A complete analysis of the poem “Fantasy”, which was written by K.D. Balmont, helps to better understand the poet’s work, his attitude to nature and to life.
After all, his life and creative path were far from being as simple as it might seem at first glance.
This poem is very different from the rest of the poet’s work with its incredible grace and ease of writing. It’s not often that you come across a poem, when reading it you are transported to a winter forest, where some kind of magical music of nature sounds.
History of creation
Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont is one of the most famous poets of the Silver Age, whose work deserves to be familiarized with it as best as possible. He gained his fame and significance not only as a poet, but also as a first-class translator. The young poet wrote his first poem at the age of ten, but was criticized by his mother, after which he stopped writing for six long years. But such an early start did not make the author’s thorny path easier. It was all due to his rather eccentric character, thanks to which he was expelled from the university, as well as the difficult fate of the author. Balmont destroyed his first collection of essays, followed by an unsuccessful marriage, lack of money and a suicide attempt. The poet jumped out of the window, but fortunately remained alive. After a long recovery, life begins to improve for Balmont.
Thanks to his work on translations, the poet manages to save money and publish several of his poems. One of them was the poem “Fantasy”.
He wrote the poem “Fantasy” in 1893. It is very different from other poems with its light and transparent writing. The entire text is permeated with the mystery and charm of the winter landscape. The reader is mentally transported to this winter fairy tale and enjoys the fluffy paws of spruce trees that turn silver in the moonlight.
Like living sculptures, in the sparkles of the moonlight, the outlines of pines, spruces and birches tremble slightly; The prophetic forest calmly slumbers, accepts the bright shine of the moon and listens to the murmur of the wind, all filled with secret dreams.
Analysis of the poem “Fantasy” by Balmont
Analysis of the poem “Fantasy” by Balmont
Balmont is an outstanding symbolist poet of the Silver Age. One of his works is the poem “Fantasy,” written in 1893. The poet describes a sleeping winter forest in it, putting into the description all the play of his lyrical imagination, all the shades of his own fleeting impressions. Behind the rapidly changing images of the forest night is the poet’s unfettered creative nature.
The lyrical hero in most of the poem is only an observer. Only at the end of the second stanza does he become more active, and a series of rhetorical questions follows. Here the mystical overtones of the work also appear: behind the “quiet groans” of the trees, the poet distinguishes the “spirits of the night”, their “thirst for faith, thirst for God.” The lyrical hero feels in the slightly trembling outlines of the forest something mysterious, unearthly, inaccessible to human understanding.
The lyrical plot of the poem is silence, calm, drowsiness, giving way to movement (“these are the spirits of the night rushing”) and a tinge of anxiety, sadness (“someone’s mournful prayer”, “what is tormenting them, what is troubling them?”), growing with every moment ( “Their singing sounds more and more loudly, the languor in it is more and more audible”). Then a calm doze “without torment, without suffering” sets in again.
Natural elements - wind, blizzard, forest - are enlivened by personification. In the poem, everything moves, feels, lives: “living sculptures”, the forest “calmly slumbers”, “heeds the murmur of the wind”, “filled with secret dreams”; “the moan of a blizzard,” “the pines are whispering, the spruce trees are whispering,” and so on.
Balmont’s images are vague, devoid of clear outlines, airy: “the outlines tremble slightly,” “the murmur of the wind,” “light rain flows,” “sparks of moonlight.”
“Fantasy” is permeated with a rainbow play of light. Everything is buried in “sparks of moonlight”, “light rain”; even dreams are clear and bright.
“Fantasy,” like many of Balmont’s works, is characterized by musicality. The flow of sounds creates the impression of gentle murmur and splashing. Hissing z-sh-sch-ch, whistling s-z, consonants l-r-m-n are often repeated. Musicality is also achieved by repeating certain words: moon, radiance, singing, trembling, prophetic, dozing, listening, groaning. Rhymes are used even within lines: statues - radiance, dozing - listening, snowstorms - eating, remembering - cursing. Balmont often resorts to anaphors: whisper - whisper, someone's - someone's, exactly - exactly, this - this, what - what, everything - everything, thirst - thirst, rushing - rushing.
To emphasize the mystery, melodious drowsiness, romance, and sometimes anxiety, Balmont uses expressive means of language. The poem begins with the oxymoron “living statues,” immediately setting the reader up for the desired perception. The poem is full of epithets (sleeping - calmly, sweetly, through - secret, moaning - quiet, branches - slender, prayer - mournful, trunks - prophetic and fabulous, dreams - clear and bright) and comparative phrases ("like living statues", "exactly a star sparkles”, “like light rain flows”, “like a worm”). Very often Balmont uses personification, and in the second stanza he uses rhetorical questions.
The general impression is his spontaneity in perceiving the world around him, his ability to lyrically express subtle shades of his spiritual mood. Reading “Fantasy”, you get pleasure from the musicality of the verse, deep artistic expressiveness, drawing wonderful, extraordinary pictures in your imagination.
Bibliography
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Composition
In the first part of the poem we see a calm and measured description of nature, a light and melodic description of the winter forest makes the reader plunge into the winter magic that the author is trying to convey to us. Like an artist, he paints a picture, looking at which you are mentally transported there.
In the second part of the poem we see brighter colors, and the original silence fades into the background. A certain mysticism begins to be present.
Someone's sighs, someone's singing, someone's mournful prayer, And melancholy, and rapture - as if a star is sparkling, As if light rain is flowing - and the trees imagine something That people will never dream of, no one will ever dream of.
The author uses a number of rhetorical questions that give some activity to the text.
What torments them, what worries them? What, like a worm, is secretly eating them? Why can’t their swarm sing the joyful hymn of heaven?
But, having reached the climax, it ends abruptly, giving way again to the wonderful relaxation and tranquility of nature.
The lyrical hero appears to ordinary observers of this winter fairy tale.
A large number of critics noted in Balmont’s work the use of a musical style of writing, thanks to which Balmont was able to show all the melodiousness and beauty of the Russian language in the lines of his poetry.
In the final part of the poem, the poet again returns to a quiet and gentle narrative, describing the beautiful slumber of winter nature, using modified words and images from the first stanza.
And the moon still sheds its radiance, and without torment, without suffering, the outlines of prophetic fairy-tale trunks tremble a little; They all doze so sweetly, listen indifferently to the groans, and calmly accept the spell of clear, bright dreams.
Balmont uses rather vague images, which gives the text a certain airiness and weightlessness.
To add mystery and romance, the author resorts to the use of expressive means of language.
All together this creates a harmonious and complete picture that you want to re-read again and again.
Analysis of K. Balmont’s poem “Fantasy”
In the poem, at first glance, K. Balmont paints a picture of a sleeping winter forest:
The prophetic forest calmly slumbers, accepts the bright shine of the Moon and listens to the murmur of the wind, all filled with secret dreams.
Further, the picture of the forest seems to dissolve, giving way to something indefinite: sighs, singing, melancholy, intoxication, spirits of the night with sparkling eyes. All these fleeting images and impressions arise in the imagination of the lyrical hero, born of his imagination, which is why the poem is called that.
The lyrical hero feels in the slightly trembling outlines of the forest something mysterious, unearthly, inaccessible to human understanding. To create a feeling of mystery, romance, and anxiety, the poet uses a variety of artistic means. For example, comparisons (“like living statues”, “like a star sparkling”, “like light rain flowing”, “like a worm”). Images of nature (wind, blizzard, forest) are enlivened by personification. In the poem, everything moves, feels, lives: the forest “calmly slumbers,” “heeds the murmur of the wind,” “filled with secret dreams”; “the moan of a blizzard,” “the pines are whispering, the spruce trees are whispering.” The poem is full of epithets (“quiet groan”, “slender branches”, “sorrowful prayer”, “prophetic fairytale trunks”, “clear bright dreams”, etc.). The author often resorts to lexical repetitions: whisper - whisper, someone's - someone's, this - this, what - what, everything - everything, thirst - thirst, rush - rush.
The syntactic devices are also interesting. The second stanza contains a series of rhetorical questions:
What torments them, what worries them? What, like a worm, is secretly eating them? Why can’t their swarm sing the joyful hymn of Heaven?
The poem is characterized by rows of homogeneous structures. For example:
Without remembering anything, without cursing anything, bowing the slender branches, listening to the sounds of midnight.
“It’s as if they are tormented by anxiety, a thirst for faith, a thirst for God...”
In the poem one can hear a lulling splashing, an indistinct murmur, the silence of the moonlit night is broken by whispers and sighs. To create these sound associations, the author widely uses alliteration (repetition of consonants) hissing and whistling: (zh, sh, shch, h; z, s), as well as sonorants: (l. r, m, n.). For example:
Hearing the quiet groan of a blizzard, pines whisper, spruce trees whisper... ...The outlines of prophetic fairy-tale trunks tremble a little...
The author uses stanzas with cross rhymes and internal rhymes, which gives the poem a special musicality and expressiveness. It sounds measured, melodious and monotonous.
So, the originality of K. Balmont’s poem lies in the use of symbolic images of free elements, various means of expression (personifications, epithets, lexical repetitions), special musicality and sound organization. Lightness, airiness, trembling are felt in the vibrating lyrical landscape. The poet draws only the outlines of objects that seem changeable and fleeting in the moonlight.
Knis Margarita, 11th grade A
Images used in the poem.
The author tries to show the ideality of the world, but at the same time its fragility. The image of the moon is very interestingly outlined, which is both romantic and symbolic.
And the moon still shines, and without pain, without suffering
The outlines of prophetic fairy-tale trunks tremble slightly;
Thanks to this image, the poem is given a certain mystery and at the same time a parallel can be drawn with the soul of the poet, which reflects what is happening. The alternation of female and male rhymes gives the poem harmony.
A very unusual description of nature evokes a kind of fairy tale and anticipation of some kind of magic. Incredible comparisons, the correct use of metaphors and epithets only enhance this feeling.
