I won't tell you anything
And I won’t worry you at all,
And what I silently repeat,
I don't dare hint at anything.
Night flowers sleep all day long,
But as soon as the sun sets behind the grove,
The leaves are quietly opening,
And I hear my heart bloom.
And into the sore, tired chest
The moisture of the night blows... I'm trembling,
I won't alarm you at all
I won't tell you anything.
Analysis of the poem “I won’t tell you anything” by Fet
The poem “I won’t tell you anything” was written by Fet in 1885, when he increasingly looked back with sadness on the years he had lived. It is believed that in it he addresses his wife, and the secret allusion refers to the poet’s long-time love - M. Lazic.
In his youth, the poet was extremely poor. The girl he fell in love with was also not rich. Fet had to make a painful choice between love and well-being. The poet chose M. Botkina, a bride with a large inheritance. Soon his beloved died tragically. Fet considered this a punishment from above for his betrayal and until the end of his life he could not forgive himself for his rash act. He was rich and famous, treated his wife with great respect, but he constantly remembered M. Lazic and dreamed of meeting her in another life.
Probably, the wife guessed that the marriage was not for love. She saw her husband's thoughtfulness, which only intensified in old age. It is unknown whether Fet confessed his love or took the secret to the grave. The poem begins with the words: “I won’t tell you anything.” The poet understands that recognition will not change anything. It can only bring anxiety into the wife’s soul. For the sake of peace and preservation of the family, the poet must hide his secret dreams to the end and not touch on them even in hints. Although many of Fet’s works are dedicated to M. Lazic. The poet's relatives and acquaintances guessed their secret meaning even without explicit instructions.
In the second stanza, the author moves on to his favorite topic, connecting his condition with nature. The poet’s sadness and melancholy are compared to “night flowers” that are immersed in sleep during the day. Fet is surrounded by the cares and affection of his family, he is busy with literary and social activities. His soul is forgotten in everyday affairs. But as soon as the sun sets, “the leaves quietly open up.” Memories of the past awaken in the poet’s soul, which can no longer be returned.
To describe his condition, Fet uses a contrast: “the heart blooms” - “into the sore, tired chest.” This emphasizes the painfulness of the poet’s experiences. Memories take him to distant, brief moments of first love, followed by unfulfilled dreams. This brings him back to reality, to that fateful act that changed his life forever.
The last two lines repeat the first ones in a mirror sequence. This closes the composition of the poem. Fet cannot risk his wife’s peace of mind, so he firmly decides: “I won’t tell you anything.”
Explanation.
Fet's love lyrics are the most frank page of his poetry. The poet's heart is open, he does not spare it, and this drama of his poems is very hysterical, depressing, despite the fact that, as a rule, they end happily.
In the poem “I won’t tell you anything,” the poet’s confession strikes with notes of tragedy:
I won't tell you anything
And I won’t worry you at all,
And what I silently repeat,
I don't dare hint at anything.
The hero strictly keeps his secret and leads a lifestyle quite typical for a wealthy landowner. However, at night he indulges in dreams and memories, which he compares to the scent of flowers. “The sheets are quietly opening, and I hear my heart singing,” Afanasy Fet shares his impressions. His love is illusory and ephemeral, but it is precisely this that gives the author a feeling of the fullness of life.
The lyrical hero of the poem F.I. Tyutchev’s “I Met You...” is under the power of late love. He is no longer young, so he compares the surging feeling with the breath of spring “in late autumn.” The feeling captured the lyrical hero entirely, without a trace, he emphasizes that life has become somehow unreal: “like in a dream.” Love, in Tyutchev’s understanding, is the biggest shock in a person’s life.
The lyrical hero of A. Tolstoy’s poem “Among a noisy ball, by chance...” In it, the poet tried to convey the impressions of his first meeting with the one who would later become his wife. The stranger was above the bustle of society and kept herself apart, while a certain imprint of mystery lay on her face. “Only the eyes looked sad, and the voice sounded so wonderful,” the poet notes. At the moment of creating the poem “In the midst of a noisy ball, by chance...” he idealizes his chosen one, noting that he dreams of her both in his sleep and in reality.
It is love that fills with meaning, inner burning, makes the human heart shudder, contributes to the rise of the human mind and the spirituality of the entire world order - Tyutchev, Tolstoy, Fet wrote about this.
In order to read the verse “I won’t tell you anything” by Fet Afanasy Afanasyevich with the correct intonations, it is important to know that these lyrics belong to the late period of the poet’s work. The poem, written in 1885, is permeated with experiences and reflections characteristic of a person who has received decent life experience.
It is believed that in this work Fet rethinks his feelings. And we are talking here not about recently arisen, but about unpast love. It is impossible to say reliably to whom the lines are dedicated. The researchers agree on one thing - Fet’s legal wife is definitely not the addressee. The poet sincerely respected her, but did not have strong feelings. With the help of the presented lyrics, the author shared with readers a state of mind that he was not ready to reveal even to his beloved. He described night flowers that bloom only after sunset, indicating that the heart is in tune with them. It is difficult to say whether the poet literally used the image of the night or whether his age was implied, but it was during this period that the author perceived his feelings more acutely.
In the 9th grade, during a literature lesson, the text of Fet’s poem “I won’t tell you anything” will allow us to trace the features of the poet’s mature love experiences. You can download the poems in full or study them online freely on our website.
The poem “I won’t tell you anything” is a lyrical miniature about love, fidelity, caring, even chivalrous attitude towards the woman you love. This work is one of the most famous hymns of love in Russian poetry. Many have heard it in the form of a romance, with music written for it by Tchaikovsky.
The main theme of the poem
Perhaps the poem is a poetic declaration of love for the tragically deceased Maria Lazic and, at the same time, an expression of gratitude to his wife, Maria Botkina, who faithfully and faithfully walked the path of life next to the poet into old age. But perhaps the miniature does not have a specific person as its addressee, but describes the experience of exciting love experiences that the poet once experienced, generalized and addressed to a fictional woman.
The lyrical hero is inextricably linked with the personality of the author himself. He loves, but cannot or does not dare to say about the love that lives in his heart. The poet does not dare to even hint about what the soul “silently repeats.” The reason for silence is concern for a woman whose peace he does not want to disturb. The only time that brings joy is when “the sun sets behind the river,” the night flowers bloom and love freely, without fear of being noticed or taken by surprise, fills the “sick, tired chest.”
The poet brings specificity to the poem. Written in early September, it breathes the coolness of early autumn. There are two heroes in the work - the author himself and his invisible addressee. The reader is given the role of a spiritual friend to whom the author pours out his suffering and who sincerely empathizes with him. The poet’s feelings are conveyed in laconic and therefore especially heart-touching images. The words of the text are very simple, quiet and convey a state of hidden suffering.
The poem begins and ends with lines that mirror each other. The poet begins the poem with an assurance of silence and ends with it. This redoubled promise is necessary in order to give free rein to the subsequent revelations of the suffering heart. But if at first the poet seems to be conjuring himself to remain silent, then after the soul has relieved itself in the feelings freely poured out, this same promise to keep them secret already sounds confidently, as if the hero had made a final decision and now freely and confidently promises: “I’ll do nothing to you.” I will not say".
Structural analysis of the poem
Written in a three-foot anapest with cross rhymes, the poem conveys the musicality of elegant poetic speech. Repeated vowels in the lines also add melodiousness to the work. The text is decorated with the metaphor “the heart blooms” and the personification “night flowers sleep.” A short poem is filled with intense thought, meaning, and emotional uplift.
The poem “I won’t tell you anything” was written by a 63-year-old poet who has experienced in his life both romantic interests and tragic love, vivid in the depth of his experiences. Fet lived in a family marriage based on deep mutual respect for many years. The poem, despite the author’s advanced age, amazes with the youthful acuity of the feelings that excite his heart.
“I won’t tell you anything” is one of Fet’s most famous works, created at the end of his life. Despite the tender, soulful content, there is an outright sadness in these poems. This article presents an analysis of the poem “I won’t tell you anything” according to plan. To whom did Afanasy Afanasyevich dedicated the poem, what events was its writing associated with, and what means of expression did the poet use?
I won't tell you anything
The analysis of the poem must begin by reading it:
I won't tell you anything
And I won’t worry you at all,
And what I silently repeat,
I don't dare hint at anything.
Night flowers sleep all day long,
But as soon as the sun sets behind the grove,
The leaves are quietly opening,
And I hear my heart bloom.
And into the sore, tired chest
The moisture of the night blows... I'm trembling,
I won't alarm you at all
I won't tell you anything.
History of creation
Historical analysis of the poem “I won’t tell you anything” shows that Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet wrote it on September 2, 1885. At this time, the sixty-five-year-old poet served in the Baltic port, since the Crimean War was in full swing, and the troops in which Fet was located were guarding the Estonian coast. War, distance from his wife and family, endless danger to life - his own and those around him: all this gave rise to a feeling of melancholy and the possibility of death in him. Therefore, in this poem, Fet seems to be trying to make some kind of confession to his wife, but, not wanting to disturb her by bringing up the past, the confession remains silent.
In his youth, Afanasy Afanasyevich had a lover, Maria Lazich, whom the poet did not marry because, in his opinion, the girl’s dowry was not rich enough. Fate cruelly punished Fet - just a few days after the breakup, Lazic died in a fire. This event deeply shocked the poet; he could not come to terms with the tragedy until his death.
To be fair, it should be noted that Fet, despite his infatuation with Maria Lazic, allowed himself some liberties with other women during his military service. So it’s quite likely that if no tragedy had happened to the girl, Fet would have forgotten to think about her. But the tragic event, for which the poet’s subtle soul never ceased to blame him, became a lifelong wound and secret suffering hidden from Afanasy Afanasyevich’s wife, Maria Botkina.
In his poem, Fet, far from his wife, whom he greatly valued, respected and even loved as a faithful friend, feels remorse for his secret. He tries to confess his feelings, talking about a tender longing for another woman, but does not dare to offend his wife, who is passionately in love with him, by admitting that his thoughts are incorrect. Analyzing the poem “I won’t tell you anything” taking into account these facts, we understand that it is directly connected with both women. In the photo below is a portrait of Fet’s wife, Maria Botkina-Shenshina.
Analysis of the poem by stanzas
“I won’t tell you anything” begins with the lyrical hero addressing his other half. He talks about some secret - “which I silently repeat,” which he will never reveal even with a hint, so as not to disturb a dear person. In the second stanza, the hero of the work compares his heart with night flowers: during the day they sleep, like the poet’s soul, forced to hide true feelings, and by night, when the unfortunate person is left alone with himself, “the heart blooms” in thoughts of a sweet person who is not around .
In the third stanza, the poet continues the thought he began, calling his chest “tired and sick,” as his soul and heart are exhausted. But the evening air refreshes a heart wound - perhaps the hero often walked with his former lover in the evenings among the aromas of night flowers. The poem ends with the same lines with which it began - despite the mental pain and painful memories, the hero will never disturb the woman of his present life with personal memories of a woman from the past, and therefore he will never tell anything.
Expressive means
A morphological analysis of the poem “I won’t tell you anything” shows that it is written in three-foot anapest, using cross rhyme - this gave the verses a melodious musicality. The genre of the work is a lyrical miniature, the theme is a philosophical attitude towards love, past and present.
The analysis includes the use of oxymoron (“silently repeating”), psychological parallelism (“the heart blooms”), allegory (“the moisture of the night blows into a tired chest”), and personification. (“night flowers sleep”), as well as lexical repetition, encircling the work and making its sad abstraction whole and complete.
Musical incarnations
Repeatedly, composers turned the poem “I won’t tell you anything” into a song. An analysis of the music to which these poems were set shows that this is due to the special melodiousness of the text, which is close to Russian romances.
The first person to compose music for these poems was the great composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. His composition turned out to be lyrical and very personal, despite the authorship of Fet, and is most often performed by female vocals. An example of execution can be seen below.
Also, the words of this poem were set to music by such composers as Rachmaninov, Borodin and Tolstaya. The melody of the latter has become especially popular these days, thanks to the performance of Lyudmila Zykina.
