2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
An analysis of Akhmatova's poem "Prayer" is appropriate to begin with a replica of her great contemporary, Osip Mandelstam. Once he noticed that the poetry of Anna Andreevna was close to becoming one of the symbols of the greatness of Russia. The mission of the poet became the defining, deep meaning of her life.
Prerequisites for creation, genre analysis of the poem "Prayer"
Akhmatova wrote this short lyrical work in 1915, during the most difficult years of the First World War, on the fronts of which her husband, the poet Nikolai Gumilyov, fought the enemy. The war, of course, was the tragedy of the century, and people of art felt this especially keenly. And it was they who were tormented by guilt for not being able to resist the spiritual and moral fall, expressed in the "apocalyptic" massacre that swept the world and destroyed Russia.
Compositionally, this small, eight-line poem corresponds to the genre declared in its title: prayer. This is really a trusting and ardent appeal to God, a prayer that begins with a culmination. The lyrical heroine sacrifices the most precious thing for the sake of the prosperity of her homeland. She asks God for "bitter years of illness", reinforcing her prayer with expressive details: "suffocation, insomnia, fever." Then the poet's muse goes even further - she asks the Almighty: "Watch both the child and the friend." She is finally ready to give up the most precious thing: the "mysterious song gift" in exchange for the desired miraculous transformation to take place "the cloud over dark Russia has become a cloud in the glory of the rays." The poetic antithesis of clouds over the country and clouds in the glory of the rays appeals to the biblical opposition, where the first is a metaphor for an evil, death-bearing force (as, for example, in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, ch. 38, p. 9), and the second is addressed to Christ sitting in a cloud of glory.
Analysis of Akhmatova's poem "Prayer": the power of a patriotic impulse
Anna Andreevna was a deeply religious person and well understood the power of the word said in prayer. What was the spiritual tension that erupted into these expressive lines? The internal struggle, thrashings, doubts are all behind us, and now this sacrificial liturgical petition sounds. She could not but realize that everything said would come true. And it came true.
A peace agreement was signed, the war ended - although not with glory for Russia, but with the preservation of millions of lives, rest after long exhausting days and nights. And soon a revolution broke out, a civil war. Was shot atAkhmatova's husband, Nikolai Gumilyov, was sentenced for liaison with the White Guards, and her son was arrested. The personal tragedy was aggravated by the horror of the bloody terror of the Bolsheviks. What Anna Akhmatova wrote about happened. “Prayer” (an analysis of the poem confirms this) not only demonstrated the power of the poetic word, but affirmed the feature that distinguishes the poems of this profound poet: the ability to go beyond the intimate psychological sphere and rise to a poetic declaration of love in its global manifestation. This is true patriotism and true piercing love for one's country.
Lyric language
God did not take one thing away from Akhmatova - an original poetic gift that became the precious property of Russia, which she loved so much. A characteristic feature of her lyrics is a dialogue with an imaginary interlocutor. This artistic technique is present in her early poems, in which the lyrical heroine explains herself to her beloved or describes her inner state. An analysis of Akhmatova's poem "Prayer" makes it clear: now a new scale and intonation are appearing in her creative range. But the poetics does not change. There is still an invisible interlocutor who knows all her secrets and details of life and who has the power to decide her fate. And just as capacious and figurative as in all previous and subsequent verses, the finale of the work turns out to be: a visually tangible and strikingly beautiful picture of a magnificent and familiar to every person metamorphosis, when a gloomy cloud is suddenly pierced from the inside by the sun's rays, and it suddenly turns into a dazzlingly shining cloud.
In conclusion
In the work of Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, the word, faith and love are inseparable. She understood love in a Christian way broadly: it was a reverent relationship between two people, and a fervent, sacrificial love for the motherland and people. An analysis of Akhmatova's poem "Prayer" at one time led the poet Naum Korzhavin to the conclusion that her lyrics make it possible to call this great woman in the full sense of the word a people's poet.
Recommended:
Analysis of the poem: "Prayer", Lermontov M. Yu
The poems of such a colorful poet as M. Yu. Lermontov are familiar to us from early childhood, and it is difficult to imagine an author who wrote more clearly and beautifully. The works of this person are so penetrating that from reading them there is an indelible feeling of touching something alive, beautiful, pure
Analysis of Pushkin's poem "The Village": ideological content, composition, expressiveness
Analysis of Pushkin's poem "The Village" allows us to talk about the features of the author's political lyrics. In it, he expressed his attitude towards the Motherland, contradictory, but at the same time very warm
Analysis of Tyutchev's poem "Last Love", "Autumn Evening". Tyutchev: analysis of the poem "Thunderstorm"
Russian classics devoted a huge number of their works to the theme of love, and Tyutchev did not stand aside. An analysis of his poems shows that the poet conveyed this bright feeling very accurately and emotionally
Analysis of Tyutchev's poem "Leaves". Analysis of Tyutchev's lyric poem "Leaves"
Autumn landscape, when you can watch the foliage swirling in the wind, the poet turns into an emotional monologue, permeated with the philosophical idea that slow invisible decay, destruction, death without a brave and daring take-off is unacceptable, terrible, deeply tragic
Analysis of the poem "The Poet and the Citizen". Analysis of Nekrasov's poem "The Poet and the Citizen"
An analysis of the poem "The Poet and the Citizen", like any other work of art, should begin with a study of the history of its creation, with the socio-political situation that was developing in the country at that time, and the biographical data of the author, if they are both something related to the work
