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- The theme of love in Pushkin's lyrics
A. S. Pushkin is the greatest poet, prose writer, critic and playwright of his era. He gave rise to the movement of realism of the 19th century, brought Russian literature to the world level, and during his lifetime began to be considered the founder of the Russian literary language.
The theme of love occupies a special place in the work of A. S. Pushkin ; it runs through all of his work; all the writer’s works are permeated with this feeling. Since the poet himself was an amorous person, in his works the theme of love is revealed especially clearly, it is multifaceted and interesting. It is easy for the reader to accept what the author is trying to convey to him, the experiences that the heroes of his works experience are close, and the love failures that befell them make him feel close to them.
A.S. Pushkin takes each of his loves seriously, surrendering himself with all his ardor. All the experiences and emotions that the writer experiences for the woman he loves find an echo in his work. Shows all the variety of feelings that a person can experience.
Pushkin never tires of drawing inspiration from the feeling of love; it emotionally enriches his work.
In his works, the poet reflects his attitude towards this feeling, this is especially reflected in the poet’s lyrics, which are filled with romance and emotions, and A.S. Pushkin himself treats his ladies with truly chivalrous nobility. He promotes in his works the impossibility of showing selfishness in relation to love, insists that love is characterized by a feeling of caring for a person, in readiness for self-sacrifice.
In the works “Gypsies” and “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai”, the poet sharply condemns the heroes for showing jealousy towards a loved one; the cruelty used by the heroes towards others is alien to him.
A. S. Pushkin showed his attitude towards the lady in the poem “I loved you. In the line of this poem: I don’t want to disturb you with anything. His vision of feeling is clearly reflected. The poet shows the reader his reluctance to be persistent in the emotions he experiences, not the desire to cause inconvenience to the lady. The poet teaches the reader to retreat, not to hold a grudge and to let go of unrequited love, this verse reflects the depth of the author’s experiences, he writes: “So may God grant that your beloved be different.” Thus leaving wishes for happiness in the future.
Pushkin draws inspiration from his loves. In the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment,” the poet reveals to the reader the entire range of experiences that a person in love is capable of, shows the impossibility of life without such a deep feeling, how emotions dull in the absence of love: “In the wilderness, in the darkness of imprisonment, my days quietly dragged on...”
Pushkin's attitude towards love changes after meeting Natalya Goncharova, his future wife. It becomes deeper and more spiritual, a special awe appears for a woman as a keeper of the hearth, which is reflected in the work “Madonna”. Pushkin expresses his attitude towards a woman with the words “The purest example of pure charm.”
Throughout his short, but bright, life filled with colors and experiences, A.S. Pushkin carries the feeling of love as the highest grace, as a reward given to a person from above. For the poet, love is the elixir of life, the engine in creativity, he does not see the tragedy in unrequited love, he knows how to be grateful for the very feeling he has experienced. Pushkin does not hide his true experiences from his reader, revealing all the secrets of his soul, showing love as a beautiful feeling in all its manifestations, which undoubtedly leaves its unique imprint on all of his work.
The theme of love in Pushkin's works
Poems by A.S. Pushkin very well reveals to the reader his inner world and feelings. He wrote a huge number of poems on a wide variety of topics. You can find poems dedicated to the Motherland, friendship, as well as poems about the most beautiful feeling - love.
Reading the love poems of this poet, you experience indescribable sensations and emotions. First of all, after reading several poems you undoubtedly come to the conclusion that indeed “all ages are submissive to love.” And Cupid’s arrow can hit both a very young person and a person who has vast life experience behind him. Pushkin’s poems on this topic are more like a personal diary, in which the poet describes all stages of this feeling and shares his experiences. For example, the poem “I thought my heart forgot...” is filled with melancholy, sadness and sadness because of the poet’s unrequited love. But even these seemingly unnecessary sufferings the poet values and keeps within himself and does not want to get rid of them at all:
I thought the heart had forgotten the ability to easily suffer.
Alexander Sergeevich’s poems were not always filled with longing for love. Love also inspired the poet. In the poem “Greek Girl,” the poet describes the image of a girl who will never cease to delight him. The image of a girl who became a muse for the poet for a long time:
You were born to ignite the imagination of poets.
In the poem “I loved you..”, the feelings of the lyrical hero are conveyed with precision. Although the poem is small in volume, eight lines are enough to put in your head a complete picture of the spectrum of emotions experienced by the poet while writing it. Despite the descriptions of the hero’s feelings, a note of sadness is clearly visible. He dreams that his chosen one can experience the same feelings for him. He wants reciprocity. The hope that all this will continue does not leave him. The main thing is that, while experiencing feelings, he does not become an egoist. He worries that with his attention he can cause inconvenience to his beloved:
But don't let it bother you anymore; I don't want to make you sad in any way
The theme of love in Pushkin’s poems is undoubtedly important, because in his poems he shows what real feelings are, what unrequited love leads to and what a person is capable of in the name of love. His simple and understandable poems remind people that love is important, because when we love, we show the best qualities we can have: kindness, sincerity, warmth, nobility, generosity, caring. The poet reminds that everyone needs love, without love you can’t go anywhere. And this love does not necessarily concern lovers. Love is possible for comrades, for relatives, for nature, and so on. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin with his poem shows that unhappy love does not exist, that any love for a person is great happiness. The theme of love, shown in Pushkin’s poems, is still relevant today.
An essay on the topic “The theme of love in the works of A.S. Pushkin"
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Love….
What is this? A feeling that can inspire and make a person happy or a destructive passion that overshadows the mind and liberates the main vices of the soul? What does it generate in each of us? Perhaps inspiration and incentive for moral development? Or jealousy, capable of destroying everything in its path? Or is love still something uncertain, something for which there is no point in changing your usual way of life and giving up freedom? In my opinion, there is no clear answer to this question. Love is seen differently for each of us, based on our experience and worldview system. This immortal feeling appears differently in the works of writers and philosophers of all times and peoples. Love for one’s native land, for mother, for brothers in spirit, for man and woman, for like-minded people and even for animals is nothing more than the attraction that a person experiences towards something specific.
The inconsistency of love can be clearly seen in the works of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, who described this feeling both as the highest joy and as pain of the soul and suffering. In his famous poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment,” love appears before us as a memory of a wonderful moment that gave the author inspiration. This feeling, in the poet’s understanding, personifies life itself, and he compares time without it to an existence devoid of meaning. In lines:
And the heart beats in ecstasy, And for him the deity, and inspiration, And life, and tears, and love have risen again.
it expresses the idea that only by loving can a person fully reveal the fullness of being. The author personifies the image of his beloved with absolute beauty.
An equally interesting line of love can be traced in the novel “Eugene Onegin”. The plot of the poetic novel tells about the complex history of the relationship between a young womanizer and a simple girl from the rural outback who was unrequitedly in love with him. In the constant series of new lovers, Eugene Onegin did not immediately discern true love, and only after he saw her in the company of his own husband, he realized how dear she was to him. In Tatyana Larina’s lines to her lover:
I got married. You must, I ask you to leave me, I know in your heart there is both pride and direct honor. I love you (why lie) But I was given to another I will be faithful to him forever
mixed on the one hand is doom from the fact that she is no longer free, and on the other hand, unrequited love, which causes a heap of sadness and sadness in her soul.
The novel “Eugene Onegin” is closest to me in spirit, because the image of the main character largely reflects the spirit of our time. The degradation of family values instills in our society new stereotypes of behavior, the distinctive side of which is inconstancy in love. And this devalues the feeling itself, putting it on the same level as less significant ones. However, even now you can meet love in its true manifestation, the versatility and power of which cannot but cause delight.
In creativity, works and poems
A.S. Pushkin assigns an important place in his work to love lyrics. It is here, in frank and sincere poems, filled with love and tenderness, that the poet reveals his true attitude towards women. Examples of poems glorifying the purity and charm of a beloved girl in the poetry of A.S. Pushkin are “I remember a wonderful moment” and “I loved you...”
The poem, beginning with the lines “I remember a wonderful moment,” dedicated to Anna Petrovna Kern, is filled with an airy, bright and unattainable image of her beloved. No matter what happens to the lyrical hero, “lovely features” always illuminate his consciousness with inspiration and endow him with new strength for life and love. In this poem, A.S. Pushkin uses such metaphors in relation to his beloved that her image becomes airy, unearthly: “a fleeting vision”, “a genius of pure beauty”. It was enough for the girl to flash in the poet’s life once and disappear from sight, but her appearance remained in the poet’s soul forever, follows him everywhere, saves him in difficult moments of spiritual decline. This poem is a kind of Pushkin’s hymn, dedicated to the heavenly charm and beauty of the girl with whom he is in love.
Another famous work by A.S. Pushkin, “I loved you...”, no longer contains a description of the girl. We do not know what captivated the poet with his beloved, but we understand that the unrequited feeling causes him pain and suffering. The lyrical hero does not blame anyone for what happened, does not flaunt his feelings. The main idea of the short but capacious poem by A.S. Pushkin is to let go of the image of the beloved, wishing her happiness with another:
I loved you so sincerely, so tenderly, As God grant you to be loved differently.
This soul-touching poem touches with the sincerity and depth of feelings of a person who is capable of simply loving and being content with this feeling, without demanding anything in return.
Thus, these and other examples of poems belonging to the love lyrics of A.S. Pushkin illustrate his reverent attitude towards the feeling of love. For him, the woman he loves is always an inviolable, unattainable ideal, angelically innocent, beautiful and pure. The poet strives to convey to the reader that love is a high feeling, the outpouring of which requires beauty and versatility of forms, which is why there are so many colorful epithets and metaphors in his works. Despite everything, the poet remains true to his ideal of pure and bright love, he is convinced that it exists, and teaches this to you and me.
Love in Pushkin's lyrics
Essay (analysis): “The theme of love in the lyrics of A. S. Pushkin”
Love lyrics are a cherished area of Pushkin's poetry. Numerous poems dedicated to lovers reveal his understanding of love as the highest value in life. For Pushkin, love is a companion of youth that accompanies a person throughout his life. Unlike friendship, which the poet perceived as something permanent and unchanging, he viewed love as a transitory feeling. However, the need to love did not leave him throughout his life. During the Lyceum period, the theme of love was interpreted by Pushkin traditionally, often in the spirit of Anacreontic light poetry. His early love lyrics are characterized by epicurean motifs. For a poet, life is a feast where one should enjoy love, friendship, wine and creativity. In his message to “Prince A. M. Gorchakov,” the young poet wishes his lyceum friend on his birthday not long years, wealth, loud fame or honors. He wishes him to spend his life “between Bacchus and Cupid” as “the tender pet of Epicurus,” and when life comes to an end, to enter the gloomy boat of Charon from the arms of his beloved.
After graduating from the Lyceum and settling in St. Petersburg, Pushkin plunges into an atmosphere of political debate about the need for reforms in the country. In some poems from this period, he uses the language of love poetry to talk about civil issues. In his message “To Chaadaev,” his older friend, Pushkin compares the emotional state of people in his circle, who ardently strived for freedom, with the impatience of a lover who awaits a meeting with his beloved. They waited for the fall of “autocracy,” “like a lover waits for a young moment of a faithful date.”
Although many poems of the St. Petersburg period are dedicated to love, the ode “Liberty” begins with an unconventional appeal to the freedom-loving muse and with a refusal to sing of love: “Run, hide from your eyes, Cythera, weak queen!” Here Pushkin is guided by the moral ideals of the Union of Welfare, according to which a true citizen is thought of as a stern hero. He has no right to waste himself on love, which relaxes the soul.
The period of southern exile coincided with a passion for romanticism. Poems written in the south display the characteristic motifs of this literary movement of disappointment in love and complaints about the betrayal of lovers. In the elegy “The luminary of the day has gone out...” the lyrical hero is a fugitive, regretfully recalling the “crazy love of former years” and the young traitors, for whose sake he sacrificed himself in vain. But the mood of disappointment was only a tribute to the romantic tradition. Pushkin's real experiences had nothing to do with such feelings. Traveling in the south with the family of General Raevsky, he was deeply and passionately in love with one of his daughters, Maria, who later became the wife of the Decembrist Volkonsky.
One of the masterpieces of Pushkin’s love lyrics is the poem “I remember a wonderful moment...”
was written in Mikhailovsky. This poem reflects two meetings of the poet with A.P. Kern. One - in 1819, and the second - in 1825. In this poem, the beloved for the poet is a “fleeting vision”, “a genius of pure beauty”. Her “tender voice” does not merge with the noise of everyday life, and her “lovely features” appeared to him in his dreams. Life has meaning for the lyrical hero while his consciousness retains the memory of his beloved, and life loses all meaning when the “heavenly features” are erased from his memory. Awakening, resurrection in the soul of the lyrical hero occurs with a new meeting with his beloved. Thus, love can give a person the highest pleasure. She is a symbol of the spiritual rebirth of the individual. To embody his experience, the poet uses various means of poetic expression. Epithets: “wonderful moment”, “hopeless sadness”. Metaphor: “The rebellious gust of the storm / Dispelled former dreams.” In addition, repetitions are used here. In the elegy “I loved you...” for Pushkin, love is a feeling completely devoid of egoism. This describes the moment when the love of the lyrical hero fades away, but has not yet “faded away completely.” His love was “silent”, timid, not connected with hopes of reciprocity. Saying goodbye to his beloved, he does not hold a grudge against her; in the poem there are no reproaches, no insults, no feelings of hopelessness. The lyrical hero is grateful to the woman for this unrequited love; he respects her right to choose, even if she does not choose him. The elegy ends with the line “how God grant that your beloved be different.” Here the poet, on the one hand, wishes happiness to the woman he loves, but on the other hand, he still doubts that anyone is capable of loving her the way he loved her.
In the poem of the mature period “Elegy,” the future in the mind of the lyrical hero is associated with “labor and grief.” However, in the midst of this dull life, the poet believes in the possibility of pleasure. Poetic inspiration and love always remain a constant source of joy for him. He hopes that the sad decline of his life will be illuminated by the farewell smile of love.
Indeed, Pushkin’s lyrics are permeated with optimism, faith in life, in the spiritual capabilities of man, his ability to love and give love. V. G. Belinsky, noting the enlightened and spiritualized nature of the great poet’s work, said that his poems are “soul-nurturing humanity.”
