2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov is a name known to everyone since school. And those who raised their hands more often in literature lessons now probably recall the textbook lines that Lermontov is a great representative of Russian romanticism. Perhaps these words do not mean anything to you yet, but this is precisely the key to understanding Lermontov's works, including Lermontov's poem "The Beggar".
"Fiery passion" and the real world
The main condition of a romantic composition is a hero living a double life. On the one hand, like each of us, he lives in a certain environment and is forced to follow certain rules. But on the other hand, in the soul of a romantic hero there is a dream, a guiding star, a "fiery passion." In romanticism, such a dream, most often, is unattainable (for example, the hero sees his ideal in the past). Therefore, the real world is terrible and disgusting for him. Only within himself, alone with his guiding star, does the hero find solace. Hence the conflict between dream and reality arises, which becomes the basis of the plots of romantic works.
The poem "The Beggar": what colors are the images drawn in?
The poem "The Beggar" Lermontov wrote in 1830, when he was only sixteen. Nevertheless, the theme of loneliness, one of the central ones of the poet, is already heard in the work (later it appears in such famous poems as "And it's boring and sad"; "I go out alone on the road"). Lermontov does not always think about loneliness as such: in the poem "How often, surrounded by a motley crowd …" loneliness in society is considered, and in the poem "The Beggar" the theme of loneliness is combined with love.
The poem is built on the principle of comparison. Are identified, i.e. two images are compared with each other: a beggar (the first two stanzas) and an unrequitedly in love lyrical hero (the final quatrain). To depict the unfortunate poor, the poet used colorful definitions - epithets ("the poor man is withered, a little alive"; "living flour") and a rearrangement of words - inversion:
He only asked for a piece of bread
Lermontov, when depicting a beggar, instantly reaches the highest drama. The romantic conflict between dreams and reality is evident here, because the vile, terrible, inhuman deception of the beggar is committed "at the gates of the holy monastery." Where is this holiness? Instantly (which is natural for a small poem) the climax is reached. The author comes to her through an anaphora (the same beginning of lines) in the second stanza:
He only asked for a piece of bread, And the gaze showed living flour, And someone laid a stone
Into his outstretched hand.
And like this, having reached the climax, keeping the reader on the crest of the climactic wave, the poet abruptly switches him into the sphere of love experiences:
So I prayed for your love
With bitter tears, with longing;
So my feelings are the best
Deceived forever by you!
An anaphora ("so" - "so") is also used here. In this stanza, she helps to create the tone of the conclusion, summarizing the statement. Draw in the eyes of the reader a situation that cannot be changed.
Who is the beggar?
The poem depicts more than just the end of a relationship between a man and a woman. The author is not in vain talking about the "best feelings" of the lyrical hero. Something more than the personal life of the hero has been destroyed, that very guiding star and "fiery passion" that we spoke about before we began to analyze the poem are destroyed. Lermontov's beggar is not "a wizened, barely alive poor man." No, this image, despite all its drama, is used only to draw a parallel with a true beggar. Real poverty, according to Lermontov, is the loss of the best part of your soul, your dream, your star. In this case, love for some ideal that cannot deceive. Now the hero is not only surrounded by a terrible world (this is clear to us from the first part of the poem), a terrible world is inside him, since his best feelings"cheated forever." The dream in the chest of the famous Lermontov hero Mtsyri will also subsequently die.
So, the poem "The Beggar" is an example of Lermontov's early romantic work, which touches on the most important topics in the poet's work.
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