved Land! My heart dreams...", "I came to this earth to quickly leave it", "O child, I cried for a long time over your fate", "Our faith did not go out", "In the land where the yellow nettles are", "I am tired live in one’s native land.” IN Soviet time S. Yesenin wrote many wonderful poems in the genre of elegy; their content is not only death, as in the works of the pre-October period, but also life; they contain a combination of life and death. Here, first of all, we should note the poem “I am the last poet of the village,” written in 1920, during the period of “war communism” [about war communism, see: 1, p. 238–239] under the impression of a specific case. Of the poems we have listed, the best is “Beloved Land! Dreams of the heart." Let's consider his first stanza: Beloved land! The heart dreams of stacks of sun in the waters of the bosom. I would like to get lost in the greenery of your hundred-bellied greens. In this stanza you should pay attention to the metaphors. It is they who make the poem a real poetic masterpiece: “stacks of the sun”, “the waters of the bosom”, “the hundred-ringed greenery”. The lyrical hero seems to be enchanted by the beauty of nature, which is why he wants to get lost in the greenery. Last stanza the poems are an expression of his main thought: I meet everything, I accept everything, I am glad and happy to take out my soul, I came to this earth, To leave it as soon as possible. An antithesis is used here. The first two verses are major, indicating Great love the poet to life, the next two remind of death. Of course, every person... In some publications and in the collected works of S. Yesenin, 1921 is indicated as the year of publication of the poem. This is a mistake. For the first time, this poem was included in his book “Treryadnitsa”, published in 1920. The poet obviously forgot about it. 1 - 148 - ISSN 2075-9908 Historical and socio-educational thought. Volume 7 No. 4, 2015 Historical and social educational ideas Volume 7 #4, 2015 the century is mortal. But this motif, very often repeated in Yesenin’s poems of this period, makes us think: why is this all the same? The poem “O child, I cried for a long time over your fate” begins and ends with an appeal lyrical hero to a certain child (“child”), over whose fate he cried for a long time. However, in the second couplet the tragic is transferred to the lyrical hero, who predicts his death: I know, I know, soon, soon, at sunset... They will carry me with grave singing to bury me... You will see my white shroud from the window, And your heart will clench from silent melancholy. The following verses again make you think: does the address “child” refer to the one whom the lyrical hero leaves on earth, or does it concern him himself? In this couplet, attention should be paid to the metaphors “the secret of warm words” and “tears that have become beads of pearls,” conveying the state of the lyrical hero. And the poem ends again with an appeal to the “child”: And I knitted a necklace for you from them, You put it on your neck in memory of my days. In a letter to E.I. Livshits (August 1920) S. Yesenin wrote: “It touches me... sadness for the passing, dear, dear, bestial and unshakable the power of the dead, mechanical. Here's a clear example of this. We were driving from Tikhoretskaya to Pyatigorsk, suddenly we heard screams, looked out the window and what? We see: a small foal gallops as fast as he can behind the locomotive. He gallops so much that it immediately became clear to us that for some reason he decided to overtake him. He ran for a very long time, but in the end he began to get tired, and at some station he was caught. An episode may be insignificant for someone, but for me it says a lot. A steel horse defeated a living horse. And this little foal was for me a visual, dear, endangered image of the village and the face of Makhno. She and he in the revolution are terribly like this foal, with the pull of living force over iron.” Another reaction of the poet to the situation of the village is given in M. Babenchikov’s article “Yesenin”: “Winter 1922. Moscow, Prechistenka, 20. A face distorted by a painful grimace, in the red reflections of a burning brick temporary hut. A stormy stream of words, images, memories and the final one: “I was in the village... Everything is collapsing... You have to be there yourself to understand... The end of everything...” In 1922, Yesenin wrote one of his best elegiac poems, “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry.” The history of its creation, as S. Tolstaya-Yesenina writes, is as follows. “Yesenin said that this poem was written under the influence of one of lyrical digressions V " Dead souls ah." Sometimes half-jokingly he added: “They praise me for these poems, but they don’t know that it’s not me, but Gogol.” The place in “Dead Souls” that Yesenin spoke about is the introduction to the sixth chapter, which concludes with the words: “...what in previous years would have awakened a lively movement in the face, laughter and silent speech, now slides past, and my motionless lips keep an indifferent silence. O my youth! oh my freshness! "" L.L. Belskaya rightly notes: “An excerpt from Gogol’s “Dead Souls”, of course, was not the only source of Yesenin’s poem. The very theme of farewell to youth and reflections on fast-flowing time and images of spring-youth and autumn old age. In the poetry of all times and peoples we find countless variations on these themes." traditional theme Yesenin inhaled new life and in this regard he was an innovator. Let's pay attention to the first lines of the poem: I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry, Everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees. These verses follow the principle of gradation. From the very beginning, the poet reinforces the main idea of the work. This is also the subject of the wonderful comparison “Everything will pass away like smoke from white apple trees.” Everything in these verses is transparent and they do not need commentary. These two verses are a successful compositional move that defines everything further movement text, which is confirmed by the next two verses: - 149 - Education and Pedagogical Sciences Education and Pedagogical Sciences Fade, covered in gold, I will no longer be young. Now it becomes clear that these poems (and the entire poem) are built on the opposition of the past and the present: youth has passed, and it will not return. This idea is conveyed with the help of a wonderful metaphor: “Withered in gold, I will no longer be young.” Let us note that all subsequent stanzas are its variations, in which metaphor is also a key meaning-creating poetic device. Let's follow this up. Two thoughts are expressed in the second stanza: Now you won’t beat so much, Your heart touched by a chill, And the country of birch chintz Will not entice you to wander around barefoot. The first thought of the poem: “Touched by a chill” heart is a synonym for impending death. Another thought: youth has passed and “it won’t tempt you to wander around barefoot,” it’s already a thing of the past. These lines also testify to the lyrical hero’s love for nature. Here we already have a synthesis of two plans - human and natural. The third stanza is close in thought to the second: Wandering spirit, you stir up the flame of your lips less and less often. Oh, my lost freshness, Riot of eyes and flood of feelings. However, the poet, as in previous stanzas, continues to talk about “lost youth” and the weakening of feelings that are characteristic of adulthood. The penultimate stanza is about the transience of life. From here - a rhetorical question: “My life, did I dream about you?” Oh quickly past life, first of all, youth, and the penultimate verses of the elegy: As if I rode on a pink horse in the echoing early spring. You could say “Spring Early” is the early time of youth, the beginning of life. And the “pink horse” that galloped away are romantic hopes, dreams that are left in the past. The final stanza, on the one hand, asserts that there is no immortality, on the other hand, it gives a blessing to everything that “has come to flourish and die.” And this is already an expression great love towards people, towards all living things, towards nature - a position characteristic of many humanists. Yesenin has many other poems on the topic we are considering. They are also among the masterpieces of the elegiac genre. First of all, we should mention the poem “We are now leaving little by little...” It was written on the death of the poet A.V. Shiryaevets, a close friend of Yesenin (May 15, 1924) and a few days later published in the magazine “Krasnaya Nov” under the title “In Memory of Shiryaevets”. In his memoirs, S.D. Fomin writes: “I remember how Yesenin was stunned by the death of Shiryaevets. To everyone who returned that day with Vagankovskoe cemetery at Shiryaevets’s funeral in the Herzen House, the crying Yesenin, who hoarsely read the entire Shiryaev’s “Muzhikoslov”, will not be forgotten.” The meaning of Yesenin’s first stanza is expressed clearly: those who come into the world sooner or later leave it. Maybe soon I’ll have to pack my mortal belongings for the road. The poet's assumption that it might be time for him to soon go on the road where his friend had gone was well founded. He talks about the same thing in the poem “I am the last poet of the village.” The second stanza differs in content from the first. Here in the foreground is the poet’s love for everything that surrounds him, that is dear to him. This affirmation of love is the main thing in the work. On the other hand, the poet is a witness to how people (primarily friends) - 150 - ISSN 2075-9908 Historical and socio-educational thought. Volume 7 No. 4, 2015 Historical and social educational ideas Volume 7 #4, 2015 are throwing the world away. And it can't help but have psychological impact at him, which leads to the fact that he is unable to “hide” his melancholy. The next stanza is dominated by the same idea as the first. The poet again speaks of his great love for everything that “puts the soul into flesh.” But this thought is connected with nature, inseparable from people. The poet’s nature and people form a unity. The poet cannot imagine himself outside of this unity. The stanza compositionally divides the poem into two parts and serves as a link between them. Here the statement “life is happiness” is the main one: “...on a gloomy earth I am happy because I breathed and lived.” The next stanza is the continuation and development of this thought. Here we can see the poet’s admiration for earthly beauty, for what is most important to him, prevailing in earthly life. Beauty for the poet is not only people, especially women, to whom the poet was never indifferent, it is also animals, our “smaller brothers.” And this is again an important idea for the poet about the unity of man and nature. Happy that I kissed women, crushed flowers, lay on the grass, and never hit animals on the head, like our smaller brothers. In these verses, the poet captured the essence of life, namely: in the name of what a person should live on earth. What follows is a compositional turn: the roll call of the fifth stanza with the second. In the second stanza, melancholy dominates, in the fifth - the poet trembles before the “host of departing”, these feelings do not contradict each other, they are interconnected: I know that the thickets do not bloom there, The rye does not ring with the swan’s neck, That is why, before the host of departing, I am always I'm shaking. The last two verses above are a variation of the first two verses of the beginning of the poem, but with intensification, weighting of thought. In general, the poem intertwines bitter and joyful feelings. The poet's skill lies in the fact that in his poem it is impossible to exclude a single word, each is connected with the other. Such integrity creates its harmony. I know that in that country there will not be these fields, golden in the darkness. That is why people are dear to me, That they live with me on earth. Lyrical plot turns out to be organically connected with all the compositional elements of the poem. The last stanza logically closes the text and sums up the philosophy of life and death expressed in it. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LINKS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Soviet encyclopedic Dictionary. – M., 1980. P. 238–239. Yesenin S. Collected works in five volumes. T. 5. Autobiographies, articles, letters. – M., 1962. Belousov V. Sergei Yesenin. Literary chronicle. Part 2. – M., 1970. Yesenin Sergey. Literary chronicle. – M., 1970. Belskaya L.L. Song word. The poetic mastery of Sergei Yesenin. – M., 1990. Fomin S.D. From memories / In memory of Yesenin. – M., 1926. REFERENCES 1. 2. 3. Soviet Encyclopedia Dictionary. Moscow, 1980 pp. 238–238 (in Russ.). Esenin Sergey. Collection of works in five volumes. V.5. Autobiographies, articles, letters. Moskva, 1962 (in Russ.). Belousov V. Sergei Esenin. Literary chronicles. Part 2. Moscow, 1970 (in Russ.). - 151 - Education and Pedagogical Sciences 4. 5. 6. Education and Pedagogical Sciences Esenin Sergey. Collection of works in five volumes. V. 2. (Primechaniya V.F. Zemskova) Moskva, 1961 (in Russ.). Belskaya L.L. The word of songs. Poetic mastery of Sergey Esenin. Moscow, 1990 (in Russ.). Fomin S.D. Memoires Remembering Esenin. Moskva, 1926 (in Russ.). Information about the author Information about the author Kelbekhanova Madina Ragimkhanovna, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Russian Literature, Dagestan state university, Makhachkala (Republic of Dagestan) Russia nuralievakatiba @yandex.ru Kelbekhanova Madina Ragimhanovna, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor at the Chair of Russian Literature Daghestan State University, Makhachkala city, (Republic of Dagestan), Russian Federation nuralievakatiba @yandex.ru Received : 04/11/2015 Received: 04/11/2015 - 152 -
S. A. Yesenin is not a thoughtless singer of his feelings and experiences, but a poet-philosopher. Like any high poetry, his lyrics are philosophical. The poems talk about the enduring problems of human existence, in them the poet’s inner “I” conducts a dialogue with the entire surrounding world, nature, the universe, trying to answer the eternal “why”. Yesenin poses many questions, addressed primarily to himself: how did I live, what did I manage, why did I come into this world? The poet's amazing talent was capable of capturing the deepest and most intimate human experiences. Some poems are a “flood of feelings,” bright, joyful, others are full of hopelessness and despair.
Yesenin always felt himself a part of this world, sought and found agreement and response in the natural world, so he landscape lyrics filled with philosophical motives, analogies between laws human life and the laws of nature, in it one can hear “the chime of the central nature and the essence of man.”
These motives are developed, for example, in the elegy “The Golden Grove Dissuaded”. " Golden Grove" - this is also specific natural image, and summarized, this is the life of a poet, human existence at all. The philosophical content is revealed through landscape sketches. Theme of fading, sensations last days comes through in the image of autumn. Autumn is a time of silence, bright colors, but at the same time - a time of farewell. This is the contradictory nature of our earthly existence. Cranes are the leitmotif of the poem, a farewell song to everything young, fresh, to the “lilac blossom” of nature and, most importantly, to the human soul. The man is lonely, however, this homelessness is adjacent to a warm memory: “I stand alone in the naked plain, // And the wind carries the cranes into the distance, // I am full of thoughts about my cheerful youth, // But I don’t regret anything in the past.” Life path passed, nature has completed its circle...
The relationship between human spring and the dying fire of life is expressed through visible object image: “There’s a fire of red rowan burning in the garden, // But it can’t warm anyone.” Despite this, the lyrical hero is not sorry for his past life, since existence is perceived by him as transitory. “Whom should I feel sorry for? After all, everyone in the world is a wanderer...” - these words contain the basis of a philosophical attitude to life. We are all born to die, each of us is a tiny grain of sand in the cosmos, each of us is an integral part of nature. That is why the lyrical hero compares his dying monologue with autumn leaf fall: “So I drop sad words.”
Despite the tragic sound of the poem, memories of a noisy life make the reader accept death as a given. This elegy is very similar to the confession of a lyrical hero. Yesenin rose above his personal tragedy to universal heights.
Similar thoughts are heard in the poem “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry...” “Fading with gold, //I won’t be young anymore” - in these poems there is a reflection on the impossibility of turning back time. “Spring echoing early” is the personification of the youth of nature and the youth of life. The feeling of inescapable sadness, the motive of the inevitable misfortune of the lyrical hero in the face of all-consuming time and eternal nature is removed by the word “flourish” in the last stanza: “We are all, we are all perishable in this world, // Copper is quietly pouring from the maple leaves... // Be but you are forever blessed, // That came to flourish and die.” It is to nature that the lyrical hero appeals, it is to her that it is most bitter to say goodbye, standing at the fatal line.
The human soul and the World are one... however, sometimes this unity is broken, tragic disharmony destroys the idyllic existence. This can manifest itself in household, everyday situations. Thus, in “The Song of the Dog,” a man cruelly violates the laws of nature, taking away newborn puppies from the mother. This not only causes maternal grief, a personal tragedy, but also becomes the cause of a disaster of universal proportions: “The dog’s eyes rolled // Like golden tears into the snow,” “Into the blue heights, loudly // She looked, whining, // And the month slid, thin, // And disappeared behind a hill in the fields.” You cannot interfere with the given course of life by changing its pace; this will then be poured out to humanity in the tears of animals. Therefore, the lines from the poem “We are now leaving little by little” sound special: “And the beast, like our smaller brothers, // Never hit you on the head.” This is how you need to live, understanding that you are not the master of nature and the world, but a part of them. You need to enjoy the opportunity to contemplate the beauty of the earth, you just need to live: “Happy that I breathed and lived. // Happy that I kissed women, // Crushed flowers, lay on the grass.” We need to appreciate what life has given us, enjoy every day, love the living.
It is very difficult to choose Yesenin’s poems that relate to philosophical lyrics, because all of his work is like that. Reflecting on nature, on the Motherland, on his personal destiny, the poet inevitably comes to the idea that life must be accepted as it is: “How beautiful // the Earth // And there is a person on it!”
Thoughts about the inevitable, eternal change of generations, about the inexorable rush of life, in which one must take one’s place, fulfill one’s destiny, feeling oneself an essential, irreplaceable link in long chain, connecting the Past and the Future, have always been heard in Russian literature. “Again I visited..” A.S. Pushkin, “I go out alone on the road...” M.Yu. Lermontov and many other poems of Russian classics of the 19th century are full of these experiences. Now we are also thinking about these problems. Probably because they are eternal, and it is unlikely that humanity will ever find comprehensive answers to philosophical questions. Therefore, Yesenin’s creativity is priceless and immortal.
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In his philosophical lyrics, Yesenin poses many questions, addressed primarily to himself: how did I live, what did I manage, why did I come to this world?
Yesenin always felt like a part of this world. Often he found a response to his thoughts in the natural world, so he philosophical lyrics darkly intertwined with the landscape and filled with analogies between the laws of human life and the laws of nature.
A striking example of this is the elegy “The Golden Grove Dissuaded” (1924). “The Golden Grove” is a specific natural image, but it is also a metaphor - the life of a poet, human existence in general. The philosophical content is revealed through landscape sketches.
The theme of fading, the feeling of the last days comes through in the image of autumn. Autumn is a time of silence, bright colors, but at the same time - a time of farewell. This is the contradictory nature of our earthly existence. Cranes are the leitmotif of the poem, a farewell song to everything young, fresh, to the “lilac blossom” of nature and, most importantly, to the human soul. The man is lonely, however, this homelessness is adjacent to a warm memory: “I stand alone in the naked plain, // And the wind carries the cranes into the distance, // I am full of thoughts about my cheerful youth, // But I don’t regret anything in the past.” The path of life has been completed, nature has completed its circle...
The relationship between human spring and the burning fire of life is expressed through a visible object image: “In the garden a fire of red rowan berries is burning, // But it cannot warm anyone.” Despite this, the lyrical hero is not sorry for his past life, since existence is perceived by him as transitory. “Whom should I feel sorry for? After all, everyone in the world is a wanderer...” - these words contain the basis of a philosophical attitude to life. We are all born to die, each of us is a tiny grain of sand in the cosmos, each of us is an integral part of nature. That is why the lyrical hero compares his dying monologue with the fall of autumn leaves: “This is how I drop sad words.”
Despite the tragic sound of the poem, memories of a noisy life cause the lyrical hero to accept death as a given. In general, this elegy is very similar to the confession of a lyrical hero - Yesenin rose above his personal tragedy to universal heights.
Similar thoughts are heard in the poem “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry...” “Fading in gold, // I won’t be young anymore” - these lines reflect on the impossibility of turning back time. “Spring echoing early” is the personification of the youth of nature and the youth of life. The feeling of inescapable sadness, the motive of the inevitable misfortune of the lyrical hero in the face of all-consuming time and eternal nature is removed by the word “flourish” in the last stanza: “We are all, we are all perishable in this world, // Copper is quietly pouring from the maple leaves... // Be but you are forever blessed, // That came to flourish and die.” It is to nature that the lyrical hero appeals, it is to her that it is most bitter to say goodbye, standing at the fatal line.
The human soul and the World are one, however, sometimes this unity is broken, tragic disharmony destroys the idyllic existence. This can manifest itself in everyday, everyday situations. Thus, in “The Song of the Dog,” a man cruelly violates the laws of nature by taking away newborn puppies from the mother. This not only causes maternal grief and personal tragedy, but also becomes the cause of a disaster of universal proportions: “The dog’s eyes rolled into the snow with Golden tears,” “She looked loudly into the blue heights, whining, And the month slid, thin, And disappeared behind the hill in the fields »
Yesenin is convinced that one cannot interfere with the given course of life, change its pace. The lines from the poem “We are now leaving little by little” sound special: “And the beast, like our smaller brothers, Never hit us on the head.” This is how you need to live, understanding that you are not the master of nature and the world, but a part of them. You need to enjoy the opportunity to contemplate the beauty of the earth, you just need to live, taking from it everything you can. This, according to the poet, is the meaning of life: “Happy that I breathed and lived. Happy that I kissed women, crushed flowers, lay on the grass.”
Seeing the departure of people close to him to another world, the lyrical hero himself feels the approach of death. He understands that this can happen at any moment. This thought makes you feel creepy and sad, because life is so beautiful and you don’t want to say goodbye to it. Moreover, the lyrical hero is sure that the world of the dead has nothing in common with our world:
I know that the thickets do not bloom there,
The rye does not ring with the swan's neck.
That's why before the host of departing
I always get the shivers.
But the poem ends life-affirmingly, like almost all of Yesenin’s philosophical lyrics. While there is still time, you need to appreciate and cherish what you live, love people, admire nature, live in harmony with yourself and the world around you.
Thinking about nature, about the Motherland, about his personal destiny, the poet inevitably comes to the thought that life must be accepted as it is: “How beautiful the Earth is and the people on it!”
Yesenin's philosophical lyrics are very complex and multifaceted. On different stages the poet was interested in his work various questions and problems. His lyrical hero appears before us in the image of either a bully and a tomboy, or a deeply lyrical poet.
Yesenin was always interested in the theme of the Fatherland, he small homeland and your destiny. For the poet, his own destiny has always been closely connected with life native land. Therefore, very often in his philosophical poems Yesenin uses the technique of syntactic parallelism, where he compares his fate with various conditions nature. Thus, in the poem “The Golden Grove Dissuaded,” the hero’s reflections on his bygone youth are closely intertwined with what is happening in nature:
I stand alone among the naked plain,
And the wind carries the cranes into the distance,
I'm full of thoughts about my cheerful youth,
But I don’t regret anything in the past...
The lyrical hero turns to his past and is overcome by sadness for the past time. However, the hero does not experience a feeling of disappointment, he has no desire to turn back time, change what was:
I don't feel sorry for the years wasted in vain,
I don’t feel sorry for the soul of the lilac blossom.
There is a fire of red rowan burning in the garden,
But he can't warm anyone.
A work of philosophical content, containing universal human and general historical ideas, is the poem “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry.” The theme of the variability of time and the problem of transformation of the human soul is fully revealed here:
I do not regret, do not call, do not cry,
Everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees.
Withered by gold covered,
I won't be young anymore.
The lyrical hero feels the changes that are taking place in him: “I have now become stingier in my desires...”. But nothing can be changed, these are the laws of the universe, it is impossible to go against them. Yesenin understands this, but reverently recalls his years of youth as the most beautiful time, because that's when he felt truly happy.
Thus, the philosophical lyrics of Sergei Yesenin are closely connected with the existence of man, with the meaning of his life. The poet accepts the variability and transience of time and considers this law of life to be natural and the most true:
May you be blessed forever,
What has come to flourish and die.
DOI: 10.17748/2075-9908.2015.7.4.148-152
KELBEKHANOVA Madina Ragimkhanovna, candidate of philological sciences, associate professor
THE THEME OF LIFE AND DEATH IN THE LYRICS OF S. ESENINA
The article examines S. Yesenin’s poems “Sorokoust”, “I am the last poet of the village”, “I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry”, “Now we are leaving little by little”, “The golden grove dissuaded”, “This sadness cannot be scattered now.” The author shows how they combine two themes: life and death. The lyrical hero in most poems is a man in love with life, with nature, but who does not forget that death awaits him.
The main compositional technique used in the poems is opposition. The article shows that the poet’s favorite poetic device is metaphor, which he uses masterfully.
Key words: poet, Yesenin, verse, heart, soul, life, death, nature, sadness, antithesis, metaphor.
KELBEKHANOVA Madina Ragimhanovna, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor
THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND DEATH IN YESENIN’S WORKS
The article studies the problem of life and death in Yesenin's verses “I Do Not Regret, And I Do Not Shed Tears”, “The Golden Birch-Tree Grove Has Fallen Silent”, “We'll Depart This World For Ever, Surely” , “Now My Grief Won't Be Split By The Ringing”, “I Am The Last Poet Of The Village”, “Forty Days Prayers For The Dead”.
Persona of the most of Yesenin’s verses is a man infatuated with love and nature, but abidingly aware of death, and this sadness penetrates all his poems. The poet skillfully employs antithesis as a compositional device and metaphor as a figure of speech.
Keywords: poet, Yesenin, verse, heart, soul, life, death, nature, sadness, antithesis, metaphor.
The theme of life and death is eternal and universal. There is no poet or writer who would not be interested in it for one reason or another, to one degree or another. This theme occupies a large place in the work of S. Yesenin, especially before 1917. Was it a desire to unravel its mystery or did the poet already have a presentiment of death at that time? It is difficult to answer this question.
Of the poems in which a 15-17 year old author writes about death, “Imitation of a Song”, “Dead Man”, “Beloved Land! My heart dreams...", "I came to this earth to quickly leave it", "O child, I cried for a long time over your fate", "Our faith has not been extinguished", "In the land where the yellow nettles are", " I’m tired of living in my native land.”
In Soviet times, S. Yesenin wrote many wonderful poems in the genre of elegy; their content is not only death, as in the works of the pre-October period, but also life; they contain a combination of life and death. Here, first of all, we should note the poem “I am the last poet of the village,” written in 19201, during the period of “war communism” [about war communism, see: 1, p. 238-239] under the impression of a specific case.
Of the poems we have listed, the best is “Beloved Land! Dreams of the heart." Let's look at his first stanza:
Favorite region! The heart dreams of stacks of sun in the waters of the bosom. I would like to get lost in the greenery of your hundred-bellied greens.
In this stanza you should pay attention to the metaphors. It is they who make the poem a real poetic masterpiece: “stacks of the sun”, “waters of the bosom”, “green ringing”. The lyrical hero seems to be enchanted by the beauty of nature, which is why he wants to get lost in the greenery. The last stanza of the poem is an expression of its main idea:
I meet everything, I accept everything,
Glad and happy to take out my soul,
I came to this earth
To leave her quickly.
An antithesis is used here. The first two verses are in major key, testifying to the poet’s great love for life, the next two are reminiscent of death. Of course, every person
1 In some publications and in the collected works of S. Yesenin, 1921 is indicated as the year of publication of the poem. This is a mistake. For the first time, this poem was included in his book “Treryadnitsa”, published in 1920. The poet obviously forgot about it.
the age is mortal. But this motif, very often repeated in Yesenin’s poems of this period, makes us think: why is this all the same?
The poem “O child, I cried for a long time over your fate” begins and ends with the lyrical hero’s address to a certain child (“child”), over whose fate he cried for a long time. However, in the second couplet the tragic is transferred to the lyrical hero, who predicts his death:
I know, I know, soon, soon, at sunset...
They will carry me with grave singing to bury me...
From the window you will see my white shroud,
And your heart will shrink from silent melancholy.
The following verses again make you think: does the address “child” refer to the one whom the lyrical hero leaves on earth, or does it concern him himself? In this couplet, attention should be paid to the metaphors “the secret of warm words” and “tears that have become beads of pearls,” conveying the state of the lyrical hero. And the poem ends again with an appeal to the “child”:
And I knitted a necklace for you from them,
You put it around your neck in memory of my days.
In a letter to E.I. Livshits (August 1920) S. Yesenin wrote: “I am touched by... sadness for the passing, dear, dear, animal and the unshakable power of the dead, mechanical. Here's a clear example of this.
We were driving from Tikhoretskaya to Pyatigorsk, suddenly we heard screams, looked out the window and what? We see: a small foal gallops as fast as he can behind the locomotive. He gallops so much that it immediately became clear to us that for some reason he decided to overtake him. He ran for a very long time, but in the end he began to get tired, and at some station he was caught. An episode may be insignificant for someone, but for me it says a lot. A steel horse defeated a living horse. And this little foal was for me a visual, dear, endangered image of the village and the face of Makhno. She and he in the revolution are terribly like this foal, with the pull of living force over iron.”
Another reaction of the poet to the situation of the village is given in M. Babenchikov’s article “Yesenin”: “Winter 1922. Moscow, Prechistenka, 20. A face distorted by a painful grimace, in the red reflections of a burning brick temporary hut. A stormy stream of words, images, memories and the final one: “I was in the village. Everything is collapsing. You have to be there yourself to understand... The end of everything.”
In 1922, Yesenin wrote one of his best elegiac poems, “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry.” The history of its creation, as S. Tolstaya-Yesenina writes, is as follows. “Yesenin said that this poem was written under the influence of one of the lyrical digressions in Dead Souls. Sometimes he half-jokingly added: “They praise me for these poems, but they don’t know that it’s not me, but Gogol.” The place in “Dead Souls” that Yesenin spoke about is the introduction to the sixth chapter, which concludes with the words: “...what would have awakened in previous years live movement in the face, laughter and silent speeches, now it slides past, and my motionless lips keep indifferent silence. O my youth! oh my freshness!"
L.L. Belskaya rightly notes: “The excerpt from Gogol’s “Dead Souls” was certainly not the only source of Yesenin’s poem. The very theme of farewell to youth and reflections on the fleeting time and images of spring-youth and autumn-old age are traditional. In the poetry of all times and peoples we find countless variations on these themes."
However, Yesenin breathed new life into the traditional theme and in this regard was an innovator. Let's pay attention to the first lines of the poem:
I do not regret, do not call, do not cry,
Everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees.
These verses follow the principle of gradation. From the very beginning, the poet reinforces the main idea of the work. This is also the subject of the wonderful comparison “Everything will pass away like smoke from white apple trees.” Everything in these verses is transparent and they do not need commentary. These two verses are a successful compositional move that determines the entire further movement of the text, which is confirmed by the next two verses:
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Withered in gold,
I won't be young anymore.
Now it becomes clear that these poems (and the entire poem) are built on the opposition of the past and the present: youth has passed, and it will not return. This idea is conveyed with the help of a wonderful metaphor: “Withered in gold, I will no longer be young.” Let us note that all subsequent stanzas are its variations, in which metaphor is also a key meaning-creating poetic device. Let's follow this up. Two thoughts are expressed in the second stanza:
Now you won't fight so much,
A heart touched by a chill,
And the country of birch chintz will not entice you to wander around barefoot.
The first thought of the poem: “Touched by a chill” heart is a synonym for impending death. Another thought: youth has passed and “it won’t tempt you to wander around barefoot,” it’s already a thing of the past. These lines also testify to the lyrical hero’s love for nature. Here we already have a synthesis of two plans - human and natural.
The third stanza is close in thought to the second:
Wandering spirit, you stir up the flame of your lips less and less often.
Oh my lost freshness
A riot of eyes and a flood of feelings.
However, the poet, as in previous stanzas, continues to talk about “lost youth” and the weakening of feelings that are characteristic of adulthood. The penultimate stanza is about the transience of life. Hence the rhetorical question: “My life, did I dream about you?” About a quickly passed life, primarily youth, and the penultimate verses of the elegy:
As if I rode on a pink horse in the echoing early spring.
You can say “Spring Early” is the early time of youth, the beginning of life. A " pink horse", which galloped, are romantic hopes, dreams that are left in the past. The final stanza, on the one hand, asserts that there is no immortality, on the other hand, it gives a blessing to everything that “has come to flourish and die.” And this is an expression of great love for people, for all living things, for nature - a position characteristic of many humanists.
Yesenin has many other poems on the topic we are considering. They are also among the masterpieces of the elegiac genre. First of all, we should mention the poem “We are now leaving little by little...” It was written on the death of the poet A.V. Shiryaevts, a close friend of Yesenin (May 15, 1924) and a few days later published in the magazine “Krasnaya Nov” under the title “In Memory of Shiryaevts”.
In his memoirs, S.D. Fomin writes: “I remember how Yesenin was stunned by the death of Shiryaevets. Everyone who returned that day from the Vagankovskoye cemetery to Shiryaevets’ funeral in the Herzen House will not forget the crying Yesenin, who hoarsely read the entire Shiryaevets “Muzhikoslov”.”
The meaning of Yesenin’s first stanza is expressed clearly: those who come into the world sooner or later leave it.
Maybe soon I’ll have to pack my mortal belongings for the road.
The poet's assumption that it might be time for him to soon go on the road where his friend had gone was well founded. He talks about the same thing in the poem “I am the last poet of the village.”
The second stanza differs in content from the first. Here in the foreground is the poet’s love for everything that surrounds him, that is dear to him. This affirmation of love is the main thing in the work. On the other hand, the poet is a witness to how people (primarily friends)
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throw the world. And this cannot but have a psychological impact on him, which leads to the fact that he is unable to “hide” his melancholy.
The next stanza is dominated by the same idea as the first. The poet again speaks of his great love for everything that “puts the soul into flesh.” But this thought is connected with nature, inseparable from people. The poet’s nature and people form a unity. The poet cannot imagine himself outside of this unity.
The stanza compositionally divides the poem into two parts and serves as a link between them. Here the statement “life is happiness” is the main one: “...on a gloomy earth I am happy because I breathed and lived.”
The next stanza is the continuation and development of this thought. Here we can see the poet’s admiration for earthly beauty, for what is most important to him, prevailing in earthly life. Beauty for the poet is not only people, especially women, to whom the poet was never indifferent, it is also animals, our “smaller brothers.” And this is again an important idea for the poet about the unity of man and nature.
I'm happy that I kissed women,
Crushed flowers, lay on the grass,
And animals, like our smaller brothers,
Never hit me on the head.
In these verses, the poet captured the essence of life, namely: in the name of what a person should live on
What follows is a compositional turn: the roll call of the fifth stanza with the second. In the second stanza, melancholy dominates; in the fifth, the poet experiences trembling before the “host of departing”; these feelings do not contradict each other, they are interconnected:
I know that the thickets do not bloom there,
The rye does not ring with the swan's neck,
Therefore, before the host of those departing,
I always get the shivers.
The last two verses given are a variation of the first two verses of the beginning of the poem, but with intensification, weighting of thought.
In general, the poem intertwines bitter and joyful feelings. The poet's skill lies in the fact that in his poem it is impossible to exclude a single word, each is connected with the other. Such integrity creates its harmony.
I know that in that country there will not be these fields, golden in the darkness.
That's why people are dear to me,
That they live with me on earth.
The lyrical plot turns out to be organically connected with all the compositional elements of the poem. The last stanza logically closes the text and sums up the philosophy of life and death expressed in it.
1. Soviet encyclopedic dictionary. - M., 1980. S. 238-239.
2. Yesenin S. Collected works in five volumes. T. 5. Autobiographies, articles, letters. - M., 1962.
3. Belousov V. Sergei Yesenin. Literary chronicle. Part 2. - M., 1970.
4. Yesenin Sergey. Literary chronicle. - M., 1970.
5. Belskaya L.L. Song word. The poetic mastery of Sergei Yesenin. - M., 1990.
6. Fomin S.D. From memories / In memory of Yesenin. - M., 1926.
1. Soviet Encyclopedia Dictionary. Moscow, 1980 pp. 238-238 (in Russ.).
2. Esenin Sergey. Collection of works in five volumes. V.5. Autobiographies, articles, letters. Moskva, 1962 (in Russ.).
3. Belousov V. Sergei Esenin. Literary chronicles. Part 2. Moscow, 1970 (in Russ.).
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4. Esenin Sergey. Collection of works in five volumes. V. 2. (Primechaniya V.F. Zemskova) Moskva, 1961 (in Russ.).
5. Belskaya L.L. The word of songs. Poetic mastery of Sergey Esenin. Moscow, 1990 (in Russ.).
6. Fomin S.D. Memoires Remembering Esenin. Moskva, 1926 (in Russ.).
Kelbekhanova Madina Ragimkhanovna, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Philological Sciences, Associate Profes- Russian Literature, Dagestan State University, Makhachkala Daghestan State University, Makhachkala city,
