Brief Analysis
Before reading this analysis, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the poem Inexpressible.
History of creation - the work was written in August 1819, during a period when the poet often indulged in philosophical reflection on the problem of art and nature.
The theme of the poem is the perfection of nature, its incomprehensible essence and the limited possibilities of art.
Composition - The poem is created in the form of a monologue of the lyrical hero. In terms of meaning, it can be divided into two parts: a story about the “holy mysteries” of nature, reflections on art.
Genre : elegy.
The meter of the poem is iambic hexameter, some lines of the second part are written in iambic tetrameter, all types of rhyme are presented in the text.
Metaphors - “she scattered beauty everywhere”, “but is it possible to convey something alive into the dead”, “holy sacraments, only the heart knows you”, “these are such bright features - the winged thought easily catches them.”
Epithets - “wonderful nature”, “careless and easy freedom”, “troubled soul”, “great vision”, painful feeling, “quiet sky”, “brilliant waters”.
Comparisons - “this greeting from the past (like a breath that suddenly arrived from the meadow of the homeland).”
Means of artistic expression
In the work “The Inexpressible” by Zhukovsky, the following means of artistic expression are used: firstly, these are rhetorical questions, inversions, and thinking out loud. Also in the poem you can find epithets: “wonderful nature”, “brilliant beauty”. There is also a metaphor in the work: “flame of the clouds”, “winged thought”. Zhukovsky also uses an oxymoron. For example, “transfer to the dead alive.”
The main image in Zhukovsky’s “The Inexpressible” is nature. She is shown in all her beauty, inaccessible to human knowledge. This is the image of water, pictures of sea shores, sunset. But the reader also meets the lyrical hero. The poem expresses regret about lost time, about one’s youth. The poet tries to convey to the reader the experiences that he himself experiences at the sight of a lonely pine tree, lightly dusted with snow, or walking through puddles in summer rain.
History of creation
“The Inexpressible” was written by V. A. Zhukovsky in 1819. At the time of the creation of the poem, Vasily Andreevich served as an educator at court and was the mentor of Alexander II. The position required the poet to discuss various topics and explain eternal truths. This was one of the reasons for the appearance of philosophical motifs in his work. Many works of that time were devoted to the problems of nature and art, the essence of poetry.
Researchers believe that the history of the creation of “The Ineffable” is connected with V. Zhukovsky’s message to the Empress “A Detailed Report on the Moon.” “Report...” was created to order and V. Zhukovsky admitted that he wrote without inspiration. This became the impetus for thinking about the creative process, which a couple of months later was reflected in “Unspeakable”.
Option 2
European writers were the first to write in the romanticism style, but this style came to Russia thanks to Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky. Zhukovsky was the first to write in the style of romanticism and wrote many works that are known to this day. One such poem is "The Unspeakable", which was presented as an elegy in the summer of 1819.
With his poems, Zhukovsky tried to convey to the reader the innermost secrets of the human soul and each time he approached writing with philosophical reasoning. The poem “Inexpressible” was written when Zhukovsky was going through hard times.
That year, his beloved girlfriend Maria Protasova married another man. Zhukovsky was very worried about this and even wanted to stop writing, but after a while he returned to writing poems. The man wanted to give readers the opportunity to touch the beautiful. Zhukovsky is not sure that it is possible to convey all the beauty and sincerity with the help of poems.
In his poem, the writer writes that one must always distinguish the natural from the artificial. Zhukovsky with his poem shows the reader how beautiful the nature around is and that it is worth treating it with respect. Man is powerless before the life of nature and sometimes he does not understand natural beauty.
In his poem, Vasily Andreevich sings praises to the beauty of nature and talks about its vastness and naturalness. In the middle of the poem, the writer begins to describe the human soul. Zhukovsky writes that sometimes feelings overwhelm to such an extent that it becomes unbearable. Towards the end of the elegy, Vasily Andreevich writes that silence is understandable to everyone. After all, in silence and unity with the soul, you can observe everything that happens.
The hero of the poem is an extraordinary person and a lyrical personality, the writer and the character are one and the same person. In this poem Zhukovsky wrote about himself. Zhukovsky wrote about what he sees and how he sees it and wanted to describe this picture as clearly as possible so that everything would be clear to the reader. Vasily Andreevich coped with the task of writing a poem in the romanticism style.
Subject
The poet originally interpreted the traditional literary theme of the essence of nature and the peculiarities of its embodiment in art. Vasily Andreevich presented his thoughts in the monologue of the lyrical hero. The hero believes that human language can never compare with nature. Nature is free and omnipotent. She is able to “scatter” beauty and bring harmony into the world: “varieties have agreed with unity.”
However, no one is able to understand who created nature itself.
Gradually, reflections on art appear in the monologue of the lyrical “I”. The hero claims that inspiration can only capture individual features of the surrounding world, but it is impossible to convey everything living in the “dead” creations of human art. During these reflections, V. A. Zhukovsky calls nature “inexpressible.” It is impossible to express it, but there is a chance to understand the world around you if you learn to listen to it with your heart.
The lyrical hero claims that the feeling of confusion in the soul that appears in the evening hour is an attempt by the human heart to “hold the beautiful in flight,” that is, to retain a piece of nature within itself. Art is powerless in such cases. Yes, a poet can reproduce the beauty of the sky, waters, sunset in words, but he is not able to fully convey the feelings that fill the heart at the moment of contemplating this beauty. The fact is that each soul perceives this vision in its own way.
In the last verses, the lyrical hero comes to the conclusion that nature contains its creator. This presence cannot be expressed in words. You can hear it only in silence.
The main idea is concentrated in a few lines scattered throughout the text: “But is it possible to convey the dead to the living?
", "Everything immeasurable is crowded into a single sigh and only silence speaks clearly."
The phenomenon of “two worlds” in the work
This work reflects the understanding of the world inherent in romanticism. It is expressed through the phenomenon of “two worlds”: the surrounding world remains inaccessible to human understanding. Behind the external phenomena of nature, which seem quite understandable, in reality there is a mysterious essence hidden. Comprehension of it is the meaning of poetic art. However, this process requires serious mental effort, and not every person is able to do it. It is this understanding of the amazing world of nature that underlies Zhukovsky’s philosophical poem “The Inexpressible.”
The lyrical hero quite naturally comes to the conclusion:
Everything immensity is crowded into a single sigh,
And only silence speaks clearly
What cannot be expressed in words is more significant in life than statements about oneself. After all, this is what feeds the poet’s soul with the brightest feelings, making his life brighter and happier. To some extent, Zhukovsky in his work anticipates Tyutchev’s idea:
A spoken thought is a lie
However, the main thing in Zhukovsky’s poem is the dominant position of spirituality in human life, the desire to comprehend all the beautiful things that life brings, and to treat the natural world with care.
Means of expression
To reveal the theme and create an image of nature, V. A. Zhukovsky used means of expression. The text contains metaphors - “she scattered beauty everywhere”, “but is it possible to convey something alive to the dead”, “holy sacraments, only the heart knows you”, “these are such bright features - the winged thought easily catches them”, epithets - “wonderful nature ”, “careless and easy freedom”, “troubled soul”, “great vision”, painful feeling, “quiet sky”, “brilliant waters” and comparison - “this greeting from the past (like a breath that suddenly arrived from the meadow of the homeland).” To convey the idea, paronomasia : “Who could recreate a creation in words?”, “Is the inexpressible subject to expression?”
Analysis of the poem “Inexpressible” by Zhukovsky
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“The Unspeakable” (Excerpt) Vasily Zhukovsky
What is our earthly language compared to wondrous nature? With what careless and easy freedom She scattered beauty everywhere and agreed with diversity with unity! But where, what brush painted it? Barely one of her features With effort it will be possible to catch inspiration... But is it possible to convey the living into the dead? Who could recreate a creation in words? Is the inexpressible subject to expression?.. Holy sacraments, only the heart knows you. Isn’t it often in the majestic hour of the Evening land of transfiguration, When the confused soul is full of the Prophecy of a great vision And carried away into the boundless, - A painful feeling burrows in the chest, We want to keep the beautiful in flight, We want to give a name to the unnamed - And art is exhausted and silent? What is visible to the eyes - this flame of clouds, Flying across the quiet sky, This trembling of shining waters, These pictures of the shores In the fire of a magnificent sunset - These are such bright features - The winged thought easily catches them, And there are words for their brilliant beauty. But what is fused with this brilliant beauty - This is so vague, exciting us, This enchanting voice, heard by one soul, This to a distant aspiration, This greeting that has passed (Like a breath that suddenly arrived From the meadow of the homeland, where there was once a flower, Holy youth , where hope lived), This memory whispered to the soul About the sweet joyful and sorrowful past, This shrine descending from on high, This presence of the creator in creation - What language is this for them?.. Woe? the soul flies, All the immensity is crowded into a single sigh, And only silence speaks clearly.
Working with the text of the poem “The Inexpressible” by Zhukovsky. Questions and tasks for analysis:
1. What does the lyrical hero, who coincides with the author of the poem, think about? How do you define lyrics that raise questions about the laws of development of nature, society, and human knowledge of the world?
2. How did you understand the meaning of the question with which the poem begins?
3. How does the poet relate to nature, what feature does he note?
4. Who, according to Zhukovsky, is the creator of nature? What can a poet or artist reflect in his work from the life of nature? What is inaccessible to him? What words in the poem express these thoughts?
5. What visual and expressive means reveal the content of the poem?
The lyrical hero reflects on the ever-moving, changing nature created by God, on the possibilities for a poet and artist to comprehend the secrets of nature and the completeness of the image in his work. The poem is classified as philosophical poetry. It begins with a rhetorical question, that is, a question that simultaneously contains a statement, the thought that worries the author is conveyed emotionally.
The poet is amazed by the beauty of nature. With all its diversity, nature is a single whole. The poet expresses the idea that nature, created by God, cannot be fully expressed in human creativity. (But where, what brush depicted it? .. Who could recreate the creature in words?
A creative person only in moments of inspiration with his soul and heart can touch the sacred secret of nature and catch just one of its features. An artist can recreate in words only what is visible to the eye... the bright features of nature. But he cannot convey the moment of changing nature (it is beautiful to hold in flight), he cannot express in words the spiritual principle of nature: This presence of the Creator in creation, - What is their language? .. The soul flies with grief, Everything immense is crowded into a single sigh, And only silence speaks clearly.
The philosophical content of the poem is emphasized by sublime vocabulary of abstract meaning, Old Church Slavonic words, and rhetorical questions. The poet uses metonymy (replacing in poetic speech the name of a concept, object, phenomenon with another name - by contiguity; for example, in our minds the author and the book he wrote are connected: I’m reading Pushkin; a painting brush and an artist: which brush depicted it?). The last line combines words with opposite meanings: silence speaks, figuratively revealing the author’s thought; this artistic device is called an oxymoron (bored gaiety, ringing silence, bitter joy.
Rhetorical questions, thinking out loud with the reader, inversions (violations of the usual word order) convey the sublime emotional state of the lyrical hero. “Zhukovsky sees in nature not only itself, but also a symbol of the human soul... In every picture of nature, Zhukovsky’s soul shines through: everywhere there is a look at the distance, at infinity... This is a soul striving to embrace what is close and dear in nature,” wrote Shevyrev, critic, literary historian and poet, contemporary of Zhukovsky.
20th-century literary critic G.M. Friedlander said this about this poem: “In nature and its life, the poet strives to capture the meaning, music, harmony of reality, akin to his soul, although constantly eluding him. And yet, this harmony is inherent in reality itself, although in human life the beautiful is fleeting. But even when it leaves us, it does not die without a trace, but continues to live in memory - this is the true meaning of “The Inexpressible,” as well as other works of the poet that are close to him in thought.”
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