The theme of native nature in the lyrics of S. Yesenin. An essay on the theme of nature in the lyrics of Sergei Yesenin I was born with songs in a grassy blanket

The theme of nature in the work of S. Yesenin

The theme of nature runs through all the work of S. Yesenin, is its main component. For example, in the poem "Rus" he speaks very affectionately about Russian nature:

Betrothed around

Grove of firs and birches

Through the bushes in the green meadow

Cling flakes of blue dew .;.

And how beautifully the poet describes the dawn: “The scarlet light of dawn wove out on the lake ...”

Yesenin’s month is a “curly lamb”, which “walks in the blue grass”, “behind a dark strand of woods, in an unshakable blue”.

We can say that the theme of nature is revealed in almost all of S. Yesenin's poems, and the poet not only describes everything that surrounds him, but also compares natural phenomena with the human body: "the heart glows with cornflowers, turquoise burns in it."

The poet is “drugged in the spring” when “the bird cherry tree throws snow, greenery in bloom and dew, in the field, leaning towards shoots, rooks walk in a strip.” In the poem "Beloved land! The heart dreams ... "S. Yesenin says:

Beloved edge! Dreaming of the heart

Stacks of the sun in the waters of the womb,

I would like to get lost

In the greens of your hundred-ringing...

The poet lovingly describes the nature of his native land, comparing willows with meek nuns.

Above the window is a month. Under the window wind.

Silvery poplar is silvery and light.

In the poems of S. Yesenin, nature is alive, spiritualized:

O side of the feather grass forest,

You are close to my heart,

But even in yours lurks thicker

Salt sadness.

She yearns for pink skies and dove clouds.

But the mountain ash is not trembling from the cold,

The blue sea boils not from the wind.

Watered the earth with the joy of snow...

Yesenin’s descriptions of nature are unlike any other: he has “clouds neighing from a foal like a hundred mares”, “the sky is like an udder”, “like a dog, the dawn breaks behind the mountain”, “golden-jet water flows from the green mountains”, “ the clouds are barking, the golden-toothed heights are roaring ... "

To the poet “September knocked on the window with a crimson willow branch” - he says goodbye to his native nature, which he loves to the depths of his soul, because “everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees”, because “all of us, all of us in this world are perishable, quietly pouring copper from maple leaves ... "And the poet asks:" Do not make noise, aspen, do not dust, road, let the song rush to the sweetheart to the doorstep.

Reading the poems of S. Yesenin, you feel that the words in his poems come from the very heart, because only if you really love the nature of your land, your homeland, you can write these words:

Black, then reeking howl!

How can I not caress you, not love you?

I will go out to the lake into the blue path,

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INTRODUCTION

Sergey Yesenin - the most popular, most read poet in Russia.

Creativity S. Yesenin belongs to the best pages not only Russian, but also. world poetry, into which he entered as a subtle, penetrating lyricist.

Yesenin's poetry is distinguished by the extraordinary power of sincerity and immediacy in the expression of feelings, the intensity of moral quests. His poems are always a frank conversation with the reader, the listener. "It seems to me that I write my poems only for my good friends," the poet himself said.

At the same time, Yesenin is a deep and original thinker. The world of feelings, thoughts and passions of the lyrical hero of his works is complex and contradictory - a contemporary of an unprecedented era of the tragic breakdown of human relations. The poet himself also saw the contradictions of his work and explained them this way: "I sang when my land was sick."

A faithful and ardent patriot of his Motherland, S. Yesenin was a poet who was vitally connected with his native land, with the people, with his poetic work.

THE THEME OF NATURE IN YESENIN'S WORKS

Nature is a comprehensive, main element of the poet's work, and the lyrical hero is connected with it innately and for life:

I was born with songs in a grass blanket.

Spring dawns twisted me into a rainbow"

("Mother went to the bathing suit through the forest ...", 1912);

"Be blessed forever,

that came to flourish and die"

("I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry ...", 1921).

The poetry of S. Yesenin (after N. Nekrasov and A. Blok) is the most significant stage in the formation of the national landscape, which, along with traditional motifs of sadness, desolation, poverty, includes surprisingly bright, contrasting colors, as if taken from popular popular prints:

"Blue sky, colored arc,

<...>

My end! Beloved Rus' and Mordva!";

" Swamps and swamps

Blue boards of heaven.

Coniferous gilding

The forest is ringing";

"O Rus' - raspberry field

And the blue that fell into the river..."

"blue sucks his eyes"; "smells of apple and honey"; "Oh, my Rus', dear homeland, Sweet rest in the silk of kupyrs"; "Ring, ring golden Rus' ...".

This image of bright and sonorous Russia, with sweet smells, silky herbs, blue coolness, was introduced into the self-consciousness of the people by Yesenin.

More often than any other poet, Yesenin uses the very concepts of "land", "Rus", "homeland" ("Rus", 1914; "Goy you, Russia, my dear ...", 1914; "Beloved land! Heart dreaming...", 1914; "Hewn drogs sang...",<1916>; "Oh, I believe, I believe, there is happiness...", 1917; "O land of rains and bad weather...",<1917>).

Yesenin depicts celestial and atmospheric phenomena in a new way - more picturesquely, pictorially, using zoomorphic and anthropomorphic comparisons. So, his wind is not cosmic, floating out of the astral heights, like Blok’s, but a living being: “a tender red-haired colt”, “lad”, “schemnik”, “thin-lipped”, “dancing trepaka”. Month - "foal", "raven", "calf", etc. Of the luminaries, in the first place is the image of the moon-month, which is found in approximately every third work of Yesenin (in 41 out of 127 - a very high coefficient; compare with the "star" Fet out of 206 works, 29 include images of stars). At the same time, in the early verses until about 1920, the "month" prevails (18 out of 20), and in the later - the moon (16 out of 21). The month primarily emphasizes the external form, figure, silhouette, convenient for all kinds of subject associations - "horse muzzle", "lamb", "horn", "kolob", "boat"; the moon is first of all light and the mood caused by it - "thin lemon moonlight", "lunar reflection, blue", "the moon laughed like a clown", "uncomfortable liquid moonlight". The month is closer to folklore, it is a fairy-tale character, while the moon brings elegiac, romance motifs.

Yesenin is the creator of a one-of-a-kind "tree novel", the lyrical hero of which is a maple, and the heroines are birches and willows. The humanized images of trees are overgrown with "portrait" details: a birch has a "stand", "hips", "breasts", "leg", "hairstyle", "hem", a maple has a "leg", "head" ("Maple you my fallen, icy maple..."; "I am wandering through the first snow..."; "My way"; "Green hairstyle...", etc.). Birch, thanks in large part to Yesenin, has become a national poetic symbol of Russia. Other favorite plants are linden, mountain ash, bird cherry.

More sympathetically and penetratingly than in previous poetry, the images of animals are revealed, which become independent subjects of tragically colored experiences and with which the lyrical hero has a blood-kinship relationship, as with "smaller brothers" ("Song of the Dog", "Kachalov's Dog", "Fox", "Cow", "Son of a bitch", "I will not deceive myself ...", etc.).

Yesenin's landscape motifs are closely connected not only with the circulation of time in nature, but also with the age course of human life - a feeling of aging and withering, sadness about the past youth ("This sadness can not be scattered now ...", 1924; "The golden grove dissuaded. ..", 1924; "What a night! I can't...", 1925). A favorite motive, renewed by Yesenin for almost the first time after E. Baratynsky, is separation from his stepfather's home and returning to his "small homeland": images of nature are colored with a sense of nostalgia, refracted in the prism of memories ("I left my dear home ...", 1918 ; "Confessions of a Hooligan", 1920; "This street is familiar to me...",<1923>; "Low house with blue shutters...",<1924>; "I'm walking through the valley. On the back of the head is a kepi...", 1925; "Anna Snegina", 1925).

For the first time with such sharpness - and again after Baratynsky - Yesenin posed the problem of the painful relationship of nature with the victorious civilization: "a steel chariot defeated the living horses"; "... they squeezed the village by the neck // Stone hands of the highway"; "as in a straitjacket, we take nature into concrete" ("Sorokoust", 1920; "I am the last poet of the village ...", 1920; "Mysterious world, my ancient world ...", 1921). However, in later poems, the poet, as it were, forces himself to love "stone and steel", stop loving the "poverty of the fields" ("Uncomfortable liquid moonlight",<1925>).

A significant place in Yesenin's work is occupied by fantastic and cosmic landscapes, designed in the style of biblical prophecies, but acquiring a human-divine and god-fighting meaning:

"Now on the peaks of the stars

The earth is rearing you!";

"I will then thunder with wheels

Suns and moons like thunder..."

Yesenin's poetry of nature, which expressed "love for all living things in the world and mercy" (M. Gorky), is also remarkable in that for the first time it consistently pursues the principle of likening nature to nature, revealing from the inside the richness of its figurative possibilities: calm water..."; "rye does not ring with a swan's neck"; "a curly lamb - a month // Walks in the blue grass", etc.

FOLKLORE MOTIVES IN THE WORKS OF S. YESENIN

Love for the native peasant land, for the Russian village, for nature with its forests and fields pervades all of Yesenin's work. The image of Russia for the poet is inseparable from the element of the people; large cities with their factories, scientific and technological progress, social and cultural life do not evoke a response in Yesenin's soul. This, of course, does not mean that the poet was not at all concerned about the problems of the present or that he looks at life through rose-colored glasses. He sees all the troubles of civilization in isolation from the earth, from the origins of people's life. “Resurrected Rus” is rural Rus; the attributes of life for Yesenin are "a loaf of bread", "shepherd's horn". It is no coincidence that the author so often refers to the form of folk songs, epics, ditties, riddles, spells.

It is significant that in Yesenin's poetry, a person is an organic part of nature, he is dissolved in it, he is joyfully and recklessly ready to surrender to the power of the elements: "I would like to get lost in the greenery of your bells," "Spring dawns twisted me into a rainbow."

Many images borrowed from Russian folklore begin to take on a life of their own in his poems. Natural phenomena appear to him in the images of animals, bear the features of everyday village life. Such animation of nature makes his poetry related to the pagan worldview of the ancient Slavs. The poet compares autumn with a "red mare" that "scratches her mane"; his month is a sickle; describing such an ordinary phenomenon as the light of the sun, the poet writes - "solar oil is pouring on the green hills." A favorite image of his poetry is a tree, one of the central symbols of pagan mythology.

Yesenin's poetry, even clothed in the traditional images of the Christian religion, does not cease to be pagan in nature.

I'll go in a skullcap, bright monk,

Steppe path to the monasteries.

This is how the poem begins and ends with:

With a smile of joyful happiness

I go to other shores

Having tasted the incorporeal communion

Praying for shocks and haystacks.

Here it is, Yesenin's religion. Peasant labor, nature replace the poet of Christ:

I pray for scarlet dawns,

I take communion by the stream.

If the Lord appears in his poem, then most often as a metaphor for some natural phenomenon (“Schemenik-wind with a cautious step / Kneads the foliage along the ledges of the road, / And kisses on the rowan bush / Red ulcers to the invisible Christ”) or in image of a simple man:

The Lord went to torture people in love.

He went out as a beggar,

Old grandfather on a dry stump, in an oak tree,

Zhamkal gums stale donut.

The Lord approached, hiding sorrow and torment:

It can be seen, they say, you can’t wake their hearts ...

And the old man said, holding out his hand:

“Here, chew ... you will be a little stronger.”

If his heroes pray to God, then their requests are quite specific and are emphatically earthly in nature:

We still pray, brothers, for faith,

May God irrigate our fields.

And here are purely pagan images:

Hoteled sky

Licks a red heifer.

This is a metaphor for the harvest, bread, which are deified by the poet. Yesenin's world is a village, a human vocation is peasant labor. The pantheon of the peasant is mother earth, cow, harvest. Yesenin's contemporary, poet and writer V. Khodasevich, said that Yesenin's Christianity is "not content, but form, and the use of Christian terminology is approaching a literary device."

Turning to folklore, Yesenin understands that leaving nature, from one's roots, is tragic. He, as a truly Russian poet, believes in his prophetic mission, in the fact that his poems “nurtured by mignonette and mint” will help modern man return to the Kingdom of the ideal, which for Yesenin is a “peasant's paradise”.

Images of animals and "tree motifs" in Yesenin's lyrics

"Wood motifs" lyrics by S. Yesenin

Many of the poems of early S. Yesenin are imbued with a sense of inextricable connection with the life of nature (" Mother in the bath…", "I do not regret, do not call, do not cry... "). The poet constantly turns to nature when he expresses his most intimate thoughts about himself, about his past, present and future. In his poems, she lives a rich poetic life. Like a person, she is born, grows and dies, sings and whispers, is sad and rejoices.

The image of nature is built on associations from rural peasant life, and the human world is usually revealed through associations with the life of nature.

Spiritualization, humanization of nature is characteristic of folk poetry. “Ancient man almost did not know inanimate objects,” notes A. Afanasiev, “everywhere he found reason, and feeling and will. In the noise of the forests, in the rustle of the leaves, he could hear those mysterious conversations that the trees have among themselves.

From childhood, the poet absorbed this popular worldview, we can say that it formed his poetic individuality.

“Everything is from the tree - this is the religion of the thought of our people ... The tree is life. Wiping their face on the canvas with the image of a tree, our people mutely say that they have not forgotten the secret of the ancient fathers to wipe themselves with leaves, that they remember themselves as the seed of an overworld tree and, running under the cover of its branches, dipping their face in a towel, they seem to want to imprint on his cheeks at least a small branch of it, so that, like a tree, he could shower cones of words and thoughts from himself and stream a shadow-virtue from the branches of his hands, ”wrote S. Yesenin in his poetic and philosophical treatise “Keys of Mary”.

For Yesenin, the likening of a person to a tree is more than a “religion of thought”: he did not just believe in the existence of a nodal connection between a person and the natural world, he himself felt himself a part of this nature.

Yesenin's motif of the "tree novel", singled out by M. Epstein, goes back to the traditional motif of assimilation of man to nature. Based on the traditional "man-plant" trope, Yesenin creates a "tree novel" whose heroes are maple, birch and willow.

Humanized images of trees are overgrown with “portrait” details: birch has “stand, hips, breasts, leg, hairstyle, hem, braids”, maple has “leg, head”.

So I want to close my hands

Over the woody thighs of the willows.

("I'm delirious on the first snow ...", 1917),

green hair,

girl breast,

O thin birch,

What did you look into the pond?

("Green Hairstyle.", 1918)

I won't be back soon!

For a long time to sing and ring the blizzard.

Guards blue Rus'

Old maple on one leg.

(“I left my dear home…”, 1918)

According to M. Epstein, “largely thanks to Yesenin, the birch has become a national poetic symbol of Russia. Other favorite plants are linden, mountain ash, bird cherry.

The most plot-length, the most significant in Yesenin's poetry are still birch and maple.

Birch in Russian folk and classical poetry is the national symbol of Russia. This is one of the most revered trees among the Slavs. In ancient pagan rites, birch often served as a "Maypole", a symbol of spring.

Yesenin, when describing folk spring holidays, mentions a birch in the meaning of this symbol in the poems "Trinity morning ..." (1914) and "Reeds rustled over the backwater ..." (1914)

Trinity morning, morning canon,

In the grove along the birch trees there is a white chime.

In the poem "Reeds rustled over the backwater" we are talking about an important and fascinating action of the Semitsk - Trinity week - fortune-telling on wreaths.

The red maiden told fortunes in seven.

A wave unraveled a wreath of dodder.

The girls wove wreaths and threw them into the river. According to a wreath that sailed far away, washed ashore, stopped or drowned, they judged the fate that awaited them (far or near marriage, girlhood, death of a betrothed).

Ah, do not marry a girl in the spring,

He frightened her with signs of the forest.

The joyful meeting of spring is overshadowed by the premonition of the approaching death "the bark is eaten on the birch." A tree without bark dies, but here the association "birch - girl". The motive of misfortune is enhanced by the use of such images as "mice", "spruce", "shroud".

In the poem "Green Hairstyle". (1918) the humanization of the birch in Yesenin's work reaches its full development. Birch becomes like a woman.

green hair,

girl breast,

O thin birch,

What did you look into the pond?

The reader will never know who this poem is about - about a birch tree or about a girl. Because the man here is likened to a tree, and the tree to a man.

In such poems as “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry ...” (1921) and “The golden grove dissuaded ...” (1924), the lyrical hero reflects on his life, about his youth:

I do not regret, do not call, do not cry,

Everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees.

Withering gold embraced,

I won't be young anymore.

... And the country of birch chintz

Not tempted to wander around barefoot.

"Apple smoke" - flowering trees in the spring, when everything around is reborn to a new life. "Apple tree", "apples" - in folk poetry it is a symbol of youth - "rejuvenating apples", and "smoke" is a symbol of fragility, fleetingness, ghostliness. In combination, they mean the fleetingness of happiness, youth. Birch, a symbol of spring, adjoins the same meaning. "Country of birch calico" is the "country" of childhood, the time of the most beautiful. No wonder Yesenin writes "to wander around barefoot", one can draw a parallel with the expression "barefoot childhood".

All of us, all of us in this world are perishable,

Quietly pouring copper from maple leaves ...

May you be blessed forever

That came to flourish and die.

Before us is a symbol of the transience of human life. The symbol is based on the trope: “life is the time of flowering”, wilting is the approach of death. In nature, everything inevitably returns, repeats and blooms again. Man, unlike nature, is one-time, and his cycle, coinciding with the natural, is already unique.

The theme of the Motherland is closely intertwined with the image of the birch. Each Yesenin line is warmed by a feeling of boundless love for Russia. The strength of the poet's lyrics lies in the fact that in it the feeling of love for the Motherland is expressed not abstractly, but concretely, in visible images, through pictures of the native landscape.

This can be seen in such poems as "White Birch". (1913), "Return to the Motherland" (1924), "Uncomfortable liquid moonlight" (1925).

Maple, unlike other trees, it does not have such a definite, formed figurative core in Russian poetry. In folklore traditions associated with ancient pagan rituals, he did not play a significant role. Poetic views on him in Russian classical literature were mainly formed in the 20th century and therefore have not yet acquired clear outlines.

The maple image is most formed in the poetry of S. Yesenin, where he acts as a kind of lyrical hero of the "woody novel". Maple is a daring, slightly rollicking guy, with a wild mop of uncombed hair, since he has a round crown that looks like a mop of hair or a hat. Hence the motif of assimilation, that primary similarity from which the image of the lyrical hero developed.

Because that old maple

Head looks like me.

("I left my dear home...", 1918)

In the poem "Son of a bitch" (1824), the lyrical hero is sad about the bygone youth, which "faded",

Like maple rotted under the windows.

In folk poetry, a rotten or withered tree is a symbol of grief, the loss of something dear that cannot be returned.

The hero remembers his youthful love. The symbol of love here is viburnum, with its "bitter" semantics, it is also combined with the "yellow pond". Yellow color in the superstitions of the people is a symbol of separation, grief. Therefore, we can say that parting with a beloved girl was already destined by fate itself.

Maple or sycamore in the ethnological traditions of the Slavs is a tree into which a person has been turned ("sworn"). S. Yesenin also anthropomorphizes the maple, he appears as a person with all his mental states and periods of life. In the poem “You are my fallen maple ...” (1925), the lyrical hero is like a maple with his daring, he draws a parallel between himself and the maple:

And, like a drunken watchman, going out onto the road,

He drowned in a snowdrift, froze his leg.

Oh, and now I myself have become somewhat unstable,

I won't get home from a friendly drinking party.

It is not even always clear who this poem is about - a person or a tree.

There he met a willow, there he noticed a pine,

He sang songs to them under a blizzard about summer.

I myself seemed to be the same maple ...

Reminiscent of maple with its "carefree - curly head", poplar at the same time, aristocratically "slender and straight." This harmony, aspiration upward is a distinctive feature of the poplar, up to the poetry of our days.

In the poem "The Village" (1914), S. Yesenin compares poplar leaves with silk:

In silk poplar leaves.

This comparison was made possible by the fact that poplar leaves have a double structure: the leaves are shiny green on the outside, as if polished, on the inside they are matte silver. Silk fabric also has a double color: the right side is shiny, smooth, and the left side is matte and inexpressive. When silk shimmers, the shades of color can change, just as poplar leaves shimmer with a greenish-silver color in the wind.

Poplars grow along roadsides and are therefore sometimes associated with barefoot wanderers. This theme of wandering is reflected in the poem "Without a hat, with a bast knapsack ..." (1916).

The lyrical hero - the wanderer "wanders" "under the quiet rustle of poplars." Here the wanderer-man and the wanderer-tree echo, complement each other to achieve greater subtlety in the disclosure of the topic.

In the works of Yesenin, poplars are also a sign of the Motherland, like birch.

Saying goodbye to the house, leaving for foreign lands, the hero is sad that

They will no longer be winged leaves

I need to ring poplars.

("Yes! Now it's decided...", 1922)

willow called "weeping". The image of a willow is more unambiguous and has the semantics of melancholy.

In Russian folk poetry, willow is a symbol not only of love, but also of any separation, grief of mothers parting with their sons.

In the poetry of S. Yesenin, the image of a willow is traditionally associated with sadness, loneliness, and separation. This sadness for the past youth, for the loss of a loved one, from parting with the homeland.

For example, in the poem "Night and field, and the cry of roosters ..." (1917)

Here everything is the same as it was then,

The same rivers and the same herds.

Only willows above the red mound

The shabby hem is shaken.

"The dilapidated hem of the willows" - the past, the old time, something that is very expensive, but something that will never return. Destroyed, warped life of the people, the country.

In the same poem, aspen is also mentioned. It emphasizes bitterness, loneliness, as in folk poetry it is always a symbol of sadness.

In other poems, willow, like birch, is a heroine, a girl.

And call the rosary

Willows are meek nuns.

("Lovely Land…", 1914)

So I want to close my hands

Over the woody thighs of the willows.

("I'm delirious on the first snow...", 1917)

The lyrical hero, remembering his youth, sad about it, also refers to the image of a willow.

And knocked on my window

September with a crimson willow branch,

So that I was ready and met

His arrival is unpretentious.

(“Let you be drunk by others…” 1923)

September is autumn, and the autumn of life is the imminent arrival of winter - old age. The hero meets this "age of autumn" calmly, although with a little sadness about "mischievous and rebellious courage", because by this time he has gained life experience and looks at the world around him already from the height of past years.

Everything that distinguishes a tree from other forms of vegetation (strength of the trunk, mighty crown) highlights oak among other trees, making, as it were, the king of the tree kingdom. He personifies the highest degree of firmness, courage, strength, greatness.

Tall, mighty, blooming - the characteristic epithets of the oak, which, among poets, acts as an image of vitality.

In the poetry of S. Yesenin, the oak is not such a constant hero as the birch and maple. Oak is mentioned in only three poems ("Bogatyrsky whistle", 1914; "Oktoih" 1917; "Unspeakable, blue, tender..." 1925)

In the poem "Octoechos" the Mauritian oak is mentioned. Yesenin subsequently explained the meaning of this image in his treatise "Keys of Mary" (1918)

"... that symbolic tree that means "family", it does not matter at all that in Judea this tree bore the name of the Mauritian oak ... "

Under the Mauritian oak

My red-haired grandfather is sitting ...

The introduction of the image of the Mauritian oak into this poem is not accidental, since it speaks of the homeland:

Oh motherland, happy

And a non-starting hour!

about relatives -

"my red-haired grandfather."

This oak, as it were, summarizes everything that the poet wanted to write about in this work, that the family is the most important thing that a person can have.

The image of the "family" here is given in a broader sense: it is the "father's land", and "native graves", and "father's house", that is, everything that connects a person with this land.

In the poem "The Heroic Whistle" Yesenin introduces the image of an oak to show the power and strength of Russia, its people. This work can be put on a par with Russian epics about heroes. Ilya Muromets and other heroes, jokingly, effortlessly felled oaks. In this poem, the peasant also "whistles", and from his whistle

century-old oaks trembled,

On the oaks, the leaves fall from the whistle.

Coniferous trees convey a different mood and carry a different meaning than leafy ones: not joy and sadness, not various emotional outbursts, but rather a mysterious silence, numbness, self-absorption.

Pine and spruce trees are part of a gloomy, harsh landscape, around them there is wilderness, dusk, silence. Irreplaceable greenery evokes associations of coniferous trees with eternal peace, deep sleep, over which time has no power, the cycle of nature.

These trees are mentioned in such poems of 1914 as "The winds do not shower the forests ...", "The melted clay dries", "I feel the joy of God ...", "Mustache", "The cloud tied the lace in the grove." (1915).

In Yesenin's poem "Powder" (1914), the main character, the pine tree, acts as an "old woman":

Like a white scarf

The pine has tied up.

Bent over like an old lady

Leaned on a stick...

The forest where the heroine lives is fabulous, magical, also alive, just like her.

Bewitched by the invisible

The forest is slumbering under the fairy tale of sleep...

We meet with another fabulous, magical forest in the poem "The Sorceress" (1915). But this forest is no longer bright, joyful, but, on the contrary, formidable ("The grove threatens with spruce peaks"), gloomy, severe.

Spruces and pines here represent an evil, unfriendly space, an unclean force that lives in this wilderness. The landscape is painted in dark colors:

The dark night is silently frightened,

The moon is covered with shawls of clouds.

The wind is a pevun with a howl of hysterics ...

Having examined the poems where images of trees are found, we see that S. Yesenin's poems are imbued with a sense of inextricable connection with the life of nature. It is inseparable from a person, from his thoughts and feelings. The image of the tree in Yesenin's poetry appears in the same meaning as in folk poetry. The author's motif of the "tree novel" goes back to the traditional motif of likening man to nature, based on the traditional trope "man - plant".

Drawing nature, the poet introduces into the story a description of human life, holidays, which are somehow connected with the animal and plant world. Yesenin, as it were, interweaves these two worlds, creates one harmonious and interpenetrating world. He often resorts to impersonation. Nature is not a frozen landscape background: it reacts ardently to the destinies of people, the events of history. She is the poet's favorite character.

Images of animals in the lyrics of S. Yesenin.

The images of animals in literature are a kind of mirror of humanistic consciousness. Just as the self-determination of a person is impossible outside its relation to another person, so the self-determination of the entire human race cannot be accomplished outside its relation to the animal kingdom.

The cult of animals has existed for a very long time. In a distant era, when the main occupation of the Slavs was hunting, and not agriculture, they believed that wild animals and humans had common ancestors. Each tribe had its own totem, that is, a sacred animal that the tribe worshiped, believing that it was their blood relative.

Images of animals have always been present in the literature of different times. They served as material for the emergence of the Aesopian language in animal tales, and later in fables. In the literature of the "new time", in the epic and in the lyrics, animals acquire equality with humans, becoming the object or subject of the narrative. Often a person is "tested for humanity" by the attitude towards the animal.

The poetry of the 19th century is dominated by images of domestic and household animals, tamed by man, sharing his life and work. After Pushkin, the everyday genre becomes predominant in animalistic poetry. All living things are placed in the framework of household inventory or household yard (Pushkin, Nekrasov, Fet). In the poetry of the 20th century, images of wild animals became widespread (Bunin, Gumilyov, Mayakovsky). Gone is the worship of the beast. But the "new peasant poets" re-introduce the motif of the "brotherhood of man and animal." Their poetic work is dominated by domestic animals - a cow, a horse, a dog, a cat. Relationships reveal the features of a family way of life.

In the poetry of Sergei Yesenin, there is also the motive of "blood relationship" with the animal world, he calls them "smaller brothers".

Happy that I kissed women

Crumpled flowers, rolled on the grass

And the beast, like our smaller brothers

Never hit on the head.

("We are now leaving little by little", 1924)

In him, along with domestic animals, we find images of representatives of the wild. Of the 339 poems examined, 123 mention animals, birds, insects, and fish.

Horse (13), cow (8), raven, dog, nightingale (6), calves, cat, dove, crane (5), sheep, mare, dog (4), foal, swan, rooster, owl (3), sparrow, wolf, capercaillie, cuckoo, horse, frog, fox, mouse, titmouse (2), stork, ram, butterfly, camel, rook, goose, gorilla, toad, snake, oriole, sandpiper, chickens, corncrake, donkey, parrot , magpies, catfish, pig, cockroaches, lapwing, bumblebee, pike, lamb (1).

S. Yesenin most often refers to the image of a horse, a cow. He introduces these animals into the story of peasant life as an integral part of the life of a Russian peasant. Since ancient times, a horse, a cow, a dog and a cat have accompanied a person in his hard work, shared with him both joys and troubles.

The horse was an assistant when working in the field, in transporting goods, in military combat. The dog brought prey, guarded the house. The cow was a drinker and breadwinner in a peasant family, and the cat caught mice and simply personified home comfort.

The image of a horse, as an integral part of everyday life, is found in the poems "Tabun" (1915), "Farewell, dear forest ..." (1916), "Now do not scatter this sadness ..." (1924). Pictures of village life are changing in connection with the events taking place in the country. And if in the first poem we see "in the hills green herds of horses", then in the following already:

Mowed hut,

Weeping sheep, and away in the wind

The little horse waving its scrawny tail,

Looking into the unkind pond.

(“This sadness cannot be scattered now…”, 1924)

The village fell into decay and the proud and majestic horse "turned" into a "horse", which personifies the plight of the peasantry in those years.

The innovation and originality of S. Yesenin, the poet, manifested itself in the fact that when drawing or mentioning animals in everyday space (field, river, village, yard, house, etc.), he is not an animal painter, that is, he does not aim to recreate the image of one or another animal. Animals, being part of the everyday space and environment, appear in his poetry as a source and means of artistic and philosophical understanding of the world around them, and allow revealing the content of a person's spiritual life.

In the poem "Cow" (1915), S. Yesenin uses the principle of anthropomorphism, endowing the animal with human thoughts and feelings. The author describes a specific everyday and life situation - the old age of the animal

decrepit, teeth fell out,

scroll of years on the horns ...

and his future fate, "soon ... they will tie a noose around her neck // and lead to the slaughter", he identifies the old animal and the old man.

Thinking a sad thought...

If we turn to those works in which the image of a dog occurs, then, for example, in the poem "Song of the Dog" (1915). "Song" (emphasized "high" genre) is a kind of hymnography, which became possible due to the fact that the subject of "chanting" is the sacred feeling of motherhood, inherent in a dog to the same extent as in a woman - a mother. The animal worries about the death of its cubs, which the "gloomy master" drowned in the hole.

Introducing the image of a dog into his poems, the poet writes about the long-standing friendship of this beast with man. The lyrical hero of S. Yesenin is also a peasant by origin, and in childhood and adolescence - a villager. Loving his fellow villagers, he is at the same time, in essence, completely different from them. In relation to animals, this is manifested most clearly. His affection and love for "sisters - bitches" and "brothers - males" are feelings for equals. That is why the dog "was my youth Friend".

The poem "Son of a bitch" reflects the tragedy of the consciousness of the lyrical hero, which arises from the fact that in the world of wildlife and animals everything looks unchanged:

That dog died a long time ago

But in the same suit as with a blue tint,

With barking lively - stunned

I was shot by her young son.

It seems that the "son" genetically received love for the lyrical hero from his mother. However, the lyrical hero next to this dog feels especially keenly how he has changed externally and internally. For him, returning to his young self is possible only at the level of feeling and for a moment.

With this pain, I feel younger

And at least write notes again.

At the same time, the irreversibility of what has passed is realized.

Another animal that "accompanies" a person through life for a very long time is a cat. It embodies home comfort, a warm hearth.

An old cat sneaks up to the shawl

For fresh milk.

("In the hut.", 1914)

In this poem, we also meet with other representatives of the animal world, which are also an invariable "attribute" of the peasant hut. These are cockroaches, chickens, roosters.

Having considered the everyday meanings of the images of animals, we turn to their symbolic meanings. The symbols that animals are endowed with are very widespread in folklore and classical poetry. Each poet has his own symbolism, but basically they all rely on the folk basis of one image or another. Yesenin also uses folk beliefs about animals, but at the same time, many images of animals are rethought by him and receive new significance. Let's go back to the image of the horse.

The horse is one of the sacred animals in Slavic mythology, an attribute of the gods, but at the same time a chthonic creature associated with fertility and death, the afterlife, a guide to the "other world". The horse was endowed with the ability to portend fate, especially death. A. N. Afanasyev explains the meaning of the horse in the mythology of the ancient Slavs: "As the personification of gusty winds, storms and flying clouds, fairy horses are endowed with wings, which makes them related to mythological birds ... fiery, fire-breathing ... the horse serves as a poetic image of either the radiant sun or a cloud of lightning flashing ... ".

In the poem "Dove" (1916), the horse appears in the image of "quiet fate". Nothing foreshadows change and the lyrical hero lives a quiet, measured life, with his household chores from day to day, just like his ancestors lived.

The day will go out, flashing with a shock of gold,

And in the box of years the works will settle down.

But in the history of the country, the revolutionary events of 1917 take place, and the hero’s soul becomes anxious for the fate of Russia, his region. He understands that now a lot will change in his life. The lyrical hero recalls with sadness his strong, well-established life, which is now broken.

... He took my horse away ...

My horse is my power and strengthen.

He knows that now his future depends on the future of his homeland, he is trying to escape from the events that are taking place.

... he beats, rushes about,

Pulling a tight lasso ...

("Open the guard beyond the clouds to me", 1918),

but he does not succeed, it remains only to submit to fate. In this work, we observe a poetic parallelism between the "behavior" of the horse and its fate and the state of mind of the lyrical hero in the "life torn apart by a storm".

In the 1920 poem "Sorokoust", Yesenin introduces the image of a horse as a symbol of the old patriarchal village, which has not yet realized the transition to a new life. The image of this "past", which is trying with all its might to fight change, is a foal, which appears as a component of the whole symbolic situation of "competition" between the "cast-iron horse-train" and the "red-maned colt".

Dear, dear, funny fool

Well, where is he, where is he chasing?

Doesn't he know that living horses

Did the steel cavalry win?

The struggle of the village for survival is lost, more and more preference is given to the city.

In other works, the horse becomes a symbol of past youth, a symbol of what a person cannot return, it remains only in memories.

Now I have become more stingy in desires,

My life? did you dream of me?

Like I'm a spring echoing early

Ride on a pink horse.

(“I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry…”, 1921)

"I rode on a pink horse" - a symbol of a quickly gone, irrevocable youth. Thanks to the additional symbolism of color, it appears as a "pink horse" - a symbol of sunrise, spring, the joy of life. But even a real peasant horse at dawn turns pink in the rays of the rising sun. The essence of this poem is a thankful song, the blessings of all living things. The horse has the same meaning in the poem "Oh, you sleigh ..." (1924)

Everything is gone. Thinned my hair.

The horse is dead.

Remembering his youth, the lyrical hero also refers to the image of a dog.

I remember a dog today

What was my youth friend

("Son of a bitch". 1924)

In this poem, the poet recalls his youth, his first love, which is gone, but lives in memories. However, the old love is replaced by a new one, the older generation is replaced by the young, that is, nothing in this life returns, but at the same time the life cycle is uninterrupted.

That dog died a long time ago

But in the same suit, with a tint of blue ...

I was shot by her young son.

If we turn to other representatives of the animal world, for example, ravens, we will see that in Yesenin they have the same symbolism as in folk poetry.

Black crows croaked:

Terrible troubles a wide scope.

("Rus", 1914)

In this poem, the raven is a harbinger of impending trouble, namely the war of 1914. The poet introduces the image of this bird not only as a folk symbol of misfortune, but also in order to show his negative attitude to current events, feelings for the fate of the Motherland.

Many poets use various types of word transfer to create images, including metaphor. In poetry, metaphor is used mainly in a secondary function for it, introducing attributive and evaluative values into nominal positions. For poetic speech, a binary metaphor is characteristic (metaphor - comparison). Thanks to the image, metaphor connects language and myth with the corresponding way of thinking - mythological. Poets create their own epithets, metaphors, comparisons and images. Metaphorization of images is a feature of the poet's artistic style. S. Yesenin also turns to the help of metaphors in his poems. He creates them according to the folklore principle: he takes material from the rural world and from the natural world for the image and seeks to characterize one noun by another.

Here is an example of the moon:

"The moon, like a yellow bear, tosses and turns in the wet grass."

Yesenin's motive of nature is supplemented in a peculiar way with images of animals. Most often, the names of animals are given in comparisons in which objects and phenomena are compared with animals, often not related to them in reality, but combined according to some associative feature that serves as the basis for its selection. ( "Like the skeletons of skinny cranes // Plucked willows stand..."; "Blue dusk, like a flock of sheep...").

By color match:

On the pond like a red swan

A quiet sunset floats.

("Here it is stupid happiness ...", 1918) ;

by proximity and similarity of functions:

Like birds whistling versts

From under the hooves of a horse ...

("About arable land, arable land, arable land ...", 1917-1918) ;

according to some associative, sometimes subjectively distinguished feature:

I was like a horse driven in soap,

Spurred by a bold rider.

("Letter to a Woman", 1924)

Sometimes the poet also uses the form of parallelism characteristic of Russian folk poetry - songs, including the negative one:

Not the cuckoos were sad - Tanya's relatives are crying.

(“Tanyusha was good…”, 1911)

In the works of S. Yesenin, an animalistic (image of animals) comparison or zoomorphic metaphor often develops into a detailed image:

Autumn - a red mare - scratches her mane.

("Autumn", 1914 - 1916)

The red color of autumn leaves is associated with the "red mare". But autumn is not only a "red mare" (similarity in color), it "scratches its mane": the image is revealed through comparison with an animal visibly, in colors, sounds, movements. The tread of autumn is compared to the tread of a horse.

There are comparisons of natural phenomena with animals: a month - " curly lamb "," foal ", " golden frog", spring - " squirrel", clouds - " wolves." Objects are equated to animals and birds, for example, a mill - "log bird", bake - "camel brick"On the basis of complex associative comparisons, natural phenomena have organs characteristic of animals and birds (paws, muzzles, snouts, claws, beaks):

Cleans the moon in the thatched roof

Horns covered in blue.

("The red wings of the sunset go out.", 1916)

Waves of white claws

Golden sand.

("Heavenly Drummer.", 1918)

Maple and lindens in the windows of the rooms

Throwing branches with paws,

Looking for those who remember.

("Honey, let's sit next to me.", 1923)

The colors of animals also acquire a purely symbolic meaning: "red horse" - a symbol of revolution, "pink horse" - an image of youth, "black horse" - a harbinger of death.

Figurative embodiment, a clear metaphor, a sensitive perception of folklore underlie the artistic research of Sergei Yesenin. The metaphorical use of animalistic vocabulary in original comparisons creates the originality of the poet's style.

Having considered the images of animals in the poetry of S. Yesenin, we can conclude that the poet solves the problem of using animalistics in his works in different ways.

In one case, he turns to them in order to show with their help some historical events, personal emotional experiences. In others - in order to more accurately, more deeply convey the beauty of nature, native land.

Bibliography:

1. Koshechkin S. P. "Spring echoing early ..." - M., 1984.

2. Marchenko A. M. Yesenin's poetic world. - M., 1972.

3. Prokushen Yu. L. Sergey Yesenin "Image, poems, era. - M., 1979.

“My lyrics are alive with one great love - love for the motherland,” said Sergei Yesenin about his work. And the image of the motherland for him is inextricably linked with his native nature. Russian nature for Yesenin is the eternal beauty and eternal harmony of the world, healing human souls. This is how we perceive the poet's poems about our native land, this is how, sublimely and enlightened, they act on us: They knit lace over the forest In the yellow foam of the cloud. In a quiet slumber under a canopy I hear the whisper of a pine forest. The poet, as it were, tells us: stop at least for a moment, look at the world of beauty around you, listen to the rustle of meadow grasses, the song of the wind, the voice of the river wave, look at the morning dawn, foreshadowing the birth of a new day, at the starry night sky. Living pictures of nature in the poems of Sergei Yesenin not only teach us to love the beauty of our native nature, they lay the moral foundations of our character, make us kinder, wiser. After all, a person who knows how to appreciate earthly beauty will no longer be able to oppose himself to it. The poet admires his native nature, filling his lines with tender awe, looking for bright, unexpected and at the same time very accurate comparisons:

Behind the dark strand of copses,

In unshakable blue

Curly lamb - a month

Walking in the blue grass.

Often using the personification of nature, characteristic of his lyrics, Yesenin creates his own unique world, forcing us to see how “the moon, the sad rider, dropped the reins”, how “the blown up road is dozing”, and “thin birch ... looked into into the pond." Nature in his poems feels, laughs and mourns, is surprised and upset.

The poet himself feels himself one with the trees, flowers, fields. Yesenin's childhood friend K. Tsybin recalled that Sergei perceived flowers as living beings, talked to them, trusting them with his joys and sorrows:

Aren't people flowers? Oh dear, feel you, These are not empty words. Like a stem shaking its body, Isn't this head a golden rose for You? The emotional experiences of the poet, important events in his life are always inextricably linked with changes in nature:

Leaves are falling, leaves are falling

The wind is moaning, Long and deaf.

Who will please the heart?

Who will comfort him, my friend?

In poems of the early period, Yesenin often uses Church Slavonic vocabulary. He represents the merging of earth and sky, showing nature as the crown of their union. The poet embodies the state of his soul in pictures of nature, full of bright colors:

Weaved out on the lake the scarlet light of dawn.

Capercaillie are crying in the forest with bells.

An oriole is crying somewhere, hiding in a hollow.

Only I don’t cry - my heart is light.

But carefree youth is over. A colorful, light landscape is replaced by pictures of early withering. In Yesenin's poems, the maturity of a person often echoes the autumn season. The colors have not faded, they even acquired new shades - crimson, gold, copper, but these are the last flashes before the long winter:

The golden grove dissuaded

Birch, cheerful language,

And the cranes, sadly flying,

No more regrets.

And at the same time:

The bitter smell of black burning,

Autumn groves set on fire.

In the lyrics of an even later period, in Yesenin's description of pictures of nature, there is a premonition of untimely death. The poems of this period are full of longing for lost youth, tragedy.

Snowy plain, white moon,

Our side is covered with a shroud.

And birches in white cry through the forests:

Who died here? Died?

Am I myself?

Perceiving nature as a whole with himself, the poet sees in it a source of inspiration. The native land endowed the poet with an amazing gift - folk wisdom, which was absorbed with all the originality of his native village, with those songs, beliefs, tales that he heard from childhood and which became the main source of his work. And even the exotic beauty of distant lands could not overshadow the modest charm of their native expanses. Wherever the poet was, wherever his fate brought him, he belonged to Russia in heart and soul.

Yesenin's poetry is a wonderful and wonderful unique world! A world that is close and understandable to absolutely everyone without exception. Yesenin is a great poet of no less great Russia; a poet who rose to the heights of his skill from the depths of folk life. His homeland is the Ryazan land, which fed and watered him, taught him to love and understand what surrounds us all - nature! Here, on Ryazan land, for the first time Sergei Yesenin saw all the beauty of Russian nature, which he told us about in his poems. From the first days of his life, Yesenin was surrounded by the world of folk songs and legends:

I was born with songs in a grass blanket.

Spring dawns twisted me into a rainbow.

In the spiritual form in Yesenin's poetry, the features of the people were clearly revealed - its "restless, daring strength", scope, cordiality, spiritual restlessness, deep humanity. Yesenin's whole life is closely connected with the people. Perhaps that is why the protagonists of all his poems are ordinary people, in every line one can feel the close connection of the poet and man Yesenin with the Russian peasants that has not weakened over the years.

Sergei Yesenin was born into a peasant family. "As a child, I grew up breathing the atmosphere of folk life," the poet recalled. Yesenin was already perceived by his contemporaries as a poet of "great song power". His poems are like smooth, calm folk songs. And the splashing of the wave, and the silvery moon, and the rustle of the reeds, and the immense blue of the sky, and the blue expanse of the lakes - all the beauty of the native land was embodied over the years in poems full of love for the Russian land and its people:

O Rus - raspberry field

And the blue that fell into the river -

I love to joy and pain

Your lake longing...

“My lyrics are alive with one great love,” Yesenin said, “love for the motherland. The feeling of the motherland is the main thing in my work.” In Yesenin's poems, not only "Rus' shines", not only the poet's quiet confession of love for her sounds, but also expresses faith in a person, in his great deeds, in the great future of his native people. The poet warms every line of the poem with a feeling of boundless love for the Motherland.

From Yesenin's poems, the image of a poet-thinker, who is vitally connected with his country, arises. He was a worthy singer and a citizen of his homeland. In a good way, he envied those "who spent their lives in battle, who defended a great idea," and wrote with sincere pain "about days wasted in vain":

'Cause I could give

Not what he gave

What was given to me for the sake of a joke.

Yesenin was a bright personality. According to R. Rozhdestvensky, he possessed "that rare human property, which is usually called the vague and indefinite word" charm "... Any interlocutor found in Yesenin something of his own, familiar and beloved - and this is the secret of such a powerful influence of his poems".

From childhood, Sergei Yesenin perceived nature as a living being. Therefore, in his poetry, an ancient, pagan attitude to nature is felt. The poet animates her:

Schemnik-wind with a cautious step

Creasing leaves on road ledges

And kisses on the rowan bush

Red ulcers to the invisible Christ.

Few poets see and feel the beauty of their native nature like Sergei Yesenin. She is sweet and dear to the heart of the poet, who managed to convey in his poems the breadth and boundlessness of rural Rus':

See no end and edge -

Only blue sucks eyes.

Through the images of native nature, the poet perceives the events of a person's life.

The poet brilliantly conveys his state of mind, drawing for this purpose simple, to the point of genius, comparisons with the life of nature:

I do not regret, do not call, do not cry,

Everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees.

Withering gold embraced,

I won't be young anymore.

Sergei Yesenin, albeit with bitterness, accepts the eternal laws of life and nature, realizing that "we are all perishable in this world", and blesses the natural course of life:

May you be blessed forever

What has come to flourish and die.

In the poem "I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry ..." the poet's feelings and the state of nature merge. Man and nature are in perfect harmony with Yesenin. The content of the poem "The golden grove dissuaded ..." is also transmitted to us with the help of images of nature. Autumn is a time for summing up, peace and quiet (only "the cranes sadly fly by"). The images of a golden grove, a departing wanderer, a burning but not warming fire, convey to us the poet's sad thoughts about the decline of life.

How many people warmed their souls at the miraculous fire of Yesenin's poetry, how many enjoyed the sounds of his lyre. And how often they were inattentive to Yesenin the man. Maybe that's what killed him. "We have lost a great Russian poet ..." - wrote M. Gorky, shocked by the tragic news.

I consider the poems of Sergei Yesenin close to every Russian person who really loves his homeland. In his work, the poet was able to show and convey in his lyrics those bright, beautiful feelings that evoke in us pictures of our native nature. And if we sometimes find it difficult to find the right words to express the depth of love for our native land, then we should definitely turn to the work of this great poet.

INTRODUCTION

Sergey Yesenin - the most popular, most read poet in Russia.

Creativity S. Yesenin belongs to the best pages not only Russian, but also. world poetry, into which he entered as a subtle, penetrating lyricist.

A faithful and ardent patriot of his Motherland, S. Yesenin was a poet who was vitally connected with his native land, with the people, with his poetic work.

THE THEME OF NATURE IN YESENIN'S WORKS

Nature is a comprehensive, main element of the poet's work, and the lyrical hero is connected with it innately and for life:

I was born with songs in a grass blanket.

Spring dawns twisted me into a rainbow"

("Mother went to the bathing suit through the forest ...", 1912);

"Be blessed forever,

that came to flourish and die"

("I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry ...", 1921).

The poetry of S. Yesenin (after N. Nekrasov and A. Blok) is the most significant stage in the formation of the national landscape, which, along with traditional motifs of sadness, desolation, poverty, includes surprisingly bright, contrasting colors, as if taken from popular popular prints:

"Blue sky, colored arc,

<...>

My end! Beloved Rus' and Mordva!";

"Swamps and swamps,

Blue boards of heaven.

Coniferous gilding

The forest is ringing";

"O Rus' - raspberry field

And the blue that fell into the river..."

"blue sucks his eyes"; "smells of apple and honey"; "Oh, my Rus', dear homeland, Sweet rest in the silk of kupyrs"; "Ring, ring golden Rus' ...".

This image of bright and sonorous Russia, with sweet smells, silky herbs, blue coolness, was introduced into the self-consciousness of the people by Yesenin.

More often than any other poet, Yesenin uses the very concepts of "land", "Rus", "homeland" ("Rus", 1914; "Goy you, Russia, my dear ...", 1914; "Beloved land! Heart dreaming...", 1914; "Hewn drogs sang...",<1916>; "Oh, I believe, I believe, there is happiness...", 1917; "O land of rains and bad weather...",<1917>).

A significant place in Yesenin's work is occupied by fantastic and cosmic landscapes, designed in the style of biblical prophecies, but acquiring a human-divine and god-fighting meaning:

"Now on the peaks of the stars

The earth is rearing you!";

"I will then thunder with wheels

Suns and moons like thunder..."

FOLKLORE MOTIVES IN THE WORKS OF S. YESENIN

Love for the native peasant land, for the Russian village, for nature with its forests and fields pervades all of Yesenin's work. The image of Russia for the poet is inseparable from the element of the people; big cities with their factories, scientific and technological progress, social and cultural life do not evoke a response in Yesenin's soul. This, of course, does not mean that the poet was not at all concerned about the problems of the present or that he looks at life through rose-colored glasses. He sees all the troubles of civilization in isolation from the earth, from the origins of people's life. “Rising Rus” is rural Rus; the attributes of life for Yesenin are "a loaf of bread", "shepherd's horn". It is no coincidence that the author so often refers to the form of folk songs, epics, ditties, riddles, spells.

It is significant that in Yesenin's poetry, a person is an organic part of nature, he is dissolved in it, he is joyfully and recklessly ready to surrender to the power of the elements: “I would like to get lost in the greenery of your bells”, “Dawn springs twisted me into a rainbow”.

Many images borrowed from Russian folklore begin to take on a life of their own in his poems. Natural phenomena appear in his images in the form of animals, bear the features of everyday village life. Such animation of nature makes his poetry related to the pagan worldview of the ancient Slavs. The poet compares autumn with a "red mare" that "scratches her mane"; his month is a sickle; Describing such an ordinary phenomenon as the light of the sun, the poet writes - "solar oil is pouring on the green hills." A favorite image of his poetry is a tree, one of the central symbols of pagan mythology.

Yesenin's poetry, even clothed in the traditional images of the Christian religion, does not cease to be pagan in nature.

I'll go in a skullcap, bright monk,

Steppe path to the monasteries.

This is how the poem begins and ends with:

With a smile of joyful happiness

I go to other shores

Having tasted the incorporeal communion

Praying for shocks and haystacks.

Here it is, Yesenin's religion. Peasant labor, nature replace the poet of Christ:

I pray for scarlet dawns,

I take communion by the stream.

If the Lord appears in his poem, then most often as a metaphor for some natural phenomenon (“Schemnik-wind with a cautious step / Kneads the foliage along the ledges of the road, / And kisses on the rowan bush / Red ulcers to the invisible Christ”) or in the form of a simple man:

The Lord went to torture people in love.

He went out as a beggar,

Old grandfather on a dry stump, in an oak tree,

Zhamkal gums stale donut.

It can be seen, they say, you can’t wake their hearts ...

And the old man said, holding out his hand:

“Here, chew ... you will be a little stronger.”

If his heroes pray to God, then their requests are quite specific and are emphatically earthly in nature:

We still pray, brothers, for faith,

May God irrigate our fields.

And here are purely pagan images:

Hoteled sky

Licks a red heifer.

This is a metaphor for the harvest, bread, which are deified by the poet. Yesenin's world is a village, a human vocation is peasant labor. Pantheon of the peasant - mother earth, cow, harvest. Yesenin's contemporary, poet and writer V. Khodasevich, said that Yesenin's Christianity is "not content, but form, and the use of Christian terminology is approaching a literary device."

Turning to folklore, Yesenin understands that leaving nature, from one's roots, is tragic. He, as a truly Russian poet, believes in his prophetic mission, in the fact that his poems “nurtured by mignonette and mint” will help modern man return to the Kingdom of the ideal, which for Yesenin is a “peasant's paradise”.

Images of animals and "tree motifs" in Yesenin's lyrics

"Wood motifs" lyrics by S. Yesenin

The image of nature is built on associations from rural peasant life, and the human world is usually revealed through associations with the life of nature.

From childhood, the poet absorbed this popular worldview, we can say that it formed his poetic individuality.

“Everything is from the tree – this is the religion of the thought of our people… The tree is life. Wiping their face on the canvas with the image of a tree, our people mutely say that they have not forgotten the secret of the ancient fathers to wipe themselves with leaves, that they remember themselves as the seed of an overworld tree and, running under the cover of its branches, dipping their face in a towel, they seem to want to imprint on his cheeks at least a small branch of it, so that, like a tree, he could shower cones of words and thoughts from himself and stream a shadow-virtue from the branches of his hands, ”wrote S. Yesenin in his poetic and philosophical treatise “Keys of Mary”.

Yesenin's motif of the "tree novel", singled out by M. Epstein, goes back to the traditional motif of assimilation of man to nature. Based on the traditional “man-plant” trope, Yesenin creates a “woody romance”, the heroes of which are maple, birch and willow.

Humanized images of trees are overgrown with “portrait” details: birch has “stand, hips, breasts, leg, hairstyle, hem, braids”, maple has “leg, head”.

So I want to close my hands

Over the woody thighs of the willows.

("I'm delirious on the first snow ...", 1917),

green hair,

girl breast,

O thin birch,

What did you look into the pond?

("Green Hairstyle.", 1918)

I won't be back soon!

For a long time to sing and ring the blizzard.

Guards blue Rus'

Old maple on one leg.

(“I left my dear home…”, 1918)

According to M. Epstein, “largely thanks to Yesenin, the birch has become a national poetic symbol of Russia. Other favorite plants are linden, mountain ash, bird cherry.

The most plot-length, the most significant in Yesenin's poetry are still birch and maple.

Yesenin, when describing folk spring holidays, mentions a birch in the meaning of this symbol in the poems "Trinity morning ..." (1914) and "Reeds rustled over the backwater ..." (1914)

Trinity morning, morning canon,

In the grove along the birch trees there is a white chime.

In the poem "The reeds rustled over the backwater" we are talking about an important and fascinating action of the Semitsko-Trinity week - fortune-telling on wreaths.

The red maiden told fortunes in seven.

A wave unraveled a wreath of dodder.

Ah, do not marry a girl in the spring,

He frightened her with signs of the forest.

In the poem "Green Hairstyle". (1918) the humanization of the birch in Yesenin's work reaches its full development. Birch becomes like a woman.

green hair,

girl breast,

O thin birch,

What did you look into the pond?

The reader will never know who this poem is about - about a birch tree or about a girl. Because the man here is likened to a tree, and the tree to a man.

In such poems as “I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry ...” (1921) and “The golden grove dissuaded ...” (1924), the lyrical hero reflects on his life, about his youth:

I do not regret, do not call, do not cry,

Everything will pass like smoke from white apple trees.

Withering gold embraced,

I won't be young anymore.

... And the country of birch chintz

Not tempted to wander around barefoot.

All of us, all of us in this world are perishable,

Quietly pouring copper from maple leaves ...

May you be blessed forever

That came to flourish and die.

This can be seen in such poems as "White Birch". (1913), "Return to the Motherland" (1924), "Uncomfortable liquid moonlight" (1925).

Because that old maple

Head looks like me.

("I left my dear home...", 1918)

In the poem "Son of a bitch" (1824), the lyrical hero is sad about the bygone youth, which "faded",

Like maple rotted under the windows.

In folk poetry, a rotten or withered tree is a symbol of grief, the loss of something dear that cannot be returned.

And, like a drunken watchman, going out onto the road,

He drowned in a snowdrift, froze his leg.

Oh, and now I myself have become somewhat unstable,

I won't get home from a friendly drinking party.

It is not even always clear who this poem is about - a person or a tree.

There he met a willow, there he noticed a pine tree,

He sang songs to them under a blizzard about summer.

I myself seemed to be the same maple ...

In the poem "The Village" (1914), S. Yesenin compares poplar leaves with silk:

In silk poplar leaves.

This comparison was made possible by the fact that poplar leaves have a double structure: on the outside, the leaves are shiny green, as if polished, on the inside they are matte silver. Silk fabric also has a double color: the right side is shiny, smooth, and the left side is matte and inexpressive. When silk shimmers, the shades of color can change, just as poplar leaves shimmer with a greenish-silver color in the wind.

Poplars grow along roadsides and are therefore sometimes associated with barefoot wanderers. This theme of wandering is reflected in the poem "Without a hat, with a bast knapsack ..." (1916).

In the works of Yesenin, poplars are also a sign of the Motherland, like birch.

Saying goodbye to the house, leaving for foreign lands, the hero is sad that

They will no longer be winged leaves

I need to ring poplars.

("Yes! Now it's decided...", 1922)

willow called "weeping". The image of a willow is more unambiguous and has the semantics of melancholy.

In Russian folk poetry, willow is a symbol not only of love, but also of any separation, grief of mothers parting with their sons.

For example, in the poem "Night and field, and the cry of roosters ..." (1917)

Here everything is the same as it was then,

The same rivers and the same herds.

Only willows above the red mound

The shabby hem is shaken.

“The dilapidated hem of the willows” is the past, the old time, something that is very expensive, but something that will never return. Destroyed, warped life of the people, the country.

In the same poem, aspen is also mentioned. It emphasizes bitterness, loneliness, as in folk poetry it is always a symbol of sadness.

In other poems, willow, like birch, is a heroine, a girl.

And call the rosary

Willows are meek nuns.

("Lovely Land…", 1914)

So I want to close my hands

Over the woody thighs of the willows.

("I'm delirious on the first snow...", 1917)

The lyrical hero, remembering his youth, sad about it, also refers to the image of a willow.

And knocked on my window

September with a crimson willow branch,

So that I was ready and met

His arrival is unpretentious.

(“Let you be drunk by others…” 1923)

Tall, mighty, blooming are the characteristic epithets of the oak, which, among poets, acts as an image of vitality.

In the poem "Octoechos" the Mauritian oak is mentioned. Yesenin subsequently explained the meaning of this image in his treatise "Keys of Mary" (1918)

"... that symbolic tree that means "family", it does not matter at all that in Judea this tree bore the name of the Mauritian oak ... "

Under the Mauritian oak

My red-haired grandfather is sitting ...

The introduction of the image of the Mauritian oak into this poem is not accidental, since it speaks of the homeland:

Oh motherland, happy

And a non-starting hour!

about relatives -

"my red-haired grandfather."

This oak, as it were, summarizes everything that the poet wanted to write about in this work, that the family is the most important thing that a person can have.

The image of the "family" here is given in a broader sense: it is the "father's land", and "native graves", and "father's house", that is, everything that connects a person with this land.

century-old oaks trembled,

On the oaks, the leaves fall from the whistle.

In Yesenin's poem "Powder" (1914), the main character, the pine, acts as an "old woman":

Like a white scarf

The pine has tied up.

Bent over like an old lady

Leaned on a stick...

The forest where the heroine lives is fabulous, magical, also alive, just like her.

Bewitched by the invisible

The forest is slumbering under the fairy tale of sleep...

Spruces and pines here represent an evil, unfriendly space, an unclean force that lives in this wilderness. The landscape is painted in dark colors:

The dark night is silently frightened,

The moon is covered with shawls of clouds.

The wind is a songbird with a howl of hysterics...

Images of animals in the lyrics of S. Yesenin.

In the poetry of Sergei Yesenin, there is also the motive of "blood relationship" with the animal world, he calls them "smaller brothers".

Happy that I kissed women

Crumpled flowers, rolled on the grass

And the beast, like our smaller brothers

Never hit on the head.

("We are now leaving little by little", 1924)

In him, along with domestic animals, we find images of representatives of the wild. Of the 339 poems examined, 123 mention animals, birds, insects, and fish.

Mowed hut,

Weeping sheep, and away in the wind

The little horse waving its scrawny tail,

Looking into the unkind pond.

(“This sadness cannot be scattered now…”, 1924)

The village fell into decay and the proud and majestic horse "turned" into a "horse", which personifies the plight of the peasantry in those years.

In the poem "Cow" (1915), S. Yesenin uses the principle of anthropomorphism, endowing the animal with human thoughts and feelings. The author describes a specific domestic and life situation - the old age of the animal

decrepit, teeth fell out,

scroll of years on the horns ...

and his future fate, "soon ... they will tie a noose around her neck // and lead to the slaughter", he identifies the old animal and the old man.

Thinking a sad thought...

The poem "Son of a bitch" reflects the tragedy of the consciousness of the lyrical hero, which arises from the fact that in the world of wildlife and animals everything looks unchanged:

That dog died a long time ago

But in the same suit as with a blue tint,

With barking lively - stunned

I was shot by her young son.

With this pain, I feel younger

At the same time, the irreversibility of what has passed is realized.

Another animal that "accompanies" a person through life for a very long time is a cat. It embodies home comfort, a warm hearth.

An old cat sneaks up to the shawl

For fresh milk.

("In the hut.", 1914)

In this poem, we also meet with other representatives of the animal world, which are also an invariable "attribute" of the peasant hut. These are cockroaches, chickens, roosters.

The horse is one of the sacred animals in Slavic mythology, an attribute of the gods, but at the same time a chthonic creature associated with fertility and death, the afterlife, a guide to the “other world”. The horse was endowed with the ability to portend fate, especially death. A. N. Afanasyev explains the meaning of the horse in the mythology of the ancient Slavs: "As the personification of gusty winds, storms and flying clouds, fairy horses are endowed with wings, which makes them related to mythological birds ... fiery, fire-breathing ... the horse serves as a poetic image of either the radiant sun or a cloud of lightning flashing ... ".

The day will go out, flashing with a shock of gold,

And in the box of years the works will settle down.

... He took my horse away ...

My horse is my power and strengthen.

He knows that now his future depends on the future of his homeland, he is trying to escape from the events that are taking place.

... he beats, rushes about,

Pulling a tight lasso ...

("Open the guard beyond the clouds to me", 1918),

Dear, dear, funny fool

Well, where is he, where is he chasing?

Doesn't he know that living horses

Did the steel cavalry win?

The struggle of the village for survival is lost, more and more preference is given to the city.

In other works, the horse becomes a symbol of past youth, a symbol of what a person cannot return, it remains only in memories.

Now I have become more stingy in desires,

My life? did you dream of me?

Like I'm a spring echoing early

Ride on a pink horse.

(“I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry…”, 1921)

Everything is gone. Thinned my hair.

The horse is dead.

Remembering his youth, the lyrical hero also refers to the image of a dog.

I remember a dog today

What was my youth friend

("Son of a bitch". 1924)

That dog died a long time ago

But in the same suit, with a tint of blue ...

I was shot by her young son.

If we turn to other representatives of the animal world, for example, ravens, we will see that in Yesenin they have the same symbolism as in folk poetry.

Black crows croaked:

Terrible troubles a wide scope.

("Rus", 1914)

Here is an example of the moon:

"The moon, like a yellow bear, tosses and turns in the wet grass."

By color match:

On the pond like a red swan

A quiet sunset floats.

("Here it is stupid happiness ...", 1918) ;

by proximity and similarity of functions:

Like birds whistling versts

From under the horse's hooves...

("About arable land, arable land, arable land ...", 1917-1918) ;

according to some associative, sometimes subjectively distinguished feature:

I was like a horse driven in soap,

Spurred by a bold rider.

("Letter to a Woman", 1924)

Sometimes the poet also uses a form of parallelism characteristic of Russian folk poetry - songs, including a negative one:

(“Tanyusha was good…”, 1911)

In the works of S. Yesenin, an animalistic (image of animals) comparison or zoomorphic metaphor often develops into a detailed image:

Autumn - a red mare - scratches her mane.

("Autumn", 1914 - 1916)

Cleans the moon in the thatched roof

Horns covered in blue.

("The red wings of the sunset go out.", 1916)

Waves of white claws

Golden sand.

("Heavenly Drummer.", 1918)

Maple and lindens in the windows of the rooms

Throwing branches with paws,

Looking for those who remember.

("Honey, let's sit next to me.", 1923)

The colors of animals also acquire a purely symbolic meaning: "red horse" is a symbol of revolution, "pink horse" is an image of youth, "black horse" is a harbinger of death.

Having considered the images of animals in the poetry of S. Yesenin, we can conclude that the poet solves the problem of using animalistics in his works in different ways.

Bibliography:

1. Koshechkin S. P. "Spring echoing early ..." - M., 1984.

2. Marchenko A. M. Yesenin's poetic world. - M., 1972.

3. Prokushen Yu. L. Sergey Yesenin "Image, poems, era. - M., 1979.