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N.S. Gumilyov dreamed of distant lands since childhood. Having matured, he realized his dream, and the motives of travel appeared in his work long before the poet visited exotic countries. This article is dedicated to a poem about sailors. They study it in 5th grade. We invite you to familiarize yourself with a brief analysis of “Captains” according to the plan.
The material was prepared jointly with a teacher of the highest category, Ilyina Galina Sergeevna.
Experience as a teacher of Russian language and literature - 36 years.
Brief Analysis
History of creation - the work was written in 1909, when the poet was visiting Maximilian Voloshin in Koktebel.
The theme of the poem is the life and adventures of sailors.
The composition – “Captains” – is a cycle consisting of four poems, each of which is dedicated to a certain aspect of the life of sailors. Accordingly, the meaning of the poem is divided into four parts.
The genre can conventionally be called elegy, although these are romantic lyrical poems about long sea voyages, as they might be imagined by a dreamy young man who has read many “filibuster” novels.
Poetic meter - the first poem is written in anapaest trimeter, the second in amphibrach tetrameter, the third in trochee tetrameter, and the fourth in iambic tetrameter; cross rhyme ABAB.
Metaphors - “your chest is saturated with the salt of the sea”, “the sea is going crazy”, “what anesthesia the depth once gave birth to for you.”
Epithets - “fast-wing ships”, “daring path”, “quivering bridge”, “sharp, confident look”, “starry night”.
Comparisons - “his comrades are pale like death.”
"Captains" N. Gumilyov
"Captains" Nikolai Gumilyov
On the polar and southern seas, Along the bends of green swells, Between basalt and pearl rocks The sails of ships rustle.
The swift-winged ones are led by captains, discoverers of new lands, for whom hurricanes are not terrible, who have experienced maelstroms and shoals,
Whose chest is saturated with the dust of lost charters, Whose daring path is marked with a needle on a torn map
And, having ascended the trembling bridge, he remembers the abandoned port, shaking off shreds of foam from his high boots with blows of his cane,
Or, having discovered a riot on board, a pistol rips from his belt, so that gold falls from the lace, from the pinkish Brabant cuffs.
Let the sea go crazy and whip, The crests of the waves rose into the sky, Not one trembles before the thunderstorm, Not one furls the sails.
Are cowards given these hands, this sharp, confident look that can suddenly throw a frigate at enemy feluccas,
With a well-aimed bullet, a sharp iron one, To overtake gigantic whales And notice in the multi-starred night The protective light of beacons?
All of you, paladins of the Green Temple, Watching the rhumb over the cloudy sea, Gonzalvo and Cook, La Perouse and de Gama, Dreamer and king, Genoese Columbus!
Hanno the Carthaginian, Prince of Senegambi, Sinbad the Sailor and mighty Ulysses, The gray ramparts thundering in dithyramb about your victories, rushing towards the cape!
And you, royal dogs, filibusters, Keeping gold in a dark port, Arab wanderers, seekers of faith And the first people on the first raft!
And everyone who dares, who wants, who seeks, Who are sick of the countries of their fathers, Who laughs boldly, whistles mockingly, Heeding the precepts of the gray-haired sages!
How strange, how sweet it is to enter into your dreams, whisper your cherished names, and suddenly guess what anesthesia the depths once gave birth to for you!
And it seems that in the world, as before, there are countries where no human foot has gone, where giants live in sunny groves and pearls shine in the clear water.
Fragrant resins flow from the trees, Patterned leaves babble: “Hurry, Here bees hover of red gold, Here roses are redder than the purple of kings!”
And dwarfs and birds argue over nests, And the girls’ facial profiles are tender... As if not all the stars have been counted, As if our world is not fully open!
As soon as the Royal Old Fort looks through the cliffs, Like cheerful sailors, They will rush to the familiar port.
There, having grabbed some cider in the tavern, a talkative grandfather speaks, That a black crossbow can defeat a sea hydra.
Dark-skinned mulatto girls tell fortunes and sing, and a sweet smell wafts from the dishes being prepared.
And in the spit-stained taverns From sunset to morning, A row of decks of infidels are thrown, Curly sharpies.
It’s good to wander around the docks of the port, and lie down, and start fights with the soldiers from the fort at night.
Or boldly beg two sous from noble foreign women, sell them monkeys with a copper hoop in their nose.
And then turn pale with anger, clutch the amulet in the floor, you lose at dice on the trampled floor.
But the call of the dope falls silent, The drunken words of the incoherent years, Only the captain’s mouthpiece will call them to sail.
But there are other areas in the world, the Moon of painful torment. For the highest power, the highest valor They are forever unattainable.
There are waves with sparkles and splashes of an unceasing dance, And there the Ship of the Flying Dutchman flies in sharp leaps.
Neither a reef nor a shoal will meet him, But, a sign of sadness and misfortune, the Lights of St. Elmo glow, Dotting his board and gear.
The captain himself, gliding over the abyss, holds his hat with one hand, bloody but iron, and grabs the steering wheel with the other.
His comrades are pale as death, They all have the same thought. This is how the corpses look at the fire, Inexpressibly and gloomily.
And if in the clear morning hour Swimmers in the seas met him, They were forever tormented by an inner voice with a blind harbinger of sadness.
To the violent and warlike band there are so many stories, But all the most terrible and all the more mysterious For the brave explorers of the sea -
About the fact that somewhere there is an outskirts - There, beyond the Tropic of Capricorn! - Where the captain with the face of Cain lay the terrible road.
Analysis of Gumilyov's poem "Captains"
Nikolai Gumilyov was a romantic at heart and dreamed of distant countries. He managed to carry out his plans and go on several scientific expeditions. But a few years before his travels, he created a short cycle of poems called “Captains,” in which notes of nostalgia are clearly visible. Having read books about the life of sailors, the young poet was ready to escape from the gray reality to the ends of the world just to feel the taste of salt on his lips and experience an incomparable feeling of freedom.
The “Captains” series was created in the summer of 1909, when Nikolai Gumilev was visiting Maximilian Voloshin in Koktebel. There is a version that it was written together with a group of poets who discussed each line. However, according to the memoirs of Alexei Tolstoy, the poet locked himself in his room for several days in a row, working on “Captains,” and only then presented his poems to the judgment of his friends.
The cycle consists of four works, which are united by the common idea of romance and travel. In the first of his poems, Gumilyov admires how “ships’ sails rustle between basalt and pearl rocks.” The image of the “discoverers of new lands” is so dear to the poet that he mentally travels with them and in his own fantasies experiences all the trials that his heroes go through. Making a way on the map, suppressing a ship mutiny, meeting with pirates and a school for surviving during a storm - all these components of sea life inspire the author and make him dream of exploits. The courage of people who fight the elements of the sea every day cannot leave Gumilyov indifferent. “Are cowards given these hands, this sharp, confident look?” asks the poet.
The second poem in the cycle is a hymn to discoverers and pirates who cannot imagine a quiet life on land. They are drawn to danger and the need to constantly take risks to achieve their own goals. “How strange, how sweet it is to enter your dreams, whisper your cherished names,” the author notes. It seems to him that “in the world, as before, there are countries where no human has set foot.” And it is Gumilyov who sees himself as the person who will someday make a new discovery and visit where “the roses are redder than the purple of kings.”
However, no matter how new countries attract sailors, sooner or later they return to their home port, filled with new impressions. And it is precisely the meeting with the homeland that the third poem of the “Captains” cycle is dedicated to. The land gives them what they were deprived of in their travels. Women, beer bars, playing cards and dice, trying to find out their fate from a fortune teller... But when “the call of the dope falls silent,” every sailor remembers his true destiny. And then nothing is more important for him than the “captain’s mouthpiece,” which again calls for departure.
The final poem of the cycle is dedicated to maritime legends and mysteries, one of which is the story of the Flying Dutchman - a ghost ship. It is a symbol of death and foretells it to everyone who encounters this ghost at sea. The author does not have an answer to the question of where this ship came from and what goals it pursues. But one thing is obvious - the legend of the Flying Dutchman is the most terrible, and this makes it even more attractive in the eyes of every true sailor. True, Gumilyov still gives his own interpretation of such a myth, noting that a ghost ship shows everyone the way to the edge of the world. There, “where the terrible road lay for the captain with the face of Cain.” It leads only in one direction, but those who dare to follow it to the end will be able to learn the secrets of the universe, although they will pay for it with their own lives. And the poet is convinced that every captain has a moment in his life when he dreams of meeting the Flying Dutchman in the vast expanses.
In the poetic horizon of the Silver Age, Nikolai Gumilyov stands out for the significance of the evolution that has taken place in his lyrics. Step by step, the poet's lyricism consistently deepened, and the growth of formal mastery was only an external expression of the internal growth of his lyrical hero. Between the poems of Gumilyov’s first three collections and his last poetry book, “The Pillar of Fire,” there is not only a clear continuity, but also a serious contrast, which is sometimes interpreted as a break and even as an unexpected metamorphosis.
To verify this, let’s compare the first poem of the “Captains” cycle (published in 1909 in the Apollo magazine) and “Second Canzona,” included in N. Gumilyov’s latest collection “Pillar of Fire.”
The first poem became a kind of calling card of the poet. The poet’s imagination created in it a romantic image of captains, a bright picturesque projection of ideas about the ideal of modern man. He is attracted by the line of the receding horizon and the inviting twinkle of a distant star. He strives to run away from the comfort of home and the everyday life of civilization. The pristine, fresh world promises him adventure, the joy of discovery and the intoxicating taste of victory.
Gumilyov's hero came into this world not as a dreamy contemplator, but as a strong-willed participant in the life happening before his eyes. Therefore, reality for him consists of successive moments of persecution, struggle, and overcoming.
The author is so caught up in the poeticization of the volitional impulse that he does not notice how the grammatical plural (“the captains lead”) within one complex sentence changes to the singular (“who. notes. remembers. or. tears”). The general “sea” background of the poem is created by sweeping conventionally romantic contrasts (“polar - southern”, “basalt - pearl”, “maelstrom - shoal”). “Exquisite” object details are shown in close-up (“shreds of foam from high boots”, “gold from pinkish Brabant cuffs”).
“Captains” is constructed as a poetic description of a painting. In the center of the pictorial composition is a strong man, elevated above the elements and the crowd of extras-sailors. The marine background is depicted using standard techniques of artistic marine painting (“rocks”, “hurricanes”, “shreds of foam”, “wave crests”).
However, the captain’s appearance contains more theatrical accessories and deliberate dandyism than specific signs of a risky profession. There is no hint in it of the hardships of ship life, even the metonymy “salt of the sea”, falling on a par with the fashionable “cane”, spectacular “high boots” and decorative “lace”, is perceived as a picturesque decoration.
Against the background of symbolist imagery, Gumilyov's early poems look more concrete and juicy. They are built according to the laws of rhetorical clarity and compositional balance (clarity and balance are two more important stylistic principles of Acmeism). However, the high degree of objectivity that is noticeable in “Captains” did not in itself guarantee the poet’s approach to socio-historical reality, and even more so, a meaningful deepening of the lyrics.
The type of lyricism gradually changed. Intimate-confessional expression was replaced by indirect expression, which avoided open reflection, when the poet “translated” his mood into the language of visible, distinct, sometimes abstract, images.
The early Gumilyov clearly strove for the formal perfection of verse. He shunned the elusive, volatile, conveyed with great reserve. At first, such self-restraint played a positive role. Gumilyov managed to find his theme and gradually develop his own style, which helped him avoid the fate of the poets who were epigones of symbolism.
The most surprising thing is that later his work reveals a “secret relationship” with the heritage of the Symbolist era.
“Canzone two” from the collection “Pillar of Fire” is designed in a completely different, more tragic tone, in contrast to the romance of the wanderings and heroic impulses of “Captains”. If the early Gumilyov shunned personal confessions, then in the collection “Pillar of Fire” it is the life of the soul and the anxieties of consciousness that form the meaningful core of the poems.
The word “canzone” (Italian - “song”) in the title is used not in a poetic sense, but in the most general sense - denoting the lyrical, confessional quality of the poem.
The main motive of “Canzona” is a feeling of dual worlds, an intuition about a different life, full of meaning and beauty, in contrast to the “this-worldly” world - the world of a “rotting pond” and dusty roads. The organizing principle of the “here” shadow world is the brutal power of time. Expanding the metaphor of “captivity of time,” the poet uses a string of personifications. Thus, summer mechanically turns over the “pages of days”, the pendulum turns out to be the executioner of the “conspiratorial seconds”, roadside bushes are obsessed with the thirst for death. Everything bears the stamp of repetition, lifelessness, languid hopelessness.
The most expressive image of “shadow” life is created by the unexpected “materialization” of the category of time in the second stanza. Semantically and stylistically heterogeneous elements are used as components of a single image: physiologically specific “heads” belong to abstract “seconds”, the movement of the pendulum sheds blood. The metaphor seems to be trying to forget about its portability and acquire non-metaphorical flesh. Such combinations of logically incompatible objects and features are a characteristic feature of the surrealist style. In the real world, a true miracle and real, sincere, genuine beauty are impossible. This is fully confirmed in the third stanza - “the unicorn will not lead us // The white seraph will lead us by the bridle.”
N. Gumilyov's previous style was characterized by extremely decorative, highly aesthetic objectivity. In the poems of the last collection, materiality appears, and the texture of heterogeneous details serves non-ornamental purposes. Earthly existence has lost its intrinsic value for the lyrical hero, and the former festivity reveals the limitations and meagerness of earthly life.
The monologue of the lyrical hero in “Canzone” is addressed to his kindred soul. It is the intimate connection of two souls that becomes the source of the hero’s metaphysical intuition. Subject specificity at the end of the poem gives way to a “symbolist” way of expression. These are symbolic images of “fiery dope” and “wind from distant lands”, devoid of “thingness”, the combination “all sparkle, all movement”, the intonation of reticence.
In Canzone II, figurative picturesqueness gave way to expressive tasks. The poem is perceived as a direct lyrical confession of the poet, a “landscape of the soul” of a grieving, wounded person, naked to the maximum. The late stage of Gumilyov’s poetry confirmed one of the key theses expressed by him in the article “Reader”: “Poetry and religion are two sides of the same coin. Both require spiritual work from a person. But not in the name of a practical goal, like ethics and aesthetics, but in the name of a higher one, unknown to them.”
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History of creation
The poem under analysis belongs to the early period of N. Gumilyov’s work. The poet created it while visiting his friend Maximilian Voloshin in Koktebel in 1909. Eyewitnesses recalled that the cycle was written in several evenings. Apparently, Nikolai Stepanovich was so inspired by the sea nature of Koktebel.
There is an opinion that “Captains” is a collective creation of several poets who visited Voloshin. This version was refuted by A. Tolstoy. He recalled how Gumilyov worked on poetry for several evenings in a row, locking himself in a room so as not to be disturbed. After an intense creative process, Nikolai Stepanovich read poems to his friends.
Subject
In the poem, the author revealed the theme of sea travel, characteristic of the literature of the Romantic era. In the center of the work is the image of a sailor. It is collective and multifaceted; in each work of the cycle a certain facet of it is revealed.
In the first part, a generalized image of the captain is created. This is a brave, strong person who is always ready to challenge the elements of the sea and Fr.
The lyrical hero admires the experienced navigator who is not afraid of shallows and hurricanes. The captain is a true leader who quickly deals with the mutiny on board. As soon as he pulls out a gun, his team stops rebelling and begins to work harmoniously, storming the maddening sea.
N. Gumilyov dedicated the second part to all travelers and discoverers. In it he lists the names of the most famous navigators. He does not forget about any generation of daredevils, even mentioning people “on the first raft.” The poet is sure that these people were fed up with their native land, so they went in search of adventure.
The author talks about the sailors’ stay on land in the third work of the series. It was created in the spirit of pirate novels. Having moored to the shore, the sailors rush to taverns, where over a bottle of cider they talk about what they saw in distant lands. The festivities continue “from sunset until morning.” Sailors, accustomed to freedom, are not averse to frolicking outside the tavern. They start fights, sell monkeys to noble foreign women and play cards. The fun stops as soon as the conquerors of the seas hear the captain's mouthpiece.
The fourth part is based on the legend of the Ship of the Flying Dutchman. According to legend, he has been plowing the seas for hundreds of years. At the helm of a ghost ship is a captain with a bloody hand, and his crew members are pale, “like death.” The author is sure that the mysterious captain points the way leading to the edge of the sea.
At sea Poem by Nikolai Gumilyov
Sunset. Like snakes, the waves bend, Already without angry scallops, But they do not run to touch the Invincible shores. And only from afar the kind Burun, who believed in the darkness, will rush, a violent madman, onto the glossy rock. And it will burst with a whoop and roar, throwing a foamy clump of foam to the sky. But the shuttle is cheerful in the turquoise sea With a lateen sail; And the tanned helmsman is deft, Breathing in the wave of growing darkness And - from the stretched ropes - The invigorating smell of resin.
Nikolay Gumilyov. Poems and poems. Moscow: Sovremennik, 1989.
Means of expression
To originally interpret the theme of travel and adventures of seafarers, N. Gumilyov used means of expression. They also helped create a collective image of a brave sailor. The text contains metaphors - “your chest is saturated with the salt of the sea”, “the sea is going crazy”, “what anesthesia the depth once gave birth to for you”; epithets - “fast-wing ships”, “daring path”, “quivering bridge”, “sharp, confident look”, “starry night” and comparison - “his comrades are pale like death.”
