Nekrasov reflections at the front entrance argument. "Reflections at the Front Door"

The poem "Reflections at the front door" was written by Nekrasov in 1858. From the memoirs of Panaeva, it is known that on one of the rainy autumn days Nekrasov saw from the window how from the entrance in which the Minister of State Property lived, a janitor and a policeman were driving the peasants away, pushing them in the back. A couple of hours later, the poem was ready. The genre scene, which became the basis of the poem, was supplemented by satire and generalizations.

The poem was published by Herzen in the Kolokol magazine without the author's signature.

Literary direction, genre

The poem realistically describes the disease of the entire Russian society. The nobility is lazy and indifferent, others grovel before it, and the peasants are disenfranchised and submissive. The genre scene at the front door is an occasion to reflect on the fate of the Russian people and Russian society. This is a sample of civil lyrics.

Theme, main idea and composition, plot

Nekrasov's poem plot. It can be conditionally divided into 3 parts.

The first part is a description of an ordinary day in the life of the entrance. On solemn days, people come to visit an important person or simply leave a name in a book. On weekdays, the poor come, "the old man and the widow." Not all petitioners get what they ask for.

The second part is dedicated to the "owner of luxurious chambers." It begins with the appeal of the observer - the lyrical hero. The negative characterization of the nobleman ends with a call to wake up and bring back the petitioners. The alleged life and death of the nobleman is described next.

The third part is a generalization and construction of this particular case into a typical one. There is no such place in our native land where the Russian peasant, the sower and guardian of this land, would not suffer. All classes are in a state of spiritual sleep: both the people and the owners of luxurious chambers. There is a way out for the people - to wake up.

The theme of reflections is the fate of the Russian people, the breadwinner - the Russian peasantry. The main idea is that the people will never make their way to the main entrances of the masters, they are residents of different non-intersecting worlds. The only way out for the people is to find the strength to awaken.

Size and rhyme

The poem is written in multi-foot anapaest with an unordered alternation of three-foot and four-foot. Feminine and masculine rhymes alternate, the types of rhyme also change: ring, cross and adjacent. The ending of the poem became a student song.

Paths and images

The poem begins with metonymy combined with metaphor. The city is obsessed with a servile illness, that is, the inhabitants of the city servilely, like serfs, before the nobleman. At the beginning of the poem, petitioners are dryly listed. The narrator pays special attention to the description of men and uses epithets: ugly, tanned faces and hands, thin Armenian, backs bent, meager mite. Expression " They went, burning sun' has become an aphorism. Compassion is poignant detail: the peasants, who were driven away, go with their heads uncovered, showing respect.

The grandee is described with the help of grandiloquent metaphors. He holds earthly thunders in his hands, but heavenly ones do not frighten him. His life runs like an eternal holiday. The sugary epithets of romantic poets describe the heavenly life of a nobleman: serene Arcadian idyll, captivating sky of Sicily, fragrant tree shadow, purple sun, azure sea. The end of the nobleman's life is described with irony and even sarcasm. The hero will be secretly cursed by the fatherland, dear and beloved family is looking forward to his death.

The third part uses metonymy again. The lyrical hero refers to his native land, that is, to all its inhabitants. He opens the life of a groaning people to all classes. Verb groans repeated like a refrain. The song of the people is like a groan (comparison).

After turning to the Russian land, Nekrasov turns to the Volga. He compares the people's grief with the overflowing waters of the Russian river. In this part, Nekrasov again uses the epithets abounding spring, hearty people, endless groaning. The last appeal is a question to the people: will he wake up, or will his spiritual sleep last forever, according to the natural course of things? For the realist Nekrasov, this question is not rhetorical. There is always a choice, reality is unpredictable.

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The poem "Reflection at the front door" was written by N.A. Nekrasov in 1858. It was first published in the Kolokol newspaper in 1860 under the title At the Front Door. The author's name was not specified. A.I. Herzen published it with the following note: "We very rarely publish poetry, but it is impossible not to publish this kind of poem." It appeared in the official press only five years after the date of its writing. The testimony of Nekrasov's wife, A.Ya. Panaeva, about how this work was created. The windows of the poet's apartment on Liteiny Prospekt of St. Petersburg looked at the entrance of the Minister of State Property M.N. Muravyov, and Nekrasov, probably, it was there that he could observe these scenes. Here is how Panaeva recalls one incident: “It was deep autumn, the morning was cold and rainy. In all likelihood, the peasants wanted to submit some kind of petition and came to the house early in the morning. The porter, sweeping the stairs, drove them away; they took cover behind the ledge of the entrance and shifted from foot to foot, hiding against the wall and getting wet in the rain. I went to Nekrasov and told him about the scene I had seen. He went to the window at the moment when the janitors of the house and the policeman were driving the peasants away, pushing them in the back. Nekrasov pursed his lips and nervously pinched his mustache; then he quickly moved away from the window and lay down again on the sofa. An hour later he read me a poem "At the front door".
We can attribute the poem to civil lyrics. Its main theme is the tragic fate of the Russian people. The poem includes numerous appeals of the lyrical hero - to one of the characters ("the owner of luxurious chambers"), to his native land, to the Volga, to the Russian people. All of them remain unanswered, representing only a one-sided dialogue, the thoughts of the hero. However, the work synthesizes, in addition, the genre features of satire, ode, pamphlet, elegy and song.
The composition of the work is based on the principle of antithesis. In the first part, a picture is given of the front entrance of a noble nobleman “on solemn days”. This part is a satirical description.

Here is the front entrance. On solemn days
Possessed by a servile disease,
A whole city with some kind of fright
Drives up to the cherished doors;
Writing down your name and rank,
Guests are leaving home
So deeply satisfied with myself
What do you think - that is their calling!

The second part draws the front entrance "on ordinary days." Here already the tone of the lyrical hero becomes neutral, irony gives way to calm intonations. The petitioners here are "projectors", "searchers for places", "advanced old man", "widow", "couriers with papers" come and go. Further, the hero talks about how he once saw other petitioners there - Russian peasants who came from some distant provinces. After praying for the church, they turn to the porter with a request to let them through and offer him a "meager contribution." The expression of "hope and torment" is imprinted on their faces. They must have come a hard, long way, hoping to find the truth in St. Petersburg. However, the porter remains indifferent, the walkers seem to him miserable ragamuffins:

He looked at the guests: they are ugly to look at!
Tanned faces and hands
Armenian thin on the shoulders,
On a knapsack on the backs bent,
Cross on the neck and blood on the legs
Shod in homemade bast shoes…

The image of the peasants is the central image of this poem. This image is collective, generalized. Behind a group of peasants appears, as it were, the whole of rural Russia. High, epic intonations appear in the poem. Irony, objective descriptiveness - all this gives way to ardent sympathy, sincere sympathy. In the peasants, the hero sees biblical pilgrims seeking the truth. This theme is reinforced by the motif of the scorching sun. And here the motive of sin and retribution already comes to the fore, thus preparing the content of the third part of the poem:

And the door slammed shut. after standing,
The pilgrims untied the bag,
But the porter did not let me in, without taking a meager mite,
And they went, burning with the sun,
Repeating: "God judge him!",
Spreading hopelessly hands,
And as long as I could see them,
They walked with their heads uncovered ...

The image of the "owner of luxurious chambers" in the third part is contrasted with the image of the suffering peasants. This character is depicted in a satirical-odic manner. His life is an "eternal holiday", a serene dream, "an Arcadian idyll". His values ​​are red tape, gluttony, play. The fate of the people does not concern him:

What is this crying sorrow to you?
What are these poor people to you?

By the strength of the satirical denunciation, by the angry, indignant intonations, this part of the poem reminds us of a pamphlet:

And why? Clickers fun
You call the people's good;
Without him you will live with glory
And die with glory!

In the final part, Nekrasov moves from the images of Russian peasant petitioners exhausted by the road to a broad, generalized image - the image of groaning Russia, overflowing with the great grief of the people:

Motherland!
Name me a place like this
I didn't see that angle.
Wherever your sower and keeper,
Where would a Russian peasant not moan?

Using the technique of hyperbole, the lyrical hero of Nekrasov metaphorically compares the grief of the people with the spring flood of the Volga:

Volga! Volga! .. In the spring of high water
You don't flood the fields like that
Like the great grief of the people
Our land is full...

The whole sound of this part is determined by the song intonation. There are repetitions (“he groans ... he groans”), and internal rhymes, and numerous calls of the lyrical hero. Musicality is determined by the very choice of topics - "native land", "Volga".

The poem ends with a painful reflection about the fate of the Russian people, about its capabilities:

Where there are people, there is a groan... Oh, my heart!
What does your endless moan mean?
Will you wake up, full of strength,
Or, fate obeying the law,
All that you could, you have already done -
Created a song like a moan
And spiritually rested forever?

Compositionally, the work is divided into three parts. The first part is a description of the main entrance on solemn days. The second part is a description of the main entrance on ordinary days, an image of wanderers, Russian peasant petitioners. The third part includes a depiction of the image of a noble nobleman, as well as the hero’s appeal to the “owner of luxurious chambers”, to his native land, to the Volga and to the Russian people.
The poem combines three-foot and four-foot anapaest, rhyme - cross, ring and pair. The poet uses various means of artistic expression: epithet (“wretched faces”, “under the captivating sky”, “purple sun”), metaphor and antithesis (“Heavenly thunders do not frighten you, But you hold earthly ones in your hands”), anaphora (“Where would be your sower and keeper, Where would the Russian peasant not groan?), rhetorical questions and appeals (“Hey, hearty! What does your endless moan mean?”), syntactic parallelism (“He groans through the fields, along the roads, he groans in prisons, prisons ..."), unionlessness and ranks of homogeneous members ("Intoxication with shameless flattery, red tape, gluttony, game ..."), phraseological units ("Arcade idyll", "I am not happy with the light of God's sun"), an aphoristic phrase ("Schelkoperov fun You call the people's good"). In the poem we find words and expressions of a high style (“pilgrims”, “meager mite”, “funeral feast”, “fatherland”, “rested”). Analyzing the phonetic structure of the work, we note the presence of alliteration (“Having written down his name and rank”, “Volga! Volga! In the spring of high water ...”) and assonance (“He groans through the fields, along the roads ...”).
“Reflections at the front door” is the poet’s programmatic work. The Russian people is the central image of all his work. Critics noted that Nekrasov's attitude to folk life was more real than all other poets. And this is not the reality of Pushkin, not the reality of Koltsov, not the reality of May. This is "something of its own, completely special, purely individual ... - penetration into the very essence of people's life from the side of its urgent needs and hidden, invisible suffering"

Pustovalova Tamara

The analysis of the poem presented in the work will allow the teacher to prepare for literature lessons in grades 7.9.

Students can use this material to write an essay on the topic Problems of the Russian people in the work of N.A. Nekrasov and others.

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« Will you wake up, full of strength? ... "

"Reflections at the Front Door"

In 1860, for the first time, a poem was published abroad in the Kolokol newspaper, which the publisher of the newspaper accompanied with the remark: “We very rarely publish poems, but it is impossible not to publish such a poem.” What kind of "kind" was this poem?

In Herzen's newspaper, the work was published under the title "At the front porch." These were the poems "Reflections at the front door" that soon became famous. The short headline on the first newspaper (and uncensored) publication was rather random. Therefore, he also contained some artistic inconsistency: the words in it were not very successfully combined stylistically. The old, even ancient, not without a touch of homeliness, the word "porch" would rather fit something like the word "red", for example, "red porch". Here the word was defined relatively new, only mastered in the 18th century - “front door”. Besides, the word is foreign. In turn, the word "ceremonial" also required some kind of correspondence in the definition - solemnity, scope, officiality. It was possible to go up to the porch, to the entrance - that's why it is the exact meaning of the entrance - drove up. “At the front door” - in such a combination of words, which became words of high style, strictness and elation appeared. They got even stronger. To define reflections, impressions from what he saw as reflections meant to point to a high odic tradition dating back to the 18th century. At the same time, lining up in a single row of "high" words, the words of the title also opened up the possibility of a satirical charge.

Nekrasov quite often designates his works, already devoid of traditional genre features, by traditional genre definitions, thereby asserting the bias of the usual ideas about the poetic. Applying these definitions, he also demonstrates the absurdity of such an application, takes in order to discard, tries on to show that the standards are worthless, small and narrow. "Reflections", but not about "God's Majesty", but at the "front door". Nekrasov's "high" words are no longer unambiguous, as in Lomonosov's, they carry a meaning that is revealed in many ways.

The long solemn heading, as it were, passes into the poem itself and immediately. Literally in the first two lines, reveals this diversity:

Here is the front entrance. On solemn days…

Here the entrance is presented, presented loudly, solemnly: a solemn entrance on solemn days. And immediately, here the low underside of this false solemnity is exposed:

Possessed by a servile disease,

A whole city with some kind of fright

Drives up to the cherished doors;

Writing down your name and rank,

Guests are leaving home

So deeply satisfied with myself

What do you think - that is their calling! (II, 52)

On festive, "solemn" days, special books were exhibited in the front houses of nobles and high officials, in which visitors who were not allowed in person signed. Such an entry replaced congratulations and testified to the respect and servility of those who signed. Nekrasov not only notes this custom. At Nekrasov, he is included in the general poetic picture of the main entrance. This is also a parade, this is also a celebration: a parade of servility, a triumph of servility. Grandiose, large-scale: that's why the whole city drives up. Those who came to sign in the hall and were not admitted personally were called guests. The word "serf", which was usually applied to the peasants, was redirected by the poet to the city. Serfdom is explained - it is from the heart.

Another - the entrance to the ordinary days of city life:

And on ordinary days, this magnificent entrance

Poor faces besiege:

Searchlights, searchers,

And an old man, and a widow. (II.52)

Nekrasov's poem goes back to the odic literature of the 18th century, but it also has a more specific source. This is Derzhavin's ode "The Nobleman", at one time, perhaps, no less famous than "Reflections at the Front Door." Belinsky called it a "satirical" ode - "moral and philosophical content." And Nekrasov's "ode" "Reflections at the front door" is satirical. It also has its own "moral-philosophical" content. The plot situations are similar. Derzhavin has the same people waiting in the hallway, "both an old man and a widow":

And there - the widow stands in the hallway

And sheds bitter tears...

With a baby in her arms

Your cover wants ....

And there - on the staircase sunrise

Came bent on crutches

Fearless, old warrior that ...

The images of these and similar petitioners occupy the main place in the picture of Derzhavin's "reception". In Nekrasov, they are compressed to the point of mention, to a few words. Derzhavin's detailed descriptions were replaced by a simple enumeration. Derzhavin has no hint of the image of a servile city.

With Nekrasov, the action itself is taken out into the street. This type of street observation is typical for Nekrasov: he called one of his poetic cycles: “On the street”. As a result, the possibility of a very three-dimensional image, a very dynamic movement opens up:

From him and to him then know in the morning

All couriers with papers jump.

Returning, another sings "tram-tram",

And other petitioners are crying.

The verses themselves, which tell about a motley picture, become rather motley: the high “widow” is adjacent to the imitation of the frivolous tune “tram-tram”. “Touching” paintings, very detailed in Derzhavin’s poem, are replaced in Nekrasov’s poem by the image of hustle and bustle, in which there is pettiness, not caused by neglect and not causing neglect, but all some pettiness of private interest ... And this becomes clear as soon as the peasants are shown - the image rural Russia, tragic and integral. There were no such petitioners in Derzhavin's ode:

Since I saw the men come here,

Village Russian people

We prayed to the church and stood away,

Dangling blond heads to the chest;

The doorman showed up. "Let it go" they say

With an expression of hope and anguish,

He looked at the guests: they are ugly at a glance!

Tanned faces and hands

Armenian thin on the shoulders,

On the knapsack on the backs of the bent, the Cross on the neck and the blood on the legs ....

Nekrasov's poems are often plot-driven. And this plot makes it possible to conduct an unacceptable conversation about the poem as about an ordinary prose work. The terminology usually used for prose is also used. It's just that Nekrasov's poems are spoken of as prose. “The first part,” wrote the Soviet critic N.L. Stepanov about “Reflections at the Front Door,” is an image of one of the scenes of the capital - the arrival of peasants and the reprisals against them by the porter. This scene is close to the essay sketches in the cycles "On the Street", "About the Weather".

"Thin Armenian", "blood on the feet", "homemade bast shoes" - all this accurately and visibly draws the extreme degree of poverty, grief, humiliation of the peasants. Nekrasov does not embellish anything. His depiction, extremely truthful and accurate, echoes the realistically harsh manner of such masters as Perov and Repin.”

For all the inexpressiveness of the characteristics, the idea is very clear: Nekrasov showed only the poverty and downtroddenness of the peasants. The comparison with the painting of the Wanderers is also characteristic: both here and there poverty is depicted.

In poetry, in verse, there is its own, special concreteness and accuracy, completely different than in painting or even in prose. Once Nekrasov himself said: "The matter of prose is analysis, the matter of poetry is synthesis." Synthesis means, first of all, generalization, poetic generalization, i.e. only in poetry and possible. At one time, L.N. Tolstoy remarked about Tyutchev's verse

Only cobwebs of thin hair

Shines on an idle furrow ...

That the used word "idle" could appear only in poetry and outside of it loses all meaning. Features of the poetic image are not only in the actual poetic size or rhyme. Is it possible to imagine this in prose: “muzhiks, rural Russian people”? It is clear that if they are peasants, then they are village people, and what kind of explanation are Russians? It has been noticed that in Gogol's Dead Souls, already in the first lines, in the story about the events taking place in the very center of Russia, it is also said: "only two Russian peasants, standing at the door of the tavern opposite the hotel, made some remarks ..." . However, Gogol did not write a novel or a story, but, although in prose, a poem. And in Nekrasov's verses: "... men, rural Russian people." This is how the intonation of a high, epic, poetic warehouse appears.

And the peasants themselves, who approached this entrance, in such a poetic image already lose their individuality, concreteness, visibility and insolence, and acquire a certain symbolic universality of the Russian village people. Behind them or in them appears, as it were, the whole rural Russia, for which they represent, on behalf of which they appeared. And if at the beginning a whole city, servile, drove up to the entrance, then here it was as if a whole country, peasant, approached it.

Real signs: “tanned faces and hands, “a thin Armenian woman on her shoulders, bent over a knapsack on her backs” - characterize them all, any definition is applicable to each. None of the group is selected. There are several men, but they merge into the image of one person. All have blond heads. The final words are beyond any everyday authenticity: "a cross on the neck and blood on the legs ..." The poet can no longer say about the crosses on the necks, as about knapsacks on the backs. The cross is one for all. “The cross on the neck and blood on the legs” is the last sign that brought the whole group into one image and gave the image an almost symbolic generalization of suffering and asceticism. At the same time, this symbol is not at all abstract, not incorporeal. The men do not cease to be real men, in bast shoes, wandering "from some distant provinces."

The story of A.Ya. Panaeva about how this Nekrasov work was created. Once the poet saw from the window of his apartment how the peasants who approached the house opposite were driven away from the entrance by janitors and policemen. The peasants looked cold and wet: it was an autumn Petersburg morning, cold and rainy.

In Nekrasov's poem, it is about the scorching sun. And not by chance. When the members of the revolutionary circle, the Chaikovites, publishing Nekrasov’s “Reflections at the Front Door” for the purpose of revolutionary propaganda, replaced “pilgrims” with “our wanderers”, this became not just a replacement - a translation of a foreign word into Russian, but also a rejection of polysemy and capacity Nekrasov's image. "Pilgrims" rhymes with "palm sun" not only externally. There is an internal link here. So for a moment a picture of deserts and pilgrims wandering under the scorching sun flashed before us.

Meanwhile, such a perception of these Nekrasov poems is quite typical: “Not being accepted, the humiliated walkers set off on their way back, not daring in response, even among themselves, far from the main entrance, to express discontent or indignation - nothing but the conciliatory “God judge him” (God, not them), not finding and not looking for any other way out (spreading hopelessly). Dejected by the refusal, they at the same time maintain an unshakable respect for the nobleman and his associates to such an extent that, moving away from the main entrance, despite the mercilessly scorching sun, they do not put on their hats for a long time.

But, without being admitted, the peasants again turn to God, as if to a higher principle. At this place, in such verses, no other reaction to a refusal is possible, it would seem the most worldly justified: to swear or spit out of annoyance. Here, even the later appeared: “the poor will drink everything to the ruble” is impossible. The peasants repeat only: "God judge him." And the fact that they leave with “uncovered heads” turns out to be the final touch that completes the image of the peasants, the lofty and tragic image of ascetics and sufferers.

After that, the poet introduces us to another, opposite world: in the verses themselves, this, the other part is separated. The remoteness is also emphasized by the sharply changed paired rhyme, which appeared in the poem for the first time:

And the owner of luxurious chambers

Another dream was deeply embraced ...

You, who considered life enviable

Intoxication with shameless flattery... (II, 53)

The image of the nobleman appeared already in the scene with the peasants in one exact word found - “ours”:

Someone shouted to the porter: “Drive!

Ours does not like ragged mob! (II, 53)

Indeed, behind this one word, which came from the Kholuy lexicon: “our”, “himself”, “owner”, there is a whole system of relations.

It is worth ha the image of the owner of luxurious chambers and the image of a real person or, as they say, a prototype. Chernyshevsky reported about him in one of his letters: “I can say that the picture:

Contemplating how the sun is purple

It plunges into the azure sea ... etc. -

a vivid memory of how a decrepit Russian basked in a carriage in the sun "under the captivating sky" of Southern Italy (not Sicily). The surname of this old man is Count Chernyshev.

Count Chernyshev, who is mentioned here, is obviously A.I. Chernyshev, who was the Nikolaev Minister of War for more than 20 years, and later the chairman of the State Council. His dizzying career was primarily due to his cruel and vile behavior during and after the Decembrist uprising of 1825. Nekrasov, apparently, not without reason dropped the contemptuous “hero”. Chernyshev also had such a “heroic” deed as leading the execution of the Decembrists.

One more circumstance has now been established. At that time, when the poem was written, in the “luxurious chambers”, in a house located almost opposite Nekrasov’s St. Petersburg apartment, from the windows of which the poet watched the scene at the “front entrance”, lived the Minister of State Property M.N. Muravyov, the future bloody pacifier of the Polish uprising: it will take place four years after the creation of the poem, in 1863. The poet acted as a kind of prophet, stigmatizing not only the broadcaster of the past, but also the hanger of the future; after 1863, the nickname "hangman" was firmly attached to Muravyov.

However, the image created in the poem is much wider than its real prototypes, and in many respects different in essence. This is by no means the figure of a Nikolaev official. It is rather a gentleman, a sybarite, immersed in luxury and bliss. No wonder they usually call him a nobleman, although Nekrasov himself does not call him that anywhere. And this image is not accidental. Such an image not only opposes the contrasting image of the peasants, but, although in a completely different way, corresponds to it. This image is also extremely generalized: the moral highness of the peasants is opposed by the depth of the moral fall of the nobles.

Subtly restoring one, Nekrasov brought to life the image of an entire era, the 18th century, already defined by Belinsky as the age of "nobility", and the image of the era and its scale characterized the hero.

Moreover, the image turned out to be, as it were, supplemented and supported by the richest literary tradition. Nekrasov not only refers to tradition, but demonstrates tradition. Rhetoric is underlined. The style is high, as in the story about the peasants, although in a different way. The paired rhyme, which appeared for the first and only time in the poem and sharply separated the image from the previous picture, perhaps goes back to Pushkin's poem "To the Grandee". However, the pathos of the work and even the content, sometimes to surprising coincidences, connect Nekrasov's work with Derzhavin's tradition, partly with the transcription of the 81st psalm "To the Rulers and Judges", but, as already noted, primarily with the ode "Nobleman".

And Derzhavin has the same depraved nobleman, sleeping peacefully, and those who came to him and wait, unhappy; widow, wounded hero, old warrior; the same rhetorical exclamation is the author’s appeal (“wake up” - from Nekrasov, “wake up” - from Derzhavin):

Wake up, sybarite! Are you sleeping

Or only in sweet bliss you doze,

And in a perverted heart you think:

"I have a moment of my peace

More pleasant than in the history of the ages;

Live for yourself alone

Only joys to be able to drink rivers,

Only to sail with the wind, to oppress the mob with a yoke;

Shame, conscience - anxiety for weak souls!

No virtue! There is no god!..."

Derzhavin's "no virtue" was picked up by Nekrasov: "but the happy are deaf to good." Even this "there is no god" finds a correspondence in Nekrasov's "the thunders of heaven do not frighten you." Pointing to godlessness becomes another accusation of immorality. This last phrase is even enclosed in a quatrain, which is emphasized, thus acquiring a special emphasis:

The thunders of heaven do not frighten you,

And you hold earthly things in your hands,

And these people are unknown

Inexorable grief in the hearts.

The nobleman should be

A sound mind, an enlightened heart,

He should give an example

That his title is sacred...

Blessed are the people! Where is the king head,

The nobles are healthy members of the body ...

And the ode to it ends with a positive example:

You, hero! Desired husband!

Not a luxury grandee glorious;

Idol of hearts, captor of souls,

Leader, laurel, olive crowned!

I sang a righteous song here.

Nekrasov continues the biography of his "hero" until his death. The life of his nobleman is a life, as they say, programmed; for him, any kind of rebirth to something else is excluded. The hero of Nekrasov's work dies in Italy, "under the captivating skies of Sicily." The poet does not allow the nobleman to die in his homeland, to which he is not involved. This whole picture is a picture of the non-Russian, foreign world. To create it, the poet revives one literary tradition of the past - idyllic poetry.

This is an idyll, again going back to the classicism of the 18th century and through it to classical antiquity. No wonder the action is transferred to the country of the classical past - to Italy. The mention of Arcadia will emphasize and strengthen the motives of classical idyllicity. And Nekrasov used here an ancient analogy, which, as it were, has already acquired the character of classicism, was explained by Aristotle: the sunset of the day is the same as the old age of life:

Serene arcadian idyll

The old days will roll:

Under the captivating skies of Sicily,

In fragrant tree shade, contemplating the purple sun

Dive into the azure sea

Stripes of his gold, -

Lulled by gentle singing

Mediterranean waves - like a child ...

“The old days will roll down” - there is already a metaphor that poetry has long been satisfied with. But Nekrasov, as it were, doubles it and expands it into a visible picture. The hero, about the decline of whose days has already been said, contemplates the sunset.

However, this whole idyll is not important in itself and acquires true meaning only in the general structure of Nekrasov's poems. The oversaturation of the picture with idyllic motifs, its “oversweetness” enhances the contrast with the general content of the work, with the story of the nobleman, with the author’s true attitude towards him, which only retreated, as if hidden, but latently living, suddenly breaking through, but again restrained and bracketed:

You will fall asleep, surrounded by care

Dear and beloved family

(Waiting for your death with impatience) ...

The poet's lyricism, like his feeling, is restrained here.

Odic exclamations, idyllic motifs arise on the wave of such an ever-growing, sometimes breaking through and again suppressed lyricism. Despite the seeming open declarativeness, the power of poetry lies precisely in this amazing restraint, restraint to the last limit. And finally, an explosion of grief and anger:

And you will go to the grave ... hero ...

This ellipsis - a pause almost physically conveys the movement of the poet's soul, literally suffocated, not immediately finding a word and, finally, finding - "hero". There are no words for this anger. The very speech of the poet is interrupted all the time, the verses are interrupted again and again by dots:

And you will go to the grave ... hero,

Secretly cursed by the motherland,

Exalted with loud praise!...

However, why are we such a person

Worrying for small people?

Shouldn't we take our anger out on them? -

Safer…More fun

Find some solace in something...

It doesn't matter what the man will suffer:

So the providence that guides us

Indicated ... yes, he's used to it!

At one time, Alexander Blok said that "the mental structure of a true poet is expressed in everything, down to punctuation marks." So, in Nekrasov, a feeling that has broken through is looking for a way out, the poet finds words and then, not satisfied, discards them and rushes to new ones. He mocks, parodies, tries on masks, rips them off, argues and cannot calm down, until, finally, this intense lyricism is resolved by a groan - a song:

… Motherland!

Name me such an abode…etc.

Here a generalized image of the native land arises. In the face of such an image, even the peasants are freed from the burden of universality. They can here acquire a concrete and real scale:

Behind the outpost, in a poor tavern

All the poor will drink to the ruble

And they will go, begging along the road,

And they groan...

The universality, of which they had previously been the bearers, now appears not through them, but directly, in its own symbolic form - in the image of the native land. And the very image of the native land, Russia, is realized and already acquires its concrete living content in the song and through the song. Well-known literary critic N.L. Stepanov called this part a requiem. Even if the musical terms used in criticism in the analysis of poetry are images rather than explanations, their appearance is characteristic at least as a sense of musicality. Not only critics (and, of course, the poets themselves) feel the connection between poetic lyrics and music, but also musicians confirm the connection between musical lyrics and poetry.

“My task,” I. Stravinsky wrote, “was to create a lyrical work, to create a semblance of a poem expressed in the language of music.” One could say that Nekrasov seeks to create a musical work in the language of poetry. This musicality is not reduced to any one element, not to mention sound writing, even to rhythm, which, for example, V. Zhirmunsky wrote about as the main principle of artistic regularity for the temporal arts (poetry, music).

In Nekrasov, the preceding idyll or the odic part of the poem is not "sung". An excerpt from the words "Tell me such a monastery" became one of the favorite songs of the revolutionary, democratic, especially student youth. Here the whole structure is musical. Already in the first verse of this last part, its theme is set, and not only ideologically and semantic, but also musically - “Native Land”. The theme that immediately arose - “Native Land”, as it were, covers, absorbs the subsequent, it would seem, purely empirical material: fields, roads, prisons, mines, barns, carts and houses, entrances of courts and chambers (here and the entrance, about which was told, became one of hundreds). This theme - "native land" does not allow such material to crumble, to remain a mere enumeration. Realized in him, she overshadows him and communicates significance.

The ode and idyll were replaced by a different form - a song, purely Russian, folk, national. Her motives sometimes very noticeably intrude into the author's narrative. These are repetitions that usually distinguish folk poetry (“he groans ... “he groans” ...), and internal rhymes, which are also very characteristic of folk poetry (“through the fields ... through prisons”). In the very first line, the word “groans” sets the musical emotional tone of this whole part – the song-groan. The word “groaning” supports him, repeating itself repeatedly and rhythmically. As if the groan itself, arising many times, grows on one languorous note:

He groans through the fields, along the roads,

He groans in prisons, prisons,

In mines, on an iron chain;

He groans under the barn, under the stack,

Under the cart, spending the night in the steppe;

Moaning in his own poor little house,

I am not happy with the light of God's sun;

Moaning in every deaf town,

At the entrance of courts and chambers.

Finally, at once and powerfully, as if a whole orchestra or choir enters:

Go to the Volga...

Don't "go" and don't "get out". The invocation "Come out to the Volga" achieves the effect of a musical explosion:

Come out to the Volga: whose groan is heard

Over the great Russian river?

We call this moan a song -

That barge haulers go whipping! ...

The groan of the peasant is taken up by the song-groan of the barge choir. And the point is not only in what is said about barge haulers, but also in how it is said about them. The word "vyd" was not invented by Nekrasov, it reflects the peculiarities of lively speech, characteristic of the inhabitants of the Yaroslavl, "burlatsky" region, which Nekrasov, himself a Yaroslavl, knew well. The word "barge haulers" is the same, with the accent typical of such a dialect on the penultimate suffix "ak". Nekrasov did not put such an emphasis at all in order to observe the poetic meter: the intonations of the barge speech itself appeared. The song melody flows powerfully and widely. Not without reason, at the end, the theme of the Volga enters - the eternal heroine of Russian folk songs - already singing, as it were, all of Russia:

Volga! Volga! .. in the spring of high water

You don't flood the fields like that

Like the great grief of the people

Our land is overflowing

Where there are people, there is a groan...

Nevertheless, it is not the groan-song that ends this work, called reflections, but reflections - and about the groan-song too - reflections on the fate of an entire people. Reflections, reflections give rise to a painful question - an appeal to the people:

… Oh, hearty!

What does your endless moan mean?

Will you wake up, full of strength,

Ile, I obey the law of fate,

Everything that you could, you have already done, -

Created a song like a moan

And spiritually rested forever?

In 1886, Chernyshevsky, in the already mentioned letter, reported: “... at the end of the play there is a verse printed by Nekrasov in this form:

Or, fate obeying the law, -

this printed verse is only a substitute for another.”

Several attempts have been made to reconstruct this, apparently for censorship reasons of the replaced verse. So, on the basis of one handwritten copy dating back to the 60s of the last century, a reading was suggested: you will crush the executioner and the crown. Other options were also put forward: “Or the kings obeying the law”, “Ile, obedient to the king and the law.” However, all these assumptions are based on conjecture and are not documented. They do not cancel or replace the text that we know:

Or, fate obeying the law ...

In general, in the fight against censorship, bypassing the slingshots set by it, Nekrasov most often sought to strengthen and deepen his thought. As you know, one of the author's endings of "Reflections at the front door" was originally the following verses:

O! forever he will be remembered,

At whose beckon the people

Will forget the age-old habit

And sing a joyful song.

All this is reminiscent of verses from the "Village", written by Pushkin, still a young man: "And slavery, fallen on the mania (with Nekrasov" by ... a wave. - N.S.) of the tsar. Nekrasov refused such an ending, and, probably, not only because he hardly believed in the good will of the tsar and in her beneficence. The poet is concerned about the fate of the people in all its complexity, he fights over it, reflects on it.

Years will pass. For Nekrasov, they will be years of further in-depth study of folk life, its social possibilities, its moral and aesthetic potential. The poet will create folk poems "Pedlars" and "Frost, Red Nose", will begin work on the epic "Who in Russia should live well." When this happens, heavy thinking will be replaced by the statement:

Will endure everything and wide, clear

He will pave the way for himself with his chest ...

The question is whether the people have rested spiritually forever? - will be finally and forever resolved for Nekrasov.

"Reflections at the front door" Nekrasov

"Reflections at the Front Door" analysis of the work - theme, idea, genre, plot, composition, heroes, problems and other issues are disclosed in this article.

History of creation

The poem "Reflections at the front door" was written by Nekrasov in 1858. From the memoirs of Panaeva, it is known that on one of the rainy autumn days Nekrasov saw from the window how from the entrance in which the Minister of State Property lived, a janitor and a policeman were driving the peasants away, pushing them in the back. A couple of hours later, the poem was ready. The genre scene, which became the basis of the poem, was supplemented by satire and generalizations.

The poem was published by Herzen in the Kolokol magazine without the author's signature.

Literary direction, genre

The poem realistically describes the disease of the entire Russian society. The nobility is lazy and indifferent, others grovel before it, and the peasants are disenfranchised and submissive. The genre scene at the front door is an occasion to reflect on the fate of the Russian people and Russian society. This is a sample of civil lyrics.

Theme, main idea and composition, plot

Nekrasov's poem plot. It can be conditionally divided into 3 parts.

The first part is a description of an ordinary day in the life of the entrance. On solemn days, people come to visit an important person or simply leave a name in a book. On weekdays, the poor come, "the old man and the widow." Not all petitioners get what they ask for.

The second part is dedicated to the "owner of luxurious chambers." It begins with the appeal of the observer - a lyrical hero. The negative characterization of the nobleman ends with a call to wake up and bring back the petitioners. The alleged life and death of the nobleman is described next.

The third part is a generalization and construction of this particular case into a typical one. There is no such place in our native land where the Russian peasant, the sower and guardian of this land, would not suffer. All classes are in a state of spiritual sleep: both the people and the owners of luxurious chambers. There is a way out for the people - to wake up.

The theme of reflections is the fate of the Russian people, the breadwinner - the Russian peasantry. The main idea is that the people will never make their way to the main entrances of the masters, they are residents of different non-intersecting worlds. The only way out for the people is to find the strength to awaken.

Size and rhyme

The poem is written in multi-foot anapaest with an unordered alternation of three-foot and four-foot. Feminine and masculine rhymes alternate, the types of rhyme also change: ring, cross and adjacent. The ending of the poem became a student song.

Paths and images

The poem begins with metonymy combined with metaphor. The city is obsessed with a servile illness, that is, the inhabitants of the city servilely, like serfs, before the nobleman. At the beginning of the poem, petitioners are dryly listed. The narrator pays special attention to the description of men and uses epithets: ugly, tanned faces and hands, thin Armenian, backs bent, meager mite. Expression " They went, burning sun' has become an aphorism. Compassion is poignant detail: the peasants, who were driven away, go with their heads uncovered, showing respect.

The grandee is described with the help of grandiloquent metaphors. He holds earthly thunders in his hands, but heavenly ones do not frighten him. His life runs like an eternal holiday. The sugary epithets of romantic poets describe the heavenly life of a nobleman: serene Arcadian idyll, captivating sky of Sicily, fragrant tree shadow, purple sun, azure sea. The end of the nobleman's life is described with irony and even sarcasm. The hero will be secretly cursed by the fatherland, dear and beloved family is looking forward to his death.

The third part uses metonymy again. The lyrical hero refers to his native land, that is, to all its inhabitants. He opens the life of a groaning people to all classes. Verb groans repeated like a refrain. The song of the people is like a groan (comparison).

After turning to the Russian land, Nekrasov turns to the Volga. He compares the people's grief with the overflowing waters of the Russian river. In this part, Nekrasov again uses the epithets abounding spring, hearty people, endless groaning. The last appeal is a question to the people: will he wake up, or will his spiritual sleep last forever, according to the natural course of things? For the realist Nekrasov, this question is not rhetorical. There is always a choice, reality is unpredictable.

The poem "Reflections at the front door" is Nekrasov's program work. After all, it reflects that difficult fate that falls to the lot of ordinary people, for whom the doors of bureaucratic houses are always closed. Nekrasov has always been closer to the common people than other poets. And this realism is expressed most fully in this poem.

Form and genre of the work

The student can begin the analysis of "Reflections at the Front Door" by pointing out the genre of the poem. The title of the work directly points to it: in its way of presentation, it is a reasoning. However, it is not a logical reasoning, but an artistic one. The main idea of ​​the work is not expressed directly; reading the poem may lead the reader to certain thoughts. But even the "grounds" for these conclusions are not given in the form of specific conclusions. The reader sees them in the form of artistic pictures described by the poet.

In the analysis of “Reflections at the Front Door”, the student can emphasize that the very title of the work can evoke a certain picture in the reader’s imagination. The reader can "see" the lyrical hero of the work, who expresses aloud the thoughts that fill his mind. The whole poem is built in the form of a hidden dialogue. In other words, this is a conversation with a "silent" interlocutor. This also determines other features of the work, for example, its syntax, the presence of rhetorical questions, exclamations. This fact can also be indicated in the analysis of the verse "Reflections at the front door." The direct "reflections" of the narrator of the poem are preceded by a description of the main entrance on solemn days. However, already from the second line, tension appears, which turns into the frank irony of the lyrical hero.

Analysis of "Reflections at the front door": epithets and irony of the poet

This mood is expressed by the epithet "servile", which is combined with the metaphor "illness". In terms of style, these devices contrast with the solemn vocabulary of the first stanza. An analysis of "Reflections at the Front Door" shows that the author's irony is further enhanced by the use of the word "guests". After all, the porter does not let those who come to this front door go further than the entrance. And the poetic characterization of the guests ends with a murderous exclamation of the lyrical hero: “This is their calling!”. It consists in suffering from the “servile disease”.

In the analysis of the poem “Reflections at the front door”, the student can mention that even the description of those “wretched faces” who visit the front door on non-holiday days is given by the author in a slightly softened tone. There is no longer irony in it, although sympathy is not yet observed. In an expressive sense, the characterization of "wretched faces" that Nekrasov gives is a transition to the next scene. Here we are talking about men, whom the author portrays with obvious compassion.

The whole scene that takes place at this entrance prompts bitter thoughts about what fate befell the people, and in whose hands it is in general. An analysis of the poem “Reflections at the front door” shows that these reasonings are framed by the poet in the form of an appeal by a lyrical hero to a nobleman, his native land. On the one hand, the narrator expresses irony; but on the other hand, his work is filled with sympathy. In the future, sympathy for the peasants turns into compassion for the Russian people.

Artistic media

The work is written in two sizes - three-foot and four-foot anapaest. There are three types of rhyme in the poem: cross, ring, and also a pair. An analysis of Nekrasov's verse "Reflections at the front door" should also contain a listing of those means of artistic expression that the poet used. These are various techniques: epithets (“purple sun”, “wretched faces”), phraseological units (“Arcade idyll”), rhetorical questions, appeals. You can also find vocabulary belonging to a high artistic style (“pilgrims”, “rested”, “homeland”).

History of creation

When preparing an analysis of Nekrasov's Reflections at the Front Door, the student can indicate that the basis for writing this poem was a real story that happened in front of Nekrasov. The windows of the St. Petersburg apartment in which he lived just overlooked the main entrance of one of the then officials, Minister N. Muravyov. For the bloody massacre of the Polish rebels in 1863, he received the nickname "Hangman". And during the big holidays, the poet could watch how rich carriages drove up to this front door. They congratulated Muraviev, also signing a book specially designed for this, which was kept by the porter.

On weekdays, Nekrasov saw how poor petitioners, ordinary people, came to this front door with tears in their eyes. They were widows and orphans. One day, the poet witnessed a terrible scene: a janitor and a policeman were driving visitors from this house, who had probably gone a very long way. A detailed analysis of Nekrasov's Reflections at the Front Door, conducted by a schoolboy, may contain this information as well. Petitioners from distant places were a rarity at that time. And only a very great need and absolutely hopeless poverty could force people to travel huge distances.

The scene observed by the poet from the window

In the analysis of Nekrasov's poem "Reflections at the front door" one can indicate: the memories of the poet's wife, A. Ya. Panaeva, testify to the scene seen by the poet. She writes that on one of the rainy autumn days, peasants came to the house. The porter who was sweeping the stairs drove them away. Then the peasants tried to hide from the rain behind the ledge of the entrance. There they stood, shifting from one foot to the other, shivering from the cold. The wife told the poet about what she saw. Nekrasov went up to the window just at the moment when the porter was chasing people away. Then the poet quickly moved away from the window and lay down on the sofa. An hour later he had already read his poem to his wife.

The misfortune of people, which could not leave Nekrasov indifferent

An analysis of Nekrasov's poem "Reflections at the Front Door" demonstrates once again that the oppression that the poet saw shocked him to the core. And so the idea for the poem was born. For a long time, due to censorship, it could not be printed, and therefore it was distributed only in handwritten form. And in this work, the poet's muse, which Nekrasov himself called the "Muse of anger and sadness," began to speak without embarrassment already in full voice. This sketch became a real verdict of the poet to the then current government. After all, the nobleman, whose duty is to serve people, take care of the interests of the people, is sleeping. He is not at all interested in what misfortunes and sorrows ordinary people have to endure.

Indifference of officials

Meanwhile, this nobleman is perhaps the last hope for these petitioners. He absolutely does not feel fear of the punishment of heaven, because he has at his disposal "earthly punishment." He is in no way touched by the hopelessness in which his petitioners find themselves. The main technique used in this work by Nekrasov is the antithesis. In the analysis of “Reflections at the Front Door”, briefly conducted by the student, it can be emphasized that the poet skillfully uses this technique in the work. The whole poem is a contrast between the idyllic existence of a nobleman and the poverty of hungry peasants, from whose modest gift even the doorman refuses.

Is there a “free” place in Russia for the common people?

The lyrical hero reflects on whether it is possible to find at least a small piece of land where his life could be "free". But there is no such corner in the vastness of the motherland. It personifies the "people's grief" the backbreaking work of barge haulers who have to pull heavy ships in shallow water. And this popular lament cannot leave the poet indifferent. Will the Russian people find the strength to cast off this yoke and start a new life? Nekrasov does not answer this difficult question in his poem.

"Reflections at the front door": analysis according to plan

If a student received a similar task in literature, then the analysis of Nekrasov's work can be carried out in accordance with the following points:

1. The author of the poem, title.
2. How the work was created (describe the case seen by Nekrasov).
3. Theme (a difficult fate that befell ordinary people in Russia), the main idea (ordinary people will never be able to get into this rich entrance).
4. Composition of the work (this poem consists of three parts).
5. A lyrical hero (for a poet, he has such qualities as honesty, closeness to the people).
6. Artistic means (these are antithesis, hyperbole, epithets and other techniques).
7. What does the student think of this work?