Detailed analysis of Gumilyov's poem "The Sixth Sense"

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

One of the best poems by N. S. Gumilyov - "The Sixth Sense". In order to understand what the author wanted to bring to the reader's world, one should analyze Gumilyov's poem. The Sixth Sense was written in the year of the poet's death. This is his last poem, which is included in the collection Pillar of Fire. The collection itself is significantly different from his previous works - these are not poems by a young boy hovering in the clouds, but works written by a mature person.

An analysis of Gumilyov's poem showed that the main idea of "The Sixth Sense" is the desire to feel beautiful. At present, people are losing their spirituality, and this poem is directly saturated with it. It calls to feel the beauty, the splendor that surrounds us. After reading the poem, one can acutely feel the craving for the grace and charm of nature. This is the sixth sense that the author writes about: to understand and feel the beautiful, not given to us from birth, but capable of being born in torment.

AnalysisGumilyov's poem "The Sixth Sense" reveals two main themes of the work: the poet's dream of the supremacy of beauty and philosophical views on humanity as a whole. Gumilyov appreciates life and thanks her for every moment lived and the opportunity to enjoy natural desires. This is well expressed at the beginning of the poem. It begins slowly, leisurely - the earthly joys of people are described (first stanza).

Here the main feelings, sources of pleasant emotions are shown - to eat, drink, indulge in love ("wine", "bread", "woman"). And in the second stanza, the author, as it were, asks questions: “Is this all that a person needs? Is it really only base, innate desires - is this what everyone needs? He does not despise the "basic" needs of people, but he doubts that this is enough for a person.

Analysis of Gumilyov's poem makes us think about how to relate to the fact that we cannot "Neither eat, nor drink, nor kiss"? Why do we need a “pink dawn” and “cold skies” if we do not have the desire to understand this beauty? Why "immortal verses" that we cannot appreciate with our base feelings?

Our life is rushing by ("The moment runs unstoppable"), and we try to stop the moment and enjoy the beauty, but we can't ("we break our hands" and "are condemned to pass by").

An analysis of Gumilyov's poem shows that a new feeling can open up in the reader, like a boy who has forgotten about his games.

…And knowing nothing about love, Everything is tormentedwith a mysterious desire…

He feels delighted by what he sees, a "sense of beauty" wakes up in him. And in stanza 5, the author also points out that it can be painfully difficult to awaken this feeling in oneself.

And the last stanza indicates that everything high and wonderful is accompanied by pain, as if a person must earn the ability to feel the splendor of nature.

A poem that gives birth to something new in us, makes the soul tremble - this is Gumilev's "The Sixth Sense". An analysis of this work showed that the author encourages readers to awaken this feeling in themselves, to succumb to it. It is filled with rhetorical questions that torment the soul of the author, but make you think about what is given to us by nature and what else we can get. Also, this poem can be considered prophetic. If you look at his second stanza, we can assume that Nikolai Stepanovich prophesied his own death.

Perhaps the author meant that "pink skies" - this is his poetic inspiration, and "cold skies" - the decline of his work. The last lines of the work can also be interpreted as a description of death, but this cannot be known for sure.

Shortly after writing The Sixth Sense, Gumilyov was killed.