Fet's poems amazed his contemporaries and amaze us with the brightness and consistency of colors, great emotional intensity.
The poet believed that one must create according to intuition and inspiration. The subject of art can be nature, love, beauty - and he followed this in his poetic practice. He entered the history of Russian poetry as an original lyric poet, a master of lyrical miniature.
Nature occupies a significant place in his lyrics; it seems to respond to the poet’s feelings. Man is a particle of living nature, a creature equal to it. The poet loved to depict the transitional states of nature, different seasons: autumn, spring, summer and winter - all equally beautiful.
His love lyrics are very significant, glorifying the joys and misfortunes of great human feeling. A whole series of poems about love for a woman is dedicated to Maria Lazic, most of them are of a dramatic nature.
The prevailing mood in his works is intoxication with nature, beauty, art, memories, and delight. These are the features of Fet's lyrics. The poet often encounters the motif of flying away from the earth following the moonlight or enchanting music.
For Fet, poetry is pure essence, something like rarefied air on mountain peaks: not a human home, but a sanctuary.
Like any poet, Afanasy Afanasyevich writes about the eternal theme of life and death. Neither death nor life frightens him equally. The poet experiences only cold indifference to physical death, and earthly existence is justified only by creative fire, commensurate in his view with the “entire universe.” Both ancient and Christian motifs are heard in the poems.
In this section you will also find all the best poems by Fet, which are taken by students of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th grades according to the school curriculum. Patriotic poems about the Motherland and Russia, about war and freedom. Sad poems about the cemetery and religion, about loneliness, about freedom. Dedications to mother and women. Philosophical reflections about good and evil, about friendship, about the abyss.
Adult readers will enjoy short poems about sleep, satirical poems with obscenities. As well as lyrical, romantic and historical works. And also read dedications, epigrams, romances - and enjoy the pearls of world poetry.
What a night! Everything is so blissful!
Thank you, dear midnight land!
From the kingdom of ice, from the kingdom of blizzards and snow
How fresh and clean your May leaves!
What a night! Every single star
Warmly and meekly they look into the soul again,
And in the air behind the nightingale's song
Anxiety and love spread.
The birches are waiting. Their leaves are translucent
Shyly beckons and pleases the eye.
They are shaking. So to the newlywed virgin
Her attire is both joyful and alien.
No, never more tender and incorporeal
Your face, O night, could not torment me!
Again I come to you with an involuntary song,
Involuntary - and the last, perhaps.
Analysis of the poem “Still May Night” by Fet
The poem “Another May Night” was written by Fet almost immediately after his marriage to M. Botkina (1857). At first glance, it describes the feelings of a person who has found happiness in family life. In reality, everything was much more complicated. Fet was madly in love with M. Lazic, but could not marry her for financial reasons. By marrying Botkina, who had a large inheritance, he secured his life, but destroyed the hope of happiness in love. The early tragic death of Lazic shocked Fet and gave him a feeling of enormous guilt before his beloved. The work “Still May Night” is the poet’s attempt to isolate himself from sad memories and pretend to be a happy young husband.
The author expresses his admiration for the fresh May night. He emphasizes that such a feeling can only be experienced in the Russian “kingdom of ice, ... blizzards and snow.” At home, the triumph of spring over the harsh Russian winter is very keenly felt. This transition symbolizes for Fet possible happiness in family life (in fact, financial well-being).
Fet remains true to himself, chanting the beauty of the surrounding nature: “the stars... look meekly into the soul,” the “nightingale’s song” is heard loudly in the silence, which, together with love, for some reason spreads anxiety. In the third stanza, the poet introduces the traditional image of a birch tree. Impressed by a recent wedding, the poet compares the tree to a “newlywed maiden.” Although he did not feel love for Botkina, he still treated her with great respect and recognized her unconditional right to family happiness.
Fet still hoped for the Russian proverb “endure, fall in love.” Botkina truly loved the poet and was ready to become his only faithful and caring wife. And financial independence allowed him to completely devote himself to poetry and try to forget about his past failed love.
In the finale, Fet's real feelings break through. It becomes clear that the tender May night helps him cope with the loss of M. Lazic and briefly believe in happiness with his unloved wife. The “involuntary song” caused by the charm of the night may well be the last. It is widely known that until the end of his life Fet bitterly regretted his fatal decision when choosing between love and money. Over the years, the desire for imminent death appeared more and more often in his poems. The poet believed that in another world he would meet his beloved again and be able to atone for his guilt.
What a night! What bliss there is in everything!
Thank you, dear midnight land!
From the kingdom of ice, from the kingdom of blizzards and snow
How fresh and clean your May leaves!
What a night! Every single star
Warmly and meekly they look into the soul again,
And in the air behind the nightingale's song
Anxiety and love spread.
The birches are waiting. Their leaves are translucent
Shyly beckons and pleases the eye.
They are shaking. So to the newlywed virgin
Her attire is both joyful and alien.
No, never more tender and incorporeal
Your face, O night, could not torment me!
Again I come to you with an involuntary song,
Involuntary - and the last, perhaps.
The date of writing is established on the basis of a letter from Fet V.P. Botkin dated May 18, 1857; see: about this:<Генералова Н.П, Кошелев В.А., Петрова Г.В.>. Comments // Fet A.A. Essays and letters.<Т. 1.>. Poems and poems 1839-1863 / Ed. and comment. preparation N.P. Generalova, V.A. Koshelev, G.V. Petrova. St. Petersburg, 2002. P. 480). The text of the letter has been published (“My complete happiness depends on you alone...”, Letters from A.A. Fet to his fiancee / Published and notes by G.D. Aslanova // Our Heritage. 1999. No. 49. P. 42). From the text of the letter it turns out that the poem is addressed to the poet’s fiancée, Maria Petrovna Botkina.
Text sources
The first publication was the magazine “Russian Bulletin”, 1857, vol. 12, no. 11, November, book. 2, p. 443. The poem is included in Fet’s lifetime collections of poetry: Poems by A.A. Feta. 2 parts. M., 1863. Part 1. Autograph of the poem - in the so-called notebook I (code: 14166. LXXVIIIb.10), stored in the manuscript department of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (with discrepancies - verse 4: “How yours is coming and May is fresh and clear!”; verse 14: “Your call, O night, could not torment me!”<Генералова Н.П, Кошелев В.А., Петрова Г.В.>. Comments. P.. 480), another autograph of the poem is in a letter from Fet V.P. Botkin dated May 18, 1857.
Place in the structure of lifetime collections
When published in a collection in 1863, the poem was included in the “Spring” cycle, consisting of eleven poems. “Still May Night” is the ninth text in the cycle. Composition of the cycle: I. “The willow is all fluffy...”; II. “It’s still spring - it’s as if it’s unearthly...”; III. “Don’t wake her up at dawn...”; IV. “More fragrant bliss of spring”; V. Bees; VI. Spring thoughts; VII. Spring is just around the corner; VIII. First lily of the valley; IX. It's still a May night; X. “Again invisible efforts...”; XI. Spring rain.
As part of the cycle, the poem “Still a May Night” stands out for its philosophical nature (other works are more likely to relate to landscape and / or love lyrics) and the dramatic (and potentially tragic) meaning of the ending: the lyrical “I” feels not only affinity, but also discord with the ever-renewing nature, anticipates the likely proximity of death. The antithesis of eternal nature and the mortal “I” is also found in another poem of the cycle, “It’s still spring, - as if unearthly ...” (1847): “The time will come - and soon, perhaps - / Again the earth will yearn to be renewed, / But this the heart will stop beating / And there will be nothing to love.”
In the plan for the unrealized new edition compiled by Fet in 1892, it is also included in the “Spring” section, which includes twenty-three poems (see the composition of the section in the publication: Fet A.A. Complete collection of poems / Introductory article, prep. . text and notes by B.Ya. Bukhshtab, L., 1959 (“Library of the poet. Large series. Second edition”).
Composition. Motive structure
The poem, like most of Fet’s strophic lyrical works, consists of three stanzas, each of which is united by a cross rhyme: ABAB. The first stanza, opening with the exclamation “What a night!”, contains an appeal - thanksgiving to the spring night (the first two lines) and a generalized picture of the reviving spring nature.
The beginning of the second stanza is a repetition of the same exclamation that opened the first; however, the meaning of the second quatrain is different. Concrete features of the landscape appear, albeit presented in a metaphorical vein (stars), and spring sounds - “the song of a nightingale.” Spring first appears in visual perception, while the gaze of the imaginary contemplator is directed upward, to the starry firmament (the first two lines of the second quatrain). In the third line of the stanza, visual perception is replaced by auditory, acoustic: the “song of a nightingale” is heard. The fourth verse is a kind of intermediate result in the text of the poem: spring is a time of anxiety and love.
The meaning of the word “anxiety” is not yet entirely clear, but it is obvious that, first of all, it is the anxiety of languor, a feeling of love; It is no coincidence that the lexemes “anxiety” and “love” are placed in one row, united by the connecting conjunction “and”.
But the poem does not end there. In the third stanza, acoustic perception again gives way to visual perception: a description of spring birches is given. But this description begins with a metaphor: “The birches are waiting,” and as if torn off, “unspoken” (there is no addition - they are waiting for what? who?). Thanks to this, the statement acquires a multi-valued meaning (they are waiting for spring, renewal, love, which also reigns in the natural world). A parallel is the interpretation of spring in other poems by Fet: “the living news of rebirth” (“More fragrant bliss of spring ...”, 1854), “Again in the heart you can’t temper with anything / Until the rising blood touches the cheeks, / And with a bribed soul you believe, / That, like the world , love is endless” (“Spring Thoughts”, 1848), “She came, and everything around is melting, / Everything longs to surrender to life, / And the heart, a prisoner of winter blizzards, / Suddenly forgot how to shrink” (“She came, and everything around is melting ...", 1866).
The second half of the line that opens the third quatrain contains substantive details related to birch trees (“the leaf is translucent”); the visual image is also present in the third line: “They tremble.” This is not only an animating metaphor, but also an image of the slight trembling of leaves in the wind. The ending of the stanza - comparing the trees with the “newlywed maiden” - transfers the picture of spring nature again to the metaphorical plane.
The fourth stanza is a kind of “echo” of the first. It also opens with an exclamatory sentence and an appeal to the spring night. The second sentence, which occupies the last two lines of the work, is also an appeal to the night, although not framed as an exclamation. But now the gaze of the lyrical “I” is directed not at the world outside, but inside one’s soul. The penultimate line contains a repetition of the word “song/song”: however, this is already a spring “nightingale song”, but a “song” of the lyrical “I”, music of the soul, poetry.
The “song” of the lyrical “I” is “involuntary,” for it, like the “nightingale’s song,” is irresistibly spontaneous.
The ending sharply breaks the emotional tone of the text: the spring renewal of nature contrasts with the state of the contemplator, awaiting possible death soon. Previously, the world of “I” and the world of the spring night were in happy harmony, but now it is broken. And the “languishing” of the “I” can be understood as an unfulfillable desire to dissolve in the natural world.
The “anxiety” mentioned at the end of the second stanza can now be read not only as happy (languor of love, sweet languor caused by the renewal of nature), but also anxiety, anxiety in anticipation of the possible death of the “I”. And this anxiety contrasts with the joyful “trembling” of the spring birch trees.
Nature, beauty and love constitute an inseparable unity for the author of the poem. (The comparison of birches “with a newlywed maiden” is indicative.) Night spring nature is not only the visible world; in the spring night, obviously, the essence of being is revealed: it is no coincidence that the lyrical “I” “languishes” the night in its “incorporeality”, and for this In order to convey this desire, Fet resorts to the occasional (not existing in the language) grammatically incorrect form “incorporeal” (the comparative degree is formed, contrary to the rules, not from a qualitative adjective, but from a relative one - “incorporeal” - which has no degrees of comparison) .
From the rejoicing of nature and the rejoicing of the “I” to the statement of the imminent destruction of those contemplating its beauty - this is the motivic “drawing” of the poem. According to L.M. Rosenblum, “unlike Tyutchev, who deeply felt the happiness of communicating with Nature<…>, the hero Fet perceives the relationship between man and nature always harmoniously. He knows neither “chaos” nor “rebellion”, so significant in Tyutchev’s worldview, nor the feeling of orphanhood in the midst of worldwide silence” (Rozenblum 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 characteristic is generally true, but only if you ignore such poems as “Still May Night” or, for example, “To the Faded Stars” (1890).
Figurative structure
The poem is built on a contradictory combination of conventional, metaphorical images (“the kingdom of ice”, “the kingdom of blizzards and snow”), including examples of the personification of May and the night like a living creature (“May flies out”, the “face” of the night) with objective images, but endowed (“translucent leaf”) or combining objectivity and metaphorical animation (“stars<…>/ Warmly and meekly they look into the soul”, “The birches are waiting”, “They are trembling”). Here are more examples of combining different - purely metaphorical and not devoid of objectivity - meanings in the word “tremble”: “In the ether (in the sky, in the air. - A.R.) the song trembles and melts<…>And a gentle voice sings: / “You will survive spring yet”” (“Spring is in the yard”, 1855). The trembling “song” is both the singing of spring birds and the voice of spring itself, of nature, addressed to the lyrical “I”. The “trembling” of the sun’s rays on the water of a stream (“Mountain Key”, 1870) is a sign of its life and animation. An example of metaphorical usage: “Evil song!<…>Until dawn, my chest trembled and ached” (“Romance”, 1882).
The image of the stars may be correlated with Lermontov’s “And star speaks to star.” However, in the poem by M.Yu. Lermontov's conversation, the “union” of stars is contrasted with the lonely lyrical hero, lost in existence, while in Fet the stars are turned to the “I”, “looking” into his “soul”.
Meter and rhythm. Syntax
The poem is written in iambic pentameter with alternating feminine and masculine verse endings. “In lyric poetry, iambic 5-foot acts as a rival to 6-foot in its last area - in elegiac and related topics” (Gasparov M.L. Essay on the history of Russian verse: Metrics. Rhythm. Rhyme. Strophic. M., 1984. With . 167). Fetov's poem is no longer an elegy in its “pure” form; the destruction of the elegy genre occurred back in the 1820-1830s. The elegy retains (in a reduced, weakened form) the motive of reflection on life, philosophy. The confinement of the lyrical hero’s thoughts to the night time is also characteristic of many works of this genre. The features of the elegy are reminiscent of the hidden antithesis “past - present”, the motive of alienation from life, the revaluation of what has been lived.
Metrical scheme of iambic pentameter: 01/01/01/01/01 (in the odd lines of Fet’s poem, the last, fifth foot is followed by an increment in the form of an unstressed syllable).
In Fetov's work, an intra-verse pause is consistently used - a caesura, occupying a position after the second foot and dividing the lines into hemistiches. Thanks to the caesura, not only the appeals “What a night!”, “What a bliss!”, “Thank you” are intonationally highlighted (their emphasis is dictated primarily by syntax, not verse), but also by the characteristics of a cold winter (“From the kingdom of ice,” “ from the kingdom of blizzards and snow”), the joyful signs of May (“How fresh and clean”), the stars (“Warm and gentle”), the special spring air (“And in the air”); attention is focused on the properties of the nightingale song (“spreads”), on spring feelings (“anxiety and love”), on birches (“Birches are waiting”, “They are standing”).
Only in the last line the caesura is shifted one syllable forward: “Involuntary // - and the last, maybe” instead of “Involuntary - and // the last, maybe” (the “//” sign indicates the location of the caesura). The pause before “and the last” creates the effect of a difficult utterance of the thought of death; but the inertia of the text, in which previously caesuras were everywhere after the fourth, and not after the third, syllable, prompts (contrary to the syntax and punctuation mark - the dash) to pause after the conjunction “and”, before the word “last”. In this case, the lexeme “last” turns out to be especially highlighted and colored intonationally.
The rhythm of the poem is distinguished by the omission of stress on the metrically strong positions of the first feet (“Blag O/ I give", "He And/ tremble", "No, n And/ when), second stops (“And in the air e", "Zaste/nchiv O"), third feet ("yours in s/leta/et”, fourth feet (“star/zdy d O", "ne/new with O/fishing/noy", "floor at/transparent" "de/ve n O imaginary", "and b e/stele/sney"). (“/” is a sign of the boundaries of feet, determined in accordance with the boundaries of phonetic syllables; unstressed vowels, which should be stressed according to the metric scheme, are underlined.) These rhythmic features in some cases are undoubtedly significant: both thanksgiving and negation are highlighted “No, never”, especially noticeable are the epithets pronounced due to the omission of schematic stresses with some “acceleration”: “nightingale”, “translucent”, “newlywed”, “incorporeal”).
One of the features of the syntax is the variation in the length of sentences, which can either fit within a hemistich (two sentences in the first line: “What a night! What bliss on everything!”), or occupy a line (“Thank you, my native midnight land!”), or one and a half (“So to the newlywed virgin / And her attire is joyful and alien”) and, finally, two (“From the kingdom of ice, from the kingdom of blizzards and snow / How fresh and pure your May flies!”, “And in the air behind the song of the nightingale / Anxiety and love spread,” “Again I’m coming to you with an involuntary song, / Involuntary - and perhaps the last one”). The poem opens with short exclamations (the author seems to find no words for the delight and gratitude of the night), which are then replaced by an attempt to express a feeling of gratitude and detailed narrative constructions. The final lengthy appeals - reflections are contrasted with short enthusiastic exclamations that open the first stanza. Syntactically, the last stanza is contrasted not only with the first, but also with the second and third. The first three stanzas open with short sentences, each hemistich: “What a night!” (twice) and “The birches are waiting.”
In the third stanza there is another short sentence consisting only of a subject and a predicate: “They tremble,” syntactically identical to the sentence “The birches are waiting.” With the help of such syntactic repetition, attention is drawn to the image of birches as central to the poem.
The syntax of the poem is also characterized by repetitions of words and/or grammatical structures: “From the kingdom of ice, from the kingdom of blizzards and snow,” “with an involuntary song, / Involuntary.” The repetition also enhances the significance of the characteristics of winter (‘cold’, ‘royally imperious’). And the spontaneity, the involuntary “involuntary” “song” of the poet.
Also noteworthy are examples of placing the predicate before the subject: “May is flying out,” “Anxiety and love are spreading” (the opposite order is more common in the Russian language). In the first case, in addition, the proximity of the possessive pronoun “your” and the noun “may” is broken (it should be: your may flies out), and the very presence of the verb - the predicate “flies out” is unusual. A more common one would be: “How fresh and clean your May is!” Violation of the usual word order was characteristic of Russian solemn poetry, of the odic tradition, to which Fet is probably guided.
Through this technique, dynamics and movement are emphasized. Even more expressive are the cases of setting the definition after the word being defined, and not before it: “behind the nightingale’s song,” “a translucent leaf,” “to the newlywed virgin.” Placing the definition after the word being defined is a feature characteristic of the Church Slavonic language and inherited in the high style of Russian poetry of the 18th century. By resorting to such a syntactic device, Fet gives his poem a solemn, almost odic sound. In addition, these definitions - epithets, due to the violation of the usual word order, acquired an additional impact, enhanced by their final position in the lines and participation in the creation of rhymes.
Sound scale
The poem highlights repetitions of the sounds “n”, “s” and the paired voiced “z”, “l”, “r”, and to a lesser extent “t”. They are emphasized not only because of frequency (five “n” sounds in the thirteenth line, which opens the last quatrain) or strength (“n”, “l” and “r” are sonorant consonants, otherwise called “sonorous”). These sounds are part of the key words of the poem, related by its theme (“May With kaya", " With vezh", "chi With T », « n ega", " n oh", " T warm", " tr evoga", "to r O T ko", "ne sn yu", " With O l owie n Ouch", " l love", "be r e h s" "be st e l e sn to her", " l ik", " T omi t ", etc.). The root sounds of words have a stronger impact than, for example, sounds in suffixes, since they are more closely related to the meaning. But I found it possible to highlight in the keywords all repetitions of the consonant sounds mentioned above.
“T”, “r” and “l” partly perform an onomatopoeic function, as if imitating the trill of a nightingale and actually becoming its condensed designation (anagram) in the line “ R is heard tr Evoga and l love."
Of the vowels, the open sound “a” is highlighted in the first stanza: it occurs seven times and sounds in a strong (stressed) position. In all other stanzas the frequency of “a” is much lower. The sound “a” seems to be associated with the “opening”, coming out into the wild in spring and May (a “m A th" is one of the key words of the poem, ending the first quatrain). In subsequent stanzas, the sound “a”, apparently, partially loses its previous meaning, but in stressed positions (especially in the accented definitions “semi-transparent” A chny", "new A nal", it is also significant in the repeated "as A I".
Here is a diagram of the sound structure of the poem:
How A I n oh! N and in With I eat like A I n yeah!
B l agoda r yu, r one at a time ln full-time cr A y!
From c arst wa ice, from c arst va blizzard and sn eg A
How With vezh and chi st T howl you l e melts May!
How A I n oh! IN With e h ve h let's eat n Ouch
T ep l o and k r O T to the soul With mo tr I T again,
And in h in good spirit sn to her With O l owie n Ouch
R A zn O With it turns out tr Evoga and l love
Be r e h We're waiting. Their l And st By l unitary enterprise r O sp A h n th
Z A st enchimo ma n And T And T eat T V h O r .
They etc. cool at . So to the virgin n ovob ra h n Ouch
AND ra to st e n and alien to her r .
N no, n andsometimes A n hedgehog n no matter what st e l e sn to her
Your l ik, oh n oh, n I couldn't n I T omi T b!
Again t To T fuck I'm going with n evol n Ouch n e sn to her,
N evol n oh - and by sl units n she can T would t .
The words “kingdoms”, “snow” are included in the semantic field of “winter”, the cluster of consonants “rstv” seems to convey the difficulty of liberating spring from the abode of cold. It can be argued that “a”, “p”, “s”, “t”, “n” perform opposite functions in the poem. But another interpretation is also acceptable: it is as if “winter” words are being “flooded” by “spring” “sounds”.
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If you read the poem “Another May Night” by Fet Afanasy Afanasyevich again and again, then each time the image created by the author will be revealed from a new side. Only the sublime style of writing will really remain unchanged, which is perceived equally easily in lines that convey high spirits and slight sadness.
The title work, written in 1857, generally glorifies a beautiful May night. The author emphasizes his special attitude towards her using exclamatory sentences. The poet thanks his native land for being able to enjoy the mentioned time of day in the spring. However, a quiet starry May night evokes conflicting feelings. In the song of the nightingale and the trembling of birch leaves, Fet heard both joy and anxiety. It’s impossible not to admire the gentle image of the night, but it also makes you think about the future. Therefore, the poet assumes that any of his creations may be his last.
This lyric in the author’s work is not the only one dedicated to the night, including the spring one. Therefore, it is quite interesting to compare such verses. For expressive reading and analysis in grades 5-6 in a literature lesson, the text of Fet’s poem “Another May Night” can be freely downloaded or taught online in full on our website.
What a night! Everything is so blissful!
Thank you, dear midnight land!
From the kingdom of ice, from the kingdom of blizzards and snow
How fresh and clean your May leaves!
What a night! Every single star
Warmly and meekly they look into the soul again,
And in the air behind the nightingale's song
Anxiety and love spread.
The birches are waiting. Their leaves are translucent
Shyly beckons and pleases the eye.
They are shaking. So to the newlywed virgin
Her attire is both joyful and alien.
No, never more tender and incorporeal
Your face, O night, could not torment me!
Again I come to you with an involuntary song,
Involuntary - and the last, perhaps.
“Still May Night” Afanasy Fet
What a night! Everything is so blissful!
Thank you, dear midnight land!
From the kingdom of ice, from the kingdom of blizzards and snow
How fresh and clean your May leaves!What a night! Every single star
Warmly and meekly they look into the soul again,
And in the air behind the nightingale's song
Anxiety and love spread.The birches are waiting. Their leaves are translucent
Shyly beckons and pleases the eye.
They are shaking. So to the newlywed virgin
Her attire is both joyful and alien.No, never more tender and incorporeal
Your face, O night, could not torment me!
Again I come to you with an involuntary song,
Involuntary - and the last, perhaps.
Analysis of Fet's poem "Another May Night..."
It is no secret that the subtle and deep lyricist Afanasy Fet wrote all his works, as they say, from life. His poems are transformed feelings and images that he passed through his own soul. Therefore, it is not surprising that almost every poem by the author is based on real events, which the poet depicts with his characteristic grace, leaving “behind the scenes” what, in the poet’s opinion, does not have any special meaning for him personally at the moment.
The poem “Still May Night” also has its own backstory. It was written in 1857 almost immediately after Afanasy Fet married Maria Botkina. The poet felt sympathy and deep affection for his young wife, although he realized that these feelings could only be called love with a very big stretch. The poet's marriage was concluded out of convenience out of a desire to provide himself with a decent life, to which he had become accustomed since childhood. The thing is that Fet was adopted by a fairly wealthy landowner Afanasy Shenshin, but after his death he was deprived of his inheritance due to incorrectly executed papers and was forced to leave the family estate in order to earn his own living. It was then that the poet was forced to change his last name - from now on he became Afanasy Fet. Thus, having won the hand of Maria Botkina, the poet, although he did not regain his title of nobility, could count on a completely comfortable existence due to an impressive dowry.
The May night, which the author so admires in his poem, apparently is the first in his by no means happy family life. However, the poet is determined to forget his beloved Maria Lazic, whom he refused to marry precisely because of financial considerations. Now, having acquired an impressive fortune, Fet is counting on a serene and prosperous life, so he is touched by everything - the May night, the rustling of young birch leaves outside the window, and the intoxicating trills of nightingales. The author, as if waking up from a long hibernation, begins to notice the beauty of the world around him, emphasizing that “every single star looks warmly and meekly into the soul again.” The poet compares his young wife to a slender birch tree, which “shyly beckons and pleases the eye.” Drawing a similar parallel, the author notes that “so the newlywed virgin is both joyful and alien to her attire.”
Afanasy Fet tries to carefully hide his personal feelings and experiences on this night, believing that it is not love, but financial well-being that is the key to a prosperous family life. Subsequently, the poet realizes his mistake and will cruelly pay for it until the end of his days, living with a woman he does not love. However, on the wedding day, the author is full of the brightest hopes, although the first doubts are already creeping into his soul. It is much nicer and more pleasant for him to admire the night sky and admire its beauty than to spend time with his young wife. Therefore, the poet notes that “your face, O night, could not torment me!”. The last lines of the poem “Another May Night...” testify to how Fet really feels about his marriage, in which the author admits: “Again I’m coming to you with an involuntary song, involuntary - and perhaps the last.” The poet secretly regrets that he voluntarily deprived himself of freedom for the sake of financial well-being, sensing that such an alliance would very soon become a burden for him. Fet does not openly mention his first and only beloved, but between the lines of this romantic poem one can sense a slight regret that a completely different woman became his chosen one. And, as it later turned out, the poet could not come to terms with this fact until his death.
