"Sea" - Zhukovsky's elegy: idea and analysis of the work. Analysis of the poem "The Sea" by V. Zhukovsky Heroes and their characteristics

Poems can be analyzed in a variety of ways. Some teachers require students to express their own position and reflect. For others, it is more important to search for various artistic and expressive devices in the text. Therefore, the plans for different teachers look different. We suggest that you familiarize yourself with the general approaches to the analysis of Zhukovsky's The Sea.

Plan

In order for the analysis of the poetic text to be complete, a certain plan should be followed. Often teachers themselves dictate to students the sequence of points, but if this did not happen, it is recommended to adhere to such a plan:

General information about the poem: date of creation, history and interesting facts of writing, place in the author's creative path. When disclosing this paragraph, it is necessary to be brief.
Main theme. What is the text about, what is the meaning of its title. The main ideas of the work, the thoughts of the author.
Description of the lyrical plot. It is not necessary to completely retell in prose what the writer set out in verse, it is enough to outline points important for analysis.
composition features. How the construction of the text works to reveal the author's intention: perhaps there is a ring composition, opposition, comparison of one phenomenon with another.
Lyric hero. What poetic techniques does the author use to reveal his image.
Other characters, their place and role in the overall plan.
Author's position. When revealing this point, you should not strive to “answer correctly”, it is much more interesting to express your own opinions.
Rhyming, meter, rhythm. Here it is important to be able to use your knowledge of literary terms.
Features of poetic vocabulary and syntax. The methods of artistic expression used by the poet.
Perception of the poem by the author's contemporaries and in our days.

We will adhere to this plan when analyzing the elegy "The Sea" by Zhukovsky - one of the most famous texts of the poet.

General information about the poem

Zhukovsky is a romantic poet, it was Pushkin who considered him his main teacher. The work of this author became the most important stage in the development of romanticism as a literary trend, personal experiences were reflected in his lyrics, intimacy appeared, and the main character became a person - feeling, experiencing.

Among the masterpieces is the elegy "The Sea", created in 1822. It is interesting that the very image of the boundless sea was new for Zhukovsky's work, but it is he who sums up the romantic searches of the poet. Literary critics believe that the text is dedicated to the poet's beloved, Maria Protasova, whose feelings were deep and mutual, but reality severely invaded romance - Maria's parents were against such an unequal marriage, and the girl did not dare to go against them.

It is known that the elegy was highly appreciated by Pushkin, who a few years later wrote his own poetic text with a similar title.

Main theme and idea

According to the plan, the analysis of Zhukovsky's "Sea" should be continued by defining the theme of the poem. So, if you read the lines, it becomes clear that it is dedicated to the azure sea. It is silent, but thinks an anxious thought.

Zhukovsky himself is also present in the text - the poet presented himself in the image of the sky, which creates a harmonious sensual union with the sea, but can never unite with it.

Lyrical plot

When analyzing the elegy "The Sea" by Zhukovsky, it is very important to outline the main stages in the development of the lyrical plot. First, the poet draws before the readers the usual sea, silent and azure, which the lyrical hero admires. Gradually, the element acquires the features of a living being: it breathes, it is filled with “anxious thought”, “confused love”.

Then there is an image of the sky, another beautiful and free element, towards which the sea stretches. Then the poet figuratively and vividly draws separation, from which the sea tears and torments the “hostile darkness”. But alas, parting is inevitable, and you have to come to terms with it. However, you can’t command feelings, which is why sad notes sound especially strong at the end of the text.

Zhukovsky writes that he refuses to fight for happiness, how the sky can never reach the sea surface.

Composition specifics

The next stage in the analysis of V. Zhukovsky's poem "The Sea" is a description of its composition. To do this, you should carefully re-read the text again, highlighting the parts in it. It immediately catches the eye that the sea in front of us is drawn in its three states:

Calmness of the sea surface. Silent sea.
Condition in a storm.
After the storm. Deceptive peace.

The lyrical hero carefully monitors all the changes that occur with the elements, it is these changes that drive the development of the plot. When analyzing "The Sea" by Zhukovsky, it is important to show why such a composition is used. Due to it, the poet manages to create a dynamic image, so the sea has a changing character.

So, the first part of the elegy is a sketch of a calm and beautiful sea, which is not disturbed by passions. The sky in this fragment is also clear and beautiful.
The second structural part is the state of the sea at the moment when the clouds cover the sky with their black veil, a storm begins. And the sea answers her, begins to "beat" and "tear", filled with anxiety and fear. The elements are terrible at this moment, but not everyone realizes that the sea is suffering. The mystery becomes clear - the omnipotent element, like all living things, cannot fully control its fate, it is a prisoner of circumstances.
Finally, the third part - the sky is calm again and the sea, it seems, too, but this is only an appearance. Carefully concealed passions still rage in his soul.

Such a composition is aimed at embodying the author's intention - to show that even the elements cannot be completely free.

Lyrical hero

In the analysis of "The Sea" by Zhukovsky, it is very important to reveal the main features of the lyrical hero. He subtly captures all the shades of the mood of the magnificent elements and guesses that passions rage under his apparent calmness.

The lyrical hero not only admires the element, but also humanizes it: the sea seems to be a living creature that hides a whole range of feelings behind its deceptive surface. That is why there are motifs comparing the sea with a woman in love who protects the secrets of her heart from strangers. Some researchers believe that in the image of the elements, the poet embodied the features of his lost beloved, Maria Protasova.

Author's position

Zhukovsky is a romantic poet, therefore, in his elegy, in the struggle between darkness and the sea element, the latter wins. But the poet shows that not everything is so simple, passions continue to rage in the depths of the waters, when the surface is calm and smooth.

Rhythm and rhyme

The next stage in the analysis of the poem-elegy "The Sea" by Zhukovsky according to the plan is to identify the features of rhyme and rhythm. To create a special sound, the poet uses blank verse - some lines do not rhyme with each other. The size of the verse is a four-foot amphibrach. In order to paint a vivid picture of the storm in front of the reader, in the second part the poet skillfully uses alliteration - the repetition of identical consonant sounds in adjacent words. This enhances the feeling of oncoming waves.

Techniques of artistic expression, syntax and vocabulary

The genre of "The Sea" by Zhukovsky, which we are analyzing, is an elegy. This is a sad poetic genre, often filled with longing, sorrow and disappointment. It was he who was inherent in both romanticism as a literary trend, and the lyrics of V. Zhukovsky. The poet’s deeply personal experiences found expression in the text, the use of the following methods of artistic expressiveness helped the author to tell about them:

Epithets are the main technique, there are quite a lot of them in a small text: “azure sea”, “silent sea”, “deep mystery”, “hostile haze”. They help the author to capaciously and figuratively show the state of the elements.
The refrain - "silent sea, azure sea" - helps the author to emphasize the main idea of the text, to show that the element is dual, that its true state is hidden.
Anaphora - "you" - creates the rhythm and melody of the verse.
Using syntactic repetition.

These techniques helped the poet to create a deep psychological landscape; both the beautiful sea element and the subtlest shades of the human soul experience were reflected in a small text.

Conclusion

We have analyzed the elegy "The Sea" by Zhukovsky according to the plan, now it is necessary to describe the meaning of this poetic text. For the poet's contemporaries, the poem became a kind of anthem of romanticism, so many poets subsequently turned to the image of the majestic element. It has not lost its significance even today.

Reading and analyzing the poem "The Sea" by Zhukovsky allows you to immerse yourself in the inner world of the poet and understand his thoughts and experiences.

The composition is a comparative analysis of Zhukovsky's elegy "The Sea" and Pushkin's poem "To the Sea". To do this, it is necessary to recall the plan for analyzing a lyrical work, according to which we will compare two poems, looking for common features and highlighting differences.

1. Introduction.

The introduction to the essay should be emotional, original. It is necessary to say about your first impression of reading the failure of the works, and about the commonality of the topic, and about the similarity of the names.

2. Literary direction.

Both works belong to the romantic direction: in both one feels dissatisfaction with reality, an impulse for freedom, a desire for an ideal. The world of romance is a sublime, unusual, non-domestic world.

3. Time of writing.

Both works were written at the same time: Zhukovsky's elegy in 1822, Pushkin's poem in 1824. This is the heyday of Russian romanticism: the era after Russia's victory in the Patriotic War of 1812, on the eve of the Decembrist uprising - the era of the rise of national consciousness, the time of hope , expectations of change, associated with dissatisfaction with the surrounding reality, a rush to freedom - personal, social.

4. Subjects of works.

Figurative means of language in creating the image of the sea.

Both poems are united by one circle of themes: the sea and man, his soul, love, impulse to freedom, striving for the ideal. Therefore, both works can be attributed to both landscape-philosophical and love lyrics. At the heart of both lyrical works is a seascape. What do Zhukovsky and Pushkin have in common in the image of the sea? What visual means do poets use to create this image?

Both authors portray the sea as beautiful, majestic. It visibly appears before us thanks to pictorial epithets. In Zhukovsky, "the azure sea burns with evening and morning light, caresses the golden clouds." In Pushkin, it “rolls blue waves and shines with proud beauty”, we see “its rocks, its bays, and shine, and shadow ...”, but both Zhukovsky and Pushkin’s depiction of the seascape is dominated by psychological, emotional and evaluative epithets - so the natural landscape becomes, under the pen of artists, a psychological landscape, the “landscape of the soul” of the lyrical hero.

In Zhukovsky's elegy, the "silent sea", full of "mysterious, sweet life", is filled with "confused love, anxious thought"; his "tense chest" breathes, his "immense bosom" holds a "deep secret". In Pushkin's poem we hear the "sad", "inviting" sound of the sea, its "wayward impulses", we see its "boring, motionless shore". But for Pushkin, the sea is above all a "free element". An amazing combination of words! After all, "element" and "freedom" are concepts of the same semantic series - the epithet "free" thereby doubles the meaning of the word "element". The sea for the poet is "freedom squared": unlimited, absolute freedom, not subject to anyone!

Both Zhukovsky and Pushkin have an unpredictable and wayward sea. This inconsistency inherent in the very nature of the sea element is emphasized by the antithesis underlying both works. Zhukovsky contrasts the calm sea, pouring with "radiant azure", that is, the light of dawn, to the stormy sea, which "tears and torments the hostile darkness", which gives the elegy tension and dynamics.

Both Zhukovsky and Pushkin animate the sea. Not only epithets, but also other linguistic means help to show it to living poets. So, Zhukovsky uses personification: “you are alive; you breathe; you are filled with confused love, anxious thought. At the same time, the author builds concepts as the features become stronger, using gradation as a stylistic figure. Therefore, the sea appears before us as a living being, capable of not only breathing, but also passionately loving and even thinking deeply.

Pushkin, using the metaphor of “the abyss of voice”, the personification of “you were waiting, you called”, comparing “the inviting noise of the sea with the call of a friend at the “farewell hour”, emphasizes the proximity of the free sea element to the state of his soul, his impulse to freedom.

Both Zhukovsky and Pushkin use various poetic means that give the works emotionality, expressiveness, and melodiousness.

A) Inversion, which enhances the semantic meaning of the key words in the verse. Zhukovsky: “over your abyss”, “your secret”, “golden clouds”, “his stars”, etc.; Pushkin: “blue waves”, “mournful murmur”, “inviting noise”, etc.

B) Verbal repetitions that make poetic speech expressive and musical. Zhukovsky: “silent sea, azure sea”, “sweet life”, “sweet shine”; Pushkin has a repetition of the words: “goodbye”, “noise”, “you”, “one rock”; “I will hear for a long, long time ...”, “your rocks, your bays ...”.

C) Anaphora, enhancing the expressiveness, elation of the verse. Zhukovsky has a lexical anaphora - a repetition of the same word “you”, one line “silent sea, azure sea ...”; syntactic anaphora - repetition of the same syntactic constructions: "You are alive", "You are pure"; "What breathes"; “You are pouring ...”, “You are beating”, “You are tearing”. And Pushkin has the same stylistic figure: “How ... grumbling ...”, “How ... call”; "One item", "One rock"; “There they plunged”, “There he faded away”, “There he rested”; "How powerful you are."

D) Emotional and psychological pauses, marked with dots and dashes, expressing the feelings of the lyrical hero. So, for example, Zhukovsky, after a series of questions addressed to the sea, puts an ellipsis denoting infinity, the insolubility of these questions and the inability to fully comprehend the “deep secret” of the “silent sea”.

In the seventh stanza of Pushkin's poem we read: "You waited, you called ... I was chained." The ellipsis here testifies to the figure of silence: the author leaves the reader to guess for himself what a storm of feelings, what impulses and dreams the contemplation of the endless expanses of the sea aroused in him.

Emotionality, expressiveness of both lyrical works is also expressed by a multitude of question and exclamation marks.

E) Zhukovsky and Pushkin use solemn vocabulary, Slavicisms, archaisms, obsolete forms of words that give solemnity and majesty to the works (Zhukovsky: “confused love”, “shine with stars”, “clouds are gathering”, “waves will rise” -, “frightened by the waves ”; in Pushkin: “you shine ... with beauty”, “along the shores”, “the voice of the abyss”, “the humble sail of the fishermen”, “in vain” (in vain), “now”, “mighty”, “memories are majestic”, “in the desert silent"). All these poetic means bring together the works of poets.

5. Images of lyrical heroes.

The images of lyrical heroes make you think about the differences between the two works. And here, first of all, it is necessary to pay attention to the titles of the poems. How do these titles convey the characters of the lyrical heroes? The name of Zhukovsky's elegy "The Sea" testifies to the passive-contemplative position of the hero, there are no answers to his questions, the sea keeps the secret of its love, only partially revealing it. The lyrical hero stands “enchanted above the abyss”, right above the deep sea, most likely on a ship: it seems to be swaying on the waves, and around there is only the sea and the sky.

The title of Pushkin's poem "To the Sea" indicates that the lyrical hero is active, he stands on the shore, hatches escape plans, but decides to stay, fascinated by the "powerful passion" of love. The sea is a friend for him, the sea is waiting, calling... The lyrical hero hears his inviting noise, confesses his love to him, says goodbye to him, promising not to forget.

6. Compositional originality, genre, ideological content.

The composition of the works is also different. The cyclical composition is characteristic of Zhukovsky's elegy: first a calm sea, then a stormy sea, then the elements calm down again - the cycle is completed, the circle is closed, but the sea "in the abyss of the dead hides confusion" - a harbinger of a new storm. What does such a composition testify to, what kind of understanding does the author have of the elements of the sea? No matter how free, boundless, capricious, contradictory this element is, it still obeys the laws of nature, the eternal law of cyclicity, like the change of seasons, like the life of all living things.

Freedom, even in nature, is not unlimited, and therefore inaccessible. Just as the ideal is unattainable, just as the sky is unattainable for the sea. The moods prevailing in Zhukovsky's work are sadness, melancholy, longing. Therefore, the genre of elegy was not chosen by chance by the author: this genre emphasizes the main idea of the romantic poet about the inaccessibility of the ideal in human life.

What is the composition of Pushkin's poem? What role does she play in the work? The main principle of the composition of the poem "To the Sea" can be defined as free (even more emphasizing freedom), associative (affirming the freedom of human thought). The stanzas are not plot-related, but this does not interfere with the overall impression of the unity of the whole. The composition rests not on logical, but on associative links.

The memory of the "free element" - the sea - is replaced by the memory of a strong impulse for personal freedom, of the desire to break free, of plans for escape; this suggests another, even stronger impulse, another element - love, "a mighty passion", which did not allow the poet to escape from the shackles; the images of the sea - "free elements" and love - "captivity" give rise in the poet's imagination to the image of a high captive - Napoleon, make one think about his fate, about the illusory nature of glory. The finale of the poem is life-affirming, major. Therefore, the author does not designate the genre of his poem as an elegy.

7. Conclusion.

Comparing the poems of Zhukovsky and Pushkin with such similar titles, we reveal their common and different features, discovering the depth and originality of the character, creative manner, system of moral values of contemporary poets, poets - friends.

Elegy (from lat. elegia - the mournful melody of the flute) is a genre of lyrical poetry, a poem of a sad nature, the main features of which are:

a) philosophical reflections;

b) solitude in the bosom of nature;

c) expression of melancholy, regret;

d) motives of loneliness, disappointment, premonition of suffering, joy and grief of love;

e) tragic attitude;

f) dissonance between real life and the ideal of a lyrical hero.

For a romantic, sadness is a high feeling, it is always a call somewhere, it is a sign of eternal dissatisfaction and a thirst for change. These are the main moods corresponding to the elegy genre favored by romantic poets.

An elegy is a poem that comes from deep feelings embracing the poet. It is usually sincere and very personal. His sentimental reflections are sad, if rather not full of deep sorrow. The poem "The Sea" (an elegy by V. A. Zhukovsky) fully meets these requirements.

Masha Protasova

Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky was an illegitimate child, which subsequently did not allow him to marry his beloved. Her mother was so opposed to misalliance that she would have preferred her daughter's death to her union with this man. This is how Masha looked in the eyes of Vasily Andreevich - young, tender and beautiful.

She was both intelligent and sensitive and deeply religious. She was so poetic that everything around her turned into poetry. Could Zhukovsky not fall in love? Of course not. Could he not suffer, knowing that happiness is unattainable? Of course not. He twice wooed Masha, but both times he received a categorical refusal. A friend advised me to marry Masha by abduction. But the humility of the mother and religiosity did not allow the girl to agree to such a marriage. They both deeply loved each other and suffered, but the girl went after her sister to Dorpat. Now it is the city of Tartu. With Vasily Andreevich Mashenka vowed to keep friendship all her life, which turned out to be short. And Vasily Andreevich so deeply and strongly loved his beautiful muse, his beautiful guardian angel, that he never married.

He carried his bitter happiness through his whole life. A girl in Dorpat married an unworthy man who only seemed decent in society, continuing to love Vasily Andreevich. The husband, being very jealous, did not allow Mashenka to meet with Zhukovsky. They both resigned themselves to fate. They were separated and In 1822 the elegy "The Sea" was written. The history of the creation of the poem, in fact, is dramatic.

Elegy

Let's start the analysis of the elegy "Sea" as an image of specific human feelings. Conventionally, 28 stanzas of the poem can be divided into seven unequal parts, in which both the lyrical hero himself and the one he constantly thinks about will be present. Reflections on love, conveyed metaphorically through the image of the water element, form the theme of the elegy. In the first quatrain, the poet conveys his own state with a metaphor of confused love and anxious thought, using the image of the sea. In the second six-line, also through the image of the element of water, the lyrical hero, asking the sea, talks to his beloved.

He asks how she is in captivity. Affectionately and gently asks to open up to him. In the third hexastich, spiritualizing the sea, the poet recalls the days of happiness with his beloved, when both in the morning and in the evening everything was radiantly illuminated by her, everything was kind and brought joy. In the next quatrain, he metaphorically speaks of how a person behaves when a dream is taken away from him. How he struggles and fights with all his might.

So the analysis of the poem "The Sea" continues. The elegy, in its penultimate verse, speaks of the deceptive peace that comes after a struggle with adversity. This is also a metaphor. It seems that all worries go away, but this appearance is deceptive. The final two stanzas speak of inner turmoil, hidden deep, but making one tremble. Love with its doubts, and fear, and hope is the theme of Zhukovsky's elegy "The Sea".

Nature as a prototype of Mary

Calm raging, calming, stormy in its depths, in Zhukovsky is completely and completely connected with the image of Mary, so close to him and so far away. The theme and idea of Zhukovsky's elegy "The Sea" are closely intertwined. Fascinated by the water element, he is forever devoted to the charms of Mary, Mashenka. Asking the sea, he asks the young girl to entrust her deep secret to him. He asks her, metaphorically turning himself into the sky, whether she is drawn to him, distant, bright.

The poet reassures his beloved by the fact that his thoughts are high and pure, but let her caress him and sparkle with joy. He believes that if something prevents them from meeting, then Masha will violently, like the element of water, protest and rush about. But now the barriers disappear, as clouds and haze leave the sea, but Masha is agitated for a long time. She cannot come to her senses, and her calm appearance is deceptive. She is still afraid and, admiring the sky, that is, the poet, trembles for him, for their love. Such is the in-depth analysis of the elegy "The Sea", if you know the circumstances of the poet's love.

Part one

The poem seems to be written in one breath, so quickly, so penetratingly, that it did not even need to be divided into stanzas. The poem "The Sea" is an elegy in the full sense of the word, because it is sad and very personal. Everything that I wanted, but could not be expressed otherwise, the poet wrote in metaphors in "The Sea". The elegy is dramatic when viewed as the world of nature animated by the poet. The way Zhukovsky began to relate to nature became the forerunner of romanticism in Russian poetry. The great F. Tyutchev will fully animate her. He will find in it both freedom, and love, and language. But this "Sea" begins. The elegy tells about the poet's observation of the charm of the azure calm sea, which is ready to conduct a dialogue with the distant bright sky. The poet asks him if the sea wants to get closer to the sky, which is just as huge, but, unlike the earth, firmly holding in its arms, light and airy, not burdensome.

Part two

The bright sky fills the sea with azure, makes it burn with light. Golden clouds caress the sea. The elegy tells how joyfully the night stars are reflected in the sea. If the sky is the soul of a person, then the sea is his secret, unknown and invisible world. The soul ascends to heaven to know bliss. But its second part - water - with apparent serenity and peace is always worried.

Part Three

The excitement of the sea can turn into a storm. And then - all beware. Do not take away the storm clouds from the sea of \u200b\u200bclear sky. It will fight furiously, turn into gray-haired and leaden, but it will defend its peace and tranquility, it will put an end to the darkness.

Part Four

The work "Sea" is a two-faced elegy. The poet, after a storm and a storm, analyzes what he saw. He sees how the clouds and haze dissipate, the sky shines azure again, but the sea remembers the bad weather for a long time, everything inside it bubbles and boils.

The waves continue to rise. Even at first glance calmed down, in inner turmoil, the sea is afraid to lose the sky with its sweet brilliance.

Conclusion

The poem was written in 1822, but published much later, seven years later, when Maria Protasova was no longer alive.

She died in childbirth. The sharp pain has passed, and already the personal has disappeared under the waves of the sea. The elegy, written in amphibrach, conveys the swaying of the waves. It does not have the usual rhyme for a poem. This is what gives the work greatness and solemnity. They also emphasize that a person under any circumstances must remain a person. When he is gone, the sky will still shine and the waves of the sea will beat against the shore.

Man has always been attracted by the image of the sea: the element prompted reflection, beckoned with its secrets, called for adventure. It occupies a special place in the art of romanticism, when a rebel hero compares himself with a raging water element. One of the first Russian writers who drew a parallel between the sea and man, and even personified the elements, was V. A. Zhukovsky.

His famous elegy "The Sea" V.A. Zhukovsky created in 1822 - in the mature period of his work. By this time, the poet no longer refers to the motives of sentimentalism, but develops precisely a romantic ideology. The poem "The Sea" occupies a central place in the author's work, it becomes the standard of Russian romanticism.

The poem "Sea" is dedicated to Maria Protasova. Zhukovsky had tender feelings for this girl, but he could not marry her. The fact is that Masha's mother E. A. Protasova was the writer's cousin, she considered the relationship of her daughter and her cousin too close to give permission for marriage. The pain of this disappointment was reflected in the entire work of the poet.

Genre and size

The work is written in a special style characteristic of that time. The genre of Zhukovsky's poem "The Sea" is an elegy. Poets of the Romantic era often addressed her. Literally, "elegy" is translated as "complaint". Interestingly, this genre has retained its features since antiquity. The elegy has a philosophical character, it expresses melancholy, lyrical reflection. All this is typical for the poem "Sea".

In addition to content, this genre also implies technical features. The authors often choose the average volume of the work, which makes it possible to create a detailed statement, a three-syllable meter, giving melodiousness. Zhukovsky's instrumentation is curious. He writes his elegy in blank verse, that is, while maintaining the size and rhythm, there is no rhyme. The size of the poem "Sea" is a four-foot amphibrach. All these characteristic properties make the work sensual, deeply imbued with poetic sadness.

Direction

It is impossible to overestimate the role of elegy for romanticism. As in no other genre, in this genre the romantic poet could fully express his emotions, talk about his suffering, about mental pain. Developing in his work the tendencies of romanticism V.A. Zhukovsky did not bypass this genre. His first elegy "Rural Cemetery" was written back in 1802, this is a translation of Gray's poem. This arrangement allowed sentimentalists to consider Zhukovsky their successor, but already in it the motives of appeal and resistance belonging to romanticism are visible.

A completely different author appears to the reader in the elegy of 1822. Having created his own special interpretation of the image of the sea, Zhukovsky becomes the founder of a new tradition in Russian literature. Since then, poets often turn to the motive of this element: Pushkin, Lermontov, Tyutchev. The very idea of the closeness of man and nature is very close to the era of romanticism. It is known that A.S. Pushkin highly appreciated "The Sea", and two years later he wrote a poem with the same name.

Composition

The elegy "The Sea" can be divided into three parts.

First, the dialogue of the lyrical hero with the sea takes place, the author contemplates the “silent” sea, is fascinated by it, but feels that this apparent peace keeps some secret.
The second part describes the storm, to which the lyrical hero gives a very curious explanation. It is caused by the fact that "dark clouds" violate the idyll of the sea and sky.
The final part - the author again returns to the description of the calm element that loops the poem. However, now he already knows what secret is kept in the abyss of waters.

Interestingly, the sea itself remains calm throughout the work, the storm is imagined by the author. But it is precisely this way of reasoning that allows the poet to make the composition three-part, which gives dynamism to the work and persuasiveness to the author's conclusion.

Heroes and their characteristics

The main character of the elegy is the sea. Consider the ways in which the poet draws the image of the sea. It is not enough to say that the element is personified, it is anthropomorphic. The sea is alive, it breathes, but most importantly, it has all the psychological qualities of a person. It is in love with the clear sky, when it is reflected in its waters - the sea is happy and serene. But sometimes this idyll is broken by clouds that hide the sky from admiring waters. The water surface reacts sharply to separation from the sky: it resists, tries to resist the "hostile darkness" in order to regain its happiness.

After imagining this picture, the lyrical hero of the poem guessed what secret the sea hides. Now he feels his kinship with him - he understood the sea, and the sea - him. Perhaps he is experiencing the same tragedy, and therefore stands above the abyss ... All this brings the characters closer: both are prone to contemplation, they feel the same pain for two.

Themes

The main theme of the elegy "Sea" is the impossibility of love. And this reveals the autobiographical nature of most of the poet's lyrics. He could not marry his beloved - M.A. Protasova. Young people did not dare to get married without the blessing of their mother and remained good friends. Thus, the allegory in the elegy is more optimistic than the fate of the writer himself, because the separating force only for a while invades the union of heaven and the abyss of water, but he is not given a marriage union with his beloved. Perhaps the image of the sea turned out to be so psychological because the author transferred his own experiences to it.
From the above theme follows the motive of the struggle. The confrontation between the sea and the clouds is the climax of the poem. But, even having won, it will never be calm: the sea is doomed to always be afraid that the darkness at any moment may again try to take away its happiness.
In addition, the theme of loneliness sounds in the work. It is not just that the lyrical hero turns to the sea - he is lonely, he rejoices that the elements are happy in admiring the sky, but at the same time he feels the anxiety of the elements. The abyss of water worries about its bright azure, is afraid to lose it again and be left alone, perhaps forever.

Idea

Zhukovsky's poem reflects the main idea of romanticism - the relationship between man and nature. The poet calls to learn from her both contemplation and resistance, and the meaning of the poem "The Sea" is that you need to fight for your happiness. As an example, a person is given an element that triumphs over darkness. Unfortunately, the sea will never be serene as before, but it is again with the sky! Perhaps the author of the poem himself would also like to boldly and firmly overcome all the obstacles that stand in the way of the desired marriage.

Artistic media

The paths of the poem "Sea" work to create unique author's images. The elegy is rich in various artistic means.

The role of epithets in the work is significant. With the help of them, the author in the first part Zhukovsky conveys the calmness of the elements: “silent”, “azure”. This is followed by personifications endowing the sea with a feeling soul: “you breathe”, “your strained chest breathes”. In the climactic and final parts, the state of the sea will be conveyed by verbs that convey movement or a state of mind, which endows the image with psychologism: “pour”, “splash”, “howl”, “beat”, “uplift”, “admiring, trembling”. This state is also characterized by the epithet "scared", referring to the waves.

The opposing force has characteristic epithets: "dark" (clouds), "hostile" (mist).

Epithets also convey the joy of the meeting of the sky and the sea, it is no coincidence that “the brilliance of the returned heavens” is precisely “sweet”.

There are poems and figures of speech in the text. To begin with, I would like to note that the elegy contains speech turns that are characteristic of romanticism: “tense chest”, “sweet life”.

Antitheses are not dispensed with in the text of the bases: the opposing forces have the corresponding epithets (clear sky - dark clouds).

In the first part, such a figure of speech as a rhetorical question is repeatedly encountered: “What moves your immense bosom?”

The ellipsis at the end of the climactic part allows the author, as it were, to cut off the story on the most dramatic note and return to the dialogue with the mysteriously calm sea.

History of creation. The poem was written in 1822 during the period of Zhukovsky's creative maturity. It belongs to program works and is one of the poetic manifestos of the poet. It is known that this poem by Zhukovsky was especially singled out by Pushkin, who wrote his elegy with the same title two years later.

Genre. In the subtitle of the poem, the author designated its genre - elegy. This is the poet's favorite genre. The appeal to the genre of elegy marked the transition of Zhukovsky to romanticism. Elegy is a genre of lyric poetry that conveys moods of sadness, grief, disappointment and sadness. Romantics gave preference to this genre, because it makes it possible to express deeply personal, intimate experiences of a person, his philosophical thoughts about life, love, feelings associated with the contemplation of nature. It is precisely such a poem that the elegy "Sea" is.

Theme and problems. Zhukovsky’s poem is not just a poetic picture of the sea element, but a “landscape of the soul”, as the famous philologist A.N. Veselovsky accurately defined such poems in this romance. vividly imagine the sea: it is either a quiet, calm, "azure sea", or a terrible raging element, which is immersed in darkness. But the day of romance, the natural world is also a mystery that he is trying to unravel. That is why it is so important that in the poem there is constantly a roll call of the natural and human worlds - the state of the lyrical hero. But it is important not only that Zhukovsky creates a psychological landscape, that is, he expresses the feelings and thoughts of a person through a description of nature. The peculiarity of this poem is that it is not individual parts of the landscape that are animated, but the sea itself becomes a living being. It seems that the lyrical hero is talking to a thinking and feeling interlocutor, maybe with a friend, or maybe with some mysterious stranger. The post-romanticist does not doubt that the sea can be endowed with a soul, like a person. Indeed, in accordance with romantic ideas, it is in nature that the Divine dissolves, through communication with nature one can speak with God, penetrate into the mystery of being, come into contact with the World Soul.

Zhukovsky is sure that the soul of the sea is similar to the human soul, where darkness and light, good and evil, joy and sorrow unite. It also reaches out to everything light - to the sky, to God. But unlike many other romantics who depict this “free element”, Zhukovsky also sees that the sea is languishing, that something weighs on it, it rebels against it. Like a person, the sea cannot feel absolute peace and harmony, its freedom is also relative. That is why the traditional romantic problems of freedom and bondage, storms and peace in Zhukovsky receive a very unusual interpretation.

idea and composition. The poem "Sea" is built in accordance with the idea embedded in it. This is not so much a description of natural phenomena as a special lyrical plot. It shows movement, the development of the state of the lyrical hero, who follows the changes that occur with the sea. But even more important is that. that behind this is the dynamics of the internal state of the sea itself, its soul. This inner plot can be divided into three parts; "Silent Sea" -

1st part; "Storm" - part 2; "Deceptive Peace" - 3rd part. In accordance with them, we will follow the development of the artistic thought of the poem.

In the 1st part, a beautiful picture of the "azure sea" is drawn, calm and silent. But “purity” and clarity are inherent in the sea soul “in the presence of a pure” “distant bright sky”:

You are pure in the presence of his pure:
You pour its luminous azure,
You burn with evening and morning light.
You caress his golden clouds
And joyfully shine with its stars.

It is the "luminous azure" of the sky that gives the sea amazing colors. The sky here is not just an air element stretching over the abyss of the sea. This is a symbol - an expression of another world, divine, pure and beautiful. Endowed with the ability to capture even the most subtle shades, the lyrical hero of the poem, reflecting on the sea, realizes that some secret is hidden in it, which he is trying to comprehend:

Silent sea, azure sea,
Reveal to me your deep secret:
What moves your vast bosom?
How does your tight chest breathe?
Or pulls you out of earthly bondage
Far, bright sky towards you? ..

The 2nd part of the poem lifts the veil over this mystery. We see the soul of the sea unfolding during the storm. It turns out that when the light of the sky disappears and the darkness thickens, the sea, immersed in darkness, begins to tear, beat, the eye is full of anxiety and fear:

When dark clouds gather
To take away the clear sky from you -
You fight, you howl, you raise waves,
You tear and torment the hostile darkness...

Zhukovsky paints a picture of a storm with amazing skill. It seems that you hear the roar of the oncoming waves. And yet this is not just a picture of the raging elements. The deeply hidden secret of the soul of the sea is revealed before us. It turns out, like everything on earth, the sea is in captivity, which it is unable to overcome: "or pulls you out of earthly captivity." This is a very important idea for Zhukovsky.

For the romantic poet, who believes in the “enchanted There”, that is, another world in which everything is beautiful, perfect and harmonious, the earth has always been a world of suffering, sorrow and sadness, where there is no place for perfection. "Oh! The Genius of pure beauty does not live with us, ”he wrote in one of his poems, depicting a Genius who visited the earth only for a moment and again rushed off to his beautiful, but inaccessible world for an earthly person.

It turns out that the sea, like a man, suffers on earth, where everything is changeable and impermanent, full of losses and disappointments. Only there - in the sky - everything is eternal and beautiful. That is why the sea stretches there, as well as the soul of the poet, seeking to break earthly ties. The sea admires this distant, luminous sky, “trembles” for it, that is, it is afraid to lose it forever. But the sea is not allowed to connect with it.

This idea becomes clear only in the 3rd part of the poem, where the "returned heaven" can no longer fully restore the picture of peace and serenity:

And the sweet gleam of returned skies
Not at all silence returns you;
Deceiving your immobility look:
You hide confusion in the abyss of the dead.
You, admiring the sky, tremble for him.

This is how the secret of the sea is revealed for the lyrical hero. Now it is clear why confusion is hidden in his “dead abyss”. But the poet's confusion remains, facing the insoluble mystery of being, the mystery of the universe.

Artistic originality. The poem is saturated with means of poetic expressiveness, helping to make the picture of the sea element not only visible, but also audible, tangible, and thereby facilitate the reader's path to comprehending the author's thought. Epithets play a special role in this. If in the 1st part they are called upon to emphasize the purity of the sea and the light penetrating the whole picture (“bright sky”, “you are pure in the presence of his pure”, “golden clouds”), then in the 2nd part they create a formidable, disturbing tone ( "hostile haze", "dark clouds"). Very important for expressing the artistic idea of the poem are epithets saturated with Christian symbolism of the divine: “azure”, “light”, “radiant”. Create a special rhythm anaphora to “you” (“you fight, you howl, you raise waves.,.”), syntactic parallelism, and a number of interrogative sentences conveys the tense emotional structure of the poem. It should also be noted the important role of the refrain: “silent sea, azure sea”, which not only sets the rhythm of the poem, but also affirms an important poetic thought. And, as elsewhere, Zhukovsky masterfully uses the melodic possibilities of speech, "The Sea" is written tetrameter amphibrach, blank verse, which helps to convey the rhythm of the oncoming waves. The picture of the storm is especially effective, to recreate which the poet uses the technique of alliteration, that is, the repetition of the same consonant sounds in several words. Here it is an alliteration for hissing, moreover, supported by rhythmic lines imitating the movement of waves: “You beat, you howl, you raise waves, / You tear and torment the hostile darkness.” On the whole, it can be said that Zhukovsky's poetic skill in this poem reaches unprecedented heights, about which Pushkin surprisingly accurately said: "... his poems are captivating sweetness."

The value of the work. Zhukovsky's artistic innovation in the poem "The Sea" did not go unnoticed in Russian poetry. Following him, many great Russian poets painted a romantic picture of the sea element, for example, Pushkin in his 1824 poem "The Sea". Lermontov in his famous "Sail", Tyutchev in the poem "How good you are, about the night sea ..,". But in each of them the image of the sea is not only a romantic symbol, but also something that helps the author to express his thoughts, feelings and moods.