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4.6
Average rating: 4.6
Total ratings received: 121.
Marina Tsvetaeva’s poem “I like that you are sick not with me,” which later became a romance, has an interesting story and talks about love that did not happen. A brief analysis of “I like that you are not sick with me” according to plan will help 11th grade students better understand the meaning of this work and prepare for a literature lesson.
The material was prepared jointly with a teacher of the highest category, Kuchmina Nadezhda Vladimirovna.
Experience as a teacher of Russian language and literature - 27 years.
Brief Analysis
Before reading this analysis, we recommend that you read the poem I like that it is not me who is sick with you....
History of creation - written in 1915, the poem was a “literary charade” until 1980, when Anastasia Tsvetaeva told who the poetess dedicated these lines to.
The theme of the poem is love for a man, which has found expression as dislike.
The composition is three-part; Marina Ivanovna herself divided her poem into three parts, two stanzas each.
Genre : lyric poem.
The poetic meter is iambic pentameter.
Epithets – “heavy ball”, “suffocating wave”, “hell fire”, “church silence”, “night peace”, “sunset meetings”.
Metaphors - “the ball will not float under your feet”, “I am not sick with you”, “blush like a suffocating wave”, “thank you with both my heart and my hand”.
History of creation
In 1915, when the poem “I like that you are sick not with me” was created, Tsvetaeva already had a child. And yet she dedicated such important lines to some man who was clearly not the father of the child.
For many years, the addressee of these lines was a secret, which was discovered only in 1980 by the poetess’s sister Anastasia Tsvetaeva. It turns out that the poem was written about Anastasia’s second husband, Mauritius Mints. But it is not enough to know who the work is dedicated to; it is important to understand its background.
The young man who ended up in the Tsvetaevs’ house spent a lot of time with the poetess’s sister. By that time, she was divorced and raising a child, not dreaming of further arrangement of her personal life. But Mauritius was very interested in Anastasia. However, Marina could not resist his charm. The man admired her talent, but as a woman she attracted him much less. True, Anastasia was sure that her sister simply did not interfere with her happiness. Be that as it may, the love never became mutual, but it gave the world beautiful lines.
The sisters, who did not hide anything from each other, kept this common secret from the man whom they both loved.
“I like that you are not sick with me...”, analysis of a poem by Marina Tsvetaeva
There is probably no person in our country who has not watched Eldar Ryazanov’s “New Year’s” film “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!” In this film, for the first time, several songs were performed based on the poems of Marina Tsvetaeva, the most famous of which, of course, was the romance “I like that you are not sick with me...”
The poem being analyzed was written by Tsvetaeva in 1915 and dedicated to her sister Anastasia’s common-law husband, Mavriky Aleksandrovich Mints.
It is probably strange to hear from a young woman, who has been married for only three years, a confession of “non-love” for another man. Knowing Marina, who every time fell in love with renewed vigor, selflessly, surrendering to this feeling to the end, you understand why such a poem appeared. But love for her sister, of course, would never have allowed the poetess to cross a certain line, after which, as they say, the earth disappears from under one’s feet, which in a poetic arrangement sounded like this:
That the heavy globe of the earth will never float away under our feet.
The heroine of the poem certainly gives the impression of a woman who is already quite experienced in love affairs. After all, she lists many signs of how a love meeting takes place: meeting at sunset, “walking under the moon,” “the sun above our heads.” Most likely, she has already experienced a strong attraction to a man more than once, which was then replaced by disappointment, and now love for her is akin to a disease. Therefore, she even begins her monologue-address with some relief:
I like that you are not sick with me, I like that I am not sick with you.
They say that we are in an equal situation, which means that no one will suffer, because, as you know, one always loves, and the other only allows himself to be loved. Such “equality” is even outwardly emphasized by the anaphora at the beginning of the poem.
Then the heroine talks rather detachedly about what advantages “non-love” gives. She can be “funny, promiscuous” and “not blush with a suffocating wave, slightly touching her sleeves,” and he can calmly hug the other, watching the heroine kiss another man. Everything seems to be great. But suddenly she seemed to blurt out: “My gentle one.” One gets the impression that the heroine has silently addressed her imaginary interlocutor in this manner more than once.
So gradually, without noticing it, she begins to talk about the secret dream of any girl: to sing “Hallelujah!” “in the silence of the church.” After all, it is the wedding ceremony that should forever unite loving hearts before God.
The final part of the poem is written in a completely different emotional key. This is no longer a lengthy discussion about what would happen if... This is already an expression of deep gratitude to a person who, it turns out, loves the heroine, though without knowing it. It turns out that she is grateful to him “for the peace of the night”, and “for the rarity of meetings at sunset”, and “for the sun not being above our heads.” These endless reasons for gratitude are expressed in anaphoric repetitions: it seems that there are too many of them. But the last two lines with the repeated interjection “alas!”, in fact, give away the heroine: here there is an undisguised regret that we did not rush headlong into the pool of feelings.
If at the beginning of her confession the heroine addresses the addressee slightly ironically, emphasizing the distance between them with a deliberately polite capital letter, then by the end the work takes on a confessional character. It turns out that the heroine is ready to suffer and suffer if necessary, because another Russian poetess, Anna Akhmatova, was sure that “everyone on this earth should experience love torture.” But peace of mind is also necessary, because passion burns from the inside, making you forget about everything in the world.
What we have before us is truly a confession of a woman’s soul, which allowed us to once again be convinced of the power of the artistic word and its great ability to express seemingly the most inexpressible feelings in very simple words that are understandable to everyone.
After studying the analysis of the poem “I Like...”, pay attention to other essays:
- “To Grandmother,” analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem
- “Youth”, analysis of the poem by Marina Tsvetaeva
- “The rowan tree was lit with a red brush,” analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem
- “Meeting”, analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem
- “Mistake”, analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem
- "Love! Love!”, analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem
- “Distance: versts, miles”, analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem
- “In Paris”, analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem
- “Eyes”, analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem
- “Wild Will”, analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem
- “Cats”, analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem
- “Your name is a bird in your hand...”, analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem
- “To my poems, written so early...”, analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem
- “Who is created from stone, who is created from clay...”, analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem
- “Books in red binding”, analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem
Based on the piece: “I like it”
According to the writer: Tsvetaeva Marina Ivanovna
Composition
The poetess herself set the compositional division of the work: there are six stanzas, which are proportionally divided into three parts.
The lyrical heroine devotes the first two stanzas to her non-recognition, proudly and gracefully declaring that she is glad not to see a man as an object of love, glad that at the sight of him she does not blush and stands firmly on the ground - and is glad that this is not the sympathy is mutual.
The second part is already clearly filled with notes of regret, which so far manifest themselves only in the tone of the narrative: she lists such attributes of falling in love as kisses and hugs, which end in a wedding, but this time her “I like” sounds much less confident.
In the third part, regret is expressed directly: she uses the word “alas” to show that everything said above is just self-consolation. In fact, she would want the relationship and love of this man.
About poetry
From the age of 6, Marina Tsvetaeva wrote poetry, not only in Russian, but also in French and German. She published her first collection at the age of 18, it was called “Evening Album”. Her work attracted the interest of famous poets, including Valery Bryusov, who later attracted Tsvetaeva to the circle of symbolists. In 1912, the poetess became the wife of publicist Sergei Efron and gave birth to a daughter, Ariadne.
During the civil war of 1917, Tsvetaeva had another daughter, Irina, who died of hunger as a three-year-old baby. What grief the poetess experienced can be imagined if we analyze Tsvetaeva’s poem “At the Tomb.” Son Georgy was born in 1925. For some time, Marina Tsvetaeva had a romantic relationship with the poetess Sofia Parnok and even dedicated a series of poems to her, but after two years of relationship she returned to her husband.
She maintained a warm relationship with the writer Boris Pasternak. Marina Tsvetaeva lived a truly difficult life, experiencing poverty and grief during the war, powerlessness and pain after the death of her second daughter, despair and fear during the arrests of her husband and both children.
The poetess ended her life by suicide at the age of 49, hanging herself in someone else's house in Yelabuga. The fact that she had imagined such a death before is indicated by an analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem “Suicide.” For a long time, the poetess’s grave remained officially unrecognized, but then it was legalized at the insistence of her younger sister, Anastasia Tsvetaeva. At the request of her and Deacon Andrei Kuraev, Tsvetaeva was given a funeral service in the church according to all the rules, despite her voluntary departure from life, which was contrary to Orthodox canons.
Genre
This is a lyric poem. A confession that comes from the heart of the lyrical heroine - a woman who has already known what a feeling of love is and understands that there are more important things. She emphasizes that thanks to freedom from carnal passion, she can be herself, without being distracted by love feelings. And this is really important to her.
The iambic cross rhyme used to embody this idea fits perfectly. He gives the poetess the freedom to express her thoughts in a refined and at the same time almost conversational manner.
Marina Tsvetaeva: poems. Analysis of the poem "Passerby"
Although the work has a specific death theme, death is not directly mentioned. Those words and phrases that make it clear that the heroine is no longer alive sound absolutely not mournful or tragic; on the contrary, Tsvetaeva seemed to want to make it clear that after death, life does not end if there is someone to remember about the person. Even if it is a random passerby. The passerby is deliberately shown faceless; neither his appearance, nor age, nor even gender are mentioned, because he could rightfully be a woman.
When analyzing Marina Tsvetaeva’s poem, it is worth mentioning that her heroine takes death lightly. She mentions that during her life she was cheerful and does not intend to lose this quality even in the afterlife. She asks the passerby not to grieve for her, because while she was alive, she herself did not like to do this.
A slightly mystical tone is given to the poem by the words that the spirit of the heroine can suddenly appear in the middle of the cemetery, threatening the unknown, as well as the mention that the address to a passer-by is heard from the grave.
The lines about large and sweet cemetery strawberries are related to the life of the poetess herself. In the story “Khlystovka” she wrote in her own hand that she would like to be buried in the Tarusa cemetery, where the reddest and most delicious berry grows.
Means of expression
As in many of her poems, Tsvetaeva conveys the thoughts and emotions of the lyrical heroine through a rich palette of artistic means. Thus, in “I like that you are not sick of me” she uses:
- Epithets – “heavy ball”, “suffocating wave”, “hell fire”, “church silence”, “night peace”, “sunset meetings”.
- Metaphors - “the ball will not float under your feet”, “I am not sick with you”, “blush like a suffocating wave”, “thank you with both my heart and my hand”.
They work not only to convey an idea, but also help to draw a subtle world of feelings that is so difficult to describe. Thanks to the skill of the poetess, the reader can fully feel everything that she felt for the object of her youthful love, whose name is now known - Mauritius Mints.
“Passerby”: contents
This poem was written on May 3, 1913 in Koktebel. Perhaps during this period the poetess stayed in the house of the poet Maximilian Voloshin. A brief analysis of Tsvetaeva’s poem allows us to conclude that the narrative is told in the first person. If you try to convey the plot, then it is obvious that this is a monologue with which the heroine addresses a random passer-by who has wandered into the cemetery in order to draw attention to her grave. However, the intrigue is not revealed until almost the very end. From the first lines it is not clear that the heroine’s voice sounds “from underground.” She advises the anonymous person to read the inscription on the tombstone, find out who lies here, read the name and date of birth, and also lay a bouquet of poppies and night blindness at the grave. In all likelihood, Tsvetaeva herself associates herself with the heroine, since she mentions her own name and tries to discover various similarities between herself and the first person she meets - downcast eyes, curly curls, but most importantly - the fact of existence in this world. However, we should not forget that in any work of art, fiction always dominates reality, and real talent lies precisely in making people believe in the unreal.
