Analysis of Tyutchev's poem "Leaves". Analysis of Tyutchev's lyric poem "Leaves"

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

Before offering the reader an analysis of Tyutchev's poem "Leaves", let's say a few words about the aesthetic views of the poet. Fedor Ivanovich was a follower of the German idealist philosopher Schelling, who understood nature as a natural unity of opposites. This concept found many admirers among young romantic poets not only in Europe, but also in our country. The extent to which the poet's worldview is reflected in his immortal creations will help evaluate the analysis of Tyutchev's lyric poem "Leaves".

Primary Poet

Tyutchev left for Germany as a diplomat in 1821, where he met his idols Schelling and Heine, married Eleanor Peterson and continued to write poetry, which he had been passionate about since adolescence. From abroad, the poet sent, at the insistence of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, lyrical works to Russia and gained some fame here. Among the creations of this period was Tyutchev's poem"Leaves". After the death of Pushkin, the lyrics of Fedor Ivanovich were no longer published in Russia. N. Nekrasov in his article “Russian Minor Poets” resolutely stated that he attributed the gift of the writer to the primary poetic talents, which, by chance, turned out to be among the little-known Russian readers, and put Tyutchev on a par with the famous Russian poets Pushkin and Lermontov.

Starting to study the lyrical work

The plan for analyzing Tyutchev's poem "Leaves" is seen by us as follows: we determine the theme and idea of the work. We evaluate the composition. We consider artistic techniques and means of figurative expression, sum up.

Analysis of Tyutchev's poem "Leaves": theme and composition

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev called Fyodor Tyutchev a poet of thought merged with feeling. He also emphasized another feature of the poetry of the master of the word: the psychological accuracy of his lyrics and passion as its main motive. In the poem "Leaves" Tyutchev matches the analysis of spiritual movements with the picture of fading nature. The composition is based on parallelism: the external world (landscape) and the inner sphere of human aspirations are compared. It is obvious that the theme of the poem is the opposition of violent and vivid feelings to cold calmness. How is it done?

In the first stanza of the poem, we see a picture of motionless, coniferous evergreen trees, as if frozen in eternal rest. In the second stanza, in contrast to the winterimmobility, a sketch of a bright short summer appears. The poet uses the technique of personification: he speaks from the face of leaves on deciduous trees. The third stanza represents the autumn time of slow cooling and extinction of nature. The fourth stanza is imbued with a passionate plea: the leaves ask the wind to pluck and carry them with them to avoid withering and death.

Idea of a lyric piece

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. Let's see what artistic means the poet uses to do this.

Artistic techniques

Tyutchev expressively uses the antithesis. Pines and spruces appear in a state of winter dead hibernation even in summer, since they are not subject to any changes. Their "skinny greenery" (let's pay attention to the epithet!) is contrasted with the juicy foliage of summer, shining in the sun's rays and dew. The feeling of soulless static coniferous trees is enhanced by the emotional comparison of their needles with hedgehogs. The greenery, which “does not turn yellow forever, but is not fresh forever,” is something akin to a lifeless mummy. In the author's view, coniferous specimens of flora do not even grow, but “stick out”, as if they are not fed through the roots by the juices of the earth, but someone has mechanically stuck, like needles, into the ground. So the poet deprives them of even a hint of life and movement.

Deciduous trees, on the contrary, are presented in continuous dynamics, play of light and shadow. The poet uses personification and metaphors: leaves are a “tribe” that “stays” on branches “in beauty”, “plays with rays”, “baths in dew”. When describing coniferous trees, the word "forever" is used, it is opposed by the phrase "short time", referring to deciduous trees. In contrast to the reduced vocabulary, which is represented by protruding spruces and pines, the author appeals to the high style: "marshmallows", "red summer", "light tribe", speaking of quivering foliage.

Morphological and phonetic analysis of Tyutchev's poem "Leaves"

The first stanza, showing an unsightly picture of pines and firs frozen in the cold, contains only three verbs used in the present tense. This emphasizes static. The sound writing of the first stanza is distinguished by the obsessive presence of whistling and hissing consonants. In the second stanza, which draws leaves in summer, there are twice as many verbs - there are six of them, and they are used in the present and past tense, which enhances the feeling of continuous movement, a short but full life. In contrast to the alliteration of hissing and whistling in the previous stanza, sonorous sounds predominate here: l-m-r. This conveys the state of harmony inherent in an inspired and full-blooded life.

The third stanza offers past tense and infinitive verbs. We are talking about approaching death, withering. The mood of anxiety and hopelessness creates an abundance of deaf consonant phonemes. Last stanza donea desperate plea, it sounds like a spell, like a groan of leaves calling to the wind. It contains many exclamations and verbs of the future tense. In the sound writing, drawling vowels are clearly audible - o-u-e, which, in conjunction with the consonants "s" and "t", betray the gusty whistle of the wind.

Aesthetic creed of the poet

Analysis of Tyutchev's poem "Leaves" helped to understand that this is not only an elegant example of landscape lyrics and a brilliant attempt to transform a picture of nature into emotional experiences. Before us is a capacious philosophical formula, according to which being and eternity only make sense when every moment is filled with fleeting, burning and quivering beauty.